Accompanied by the Kaleidoscope Chamber Orchestra, the American cellist Michael Kaufman performs Yuan-Chen Li's "Wandering Viewpoint", Concerto for Solo Cello and Two Ensembles. The concert was recorded at First Presbyterian Church in Santa Monica, on January 15, 2017.
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The concerto for solo cello and two ensembles "Wandering Viewpoint" was premiered at U of Chicago Logan Center for the Arts on April 23rd, 2015. Featuring the cellist Nicholas Photinos, supported by resident ensembles Pacifica String Quartet, the eighth blackbird, and guest musicians Deidre Huckbabay (flute), Susan Warner (clarinet), and Joshua Zajac (cello), the premiere of the evening was successfully led by the conductor Cliff Colnot. Having been working with some of these artists in the past years, I find this premiere of my latest work, in particular, as one of many meaningful experiences to me that this ensemble of people shows different strengths of the musicianships. And as the result, it leads to a gratifying performance to the audience. The critic Tim Sawyier writes: "The work was an effective concertante showcase for Photinos. Li's compositional voice is original and somewhat difficult to describe; texturally the work possesses an Impressionist surface but its spirit was richly imbued with distinctly 21st-century dissonance, aggression, and volatility". — Yuan-Chen Li, April 25, 2015
Yuan-Chen Li (b. 1980, Taiwan)
♪ "Wandering Viewpoint", Concerto for Solo Cello and Two Ensembles (2014)
Michael Kaufman, solo cello
Kaleidoscope Chamber Orchestra
First Presbyterian Church in Santa Monica, January 15, 2017
(HD 1080p)
"A fine cellist with a well-developed sense of musical characterization, Michael Kaufman plays with intensity, commitment and deep understanding", says Robert Levin, internationally renowned Mozart scholar and piano virtuoso. An exciting cellist exploring the various facets of the classical music scene, Michael Kaufman was the soloist for the opening of the renovated Kodak Hall at Eastman Theater and has performed at prestigious venues such as Zankel and Weill Hall at Carnegie Hall. He has performed as soloist and chamber musician in the United States, Canada, England, Germany, Denmark, Sweden, Belgium, and Switzerland. He recently joined the Los Angeles Opera and the faculty of the Colburn Community School of Performing Arts.
Concerto highlights include Michael's performance of Wandering Viewpoint by Yuan-Chen Li with the Kaleidoscope Chamber Orchestra and the world premiere of Sean Friar's Dynamics for Cello and Chamber Winds with the Eastman Wind Ensemble. He also recently gave the west coast premiere of Dynamics with Thornton Edge.
"Helmut Lachenmann's solo, ‘Pression’, played with rapt percussive presence by Michael Kaufman, explores sounds the cello isn't supposed to make, be they ethereal scraping of the strings or industrial level strumming and banging", said Mark Swed, LA Times. Passionately involved in contemporary music, Michael has premiered works written for him by composers such as BMI Competition winner Justin Hoke, Daniel Silliman, Jeffrey Parola and many others. He has worked with composers such as Thomas Adès, Jörg Widmann, John Adams, Donald Crockett and Stephen Hartke in interpreting their own music. After hearing Michael's performance of Lieux retrouvés, Thomas Adès (the composer) declared it to be "breathtakingly good". In April 2013, Michael participated in a Carnegie Hall professional training workshop with John Adams and David Robertson called American Soundscapes. In June 2014, he gave the west coast premiere of Sean Friar's piece Teaser. He has performed in the concert series Jacaranda, the Hear Now Festival, what's next? ensemble, and in the Callings out of Context series at RedCat.
Michael is a regular and avid chamber musician. He is a founding member of SAKURA, an ensemble of five cellists which has been described by the LA Times as "brilliant" and "superb". SAKURA has performed in Disney Hall as part of the Piatigorsky International Cello Festival and is currently Young Ensemble in Residence at the Da Camera Society. This season, it performs concerts in LA, Orange County, and the Bay Area.
In addition to regular chamber music groups, Michael has collaborated in concert with artists such as Leon Fleisher, Midori, Kim Kashkashian, Anthony Marwood, Donald Weilerstein, Steven Tenenbom, Roger Tapping, and the Calder Quartet. He has participated in music festivals such as Open Chamber Music at Prussia Cove, Yellow Barn, Music@Menlo, Verbier, Kneisel Hall, Norfolk and Sarasota. Michael is the founder and artistic director of Sunset ChamberFest, which looks forward to its sixth season in June 2019.
Michael loves teaching and is on the music faculty of Loyola Marymount University. He also recently started coaching chamber music at Colburn. Additionally, he teaches privately in LA and has taught masterclasses at schools such as Bowling Green, UC Irvine, Caltech, Texas Christian University, and Saddleback College. He served on the USC faculty of student instructors from 2011 to 2014.
In an orchestral setting, Michael is a member of the Los Angeles Opera and former Associate Principal Cello of the Redlands Symphony. He has also performed as guest Principal Cello of La Monnaie in Brussels. He was a founding member of the LA-based conductorless orchestra Kaleidoscope.
Michael is also passionate about baroque cello, for which he received a minor at USC, studying with William Skeen. He has frequently played principal cello with Musica Angelica Baroque Orchestra of Los Angeles and enjoys other small projects on period instruments.
Born in 1987 in New York City, Michael moved to Cleveland at the age of three. One year later, he began cello lessons with teacher Pamela Kelly, and continued with her into his teens. By the age of seventeen, he was already participating in music festivals in Sarasota and Norfolk. In 2004, he was the only cellist to be accepted to the Young Artist Program of the Cleveland Institute of Music, where he studied with Alison Wells. He then received a Bachelor of Music Degree with distinction and a Performer's Certificate from the Eastman School of Music, studying with Steven Doane. During this time, he had masterclasses with cellists such as Steven Isserlis, Frans Helmerson, Pieter Wispelwey and Miklós Perényi and chamber music coachings with Robert Levin, Pamela Frank, Daniel Hope and members of the Tokyo, Emerson and Orion String Quartets. Michael earned his Master's Degree and Doctorate from the University of Southern California, studying with Ralph Kirshbaum.
Source: kaufmancello.com
Li has worked with Grammy-Award ensembles such as eighth blackbird, Pacifica Quartet, producer Brad Michel, and PARMA, and world renounced artists and groups such as Timothy McAllister, Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra, Featuring her distinct artistry speaking to audience of different contexts, Li's work has been programmed in many concert series and festivals in Asia, Europe, and North America: Chamber Music North West (2019), Georgia Tech Institute (2019), Oberlin Conservatory (2018) and Peabody Conservatory (2018), Ensemble Mise-En Festival (New York, 2018), World Saxophone Congress (Zagreb 2018, Thailand 2009), Kaleidoscope Chamber Orchestra (LA, 2017), EarTaxi New Music Festival (Chicago, 2016), American Composers Orchestra's EarShot (Buffalo, 2015), Northwestern University Institute for New Music NUNC! (Chicago, 2014), Asian Composers' League (Tel-Aviv 2012, Tokyo 2003), 2012 Thailand International Composition Festival, IMANI Winds Chamber Music Festival (New York, 2012), Contempo series (University of Chicago, 2010-2015), Peace Cross-strait Orchestra Concert (China and Taiwan, 2009), Composers/Pianists concert series (New England, 2008-2009), New Music New Haven (Yale, 2006-2008), The Female Form: Women Composers (New York, 2008) by Tanya Bannister, Listening to the 21Century (Taipei, 2007), Soundbridges (Berlin, 2007), Norfolk Chamber Music Festival (Norfolk, 2007), Tune in to Taiwan 2003 (Taipei, 2003), New Ideal Dance Festival (Taipei, 2003), and Kuan-Du Musical Soiree (Taipei, 2001).
Major honors and awards include an Artist Residency at the Omi International Art Center (2018), Cité Internationale des Arts in Paris (2010), grants from the Regional Arts and Culture Council, National Culture and Arts Foundation of Taiwan, the Ezra Laderman Prize, the Rena Greenwalk Memorial Prize, Finalist Martirano Award 2016 and ASU Gammage Beyond 2018, First prize of Literature and Art Creation Award (Taiwan), the Chang-Hui Hsu Memorial Prize of Asian Composers League, Study Abroad Scholarship from the Education Minister (Taiwan), and Scholarship of Arts from Tzu Chi Foundation. Recent commissions are such as from the Yale-Taiwan Music Group, National Performing Arts Center (Taiwan), ensembles such as Sound of Dragon Society, and soloists such as American saxophonist Jessica Maxfield, harpist Li-Ya Huang, and clarinetist Tsai-Pei Lun.
Li received Ph.D. in music composition from the University of Chicago in 2015. Her primary advisors are composers such as Marta Ptaszynska and Shulamit Ran, conductor Cliff Colnot, musicologist Martha Feldman, and theorist Lawrence Zbikowski. Her dissertation "Wandering Viewpoint", a concerto for solo cello and two ensembles, is about maintaining the freedom and the independence of the soloist in a highly assimilated texture and sound competed by two ensembles of similar instrumentations, which The piece receives review that Li's compositional voice "original and somewhat difficult to describe", "engaging" (Chicago Classical Review, 2015/4/24). Accompanied with her Ph.D. degree is a paper entitled "Difficult Voice in Vocal Composition, Composers' Aesthetic Responses to Secondhand Holocaust Experiences", featuring three case studies, such as Chaya Czernowin's opera Pnima... ins innere, Meredith Monk's theater opera Quarry, and Schoenberg A Survivor from Warsaw, using psychoanalytic theory to discuss musical transgenerational phenomenon of the post-war music. Li also holds Artist Diploma from The Yale University School of Music (2008), studying composition with Martin Bresnick, and M.F.A. (2006) and B.F.A. (2003) from Taipei University of the Arts, having studied composition and theory with Tsung-Hsien Yang (Brandeis) and Chung-Kun Hung (Yale). Before entering college she studied composition and classical music for ten years with Ting-Lien Wu (UCLA). In addition, Li has presented music in master classes for composers such as Zygmunt Krauser, Shi-Hui Chen, Chou Wen-Chung, Robert Beaser, Zhou Long, and Eric Moe, among many.
Committed to cultivate the combination of new music composition, interpretation, and community, she has frequently collaborated with Paul Ching-Po Chiang, conductor of Moment Musicaux Philharmonia (Taiwan), National Symphony Orchestra (Taiwan), and Chinese ensemble Chai-Found Music Workshop (Taiwan). Since 2011, Li has been mentored by Maestro Cliff Colnot, from whom she has been introduced to professional notation, rehearsal techniques, and editorial work for orchestra, chamber music and songs. After holding a visiting professor position at Reed College (Portland, Oregon, U.S.A.), she has since lived and worked in Portland.
Source: yuanchenli.wordpress.com
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Aaron Copland: Appalachian Spring – Kaleidoscope Chamber Orchestra (HD 1080p)
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Symphony No.39 in E flat major – Kaleidoscope Chamber Orchestra (HD 1080p)
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Kaleidoscope: Meet a different, colorful orchestra
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