Spanish Journey
Sat, Feb 1, 2025, 7:30 pm
Alice Tully Hall
2 hours, including intermission
The identity and flair of Spanish culture shine through in the sonic worlds of these impassioned works. An eclectic cast of artists, including guitar virtuoso Jason Vieaux, combine the guitar’s intoxicating sounds, the Spanish language’s seductive tones, and the trios’ vivid style to illustrate the many colors of Spain.
Program
Fernando Obradors
(1897–1945)Canciones clásicas españolas for Voice and Guitar
(1921)Isaac Albéniz
(1860–1909)Mallorca for Guitar, Op. 202
(1891)Enrique Arbós
(1863–1939)Tres piezas originales en estilo español for Violin, Cello, and Piano, Op. 1
(c. 1886)Manuel de Falla
(1876–1946)Siete canciones populares españolas for Voice and Piano
(1914)Pablo de Sarasate
(1844–1908)“Romanza andaluza” from Spanish Dances for Violin and Piano, Op. 22
(1878)Joaquín Rodrigo
(1901–1999)Tres canciones españolas for Voice and Guitar
(1951)Joaquín Turina
(1882–1949)Trio No. 2 in B minor for Piano, Violin, and Cello, Op. 76
(1933)
Vanessa Becerra
Soyeon Kate Lee
Kristin Lee
Clive Greensmith
Jason Vieaux
Peruvian & Mexican American soprano Vanessa Becerra began the 2022–23 season with a debut at Opera Delaware for Opening Night at The Grand, followed by debuts with Florida Grand Opera for El matrimonio secreto (Carolina), Opera Omaha for Le nozze di Figaro (Susanna), and Opera Theatre of Saint Louis for Così fan tutte (Despina) along with returns to Minnesota Opera for La fille du régiment (Marie) and Houston Grand Opera for El Milagro del Recuerdo (Un Mujer). On the concert stage, she debuted with the newly formed San Antonio Philharmonic. She has made role and house debuts at the Metropolitan Opera, Intermountain Opera Bozeman, Austin Opera, and Opera Parallèle, and has returned to Washington National Opera for Sankaram’s Rise (Alicia Hernández), part of the world premiere tetralogy Written in Stone. Additional recent appearances include those at Opera San José, Arizona Opera, St. Croix Valley Opera, Fort Worth Opera, Washington National Opera, Lyric Opera of Kansas City, the Glimmerglass Festival, and Atlanta Opera.
First prize winner of the Naumburg International Piano Competition and the Concert Artist Guild International Competition, Korean-American pianist Soyeon Kate Lee has been lauded by the New York Times as a pianist with "a huge, richly varied sound, a lively imagination and a firm sense of style," and by the Washington Post for her "stunning command of the keyboard.”
Highlights of recent seasons include appearances at the National Gallery, Library of Congress, Gina Bachauer Concerts, Purdue Convocations, San Francisco Performances, and the Cleveland Art Museum. She was a member of Lincoln Center Chamber Music Society’s Bowers program, and is a regular participant in numerous chamber music festivals including the Great Lakes, Santa Fe and Music Mountain Chamber Music Festivals. Ms. Lee has collaborated with conductors Carlos Miguel Prieto, Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos, Jahja Ling, and Jorge Mester with the London, San Diego, Hawaii, Louisiana, Naples symphony orchestras among others.
Ms. Lee’s discography as a Naxos artist spans the works of Scarlatti, Liszt, Scriabin, and Clementi, and her eco-awareness album on E1, Re!nvented, garnered her the Classical Recording Foundation’s Young Artist of the Year Award.
A laureate of the Santander International Piano Competition and the Cleveland International Piano Competition, Ms. Lee is a graduate of The Juilliard School, where she earned her Bachelors and Masters degrees and the Artist Diploma. She earned her Doctorate at the Graduate Center, CUNY. She has worked extensively with Richard Goode, Jerome Lowenthal, Robert McDonald, and Ursula Oppens.
She joined the piano faculty of The Juilliard School in 2022, and is an Associate Professor of Music in Piano at the Cincinnati-College Conservatory of Music. She also serves on the piano faculty of the Bowdoin International Music Festival.
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. 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 Sinfónica Nacional of the Dominican Republic. She has performed on the world’s finest concert stages, including those of 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. In addition to her prolific performance career, Lee is on the faculty of the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music as Assistant Professor of Violin, and she is also the Founding Artistic Director of Emerald City Music (ECM). Her 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, the Trio di Trieste Premio International Competition, the SYLFF Fellowship, the Dorothy DeLay Scholarship, the Aspen Music Festival’s Violin Competition, the New Jersey Young Artists’ Competition, and the Salon de Virtuosi Scholarship Foundation. Lee’s violin was crafted in Naples in 1759 by Gennaro Gagliano and is generously loaned to her by Paul and Linda Gridley.
Clive Greensmith has a distinguished career as soloist, chamber musician, and teacher. From 1999 until 2013 he was a member of the world-renowned Tokyo String Quartet, giving over one hundred performances each year in the most prestigious international venues, including New York’s Carnegie Hall, Sydney Opera House, London’s Southbank Centre, Paris Châtelet, Berlin Philharmonie, Vienna Musikverein, and Suntory Hall in Tokyo. As a soloist, he has performed with the London Symphony Orchestra, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Seoul Philharmonic, and the RAI Orchestra of Rome. He has also performed at Marlboro Music Festival, La Jolla Summerfest, Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, the Ravinia Festival, the Salzburg Festival, Edinburgh Festival, and the Pacific Music Festival in Japan. Over 25 years, he has built up a catalogue of landmark recordings, most notably the complete Beethoven string quartet cycle for Harmonia Mundi with the Tokyo String Quartet. He studied at the Royal Northern College of Music in England with American cellist Donald McCall. He continued his studies at the Cologne Musikhochschule in Germany with Boris Pergamenschikow. After his 15-year residency with the Tokyo String Quartet at Yale University, he was appointed Professor of Cello at the Colburn School in Los Angeles in 2014. In 2019, he became the artistic director of the Nevada Chamber Music Festival and was appointed director of chamber music master classes at the Chigiana International Summer Academy in Siena, Italy. Mr. Greensmith is a founding member of the Montrose Trio with pianist Jon Kimura Parker and violinist Martin Beaver.
Grammy-winner Jason Vieaux, “among the elite of today's classical guitarists” (Gramophone), is described by NPR as “perhaps the most precise and soulful classical guitarist of his generation.”
His appearances at San Francisco Performances, Caramoor Festival, Ravinia Festival, Round Top Festival, PCMS, 92nd St Y, CMS, Wolf Trap, and others, have cemented his reputation as one of the world’s leading guitarists. He has performed as soloist with over 100 orchestras, including Cleveland, Toronto, Houston, Nashville and St. Louis, working with renowned conductors such as Giancarlo Guererro, Jahja Ling, Gerard Schwarz, and David Robertson.
His strong presence on radio and streaming services continues with his long-awaited Bach Volume 2: Works for Violin, released in April 2022 to rave reviews from Gramophone and others. Shining Night, a CD featuring his duo with acclaimed violinist Anne Akiko Meyers, was released in May 2022 on Avie Records to great acclaim. He recorded Pat Metheny’s Four Paths of Light (dedicated to Jason) for Metheny’s 2021 album Road to The Sun on BMG Modern. Of his Grammy-winning 2014 solo album Play, the Huffington Post declared that the album is “part of the revitalized interest in the classical guitar.”