Yale in NY Presents The Complete Prokofiev Piano Sonatas 12/11

On Sunday, December 11, 2011, at 5:30pm and 7:30pm, the Yale School of Music continues its 2011-12 YALE IN NEW YORK concert series with the COMPLETE PROKOFIEV PIANO SONATAS performed in one evening in the intimate surroundings of Carnegie Hall's Weill Recital Hall. This marathon will be the culmination of two undertakings: not only Boris Berman's bilingual (English-Chinese) editorial project that corrects numerous errors that have crept in through the legacy of recordings, but of a department-wide, highly competitive contest among the piano students.

Nine winners have been selected to perform Prokofiev's sonatas over two separate programs. Composed between 1910 and 1951, the cherished works are considered an indispensable part of the repertoire of every serious concert pianist. The performers selected include students of Yale School of Music Professors of Piano Peter Frankl, Wei-Yi Yang, and Boris Berman. The first recital (5:30pm) will include sonatas No. 1, 2, 4, 5 (second version), and 9. The second recital (8:30pm) will finish with sonata No. 3, and the three "War Sonatas" No. 6, 7, and 8.

Berman's new performance edition, published by Shanghai Music Publishing House, contains various recommendations for performers, and after comparing the text of the sonatas with manuscripts and first editions, can be considered the most reliable edition of Prokofiev's sonatas currently available. Berman is chairman of the Yale School of Music piano department and one of the world's most significant Prokofiev specialists. He is the founder of the Prokofiev Society of America, the first pianist to record all of the composer's solo works (Chandos), and the author of Prokofiev's Piano Sonatas: A Guide for the Listener and the Performer (Yale University Press).

Tickets at $10 per recital can be purchased at the Carnegie Hall box office (57th Street and 7th Ave.),
by calling CarnegieCharge at 212/247-7800, or at www.carnegiehall.org.
Student and senior discounts are available.

YALE IN NEW YORK
Yale in New York is the acclaimed series in which distinguished faculty members-many of them famous soloists-share the limelight with exceptional alumni and students on Carnegie Hall's stages, capturing the intense collaboration found on every level at the Yale School of Music. The 2011-12 season features two vocal masterpieces by Britten and Walton, the complete Prokofiev Piano Sonatas, a concert led by the great early music specialist William Christie, and an extraordinary finale of music for low instruments from Schütz, Mozart, Penderecki and Gubaidulina. The 2010-11 season featured Sleeping Giant, Yale guitarists, the Yale Percussion Group, rarely-performed 20th-century concerti grossi, and Robert Mealy's Yale Baroque Ensemble playing experimental 17th-century music. The series is curated by David Shifrin.

"Consistently engaging." The New York Times

"The playing had the kind of precision that can come only from painstaking, arduous rehearsal, yet it remained constantly fresh and surprising, with the spontaneity of improvisation. It was chamber music at its best." Chamber Music Magazine

"Some of the most satisfying music-making I've heard in the past half-century." Oberon's Grove

"Who can resist it? An evening of repertoire you've always wanted to hear but nobody offers? Well, just ask the Yale School of Music, which has been making its Yale in New York season appearances with just that strategy, and its appeal is-despite the city's ferocious competition-truly irresistible." Don't Miss It blog

"The annual Yale in New York series is an adventure in unusual programming, and a celebration of the vast musical resources of the Yale School of Music." David Shifrin, Artistic Director, Yale in New York

DECEMBER 11, 2011 PROGRAM

5:30pm recital:

No. 1 in F minor, Op. 1,
Naomi Woo '12 BA/MM

No. 2 in D minor, Op. 14
Euntaek Kim '13AD

No. 5 in C major (second version)
David Fung '12MMA

No. 9 in C major, Op. 103
Esther Park '12AD

No. 4 in C minor, Op. 29
Scott MacIsaac '14CERT

8:30pm recital (The War Sonatas):

No. 8 in B-flat major, Op. 84
Lee Dionne '13MM

No. 7 in B-flat major, Op. 83
Larry Weng '12AD

No. 3 in A minor, "From Old Notebooks," Op. 28
Melody Quah '13AD

No. 6 in A major, Op. 82
Henry Kramer '13AD

LISTEN:
Boris Berman discussing studying piano at Yale
Prokofiev Sonata No. 6, 1st Movement
Prokofiev Sonata No. 7, 3rd Movement

BORIS BERMAN
Well known to the audiences of more than forty countries on six continents, Professor Berman regularly appears with leading orchestras, on major recital series, and in important festivals. He studied at the Moscow Tchaikovsky Conservatory with the distinguished pianist Lev Oborin.

An active recording artist and a Grammy nominee, Mr. Berman was the first pianist to record the complete solo works of Prokofiev (Chandos). Other acclaimed releases include all piano sonatas by Alexander Scriabin (Music and Arts) and a recital of Shostakovich piano works (Ottavo), which received the Edison Classic Award in Holland, the Dutch equivalent of the Grammy. The recording of three Prokofiev concertos with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Neeme Jarvi conducting (Chandos), was named the Compact Disc of the Month by CD Review. Other recordings include works by Mozart, Beethoven, Franck, Weber, Debussy, Stravinsky, Schnittke, Shostakovich, Joplin, and Cage.

In 1984 Mr. Berman joined the faculty of the Yale School of Music, where he chairs the piano department and serves as music director of the Horowitz Piano Series. He was the founding director of the Yale Summer Piano Institute and of the International Summer Piano Institute in Hong Kong. He also gives master classes throughout the world, and in 2005 he was given the title of honorary professor of Shanghai Conservatory of Music.

In 2000 Yale University Press published Mr. Berman's Notes from the Pianist's Bench, which has been translated into several languages. His next book, Prokofiev's Piano Sonatas, was published by Yale University Press in 2008.

ADDITIONAL LINKS
Carnegie Hall: www.carnegiehall.org
David Shifrin: http://music.yale.edu/faculty/shifrin.html
Sergei Prokofiev: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sergei_Prokofiev
Yale School of Music: http://music.yale.edu

UPCOMING 2011-12 "YALE IN NY" PERFORMANCES

SUNDAY, SUNDAY, DECEMBER 4, 7:30PM • ZANKEL HALL AT Carnegie Hall
"VOCAL BRITAIN: BRITTEN'S SERENADE & WALTON'S THE BEAR"
Dramatic and poetic music from Benjamin Britten and William Walton:
Two pieces, contrasting in manner but equal in richness.
Yale faculty members James Taylor, tenor, and William Purvis, horn, will be joined by graduate quartet-in-residence Linden String Quartet for Britten's Serenade, a beautiful, haunting exploration of both the mysteries of night and the expressive capabilities of the noble French horn. In the second half, Walton scholar and New Haven Symphony Orchestra music director William Boughton will conduct Walton's one-act extravaganza The Bear, a farcical opera based on a story by Chekhov. The performance will feature singers of Yale Opera, both students and recent alumni, under the artistic direction of Doris Yarick Cross, as well as members of the Philharmonia Orchestra of Yale. This performance coincides with a 4-year "Walton Project" co-hosted by the New Haven Symphony and Yale's Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, whose collection includes 98% of Walton's original manuscripts.

FEBRUARY 26, 7:30PM • ZANKEL HALL
"WILLIAM CHRISTIE"
William Christie earned his MM degree from the Yale School of Music in 1969. Now the Baroque specialist and founder of Les Arts Florissants returns to conduct students of his alma mater, members of the Philharmonia Orchestra of Yale.
William Christie returns to his alma mater to conduct members of the Yale Philharmonia and other forces. The Philharmonia was last heard at Carnegie Hall on the Yale in New York series when the great Krzysztof Penderecki led them in a concert of his own music, and before that when Reinbert de Leeuw guest conducted them in a brilliant performance of Messiaen's Turangalîla-Symphonie. The New York Times raved, "The performance was sensational: well prepared, solidly and precisely executed, and rippling with high-energy percussion and brass playing and a fluid interplay of polished strings as well as winds."

SUNDAY, APRIL 1, 7:30PM • ZANKEL HALL
"DE PROFUNDIS: THE DEEP END"
The rich sounds of the bass clef; music in the underground hall that will offer a challenge to the rumbles of the subway.
Usually found supporting melody and solo lines in the violins, trumpets and high woodwinds, the cello, bassoon, tuba, and even some exotic instruments now have their day on center stage. Composers through the centuries have relished the expressive sounds of these instruments, and an all-star ensemble of Yale faculty, alumni and students will share the honors: Frank Morelli, bassoon; Ole Akahoshi, Arnold Choi (2011 MM), Ying Zhang (2011 MM) and Mihai Marica (2008 AD), cellos; students from Don Palma's double bass studio, Scott Hartmann's trombone studio, and Mike Roylance's tuba studio; the conductor Ransom Wilson, as well as special guests. The pieces include a Schütz work for four sackbuts and bass voice (rarely performed in the original instrumentation), Mozart's duo for bassoon and cello, the idiomatic Penderecki Capriccio for solo tuba, and Gubaidulina's five-movement Bassoon Concerto (Gubaidulina was awarded an honorary Doctor of Music degree from Yale University in 2009).