Classical pianist Shuann Chai, violinist Shunske Sato to perform at Laurel Lake April 10
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Donna Anderson, Public Relations Coordinator
330-655-1436 / 330-285-7516 cell
info@laurellake.org
Pianist Shuann Chai returns to Laurel Lake for encore performance with violinist Shunske Sato, April 10
March 27, 2013 - International performing artists Shuann Chai, piano and Shunske Sato, violin will offer an evening concert at Laurel Lake Retirement Community, 200 Laurel Lake Drive in Hudson on Wednesday, April 10 at 7 p.m. The event is free and open to the public.
The program will include:
Fantasy in D minor for piano solo (W.A. Mozart)
Sonata in C major, op. 53 "Waldstein" (L. van Beethoven)
Allegro con brio
Adagio molto - Rondo: Allegretto moderato
Duo Sonata in A major, op. 162 (F. Schubert)
Allegro moderato
Scherzo
Andantino
Allegro vivace
Romanian Dances for violin and piano (B. Bartok)
SHUANN CHAI is an active and engaging performer, critically acclaimed for interpretations on both modern and historical instruments. Recent projects include all-Beethoven recitals at the Vredenburg Utrecht (NL) and the American Church of Paris (FR); a series of concerts and masterclasses in China in collaboration with baritone Mattijs van de Woerd; and a pair of recitals to mark the Chopin Bicentennial at the Cobbe Collection in Hatchlands Park (UK) featuring the composer’s own Pleyel grand piano. Shuann has also been featured in live webcast on Avro Klassiek (NL) and live radio broadcasts on WGBH Boston (with cellist Pieter Wispelwey), the Dennis Lewin Radio Show on WCLV Cleveland, CKUA Edmonton (Canada), Harmonia Early Music Radio, Hong Kong Radio 4, and Radio-Canada.
Shuann completed degrees in both Piano Performance and Biology at Oberlin College and earned Master’s degrees from the New England Conservatory in Boston and the Royal Conservatory in The Hague (NL). Her teachers have included Jack Radunsky, Norma Fisher, David Breitman, and Claus-Christian Schuster of the Altenberg Trio. In 2010 she received a full scholarship at the Banff Centre (Canada), where she was one of eight pianists from around the world selected to take part in an exclusive Beethoven Seminar and Master Class with Anton Kuerti. She was invited back to the Centre as an Artist-in-Residence in 2012.
Alongside her concert appearances, Ms. Chai has been increasingly in demand as a teacher. She has conducted master classes and lecture-demonstrations at the Gulangyu Piano Academy in Xiamen (China), the Grieg Conservatory in Bergen (Norway), the Central Conservatory of Beijing (China), National University of Taipei (Taiwan), the University of Edinburgh (UK), the University of California at Davis (USA), and Duke University (USA). Last year she also received an appointment at the Royal Conservatory of The Hague, where she is now a Visiting Lecturer in early keyboards and pianos.
Upcoming projects reflect Shuann’s wide-ranging interests: a tour of 8 performances in Spring 2013 will feature the music of John Cage in collaboration with modern dancers, while a major part of the 2013-14 season will be dedicated to performing the 32 piano sonatas of Beethoven. Her first solo CD, featuring Beethoven Sonatas on the fortepiano, was released in 2011 to critical acclaim.
SHUNSKE SATO actively concertizes on both modern and baroque violin, and is one of the most acclaimed and versatile musicians of his generation. Shunske began the violin at the age of two. Immigrating to America with his parents two years later, he studied with Chin Kim before coming under the tutelage of Dorothy DeLay and Masao Kawasaki at the Juilliard School of New York. In 2003, Shunske moved to Paris to pursue his modern violin studies with Gérard Poulet, and has been living in Munich since 2009 to study baroque violin under Mary Utiger at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater München.
As a baroque violinist, Shunske serves as concertmaster of both Concerto Köln and the Netherlands Bach Society, and has appeared as soloist with the Orchestra Libera Classica in Japan, Berliner Lautten Compagney, and in 2011 gave the first performance in recent times of Paganini’s second violin concerto on historical instruments with the Academy of Ancient Music. Chamber music plays a regular role in Shunske’s activities, with partners such as Christine Schornsheim, Hidemi Suzuki and Richard Egarr.
On the modern violin, Shunske has appeared as soloist with all the major orchestras in Japan, as well as with leading European orchestras including the Deutsche Oper Berlin, Bavarian Radio Philharmonic, Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France and the State Symphony Orchestra of Russia. Since his American debut with the Philadelphia Orchestra at the age of 10, he has performed with renowned American orchestras such as the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, National Symphony Orchestra and Seattle Symphony Orchestra.
Shunske gained further recognition as a baroque violinist after winning second prize as well as the audience prize at the 17th International Johann Sebastian Bach Competition Leipzig in 2010. He is also the recipient of the awards such as the Idemitsu Award (a distinction awarded to prominent, internationally active Japanese musicians) and the S & R Washington Award, and as of February 2013 Shunske plays a baroque violin by Giovanni Grancino (ca. 1695), on loan to him from the Jumpstart Jr. Foundation in Amsterdam.
Shunske has a wide-ranging discography including of Eugène Ysaÿe's Six Sonatas for solo violin, Edvard Grieg’s complete sonatas for violin and piano – which was awarded the Grand Prize by the Agency for Cultural Affairs of Japan – and, most recently, Telemann’s 12 Fantasias for solo violin. In addition, Shunske is the first violinist ever to record Niccolò Paganini’s Twenty-Four Caprices for solo violin (Universal Classics Japan label. 2009) from the perspective of historically informed performance practice, using gut strings and a historical bow.