Mozart, Grieg, Fauré, and Prokofiev
Sun, Apr 6, 2025, 5:00 pm
Alice Tully Hall
2 hours, including intermission
The partnership of piano plus one—in this program, violin, cello, and flute—provides a unique opportunity for the listener to witness personal collaborations between pairs of artists. And each piece is distinctive: a two-movement sonata by Mozart, Grieg’s only cello sonata, the original version of Prokofiev’s D-minor flute sonata, and Fauré’s first violin sonata, about which Saint-Saëns wrote, “with this work, Monsieur Fauré takes his place among the masters.”
Program
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
(1756–1791)Sonata in E-flat major for Violin and Piano, K. 302
(1778)Edvard Grieg
(1843–1907)Sonata in A minor for Cello and Piano, Op. 36
(1882)Gabriel Fauré
(1845–1924)Sonata No.1 in A major for Violin and Piano, Op. 13
(1875–76)Sergei Prokofiev
(1891–1953)Sonata in D major for Flute and Piano, Op. 94
(1943)
Evren Ozel
Orion Weiss
Paul Huang
Jonathan Swensen
Adam Walker
American pianist Evren Ozel has established himself as a musician of “refined restraint” (3CR), combining fluent virtuosity with thoughtful interpretations. Having performed extensively in the US and abroad, he is the recipient of a 2023 Avery Fisher Career Grant and a 2022 Salon de Virtuosi Career Grant. He is represented by Concert Artists Guild as a winner of their 2021 competition. A dedicated chamber musician, he has played at the Marlboro Festival and ChamberFest Cleveland with artists including Jonathan Biss, Hsin-Yun Huang, Joseph Lin, Christoph Richter, and Peter Wiley. He performs on Musicians from Marlboro tours at Philadelphia’s Kimmel Center and New York’s Carnegie Hall. His 2022–23 season includes recitals with violinist Geneva Lewis for Philadelphia Chamber Music Society and Washington Performing Arts. In the 2023–24 season, he will perform Beethoven trios with violinist Stephanie Zyzak and cellist Alexander Hersh for Capital Region Classical, and make his debuts at the Gardner Museum and Frick Collection with violinist Charlotte Saluste-Bridoux. Ozel received his bachelors and masters degrees from the New England Conservatory, and is currently a candidate in their prestigious Artist Diploma program, all under the tutelage of Wha Kyung Byun. Other mentors include Jonathan Biss, Imogen Cooper, Richard Goode, and Mitsuko Uchida.
One of the most sought-after soloists and chamber music collaborators of his generation, Orion Weiss is widely regarded as a “brilliant pianist” (New York Times) with “powerful technique and exceptional insight” (Washington Post). He has performed with dozens of orchestras in North America including the Chicago Symphony, Baltimore Symphony, Boston Symphony, San Francisco Symphony, Philadelphia Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, and New York Philharmonic and at major venues and festivals worldwide.
Known for his affinity for chamber music, Weiss performs regularly with violinists Augustin Hadelichand James Ehnes; pianists Michael Brown and Shai Wosner; and the Ariel, Parker, and Pacifica Quartets. In recent seasons, he has also performed with the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, Pittsburgh Symphony, Toronto Symphony Orchestra, National Arts Centre Orchestra, and Orpheus Chamber Orchestra. Weiss can be heard on the Naxos, Telos, Bridge, First Hand, Yarlung, and Artek labels.
Weiss has been awarded the Classical Recording Foundation’s Young Artist of the Year, Gilmore Young Artist Award, an Avery Fisher Career Grant, and the Mieczyslaw Munz Scholarship. A native of Ohio, Weiss attended the Cleveland Institute of Music and the Juilliard School, where he studied with Emanuel Ax.
Recipient of a 2015 Avery Fisher Career Grant and a 2017 Lincoln Center Award for Emerging Artists, violinist Paul Huang’s recent appearances include the Detroit Symphony with Leonard Slatkin, Baltimore Symphony and Seoul Philharmonic with Markus Stenz, and Houston Symphony with Andrés Orozco-Estrada. In the 2023–24 season, he returns to the National Symphony Orchestra of Taiwan with Jun Markl and makes debuts with Rotterdam Philharmonic with Lahav Shani, Vancouver Symphony with Otto Tausk, and Dallas and NHK Symphonies with Fabio Luisi. In addition, he returns to the Kennedy Center for a recital evening as well as his recital debut in Singapore at the Victoria Concert Hall. He recently stepped in for Anne-Sophie Mutter at the Bravo! Vail Music Festival, playing Mozart’s Violin Concerto No. 4 with Chamber Orchestra Vienna-Berlin, and made recital debuts at the Lucerne and Aspen Music Festivals, all to critical acclaim. In fall 2021, he also became the first classical violinist to perform his own arrangement of the US national anthem for the opening game of the NFL at the Bank of America Stadium to an audience of 75,000. Winner of the 2011 Young Concert Artists International Auditions, Huang earned both bachelor’s and master’s degrees at the Juilliard School. He plays on the legendary 1742 ex-Wieniawski Guarneri del Gesù on loan through the Stradivari Society of Chicago. He is on the faculty of Taipei National University of the Arts and resides in New York.
Rising star of the cello Jonathan Swensen is the recipient of an Avery Fisher Career Grant and was featured as “One to Watch” in Gramophone Magazine upon the release of his debut recording Fantasia, an album of works for solo cello which received rave reviews on its release. Jonathan fell in love with the cello upon hearing the Elgar Concerto at the age of six, and ultimately made his concerto debut performing that very piece with Portugal’s Orquestra Sinfónica do Porto Casa da Música. He has performed with the Philharmonia Orchestra, Orquesta Ciudad de Granada, Copenhagen Philharmonic, Mobile Symphony, Greenville Symphony, and the Aarhus, Odense, and Iceland symphonies. He made his critically acclaimed recital debuts at the Kennedy Center’s Terrace Theater and New York’s Merkin Concert Hall, with additional performances in Boston’s Jordan Hall, the Morgan Library and Museum, and the Krannert Center. He is a frequent performer of chamber music in the US and Europe, appearing at the Tivoli Festival, Copenhagen Summer Festival, Chamberfest Cleveland, Krzyżowa-Music, Vancouver Recital Society, and San Francisco Performance, among others. He has captured first prizes at the Windsor International String Competition, Khachaturian International Cello Competition, and the Young Concert Artists International Auditions. In 2024, he begins his tenure as a member of CMS’s Bowers Program. A graduate of the Royal Danish Academy of Music, Swensen continued his studies with Torleif Thedéen at the Norwegian Academy of Music in Oslo and Laurence Lesser at New England Conservatory, where he receives his Artist Diploma in May 2023.
At the forefront of a new generation of wind soloists, Adam Walker was appointed principal flute of the London Symphony Orchestra in 2009 at the age of 21 and received the Outstanding Young Artist Award at MIDEM Classique in Cannes. In 2010 he won a Borletti-Buitoni Trust Fellowship Award and was shortlisted for the Royal Philharmonic Society Outstanding Young Artist Award. An ambassador for the flute with a ferocious appetite for repertoire, he regularly performs with the major UK orchestras including the BBC Philharmonic, BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, London Symphony, Hallé, Bournemouth Symphony, and the BBC National Orchestra of Wales. Elsewhere he has performed with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, Seattle Symphony, Grant Park Festival, Orquesta Sinfónica Nacional de Mexico, Seoul Philharmonic, Auckland Philharmonia, Malaysian Philharmonic, Malmö Symphony Orchestra, Vienna Chamber Orchestra, Solistes Européens, Luxembourg, and the RTE National Symphony Orchestra. A committed chamber musician with a curious and creative approach to repertoire, 2018 saw Adam take up his place on the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center’s prestigious Bowers Program. Recital highlights over recent seasons have included Wigmore Hall, LSO St. Luke’s, De Singel, Musée du Louvre, Hamburg Elbphilharmonie, Frankfurt Alte Oper, and the Utrecht, West Cork, Delft, and Moritzburg Chamber Music Festivals. Born in 1987, Adam Walker studied at Chetham’s School of Music with Gitte Sorensen and later at the Royal Academy of Music with Michael Cox. He was appointed professor at the Royal College of Music in 2017.