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USCB Festival Series Chamber Music Concert February 8, 2015 ~ 5 pm USCB Center for the Arts Gilles Vonsattel, piano Todd Palmer, clarinet Bella Hristova, violin Edward Arron, cello Trio in c minor for Piano, Violin, and Cello, Opus 1, No. 3

L.v. Beethoven (1770-1827)

Allegro con brio Andante cantabile con Variazioni Menuetto: Quasi Allegro Finale: Prestissimo Suite from L’histoire du Soldat (The Soldier’s Tale) for Violin, Clarinet, and Piano

Igor Stravinsky (1882-1971)

The Soldier’s March The Soldier’s Violin A Little Concert Tango-Waltz-Ragtime The Devil’s Dance ~ Intermission ~ Feux d’artifice for Solo Piano

Claude Debussy (1862-1918)

Sonata for Violin and Piano

C. Debussy

Allegro vivo Intermède: Fantasque et léger Finale: Très animé Grand ‘Trio’ Concertant for Piano, Clarinet and Cello

C. M. von Weber (1786-1826) Arranged from Grand Duo Concertant, Opus 48 by Todd Palmer Allegro con fuoco Andante con moto Rondo: Allegro

GILLES VONSATTEL Winner of a 2008 Avery Fisher Career Grant, Gilles Vonsattel is an artist of uncommon breadth. Called a “wanderer between worlds” by the Lucerne Festival he is an artist of extraordinary versatility and originality. With repertoire that ranges from Bach’s Art of the Fugue to Xenakis, as well as equal comfort as a soloist and chamber musician, Vonsattel displays a musical curiosity and sense of adventure that has gained him many admirers. He began touring after capturing the top prize at the prestigious 2002 Naumburg International Piano Competition. He made his Alice Tully Hall debut that year and has since performed with the Warsaw Philharmonic; at Zürich’s Tonhalle, Warsaw’s Chopin Festival, and Tokyo’s Opera City Hall and throughout the US. In July 2010 he made his Boston Symphony Orchestra and Tanglewood debuts in the Brahms First Piano Concerto under Herbert Blomstedt, and in 2011 he made his San Francisco Symphony debut. He has been an artist member of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center since the 2012-13 season.

Vonsattel regularly plays at festivals, including Rockport, Angelfire, Ottawa, Bridgehampton, Seattle, Caramoor, West Cork, and Archipel. The top prize winner at the 2006 Geneva International Music Competition, Vonsattel was a laureate of the 2009 Honens International Piano Competition in Calgary and is also a laureate of the Cleveland and Dublin piano competitions. He has been heard frequently on NPR’s Performance Today, Radio France Musique, CBC, ARD, and the BBC. Vonsattel’s recording of Liszt solo works and Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 1 with L’Orchestre de Chambre de Genève was released in 2007 on the Pan Classics label to critical acclaim. In 2011 a recording of music by Ravel, Debussy, Honegger and Holliger was released on the Honens label. His most recent CD is music of Heinz Holliger on the GENUN label.

After studying with pianist David Deveau, he received his B.A. in political science and economics from Columbia University and his M.M. from The Juilliard School, where he worked with Jerome Lowenthal. Beginning in September 2010, he assumed the position of Assistant Professor of Piano at the University of Massachusetts/Amherst.

TODD PALMER Having been involved in creative and diverse artistic presentations throughout his career, clarinetist Todd Palmer has appeared as soloist, recitalist, chamber music collaborator, educator, arranger, and presenter in a musical endeavors around the world. He has appeared with symphony and chamber orchestras and has collaborated with many of the world’s finest string ensembles such as the St. Lawrence, Brentano, Borromeo, Pacifica and Daedelus quartets. Palmer has also shared the stage with sopranos Kathleen Battle, Renée Fleming, Heidi Grant Murphy, and Dawn Upshaw and commissioned and appeared in the world premiere of composer Ricky Gordon’s theatre work, Orpheus and Euridice, with coloratura Elizabeth Futral on Great Performers at Lincoln Center.

Since being the first wind player to be awarded the grand prize in the Ima Hogg Young Artist Auditions and then winning the Young Concert Artist International Auditions, Mr. Palmer has appeared as recitalist and lecturer at major performing arts centers and universities in 48 States and a dozen countries. In addition, Mr. Palmer has been closely associated with composer Osvaldo Golijov. His recording of The Dreams and Prayers of Isaac the Blind with the St. Lawrence Quartet for EMI Classics received two Grammy Award nominations in addition to the Classical Prelude Award from the Netherlands.

He has participated in numerous music festivals in the US and abroad including 19 years at Spoleto Festival USA and the Tanglewood Institute, where he was awarded the Leonard Bernstein Fellowship. In 2008 he premiered David Bruce’s Gumboots, a Carnegie Hall commission written especially for him and the St. Lawrence Quartet, and for two years he appeared in Lincoln Center’s revival of South Pacific. In 2011 he was a soloist in Robert Lepage’s staging of Stravinsky’s The Nightingale and Other Fables at BAM and in 2013 gave the world premiere of Crosswalk, a new work for clarinet and dance by choreographer Mark Morris.

Palmer has had many of his arrangements performed throughout the country in addition to many broadcasts on NPR’s Performance Today. Discography includes DG, EMI, Koch, Bridge, New World and Ghostlight recordings. Palmer has recorded for EMI, DG, Koch, Naxos and Ghostlight labels. .

BELLA HRISTOVA Acclaimed for her passionate performances, beautiful sound, and compelling command of her instrument, violinist Bella Hristova is a young musician with a growing international reputation. The Strad has praised, “Every sound she draws is superb,” and The Washington Post noted that she is “a player of impressive power and control.” Recipient of a 2013 Avery Fisher Career Grant, Ms. Hristova’s 2014-2015 season includes chamber music with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, and at the Cactus Pear Music Festival, Chamber Music Northwest, the Skaneateles Festival, and the Lake Champlain Chamber Music Festival. She also appears in encore recital performances in the Young Concert Artists Series at Merkin Concert Hall and at the Kennedy Center.

Ms. Hristova has performed extensively as soloist with orchestra including with Pinchas Zukerman and the Orchestra of St. Luke’s at Lincoln Center and the New York String Orchestra under Jaime Laredo at Carnegie Hall. Her most recent recording is Bella Unaccompanied.

In addition to the 2013 Avery Fisher Career Grant, Bella Hristova is the recipient of numerous prizes and awards, including First Prize in the 2009 Young Concert Artists International Auditions, the Gordon and Harriet Greenfield Foundation Fellowship of YCA, and First Prize in the 2007 Michael Hill International Violin Competition in New Zealand. She debuted in the Young Concert Artists Series at Merkin Concert Hall, at the Kennedy Center and at the Isabella Gardner Museum in Boston.

Following the Michael Hill prize, she made a critically acclaimed tour of New Zealand and a CD of solo violin works by Charles de Bériot (Naxos). Music Web International praised the CD, “The musical diversity of these pieces is a delight….Hristova combines jaw-dropping technical prowess with real style.”

Born in Bulgaria, Ms. Hristova began violin studies at the age of six. In 2003, she entered the Curtis Institute of Music, where she worked with Ida Kavafian and studied chamber music with Steven Tenenbom. She received her Artist Diploma with Jaime Laredo at Indiana University in 2010. Ms. Hristova plays a 1655 Nicolò Amati violin, once owned by the violinist Louis Krasner.

EDWARD ARRON Cellist Edward Arron has garnered recognition worldwide for his elegant musicianship, impassioned performances, and creative programming. A native of Cincinnati, Ohio, Mr. Arron made his New York recital debut in 2000 at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Since that time, he has appeared in recital, as a soloist with major orchestras, and as a chamber musician throughout North America, Europe and Asia.

In 2013, Mr. Arron completed a ten-year residency as the artistic director of the critically acclaimed Metropolitan Museum Artists in Concert, a chamber music series created in 2003 to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Museum’s prestigious Concerts and Lectures series. Currently, he is the artistic director, host, and resident performer of the Musical Masterworks concert series in Old Lyme, Connecticut, as well as the Festival Series in Beaufort, South Carolina and Chamber Music on Main at the Columbia Museum in Columbia, SC. Additionally, Mr. Arron curates a series, “Edward Arron and Friends,” at the Caramoor International Music Festival, and is the co-artistic director along with his wife, pianist Jeewon Park, of the new Performing Artists in Residence series at the Clark Art Institute in Williamstown, Massachusetts.

Mr. Arron has performed numerous times at Carnegie’s Weill and Zankel Halls, Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully and Avery Fisher Halls, New York’s Town Hall, and the 92nd Street Y, and is a frequent performer at Bargemusic. Festival appearances include Ravinia, Salzburg, Mostly Mozart, BRAVO! Colorado, Tanglewood, Bridgehampton, Spoleto USA, Santa Fe, Seattle Chamber Music, Great Mountains, Charlottesville, Telluride Musicfest, Seoul Spring, Lake Champlain Chamber Music, and Bard Music Festival. He has participated in Yo-Yo Ma’s Silk Road Project as well as Isaac Stern’s Jerusalem Chamber Music Encounters.

Edward Arron began playing the cello at age seven in Cincinnati and continued his studies in New York with Peter Wiley. He is a graduate of the Juilliard School, where he was a student of Harvey Shapiro. Mr. Arron has served on the faculty of New York University since 2009.