Robert Sirota
Robert Sirota's Fantasy for Cello and Piano given Nebraska premiere by Gregory Beaver and Soyeon Lee
January 29, 2010
Friday, January 29, 2010 at 7:30pm
St. Paul United Methodist Church
1144 M Street | Lincoln, NE 68501
Admission is free, a free-will donation to the St. Paul United Methodist Church is appreciated.
For more information: 402.477.6951
Lincoln, NE—On Friday, January 29, 2010 at 7:30pm, composer Robert Sirota's Fantasy will receive its Nebraska premiere in a performance by cellist Gregory Beaver (of the Chiara String Quartet, in residence at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln) and pianist Soyeon Lee at St. Paul Methodist Church (1144 M Street, Lincoln, NE). This concert marks the debut of the Gregory Beaver/Soyeon Lee Duo. The program also includes cello and piano sonatas by Franck and Debussy.
The Gregory Beaver/Soyeon Lee Duo designed this program to depict generations of the great French tradition of chamber music from the Romantic to the Contemporary. Robert Sirota studied with the renowned composer Nadia Boulanger in Paris. Claude Debussy was a pupil of Cesar Franck at the Paris Conservatoire.
Robert Sirota's Fantasy, written in 1975, is the first in a series of works written for Dr. Sirota's longtime friend, cellist Norman Fischer (who was Gregory Beaver's teacher at Rice University and is the father of Rebecca Fischer, violinist in the Chiara Quartet with Mr. Beaver). Of the piece, the composer says, "The piece explores widely varied textures, from boldly declamatory, to rather pointillist, breaking into a Viennese waltz before dashing to a climax, followed by a slow dissolution."
Strings magazine has described Robert Sirota's music as "emotionally charged," and Fanfare has praised it as "heartfelt and honest." His work has been performed throughout the United States and Europe, at venues including Carnegie Hall's Weill Recital Hall, Merkin Hall in New York, The Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Tanglewood Music Center, the Aspen Music Festival, the Yellow Barn Music Festival, Benaroya Hall in Seattle, and at The Juilliard School, the Shepherd School of Music, Peabody, Oberlin Conservatory, Yong Siew Toh Conservatory in Singapore, Royal Conservatory in Toronto, and the Tchaikovsky Conservatory in Moscow.
Dr. Sirota has spent his professional life striking a balance between teaching, administration, and composition. The result has been the effective leadership of some of this country's premier music schools (including the Peabody Institute and, currently, The Manhattan School of Music), and a varied compositional catalogue. His commissions include works for the Empire Brass, American Guild of Organists, the Vermont Symphony Orchestra, the Seattle Symphony, the Fischer Duo, the Peabody Trio, the Webster Trio, and the Chiara String Quartet.
Dr. Sirota's latest orchestral work, A Rush of Wings, received a glowing review by Steve Smith in The New York Times in 2009: "In an explanatory note, Mr. Sirota described a recent preoccupation with sensations of flying, saying that the new piece was an effort to evoke "the wings of the wind" as cited in several passages from Psalms. Even without that, Mr. Sirota's goal would surely have been evident in the energetic swoops and airy plummets of his seven-minute piece, fashioned with the clean, angular melodies, tart harmonies, lively syncopations and punchy accents of American Neo-Classicism. Fidgeting strings conveyed a nervy energy under sustained woodwind and brass tones, with glockenspiel, vibraphone and cymbals providing a shimmering patina. As if buffeted by a breeze, the music frequently changed course without losing momentum. An excellent curtain raiser, the music also sounded useful in the best sense: you could imagine it being fitted to a wind symphony or marching band equally well."
In January 2008 Dr. Sirota's new orchestral work, 212: Symphony No. 1 (named for the area code for Manhattan), received its world premiere in a performance by the Manhattan School of Music Symphony, led by Kenneth Kiesler. Anthony Tommasini praised the piece in The New York Times with, "If directness can be considered a New York character trait, that quality comes through in Mr. Sirota's symphony. Complexity for its own sake and expressive obfuscation are not for this energetic and highly professional composer. Although the overall musical language of this score recalls the American Neo-Classicists, Mr. Sirota's compositional voice has a distinctive tartness and rhythmic bite. Thick, astringent chromatic harmonies come in tightly bound chords to create nervous sonorities. Yet the textures are always lucid; details come through."
Robert Sirota's catalogue is comprised of three short operas, a full-length music theatre piece, as well as orchestral, symphonic band, chamber and recital works. His 1999 work for organ and orchestra, In the Fullness of Time, has been performed several times by the Seattle Symphony, as well as by the Lincoln Symphony in Nebraska, the Meridian Symphony in Mississippi, and the Oberlin Orchestra. His chamber music has entered the repertoire of several leading ensembles: Triptych (2002) – which commemorates the victims of September 11th and is inspired by the visual art of Deborah Patterson – is often played by the Chiara and American String Quartets; his Piano Trio (1998) has been performed multiple times by the Peabody Trio, the Concord Trio, and many others; and A Sinner's Diary for flute, two violas, cello, percussion and piano, just completed in 2005, has already received several performances. His music has been recorded by the Fischer Duo for the Gasparo label, and by the Chiara String Quartet for their New Voice Singles series.
In recent years, Robert Sirota has composed several works for orchestra in addition to In the Fullness of Time, including Meridians (2006) and Epiphanies for string quartet and orchestra (2006). Dr. Sirota's music for chorus and for organ has also been widely performed, most notably Mass (1990) for chorus, soloists, organ and percussion; The Passion of Jesus Christ (1998), a visual oratorio for soloists, chorus, organ, piano and percussion; Celestial Wind (1987) for organ; and Easter Canticles (1993) for cello and organ. Dr. Sirota's children's opera in one act, The Tailor of Gloucester (1987) is based on the story by Beatrix Potter and has been produced by companies throughout the country.
Robert Sirota has received grants from the Guggenheim Foundation, the United States Information Agency, the National Endowment for the Arts, Meet The Composer, and the American Music Center. Among his awards are a First Prize in the Long Island Composers Alliance Competition and the Andrew White Medal from Loyola College in Baltimore.
A native New Yorker, Dr. Sirota received his earliest compositional training at The Juilliard School, and received his bachelor's degree in piano and composition from Oberlin Conservatory where he studied with Joseph Wood and Richard Hoffman. A Thomas J. Watson Fellowship allowed him to study and concertize in Paris, where his principal teacher was Nadia Boulanger. Returning to America, Dr. Sirota earned a Ph.D. from Harvard University, studying with Earl Kim and Leon Kirchner.
Before becoming Director of The Johns Hopkins University's prestigious Peabody Institute in 1995, Dr. Sirota served as Chairman of the Department of Music and Performing Arts Professions at New York University and Director of Boston University's School of Music. In 2005, he was appointed president of the Manhattan School of Music in New York, where he is also a member of the School's composition faculty. For more information visit www.RobertSirota.com.
About Gregory Beaver
Gregory Beaver is the cellist of the Chiara String Quartet. As a part of the quartet he has performed around the world, won accolades in both national and international string quartet competitions, and made several recordings. Along with the other Chiara members, he is Assistant Research Professor and artist-in-residence at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln where he coaches chamber music, teaches cello and helps coordinate the chamber music program. As a soloist, Mr. Beaver won the 1997 Corpus Christi Young Artist's Competition and was selected as one of the two quarterfinalists from the United States for the Australasian International Cello Competition in Christchurch, New Zealand.
His recent solo performances range from concerto appearances to a New York recital event where he presented the complete cycle of Beethoven's cello and piano music. Mr. Beaver has worked with great artists such as Pierre Boulez in a special Carnegie Hall performance of Messagesquisse, and as principal cellist of the Tanglewood Music Center Orchestra he has worked with conductors such Claudio Abbado and Robert Spano. Mr. Beaver recently performed the complete Brahms cello sonatas with pianist Paul Barnes, and performed Dvorak's cello concerto with the UNL Symphony in 2007.
Mr. Beaver began cello lessons with Char Sherman in the Okemos Suzuki program in Okemos, Michigan. He studied with Marilyn Kesler and continued his studies with renowned pedagogue Louis Potter, Jr. He has a BM cum laude from Rice University where he studied with Norman Fischer, an MM from The Juilliard School where he studied with Joel Krosnick, and an Artist Diploma in String Quartet Studies from The Juilliard School where he studied with the Juilliard String Quartet. Gregory is also an internationally recognized expert in the PHP computer programming language, and his book The PEAR Installer Manifesto: Revolutionizing PHP Application Development and Deployment was released by Packt Publishing in October of 2006.
About Soyeon Lee
Korean pianist Soyeon Lee has already been hailed by The New York Times as a pianist with "a huge, richly varied sound, a lively imagination and a firm sense of style," while The Washington Post has lauded her for her "stunning command of the keyboard."
Soyeon Lee has been rapturously received as guest soloist with The Cleveland Orchestra and the London Symphony Orchestra, as well as the Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra, symphony orchestras of Columbus, Napa Valley, San Diego, Scottsdale, Shreveport, New York City's Park Avenue Chamber Symphony and Orquesta Sinfónica Nacional (Dominican Republic), including performances under the batons of Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos, Jahja Ling and Otto-Werner Mueller.
Recital appearances include New York City programs at Carnegie Hall's Zankel Hall and Weill Recital Hall, Merkin Concert Hall and Lincoln Center for the Performing Art's Alice Tully Hall, Washington's John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Cleveland's Severance Hall, the Ravinia Festival's "Rising Stars" series, Auditorio de Musica de Nacional in Madrid - part of a 13-city tour of Spain - and Baek-Am Art Hall in Seoul. An avid chamber musician, she has collaborated with the Parker String Quartet, bassist Edgar Meyer and the Edgeffect Ensemble with Mark O'Connor, and performed at the chamber music festivals of Laguna Beach, Taos and Montréal. Among Ms. Lee's most recent collaborative projects are joint performances in Seoul with her pop-star sister, Soeun Lee.
Born in South Korea, Soyeon Lee began studying the piano at the age of five. At age nine, she moved to the United States and attended the Interlochen Arts Academy, graduating with highest honors in music. Her early teachers included Victoria Mushkatkol and Marina di Pretoro. Ms. Lee earned her Bachelor's and Master's degrees from The Juilliard School, where she studied with Jerome Lowenthal and Robert McDonald. While at Juilliard, she earned the distinguished Artist Diploma, won the Rachmaninoff Concerto Competition, two consecutive Gina Bachauer Scholarship Competitions and was awarded the Helen Fay Prize, Artur Rubinstein Prize, Susan Rose Career Grant and the William Petschek Piano Debut Award.
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