Emerald City Music Presents the New York Classical Players with Yekwon Sunwoo, Violinist Kate Ardndt, and Cellist Samuel DeCaprio
Emerald City Music Presents the New York Classical Players
with 2017 Cliburn Gold Medalist Yekwon Sunwoo,
Violinist Kate Ardndt, and Cellist Samuel DeCaprio
Conducted by Dongmin Kim
Featuring Music by David Ludwig, Tchaikovsky, and Chopin
Violinist Kristin Lee, Artistic Director
Friday, November 10, 2023 at 8pm
415 Westlake
415 Westlake Avenue N | Seattle, WA
Tickets: www.emeraldcitymusic.org/season/new-york-classical-players
Saturday, November 11, 2023 at 7:30pm
The Washington Center for the Performing Arts
512 Washington St SE | Olympia, WA
Tickets: www.emeraldcitymusic.org/season/new-york-classical-players-olympia
“...start a new [tradition] with your family at a night out at Emerald City Music.”
– Thurston Talk
Seattle & Olympia, WA – On Friday, November 10, 2023 at 8pm in Seattle at 415 Westlake (415 Westlake Avenue N) and Saturday, November 11, 2023 at 7:30pm in Olympia at The Washington Center for the Performing Arts (512 Washington St SE), Emerald City Music (ECM) presents the New York Classical Players, led by Dongmin Kim in their Pacific Northwest performance debut. These concerts also mark the first time ECM will present a chamber orchestra on its stages. For these performances, ECM also welcomes 2017 Cliburn Piano Competition gold medalist Yekwon Sunwoo, violinist Kate Ardndt, and cellist Samuel DeCaprio. These exemplary musicians will join together to perform a program infused with the richness of Romantic-era music by Tchaikovsky and Chopin, as well as Moto perpetuo (2016) –– a contemporary work for solo violin by living composer David Ludwig (b. 1957).
Of Ludwig’s Moto Perpetuo (2016), Allan Kozinn of the Portland Press Herald says, “Ludwig’s interest is in extending the violin’s palette with timbres and effects. [T]he violin tones bend, stretch, whisper, slide and rasp, and the virtuosity involved is both technical…and conceptual.” The work was commissioned by violinist Jennifer Koh for the "Shared Madness" project and premiered at National Sawdust in New York City. Tchaikovsky's capricious and whimsical Pezzo Capriccioso is a work written over a single week as the composer was preoccupied with the illness of his close friend. The young 19-year-old Chopin wrote his lyrical Piano Concerto No. 2 in F minor, Op. 21 – a work filled with romantic and soaring melodic passages – as an homage to his Warsaw School muse, Polish soprano Konstancja Gładkowska. Closing the evening is the soul-stirring cello melodies in Tchaikovsky’s timeless Serenade, a piece the composer wrote "by the impulse of an intimate conviction... a piece that comes from the bottom of my heart."
On New York Classical Players making their Pacific Northwest debut with Emerald City Music and collaborating with three stellar soloists, conductor Dongmin Kim says:
“I am absolutely thrilled to be joining the New York Classical Players (NYCP) for our debut concerts in the Pacific Northwest, presented by Emerald City Music (ECM). To bring our music to new audiences, and in such beautiful settings, is truly special. The excitement only grows as we will be sharing the stage with Yekwon Sunwoo, an incredible pianist and winner of the 2017 Van Cliburn Competition. Together, we'll journey through an array of both classical and contemporary works. It's this blend that I believe really showcases what NYCP and ECM are all about: honoring tradition while embracing innovation. I can't wait to connect with you all through these performances. There's something magical about sharing live music together - it creates a bond. So please join us on this exciting musical adventure with ECM!”
For the performance at 415 Westlake, audiences can enjoy ECM’s flagship “date-night experience,” which combines vibrant classical performance with an open bar, and a “wander-around” concert setting with no stage dividing the audience from the musicians. The second performance of the program in Olympia will take place at the newly renovated Washington Center for the Performing Arts.
Emerald City Music (ECM) is the Pacific Northwest home for eclectic, intimate, and vibrant classical chamber music experiences. Known for their casual environment combined with award winning artists, ECM has gained recognition from several high-profile publications like Seattle Times, The City Arts deemed ECM "the beacon for the casual-classical movement". Unique to only ECM attendees are encouraged to wear casual clothes, enjoy the open bar and walk around in order to increase the satisfaction of each of the ECM concerts.
This performance, and all of ECM’s Mainstage performances this season, will be recorded live and then made available on Emerald TV, ECM’s subscription-based streaming platform for performances and additional video content.
About the New York Classical Players:
New York City’s outstanding young chamber orchestra, the New York Classical Players is an ensemble dedicated to the highest standards of artistry, collaboration, and virtuosity. Under the leadership of music director Dongmin Kim, the group performs across the United States, in South America and in Asia. Dongmin Kim is quickly establishing himself as one of the most inspiring and versatile conductors. His recent and upcoming engagements on the world's prestigious stages include Kennedy Center, Lincoln Center, Carnegie Hall, Jordan Hall, Herbst Theatre, Faulkner Performing Arts Center, Seoul Arts Center, and the Lotte Concert Hall, to name a few. Since founding NYCP in 2010, Mr. Kim has led the group in over 200 concerts including a US tour with superstar soprano Sumi Jo and a host of prominent artists have appeared with the orchestra including Miriam Fried, Donald Weilerstein, Kim Kashkashian, Cho-Liang Lin, Pamela Frank, Charles Neidich, Peter Wiley, Carol Wincenc, Chee-Yun, Stefan Jackiw, Jasmine Choi, and Richard O'Neill.
About Dongmin Kim:
Dongmin Kim is the Music Director of the celebrated chamber orchestra New York Classical Players. Since founding NYCP in 2010, he has conducted hundreds of concerts for New Yorkers, three international tours from Asia to South America, and throughout the US. Most recently, he led a series of concerts with NYCP for the last minute stepping in to fill the English Chamber Orchestra's US tour. Dongmin has conducted various prestigious ensembles, including the National Symphony Orchestra, Seoul Arts Center Festival Orchestra, Round Top Festival Orchestra, Philadelphia Orchestra, Minnesota Orchestra, and the symphony orchestras of Baltimore, Jacksonville, and Winnipeg. He was awarded the Herbert von Karajan Fellowship by the Vienna Philharmonic, which led to a residency at the Salzburg Music Festival. As the Indianapolis Symphony's Schmidt Conducting Fellow, Dongmin worked alongside Mario Venzago and Raymond Leppard.
He has recorded chamber orchestra pieces by renowned composer Samuel Adler for Toccata Classics, which received praise from Luxembourg's Pizzicato Magazine. Additionally, he recorded Korean Art Songs with Haeran Hong for Warner Classics. As a violist, Dongmin has performed in various countries, including the United States, South America, South Korea, Japan, Hong Kong, and Singapore, and has been a principal violist for the Pacific Music Festival Orchestra under MTT. Born in Seoul, Dongmin studied Orchestral Conducting and Viola at the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music. His distinguished mentors include Kurt Masur, Janos Starker, Leonard Slatkin, Imre Pallo, and David Effron.
About Kristin Lee, ECM Artistic Director:
Kristin Lee is a violinist of remarkable versatility and impeccable technique who enjoys a vibrant career as a soloist, chamber musician, educator, and artistic director. “Her technique is flawless, and she has a sense of melodic shaping that reflects an artistic maturity,” writes the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, and The Strad reports, “She seems entirely comfortable with stylistic diversity, which is one criterion that separates the run-of-the-mill instrumentalists from true artists.
As a soloist, Lee has appeared with leading orchestras including The Philadelphia Orchestra, St. Louis Symphony, St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, New Jersey Symphony, Hawai’i Symphony, Hong Kong Philharmonic, Ural Philharmonic of Russia, Korean Broadcasting Symphony, Guiyang Symphony Orchestra of China, and Orquesta Sinfonica Nacional of Dominican Republic. She has performed on the world’s finest concert stages, including Carnegie Hall, Avery Fisher Hall, the Kennedy Center, Kimmel Center, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Ravinia Festival, the Louvre Museum, the Phillips Collection, and Korea’s Kumho Art Gallery. An accomplished chamber musician, Kristin Lee became a member of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center after winning The Bowers Program audition and completing the program's three-year residency. In addition to her prolific performance career, Lee is a devoted educator. She is on the faculty of the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music as an Assistant Professor of Violin. Lee is also the founding artistic director of Emerald City Music (ECM), a chamber music series that presents authentically unique concert experiences and bridges the divide between the highest caliber classical music and the many diverse communities of the Puget Sound region of Washington State.
Kristin Lee’s honors include an Avery Fisher Career Grant, top prizes in the Walter W. Naumburg Competition and the Astral Artists National Auditions, and awards from the Trondheim Chamber Music Competition, Trio di Trieste Premio International Competition, the SYLFF Fellowship, Dorothy DeLay Scholarship, the Aspen Music Festival’s Violin Competition, the New Jersey Young Artists’ Competition, and the Salon de Virtuosi Scholarship Foundation.
Born in Seoul, Lee moved to the United States and studied under prestigious teachers including Sonja Foster, Catherine Cho, Dorothy DeLay, Donald Weilerstein, and Itzhak Perlman. Lee holds a Master’s degree from The Juilliard School. Lee’s violin was crafted in Naples, Italy in 1759 by Gennaro Gagliano and is generously loaned to her by Paul & Linda Gridley. For more information, visit www.violinistkristinlee.com.
About ECM:
Emerald City Music (ECM) is the Pacific Northwest home for eclectic, intimate, and vibrant classical chamber music experiences. Deemed "the beacon for the casual-classical movement" (CityArts), ECM hosts world-renowned musicians in unique concert experiences. Founded in 2015, Emerald City Music produces and tours seven productions annually, with each tour visiting Seattle’s South Lake Union (415 Westlake, a chic contemporary venue with an open bar), Olympia’s Minnaert Center (a 495 seat modern concert hall), a once annual concert at the Bellingham Music Festival, and an annual concert in New York City.
ECM has gained recognition regionally and nationally as a major player in the chamber music scene. Artistic Director Kristin Lee –– a touring violinist awarded the Avery Fisher Career Grant and a member of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center –– is regarded for her innovative programming that both honors the tradition of chamber music while expanding the genre’s boundary past common limits. Emerald City Music made a name for itself beginning in its second season with a national collaborative commission with Grammy-winning composer John Luther Adams, and has continued to press the boundary of chamber music with accolades like a tour of Steve Reich’s iconic and rare Music for 18 Musicians, a pitch-black performance of Georg Haas’s “In the Dark” quartet, and the West Coast debut of the Danish folk group The Dreamers’ Circus.
ECM values real, authentic connection and holds the belief that music possesses the innate power to connect people, inclusive of varying backgrounds and perspectives. Over eight years, artists from every corner of the globe have visited Emerald City Music to prove just that: there exists a special connection between artist and listener that only music can facilitate.
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