NY Phil and Juilliard to Host Farewell Recital in Honor of Concertmaster Glenn Dicterow, 1/19

The New York Philharmonic, in collaboration with Juilliard, presents a farewell chamber music recital in honor of Concertmaster Glenn Dicterow, longtime Juilliard faculty member who is retiring from Juilliard and the New York Philharmonic at the end of the current season. The concert on Sunday, January 19, 2014, at 5:00 p.m. in Alice Tully Hall features Mr. Dicterow with his fellow New York Philharmonic musicians and guests, most of whom also have a strong Juilliard connection, and includes specially selected works by John Corigliano, Korngold, and Dvorak that reflect Mr. Dicterow's career in both New York and Los Angeles.

Mr. Dicterow is joined by pianist Gerald Robbins; Philharmonic Associate Principal, Second Violin Group; Lisa Kim - who studied with Mr. Dicterow at Juilliard; violist Karen Dreyfus; and Philharmonic Associate Principal Cello Eileen Moon. The program features the Violin Sonata of Juilliard faculty member, New York-based composer John Corigliano; excerpts from Hollywood film composer Erich Wolfgang Korngold's Much Ado About Nothing Suite; and the String Quartet No. 12, American, by New York-transplant Antoni?n Dvor?a?k. The Korngold work represents Mr. Dicterow's history in Los Angeles, where he grew up and served as associate concertmaster and concertmaster of the Los Angeles Philharmonic before joining the New York Philharmonic, and where he will be headed. In returning to his home state, Mr. Dicterow will teach at the University of Southern California's Thornton School of Music as holder of the newly established Robert Mann Chair in Strings and Chamber Music.

"I had my Hollywood exposure as a young man in the 1970s," Glenn Dicterow said. "I participated in a lot of films with John Williams, Elmer Bernstein, John Barry, and other great composers of the film world. Much Ado About Nothing could be a score for an Errol Flynn movie. There's so much color and imagination in it. It's a gem, but seldom played."

Mr. Corigliano's father, John Corigliano, Sr., served as New York Philharmonic concertmaster from 1943 to 1966, and his piece represents Mr. Dicterow's time in New York.

"Long before I recorded the Corigliano Sonata, I had heard John's father's recording of it with pianist Ralph Votapek. I said, 'My God, this is an amazingly good piece.' I thought it would be a great idea to play it on this recital in homage to John senior," Glenn Dicterow said.

Also representing Mr. Dicterow's New York career, Dvor?a?k's American Quartet will conclude the program. Mr. Dicterow has been a member of the Juilliard faculty, and his wife, violist Karen Dreyfus is a faculty member as well. Lisa Kim and Eileen Moon also studied at Juilliard.

This recital is one of many programs at the New York Philharmonic celebrating Glenn Dicterow's final season, including four of his favorite concertmaster solos and his first-ever Philharmonic performance of Beethoven's Triple Concerto June 24-28, 2014, when he will be joined by Principal Cello Carter Brey and The Mary and James G. Wallach Artist-in-Residence Yefim Bronfman as part of The Beethoven Piano Concertos: A Philharmonic Festival.

FREE tickets to the January 19 concert will be available January 6 at the Janet and Leonard Kramer Box Office at Juilliard. Box Office hours are Monday through Friday from 11 AM - 6 PM. Tickets are available for New York Philharmonic Subscribers, Friends, and Patrons now through January 5. Subscribers and Friends should call Customer Services at (212) 875-5656. Patrons should call the V.I.P. Ticket Office at (212) 875-5690. All requested tickets will be mailed.

The Artists:

Glenn Dicterow made his solo debut at the age of 11 in Tchaikovsky's Violin Concerto with the Los Angeles Philharmonic. His honors include the Young Musicians Foundation Award, Coleman Competition Award, Julia Klumpke Award, and Bronze Medal in the International Tchaikovsky Competition in 1970. Mr. Dicterow frequently appears as soloist with orchestras around the world, and he performed Bernstein's Serenade with the Curtis Symphony Orchestra in Isaac Stern at Eighty: A Birthday Celebration at Carnegie Hall. Mr. Dicterow is featured in the violin solos in Richard Strauss's Ein Heldenleben and Also sprach Zarathustra with Zubin Mehta for CBS Records. He has recorded works by Wieniawski with Zubin Mehta and the Los Angeles Philharmonic; Lee Holdridge's Violin Concerto with the London Symphony Orchestra, conducted by the composer; and Shostakovich's Violin Concerto No. 1 with the New York Philharmonic, conducted by Maxim Shostakovich. His most recent CD is a recital on Cala Records' New York Legends series. Glenn Dicterow is on the faculty of The Juilliard School and Manhattan School of Music, as well as a faculty artist at the Music Academy of the West, following three years of participation in Music Academy Summer Festivals. Beginning in the fall of 2013, he will become the first to hold the Robert Mann Chair in Strings and Chamber Music at the University of Southern California's Thornton School of Music.

Lisa Kim joined the Philharmonic in 1994 and was named Associate Principal, Second Violin Group, In Memory of Laura Mitchell, in 2003. She teaches in South Korea and the United States, and has performed with the Seoul National Philharmonic Orchestra and the SooWon, North Carolina, Winston-Salem, and Durham symphony orchestras. She has performed chamber music with the Philharmonic Ensembles series, Brooklyn's Bargemusic, Hofstra Chamber Ensemble series, and Lyric Chamber Music Society of New York; with Lynn Harrell, Ani Kavafian, Yo-Yo Ma, Garrick Ohlsson, and the late Lukas Foss; in Europe, under the International Music Program; and at Jordan's Jurash Festival at the invitation of King Hussein. Lisa Kim began violin studies at age seven, attended the North Carolina School of the Arts, and earned bachelor's and master's degrees from The Juilliard School. She has won prizes in the Arts Recognition and Talent Search, BRyan Young Artists String Competition, Winston-Salem Young Talent Search, and Durham Symphony Young Artists Competition. She joined the faculty of the Manhattan School of Music in 1999.

Eileen Moon was named Associate Principal Cello (The Mr. and Mrs. Paul B. Guenther Chair) of the New York Philharmonic in September 2007. Prior to joining the Orchestra in 1998, she had performed with the San Francisco Symphony and Los Angeles Philharmonic. A native of California, she began her studies with Irene Sharp at the San Francisco Conservatory, and subsequently received a bachelor of music degree from The Juilliard School and a performance diploma from the Hochschule fu?r Musik in Vienna, Austria. Ms. Moon won fourth prize at the Tchaikovsky International Cello Competition in Moscow in 1994 and second prize at the Geneva International Cello Competition in 1991, resulting in performances in France and a radio recording in Switzerland. Ms. Moon has performed chamber music at numerous venues in and around New York City and appears frequently with the New York Philharmonic Ensembles at Merkin Concert Hall.

Violist Karen Dreyfus has distinguished herself as a recipient of many prizes both in this country and abroad including the Naumburg Viola Competition (1982), the Lionel Tertis Competition (1980), the Washington International Competition (1979), and the Hudson Valley Competition (1978). Ms. Dreyfus has concertized extensively in the United States, Canada, Europe, Asia, and South America. Some of her musical collaborations have been with Musicians from Marlboro, Philomusica, Theater Chamber Players of the Kennedy Center, the New York Philharmonic, and the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra. She has performed in recital with Yehudi Menuhin at Carnegie Hall and has collaborated and has also collaborated with such artists as Rudolf Serkin, Alexander Schneider, Leon Fleisher, Chick Corea, and her husband, Glenn Dicterow. In 2011, Karen Dreyfus joined the faculty of Juilliard where she teaches a sonata class for violists and pianists and other chamber music ensembles. She also serves on the viola faculty of the Manhattan School of Music where she teaches viola, and chamber music, as well as on the Graduate Orchestra Performance Program.

Pianist Gerald Robbins has appeared with numerous major orchestras including the Los Angeles, London, and Royal philharmonic orchestras, as well as the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, BBC Symphony Orchestra and its affiliates, London Mozart Players, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, and Portland Chamber Orchestra, with conductors including Zubin Mehta, Neville Marriner, Edouard van Remoortel, Harry Blech, Okku Kamu, Jorge Mester, Lawrence Foster, Kenneth Klein, Kypros Markou, Yaacov Bergman, and Louis Fremaux. A champion of neglected Romantic repertoire, Mr. Robbins has received acclaim for his solo recordings on the London-Decca, Genesis, Orion, MSR Classics, Bridge, and Black Box labels, among others, and he received praise for his world premiere Genesis recordings of Litolff's and Reinecke's piano concertos, performed with the Monte Carlo Opera Orchestra and conducted by Edouard van Remoortel. Mr. Robbins has also distinguished himself as a chamber musician in collaboration with numerous musicians, and is a co-founder with New York Philharmonic Concertmaster Glenn Dicterow of the Lyric Piano Quartet, with which he records and tours. He is also an accomplished conductor and co-founder, with Kenneth Klein, of the Westside Symphony Orchestra of Los Angeles (now known as the Beverly Hills Symphony), and was also a co-founder of the London Concertante.

The Repertoire:

Erich Wolfgang Korngold (1897-1957) is probably best known as one of Hollywood's most successful and admired film music composers, having written numerous acclaimed scores including Captain Blood, Anthony Adverse, The Prince and the Pauper, and The Adventures of Robin Hood. But much earlier in his career, when he was just 22-years-old, he created the incidental music to Shakespeare's comedy Much Ado About Nothing. He stated: "It was performed at Scho?nbrunn Castle and the Burg Theater in Vienna, later by more than one hundred symphony orchestras in Europe and the United States." In 1919 he adapted the chamber orchestra original as the more intimate Much Ado About Nothing Suite, for violin and piano, and it was performed by such legendary violinists as Fritz Kreisler, Mischa Elman, and Jascha Heifetz.

John Corigliano, Jr. (b. 1938) made a big splash in 1963 when his Sonata for Violin and Piano won the only chamber music prize at the Spoleto (Italy) Festival. He composed it for his father John Corigliano, Sr. (1901-75), concertmaster of the New York Philharmonic for 23 years, who performed the work in 1966 with pianist Ralph Votapek and the Orchestra at The Metropolitan Museum of Art. The four-movement Sonata shows the influences Stravinsky, Copland, and Hindemith had on the then 21- year-old composer. He writes that "for the most part [it is] a tonal work although it incorporates non-tonal and poly-tonal sections within it, as well as other 20th-century harmonic, rhythmic, and constructional techniques. The listener will recognize the work as a product of an American writer, although this is more the result of an American writing music than writing 'American' music - a second-nature, unconscious action on the composer's part." He adds, "Virtuosity is of great importance in adding color and energy to the work," and cites as an example the last movement, Rondo, which "includes a virtuosic polyrhythmic and polytonal perpetual motion."

Antoni?n Dvor?a?k (1841-1904) was director of the National Conservatory of Music in New York City from 1892-95. During his tenure he took a family vacation (with his wife, their six children, sister, maid, and a secretary) to a small town with a predominantly Czech population, Spillville, Iowa. He composed his most well-known chamber music work while there, the String Quartet No. 12, American (1893). The quartet was completed in only 15 days, inspired by the composer's impressions of what he saw as "American" music; among these he included Negro spirituals and the pentatonic scale of American Indians (particularly Plains Indians, whom he heard perform in Spillville). But Dvor?a?k rejected the idea that his music in any way directly borrowed from these sources, calling it "nonsense ... I have only composed in the spirit of such American native melodies." Commentators are split as to how much the quartet really reflects the American spirit; like the New World Symphony, the quartet conveys the spirit of Dvor?a?k's native Bohemia, which was never far from his mind.

A FAREWELL TO CONCERTMASTER GLENN DICTEROW: CHAMBER MUSIC RECITAL

Alice Tully Hall
Sunday, January 19, 2014, 5:00 PM

Glenn Dicterow, violin Gerald Robbins**, piano The Antonin String Quartet

Glenn Dicterow, Lisa Kim†, violins; Karen Dreyfus** J, viola; Eileen Moon†, cello

KORNGOLD
John Corigliano DVOR?A?K

Much Ado About Nothing Suite (excerpts) Violin Sonata
String Quartet No. 12, American

A Farewell to Concertmaster Glenn Dicterow / 5

** Denotes New York Philharmonic guest artist J Denotes a Juilliard faculty member
† Denotes a Juilliard Alumna

FREE tickets will be available January 6 at the Janet and Leonard Kramer Box Office at Juilliard. Box Office hours are Monday through Friday from 11 AM - 6 PM. Please note: During the winter break, the Box Office will be closed from December 23 and will re-open on January 2. Tickets are available for New York Philharmonic Subscribers, Friends, and Patrons now through January 5. Subscribers and Friends should call Customer Services at (212) 875-5656. Patrons should call the V.I.P. Ticket Office at (212) 875-5690. All requested tickets will be mailed.