Special Guest Performers 2016-17
Billy Test, Piano
Pennsylvania native Billy Test began playing piano when he was seven years old. His piano playing draws on a wide variety of styles and influences. Beginning as a classical pianist, Test devoured tons of music, looking to enrich his playing. Following in the footsteps of other pianists like Bill Evans, Fred Hersch, and Richie Beirach, Test’s music shows strong influences of classical music while displaying roots in the history of jazz.
Pennsylvania native Billy Test began playing piano when he was seven years old. His piano playing draws on a wide variety of styles and influences. Beginning as a classical pianist, Test devoured tons of music, looking to enrich his playing. Following in the footsteps of other pianists like Bill Evans, Fred Hersch, and Richie Beirach, Test’s music shows strong influences of classical music while displaying roots in the history of jazz.
October 29, 2016 - King of Romance
Soovin Kim, Voilin
Soovin Kim is an exciting player who has built on the early successes of his prize-winning years to emerge as a mature and communicative artist. After winning first prize at the Niccolò Paganini International Competition, Mr. Kim was recipient of the prestigious Borletti-Buitoni Trust Award, an Avery Fisher Career Grant, and the Henryk Szeryng Foundation Career Award. Today he enjoys a broad musical career, regularly performing repertoire such as Bach sonatas and Paganini caprices for solo violin, Mozart and Vivaldi concerti without conductor, big Romantic concerti, sonatas for violin and piano by Beethoven, Brahms, and Ives, string quartets, and new world-premiere works almost every season.
In recent seasons he has been acclaimed for his “superb…impassioned” (Berkshire Review) performance of Alban Berg’s Chamber Concerto at the Bard Festival with the American Symphony Orchestra and a “sassy, throaty” (Philadelphia Inquirer) rendition of Kurt Weill’s concerto with the Curtis Chamber Orchestra. Other unusual concerto collaborations included Mendelssohn’s Double Concerto with conductor Maestro Myung-Whun Chung, the same Mendelssohn concerto with the Dallas Symphony and music director Jaap van Zweden, and Beethoven’s Triple Concerto in Carnegie Hall. He has performed in past seasons with the Philadelphia Orchestra, San Francisco Symphony, Stuttgart Radio Symphony, Salzburg Mozarteum Orchestra, and the Seoul Philharmonic and Accademia di Santa Cecilia Orchestra with Maestro Chung.
Soovin Kim spends two months each year as 1st violinist of the Johannes String Quartet. Among their special projects was a two-season tour with the famed and now-retired Guarneri String Quartet in an unusual program including world-premieres of quartets by Esa-Pekka Salonen and Derek Bermel, and an octet by William Bolcom. Mr. Kim maintains a close relationship with the famed Marlboro Festival where he regularly spends his summers. He is well-known in Korea as a member of MIK, his ground-breaking piano quartet ensemble.
Soovin Kim’s latest solo CD, Gypsy, was released in September 2010. It was his third collaboration between American label Azica Records and Korea-based Stomp/EMI. They previously released a French album of Fauré and Chausson with pianist Jeremy Denk and the Jupiter Quartet in 2008, and Paganini's demanding 24 Caprices for solo violin in February 2006 was named Classic FM magazine’s Instrumental Disc of the Month (“he emerges thrillingly triumphant…a thrilling debut disc.”). He made his first solo recording with Jeremy Denk for Koch-Discover in duo works by Schubert, Bartók, and Strauss. Mr. Kim also has numerous chamber music recordings including a live performance from the Marlboro Festival of Beethoven’s Archduke piano trio with pianist Mitsuko Uchida and the late cellist David Soyer.
Soovin Kim founded the Lake Champlain Chamber Music Festival in Burlington, Vermont in 2009. With its focused programming and exceptional artists the festival is “increasing its stature as one of this country’s summer chamber music meccas (Rutland Herald).” Mr. Kim and the Lake Champlain festival helped to create the ONE Strings program in Burlington which makes violin lessons part of the regular curriculum for 4th and 5th graders. Mr. Kim was given an honorary doctorate degree from the University of Vermont in 2015 in recognition of his contributions to the community.
Soovin Kim dedicates much of his time to his passion for teaching. He has been on the faculties of Stony Brook University and the Peabody Institute, and now he teaches exclusively at the New England Conservatory in Boston. Mr. Kim studied when he was younger at the Cleveland Institute of Music with David Cerone and Donald Weilerstein, and graduated from the Curtis Institute of Music with Victor Danchenko and Jaime Laredo.
Soovin Kim is an exciting player who has built on the early successes of his prize-winning years to emerge as a mature and communicative artist. After winning first prize at the Niccolò Paganini International Competition, Mr. Kim was recipient of the prestigious Borletti-Buitoni Trust Award, an Avery Fisher Career Grant, and the Henryk Szeryng Foundation Career Award. Today he enjoys a broad musical career, regularly performing repertoire such as Bach sonatas and Paganini caprices for solo violin, Mozart and Vivaldi concerti without conductor, big Romantic concerti, sonatas for violin and piano by Beethoven, Brahms, and Ives, string quartets, and new world-premiere works almost every season.
In recent seasons he has been acclaimed for his “superb…impassioned” (Berkshire Review) performance of Alban Berg’s Chamber Concerto at the Bard Festival with the American Symphony Orchestra and a “sassy, throaty” (Philadelphia Inquirer) rendition of Kurt Weill’s concerto with the Curtis Chamber Orchestra. Other unusual concerto collaborations included Mendelssohn’s Double Concerto with conductor Maestro Myung-Whun Chung, the same Mendelssohn concerto with the Dallas Symphony and music director Jaap van Zweden, and Beethoven’s Triple Concerto in Carnegie Hall. He has performed in past seasons with the Philadelphia Orchestra, San Francisco Symphony, Stuttgart Radio Symphony, Salzburg Mozarteum Orchestra, and the Seoul Philharmonic and Accademia di Santa Cecilia Orchestra with Maestro Chung.
Soovin Kim spends two months each year as 1st violinist of the Johannes String Quartet. Among their special projects was a two-season tour with the famed and now-retired Guarneri String Quartet in an unusual program including world-premieres of quartets by Esa-Pekka Salonen and Derek Bermel, and an octet by William Bolcom. Mr. Kim maintains a close relationship with the famed Marlboro Festival where he regularly spends his summers. He is well-known in Korea as a member of MIK, his ground-breaking piano quartet ensemble.
Soovin Kim’s latest solo CD, Gypsy, was released in September 2010. It was his third collaboration between American label Azica Records and Korea-based Stomp/EMI. They previously released a French album of Fauré and Chausson with pianist Jeremy Denk and the Jupiter Quartet in 2008, and Paganini's demanding 24 Caprices for solo violin in February 2006 was named Classic FM magazine’s Instrumental Disc of the Month (“he emerges thrillingly triumphant…a thrilling debut disc.”). He made his first solo recording with Jeremy Denk for Koch-Discover in duo works by Schubert, Bartók, and Strauss. Mr. Kim also has numerous chamber music recordings including a live performance from the Marlboro Festival of Beethoven’s Archduke piano trio with pianist Mitsuko Uchida and the late cellist David Soyer.
Soovin Kim founded the Lake Champlain Chamber Music Festival in Burlington, Vermont in 2009. With its focused programming and exceptional artists the festival is “increasing its stature as one of this country’s summer chamber music meccas (Rutland Herald).” Mr. Kim and the Lake Champlain festival helped to create the ONE Strings program in Burlington which makes violin lessons part of the regular curriculum for 4th and 5th graders. Mr. Kim was given an honorary doctorate degree from the University of Vermont in 2015 in recognition of his contributions to the community.
Soovin Kim dedicates much of his time to his passion for teaching. He has been on the faculties of Stony Brook University and the Peabody Institute, and now he teaches exclusively at the New England Conservatory in Boston. Mr. Kim studied when he was younger at the Cleveland Institute of Music with David Cerone and Donald Weilerstein, and graduated from the Curtis Institute of Music with Victor Danchenko and Jaime Laredo.
November 19, 2016 - Flight of Fancy
Jared Angle, Dance Soloist
Jared Angle was born in Altoona, Pennsylvania where he began his early dance training at age six at the Allegheny Ballet Academy. He entered the School of American Ballet (SAB), the official school of New York City Ballet, in the fall of 1996. In 1997, Mr. Angle received the Rudolf Nureyev Scholarship to continue his training at SAB for the 1997-1998 school year. Mr. Angle became an apprentice with New York City Ballet in March 1998 and joined the Company as a member of the corps de ballet in July 1998. He was promoted to the rank of soloist in February 2001. On November 11, 2005, Mr. Angle was promoted to principal dancer following a performance during a Company visit to Denmark for the reopening of the Tivoli Concert Hall.
Jared Angle was born in Altoona, Pennsylvania where he began his early dance training at age six at the Allegheny Ballet Academy. He entered the School of American Ballet (SAB), the official school of New York City Ballet, in the fall of 1996. In 1997, Mr. Angle received the Rudolf Nureyev Scholarship to continue his training at SAB for the 1997-1998 school year. Mr. Angle became an apprentice with New York City Ballet in March 1998 and joined the Company as a member of the corps de ballet in July 1998. He was promoted to the rank of soloist in February 2001. On November 11, 2005, Mr. Angle was promoted to principal dancer following a performance during a Company visit to Denmark for the reopening of the Tivoli Concert Hall.
December 3, 2016 - Home for the Holidays
