FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE December 9, 2010 CONTACT: Brenda Kean Tabor (202) 533-1886 btabor@wpas.org Hilary Hahn Photo Peter Miller American violinist Hilary Hahn performs at The Music Center at Strathmore on February 27, 2011 Who: Hilary Hahn, violin Valentina Lisitsa, piano When: Sunday, February 27, 2011 at 4 p.m. Where: The Music Center at Strathmore Program: Tartini Variations on a theme by Corelli arr/kreisler Beethoven Sonata No. 5 in F Major, Spring Ives Sonata No. 4 Bach Sonata No. 1 in G minor, BWV 1001 Antheil Violin Sonata No. 1 Tickets, priced $35-$85 are available at www.wpas.org or 202-785-9727 Washington, D.C. Named Gramophone magazine's Artist of the Year in 2008, violinist Hilary Hahn is a two-time Grammy Award-winning soloist celebrated for her probing interpretations, and technical brilliance. Hahn performs works by Tartini, Beethoven, Ives, Bach and Antheil at the Music Center at Strathmore on February 27 in her fifth WPAS performance since her debut on WPAS Kreeger Series in 1997. Said the San Francisco Chronicle of her performance of Elgar s Violin Concerto, Hahn demonstrated yet again why she must be reckoned among the most important of today s violinists, whether old or young. It isn t just her technical prowess, though that is astonishing her bowing is rock-solid, her intonation flawless, and her string tone rich and prepossessing. But what strikes a listener even more forcefully is the confidence and interpretive depth with which her playing embodies the music There was stolidity, there was grace, there was a vein of tenderness tempered by authentic power and all of it shaped with a gentle rhythmic propulsiveness that kept the performance alive. Said the Los Angeles Times, Hahn is one of those rare performers who can dazzle you with the warmth of her personality and knock you dead with the dexterity of her technique and the emotional depth of her interpretations. For a decade and-a half, extensive touring and acclaimed recordings have made Hahn one of the most sought-after artists on the international concert circuit. She appears regularly with the world s elite orchestras and on the most prestigious recital series in Europe, Asia, Australasia, and North and South America. She has also toured the United States,
Russia, Canada, Sweden, Germany, Luxembourg, Spain, Israel, Great Britain, Italy, France, Switzerland, Austria, Scotland, Croatia, China, Japan, and Korea as guest soloist with traveling orchestras, among them the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, BBC Symphony Orchestra, San Francisco Symphony, and the National Symphony Orchestra,. Recent recital tours and solo concert collaborations have taken her throughout the United States, Canada, Brazil, Peru, Uruguay, Argentina, Colombia, France, Italy, Luxembourg, Belgium, Denmark, Switzerland, Vietnam, Cambodia, and Japan. In a special project last season, Hahn joined baritone Matthias Goerne, soprano Christine Schäfer and the Munich Chamber Orchestra for a series of European concerts featuring arias from their album Bach: Violin and Voice, which was released on Deutsche Grammophon in January 2010. In the dozen years since she began recording, Hahn has released 11 feature albums on the Deutsche Grammophon and Sony labels, in addition to three DVDs, and an Oscar-nominated movie soundtrack by James Newton Howard for M. Night Shyamalan s The Village. With a repertoire as diverse as Bach, Stravinsky, Elgar, Beethoven, Vaughan Williams, Mozart, Schoenberg, Paganini, Spohr, Barber, Bernstein, Korngold and others, all her recordings have spent weeks on Billboard's Classical Top Ten list. Hahn s most recent concerto recording, which paired Schoenberg and Sibelius, debuted at No. 1, spent the next 23 weeks on the Billboard classical charts and brought Hahn her second Grammy, the 2009 Award for Best Instrumental Soloist Performance with Orchestra. Her first Grammy win came in 2003 for her Brahms and Stravinsky concerto album. Hahn has also recorded an award-winning disc for children, and various compilations. On DVD, Hahn first appeared in a live recording of Mozart's Concerto No. 4 at the Royal Albert Hall, in the millennial concert of the Last Night of the Proms in London in 2000. Six years later she was the subject of a full-length documentary, Hilary Hahn: A Portrait, which along with interviews and other features, included a complete live performance of the Korngold Violin Concerto. In April 2007, Hahn played Mozart's Violin Concerto No. 3 as soloist at Pope Benedict XVI's 80th birthday celebration at the Vatican--an event subsequently released as a concert DVD by Deutsche Grammophon. While primarily a classical musician, Hahn participates in a number of other projects and collaborations. More recently, she wrote and performed violin tracks for singer/songwriter Tom Brosseau's record Grand Forks. Hahn works frequently with folk-based singer/songwriter Josh Ritter with whom she has toured Canada, the United States, and Japan. Hahn is also active on the contemporary classical music scene. In 1999, she premiered and recorded the violin concerto written for her by the American bassist and composer Edgar Meyer, and in 2009 she did the same with 2
Jennifer Higdon's violin concerto, also written for her. A recording of the Higdon concerto was released on Deutsche Grammophon in September 2010 alongside the Tchaikovsky concerto. Hahn has received numerous international distinctions including multiple Diapason d'or and Preis der deutschen Schallplattenkritik (German Record Critics' Award) prizes, the 2008 Classical FM / Gramophone Artist of the Year, the Cannes Classical Award, and the ECHO Klassik Artist of the Year and other ECHO awards. She has appeared on the covers of all major classical music publications and has been featured in mainstream periodicals such as Vogue, Elle, Town and Country, and Marie Claire. In 2001, Hahn was named "America's Best Young Classical Musician" by Time Magazine. And in January 2010 she appeared as guest artiston The Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien. Hilary Hahn was born in Lexington, Virginia, in 1979. She moved to Baltimore at the age of three and began playing the violin one month before her fourth birthday in the Suzuki program of the Peabody Conservatory. From the age of five Hahn studied in Baltimore with Klara Berkovich, a native of Odessa who taught for 25 years at the Leningrad School for the Musically Gifted. From ten to 17, Hahn studied at The Curtis Institute of Music with the legendary Jascha Brodsky the last surviving student of the great Belgian violinist Eugene Ysaye working closely with him until his death at age 89. Hahn completed her university degree requirements at 16, but deferred graduation and remained at Curtis for several more years, taking additional elective courses in languages, literature, writing, and drama; studying chamber music with Felix Galimir and pianist Gary Graffman; and coaching regularly, after Mr. Brodsky's death, with violinist Jaime Laredo. She graduated from The Curtis Institute at age 19 with a Bachelor of Music degree. Hahn's major orchestral debut came with the Baltimore Symphony in 1991, the year after she entered Curtis. Her international debut followed at age 14 in Hungary, playing Bernstein with Ivan Fischer and the Budapest Festival Orchestra. She made her German debut at age 15, playing the Beethoven concerto with Lorin Maazel and the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra in a concert broadcast on radio and television throughout Europe. Two months later, she received the Avery Fisher Career Grant in New York. During her teens she attended the Marlboro Music Festival in Vermont, and in 1996 made her Carnegie Hall debut as soloist with the Philadelphia Orchestra. An entertaining and enthusiastic writer, Hahn posts journal entries and information for young musicians on her website (www.hilaryhahn.com). In video, she produces a YouTube channel (www.youtube.com/hilaryhahnvideos) and serves as guest interviewer for Sequenza21, the contemporary classical music blog. Elsewhere, her violin case comments on life as a traveling companion, on Twitter (www.twitter.com/violincase). 3
Valentina Lisitsa Ukranian-born pianist Valentina Lisitsa received high praise from the New York Times in what they described as her "equal partnership" with Hahn at their Free for All at Town Hall recital in New York in June, 2009. Described by critics as performing like a "bona fide angel, and as an "electrifying pianist", Lisitsa has consistently received positive reviews since her debut at New York's Mostly Mozart Festival. She made her recital debut in Vienna's Musikverein Golden Hall in 2008, receiving multiple standing ovations from Viennese listeners (known to be among the toughest to please). Lisitsa s repertoire ranges from Bach and Mozart to Shostakovich and Bernstein, but she has a special affinity for the music of Rachmaninoff and Beethoven. Her orchestral repertory alone includes more than 40 different concerti including all of Rachmaninoff s concerti. Born in Kiev, Lisitsa began playing the piano at the age of three and performed her first solo recital at age four. After studying at the Lysenko School of Music and then the Kiev Conservatory, Lisitsa, moved to the United States, eventually becoming a U.S. citizen. She has performed in the world's most prestigious concert venues and has toured with the Sao Paolo Symphony, the New Zealand and Warsaw Philharmonics and the Prague Chamber Orchestra. An avid chamber musician, Lisitsa has performed with Lynn Harrell, Jimmy Lin, Roberto Diaz and Ida Haendel among others and collaborates and tours frequently with Hilary Hahn. Lisitsa has recorded eight CDs on the Audiofon label and three independently released DVDs including a best-selling set of Chopin's 24 Etudes which held the coveted No. 1 spot on Amazon music video list. Lisitsa's preferred piano is the flagship Imperial model Bosendorfer. She lives in rural North Carolina with her husband and duo partner, pianist Alexei Kuznetsoff, her son, four concert grand pianos and two cats. She enjoys organic gardening, restoring her old historic mansion and cooking Italian food. High-resolution, downloadable images are available from the press room at www.wpas.org This performance is made possible through the generous support of Pepe Figueroa and the Dallas Morse Coors Foundation. Funded in part by the D.C. Commission on the Arts & Humanities, an agency supported in part by the National Endowment for the Arts. WPAS is committed to making every event accessible for persons with disabilities. Please call the WPAS Ticket Services Office for more information on accessibility to the various theaters in which our performances are held. Services offered vary from venue to venue and may require advance notice. Washington Performing Arts Society has created profound opportunities for connecting the community to artists, in both education and performance. Through live events in venues that criss-cross the landscape of the D.C. metropolitan area, the careers of emerging artists are guided, and established artists who have bonded with the local audience are invited to return. In this way, the space between artists and audiences is eliminated, so that all may share life-long 4
opportunities to deepen their cultural knowledge, enrich their lives, and expand their understanding and compassion of the world through the universal language of the arts. 5