Concert violinist Livia Sohn joins Janet Sung to premiere eight new works by student composers
 Livia Sohn |
Concert Monday, April 6, 2009, 8 p.m.;
Composition Workshop April 5, 4 p.m.;
Violin Master Class, April 7, 10 a.m.
Where: Rosch & Diers Recital Halls.
Notes: Free and open to the public
On April 6, guest artist, concert violinist Livia Sohn and faculty at Stanford University, will join Janet Sung in a unique collaboration that will span the country. Entitled "Then and Now: Music for Two Violins," these two artists will perform an entire program of music for two violins, including works by Leclair, Prokofiev and the popular Navarra by Sarasate.
The concert will also feature eight world premieres of violin duos written expressly for them by student composers from both Stanford University and SUNY Fredonia. The concert takes place on Monday, April 6 at 8 p.m. in Rosch Recital Hall. The concert will be repeated the following week at Stanford.
Ms. Sohn will also work with Fredonia students at two events, a composition workshop on Sunday, April 5 at 4 p.m. in Diers Recital Hall, and a Violin master class on Tuesday, April 7 from 10 - 11:30 a.m. in Rosch Recital Hall. All events are free and open to the community.
Livia Sohn started playing the violin at the age of five, and by age seven was accepted into the Juilliard Pre-College Division to study with the legendary Dorothy DeLay and Hyo Kang. At the age of thirteen she won First Prize in the Yehudi Menuhin International Violin Competition.
Livia gave her first public performance when she was 8, and her career now has included solo appearances with over 70 orchestras on five continents. As a guest soloist she has performed with such orchestras as the Seattle Symphony, Cincinnati Symphony, Boston Pops, Pittsburgh Symphony, Rochester Philharmonic, Brooklyn Philharmonic, Edmonton Symphony, Milwaukee Symphony, San Antonio Symphony, Phoenix Symphony, Aspen Festival Orchestra, Budapest Philharmonic, Iceland Symphony, Auckland Philharmonia, and Czech National Symphony. She has worked with many eminent conductors, including Yehudi Menuhin, Jesus Lopez-Cobos, James DePreist, Gerard Schwarz, Sidney Harth, William Eddins, Myung-Whun Chung, Jane Glover, and Jorge Mester.
Equally active as a chamber musician, Livia has been a guest artist at Kuhmo Chamber Music Festival in Finland, Newport Music Festival, Caramoor International Music Festival, Maverick Concerts, Prince Albert Music Festival in Hawaii, and Festival de San Miguel d’Allende in Mexico. Livia has appeared as recitalist in dozens of cities, including New York City's Mostly Mozart Festival, Chicago's Ravinia Festival, Boston’s Jordon Hall, as well as the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Washington D.C.’s National Gallery of Art, Atlanta’s Gwinnet Performing Arts Center, Cincinnati's Xavier University, and South Carolina's Peace Center for the Performing Arts.
Livia plays on a J.B. Guadagnini violin crafted in 1770 and a 2006 Samuel Zygmuntowicz. She is currently on faculty at the Music Department of Stanford University.
Violinist Janet Sung enjoys an acclaimed international career as a virtuoso soloist, praised for her lustrous tone, dynamic interpretations and bravura performances. She has been soloist with the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra, Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, Aspen Chamber Symphony, South Korea's Pusan Philharmonic Orchestra and Russia's Omsk Philharmonic Orchestra and National Symphonic Orchestra of Bashkortostan, as well as the orchestras of Adrian, Boise, Corpus Christi, Delaware, Dubuque, Fargo-Moorhead, Hartford, Owensboro, Traverse City, Wheeling and Wyoming. Her solo performances have frequently been aired on radio and television, including multiple broadcasts of her performance of Korngold's Violin Concerto on NPR's "Performance Today." Praised for her compelling performances of traditional works from Vivaldi to Berg, she also reveals her repertoire's diversity by presenting the works of 20th and 21st century composers and regularly touring with fiddler Mark O'Connor's American String Celebration. During the 2008-09 season, she will present the world premiere of Kenneth Fuchs' American Rhapsody for Violin and Orchestra.
Ms. Sung has been presented in recital in major cities across the U.S., as well as in Odense, Denmark, Lausanne, Switzerland and Queenstown, New Zealand. She is frequently heard at distinguished music festivals, including: Aspen Music Festival, the Britt Festival, Hot Springs Music Festival, Sewanee Summer Music Festival and Switzerland's Lucerne Festival. Chosen by Leonard Slatkin as the recipient of the Passamaneck Award, she was also a winner of the Aspen Music Festival's Nakamichi Violin Competition and has been awarded top prizes and grants from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, National Foundation for Advancement in the Arts, National Federation of Music Clubs Competition and Cho Chang Tsung Foundation.
Born in New York City, Janet Sung began violin studies at age seven and made her orchestral debut at age nine, performing with the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra. The following year, she began private studies with the renowned violinist, Josef Gingold. She graduated with honors from Harvard University with a double degree in anthropology and music and later continued her studies at The Juilliard School with the esteemed teacher, Dorothy DeLay. She also studied extensively with Masao Kawasaki, David Cerone, Eugene Phillips and the Juilliard String Quartet.
Janet Sung joined the SUNY Fredonia faculty in 2004 and continues to teach at The Juilliard School (initially as the Starling/DeLay Institute Fellow). During the 2003-2004 season, Ms. Sung returned to Harvard University as the Clifton Visiting Artist for the "Learning from Performers" program, whose previous guests included Isaac Stern, James Galway, Mark Morris and Quincy Jones. Janet Sung plays a c.1600 Maggini violin.
