Pianist Han Chen To be Featured on Clarinetist Eric Schultz's Recording POLYGLOT

Clarinetist Eric Schultz's newest recording POLYGLOT will feature pianist Han Chen and cellist Clare Monfredo. The album, which will be released October 4, 2024 on Navona Records, celebrates music as a language of cultural identity and the self. It will feature works by composers from various backgrounds and generations: Iván Enrique Rodríguez, Johanny Navarro, Chia-Yu Hsu, Gabriel Bouche Caro, and ends with the Brahms Trio in A minor, Op.114.

The full program follows:

Iván Enrique Rodríguez, Sonata Santera: 1. Despojo - Cleanse

Iván Enrique Rodríguez, Sonata Santera: II. Ofrenda - Offering

Iván Enrique Rodríguez, Sonata Santera: III. Bembe - Summoning of the Orichas

Iván Enrique Rodríguez, Criptico no. 9: DAVЯTHAN

Johanny Navarro, Danzón

Chia-Yu Hsu, Summer Night in a Deep Valley

Gabriel Bouche Caro, Escenas

Johannes Brahms, Trio in A minor, Op. 114

This recording will be available on all major streaming platforms including Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon Music, YouTube, among others. For further information, please visit the recording website and pianist Han Chen's website.

Pianist Han Chen has emerged among the new generation of concert pianists as a uniquely fearless performer in a wide variety of musical settings. Gold Medalist at the 2013 China International Piano Competition and a prizewinner at the 2018 Honens International Piano Competition, he has been praised by Gramophone as "impressively commanding and authoritative" and further cited by The New York Times for his "graceful touch," "rhythmic precision" and "hypnotic charm." Chen's virtuosity is enriched by a probing commitment to new and lesser-known works as well as the great cornerstones of the piano repertory. This vision is clearly evident in his four solo Naxos CDs focusing on Franz Liszt, Anton Rubinstein, Thomas Adès, and more recently, György Ligeti's Complete Piano Études.

As soloist with orchestra, Mr. Chen's appearances include the Calgary Philharmonic, Fort Worth Symphony, Lexington Philharmonic, Hong Kong Philharmonic, National Taiwan Symphony, China Symphony and Xiamen Philharmonic. He made his Lincoln Center debut with Riverside Symphony at Alice Tully Hall in December 2022 performing Mozart's early masterwork, the Piano Concerto No. 9 le Jeunehomme. Chen has performed as solo recitalist throughout Europe, North America, and China. In frequent demand as a chamber musician, Chen is a core member of Ensemble Échappé while regularly collaborating with The Metropolis Ensemble and other adventurous groups in performances in America and abroad. In 2021, Chen launched Migration Music, an ongoing series of interviews and performances featuring immigrant composers.

Mr. Chen has studied with Yoheved Kaplinsky, Wha Kyung Byun, and Ursula Oppens at The Juilliard School, New England Conservatory, and CUNY Graduate Center. He is represented by Black Tea Music.

Eric Schultz is an American clarinetist equally in demand as a soloist, chamber musician, and interpreter of new music. He maintains an active concerto schedule performing with orchestras across the world and can be seen and heard from Netflix to National Public Radio. Hailed a "mastermind" in the Myrtle Beach Herald and a "pathfinder" by iconic composer Valerie Coleman, Mr. Schultz was selected as a quarterfinalist for the 2025 GRAMMY Music Educator of the Year Award.

An uncompromising advocate for the music of our time whose unique voice on the clarinet has inspired many of today's finest composers, Mr. Schultz is known for his liquid, soulful tone quality and singular abilities on the instrument, including an unrivaled five-octave range, limitless facility of technique, and improvisations that span many dialects. Dubbed a "superstar muse" by celebrated composer Amanda Harberg, Schultz has commissioned and/or premiered the music of Valerie Coleman, Leila Adu-Gilmore, Jonathan Bailey Holland, David Sanford, Mary Watkins, Liliya Ugay, Chiayu Hsu, Tony Solitro, Johanny Navarro, Armando Bayolo, Carlos Carrillo, Iván Enrique Rodríguez, and many more. Pulitzer-prize winning composer John Corigliano declared Schultz's performance of his iconic clarinet concerto in New York City "a sensation," while critic Jeffrey Williams praised his "super-virtuosity" and described the performance as "an adrenaline rush, bursting with drama and relentless momentum" (NYC Review).

Mr. Schultz currently serves as Assistant Professor of Music at Coastal Carolina University, where he is coordinator of the woodwind area and director of the Center for Inclusive Excellence. As a founding faculty of the center, he coined the phrase and created The [Represent]atoire Project, a play on the words repertoire and representation. The project advocates for including a diversity of composers in collegiate music curricula by intensely focusing on living American composers. Schultz completed his Doctor of Musical Arts degree in clarinet performance at Stony Brook University. As a Buffet Crampon performing artist, he performs exclusively on Buffet Crampon clarinets.

Clare Monfredo

is a cellist originally from Seal Harbor ME, currently living in Brooklyn NY where she is pursuing a Doctorate of Musical Arts at the CUNY Graduate Center and is the recipient of the Graduate Center Fellowship. Ms. Monfredo has performed as a soloist, chamber musician, and orchestral leader all over the world, collaborating with a diverse array of notable artists, from Patricia Kopatchinskaja to Jon Batiste, to groups such as Ensemble Intercontemporain and the International Contemporary Ensemble.

Ms. Monfredo holds a Bachelor of Arts in English from Yale University where she graduated with distinction and was a multiple-time winner of the Yale Friends of Music competition. She holds a Masters of music degree from the Shepherd School at Rice University as a recipient of the Graduate Arts Award from the Jack Kent Cooke Foundation where she studied with Norman Fischer, and studied with cellist Peter Bruns at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater in Leipzig, Germany on a Fulbright Scholarship. Ms. Monfredo's other significant mentors include David Gebor, Julia Lichten, and Natasha Brofsky. Monfredo has appeared at Chamber Music Northwest, Norfolk Chamber Music Festival, Piatigorsky International Cello Festival, Tanglewood Music Center, Lucerne Festival, Aldeburgh Festival, Cello Akademie Rutesheim, Kurt Weill Fest, and Music Academy of the West. She was awarded the Karl Zeise Memorial Prize by the Tanglewood Music Center, the Gebor Rejto Prize from Music Academy of the West, and the Chamber Music Prize from the Fontainebleau Conservatoire Américain.

Ms. Monfredo teaches cello at Hunter College and is a member of the Sonora chamber music collective, the Sprechgesang Institute multi-disciplinary artist collective, and the Victory Players, a western Massachusetts-based Pierrot ensemble focused on commissioning new works.

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