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Saturday 12 January, 2 pm CBC Glenn Gould Studio Duo Volando: Two Piano Extravaganza Lang Ning Liu PIANO Michael Berkovsky PIANO Wang Jian Zhong (b. 1933) “One Hundred Birds Salute the Phoenix” Arranged for two pianos by the Duo Xian Xinghai (1905–1945) Yellow River Piano Concerto Arranged for two pianos by the Duo Ode to the Yellow River Defend the Yellow River Ástor Piazzolla (1921–1992) Tangata INTERMISSION Constantine Caravassilis "Sirens" for Two Pianos World Première, dedicated to the Duo Saltwater Rites Winged Daughters of the Earth Eternal Voices of the Archipelago Maurice Ravel (1875–1937) La Valse PRESENTER TITLE SPONSOR ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Today’s performance has been made possible through the generous support of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Chinese Artists Society of Toronto. Special thanks are due to WTC Production, Laurance Tan, Musideum, and Toyota on Front for all their help and support. ABOUT THE ARTISTS Duo Volando FEATURING LANG NING LIU & MICHAEL BERKOVSKY Pianist Lang Ning Liu brings an introspective approach to both the contemporary and classical repertoire, with performances that couple breathtaking technical mastery with profound and eloquent musicality. Her exceptional artistic range and the compelling immediacy of her interpretations offer listeners distinctively original concert experiences. Anthony Tommasini of The New York Times hailed her as "a sensitive, extremely compelling artist", and praised her "elegant pianism, warmth and artistic maturity". Musical America has remarked on her "miraculous strength and confident breadth." Recent highlight engagements include a Canadian tour with the Toronto Concert Orchestra, which includes a stop at the Toronto Centre for the Arts; a debut performance and CD recording with the Prague Radio Symphony Orchestra in Czech Republic; performances with China Philharmonic and Liao Ning Philharmonic in China, and the Juarez Symphony Orchestra in Mexico; solo recitals in the Netherlands, France and Spain; as well as solo and chamber performances throughout North America and Asia. Past guest soloist appearances include the Beijing Symphony Orchestra, Hong Kong Philharmonic, Shreveport Symphony, Southern Missouri Symphony, Juilliard Orchestra, Cathedral Bluffs Symphony, Louisiana Philharmonic, University of Toronto Wind Ensemble, the Asian Youth Orchestra, and the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra. Ms. Liu makes regular media appearances on radio, TV and in the media print in Canada’s largest broadcast and publishing networks, as well as those abroad. Notable media appearances within Canada include CTV’s Bravo! & CP24 TV, Fairchild TV, Rogers TV, OMNI TV, InsideToronto, Sing Tao, M2TV, and regular guest performances on the Classical 96.3 FM. Ms. Liu has premiered and recorded commissioned works by such Canadian composers as Vincent Ho, Clifford Crawley, and Constantine Caravassilis. While performing takes up a significant portion of her time each season, Ms. Liu continues to devote herself to educational and artistic outreach endeavors. She serves as Youth Ambassador for the Chinese Culture Centre of Greater Toronto. She is the founding Artistic Director of the Toronto International Piano Competition and CCC National Canadian Piano Competitions. In 2009, she was invited to serve as a jury member of the MTNA Competition in Maryland. Ms. Liu frequently teaches and conducts masterclasses around the world; many of her students have won national and international prizes. Ms. Liu began her studies at the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing, making her orchestral debut with the Beijing Philharmonic Orchestra at age 10, performing Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 1. She entered The Glenn Gould School in Toronto on full scholarship at age 17, where she received her Bachelor's degree in Piano Performance. She holds a Master's degree in Piano Performance at the renowned Juilliard School in New York. www.ArtOfLangNing.com Canadian-Israeli pianist, Michael Berkovsky, made his New York debut at Avery Fisher Hall and has toured as a soloist in Ireland, Costa Rica, Japan, Italy, Israel, Canada and the United States. He has won numerous awards, including the Peabody Conservatory Competition, LisztGarrison, IBLA Grand Prize, Jacob Flier International Competition and has performed under the baton of Vladimir Feltsman, Stefan Sanderling and Leon Fleisher. He was also a recipient of the America Israel Cultural Foundation Scholarships, and with the recommendation of Maestro Valery Gergiev, was awarded White Nights Foundation Scholarships while studying at the Juilliard School. Michael was born in the former Soviet Union and immigrated to Israel in 1990. He has studied with NatalyLitvinova and was mentored by Alexander Slobodyanik. In 2001, his family moved to Toronto, Canada. He received Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees from The Juilliard School where he studied with YohevedKaplinsky and Julian Martin. In 2011, he completed his Doctoral degree at the Peabody Conservatory of the John Hopkins University while under the tutelage of Professor Yong Hi Moon. In the past year, Dr. Berkovsky hasbeen invited as a guest artist at a number of local music festivals. He will also be featured as guest faculty at the InterHarmony Festival in Tuscany, Italy in the upcoming summer of 2013. He frequently judges local competitions in Canada and is a board member of the Canadian Music Competition and CCC Music Festival. He also conducts masterclasses regularly in Toronto, Kingston and Barrie. Mr. Berkovsky is in high demand as a teacher and currently has a full studio in which a number a number of his students have placed highly in local and national competitions. Dr. Berkovsky is also an active chamber musician; he has collaborated with the Jupiter Chamber Orchestra, singers from the Metropolitan and Toronto Opera companies and with chamber musicians from the Glenn Gould School Faculty and Toronto Symphony Orchestra. In June 2012, Mr. Berkosvky collaborated with conductor William Noll and Moscow Conservatory Professor PavelNarsessian in the performance of Bach’s Triple Piano Concerto, Poulenc’s Two Piano Concerto and Rachmaninoff’s Suite for Two Pianos in Naples, Florida. Dr. Berkovsky has further been invited to perform a lecture-recital and collaborative program at the Rachmaninoff Conference held February 14-18, 2013, in Naples, Florida. Mr. Berkovsky also regularly collaborates with violinist Janice Lamare. As Co-Directors of the Barrie Music Festival for Children, they have produced and performed a number of concert programs specifically for children. Mr. Berkovsky has also performed together with Lang Ning Liu for the 2012 Moon Festival at the Cultural Chinese Art Centre in Markham. Recently, Mr. Michael Berkovsky and Ms. Lang Ning Liu were awarded a grant by the Canadian Arts Council to complete a recording project of the Chinese folk tune arrangements and newly commissioned work titled “Sirens” for Two Pianos by Constantine Caravassilis featured in tonight’s program. The recording, produced by WTC Productions, will be released in the upcoming year. www.MichaelBerkovsky.com Constantine Caravassilis COMPOSER Driven by emotion, beauty and spirituality, and inspired by the worlds of nature and literature, Constantine Caravassilis’ evocative music is intimately connected to his Hellenic roots, often drawing inspiration from ancient Greek mythology and Byzantine culture. Born in Toronto to a family of musicians, Constantine grew up in a culturally rich community on Samos Island, Greece. Taking his first violin lesson at age six, he later switched to the piano and then founded his own orchestra and choir at age 15, giving annual concerts at the local lyceum. Apart from being a prolific composer, Constantine is also an active pianist and conductor based in Toronto, which has been his home since his late teens. He has conducted the gamUT chamber orchestra at the University of Toronto, and has recorded and premiered works by some 25 young Canadian composers to date. Since his mid-twenties, and while still a student, he has enjoyed international exposure through multiple performances of his music in 20 countries and in important venues including Carnegie Hall (New York), Jordan Hall (Boston), Southam Hall (Ottawa), Bunka-Kaikan Hall (Tokyo), AlteOper (Frankfurt), Round Tower (Copenhagen), Smolensk Philharmonic Hall (Russia) and the Athens Concert Hall, to name but a few. Additionally, his music has been broadcast by BBC3 in Britain, CBC Radio in Canada, CNN Turk in Turkey, TDK Radio in Japan and WCRB Radio in the United States. In 2010, Constantine was named finalist for the Royal Bank of Canada Emerging Artist Award, in addition to winning a number of top honors including the Karen Kieser Prize in Canadian Music and the Harry Freedman Recording Award. In 2006, he was declared Grand Winner of the Volos City International Composition Competition (Greece), where he was awarded three gold medals for his “profoundly mature style and highly individual compositional voice”. Jazz & Tzaz music magazine hailed him as “the most important Hellenic-descent composer of his generation”. He has also held composition residencies with the London Song Festival (UK), the Open Strings Festival (Denmark), the Contemporary Opera Lab (Winnipeg) and the Harp on the Hills Festival (Richmond Hill, ON). Constantine studied piano, conducting and composition at the Royal Conservatory of Music, the Marcel A. Desautels Faculty of Music (University of Manitoba), and the University of Toronto in both the undergraduate and doctoral levels, as a pupil of some of Canada's finest musicians. His most influential teachers are Christos Hatzis (composition), Raffi Armenian (conducting) and Christina Petrowska Quilico (piano). In addition to several academic scholarships, he has received fellowships and been provided with further professional training by a number of organizations including the Toronto Summer Music Academy, the National Arts Centre (Ottawa), City Opera Vancouver, SoundStreams Canada and the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra. www.Caravassilis.ca SIRENS FOR TWO PIANOS Constantine Caravassilis "Sirens" for Two Pianos World Première, dedicated to the Duo i. Saltwater Rites ii. Winged Daughters of the Earth iii. Eternal Voices of the Archipelago Commissioned by and dedicated to Duo Volando, Sirens is a 3-movement work written in 2012. In ancient Greek mythology, the Sirens were daughters of the primordial sea god Phorcys who lived on the isolated island of Faiakes. They were female half-bird/half-human creatures who assailed passing ships while singing seductive songs to the sailors. Their songs were so irresistibly beautiful that the sailors would succumb entirely to their charm, crash their ships on the rocks, and die of hunger on the deserted island. Homer introduces the Sirens in book VII of the Odyssey when Odysseus orders his shipmen to plug their ears with wax to avoid being lured by their singing. According to the mythological tale of the Argonauts, Orpheus would often protect men at sea by singing his own songs, thereby saving them from the danger of being lured by the sound of the Sirens. Growing up beside the Aegean Sea, I always associated the traditional folk tunes of the region with mythological tales, as well as with the many creatures and characters found in each story. In painting these imaginary scenes with the Sirens in the three movements of my piece, I used island folk melodies to call them from their ancient Ionian home, despite the fact that our cultures are thousands of years and miles apart. Saltwater Rites invites the Sirens to fly closer to Asia Minor and sing for us. The melody of this folk song is first introduced in a ritualistic manner and then re-processed in a fugal exposition, portraying the Sirens’ flight towards the Aegean. The music then depicts them participating in a local ritual dance accompanied by the sound of the wind framed by the evocative colors of sea and sky. Winged Daughters of the Earth depicts the duality of these singing creatures. Their half-bird characteristics are symbolized by ‘bird-calls’ played in the upper range of the piano, while their half-human qualities are represented by the expression of a number of unfolding moods, ranging from nostalgic longing to joyful singing and dancing. In Eternal Voices of the Archipelago we experience the luring sounds of the Sirens firsthand. The antiphonal singing between the two pianos fuses another island song with a more romantic-sounding original theme. The Sirens’ song ends with a coda heralding their departure from the Aegean and their singing high in the skies on their way back to Faiakes.