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W E D N E S D AY, J A N U A RY 5 , 2 0 0 5 | 8 P. M .
Andrés Díaz, cello
ANDRÉS DÍAZ, CELLO
Andrés Díaz is a 1998 awardee of the prestigious Avery Fisher Career Grant as
well as a generous grant from the Susan W. Rose Fund for Music. Since winning First Prize in the 1986 Naumburg International Cello Competition, Mr.
Díaz has exhilarated both critics and audiences with his intense and charismatic
performances. He has earned exceptional reviews for his “strongly personal
interpretive vision” (The New York Times) and his “bold and imaginative” playing
(The Boston Globe) and is currently Artist in Residence at Brevard Music Center
in Brevard, North Carolina.
JUDITH GORDON, PIANO
Claude Debussy
(1862–1918)
Sonata in D Minor
Prologue
Serenade
Finale
Kevin Puts
(b. 1972)
Air
Bohuslav Martinu
(1890–1959)
Sonata No. 2
Allegro
Largo
Allegro commodo
INTERMISSION
Sergei Rachmaninov
(1873–1943)
Sonata in G Minor, Op. 19
Lento-Allegro moderato
Allegro scherzando
Andante
Allegro mosso-Moderato-Vivace
Andrés Díaz appears by arrangement with Herbert Barrett Management, Inc.
As a courtesy to the artists, please remain seated until they have left the hall.
Andrés Díaz’s numerous orchestral appearances have included return engagements with the Atlanta Symphony under the late conductor Robert Shaw and
performances with the American Symphony at Carnegie Hall, the symphony
orchestras of Milwaukee, Seattle and Rochester under Christopher Seaman, the
Boston Pops and Esplanade Orchestras, the Chicago Symphony at the Ravinia
Festival with Edo de Waart conducting, and the National Symphony Orchestra.
The young virtuoso is a sought-after recitalist and made his Alice Tully Hall
debut in 1987. He received critical praise for his second appearance at Lincoln
Center’s Alice Tully Hall in 1989 when The New York Times remarked that his
musical views “always seemed deeply considered rather than superficial or manufactured.” His recital appearances have included the Library of Congress in
Washington, D.C., Jordan Hall and the Gardner Museum in Boston, the
Ambassador Auditorium in Pasadena, and the highly regarded San Francisco
Performances Series.
Andrés Díaz frequently performed with the late pianist Samuel Sanders.The
Díaz/Sanders Duo performed at Carnegie Hall’s Weill Recital Hall, Merkin
Hall in New York, the Philadelphia Arts Museum, Atlanta’s Spivey Hall and
other venues across the U.S. and abroad. Among other renowned pianists with
whom Mr. Díaz has collaborated are Judith Gordon, Margo Garrett, Richard
Goode, Mischa Dichter and Anne-Marie McDermott.
During the summer of 2001, Mr. Díaz gave the world premiere of Gunther
Schuller’s Concerto for Cello and Orchestra at the Brevard Music Center with the
Brevard Festival Orchestra. In February 2001, Mr. Díaz performed the American
premiere of Frank Bridge’s Oration for cello and orchestra at Boston University.
Mr. Díaz has also premiered Thomas Oboe Lee’s Cello Concerto (written
expressly for Díaz) with the Boston Civic Symphony, and he gave the Boston
and Washington, D.C. premieres of Leon Kirchner’s Music for Cello and Orchestra.
In that Boston performance, the composer conducted the work. Díaz later performed the piece with the National Symphony Orchestra, James Paul conducting, where it received the First Prize Friedham Award.
and Colin Carr, and currently plays an active role in chamber music performances with the Conservatory’s faculty. He served for five years as
Associate Professor of Cello at Boston University and Co-Director of the
Boston University Tanglewood Institute Quartet Program, resigning in
September 2001. Mr. Díaz now lives in a suburb of Philadelphia with his
wife, Julie, and sons Peter Manuel and Gabriel Andrés. He plays a 1698
Matteo Goffriller cello and a bow made by his father, Manuel Díaz.
Judith Gordon, piano
Judith Gordon gave her New York recital debut at the Metropolitan Museum
of Art’s “Introductions” Series. In 2003 she appeared as soloist with the
Boston Pops (Ravel), the M.I.T. Symphony (Harbison) and the Berkshire
Symphony (Chopin). She has been presented often on the FleetBoston
Celebrity Series and participated in each season of Emmanuel Music’s recent
seven-year survey of music by Schubert.
The wide range of composers with whom she has worked or who have
written music for her includes Martin Brody, Peter Child, Alan Fletcher, John
Harbison, David Horne, Lee Hyla, Libby Larsen and Peter Lieberson.
She has appeared in concert with artists and ensembles including soprano
Lisa Saffer; mezzo-sopranos Janice Felty and Lorraine Hunt Lieberson; tenor
William Hite; baritone James Maddalena; cellists Andrés Díaz, Rhonda Rider
and Yo-Yo Ma; violists James Dunham, Cynthia Phelps and Marcus
Thompson; violinists Rose Mary Harbison and Andrew Kohji Taylor; oboist
Douglas Boyd; pianists Leonard Stein and Robert Levin; the Arianna,
Borromeo, Lydian and St. Lawrence string quartets; the Boston Chamber
Music Society, Collage New Music, Essential Music, and Santa Fe New
Music; and many members of the Boston Symphony Orchestra and the St.
Louis Symphony Orchestra.
Kevin Puts, composer
Hailed by the press as “one of the best American composers of his generation,” Kevin Puts has had works commissioned and performed by leading
ensembles and soloists throughout North America, Europe and the Far East.
Known for his distinctive and richly colored musical voice, Mr. Puts has
received many of today’s most prestigious honors and awards for composition.
Mr. Díaz’s summer festival appearances (including frequent return engagements)
include the Santa Fe, La Jolla, Marlboro, Ravinia, Bravo! Colorado, Spoleto,
Saratoga and Tanglewood festivals. His appearances at Tanglewood earned him
the Pierre Mayer Memorial Award for Outstanding String Player. He has toured
nationally with the Santa Fe and Spoleto festivals.
Air was commissioned by Music From Angel Fire. It is the second movement
of a larger work for various instruments and piano called “Four Airs,” and it
was written during the summer of 2004 and premiered in August by Andrés
Díaz, cello and the composer at the piano. At its opening, the work reflects
the nature of a Baroque air, and thereafter traverses a variety of stylistic references and textures. It relies on a simple ‘short-long’ rhythm for accompaniment, and this rhythm is almost ceaseless as the piece progresses, though it
becomes embedded in textures of ever-increasing complexity and richness.
Andrés Díaz was born in Santiago, Chile in 1964, and began studying the cello
at the age of five.Three years later he moved to Atlanta, Georgia and studied at
the Georgia Academy of Music with Martha Gerchefski. Mr. Díaz graduated
from the New England Conservatory where he worked with Laurence Lesser
A native of St. Louis, Mr. Puts is Assistant Professor of Composition at the
University of Texas at Austin. He received his Bachelor’s Degree from the
Eastman School of Music, a Master’s Degree from Yale University, and a
Doctorate of Musical Arts from the Eastman School of Music.