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Press Releases
Clarinetist Charles Neidich In Recital At Greenfield Hall At Manhattan School Of Music, February 2, 2025
Mr. Neidich To Be Joined By Flutist Carol Wincenc And Pianist Mohamed Shams.
The distinguished clarinetist Charles Neidich, the first clarinetist to win the Walter W. Naumburg Competition in 1985, will be presented by Walter W. Naumburg Foundation in partnership with Manhattan School of Music in a recital at Greenfield Hall at Manhattan School of Music (130 Claremont Avenue, New York, New York 10027), Sunday afternoon February 2, 2025, 2 pm EST.
Mr. Neidich will be joined by noted flutist Carol Wincenc, who won first prize in the 1978 Naumburg Flute Award, and longtime collaborator pianist Mohamed Shams. The program, showcasing modern and contemporary clarinet and flute repertoire, will feature works by Connesson, Villa-Lobos, Sirota, Lobanov, Fauré, Matsui, Schoenfield, and Mr. Neidich himself. Full program follows:
Admission is free for this concert, for more information please visit Manhattan School of Music’s event site, clarinetist Charles Neidich’s website, flutist Carol Wincenc’s website, and pianist Mohamed Shams’s website.
Clarinetist and conductor Charles Neidich has gained worldwide recognition as one of the most mesmerizing virtuosos on his instrument. With a tone of hypnotic beauty and a dazzling technique, Mr. Neidich has received unanimous accolades from critics and fellow musicians both in the United States and abroad; but it is his musical intelligence in scores as diverse as Mozart and Elliott Carter that has earned for Mr. Neidich a unique place among clarinetists. In the words of The New Yorker, “He’s an artist of uncommon merit — a master of his instrument and, beyond that, an interpreter who keeps listeners hanging on each phrase.”
An ardent exponent of new music and a composer himself, he has expanded the technical and expressive possibilities of the clarinet and has championed the works of many of the world’s most important composers. He is a leading performer on period instruments and has restored and reconstructed original versions of works written by composers ranging from Mozart to Copland.
With a growing discography to his credit, Mr. Neidich can be heard on the Chandos, Sony Classical, Sony Vivarte, Deutsche Grammophon, Musicmasters, Pantheon, and Bridge labels, and most recently in the Mozart Basset clarinet Concerto on historical instruments for Bremen Radio Hall Recordings. He is publishing editions of major clarinet and wind chamber music for Lauren Keiser Music and Southern Music, has made instructional videos for Play with a Pro, and together with Ayako Oshima publishes a monthly column in the Japanese magazine, Pipers.
Under Mr. Neidich’s direction, along with his wife, fellow clarinetist Ayako Oshima, the popular Wa Concert Series, held at Tenri Cultural Institute, brings lesser-known works and composers to the attention of the international music community, synthesizing Mr. Neidich’s lifetime of musical knowledge, exploration, and thoughtful reflection. In recent seasons, Mr. Neidich has added conducting to his musical accomplishments. He has guest-conducted throughout the country and continues to serve as conductor of the Queens College Chamber Orchestra with whom he has performed the works of Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven in historically informed interpretations.
In wide demand as a soloist, Mr. Neidich has collaborated with several of the world’s leading orchestras and ensembles, including the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Concertgebouw Orchestra, the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, Halle Staatsorchester, Orpheus, the St. Louis Symphony, Jacksonville Symphony, Pasadena Symphony, San Diego Symphony, New City Chamber Orchestra of San Francisco, the Yomiuri and Tokyo Philharmonic, Hyogo PAC Orchestra, Tafelmusik, the Juilliard, Guarneri, American, Mendelssohn, and Parker Quartets.
A native New Yorker of Belorussian and Greek descent, Charles Neidich studied with the famed pedagogue Leon Russianoff. He received a BA, cum laude, in anthropology from Yale University. In 1975 he was granted a Fulbright grant for study in the former Soviet Union, and he attended the Moscow Conservatory for three years studying with Boris Dikov and Kirill Vinogradov.
In 1985, Mr. Neidich became the first clarinetist to win the Walter W. Naumburg Competition, which brought him to prominence as a soloist. He then taught at the Eastman School of Music, and during that tenure, joined the renowned New York Woodwind Quintet, an ensemble with which he still performs. His European honors include top prizes at the 1982 Munich International ARD Competition, the Geneva, and the Paris Accanthes International Competitions. Mr. Neidich has achieved recognition as a teacher in addition to his activities as a performer, and is currently a member of the artist faculties of CUNY Graduate School, The Juilliard School, the Manhattan School of Music, and the Mannes College of Music. He held the post of Associate Professor at the Aaron Copland School of Music at Queens College for many years. In 2004, he was awarded the William Schuman Award for performance and scholarship at The Juilliard School. The Kitakaruizawa Music Seminar, now in its 13th season, was co-founded by Mr. Neidich and Ms. Oshima. In 2018 he was awarded a lifetime membership in honor of his artistic achievements by the International Clarinet Society and a medal for lifetime achievement from the National Society of Arts and Letters.
Hailed "Queen of the Flute" by New York Magazine at the outset of her, now, brilliant 50-year career, flutist Carol Wincenc was First Prize Winner of the (sole) Walter W. Naumburg Solo Flute Competition, as well as the Lifetime Achievement Award recipient from the National Flute Association, the National Society of Arts and Letters Gold Medal for Lifetime Achievement in Music, and Distinguished Alumni Awards from Manhattan School of Music and the Brevard Music Center. During the past two seasons she performed, recorded and gave masterclasses as an exclusive Burkart Flutes Artist in Beijing, Shenyang, Seoul, Warsaw, Prague, Venice, Nice, and Thessoloniki. In North America she performed as soloist and chamber musician from coast to coast, including Seattle, Phoenix, Dallas, Edmonton, Banff, Iowa City, Minneapolis, New Orleans, Tucson, Palm Beach, Sarasota, Philadelphia, Boston and her home city, New York. Recently she recorded an all Uebayashi album with the award winning Escher String Quartet, and video/audios in partnership with her collaborator/pianist Bryan Wagorn of the Metropolitan Opera. Most recently she and Mr. Wagorn performed to a sold out house at Weill Carnegie Hall for the "Naumburg Looks Back" series.
Delighting audiences for over four decades with her signature charismatic, high virtuosity and deeply heartfelt musicality, she has appeared as soloist with such ensembles as the Chicago, San Francisco, Pittsburgh, Detroit and London Symphonies, the BBC, Warsaw and Buffalo Philharmonics, as well as the Los Angeles, Stuttgart and Saint Paul Chamber Orchestras, the latter for which she was Principal and Solo Flute from 1972-77. She has performed in countless festivals such as Mostly Mozart, Aldeburgh, Budapest, Frankfurt, Santa Fe, Spoleto, Music at Menlo, Aspen, Yale/Norfolk, Sarasota, Banff and Marlboro. The muse of today's most prominent composers, Ms. Wincenc has premiered numerous works written for her by legends Christopher Rouse, Henryk Gorecki, Lukas Foss, Jake Heggie, Paul Schoenfeld, Tod Machover, Yuko Uebayashi, Thea Musgrave, Andrea Clearfield, Shi-Hui Chen and Joan Tower. In great demand as a chamber musician, Ms. Wincenc has collaborated with the Emerson, Tokyo, Guarnieri, Cleveland, Juilliard and Escher String Quartets, and performed with Jessye Norman, Emanuel Ax and Yo-Yo Ma.
A Grammy nominee, she has recorded for Nonesuch, London/Decca, Deutsche Grammophon, Telarc (Diapason D'Or Award), Music Masters (Recording of Special Merit with Andras Schiff) and Naxos (Grammophone Magazine "Pick of the Month with Buffalo Philharmonic). Ms. Wincenc created and directed a series of International Flute Festivals at the Ordway Theater in St. Paul, Minnesota, featuring such diverse artists as Jean-Pierre Rampal, Herbie Mann, Steven Kujala and the American Indian flutist, R. Carlos Nakai. She had the privilege of working directly with legendary music luminaries Aaron Copland, Olivier Messaien, Rudolf Serkin, Joshua Bell, Christophe Eschenbach, Loren Maazel, Michael Tilson Thomas, Philip Glass, Andre Previn, Paul Simon and Judy Collins, to name a few!
She is a member of the New York Woodwind Quintet and a founding member of Les Amies with New York Philharmonic principals Nancy Allen, harpist and Cynthia Phelps, violist. Ms. Wincenc continues more than a quarter of a century on the faculties of The Juilliard School and Stony Brook University having mentored and graduated countless rising, flute stars commanding principal flute positions in major symphony orchestras and university professorships. She is renowned for her popular series of etudes and flute classics, the "Carol Wincenc 21st Century Flute" published by Lauren Keiser/Hal Leonard Music Publishers (available on 'Amazon'). A long time resident of New York City, she is the proud mother of singer/songwriter Nicola Wincenc (Cavernsband.com). Carol Wincenc is a native of Buffalo, NY, and was raised in a deeply active, musical family, along with her two older sisters, and under the mentorship of her violinist father and symphony conductor, Dr. Joseph Wincenc, and pianist mother, Margaret Wincenc. Having concertized on five continents, Ms. Wincenc loves nothing more than "giving back" with her music-making to communities world wide.
Pianist Mohamed Shams enjoys a varied musical life as performer with a strong emphasis on chamber music and neglected and rare composers of the late nineteenth and an advocate of twentieth century music. He has performed a diverse repertoire as chamber music and soloist throughout the United States, as well as in England, Scotland, Italy, Austria, Czech Republic, Germany, Hungry, Tunisia, China, Hong Kong, Japan and Egypt.
Shams has performed as a soloist in historically significant venues around the world such Weill Hall/Carnegie Hall, Steinway Hall, Usher Hall, Dundee Concert Hall, Manasterly Palace, Beethoven Saal, Stadthalle in Göttingen, The Royal Concert Hall in Glasgow and Bruno Walter Auditorium/Lincoln Center. Along with having performed in such venues he performed as soloist with world-renowned orchestras such Royal Philharmonic Orchestra/Batiz, The Royal Scottish National Orchestra/Kluxen, Manhattan School Orchestra/Entremont, Royal Conservatoire Symphony Orchestra/Danzmayr Göttingen Symphoniker/Abbassi and Cairo Symphony Orchestra/Mueller. As a chamber music collaborator, he worked with world-class musicians such as Charles Neidich, Fred Sherry, Ayako Oshima, Suren Bagratuni, Jonthan Plowright, Steven Osborne and Vers Beths.
Shams has been featured in WQXR young artist showcase three times including one time exclusively devoted to his live recordings. He was semi-finalist at Washington International Piano Competition and Scottish International Piano Competition. Shams was also invited to many international music festivals such as Beethoven Festival in Bonn, String Academy in Pilsen, Brevard Music Festival in NC and Pianofest in the Hamptons and Royal Conservatoire of Scotland Piano festival.
As recipient of the Fulbright Scholarship grant in 2006 in research of 20th century American composers, Shams has gone in performing masterpieces of such eminent composers like Elliot Carter, John Corigliano, Leonard Bernstein and John Musto. He is also a recipient of the Silver Medal of the Worshipful Company of Musicians in London in 2012.
Shams’s musical studies earned him M.M, with Harold Bauer award from The Manhattan School of Music and B.M with distinction from Cairo Conservatoire. He also earned another M.M from The Royal Scottish Conservatoire where he was awarded the Governor’s prize for outstanding achievements. His primary teachers were Edgar Davilianidzi, Douglas Weeks, Elena Dizamshvilli, Marc Silverman, Aaron Shorr, Steven Osborne and David Westfall. Currently work as a part-time faculty at Purchase College of Music-SUNY and currently a chamber music coach at RWS entertainment group.
Mr.Shams has been a frequent collaborator at WA concert series and its own artistic director, the world-renowned Clarinetist, Charles Neidich.
For further information, please contact Hemsing Associates at 212-772-1132 or visit www.hemsingpr.com
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