BRONX SALON: SOPHIE SHAO AND BAE

On Saturday, February 23rd, Bronx Arts Ensemble welcomes cellist Sophie Shao to the BAE family as a new Bronx resident. Violinist Joyce Hammann is new to BAE as well, while pianist Adrienne Kim is a regular guest artist. The concert will also feature William J. Scribner Young Bronx Artist Competition Winner Daniel Mori on the piano.

The performance is followed by informal discussion and refreshments.

Advance Tickets $50 | $60 at the Door

Performers:

Joyce Hammann, violin
Adrienne Kim, piano
Sophie Shao, cello

William J. Scribner Young Bronx Artist Competition Winner, Daniel Mori, piano

Program:

“Madrigal” by Carlos Chávez

“Estrellita” by Manuel Ponce, arranged by Jascha Heifetz

Ballade No. 1 in G minor by Frédéric Chopin, featuring Daniel Mori, William J. Scribner Young Bronx Artist Competition Winner

Piano Trio No. 3 in F minor by Antonín Dvořák 

“Madrigal” is a profoundly poetic piece for cello and piano by famed Mexican composer Carlos Chávez. He was also a conductor, music theorist, educator, journalist, and founder and director of the Mexican Symphonic Orchestra, the country’s first permanent orchestra, started by a musicians’ labor union. He was deeply influenced by indigenous Mexican music, which he devoted much time to researching and cataloguing in his capacity as director of the National Conservatory of Music. Interestingly, he was also one of the first composers to speak about electronic music. Describing his own work, he said, “The idea of repetition and variation can be replaced by the notion of constant rebirth, of true derivation: a stream that never comes back to its source; a stream in eternal development, like a spiral.”

Chávez was the piano student of Manuel Ponce, considered the father of the Mexican nationalist music movement. His song “Estrellita” is one of the most popular Mexican songs of all time and has been translated into dozens of other languages and arranged for all kinds of instrumentations. In this concert, Hammann and Kim will perform the arrangement for piano and violin by Jascha Heifetz. When Heifetz was on tour in Mexico City in 1923, he needed a Mexican piece for his program. He heard “Estrellita” in a café and jotted it down on napkin, arranging it when he got back to his hotel room and playing it that very night.

Dvořák was also was known for bringing the folk music of Moravia and his native Bohemia to the concert stage. He even tackled American folk music when he was living in the U.S., while American composers scorned their own local folk heritage. His Piano Trio in F minor is beloved for its extraordinary richness of ideas and a symphonic sound that bends the boundaries of chamber music. He began writing it six weeks after his mother Anna’s death, and it is darker and more uncertain than much of his other work. Dvořák himself was at the keyboard at the premiere.