Princeton Sound Kitchen Presents

John Blacklow and Jennifer Frautschi

Performing New Works by:

• Steve Mackey

• Barbara White

Performed by:

• John Blacklow

• Jennifer Frautschi

Location: Taplin Auditorium in Fine Hall
Ticketing: Free admission
Date: Tuesday, March 4, 2014
Start time: 8:00 pm

____

PSK presents Jennifer Frautschi and John Blacklow performing a program of works including Princeton composers Steve Mackey and Barbara White on Tuesday, March 4th, 2014 at 8:00pm

Dan Trueman, Director

Michael Pratt, Resident Conductor

JENNIFER FRAUTSCHI, violin

JOHN BLACKLOW, piano

PROGRAM

BARBARA WHITE
Before I was released I was in many things

STEPHEN HARTKE
Netsuke

- INTERMISSION -

ELENA RUEHR
Rumengling

DAN COLEMAN
Sad and Ancient Phrases

STEVEN MACKEY
Sonata for Violin and Piano

ABOUT THE PERFORMERS

Hailed for his "powerful and eloquent" playing (New York Times), as “a brilliant performer—a gifted musical presence with a high sense of pianistic fantasy” (Salzburger Nachrichten), John Blacklow is a pianist of unusual versatility, as a soloist, as a collaborator with many ensembles and recital partners, and as an interpreter of repertoire both past and current. He has been presented in many prestigious venues and concert series throughout the U.S., Europe, and Asia.

As soloist, Blacklow has been presented in venues such as Alice Tully Hall and Merkin Hall in New York, Wigmore Hall in London, Musikverein in Vienna, the Royal Conservatoire in Brussels, the Dame Myra Hess Memorial Concert Series in Chicago, and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. In 2009, EDI Records released a solo piano CD Prism, featuring works by Berg, J.S. Bach, Schumann, and Chopin. Blacklow has performed in several capacities with the Los Angeles Philharmonic. As keyboardist, he worked under conductors Esa-Pekka Salonen, Pierre Boulez, Leonard Slatkin, and Marin Alsop, and performed in the world premiere of Soundings by John Williams at the gala opening of the Walt Disney Concert Hall. Blacklow has also participated frequently in the LA Philharmonic's Chamber Music Society, on the Green Umbrella New Music Series, and appears on the orchestra's Deutsche Grammophon/iTunes recordings.

In 2004, Blacklow was selected with violinist Jennifer Frautschi by Carnegie Hall and the European Concert Hall Organization for their Rising Stars program, and the duo was received with high acclaim at the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, the Mozarteum in Salzburg, Cité de la Musique in Paris, the Konzerthaus in Vienna, Wigmore Hall in London, and Palais des Beaux Arts in Brussels, as well as on Carnegie’s own Distinctive Debuts series. They have since appeared in Symphony Hall in Detroit, the Windham Music Festival in New York, the Wilson Center for the Arts in Wisconsin, Harvard Musical Association, Wellesley College, as well as on NPR’s Performance Today and BBC 3 in the United Kingdom. Blacklow and violinist Hahn-Bin first performed together for the Grammy Awards in 2000, honoring Isaac Stern. In addition to highly acclaimed recitals at the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C. and Carnegie's Zankel Hall, they have performed throughout the U.S., at the Louvre in Paris, the Konzerthaus in Berlin, Queen Elizabeth Hall in London, and recorded the album HAZE for Universal Music, Ltd., which was praised for its "great intensity and energy" (The Gramophone).

A Steinway Artist, Blacklow was born in Boston and studied piano with Tatiana Yampolsky, graduating from both Harvard University and The Juilliard School. He has also worked with Bella Davidovich and Leonard Shure. He is Associate Professor of Piano at the University of Notre Dame, and has served as jury member for national and international competitions.

Two-time Grammy nominee and Avery Fisher career grant winner Jennifer Frautschi has garnered worldwide acclaim as an adventurous musician with a remarkably wide-ranging repertoire. As the Chicago Tribune noted, "violinist Jennifer Frautschi is molding a career with smart interpretations of both warhorses and rarities." Equally at home in the classic and contemporary repertoire, her recent seasons have featured innumerable performances and recordings of works ranging from Brahms and Schumann to Berg and Schoenberg. She has also had the privilege of premiering several new works composed for her by prominent composers of today.

Ms. Frautschi has appeared as soloist with Pierre Boulez and the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Christoph Eschenbach and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra at the Ravinia Festival, and at Wigmore Hall and Lincoln Center's Mostly Mozart Festival. Selected by Carnegie Hall for its Distinctive Debuts series, she made her New York recital debut in 2004. As part of the European Concert Hall Organization's Rising Stars series, Ms. Frautschi also made debuts that year at ten of Europe's most celebrated concert venues, including the Salzburg Mozarteum, Vienna Konzerthaus, Amsterdam Concertgebouw, La Cité de la Musique in Paris, and Brussels’ Théâtre Royal de la Monnaie. She has also been heard in recital at the Ravinia Festival, La Jolla Chamber Music Society, Washington's Phillips Collection, Boston's Gardner Museum, Beijing's Imperial Garden, Monnaie Opera in Brussels, La Chaux des Fonds in Switzerland, and San Miguel de Allende Festival in Mexico.

Highlights of Ms. Frautschi’s 2013 - 2014 season include performances with the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra and Tucson Symphony, as well as return engagements with the Alabama, Arkansas, Belo Horizonte (Brazil), Chattanooga, Phoenix, and Toledo Symphonies and the Rhode Island Philharmonic. She will return to DaCamera of Houston and the Helicon Foundation in New York for concerts on all-gut strings with period instruments. Recent seasons include the world premiere of James Stephenson’s Violin Concerto, a piece written for her, with the Minnesota Orchestra and Osmo Vänskä; Barber Concerto with the orchestra of the Teatro di San Carlo Opera House in Naples, James Conlon conducting; and performances with the Eugene, Jacksonville, Milwaukee, and Utah Symphonies, and the Buffalo Philharmonic. She has also soloed with the Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia, Kansas City Symphony, Louisville Orchestra, Orchestra of St. Luke's, San Diego Symphony, and Seattle Symphony, and toured the United States with the Czech Symphony Orchestra.

Ms. Frautschi has appeared annually at the Caramoor Center for the Arts since the age of 18, when she was first invited by André Previn to perform there as a Rising Star during her freshman year at Harvard. As a chamber artist she appears frequently at the Boston Chamber Music Society, Chamber Music Northwest (in Portland, OR), and the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival. Formerly a member of Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center Two, she has also appeared at the Charlottesville, La Jolla Summerfest, La Musica (Sarasota), Moab, Music@Menlo, Newport, Seattle, and Spoleto USA Chamber Music Festivals, as well as at New York’s Metropolitan and Guggenheim Museums of Art, the 92nd Street Y, Philadelphia Chamber Music Society and Mainly Mozart in San Diego. Internationally, she has performed at the Cartagena International Music Festival in Columbia, the Spoleto Festival of the Two Worlds and Rome Chamber Music Festival in Italy, Pharo’s Trust in Cyprus, Kutna Hora Festival in the Czech Republic, St. Barth's Music Festival in the French West Indies, and toured England with musicians from Prussia Cove, culminating in a concert in London’s Wigmore Hall. She has premiered important new works by Barbara White, Mason Bates, Oliver Knussen, Krzysztof Penderecki, Michael Hersch, and others, and has appeared at New York's George Crumb Festival and Stefan Wolpe Centenary Concerts.

Her discography includes three widely-praised CDs for Artek: an orchestral recording of the Prokofiev concerti with Gerard Schwarz and the Seattle Symphony, and highly-acclaimed discs of music of Ravel and Stravinsky, and of 20th century works for solo violin. She has also recorded several discs for Naxos, including the Stravinsky Violin Concerto with the Philharmonia Orchestra of London, conducted by the legendary Robert Craft, and two Grammy-nominated recordings with the Fred Sherry Quartet, of Schoenberg's Concerto for String Quartet and Orchestra (nominated for Best Instrumental Soloist Performance (with Orchestra) in 2006) and the Schoenberg Third String Quartet (nominated for Best Chamber Music Performance in 2011). Her most recent releases are a recording of Romantic horn trios, with hornist Eric Ruske and pianist Stephen Prutsman, and the Stravinsky Duo Concertant with pianist Jeremy Denk. With pianist John Blacklow she will soon release two discs on Albany Records: the first devoted to the three sonatas of Robert Schumann, including the rarely performed posthumous sonata; the second an exploration of recent additions to the violin and piano repertoire by contemporary American composers Barbara White, Steven Mackey, and Stephen Hartke.

Born in Pasadena, California, Ms. Frautschi began the violin at age three. She was a student of Robert Lipsett at the Colburn School for the Performing Arts in Los Angeles. She also attended Harvard, the New England Conservatory of Music, and The Juilliard School, where she studied with Robert Mann. She performs on a 1722 Antonio Stradivarius violin known as the ‘ex-Cadiz,’ on generous loan to her from a private American foundation.