Savannah Concert Association

"If music be the food of love, play on." -- Shakespeare

Concert #2 - Saturday, January 10, 2009, 8:00 pm
Lucas Theatre, Savannah, Georgia

The Savannah Concert Association presents

Helen Huang, pianist

At age 26, Helen Huang can already look back on an impressive list of engagements with such orchestras as the Cleveland Orchestra, the National Symphony, the New York Philharmonic, the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Saint Louis Symphony, the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra and the London Philharmonic. Born in Japan of Chinese parents in October, 1982, she moved to the United States with her family in 1985 and began piano lessons two years later. Within a year she had won her first competition and several other victories soon followed. In 1995 she became one of the youngest recipients of the Avery Fisher Career Grant.

Ms. Huang’s first public appearances were with several orchestras in the Philadelphia area. Jut after her eighth birthday, she made her debut with the Philadelphia Orchestra after winning its student concerto competition. Similarly, she won the New York Philharmonic’s Young Performers Auditions and performed with the orchestra, under Music Director Kurt Masur, in December 1992.

Ms. Huang developed a close association with Kurt Masur and the New York Philharmonic, with whom she made her subscription debut in 1995. In addition to her appearances with the orchestra in New York, she has toured with them over the years in North America, Europe and Asia. Highlights of recent seasons include performances with the Pittsburgh Symphony, the Cincinnati Symphony, the Montreal Symphony, the Colorado Symphony and the Fort Worth Symphony. Abroad she has appeared with the Berlin Philharmonic, the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra and the Orchestre National de France under Kurt Masur, the Israel Philharmonic, the Israel Chamber Orchestra, the Vienna Chamber Orchestra, the London Philharmonic and the KBS Symphony in Seoul, Korea. In addition, Helen frequently appears in recitals and chamber music performances in the US, Europe and Asia.

Helen Huang’s recordings are available on the Teldec label. She made her debut recording of Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 1 and Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 23 in live concerts with Kurt Masur and the New York Philharmonic, and later recorded the Mendelssohn Piano Concerto No. 1 and the Mozart Piano Concert No. 21 with those forces. She has also recorded a recital album, “For Children,” featuring works by Debussy and Schumann. Ms. Huang made her national television debut in a concert with the Boston Pops Orchestra for PBS’s “Evening at the Pops” and was featured in an A&E broadcast from the Casals Festival in Puerto Rico. She participated in a special concert celebrating the 50th anniversary of the United Nations, and with the London Symphony Orchestra at the Barbican Center. Helen’s most recent recording was a collaboration with Cho-Liang Lin of the works of Georg Tintner released on the Naxos label.

Helen Huang received the Arthur Rubinstein Prize upon graduation from the Juilliard School in 2004, where she was a student of Yoheved Kaplinsky. She earlier attended the preparatory division of the Manhattan School of Music, winning its concerto competition in 1992. In 1994 she was selected by the New York Philharmonic to receive Lincoln Center’s Martin E. Segal Award for promising artists. Helen is currently studying with Peter Frankl and pursuing her Master’s Degree at Yale.

PROGRAM

Sonata in C Major, Hob XVI/50 — Haydn
    Allegro
    Adagio
    Allegro molto

Songs without Words, Op. 19 — Mendelssohn
    Andante con moto
    Andante expressivo
    Molto Allegro e vivace (Hunting Song) Moderato
    Poco Agitato
    Andante Sostenuto (Venetian Boat Song)

Sonata No. 30 in E Major, Op. 109 — Beethoven
    Vivace ma non troppo: Adagio expressivo
    Prestissimo
    Gesangvoll, mit innigster Empfindung

— INTERMISSION —

Sonata No. 3, Op. 58 — Chopin
    Allegro Maestro
    Scherzo: Allegro vivace
    Largo
    Finale: Presto non tanto

PROGRAM NOTES

Franz Joseph Haydn(1732 - 1809)
Sonata in C Major, Hob. XVI/50
By his own admission Haydn, properly regarded as the creator of the symphony and string quartet, was “no wizard” at the keyboard. Although he never performed any of his own compositions in public, he did compose more than fifty sonatas for keyboard, culminating in the three works written during his second visit to London in 1794 - 1795. Here he was able to make use of Broadwood fortepianos which were sturdier than what was available on the continent. Sonata number 50 was written for Therese Jansen, who had been the prize student of Muzio Clementi and at whose wedding Haydn was a witness. In th opening allegro, the simple first theme is gradually transformed, leading to its culmination in the “open pedal” passage. The poetic adagio is followed by the quirky, subversively comic final movement, which is a scherzo in all but name.

Felix Mendelssohn (1809 - 1847)
Songs without Words, Op. 19
Felix Mendelssohn, the bicentennial of whose birth we celebrate this year, was one of the greatest musical prodigies of all time. Most of his compositions are in forms that were standard in his time, but he did create a new type of Romantic piano miniature, which he dubbed “a song without words.” There were forty-eight of these works in all, of which the pieces in opus 19 were the first to be published. In explaining his intentions, the composer said, “People often complain to me that music is ambiguous, whereas everyone understands words; with me it is exactly the reverse. What the music I love expresses to me is not too indefinite to be put into words, but rather on the contrary too definite.” In keeping with this sentiment, in most cases he resisted any temptation to apply descriptive titles to these pieces. However, the “Venetian Gondola Song” on tonight’s program is one of three works in the overall set with this title.

Ludwig von Beethoven (1770 - 1827)
Sonata No. 30 in E Major, Op. 109
By the time that Beethoven composed his late piano sonatas, he had been completely deaf for two decades. Out of the solitude resulting from this silence, he produced works of the greatest profundity. In the first movement of the opus 109 sonata, the easy-going opening theme is gradually transformed into a more intense and strident declamation, two octaves higher. After the brief, tempestuous second movement, the final movement takes the listener through a series of ever more sublime variations, ultimately ending on a note of complete tranquility, the complete antithesis of the thundering climaxes so often associated with the composer in his younger days.

Frederic Chopin (1810 - 1849)
Sonata No. 3, Op. 58
Chopin’s last sonata, composed in the summer of 1844, displays an extraordinary wealth of imagination. The lengthy first movement is distinguished by a great abundance of ideas, with two principal themes linked by an extended development section. The short scherzo is notable for its airy lightness. The largo has about it the suggestion of a nocturne, as a cantabile melody emerges after the short, solemn introduction. The restless, exciting finale is in the form of a rondo, in which every return of the theme is marked by an increase in energy and the rhythmic density of the accompaniment.

Tickets $35, $25, $12.50
Visit SCAD Box Office
www.scadboxoffice.com
216 E. Broughton Street, Savannah, or call
(912) 525-5050. Visa and Mastercard accepted.

Music teachers and students may order special tickets @$2 by emailing name & address to dianelboyd@comcast.net

For a free brochure of the 2008-2009 season, email name & address to eoliver524@comcast.net

For more information, contact

info@savannahconcertassociation.com