InterHarmony Concert Series: Between Worlds

About the Program: BETWEEN WORLDS
Music offers us a language in which to speak when words fail, emotions overwhelm, and differences seem insurmountable. But when it comes to bridging great distances, the InterHarmony International Music Festival, which has been bringing together students, teachers, and soloists from around the globe for almost two decades, is on its home turf. For the opening night of the IIMF's fourth annual concert series at Weill Recital Hall, Music Director Misha Quint presents a program that celebrates music's role as a universal ambassador: between individuals (in the duos of Berio, Shostakovich and Ravel), between styles (in Mark O'Connor's genre-defying F. C.'s Jig) and even between hemispheres (in Ginastera's synthesis of New World traditions and Old World techniques).

The Music
The duo gives musical expression to that most basic human situation: two people speaking, exploring the whole range of emotion, trying despite the odds to understand one another. Violinist Jennifer Dalmas and cellist Evgeni Raychev will present Maurice Ravel's Sonata for Violin and Cello, surely one of the great examples of the duo form. A conversational drama develops between the low and high voice, in which the roles of lead and accompaniment intertwine seamlessly. They discuss polyphonically, disagree sharply, even as to the key, seduce and reject each other, moving imperceptibly but inexorably towards reconciliation in the final chord.

Shostakovich's Sonata for Violoncello and Piano, performed by cellist Misha Quint and pianist Irina Nuzova, offers a dialogue at least as intimate, in a romantic register far removed from Ravel's stark delicacy. The wistful opening movement overflows with melancholic melodies of heart-stopping beauty. The bellicose ostinato of the Allegro ricochets back and forth between the instruments, interrupted by themes of unbridled enthusiasm. One of Shostakovich's most impressive early works, written just before the Great Terror, it seems to dance at the edge of the abyss, until the nervous laughter of its carnivalesque Finale is cut suddenly short.

Luciano Berio's Duetti per due violini form a kind of musical sketch book, each one a miniature portrait of a friend, acquaintance or inspiration. “Behind every duet there are personal reasons and situations” Berio says, “connected by the fragile thread of daily occasions.” To explore the complexities and contradictions of single individuals, Berio takes two voices, clashing and collaborating. Violinist Yeon-Su Kim and Inga Kroll offer a selection of ten of the 34 Duetti showing the technical and emotional breadth of Berio's violin writing.

Ginastera embodied his own interior dialogue in his First Piano Sonata, performed here by pianist Washington Garcia. Torn, like his homeland Argentina, between native gaucho folk music and the intriguing possibilities of European imports, Ginastera created a powerful synthesis, a cosmopolitan voice distinctly his own, with one foot on each side of the ocean. His Sonata is now widely seen as the quintessential Argentinian contribution to piano music.

A child prodigy who swept Nashville in grade school and toured the world as a teenager, Mark O'Connor has won fame in recent years for his own transatlantic fusion of traditions: 'American Classical string music.' His Fiddle Concerto, commissioned by the Sante Fe Orchestra in 1993, has become the most performed violin concerto of recent years. F.C.'s Jig, as the name cleverly suggests, is an arrangement of its free-wheeling dance movement. Violinist Jennifer Dalmas and cellist Evgeni Raychev will perform.

Cellist MISHA QUINT made his orchestral debut at the age of 13 after winning first place in the Boccherini Competition in St. Petersburg. Some of the celebrated orchestras that Quint has performed with include: Orquestra Sinfônica do Teatro Nacional do Brasilia, The Metropolitan Symphony, New York Chamber Orchestra, The National Irish Symphony, Brooklyn Philharmonic, London Soloists Chamber Orchestra at Queen Elizabeth Hall, The Moscow State Symphony Orchestra, The Leningrad Philharmonic Orchestra, Leningrad State Orchestra, Orchestra of Classical and Contemporary Music and the Symphony Orchestras of Latvia and Georgia. Quint has worked with an equally illustrious group of conductors, including Maxim Shostakovich, Paul Lustig Dunkel, Colman Pearce, Sidney Harth, Ravil Martinov, Camilla Kolchinsky, Yaacov Bergman, Franz Anton Krager and Ira Levin, and premiered works the most outstanding composers of today including Sophie Goubadalina, Robert Sirota, Steven Gerber, Thomas Fortmann, Nathan Davis, and Alfred Schnitke. Quint is an active chamber musician and has performed with such artists as Nikolai Znaider, Bela Davidovich, Sherban Lupu, Andrzej Grabiec, Yuri Gandelsman, Boris Kushnir, and Mikhail Kopelman. Quint started founding music festivals in Europe in 1997 with the creation of The International Cello Festival in Blonay, Switzerland, followed by the Soesterberg International Music Festival in Holland in 1998. Quint established the InterHarmony Music Festival in Geneva, Switzerland in 2000, and has since moved iterations of the festival to San Francisco, the Berkshires in Massachusetts, Schwarzwald, Germany, Sulzbach-Rosenberg, Germany, and Tuscany, Italy. Quint is currently on the faculty of the Preparatory Division at Mannes College The New School for Music, in Manhattan. www.mishaquintcello.com

Born in Russe, Bulgaria, cellist DR. EVGENI RAYCHEV began his studies on the violoncello at the Vesselin Stoyanov School of Music in Russe with Elka Effremova as his teacher. He further continued his music education with professor Zdravko Yordanov at the Bulgarian Music Academy in Sofia, where he received his Bachelor and Master degrees. Upon arriving in the USA in 1997 he attended the Florida State University, where he completed his second Master's and Doctoral degrees with professor Lubomir Georgiev. Winner of several competitions, Evgeni Raychev has performed as a soloist with orchestras in the USA, Bulgaria and Czech Republic and his chamber and solo music experience includes performances in the USA, Bulgaria, Austria, Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Costa Rica. Dr. Raychev has played for the Bulgarian National Symphony Orchestra for five years during his undergraduate pursuit and has served as a principal cellist of FSU Symphony, Chamber and Opera Orchestras, as well as Tallahassee SO, Southeast SO, Orchestra of the Pines, Texarkana SO, Longview SO, and East Texas SO. For seven years Evgeni Raychev played in the Douzet alongside his teacher Prof. Yordanov, the founder of this ensemble of twelve cellos, which commissioned and premiered several compositions by leading Bulgarian composers. He was appointed as the adjunct cello professor at Stephen F. Austin State University, TX in the Fall of 2003, where he currently teaches. Raychev is constantly and continuously working on innovative collaborative music projects promoting classical music to pre college and college students. He is the founder of Piney Woods Camerata (student-faculty collaborative conductorless ensemble), Piney Woods Youth Orchestra, and a founding member of the Alazan Piano Trio – an ensemble dedicated to performing compositions by American composers. In addition to his performance activities, Raychev is a dedicated pedagogue and an ardent advocate of cello ensemble playing who loves workings with musicians of different ages. His newest endeavor is the foundation of the Cello Club in the fall of 2014, where cello enthusiasts of all ages are prepared online to gather together for a concert at SFA.Currently Dr. Raychev plays together with his wife, Dr. Jennifer Dalmas as the Hachidori Duo.