WEDNESDAY FEBRUARY 9, 2011
7:30PM

THAT "OTHER" MUSIC - DIE ANDERE MUSIK
Celebrating Music from the Early 20th Century

KOSCIUSZKO FOUNDATION
15 EAST 65TH STREET
(Between 5th Avenue & Madison Avenue)

Click HERE to download the Press Release for the launch of this Concert Series
Click HERE to download the PDF.

Len Horovitz - Piano
Rieko Aizawa - Piano
Igor Begelman - Clarinet
Jesse Mills - violin
Honggang Li - viola, Shanghai Quartet
Nicholas Tzavaras - cello, Shanghai Quartet

MAURICE RAVEL
Deux Melodies Hebraiques
- Kaddish
- L’enigme éternelle

HANS KRASA
Tanec (Dance)
Passacaglia
Fugue for String Trio

GIDEON KLEIN
Trio for Violin, Viola, and Cello
- Allegro
- Lento
- Molto vivace

MIECZYSLAW WEINBERG
Sonata for Clarinet and Piano, Op. 28
- Adagio
- Allegretto
- Allegro

IGOR BEGELMAN
Clarinet

Winner of the Avery Fisher Career Grant in 2000, clarinetist Igor Begelman exudes an exhilarating virtuosity and a gracious sense of style. He has performed recitals in the United States, Europe, Japan, and Israel, and as a soloist with such orchestras as the Houston, Savannah and New Haven Symphonies, the Odense Simfoniker, and L’Orchestre de la Suisse Romande. Equally accomplished as a soloist and chamber musician, Mr. Begelman opened the Lyric’s 2006-7 season. He has also performed with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center and at festivals throughout the world, including Marlboro, Caramoor, Tanglewood, and Schleswig-Holstein. An avid proponent of new music, Mr. Begelman has premiered compositions by Anton Kuerti, Alex Krasotov, Meyer Kupferman, Elliot Schwartz, Roland Tec, and recently a new concerto by Ralph Shapey. Through his association with the Piatigorsky Foundation he is able to perform classical music in less traditional settings.

An active educator, Mr. Begelman teaches at Brooklyn and Swarthmore Colleges and has taught on various occasions at Yale, at Juilliard, and at the Manhattan School of Music. Additionally, he has taught master classes at such festivals as Caramoor and Bowdoin, and throughout the U.S. Mr. Begelman was awarded top prizes at the First Carl Nielsen International Clarinet Competition in Denmark and at the 53rd Geneva International Competition in Switzerland. In addition, he has earned top prizes at the William C. Byrd Competition, the Koussevitsky Competition, the International Clarinet Society Competition, the Heida Hermanns International Competition, the Tilden Prize Competition, and the Crane New Music Competition. His honors include the Special Prize at the 41st Munich International Competition and awards from the Altamura/Caruso Foundation and Salon de Virtuosi.

Igor Begelman was raised in Kiev, Ukraine, and came to the United States in 1989. He received his Bachelor’s degree from The Manhattan School of Music and his Master’s degree from The Juilliard School of Music. His major teachers include Charles Neidich and Stanley Drucker.

Igor Begelman is affiliated with Astral Artistic Services, a Philadelphia nonprofit organization dedicated to guiding the careers of America’s most exceptional musicians. He currently resides in New York.

LEN HOROVITZ
Piano

Len Horovitz enjoys the unique distinction of having been born with three thumbs. After much surgery, he has been performing as a concert pianist since childhood. At the 1999 Van Cliburn International Amateur Competition, he received widespread media attention for playing with" perfect voicing and projection, and an arresting sense of drama and momentum". He has appeared in solo recitals, chamber concerts, and with orchestras at Steinway Hall, Town Hall, Weill Recital Hall in Carnegie Hall, Isaac Stern auditorium (Carnegie Hall), and Alice Tully Hall (Lincoln Center). He has performed with the Lyric Chamber Music Society of NY, and at the Bowdoin International Music Festival. He has performed at the German Consulate, and debuted last season at the Hell’s Kitchen Jazz Festival.

In chamber music he has appeared with internationally –known artists such as Igor Begelman, Yuri Namkung, Valerie Saalbach, Carol Wincenc, and Carol Vaness. He has recorded the Grieg piano Concerto for Europadisc, and can be seen on YouTube. He has been an actively performing member of the New York Piano Society since its inception. His sixth appearance at Carnegie Hall in November 2008 was attended by Maestro James Levine. He was the keynote performer for the Society for the Arts in Healthcare in April 2009. Future engagements include appearances with the New York Lyric chamber Society, and with the New York Piano Society.

Dr.Horovitz is a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Brown University and graduated from NYU School of Medicine. He is a board- certified Internist and Lung Specialist in private practice in New York, is on the staff of Lenox Hill Hospital. He has been listed in Castle-Connolly’s “Best Doctors” for the past five years, and was awarded Strathmore’s Pulmonary/Healthcare professional of the year in 2006.

As a medical spokesperson, Dr. Horovitz has been interviewed on national radio programs and by all the local and national television networks as well as on Internet-based health sites, including Good Morning America’s Health Podcasts (abc.com) and WebMD.

RIEKO AIZAWA
Piano

Japanese pianist Rieko Aizawa is known for that rare combination of technical mastery and musical sensitivity, which has repeatedly earned the admiration of musicians and critics alike.

In 1988, Ms. Aizawa was brought to the attention of Alexander Schneider by the recommendation of pianist Mitsuko Uchida. Schneider engaged her as soloist with his Brandenburg Ensemble at the opening concerts of Tokyo's Casals Hall; later that year, Schneider presented 14-year-old Ms. Aizawa in her U.S. debut concerts at the Kennedy Center and Carnegie Hall, performing Mozart's Concerto No. 12 in A Major, K. 414, with his New York String Orchestra. The Washington Post celebrated her performance: "She played with a beautiful, limpid tone and a sense of characterization and cohesiveness that is unusual."To complete her triumphant season of U.S. debuts, during January of 1989 Ms. Aizawa stepped in as soloist with the San Francisco Symphony, guestconducted by Schneider.

Since then Ms. Aizawa has performed in solo and orchestral engagements throughout the U.S., Canada and Europe, including Lincoln Center's Avery Fisher Hall, Boston's Symphony Hall and Chicago's Orchestra Hall. Highlights of recent seasons have included acclaimed performances with the New Japan Philharmonic under Seiji Ozawa, the English Chamber Orchestra under Heinz Holliger, the Festival Strings Lucerne in Switzerland under Rudolf Baumgartner, the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra under Hugh Wolff, the Curtis Institute Orchestra with Peter Oundjian, the St. Louis Symphony under David Loebel and, most recently, a wonderfully received performance with the Vienna Chamber Orchestra. Ms. Aizawa also has a great interest in exploring unusual repertoire. In October 2007, the St. Paul Pioneer Press described her performance with the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra conducted by Hans Graf "the Salieri Piano Concerto in C was played so splendidly by Rieko Aizawa. Hers was a graceful reading. .... Aizawa's performance lent the work a respect it rarely receives."

As a recitalist, Ms. Aizawa has been heard in many North American cities, including New York, Philadelphia, Washington DC, St. Louis, Seattle, Boulder, Los Angeles, Houston, and Toronto; at the Caramoor International Festival; at Lincoln Center's Mostly Mozart Festival; Ravinia Festival, Gilmore Keyboard Festival. Following a recent all-Beethoven recital in Dresden, Germany, a reviewer wrote: "Her listeners followed her playing -full of details and delicate contrasts- breathlessly." Ms. Aizawa recently has started her "Prism" series in Japan, with tributes to Beethoven, Brahms and Schumann, and specially commissioned works for each program. She also will continue her exploration of Beethoven's music with a Beethoven cycle at Rutgers University in New Jersey. In 2006, Ms. Aizawa will be collaborating with WFMT-Chicago and Fazioli to present the complete Mozart's piano sonatas.

An avid chamber musician, Ms. Aizawa has performed as a guest with string quartets including the Guarneri Quartet and the Orion Quartet, and she has participated in numerous festivals, such as the Marlboro Music Festival, U.S.A.; the Kammermusik Festival Moritzburg, Germany; and the Evian Festival, France. She has been a guest artist of Boston's, Philadelphia's and Seattle's Chamber Music Society. Ms. Aizawa is also a founding member of Duo Prism with a violinist Jesse Mills, which earned the 1st Prize at the Zinetti International Competition in Italy in 2006.

Ms. Aizawa received her Masters Degree from the Juilliard School, where she worked with Peter Serkin. She is also a graduate of the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, where she was awarded the prestigious Rachmaninoff Prize and studied with Seymour Lipkin, Peter Serkin, and Mieczyslaw Horszowski as his last pupil. March 2005 marked the release of Ms. Aizawa's first solo recording on the Japanese label Altus Music - a tour-de-force CD of Shostakovich's and Scriabin's 24 Preludes. She also recorded Faure's and Messiaens' Preludes in 2008.

Ms. Aizawa is a Steinway Artist.

JESSE MILLS
Violin

Grammy-nominated violinist Jesse Mills enjoys performing music of many genres, from classical to contemporary, as well as composed and improvised music of his own invention. In 2004, Mills made his professional concerto debut with the Ravinia Festival Orchestra conducted by Nicholas McGegan in a unique partnership with Salsa trombonist, Jimmy Bosch.

This project combined a classical performance of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons, with Mills as violin soloist, and a Salsa band arrangement of the same piece, fronted by Bosch and Mills as improvising soloists.

A successful performance at Ravinia led to bookings with the Phoenix, Colorado and Green Bay Symphonies for the 2005-2006 season. In past years Mills has performed as soloist with the Juilliard Pre-College Chamber Orchestra, the Teatro Argentino Orchestra in Buenos Aires, Argentina, the New Jersey Symphony, the Sarah Lawrence College Symphony, the Plainfield Symphony, the Hudson Valley Philharmonic, the Aspen Music Festival’s Sinfonia Orchestra as winner of the Festival’s E. Nakamichi Violin Concerto Competition.

As a chamber musician Jesse Mills has performed at Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall, New York City’s Merkin Concert Hall and Bargemusic, Carnegie’s Weill Hall, Columbia University’s Miller Theater, Boston’s Gardener Museum, the Cooper Arts Series at Cooper Union, the Rising Stars series at Caramoor, the Ravinia Festival’s Bennett-Gordon Hall, and at the Marlboro Music Festival. He performed on the opening night of The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center’s A Great Day in New York series with pianist/composer Peter Schickele, and this concert was broadcast live on WNYC 93.9 FM in New York.

Mr. Mills is an avid performer of contemporary works. As a member of the FLUX Quartet from 2001-2003, he played in many concert halls around the world, performing music composed during the last 50 years. Among these concerts were 3 performances of Morton Feldman's String Quartet No. 3, a six-hour-long work of immense beauty. Mills has played extensively with renowned cellist, Fred Sherry, in works by Reich, Wuorinen, Schoenberg, and avant-garde composer and saxophonist, John Zorn. In 2004-2005, they recorded Schoenberg’s String Quartet Concerto and various chamber works of Anton Webern for NAXOS, as well as Zorn’s String Quartet, Necronomicon, on Tzadik.

Mills is co-founder of Duo Prism, a violin-piano duo with Rieko Aizawa. He is also a member of Nurse Kaya, an ensemble comprised of string quartet plus bass and drums which exclusively plays compositions written by its members; much of this music involves improvisation. The group plays in traditional venues such as concert halls and clubs, as well as in schools, hospitals, and jails. In 2005, Nurse Kaya was awarded a Residency Partnership Grant from Chamber Music America, which resulted in a successful week-long residency in the public schools as well as at the Rialto Theater of Loveland, Colorado. Mills was an integral part of New Spirit – a new recording on the Verve label by jazz pianist, Makoto Ozone. Several performances of this project will be presented next year.

Jesse Mills began violin studies at the age of four. He graduated with a Bachelor of Music degree from The Juilliard School as a student of Robert Mann in 2001. He has previously studied with Christiane Pors, Naoko Tanaka and Itzhak Perlman.

HONGGANG LI
Viola

Honggang Li began his musical training studying the violin with his parents at the same time as his brother, Weigang. When the Beijing Conservatory reopened in 1977 after the Cultural Revolution, Mr. Li was selected to attend from a group of over five hundred applicants. He continued his training at the Shanghai Conservatory and was appointed a faculty member there in 1984. Mr. Li has also served as a teaching assistant at the Juilliard School and has appeared as soloist with the Shanghai Philharmonic and the Shanghai Conservatory Orchestra. In 1987 he won a violin as a special prize given by Elisa Pegreffi of Quartetto Italiano at the Paolo Borciani competition in Italy.

NICHOLAS TZAVARAS
Cello

A Native of Spanish Harlem in New York City, cellist Nicholas Tzavaras has quickly become an internationally sought after chamber musician and educator across three continents. A recent review in the New York Times called his sound "richly singing.” Summer engagements have included the Santa Fe, La Jolla, Greenwood, and Taos Festivals, Radio France Festival in Montpellier, and the Marlboro Festival, among others. Mr.Tzavaras has toured with multiple artists including the Musicians from Marlboro and the pop sensation Madonna, appearing on MTV, VH1, The David Letterman Show and at the White House for President Clinton. He has recorded for the Delos, Bis, Camerata, and New Albion labels. Since 2000, Mr.Tzavaras has been the cellist of the internationally renowned Shanghai Quartet

Formerly a faculty member at the University of Richmond, Mr. Tzavaras is currently the coordinator of the String Department and Cello Professor of the John J. Cali School of Music at Montclair State University in New Jersey. In addition, he is a guest professor at the Shanghai and Central Conservatories in China. Mr. Tzavaras has degrees from the New England Conservatory and State University of New York at Stonybrook where his teachers were Laurence Lesser and Timothy Eddy. During his graduate studies he began a cello program for the Opus 118 Music Center in East Harlem of which he is now an advisory board member. Mr. Tzavaras' family can be seen in the Academy Award nominated documentary Small Wonders, the motion picture Music of the Heart starring Meryl Streep and with the Shanghai Quartet in Woody Allen's Melinda Melinda.