Hilary Hahn Concert Program

Hilary Hahn violin

Cory Smythe piano

Program

Ms. Hahn will announce the order of the pieces from the stage.

Fauré: Sonata #1 in A, op. 13.

Corelli: Sonata #4 in F major, op. 5.

 Bach: Chaconne from Partita #2 in d minor

In addition to the works listed above, the program will feature the following selections from In 27 Pieces: The Hilary Hahn Encores, Ms. Hahn’s project to commission multiple short works from contemporary composers.

Anton Garcia Abril:  “Third Sigh”

David Lang:  “Light Moving”

Mason Bates:  “Ford’s Farm”

Jeff Myers: “The Angry Birds of Kauai”

James Newton Howard:  “133…At Least”

Franghiz Ali-Zadeh: “Impulse”

Michiru Oshima: “Memories”

Elliott Sharp:  “Storm of the Eye”

Hilary Hahn will be available in the lobby following the concert to greet audience members and sign CDs.

Hilary Hahn

Violinist Hilary Hahn’s probing interpretations, technical virtuosity, and commitment to new music have brought her love of classical music to a diverse audience. At age 33, her international fame and recognition, including two Grammies, multiple Diapason “d'Or of the Year” and “Preis der deutschen Schallplattenkritik” prizes, seven Echo Klassik awards, and the 2008 Classic FM / Gramophone Artist of the Year, are a testament to her talent and drive.

Hahn begins her 2012-13 season with performances throughout South America, Spain, and Scandinavia. She appears with the London Philharmonic Orchestra and the Dallas Symphony playing Mozart’s Violin Concerto No. 5 and Korngold’s Violin Concerto in D Major, respectively. She will tour Europe with the Dallas Symphony later in the season. In January, Hahn will embark on a series of European recitals of Fauré, Bach, Corelli, and pieces from her multi-year In 27 Pieces: the Hilary Hahn Encores project. February will see Hahn bow in a number of US cities including San Francisco, Washington, D.C., and Boston, among others. Hahn’s season continues with Sibelius’ Violin Concerto in D minor with the Seattle Symphony and Korngold’s Violin Concerto with the Philadelphia Orchestra in April and May. She will tour Japan in May and finish her regular season with appearances with the Vienna Philharmonic and the Spanish National Orchestra.

In the 16 years since she began recording, Hahn has released 14 feature albums on the Deutsche Grammophon and Sony labels, in addition to three DVDs, an Oscar-nominated movie soundtrack, an award-winning recording for children, and various compilations. In repertoire as diverse as Bach, Stravinsky, Elgar, Beethoven, Vaughan Williams, Mozart, Schoenberg, Paganini, Spohr, Barber, Bernstein, Ives, Higdon, Tchaikovsky, and others, her recordings have received every critical prize in the international press, and have met with equal popular success. All of her recordings have debuted in the top ten of the Billboard classical chart. A concerto recording, which paired Schoenberg and Sibelius, spent twenty-three weeks on the Billboard classical chart. This acclaimed album brought Hahn her second Grammy: the 2009 Award for Best Instrumental Soloist Performance with Orchestra.  Her first Grammy win came in 2003 for her Brahms and Stravinsky concerto album. Hahn’s former teacher, composer Jennifer Higdon, wrote a Pulitzer Prize-winning concerto for her. The recording was released in September 2010. In October 2011, Hahn presented Charles Ives: Four Sonatas, with pianist Valentina Lisitsa. Hahn’s most recent album, Silfra, is a collaboration with prepared-pianist Hauschka. The record was produced by Valgeir Sigurðsson and was entirely improvised by the two performers. Her ongoing commissioning project, In 27 Pieces: The Hilary Hahn Encores, involves over two dozen of today's top composers writing new short works for violin and piano. A blind contest for the 27th composer drew 400 entries. The premieres of the 27 final pieces will be completed in the 2012-2013 season and recorded for release in the 2013-2014 season.

Hahn has appeared on the covers of all major classical music publications and has been featured in mainstream periodicals such as Vogue, Elle, Town and Country, and Marie Claire.  In 2001, she was named “America’s Best Young Classical Musician” by Time. And in January 2010 she appeared as guest artist, playing Bartok and Brahms, on The Tonight Show With Conan O’Brien.

An engaging personality, Hahn is an avid writer and interviewer, posting journal entries and information for young musicians and concertgoers on her website, hilaryhahn.com.  In video, she produces a YouTube channel, youtube.com/hilaryhahnvideos, and serves as guest host for the contemporary classical music blog Sequenza21. Elsewhere, her violin case comments on life as a traveling companion, on Twitter and Instagram at @violincase. In addition, Hahn has participated in a number of other musical projects and collaborations. She has made guest appearances on two albums by the alt-rock band …And You Will Know Us By The Trail of Dead and on Grand Forks by Tom Brosseau, and she has collaborated and toured with folk-rock singer-songwriter Josh Ritter.

CORY SMYTHE

Pianist Cory Smythe is an inventive improviser, chamber musician, and performer of contemporary classical music. He has performed internationally both as a soloist and chamber musician at the Darmstadt International Summer Festival for New Music, the Bang on a Can Marathon in New York City, Ravinia's Rising Stars Series, and Mostly Mozart at Lincoln Center. He was recently selected by composer John Adams to perform the keyboard part in Nixon in China in the Metropolitan Opera's staging of the work.

As a core member of the International Contemporary Ensemble, Smythe has presented numerous premiers, collaborated in the development of new works, and worked closely with composers Philippe Hurel, Dai Fujikura, Steve Lehman, Magnus Lindberg, Kaija Saariaho, Mathias Pintscher, and Alvin Lucier among many others. A forthcoming recording by ICE (on Mode Records) will feature Smythe as the piano soloist in Iannis Xenakis’s ‘Palimpsest’. Smythe has also been a featured guest and soloist with many new music ensembles throughout the United States, including Milwaukee's Present Music, the Boston-based Firebird Ensemble, Chicago Symphony Orchestra's MusicNOW, and the San Francisco Contemporary Music Players.

A prolific improviser, Smythe has worked in collaboration with artists Greg Osby, Tyshawn Sorey, and Anthony Braxton. His recent performance of the latter's seminal Composition No. 30 has been released on the composer's New Braxton House label and described by The Wire magazine as "startling… gorgeously dense…" Smythe's debut album as improviser/composer, Pluripotent, has garnered praise from New York Times critic Steve Smith as well as jazz pianist Jason Moran, who called it "hands down one of the best solo recordings I’ve ever heard." Pluripotent is available for free download at corysmythe.bandcamp.com.

Smythe holds degrees in classical piano performance from the music schools at Indiana University and the University of Southern California, where he studied with Luba Edlina-Dubinsky and Dr. Stewart Gordon, respectively. He currently resides in New York City.