THE MUSICIANS CLUB OF NEW YORK
Presents
Friday, October 18th, 2013 at 8:00 PM
Liederkranz Concert Hall
6 East 87th Street
New York City
PROGRAM
Schubert-Liszt
Gute Nacht (Good Night)
Der Muller und der Bach (The Miller and the Brook)
Wohin? (Where to?)
Du bist die Ruh (You are in peace)
Lob der Thranen (In praise of tears)
Aufenthalt (Dwelling)
Granados
From "Goyescas": No. 5 - El amor y la muerte (Love and Death)
BRIEF INTERMISSION
Prokofiev
Romeo and Juliet Before Parting, Op. 75, No.10
Wagner-Liszt
From "Tristan und Isolde": Isoldens Liebestod (Isolda's Love-Death)
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Program Notes by Yoonie Han:
Among the most interesting of Liszt’s many transcriptions for piano of works by other composers are his versions of Schubert songs. These transcriptions are faithful to Schubert in their content, yet, in combining Schubert’s vocal lines with his piano accompaniments, the very virtuosity of Liszt’s transcriptions makes them something new.
These short songs immediately become a favorite of everyone who hears them. Schubert is a very special composer--his music has sensitive quality with enormous depth of feeling behind a simple and accessible surface.
The piano music of Spain, filled with vibrant rhythms, brilliant colors, and intense passion, is one of my great musical loves, and most of all I love Enrique Granados’s amazing Goyescas, inspired by the paintings of Francisco Goya. Granados composed this six piece suite in 1911 and adapted it to opera four years later. Here I perform Goyescas No. 5, El amor y la muerte (Love and Death). In the opera version, two men meet a woman, flirt with her, and fall in love with her. But eventually love turns into a duel to the death between the suitors, and the woman’s true love dies in her arms.
Prokoviev’s ballet Romeo and Juliet, based on Shakespeare's is one of his best loved masterpieces. Prokofiev himself transcribed a suite from the ballet for solo piano. “Romeo and Juliet before parting” is one of the most beautiful moments from the ballet.
We return to Liszt’s transcriptions with the "Liebestod" (Love Death) from Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde. Wagner and Liszt were closely connected in many ways, not least of them through Wagner’s marriage to Liszt’s daughter Cosima.
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Yoonie Han, Piano
South Korean pianist Yoonie Han is praised for her “flowing tones, poetic phrasing, and heavenly singing melodies” (Cincinnati Enquirer) and “her musical imagination and feel for complex textures drew vivid images” (Washington Post). She has won top prizes in distinguished international competitions and the highest accolades for her poetic performances in major concert halls in the U.S. and around the world.
In 2009, Ms. Han was honored with the Gawon Music Award as the “most brilliant pianist aged 17 to 31 of any nationality who possesses the most promising potential for global prominence.”
She is the first-prize winner of the Washington International Piano Competition (2011), the Fulbright Competition (2011), Juilliard’s Gina Bachauer Piano Competition (2008), the World Piano Competition (2008), and the Kosciuszko Chopin Competition (2005), and has garnered major prizes at the Helsinki Maj Lind International Piano Competition and Milan Concorso Pianistico Ettore Pozzoli Internaziole. Following her 2001 grand-prize award in the Korea National Music Competition, the Korean Ministry of Culture named her its “most promising young artist.”
Ms. Han made her solo debut with the Seoul Philharmonic at age 13, and has since performed with the Berlin Symphoniker, Buffalo Philharmonic, Helsinki Philharmonic, Houston Symphony, Banff Festival Orchestra, and I Pomeriggi Musicali di Milan, under such maestros as JoAnn Falletta, Leif Segerstam, Philippe Entremont, and Lior Shambadal. She has performed at Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall, Carnegie Hall, the Kennedy Center, Berlin Philharmonie Hall, Finlandia Hall, Slovak Philharmonic Hall, Frick Museum in New York, Salle Cortot in Paris, Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, Chicago’s Dame Myra Hess Concert Series, and Se-Jong Performing Arts Center in Korea. In 2012-2013, Ms. Han made a recital tour at the Steinway Halls in Europe and USA, and in 2013, she will release her album with the Steinway&Sons Record Label. Her performances have also been broadcast on WQXR New York, NPR's “Artist Showcases", Chicago's WFMT, and many others.
Ms. Han received a Bachelor’s degree from the Curtis Institute of Music studying with Eleanor Sokoloff, and a Master of Music degree from The Juilliard School as a pupil of Robert McDonald. She is completing her Doctorate at SUNY Stony Brook, and continuing her studies with Philippe Entremont. Yoonie Han is a Steinway Artist.
