SHARON ROBINSON, cello; BENJAMIN HOCHMAN, piano
On Sunday, September 29, the Brattleboro Music Center’s 2013-14 concert season opens with an exceptional performance of the complete cycle of Beethoven’s sonatas and variations for piano and cello.
World renowned musicians, cellist Sharon Robinson and pianist Benjamin Hochman, will play Beethoven’s complete works for cello and piano, five sonatas and three sets of variations, in two concerts, 3 pm & 7pm, at Centre Congregational Church in Brattleboro, VT.
The performance of Beethoven’s entire collection for cello and piano in sequence provides a unique journey through the master’s life.
The five sonatas span Beethoven’s three major creative periods: the first two were written in 1796 when he was producing his breakthrough early piano sonatas; Sonata No. 3 in A was composed during his most productive compositional period in the middle of his career; and the final two sonatas date from the beginning of his mystical late period.
Winner of the Avery Fisher Recital Award, the Piatigorsky Memorial Award, the Pro Musicis Award, and a GRAMMY Nominee, cellist Sharon Robinson is recognized worldwide as a consummate artist and one of the most
outstanding musicians of our time. Whether as a recitalist, soloist with orchestra, or member of the world-famous Kalichstein-Laredo-Robinson Trio, critics, audiences and fellow musicians respond to what the Indianapolis Star
has called “A cellist who has simply been given the soul of Caruso.” Her guest appearances with orchestras include the Philadelphia and Minnesota Orchestras, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Boston, Baltimore, Cincinnati,
Dallas, Houston, National, Pittsburgh, St. Louis and San Francisco Symphonies, and in Europe, the London Symphony, Helsinki Philharmonic, Zürich’s Tonhalle Orchestra, and the English, Scottish and Franz Lizst Chamber Orchestras.
Sharon Robinson divides her time between teaching, solo engagements, performing with her husband, violinist and conductor Jaime Laredo, and touring with the Kalichstein-Laredo-Robinson Trio. As of fall of 2012, she has started teaching on the renowned instrumental and chamber music faculty of Cleveland Institute of Music. She previously taught at Jacobs School of Music and Indiana University since 2005. Ms. Robinson and Mr. Laredo live in Guilford, Vermont, and generously serve as the Brattleboro Music Center’s Artistic Advisors.
Ms. Robinson’s television appearances have included The Tonight Show, the Today Show, the Kennedy Center Honors on CBS, a profile on CBS Sunday Morning, plus guest staring with Garrison Keillor on the Prairie Home Companion on NPR. Equally impressive are her festival engagements, which include Spoleto, Mostly Mozart, Seoul Spring Festival, Aspen, Marlboro, London’s South Bank, Madeira, Granada, Edinburgh, and Prague’s Autumn Festival where she performed the Dvorák Cello Concerto at the famous Dvorák Hall.
Revered for her chamber music performances, Sharon Robinson co-founded the Kalichstein-Laredo-Robinson Trio thirty-five years ago and she collaborated with Rudolf Serkin and Alexander Schneider at the Malboro Music
Festival. She has appeared with some of the musical giants of our time including Isaac Stern, Leon Fleisher, Rudolf Firkušný, Yo-Yo Ma, Engene Istomin, Itzhak Perlman, Jean-Pierre Rampal, Mstislav Rostropovich, Pinchas Zukerman, André Watts, Emanuel Ax, Yefim Bronfman, and the Emerson, Guarneri, Miami, Juilliard, Orion and Tokyo Quartets.
Pianist Benjamin Hochman’s eloquent and virtuosic performances blend artistic bravura with poetic interpretation exciting audiences and critics alike. He performs in major cities around the world as an
orchestral soloist, recitalist and respected chamber music partner, working with a celebrated array of renowned conductors and colleagues. Described by the New York Times as a “gifted, fast-rising artist,” Mr. Hochman is an impassioned and intelligent exponent of diverse composers, from Bach and Mozart through to Kurtág and Peter Lieberson.
Winner of the prestigious Avery Fisher Career Grant in 2011, Mr. Hochman made his successful New York recital debut in 2006 at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. He subsequently established a vibrant and venerated
musical presence in New York City through concerts with the New York Philharmonic and the American Symphony Orchestra, his Carnegie Hall debut with the Israel Philharmonic and a succession of prominent recital and chamber
performances the 92nd Street Y. Following his debut with the Chicago Symphony in a Mozart Piano Concerto project with Pinchas Zukerman and Hubbard Street Dance Chicago, he returned at the invitation of Emanuel Ax to participate in the 2012 “Keys to the City” Festival. In September 2012 he made his Los Angeles Philharmonic debut at the Hollywood Bowl and in January 2013 he made his third subscription series appearance with the Pittsburgh Symphony in performances of Ravel’s Concerto for the Left Hand Alone, conducted by Gianandrea Noseda of
which the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette said: “He unfurled the music so gently, lending a grace to it I had not heard before.”
Mr. Hochman has performed with the Chicago, Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, Houston, Seattle, San Francisco, Vancouver, New Jersey and Portland Symphonies, the Los Angeles and New York Philharmonics, the New York String Orchestra, Prague Philharmonia, Istanbul State Orchestra and the National Arts Centre Orchestra in Canada under eminent conductors such as Kazuyoshi Akiyama, Leon Botstein, Nir Kabaretti, Jaime Laredo, Jahja Ling, Jun Märkl, Daniel Meyer, Lucas Richman, David Robertson, Bramwell Tovey, Joshua Weilerstein, Kaspar Zehnder and Pinchas Zukerman. He has appeared in his native Israel with several orchestras including the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, Jerusalem Symphony, and the Tel Aviv Soloists.
Past festival highlights include Marlboro, Ravinia, Caramoor, Santa Fe, Bard, Gilmore, Vail and Vancouver in North America, as well as international festivals such as Lucerne, Spoleto, Verbier, Ruhr, Israel Festival and Prussia Cove. Mr. Hochman has performed internationally at such major halls as the Concertgebouw, the Louvre, Tivoli Theatre, l’Auditori de Barcelona, Suntory Hall in Tokyo and Kumho Art Hall in Seoul. A masterful collaborator, Benjamin Hochman has worked with the Tokyo, Mendelssohn, Casals, Prazak and Daedalus Quartets, Zukerman ChamberPlayers, members of the Guarneri, Juilliard and Orion Quartets, Jonathan Biss, Jaime Laredo, Cho-Liang Lin and Ani Kavafian, Miklós Perényi, Ralph Kirshbaum and Sharon Robinson.
In addition to the 2011 Avery Fisher Career Grant, Mr. Hochman received the “Outstanding Pianist” citation at the Verbier Academy, the Festorazzi Award from the Curtis Institute of Music, second prize at the Melbourne International Chamber Music Competition, the “Partosh Prize” awarded by the Israeli Minister of Culture for best performance of an Israeli work and first prize at the National Piano Competition of the Rubin Academy of Music in Jerusalem. His performances have been broadcast on National Public Radio’s Young Artist Showcase and Performance Today, WNET’s Sunday Arts, WQXR, CBC (Canada), ABC (Australia), Radio France and Israel’s Voice of Music radio station, as well as on the European television network Mezzo.
Born in Jerusalem, Benjamin Hochman began his studies with Esther Narkiss at the Conservatory of the Rubin Academy in Jerusalem and Emanuel Krasovsky in Tel Aviv. He is a graduate of the Curtis Institute of Music and the Mannes College of Music where his principal teachers were Claude Frank and Richard Goode. His studies were supported by the America-Israel Cultural Foundation. He is currently on the piano faculty of Bard College and
the Longy School of Music. Benjamin Hochman is a Steinway Artist and lives in New York City with his wife, violinist Jennifer Koh.
Sharon Robinson and Benjamin Hochman will perform in the first concert of the Brattleboro Music Center’s 2013-14 Chamber Music Series. The series continues with violinist Bella Hristova on December 14, pianist Jonathan Biss on January 10, Escher String Quartet on March 23, and Musicians from Marlboro on April 4. Discounted series subscriptions are available prior to the first concert on September 29. For details visit: bmcvt.org/chamber-music-series/concerts.
The Complete Cycle of Beethoven Sonatas for Piano and Cello will be performed in two concerts on Sunday, September 29, 3 pm and 7 pm, at Centre Congregational Church, 193 Main Street in Brattleboro, VT. Tickets for 1 concert are $30, $20, $10. The combined prices to attend both concerts are $45, $30, $15. Lowest price tickets have limited viewing.
For concert tickets, including series subscriptions, call the Brattleboro Music Center at 802-257-4523 or
visit www.bmcvt.org.
The BMC’s Chamber Music Series is sponsored by Vermont Public Radio.
