Cellist Kristina Reiko Cooper To Appear As Soloist In Works By Korngold & Weinberg With New York City Opera Orchestra At Carnegie Hall Feb 24, 2025

The supremely gifted and versatile cellist Kristina Reiko Cooper will join the New York City Opera Orchestra as soloist in a concert led by Music Director and Executive Director Constantine Orbelian at Stern Auditorium at Carnegie Hall on Monday evening, February 24, 2025, at 8 pm EDT.

Celebrating survival and perseverance through the universal language of music, the program features Polish Jewish composer Mieczyslaw Weinberg’s Suite from The Last Inch; the New York premiere of Mr. Weinberg’s Fantasy for Cello and Orchestra, Op. 52; and Austrian Jewish composer Erich Wolfgang Korngold’s Cello Concerto. The music of both these outstanding 20^th century artists was suppressed by the Nazis and, in Weinberg’s case, by Stalin as well.  This concert hopes to uncover their poignant stories and to re-engage with these canceled composers.

The second half of the program includes the U.S. premiere of contemporary composer Gennady Rovner’s Symphony Metamorphosis, with soprano Elizaveta Ulakhovich. The full program follows:

General admission from $14 to $85 can be purchased on Carnegie Hall’s website; discounted student tickets are available with ID at Carnegie Hall Box Office, 57th & 7th Avenue. For more information, please visit cellist Kristina Reiko Cooper’s website, and New York City Opera’s website.

The internationally heralded cellist Kristina Reiko Cooper stands out among her peers not only for her polished virtuosity but for her fierce intelligence and imaginative programming. Her natural stage presence and effervescent personality inform all aspects of her musicianship—whether as recitalist, soloist with orchestra, recording artist, teacher, lecturer, or as a member of a chamber performance. But it is her curiosity and enthusiasm that have led her to commission and play works by Lera Auerbach, Josef Bardanashvili, Kenji Bunch, Mario Davidovsky, Avner Dorman, Tan Dun, Philip Glass, Tania Leon, Roberto Siera, and Benjamin Yusupov. She serves as Co-Director with Joel Sachs and Cheryl Seltzer of the pioneering New York-based contemporary music group Continuum. Over the years, critics from The New York Times have extolled her praises on numerous occasions: “Kristina Cooper gave a sensational performance…of the cello threnody;” “In the cello sonata, Kristina Reiko Cooper played the challenging cello line with a fluidity that made it seem easy;” “Ms. Cooper’s cello solos sang out in the slow movement with elegance and fine sentiment.”

A turning point in her life came when Ms. Cooper created a consortium of Yad Vashem, the World Holocaust Remembrance Center in Jerusalem, and the American Society of Yad Vashem to commission composer Lera Auerbach to write Symphony No. 6 “Vessels of Light.”  Scored for cello, chorus, and orchestra, the work commemorates the heroic deeds of Japanese consul Chiune Sugihara who, during World War II in Lithuania, issued between 2,100 and 3,500 life-saving transit visas to Jews. Owing to his courage by defying Japan’s regulations and risking his own life, generations of visa recipient families are alive today, including Ms. Cooper's husband and three children.

The world premiere of “Vessels of Light,” took place in Lithuania on November 5th, 2022, with Ms. Cooper performing as soloist with the Kaunas City Symphony Orchestra and Kaunas State Choir under the leadership of music director Constantine Orbelian. Kaunas, in addition to being the city where Sugihara was vice-consul and where he issued the visas that saved so many lives, was chosen as the Cultural Capital of Europe in 2022 and the performance of this new work was one of the featured highlights of the celebration.

Since then, other notable performances of “Vessels of Light” have included the American premiere last year with the New York City Opera Orchestra and Chorus led by Maestro Orbelian at Carnegie Hall; as well as with the Prague Radio Orchestra conducted by Maestro Alexander Liebreich; UCLA Philharmonia and Chamber Singers conducted by Neal Stulberg; Festival Napa Valley with the Festival Orchestra Napa under the leadership of Maestro Orbelian; Dresden Philharmonie led by François Leleux; and the Gewandhaus Orchestra in Leipzig, Germany, conducted by Alan Gilbert.

Most recently, “Vessels of Light” was presented in Berlin by the Konzerthaus Orchester led by Joana Mallwitz at the Konzerthaus. Reviewing for Germany’s prestigious Süddeutsche Zeitung, Wolfgang Schreiber wrote: “Auerbach adds a unique color to the solo parts—a lyrical, emotionally transcendent cello voice, brilliantly performed by New York cellist Kristina Reiko-Cooper.  Her artistry illuminates the poetic and melodic expressiveness of the music.” (November 19, 2024)

Ms. Cooper’s upcoming appearances as soloist with orchestra include engagements with the Jerusalem Symphony, the Israel Sinfonietta Beer-sheva, and the Boston Modern Orchestra Project, Kinnor Philharmonic, Kansas City, a concert for Arte TV, and Mexico City Philharmonic.

A highlight of the 2024-2025 season will be Ms. Cooper’s appearance as soloist at Stern Auditorium at Carnegie Hall February 24, 2025, with the New York City Opera and Maestro Orbelian performing the New York premiere of Mieczyslaw Weinberg’s Fantasy for Cello and Orchestra, Op. 52, and Erich Korngold’s Cello Concerto in C Major. An album of these two works as well as the Weinberg Concerto for Cello and Orchestra will be released in the near future on the Delos label.

Ms. Cooper has appeared as soloist with some of the world’s major orchestras in such venues as Carnegie Hall, Suntory Hall in Tokyo, Henry Crown Theater in Jerusalem, and the Kennedy Center, including with the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, the Dresden Philharmonie, the Toronto Symphony, the Prague Radio Symphony Orchestra, Prague Chamber Orchestra, the Israel Chamber Orchestra, the Osaka Symphony, the Tokyo Yomiuri Symhony, and Shanghai Symphony under the batons of conductors including Tan Dun, Alan Gilbert, François Leleux, Alexander Liebriech, Joana Mallwitz, and Constantine Orbelian.

A prolific chamber musician, Kristina won the Walter M. Naumburg Chamber Music Award first prize and has been a member of many renowned ensembles, including the Whitman Quartet, Quartetto Gelato, Opus X, and Intersection. Her many festival appearances include The Lincoln Center Summer Festival, Mostly Mozart, Musicians from Marlboro, Bang on a Can All-Stars, and the Stresa International Music Festival.

Born and raised in New York City, Ms. Cooper holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees as well as a doctoral degree from Juilliard, where she studied cello with Joel Krosnick. Her father, Rex Cooper, is an American pianist and former professor at the University of the Pacific and her mother, Mutsuko Tatman, is a violinist of Japanese descent who served for many years as concertmaster of the American Symphony Orchestra. Ms. Cooper’s grandfather, Tomojiro Ikenouchi, was a highly respected Japanese composer and her great-grandfather, Takahama Kyoshi, was considered the greatest haiku poet of the 20th century.

Ms. Cooper serves as a visiting professor at the Buchmann Mehta School at Tel Aviv University, Israel. She is the founding musical director of The Israel Chamber Music Society, serves as the Vice-President of the America-Israel Cultural Foundation, and sits on the board of the Charney Forum for New Diplomacy. Kristina plays on the 1743 Ex-Havermeyer G.B. Guadagnini cello and lives with her husband and three children in Tel Aviv, Israel.    

Four-time GRAMMY®-nominated conductor Constantine Orbelian “stands astride two great societies and finds and promotes synergistic harmony from the best of each.” (Fanfare)

For over 30 years, Mr. Orbelian has been a central figure in Russia’s and Eastern Europe’s musical life—first as Music Director of the Moscow Chamber Orchestra and the Philharmonia of Russia. He is the founder of the annual Palaces of St. Petersburg International Music Festival and is the Chief Conductor of the Kaunas City Symphony Orchestra in Lithuania. In 2016 he was also appointed General and Artistic Director of the State Academic Opera and Ballet Theater in Yerevan, Armenia. During his four-year tenure in Armenia, Mr. Orbelian created new productions of Bizet’s Carmen, Mozart’s The Magic Flute, Massenet’s Manon, and Karen Khachaturian’s ballet Cipollino. He restored a historic production of Donizetti’s opera Poliuto, produced the ballet La Bohème to the music of Charles Aznavour and brought Renée Fleming for the first time to Armenia for a recital. In 2018, Mr. Orbelian brought the Armenian Ballet company to the famed stage of the Bolshoi Theater in Moscow for gala performances of Aram Khachaturian’s ballet Gayane. Performances at Dubai Opera and the grand opening of the new Opera House in Kuwait were high points of the 2018 season.

Opera News calls Mr. Orbelian “the singer’s dream collaborator,” and commented that he conducts vocal repertoire “with the sensitivity of a lieder pianist.” The California-based conductor tours and records with American stars such as Renée Fleming, Sondra Radvanovsky, Lawrence Brownlee and Stephen Costello, and made numerous celebrated recordings for Delos with Dmitri Hvorostovsky before the legendary singer’s untimely death. Appearances in the USA have included numerous performances at the Great Performers series at Lincoln Center, Stern Auditorium at Carnegie Hall and the Mostly Mozart Festival, as well as performances at the great musical centers in the United States, Canada, and Central and South America.

“Orbelian has star quality, and his orchestra plays with passion and precision,” The Audio Critic wrote of his acclaimed series of over 60 recordings on the Delos label. Among his concert and televised appearances are collaborations with stars Renée Fleming and Dmitri Hvorostovsky, and with Van Cliburn in Cliburn’s sentimental return to Moscow — the great pianist’s last performance. Mr. Orbelian’s frequent collaborations with Hvorostovsky included repertoire from their Delos recordings of universal sentimental songs, Where Are You, My Brothers? and Moscow Nights, as well as their 2015 recording in the same series, Wait for Me. His recordings with Hvorostovsky of Verdi’s Simon Boccanegra and Rigoletto had become legendary and was nominated for a  GRAMMY® Award in the Best Opera recording category. Mr. Orbelian has conducted historic live telecasts from Moscow’s Red Square, with such artists as Hvorostovsky and Anna Netrebko, viewed live around the world by 198 million people and subsequently issued on Deutsche Grammophon. Mr. Orbelian has also released recordings on Philips, Warner Classics and Finlandia. An award-winning DVD released on the Decca label — Renée Fleming and Dmitri Hvorostovsky, a Musical Odyssey in St. Petersburg — was broadcast on the Great Performances series on PBS.

Born in San Francisco to Russian and Armenian emigré parents, Constantine Orbelian made his debut as a piano prodigy with the San Francisco Symphony at the age of 11. After graduating from The Juilliard School, he embarked on a career as a piano virtuoso that included appearances with major symphony orchestras throughout the United States, United Kingdom, Europe and Russia. His recording of the Khachaturian Piano Concerto on the Chandos label, with conductor Neeme Järvi, won the “Best Concerto Recording of the Year” award in the UK.

A tireless champion of Russian American cultural exchange and international ambassadorship through his worldwide tours, he was awarded the coveted title “Honored Artist of Russia” in 2004, a title never before bestowed on a non-Russian citizen. In May 2010, Mr. Orbelian led the opening Ceremonial Concert for the Cultural Olympics in Sochi, setting the stage for Russia’s hosting of the Olympic Games in 2014. In 2012 the Consulate in San Francisco awarded him the Russian Order of Friendship Medal, whose illustrious ranks include pianist Van Cliburn and conductor Riccardo Muti, and which singles out non-Russians whose work contributes to the betterment of international relations with the Russian Federation and its people.

From his 1995 performance at the 50th Anniversary celebrations of the United Nations in San Francisco to his 2004 performance at the U.S. State Department commemorating 70 years of diplomatic relations between Washington and Moscow, and a repeat State Department appearance in 2007, all with the Moscow Chamber Orchestra, Mr. Orbelian continues to use his artistic eminence in the cause of international goodwill. He and his orchestras have also participated in cultural enrichment programs for young people, both in Russia and the United States. In 2001 Orbelian was awarded the Ellis Island Medal of Honor, an award given to immigrants, or children of immigrants, who have made outstanding contributions to the United States.

Soprano Elizaveta Ulakhovich was born in St. Petersburg, Russia. She studied with Evgeniya Gorokhovskaya, a People’s Artist of the RSFST (National Rankings of Russian Federation) at the N. A. Rimsky-Korsakov Music College and the St. Petersburg State Conservatory. A recipient of the third prize in the 2013 International Competition S. Monyushko "Ubelskaya swallow" in Minsk, Belarus, she also received the Special Award in the 32nd International Competition "Ismaele Voltolini" in 2016 in Buscoldo, Italy. That same year, she was accepted into the Young Artist Program of the Bolshoi Theatre under the direction of Honored Art Worker, Dmitry Vdovin. She was involved in the Talinn production of mono-opera “Cormorant, Samson and Delilah” based on Elena Skulskaya’s novel, which was broadcast on Estonian national radio and television; she also appeared as Alexandra Yepanchina in the premiere of M. Mieczyslaw Weinberg's opera based on Dostoyevsky’s “Idiot” at the New Stage of the Bolshoi Theatre, and performed the role of the Polovtsian girl in Borodin's opera “Prince Igor” at the historical main stage of the Bolshoi Theatre. Her numerous teachers have included Irina Bogacheva, Lyubov Orfenova and Semyon Skigin (Russia), Alessandro Amoretti, Giulio Zappa, Franco Pagliazzi and Gianluca Pagliuso (Italy), Elizabeth Vidal and Jamal Moquadem (France), Evamaria Wieser (Austria), Mark Lawson, Robert Tuohy, Scott Barnes, and Michael Paul (USA). Ms. Ulakhovich made her debut for New York City Opera the summer of 2022 and was part of the US premiere as the soprano soloist in "Concert for Sugihara" performed at Carnegie Hall. She continues to perform in New York, Russia, and around the world.

For further information, please contact Hemsing Associates at (212) 772-1132 or visit www.hemsingpr.com.

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