Mixing Timbres
with Hsing-ay Hsu, piano
Saturday, September 21, 2024
7:30 – 9:00 PM
Boulder Adventist Church
Hsing-ay Hsu
piano
Kellan Toohey
clarinet
Julian Bennett
cello
Program
Gabriel Fauré (1845–1924)
Piano Trio in D Minor, Op. 120 (1922/23)
I. Allegro ma non troppo
Ludwig van Beethoven (1770–1827)
Trio in B-flat Major for Piano, Clarinet, and Cello, Op. 11 (1798)
I. Allegro con brio
II. Adagio
III. Tema: Pria ch'io l'impegno. Allegretto.
Johannes Brahms (1833–1897)
Trio in B-flat Major for Piano, Clarinet, and Cello, Op. 11 (1891)
I. Allegro
II. Adagio
III. Andantino grazioso
IV. Allegro
Emily Rutherford
Morning Dances
ABOUT THE ARTISTS
Hsing-ay Hsu
2023–24 Artist-in-Residence
Steinway Artist Hsing-ay Hsu (“Sing-I Shoo”) joyfully shares the power of concert piano music to bring multidimensional awareness and to weave a rich cultural fabric. Through concerts, residencies, and courses, Ms. Hsu empowers performers and lifelong learners to find transformational pathways through her performances and teaching on how creative listening is essential to making music and living fully.
Ms. Hsu has performed at prestigious venues across the globe, including Carnegie Hall, Kennedy Center, and Lincoln Center. Born in Beijing, Ms. Hsu trained with her uncle Fei-Ping Hsu, at Juilliard, Yale School of Music, as well as Ravinia Steans Institute, Aspen, and Tanglewood Festivals. Recipient of numerous international awards, the Washington Post praised her “power and authority”. Her thoughtful interpretations and “explosions of energy” (NY Times) have won her the Juilliard William Petschek Debut Award, William Kapell International Competition Silver Medal, Ima Hogg National First Prize, Paul & Daisy Soros Fellowship, Gilmore Young Artist Award, and the US Presidential Scholar of the Arts Award from President Clinton.
Embracing the improvisatory spirit of early music as well as the adventure of premiering new works, Ms. Hsu reaches new audiences through a diverse repertoire of concert music and innovative programs, such as pairing the abstract experience of music to other disciplines and tangible ideas like fashion and wine to give audiences a wider gateway of access. Her artist residencies strengthens communities through musical events.
As Artistic Director for Pendulum New Music at the University of Colorado in Boulder, she supervised over 500 student and professional premieres, and hosted national and international residencies. She has been guest faculty at several universities and guest speaker for various organizations including a MTNA national convention. She uses her Conscious ListeningTM Café webinars and workshops to help others make connections between analysis, emotions, and breath. Owner of the Nutmeg Studio NYC, Ms. Hsu teaches many types of masterclasses and offers several unique online courses to infuse creativity into the process of mastering traditional concepts. Her unique integration of leading with listening and multiple modes of learning produces incredible results in advancing artistry and technical mastery. She regularly interviews experts from different walks of life to explore musical analogies on her YouTube channel “HsingayHsu”. Recent projects include a live webinar series connecting arts, health, and education for Yale China Association, and cultural events for NY Adventure Club.
Kellan Toohey
Clarinet
Kellan Toohey’s varied career includes recitals and solo appearances, chamber music, teaching, and orchestral playing. He holds a DMA from the University of Colorado and his teachers include Daniel Silver, Bil Jackson, Jon Manasse, and Yehuda Gilad.
An active orchestral player, Dr. Toohey currently holds the positions of Principal clarinetist in the Boulder Chamber Orchestra, Fort Collins Symphony, and Cheyenne Symphony Orchestra. He is also a member of the Colorado Ballet Orchestra in Denver. He has performed across the US, Europe, and in Asia, and recently recorded his first solo cd, entitled Scenes from Home, premiere recordings of new music by Colorado composers.
Kellan has received numerous awards, including winning 2nd Prize in the International Clarinet Association's Young Artist Competition (2013 Assisi, Italy), 1st Prize and audience choice award in the University of Colorado Ekstrand Graduate Performance competition, 1st Prize in the University of Northern Colorado Concerto competition and Angie Southard Performance Competition, and was also the winner of the Colorado College Summer Festival and Greeley Chamber Orchestra concerto competitions. In November 2016 he made his recital debut at Carnegie Hall's Weill Hall in New York City.
In addition to his performing and teaching work, Kellan enjoys active involvement in his church, composing music, reading, hiking, and spending time outdoors.
Julian Bennett
Cello
Cellist Julian Bennett began his cello studies at the age of 9, growing up in a family of musicians. He made his concerto debut with the Tacoma Youth Symphony, winning the Concerto Competition in 2016.
As a chamber musician, Julian has been featured as a guest artist in the Snake River Chamber Series in Colorado, as well as the Second City Chamber Series in Tacoma, Washington. He has collaborated and performed with members of the Horszowski Trio and of the Carpe Diem and Daedalus Quartets. In 2021, he was invited by conductor Michael Morgan to serve as Principal Cellist of the Bear Valley Symphony Orchestra. He is currently an active freelancer and cello teacher in Boulder.
His primary teachers include David Requiro, Jennifer Culp, and Horacio Contreras. He has performed in masterclasses for Marcy Rosen, Joshua Roman, Phillipe Mueller, Julian Steckel, Tanya Carey, and Amir Eldan.
Julian is pursuing his Doctoral studies at the University of Colorado - Boulder where he serves as Teaching Assistant to David Requiro. He holds a Master of Music degree and Professional Studies Certificate from the San Francisco Conservatory of Music and a Bachelor of Music degree from Lawrence University where he graduated Magna cum laude.
He plays on an exquisite cello made by Eric Benning. In his spare time, Julian is an avid cook and enjoys hiking and the outdoors.
PROGRAM NOTES
Gabriel Fauré (1845–1924)
Piano Trio in D Minor, Op. 120 (1922/23)
In the early 20th century Debussy, Stravinsky, and Schoenberg revolutionized the foundation of Western music in the areas of tonality, harmony, and symmetric meter. At the same time, Gabriel Fauré was working with this foundation, not by abandoning the traditional structures, but by “blurring” them – especially in his later works.
Originally conceived for clarinet, cello and piano, the 1922 Piano Trio is Fauré’s penultimate work (the string quartet is the last). The first performance was by Jacques Thibaud, Pablo Casals, and Alfred Cortot. After the premiere a friend reportedly said, “If he lives a hundred years, how far will he go?” Even with loss of hearing and failing health, Fauré was building and extending his own compositional technique and continuing to “blur” traditional structures.
Program Notes by Stephen Soderberg
Ludwig van Beethoven (1770–1827)
Trio in B-flat Major for Piano, Clarinet, and Cello, Op. 11 (1798)
The Opus 11 Trio is sometimes heard as a trio for violin, cello and piano, but Beethoven composed the trio for a particular clarinet virtuoso, Joseph Beer. When the work was published in 1798, he marked it for violin as well as clarinet to increase its commercial value.
The clarinet was still a new instrument, and few musicians were yet trained to play it. Wind instruments, moreover, were considered socially inferior to keyboard and string instruments, and until late in the 19th century composers often arranged wind music for string instruments for salon performances. Today’s audiences are likely to hear the trio in either instrumentation.
The trio is in three movements. The first is in easily followed sonata form, with the three instruments announcing the main theme in unison. The rest of the movement is marked by surprising harmonic shifts – for example, at the opening of the second theme. After a strong F major chord, the piano plays a quiet phrase in the unexpected key of D major, after which the clarinet resumes the theme in F major as intended. Later the piano phrase opens the development in the even more unexpected key of D flat.
The slow movement is built on two expressive themes – the first a singing melody introduced by the cello and the second started by the cello’s ascending scale answered by the clarinet. There is a short but dramatic development.
The third movement is a set of variations on a popular opera tune of the day from L’Amor Marinaro by Joseph Weigl. The tune has a frivolous character –– its first line can be translated roughly as “Before I go to work, I must have something to eat!” There is some evidence that the theme was suggested to Beethoven by either Beer or Beethoven’s publisher, and that the composer later regretted the idea. At any rate, there are nine variations, all witty and light-textured, followed by a closing section in 6/8 rhythm.
Program Notes by Willard J. Hertz
Johannes Brahms (1833–1897)
Trio in B-flat Major for Piano, Clarinet, and Cello, Op. 11 (1891)
Some people are born old; some become old prematurely. Johannes Brahms belonged in the latter category. Sketches and photographs of the composer at 20 reveal a handsome if intense and sensitive fellow with the bloom of youth on his cheeks. His music at that time was all youthful ardor, expansive, bursting at the seams.
When he was 58, Brahms indicated in his will that he would compose no more, he would be retiring. But the best-laid plans… This one was set aside because of the clarinetist Richard Mühlfeld, whom Brahms had heard on a visit to Meiningen. Mühlfeld’s playing clearly renewed in Brahms the desire to compose, and barely two months after he had drawn his will, he was sending the score of the Clarinet Trio to his devoted young friend, Eusebius Mandyczewski (“Mandy,” librarian of the Museum of the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde). In the same summer, he composed the Clarinet Quintet, and in 1894, the two Clarinet Sonatas. Thus, the “dear nightingale”—as Brahms referred to Mühlfeld—goes down in history as the person without whom four of the composer’s most touching and beautiful ‘twilight’ works would not have been written.
Yet, even in his first clarinet work, how wonderfully Brahms understood the instrument (with Mühlfeld’s help), its flexibility, and its timbre in its three distinct registers: the violin-like soprano, the full yet somewhat mysterious mid-range, and the dark and soulful chalumeau, the depth of which was the appropriate voice for Brahms’ resigned utterances.
Program Notes by Orrin Howard