Naumburg Cellist Lev Sivkov Joined By Pianist Nikita Mndoyants To Perform In Weill Recital Hall

The Walter W. Naumburg Foundation presents Cellist LEV SIVKOV, winner of the 2015 Naumburg cello competition, on Tuesday, April 23, 2019, at 7:30pm in Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall. Sivkov, a native of Russia currently lives in Switzerland where he is principal cellist of the Zurich Opera Orchestra. Sivkov will be joined by fellow Russian, pianist/composer Nikita Mndoyants, who in 2016 was named winner of the Cleveland International Piano Competition. A program highlight includes the world premiere of a Naumburg commission, Alter Ego, by the award-winning composer

Yu-Hui Chang, a professor of composition at Brandeis Univeristy, writes about her work, "Alter Ego, written for solo cello is an explanation of the intricate relationship between a soloist and his/her instrument. On stage, they are intimate partners working toward a common goal: to deliver the best performance possible with no aids of others. The soloist wholeheartedly depends on the instrument, and the instrument repays the trust as an extension of the soloist's musicality and personality. Off stage, the relationship may be more complicated, especially during the struggle to overcome a difficult passage or to find an ideal way to interpret the piece. It is with these thoughts that I wrote Alter Ego. Intimacy and joy (Movement 1), and disciplined exertion (Movement II) make up the inspiration for this piece." The work is dedicated to Lev Sivkov.

The program also includes the New York premiere of Nikita Mndoyants' Amberd for cello and piano.

Nikita Mndoyants says, "Amberd for cello and piano was composed in 2011. The piece was written under the impression of the ancient fortress in Armenia called "Amberd." This fortress is situated on a mountain surrounded by severe nature. Fortress has a very dramatic history that goes to the time of the Tamerlane (Timur's) invasion."

Program:

Aram Khachaturian: Sonata-Fantasy in C for solo cello

Franz Schubert: Sonata in A minor Arpeggione

Nikita Mndoyants: Amberd, New York premiere

Yu-Hui Chang: Alter Ego for solo cello (2019), World premiere

Naumburg Commission

Benjamin Britten: Sonata in C for cello and piano, Op. 65

Lev Sivkov was named winner of the 2015 Naumburg Cello Competition on October 18, 2015. That year's competition included an international pool of 54 cellists. He performed his New York debut concert on November 10, 2016, also in Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall.

Tickets: $20; $10 for students and seniors are on sale at the Carnegie Hall Box Office or by calling

CenterCharge at 212 247 7800.

About the Artists

Lev Sivkov, winner of the 2015 Naumburg Cello Competition was born in 1990 in Novosibirsk, Russia where he started studying cello at age five. Since July 2017 he has served as principal cellist of the Zurich Opera in Switzerland. Prior to that he was principal cellist of the Royal Danish Opera in Copenhagen, Denmark. On the occasion of his US debut in San Francisco, Joshua Kosman writing for the San Francisco Gate (January 2016) said, "the robust young Russian cellist who made an impressive debut." He said about Lev's playing of Khachaturian's Sonata-Fantasy in C, "This 15-minute showpiece amounts to a freewheeling catalog of everything a successful cellist needs to be able to do - from rapid-fire passagework to broad, soulful oratory - and Sivkov dug into the music like a dog attacking a T-bone."

From 2005-2009 he was a student at the Music-Academy in Basle, Switzerland where he studied with Monighetti. He later attended the Music-Academy in Stuttgart, Germany with C. Brotbek and in Freiburg with Jean-Guihen Queyras. He has participated in master classes with Janos Starker at Indiana University, W.E. Schmidt at Germany's Kronberg Music Festival, and with Ferenc Rados in the Prussia Cove Music Seminars in England. Among other first prize awards are the Julio Cardona String Performers International Competition (Covilha, Portugal); the Dominick Cello Prize at the International Competition (Stuttgart, Germany), and the Gavrilin International Music Competition (Vologda, Germany). In addition, he was awarded the Prize of the Jury at the International Lutoslawski Cello Competition (Warsaw, Poland). Lev plays on an Italian cello made by Vincenzo Postiglione, 1893, Naples.

Nikita Mndoyants, Pianist and Composer, was born in Russia and hails from a family of professional musicians. In 2016, he was named winner of the Cleveland International Piano Competition making his Carnegie Hall debut in 2017. Other prizes he was a winner of include the 2007 Paderewski International Piano Competition and a finalist in the 2013 Van Cliburn Piano Competition. As a composer he received first prize at Moscow's 2014 Myaskovsky International Competition, and the 2016 Prokofiev International Competition of Composers in Sochi, Russia.

Recent performances have included with the Saint Petersburg Philharmonic Orchestra under the baton of Charles Dutoit as well as a debut recital in the Great Hall of the Moscow Conservatory. He has also performed concerts in Salle Cortot and Auditorium du Louvre, Paris; and the Bozar Centre for Fine Arts, Brussels; Elbphilharmonie, Hamburg; the Luxembourg Philharmonie; and guest artist with the Gangnam Symphony Orchestra at Lotte Concert Hall, Seoul, South Korea.

He has recorded for Classical Records, Melodiya and the Praga labels. His recording of Beethoven, Prokofiev and Schumann was released on the Steinway & Sons label in June 2017.

Nikita Mndoyants received his undergraduate and graduate degrees from the Moscow Tchaikovsky State University where he studied piano and composition. Since 2013, he has taught orchestration at the Moscow Tchaikovsky State Conservatory.

Award-winning composer Yu-Hui Chang (b. 1970) is an Associate Professor of Composition at Brandeis University where she received her Ph. D. Ms. Chang has written a wide range of music that compels and resonates with professional musicians and audiences alike. Her music has been performed throughout the world in the Netherlands, United Kingdom Denmark, New Zealand, Australia, China, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and the United States. Among commissions that she has received are those from the Naumburg, Fromm, Barlow, Koussevitzky foundations; Meet the Composer (New Music USA), BMOP, San Francisco Chamber Orchestra, Taipei Symphony Orchestra, Left Coast Chamber Ensemble, Earplay, Volti, Boston Musica Viva, Triple Helix, Monadnock Music Festival, Arts Council Korea, Mondavi Center for the Performing Arts, and National Chiang Kai-Shek Cultural Center of Taiwan. She is the recipient of the Guggenheim Fellowship, Radcliffe Institute Fellowship, Yoshiro Irino Memorial Prize, and Aaron Copland Award. She is also the recipient of the 2017 Arts and Letters Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters as well as a 2009 Charles Ives Fellowship.

In 2011 and 2017, Yu-Hui Chang was invited by Mario Davidovsky to be the Guest Composer at the Composers Conference at Wellesley College. She was the inaugural guest composer in the Composers New Project at the Kneisel Hall Chamber Music Festival, and was featured twice in the Maurice Abravanel Visiting Distinguished Composer series at the University of Idaho. In 2006, Works and Process at New York's Guggenheim Museum presented three of her works, highlighting Yu-Hui as a new talent of the younger generation. Her music has been released on the Innova , Ravello, Azica, Centaur, MSR and Albany labels.

She earned her Master of Music degree at Boston University and her B.F.A. at the National Taiwan Normal University.

The Walter W. Naumburg Foundation was founded in 1926 by Walter W. Naumburg and continues today in the pursuit of ideals set out by Mr. Naumburg to assist gifted young musicians in America. The Naumburg Foundation has made possible a long-standing program of competitions and awards in solo and chamber music performance. It was Mr. Naumburg's belief that such competitions were not only to benefit new stars, but would also be for those talented young musicians who would become prime movers in the development of the highest standards of musical excellence throughout the U.S.

Among cellists who have been a recipient of the Naumburg Cello Award include Colin Carr, Thomas Demenga, Ronald Leonard, Lorne Monroe, Clancy Newman, Hai-Yi Ni, David Requiro and Nathaniel Rosen.