Pianist Michael Stephen Brown, Violinist Kristin Lee & Percussionist Svet Stoyanov to Perform At Emerald City Music

The internationally lauded American pianist/composer Michael Stephen Brown will be presented by Emerald City Music in two concerts on Friday evening, December 15, 2023 at 8 pm PST, at 415 Westlake (415 Westlake Ave N, Seattle, WA 98109) and on Saturday evening, December 16, 2023, at 7:30 pm PST at Capital High School PAC (2707 Conger Avenue Olympia WA 98502).

Mr. Brown will appear with violinist and artistic director of the Emerald City Music Kristin Lee and percussionist Svet Stoyanov. The program features works by Steve Reich, Maurice Ravel, Vivian Fung, Claude Debussy, and Lou Harrison:

Steve Reich Electric Counterpoint, III. Fast (1987)

Svet Stoyanov, percussion

Maurice Ravel Miroirs (1904-05)

Michael Stephen Brown, piano

~Intermission~

Vivian Fung Birdsong for Violin and Piano

Michael Stephen Brown, piano; Kristin Lee, violin

Claude Debussy Estampes for Solo Piano, L.100 (1903)

Michael Stephen Brown, piano

Lou Harrison Varied Trio for Violin, Piano and Percussion (1987)

Michael Stephen Brown; Kristin Lee, violin; piano; Svet Stoyanov, percussion

General admissions from $30 to $40 and student tickets of $10 are available online on the Emerald City Music's website. For more information, please visit pianist Michael Stephen Brown's website.

Praised for his "fearless performances," by The New York Times and "exceptionally beautiful" compositions by The Washington Post, pianist and composer Michael Stephen Brown has also been called "one of the leading figures in the current renaissance of performer-composers" by the New York Times. A frequent performer of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center series, Mr. Brown, whose artistry is shaped by his creative voice as a pianist and composer, will be featured on the Society 2023-24 season with a solo recital at Alice Tully Hall.

As a guest soloist, Mr. Brown has performed with the Seattle Symphony, The National Philharmonic, and the Grand Rapids, North Carolina, Wichita, New Haven, and Albany Symphonies. He has appeared in recital at Carnegie Hall, the Mostly Mozart Festival, and Lincoln Center. He regularly collaborates performs with his longtime duo partner, cellist Nicholas Canellakis, and has been featured at numerous festivals including Tanglewood, Marlboro, Music@Menlo, Gilmore, Ravinia, Saratoga, Bridgehampton, Caramoor, Music in the Vineyards, Bard, Sedona, Moab, and Tippet Rise.

Mr. Brown recently toured his own Concerto for Piano and Strings (2020) throughout the United States and Poland with several orchestras. He has received commissions from the Gilmore Piano Festival; the NFM Leopoldinum Orchestra; the New Haven and Maryland Symphony Orchestras; Concert Artists Guild; Chamber Music Sedona; Music in the Vineyards; Shriver Hall; Osmo Vänskä, pianists Jerome Lowenthal, Ursula Oppens, Orion Weiss, Adam Golka, and Roman Rabinovich.

A prolific recording artist, his latest album Noctuelles, featuring Ravel's Miroirs and newly discovered movements by Medtner was called "a glowing presentation" by BBC Music Magazine. He can be heard as soloist with the Seattle Symphony and Ludovic Morlot in the music of Messiaen, and as soloist with the Brandenburg State Symphony in music by Samuel Adler. Other albums include Beethoven's Eroica Variations; all-George Perle; and collaborative albums each with pianist Jerome Lowenthal, cellist Nicholas Canellakis, and violinist Elena Urioste. He is now embarking on a multi-year project to record the complete piano music by Felix Mendelssohn including world premiere recordings of music by one of Mendelssohn's muses, Delphine von Schauroth.

Recipient of many awards, Mr. Brown was the winner of the 2018 Emerging Artist Award from Lincoln Center and a 2015 Avery Fisher Career Grant. Other awards include the First Prize winner of the Concert Artists Guild Competition, the Bowers Residency from the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center (formerly CMS Two), and the Juilliard Petschek Award. Mr. Brown is a Steinway Artist.

Mr. Brown earned dual bachelor's and master's degrees in piano and composition from The Juilliard School, where he studied with pianists Jerome Lowenthal and Robert McDonald and composers Samuel Adler and Robert Beaser. Additional mentors have included András Schiff and Richard Goode as well as his early teachers, Herbert Rothgarber and Adam Kent. A native New Yorker, he lives there with his two 19th-century Steinway D's, Octavia and Daria.

A recipient of the 2015 Avery Fisher Career Grant, as well as a top prizewinner of the 2012 Walter W. Naumburg Competition and the Astral Artists' 2010 National Auditions, Kristin Lee is a violinist of remarkable versatility and impeccable technique who enjoys a vibrant career as a soloist, recitalist, chamber musician, and educator. "Her technique is flawless, and she has a sense of melodic shaping that reflects an artistic maturity," writes the St. Louis Post-­Dispatch, and The Strad reports, "She seems entirely comfortable with stylistic diversity, which is one criterion that separates the run-of-the­mill instrumentalists from true artists."

Kristin Lee has appeared as soloist with leading orchestras including The Philadelphia Orchestra, St. Louis Symphony, St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, New Jersey Symphony, Rochester Philharmonic, Milwaukee Symphony, Tacoma Symphony, Hong Kong Philharmonic, Nordic Chamber Orchestra of Sweden, Ural Philharmonic of Russia, Korean Broadcasting Symphony, Guiyang Symphony Orchestra of China, Orquesta Sinfonica Nacional of Dominican Republic, and many others. She has performed on the world's finest concert stages, including Carnegie Hall, Avery Fisher Hall, the Kennedy Center, Philadelphia's Kimmel Center, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Steinway Hall's Salon de Virtuosi, Philadelphia Chamber Music Society, the Ravinia Festival, Philadelphia's World Cafe Live, (Le) Poisson Rouge in New York, the Louvre Museum in Paris, Washington, D.C.'s Phillips Collection, and Korea's Kumho Art Gallery. An accomplished chamber musician, Kristin Lee is a member of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, performing at Lincoln Center in New York and on tour with CMS throughout each season.

Born in Seoul, Lee began studying the violin at the age of five, and within one year won First Prize at the prestigious Korea Times Violin Competition. In 1995, she moved to the United States and continued her musical studies under Sonja Foster. Two years later, she became a student of Catherine Cho and Dorothy DeLay in The Juilliard School's Pre-College Division. In January 2000, she was chosen to study with Itzhak Perlman. Lee holds a Master's degree from The Juilliard School. She is a member of the faculty of the Aaron Copland School of Music at Queens College and the co-founder and artistic director of Emerald City Music in Seattle.

Praised by The New York Times for his "understated but unmistakable virtuosity" along with a "winning combination of gentleness and fluidity," Svet Stoyanov is a driving force in modern percussion.

Winner of the prestigious Concert Artists Guild International Competition, Svet was also presented with the Johns Hopkins University Alumni Award. His career highlights feature solo concerto appearances with the Chicago, Seattle, and the American Symphony Orchestras, as well as solo performances in Lincoln Center, Carnegie Hall, Kennedy Center, and Taiwan National Concert Hall amongst many others worldwide. Some of the conductors he has performed with include Pierre Boulez, Marin Alsop, Cristian Macelaru, Gerard Schwarz, Oliver Knussen, and James Conlon.

Svet Stoyanov has recorded for numerous labels, featuring Telarc, Naxos, and Bridge Records. His albums Percussive Counterpoint, as well as Textures and Threads were broadcast internationally and applauded for their artistic integrity and virtuosic ingenuity.

A passionate advocate for contemporary music, Svet has commissioned a significant body of solo and chamber works. An upcoming highlight commission is a Double Percussion Concerto, written for Mr. Stoyanov by Pulitzer Prize and Grammy-winning composer Jennifer Higdon. The work will be premiered with Co-Soloist Matthew Strauss and the Houston Symphony Orchestra in 2022.

Recent highlight projects feature the commission and performances of Sideman: a percussion concerto written for Svet Stoyanov by Grammy-winning Composer Mason Bates. Sideman was performed in Miami, The Kennedy Center, Kansas City's Kauffman Center and in Baltimore City. It was also recorded by Svet for an upcoming CD release.

Svet Stoyanov is a proud founding member of the groundbreaking project The Percussion Collective. This group features some of the finest percussionists in the world. With The Collective, Svet recently toured China and premiered Christopher Theofanidis' Drum Circles Concerto with the Oregon Symphony Orchestra. Upcoming engagements include concerto performances with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra and Grant Park Orchestra, as well as a tour of Europe in 2022, visiting London, Munich, Vienna, and Amsterdam.

An inspiring project of Svet's features the release of multiple audio/video recordings, under the umbrella of Elemental Culture. This project embraces the cinematographic video capturing of actual musical recording sessions. It strives to deeply immerse the listener, by allowing them to also witness the intimate visual moments of musical creation. Among the featured titles is a special collaboration with European marimba virtuoso Katarzyna Mycka - a duo recording of Passacaglia by Anna Ignatowicz Gli?ska, as well as the percussion quintet Kyoto, by John Psathas - composer of music for the Olympic Games in Athens in 2004.

Alongside his diverse performance career, Svet Stoyanov is the Director and Associate Professor of Percussion Studies at the Frost School of Music, University of Miami, where he has collaboratively built a most unique and innovative modern percussion program. Students of Svet Stoyanov hold positions in major orchestras, and educational institutions, and have won numerous competition prizes worldwide. Svet endorses some of the finest percussion instruments and products today, namely Adams, Remo, Zildjian, Pearl, and ProMark.

Svet Stoyanov has performed in more than one thousand recitals and has presented over two hundred masterclasses worldwide. His artistic mission is committed to the purity, quality, and virtue of music.

 

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