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Press Releases
Emerald City Music Announces Spring 2022 Programming - Four Mainstage Performances in Seattle and Olympia - Plus Wine Down Mondays on Zoom
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Press contact: Maggie Stapleton
646.536.7864 x2, maggie@jensenartists.com
Emerald City Music Announces Spring 2022 Programming for
Season 06 – “Welcome Back, Welcome Home.”
Violinist Kristin Lee, Artistic Director
Mainstage Performances Presented in Seattle (Friday) & Olympia (Saturday)
Evolution – February 25 & 26, 2022
Featuring the Evolution of the Keyboard Through Works for Harpsichord, Piano, and Synthesizer
Performed by Henry Kramer, Mikael Darmanie, Vicky Chow, and Kenneth Weiss
Spotlight: George Crumb – March 25 & 26, 2022
Featuring the Music and Legacy of American Composer George Crumb
With JACK Quartet and Film by Zac Nicholson
Clarinet Dances – April 29 & 30, 2022
Featuring Clarinet Quintets from the 19th and 21st Centuries
With Multi Award-Winning Spanish Clarinetist Jose Franch-Ballester
Insomnia – May 13 & 14, 2022
Featuring Bach’s Goldberg Variations Arranged for String Trio
With Violinist Kristin Lee, violist Juan Miguel Hernandez, and cellist Efe Baltacigil
Wine Down Mondays Continue on Select Monday Nights (Zoom only, Free for All)
“Emerald City Music is the place where art and audience collide…” – The Seattle Times
www.emeraldcitymusic.org
Seattle & Olympia, WA – With the announcement of its Spring 2022 lineup of performances and engagements, Emerald City Music (ECM), continues its sixth season under the leadership of Artistic Director and violinist Kristin Lee. ECM remains committed to being the Pacific Northwest home for eclectic, intimate, and social classical chamber music experiences. In addition to its Mainstage Performances in Seattle (Fridays) and Olympia (Saturdays), ECM will continue to host Wine Down Mondays, now on Zoom only and free for everyone to attend with advance registration, on select Monday evenings 7:30pm PT at 415 Westlake. These events are an opportunity for audiences to get to know ECM’s world-renowned musicians in a casual environment and hear them perform.
Spring 2022 performance highlights include a concert portraying the evolution of the keyboard, with harpsichord, piano and synthesizer performances from the baroque to modern day by Henry Kramer, Mikael Darmanie, Vicky Chow, and Kenneth Weiss on February 25 and 26; ECM’s annual Composer-in-Spotlight concert, this year featuring American composer George Crumb in a multimedia performance featuring the JACK Quartet and film by Zac Nicholson on March 25 & 26; Clarinet Quintets from the 19th century by Carl Maria von Weber and 21st century by David Bruce, featuring multi award-winning Spanish clarinetist Jose Franch-Ballester on April 29 & 30; and a concert featuring a string trio arrangement of Bach’s iconic Goldberg Variations, performed by violinist Kristin Lee, violist Juan Miguel Hernandez, and cellist Efe Baltacigil on May 13 & 14.
“Emerald City Music is thrilled to be back for our spring season with a wide variety of programs, ranging from Bach’s Goldberg Variations to George Crumb’s Black Angels,” says Kristin Lee. “The spring season opener, Evolution, exemplifies what ECM really stands for through its juxtaposition of the old and the new. This program takes the listener on a journey through the evolution of the keyboard, allowing the audience to experience the sounds of not only our modern-day piano but harpsichord, synthesizer, and prepared piano in one program. I am excited for our community to delve into the true ECM experience this season!”
All of ECM’s Mainstage performances will be recorded live and then made available on Emerald TV, ECM’s newly launched subscription-based streaming platform for performances and additional video content.
Spring 2022 Mainstage Performances and Events
Tickets for all performances: www.emeraldcitymusic.org/
Full artist biographies and high-resolution images: www.emeraldcitymusic.org/
Evolution
Friday, February 25, 2022 at 8pm at 415 Westlake in Seattle
Saturday, February 26, 2022 at 7:30pm at Kenneth J Minnaert Center for the Arts at South Puget Sound Community College in Olympia (2011 Mottman Road SW)
Tickets and Information: www.emeraldcitymusic.org/
This epic performance tells the tale of the world’s most loved and versatile instrument, the piano. Listeners will follow its physical evolution and the iconic music written at each stage of technological development: from the harpsichord through the forte-piano, contemporary piano, prepared-piano, and modern-day instruments like synthesizer. Early composers like Thomas Tallis (1505-1589) and Domenico Scarlatti (1685-1757) were defining masters of the instrument, inspiring the likes of Beethoven and Chopin to write more challenging and dynamic music as the technical ability of the piano developed during the Industrial Revolution. Pianos soon became progressively larger, louder, and with a wider range of octaves (five by the 1790s and seven by 1820). Enter John Cage, who for a time resided in Seattle creating music that again redefined the abilities of the acoustic piano by “preparing it” by placing objects in the instrument to alter the tonal ability. The evolution of modern-day technologies again reinvented the keyboard to infinitely expand the range of the instrument via the computer-aided synthesizer.
Jeremy Jordan: Machine Poem No. 2 for piano and synthesizer
Scarlatti: Sonata in A Major K.212/L.135/P.155
Ravel: Gaspard de la nuit: I. Ondine
Beethoven: Sonata in E Major, Op. 109
Philip Glass: Piano Etude No. 2
Cage: selections from Sonatas and Interludes: Sonata No. 1; Interlude No. 3; Sonata No. 5
Tallis: Felix Namque II
Chopin: Polonaise No. 6, Op. 53 “Heroic”
Artists:
Henry Kramer, piano
Mikael Darmanie, piano/synthesizer
Vicky Chow, piano/prepared piano
Kenneth Weiss, harpsichord
Spotlight: George Crumb
Friday, March 25, 2022 at 8pm at 415 Westlake in Seattle
Saturday, March 26, 2022 at 7:30pm at Kenneth J Minnaert Center for the Arts at South Puget Sound Community College in Olympia (2011 Mottman Road SW)
Tickets and Information: www.emeraldcitymusic.org/
“I am certain that most composers today would consider today’s music to be rich, not to say confusing, in its enormous diversity of styles, technical procedures, and systems of esthetics.” – George Crumb
In this special theatrical evening, Emerald City Music hones in on the music and legacy of American composer George Crumb (b. 1929). This iconic Pulitzer and GRAMMY-winning composer is known for his juxtaposition of contrasting musical styles, ranging from music of the western art-music tradition, to hymns and folk music, to non-Western musics.
Black Angels (1970)
JACK Quartet (Christopher Otto, violin; Austin Wulliman, violin; John Pickford Richards, viola; Jay Campbell, cello)
Crumb: Vox Hominis
Film by Zac Nicholson
Mundus Canis (1998)
Jordan Dodson, guitar
Ji Hye Jung, percussion
Night of the Four Moons (1969)
Charlotte Mundy, soprano
Demarre McGill, alto flute/piccolo
Jordan Dodson, banjo & guitar
Jay Campbell, cello
Ji Hye Jung, percussion
Clarinet Dances
Friday, April 29, 2022 at 8pm at 415 Westlake in Seattle
Saturday, April 30, 2022 at 7:30pm at Kenneth J Minnaert Center for the Arts at South Puget Sound Community College in Olympia (2011 Mottman Road SW)
Tickets and Information: www.emeraldcitymusic.org/
This program consists of two remarkable and colorful clarinet quintets. Carl Maria Von Weber’s Clarinet Quintet was written for his close friend, the clarinet virtuoso Heinrich Baermann. While the latter would have preferred a concerto to perform with orchestras, this work was designed such that the clarinetist could travel town to town and gather the local musicians to support the four string parts of this colorful work. David Bruce’s Gumboots is a thematic clarinet quintet that brings to light the brutal labor conditions of South Africa under Apartheid. Black miners were chained together and wore Gumboots (wellington boots) while they worked in the flooded gold mines. Slapping the boots and chains was used by the workers as a form of communication which was otherwise banned in the mine. The composer describes the first half of his Quintet as yearning for tranquility and peace, while the finale consists of five lively and joyful dances.
Carl Maria von Weber (1841-1904): Clarinet Quintet in Bb Major, Op. 34
David Bruce (b. 1970): Gumboots
Artists:
Jose Franch-Ballester, clarinet
Kristin Lee, violin
Jason Ueyama, violin
Tien-Hsin Cindy Wu, viola
Ani Aznavoorian, cello
Insomnia
Friday, May 13, 2022 at 8pm at 415 Westlake in Seattle
Saturday, May 14, 2022 at 7:30pm at Washington Center Blackbox in Olympia (512 Washington St SE)
Tickets and Information: www.emeraldcitymusic.org/
Bach: Goldberg Variations (arr. Dmitry Sitkovetsky)
“He would lie in the bed and finally, with daylight, he would go to sleep. After all, he said to himself, it’s probably only insomnia. Many must have it.” – Hemingway
In our busy world, rest comes with a price. 17th Century Count Keyserling was no stranger to restlessness. He suffered from insomnia and had hired a fourteen-year-old boy, Johann Gottlieb Goldberg, to play for him during his sleepless nights. Johann Sebastian Bach – now considered one of the greatest composers of all time – happened to be the music teacher of the young Goldberg and was requested by the Count to write some harpsichord pieces for Goldberg to play whenever he could not sleep. Bach produced this set of Variations based on this request, and Emerald City Music will offer these iconic works arranged for string trio.
Artists:
Kristin Lee, violin
Juan Miguel Hernandez, viola
Efe Baltacigil, cello
Java Concerts
Wine Down Mondays – Streamed Online for Free
Join Emerald City Music on Monday evenings after a long day of work to un-wine with Emerald City Music! Be with fellow music lovers to enjoy a conversation, music-filled event with some of the most intriguing musicians of our time.
Virtual Tickets are Free for Everyone with Registration via Zoom at www.emeraldcitymusic.org/
Upcoming Dates (all begin 7:30pm PT):
Monday, February 21, 2022
Monday, April 11, 2022
About Kristin Lee, ECM Artistic Director
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-the-mill instrumentalists from true artists.
In addition to her dynamic performing career, Lee was recently appointed to the faculty of University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music as Assistant Professor of Violin. She is the artistic director of Emerald City Music in Seattle, a chamber music series she co-founded in 2015. Also 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, as well as a member of Camerata Pacifica in Santa Barbara, sitting as The Bernard Gondos Chair.
Kristin Lee has appeared as soloist with leading orchestras including The Philadelphia Orchestra, St. Louis Symphony, St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, New Jersey Symphony, Hong Kong Philharmonic, 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, the Ravinia Festival, the Louvre Museum in Paris, Washington, D.C.’s Phillips Collection, and Korea’s Kumho Art Gallery.
Born in Seoul, Lee began studying violin at age five and within one year won First Prize at the Korea Times Violin Competition. In 1995, she moved to the US to continue her studies under Sonja Foster and in 1997 entered The Juilliard School’s Pre-College. In 2000, Lee was chosen to study with Itzhak Perlman after he heard her perform with the Pre-College Symphony. Lee holds a Master’s degree from The Juilliard School.
For more information, visit www.violinistkristinlee.com.
About ECM
Emerald City Music (ECM) is the Pacific Northwest home for eclectic, intimate, and vibrant classical chamber music experiences. Deemed "the beacon for the casual-classical movement" (CityArts), ECM hosts world-renowned musicians in unique concert experiences in its South Lake Union home venue, 415 Westlake. Catch them on tour also in residence in Olympia, Bellingham, and New York City.
Founded in 2015, Emerald City Music produces and tours seven productions annually, with each tour visiting Seattle’s South Lake Union (415 Westlake, a chic contemporary venue with an open bar), Olympia’s Minnaert Center (a 495-seat modern concert hall), a once annual concert at the Bellingham Music Festival, and an annual concert in New York City.
ECM gained recognition regionally and nationally as a major player in the chamber music scene. Artistic Director Kristin Lee –– a touring violinist awarded the Avery Fisher Career Grant and who is a member of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center –– is regarded for her innovative programming that both honors the tradition of chamber music while expanding the genre’s boundary past common limits. Emerald City Music made a name for itself beginning in its second season with a national collaborative commission with Grammy-winning composer John Luther Adams, and has continued to press the boundary of chamber music with accolades like a tour of Steve Reich’s iconic and rare Music for 18 Musicians, a pitch-black performance of Georg Haas’s “In the Dark” quartet, the West Coast debut of the Danish folk group The Dreamers’ Circus, and the World Premiere of the double Grammy-Nominated Seven Pillars by Andy Akiho, performed by Sandbox Percussion.
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