March 2/3, 2013 – Kuchar/Levin/Chuang/UNR Choir
Saturday, March 2, 2013, 8:00 p.m.
Sunday, March 3, 2013, 2:00 p.m.
Theodore Kuchar, Music Director and Conductor
Robert Levin, piano
Ya-Fei Chuang, piano
UNR Chamber Singers (Dr. Paul Torkelson, director)
Vivaldi: Gloria
Mozart: Piano Concerto No. 19 in F major, K. 459 (Levin)
Mendelssohn: Piano Concerto No. 1 in G minor, Op. 25 (Chuang)
Beethoven: Choral Fantasy in C minor, Op. 80 (Levin)
This one-of-a-kind concert features not just one, but two brilliant guest pianists, as well as the UNR Chamber Singers. Nevada Chamber Music Festival favorites Robert Levin and Ya-Fei Chuang return to Reno to perform one concerto each with Maestro Kuchar and the Orchestra. Then Mr. Levin performs Beethoven’s unique Fantasy for piano, chorus and orchestra with the Orchestra and the UNR Chamber Singers. Opening the performance is Vivaldi’s stirring Gloria.
Robert Levin
Robert Levin is renowned throughout the world as a pianist and has recorded for the world’s major labels, including complete cycles of the concertos of Mozart, Beethoven, and Bach, as well as Bach’s six English Suites and both books of the Well-Tempered Clavier, and several CDs of contemporary music. Levin’s active career as a chamber musician includes long associations with violist Kim Kashkashian and frequent collaborations with his wife, Ya-Fei Chuang. In addition to his performing activities, Levin is a noted theorist and Mozart scholar. He serves as president of the International Johann Sebastian Bach Competition (Leipzig, Germany), a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and Dwight P. Robinson, Jr. Professor of the Humanities at Harvard University. Read more.
Ya-Fei Chuang
Ya-Fei Chuang has appeared at numerous international festivals, among them the Beethoven Festival in Warsaw, the Taipei International Music Festival, the European Music Festival (Stuttgart), the Bach Festival (Leipzig) Schleswig-Holstein, Ravinia, Sarasota, Gilmore, Tanglewood, the Oregon Bach Festival, and the Nevada Chamber Music Festival. Ms. Chuang has performed as duo partner with James Buswell, Steven Isserlis, Kim Kashkashian, and Robert Levin. The Ruhr Piano Festival has released two CDs of her performances there, and she has recorded solo, concerto and chamber music works for Naxos, Harmonia Mundi, ECM, and New York Philomusica Records. Ya-Fei Chuang is on the faculty of the Boston Conservatory and gives master classes throughout the U.S., Europe and Asia. Read more.
Theodore Kuchar
Theodore Kuchar, one of the most prolifically recorded conductors of the past decade, appears on over 100 compact discs for the Naxos, Brilliant Classics, Ondine and Marco Polo labels. For the past 17 years, he has served as Artistic Director and Principal Conductor of two of Europe’s preeminent orchestras, the Janacek Philharmonic Orchestra and the National Symphony Orchestra of Ukraine. He presently also serves as Artistic Director and Principal Conductor of the Orquesta Sinfonica de Venezuela and the Fresno Philharmonic. An avid chamber musician, he served as the Artistic Director of The Australian Festival of Chamber Music (1990-2006), and has served as the Artistic Director of the Nevada Chamber Music Festival since 2005. Since 2004, he has served as Resident Conductor at the Kent/Blossom Music Festival, the educational institution established by the late George Szell, in cooperation with The Cleveland Orchestra. Read More.
Robert Levin performing the third movement of Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 23 with the Cluj-Napoca Philharmonic, Romania conducted by Nicolae Moldoveanu.