Our 10th Season Festival Gala entitled 200° due Clara celebrates the impact of one of the most influential musical personalities of the last two hundred years. Clara Schumann navigated the role of female artistry to unprecedented heights in the 19th century and paved the way for those who followed. This program portrays Clara’s love for Bach, and for her husband Robert, and features new Festival Commissions by two of our Clara Schumann Ten composers, including the Festival’s very first Composer-in-Residence, Jane Antonia Cornish. Tonight marks a great celebration of our Festival history as well as a way to honor our 2019 protagonist, Clara Schumann.

For a taste of Jane Antonia Cornish’s breathtaking music, which will be given a World Premiere in this program, click here & here.

From World Music Report:“The music of Jane Antonia Cornish is a fabric woven by almost invisible – in her case – virtually inaudible notes and phrases, and when any sound is brought forth from the musicians mesmerised into playing her music, the sound is transcendent. Notes seem to dally in the air pregnant with silence. Phrases are strung together like necklaces of pearls magnificent in their crystalline polyphonic clarity.”

Curated Gala Reception by Culinary Artists-in-Residence Sawako Okochi and Aaron Israel

PROGRAM
Clara Schumann Scherzo No. 2 in C minor (1839)
Jane Antonia Cornish Seascapes (2019)*
Bach Concerto for Two Keyboards in C Major, BWV 1061 (1734)
Aigerim Seilova Liebeslieder (2019)*
Robert Schumann Piano Quartet in Eb Major, Op. 47 (1842)

*World Premiere Performance

Featuring
Piano | Melinda Lee Masur, Andrea Lam, Robert Fleitz, Katsura Tanikawa
Soprano | Marisa Karchin
Flute | Xue Su
Clarinet | Yumi Ito
Violin | Chloe Fedor, Natsumi Tsuboi, Ryosuke Suho, Hasse Borup, Chloe Kiffer, Soo Yeon Kim, Mariella Haubs, Jocelyn Zhu, Minglun Liu, Yeajin Kim, Lisa Lee
Viola | Maiko Takimoto, Jeremy Kienbaum, Jesus Rodolfo, Vladimir Babeshko, Guanliang Zong
Cello | Jonathan Butler, Angela Lee, Brandon Xu
Double Bass | Mariya Andonova, Kaden Henderson
Electric Bass Guitar | Kaden Henderson
Conductor | Ken-David Masur