Sunday, March 13th at 4 pm (doors open at 3 pm)
Club Helsinki Hudson
Luosha Fang, violin
Yang Li, violin
Shuangshuang Liu, viola
Jia Cao, cello
PROGRAM
Mozart String Quartet No.22 in Bb, K.589 (‘Prussian, No.2’)
Janáček’s String Quartet No. 1., “Kreutzer Sonata”
Brahms String Quartet in c, Op.51 no.1
About the Chimeng Quartet
The members of the Chimeng Quartet are presently undergraduate students at the Bard College Conservatory of Music. They all were born and raised in China, and received their musical training at the high schools attached to the Shanghai Conservatory of Music and the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing. The quartet’s name – the Chinese word “Chimeng” or, in English, “enlightenment” – was chosen because the Enlightenment was the theme of Bard’s 2006-2007 First Year Seminar, a course taken by the members of the quartet – and by all first year students at Bard College.
In 2010 the Chimeng Quartet was awarded the Silver Medal in the Senior Division of the Fischoff Chamber Music Competition in South Bend, Indiana. This season they have performed at the American Philosophical Society in Philadelphia in collaboration with violist Steven Tenenbom, and at Lincoln Center for the gala celebration of 150th anniversary of the founding of Bard College. They have also performed at the Bard Music Festival, the Chamber Music Society of Reading Pennsylvania, and in house concerts in New York City, Vero Beach, Florida, Shanghai and Beijing. In January 2009 they made their orchestral debut with the Albany Symphony, conducted by David Alan Miller, in Takuma Itoh’s Concerto for String Quartet and Orchestra.
At Bard, they study with violinists Ida Kavafian, Arnold Steinhardt, and Laurie Smukler; violists Ira Weller, Steven Tenenbom and Michael Tree; and cellists Peter Wiley and Sophie Shao. Additionally, they have worked with members of the Guarneri, Tokyo, Orion, Keller, Shanghai, Ying, and Mendelssohn quartets. In addition to their music degrees, they are earning degrees from Bard College in Asian Studies, Russian Studies, and French Studies.
The Chimeng has attended the Norfolk Chamber Music Festival at Yale and this summer will attend both the Aspen Music Festival’s Center for Advanced Quartet Studies and the quartet program at the Terra di Siena Summer Festival in Italy.
About the members of the quartet
Jia Cao, born in Shanghai, China, started to study cello at the age of four with her grandmother, Yishan Qian, a cello professor at the Shanghai Conservatory and the only student from Mainland China who ever studied with Pablo Casals. Later Ms. Cao attended the elementary and high schools of the Shanghai Conservatory of Music studying with Xuping Zhou and Dahai Liu. And at the age of eighteen, she made her concerto debut with the Shanghai Conservatory Youth Orchestra performing Beethoven Triple Concerto on a concert celebrating cultural exchanges between Germany and China.
Since 2005, Ms. Cao has been a student of Peter Wiley and Sophie Shao at the Bard Conservatory of Music where she is a recipient of the Mischa Schneider Scholarship. She was a winner of the Bard Conservatory Concerto Competition and performed the Shostakovich Cello Concerto No.1 with the American Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Leon Botstein. And as a chamber musician, Ms. Cao, with the Chimeng Quartet, was awarded the silver medal at the 2010 Fischoff Chamber Music Competition.
Ms. Cao has participated in many music festivals including the Norfolk Chamber Music Festival, Bard Music Festival, Banff Master Class Program, Rhinebeck Chamber Music Society, the Morningside Music Bridge in Calgary, Canada and most recently, the Aspen Music Festival where she was in the solo and quartet program. In addition to her studies with Peter Wiley and Sophie Shao, Ms. Cao has studied and worked with many of the finest musicians including Laurie Smukler, Ida Kavafian, Paul Katz, Ronald Leonard, Andres Diaz, Raphael Wallfisch and Shauna Rolston. In the spring of 2011 In addition to her degree in music Ms. Cao will receive a degree in Asian Studies and Economics.
Violinist Luosha Fang, born in Shanghai, China, began violin lessons at the age of five with her father, a member of the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra and at the age of eight, performed the Mozart Violin Concerto No. 3 with a youth orchestra in Shanghai. She later studied with Qing Zheng at the elementary and middle schools attached to the Shanghai Conservatory of Music.
Ms. Fang came to the United States in the fall of 2005 to attend the Bard College Conservatory of Music, where she studies with Ida Kavafian and Arnold Steinhardt and is recipient of the Distinguished Scholarship in Classical Violin. In December 2005, she was selected to participate in the New York String Orchestra Seminar directed by Jaime Laredo, performing in Carnegie Hall. In May 2006, she was the winner of The Bard Conservatory Concerto Competition and performed as guest artist with the Bard Conservatory Chamber Orchestra, conducted by Leon Botstein. She has performed with Bard faculty members Marc Goldberg, Melvin Chen and Robert Martin at concerts at the Library of Congress, the Rhinebeck Chamber Music Society, the Chamber Music Society of Reading, Pennsylvania, and the Bard Music Festival. Most recently, she performed the Prokofiev Duo Sonata with Ida Kavafian at the October 2008 Bard Music Festival. Fang has had master classes with Pamela Frank, Ani Kavafian, Eugene Drucker, Zakhar Bron, and Qian Zhou. She has been coached by Peter Wiley, Laurie Smukler, Ira Weller, Steve Tenenbom, Weigang Li, Joan Tower, Joel Krosnick, Roman Totenberg and members of the Juilliard quartet. In the summer of 2008 she studied with Anatoly Reznikovsky at the St. Petersburg Conservatory. At Bard Ms. Fang is studying for degrees in both music and Russian Studies.
Yang Li, violin, came to the Bard Conservatory in the Fall of 2007 and is presently working towards degrees in both music and French Studies. Born in 1988 in Harbin China, Ms. Li began to study violin with her mother at the age of five and later attended the elementary and middle schools attached to the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing, as a student of Professor Lu Xu. She has been the recipient of many music and academic prizes – including the Central Conservatory’s prestigious “First Scholarship”, first prize in the Harbin City Junior Violin Competition and, in 2002, her nomination to compete in the 4th International Tchaikovsky Competition for Young Musicians. She has participated in the music festivals at Courchevel, France, and at Kneisel Hall in the U.S. Ms. Yang was concertmaster of the China Youth Symphony Orchestra. And in the summer of 2008 she made her soloist debut with the Harbin Symphony Orchestra at the National Center for the Performing Arts in Beijing. In addition to her violin studies with Laurie Smukler at Bard Ms. Yang has participated in master classes with Eugene Drucker and Hiroko Yajima.
In 2005 Shuangshuang Liu, viola,came to the United States to study at the Bard College Conservatory of Music, where she is a student of Ira Weller, Michael Tree, and Steven Tenenbom. Born in China, Ms. Liu attended the Music Middle School attached to the Shanghai Conservatory of Music. During her years in Shanghai she won 2nd place of the First National Viola Competition, held in Shenyang China and was a member of the 15th Asian Youth Orchestra which toured in China, Japan, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, and the Philippines. A frequent participant in music festivals, she has participated in the New York String Orchestra Seminar directed by Jaime Laredo, the Kneisel Hall Chamber Music Festival and, last summer, the Pacific Music Festival in Japan, where she performed with the Sapporo Symphony Orchestra. Ms. Liu made her American concerto debut when, as winner of the Bard College Conservatory Concerto Competition, she performed with the American Symphony Orchestra, under the direction of conductor Leon Botstein. While at Bard she has performed with faculty members Ida Kavafian, Peter Wiley, Laurie Smukler, Robert Martin, Melvin Chen, Julie Landsman, and others at the Library of Congress, The Chamber Music Society of Reading, Pennsylvania, the Rhinebeck Chamber Music Festival, and the Bard Music Festival. Ms. Liu will be receiving degrees in both music and in Asian Studies, specializing in Japanese language and society.