June 4: Violinist Tosca Opdam Makes Weill Debut in Robin de Raaff World Premiere, Inspired by de Kooning Painting

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Katy Salomon | Morahan Arts and Media
katy@morahanartsandmedia.com | 863.660.2214

Violinist Tosca Opdam Makes Weill Recital Hall Debut

Featuring a World Premiere by Robin de Raaff
Inspired by Willem de Kooning’s North Atlantic Light,
Plus Bach, Korngold, Debussy, and Prokofiev
With Pianist Victor Stanislavsky

Monday, June 4, 2018 at 8:00pm
Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall

“At times bold and regal, other times poignant and tender;
at all times rendered gorgeously” – The Huffington Post

www.toscaopdam.com 

 

New York, New York (May 1, 2018) – Dutch violinist Tosca Opdam will make her debut in Carnegie Hall’s Weill Recital Hall presented by EBF Classics on June 4, 2018 at 8pm with a program exploring the theme of “home.” The centerpiece of the evening is the world premiere of Robin de Raaff’s North Atlantic Light,commissioned by and dedicated to Opdam and inspired by Willem de Kooning’s 1977 painting of the same name. Accompanied by pianist Victor Stanislavsky, she will also perform J.S. Bach’s Sonata for Violin and Harpsichord in E major, BWV 1016; selections from Korngold’s Much Ado About Nothing Suite; Debussy’s Violin Sonata; and Prokofiev’s Violin Sonata No. 2 in D major, Op. 94bis. Opdam plays a Matteo Goffriller violin from 1700, which is generously on loan to her by a private collector.

Composer Robin de Raaff praises “the honesty and authenticity” of Opdam’s musical personality. He says, “Her sound palette features a remarkably beautiful core: she can be beautifully fierce at one moment and at other times warm and intimate, with a beauty out of this world. These extremes are exactly what I am looking for when I compose. I feel a great resemblance between her and my music.”

The program explores the theme of home: homelands, adopted homes, and changed homes. Prokofiev wrote his Violin Sonata No. 2 at a refuge for Soviet artists in the Ural Mountains in 1943. Austrian-Jewish composer Korngold wrote his Much Ado About Nothing Suite in 1918 before moving to Hollywood, where he hoped to maintain footholds in both his old and new homes, scoring films and writing concert works. Debussy, an ardent champion of the French classical tradition, wrote his Violin Sonata in 1917 in his native Paris, on the front lines of World War I. The fountainhead of Western music, J.S. Bach represents an oft-returned-to home for classical musicians.

Robin de Raaff describes his Sonata for Violin and Piano No. 2 North Atlantic Light as a “musical depiction of the images, colors, and atmosphere of Willem De Koonings painting, but also an imagined journey through its creation. From the empty canvas to the application of the layers of paint, I have attempted to capture and translate the painting techniques into compositional and sonic structures.”

Artist Willem de Kooning was born in the Netherlands and left for New York when he was 21 years old, where he painted the East-Hampton sea view that inspired the painting. Opdam premieres the orchestral version of the work, Raaff’s Violin Concerto No. 2, North Atlantic Light, with the Netherlands Philharmonic Orchestra at the Royal Concertgebouw, led by Marc Albrecht, in May 2019. Robin de Raaff’s music has been championed by Jaap van Zweden, incoming New York Philharmonic Music Director. van Zweden led the premieres of de Raaff’s Violin Concerto and Symphony No. 1, Tanglewood Tales, both featured on the 2017 recording Jaap van Zweden Conducts Robin de Raaff (Etcetera Records). van Zweden was the first-ever winner of the Oskar Back Violin Competition, of which he is now a sponsor and which Opdam won in 2011. The commission of Robin de Raaff’s North Atlantic Light for Violin and Piano is made possible by Fonds Podiumkunsten Performing Arts Fund NL.

Opdam will wear a gown designed for her by Dutch haute couture designer Paul Schulten, also inspired by the de Kooning painting. Schulten has dressed Opdam several times for high profile performances, but this is the first time he is designing a dress specifically inspired by an artwork - further marrying Opdam’s influences of fashion, visual art, and music.

Program Information
Monday, June 4, 2018 at 8:00pm
Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall | 154 W 57th St. | New York, NY
Tosca Opdam, violin
Victor Stanislavsky, piano
Tickets: Tickets, priced at $25, are available at the Carnegie Hall Box Office, 57th Street and Seventh Avenue, or can be charged to major credit cards by calling CarnegieCharge at 212-247-7800 or by visiting the Carnegie Hall website, carnegiehall.org.
Link: https://www.carnegiehall.org/Calendar/2018/06/04/TOSCA-OPDAM-0800PM

Program:
BACH: Sonata for Violin and Harpsichord in E Major, BWV 1016
KORNGOLD: Selections from Much Ado About Nothing Suite
DEBUSSY: Violin Sonata
ROBIN DE RAAFF: North Atlantic Light for Violin and Piano (World Premiere)
PROKOFIEV: Violin Sonata No. 2 in D Major, Op. 94bis

About Tosca Opdam
Praised for her “enchanting musical personality” (De Volkskrant), Dutch violinist Tosca Opdam won First Prize in the 2011 Oskar Back Violin Competition. She subsequently performed at the Royal Concertgebouw and returned for a sold-out debut recital — lauded by The Huffington Post as “at times bold and regal, other times poignant and tender; at all times rendered gorgeously” — and a performance in honor of the re-opening of Amsterdam’s Rijksmuseum. Her 2015 performance as part of the Liberation Day Concert on the Amstel River, with King Willem-Alexander and Queen Maxima in attendance, was broadcast live on Dutch national television.

Opdam designs programs that connect music to painting, dance, and other art forms. She presented a lecture recital at the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, collaborated with New York City Ballet and the New York Choreographic Institute in a performance at Lincoln Center, and appeared with the Dutch National Ballet. She performed Messiaen’s Quartet for the End of Time in a presentation combining actors, musicians, and visual texts. In 2014 she hosted a radio episode broadcast live on Dutch national radio, and in 2016 her performance of works by Louis Andriessen, Henriette Bosmans, and Brahms was broadcast by New York’s Q2 Music and Amsterdam’s Het Klankcafé.

In 2017 the Toscata Foundation was established in Tosca Opdam’s name with the aim of promoting classical music worldwide through education, violin pedagogy, collaborations with other artistic disciplines, and the championing and commissioning of contemporary composers for performance in the Netherlands and beyond. She received her master of music degree from The Juilliard School and her bachelor of music degree from the Manhattan School of Music.

About Victor Stanislavsky
One of the most exciting young pianists in Israel today, Victor Stanislavsky enjoys an extensive international career which has taken him to numerous countries in Europe, the Far East, and the Americas. In the 2016-17 season he gave more than 60 performances as a concerto soloist, recitalist, and chamber musician to critical acclaim. Stanislavsky has performed as a soloist with most of Israeli’s major orchestras, including the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, as well as with the Milan Symphony Orchestra and China’s National Symphony Orchestra, among many others.

Victor holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees, summa cum laude, from the Buchmann–Mehta School of Music at Tel-Aviv University, where he studied with Daniel Gortler and Arie Vardi. He has won more than 13 prizes in competitions, including first prize at the 2006 Aviv competition and first prize at the Viardo International Piano Competition in New York. He was also awarded second prize at the 2009 Andorra International Piano Competition, the 2007 E. Pozzoli International Piano Competition, and the 2007 China International Piano Competition in Xiamen. Victor Stanislavsky has been a recipient of scholarships from the America-Israel Cultural Foundation since 2000 and completed three years of service in the Israeli Defense Forces under the status of an Outstanding Musician.

About the Fonds Podiumkunsten Performing Arts Fund NL
The Performing Arts Fund NL is the most important culture fund for music, music theatre, dance and theatre in the Netherlands and provides support on behalf of the government to every form of the professional performing arts.

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*Photo Credit at Top of Release: Tosca Opdam in Paul Schulten Haute Couture. Photo by studioanouk???????.