Strad for Lunch Series – Monday, December 14

Photo by ramella
Statue of Antonio Stradivari in Cremona, Italy

Every Monday at 12:30pm, WMP Concert Hall offers a 45 minute long chamber music concert to the public, and it is free admission with a suggested donation of $10.00. The idea of the concert series is to offer high quality music to their neighbors while they take their lunch break.

Monday, December 14 at 12:30pm
Cellist Sarina Zhang with Pianist Alexandra Joan

On Monday, December 14th at 12:30pm, cellist Sarina Zhang will perform a program featuring works by Debussy, Kodaly and Tchaikovsky with pianist Alexandra Joan.

At the age of 13, Sarina Zhang has accumulated a mantel full of top awards as both pianist and cellist. Most recently, she has won the Juilliard Pre-College Dvorak Cello Concerto Competition and been named a 2009 Davidson Fellow by the Davidson Institute for Talent Development. In April 2009, Sarina won the New York Ensemble 212 Young Artist Competition. In 2008, she was awarded the 1st place in Connecticut International Young Artist Competition for piano and the 2nd place for cello, and the special prize in the New York Grand Prix International Piano Competition. In 2007, Sarina captured the 3rd place in Virginia Waring International Piano Concerto Competition, the 1st prize in MTAC California Piano Solo Competition, and the 1st place in Los Angeles Violoncello Society Scholarship Competition. Some of her other past awards include winning 2005 International Russian Piano Music Competition (young musician category), 1st place in both piano and cello in 2005 Goodlin Scholarship competition, 2006 ASTA State (CA) Solo Competition for cello, and 2006 San Diego Symphony’s Young Artists Competition.

At age 8, Sarina was featured on the national radio program “From the Top” as a pianist, and featured again 3 years later as a cellist. She was featured on PBS’ “From the Top, Live from Carnegie Hall” TV series in 2007. From 2004 to 2007, Sarina was the youngest member and assistant principal cellist in the San Diego Civic Youth Orchestra Symphony and in July 2006, she went on an orchestra tour to stockholm, sweden, helsinki, Finland, St. Petersburg and Moscow. Sarina has collaborated with San Diego Symphony, New City Symphony, the Northridge Symphony Orchestra, the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra, Esemble 212, In April of 2009, she played the Beethoven’s No.1 piano concerto with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra’s Civic Orchestra under the baton of Leonard Slatkin, and returned again in Sept to play two works on two different instruments-Mendelssohn’s Piano Concerto No. 1 and Tchaikovoky’s “Rococo Variations” with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra. Highlights of her past performances include an appearance in the prelude to a Discovery concert for La Jolla Music Society, a recital in Athenaeum Music and Arts Library’s Mini-Concert at Lyceum Theatre in San Diego, California International Chinese Music Festival, Juilliard Pre-College recital, and multiple appearances in the Aspen Music Festival’s Spotlight recitals in the past two seasons.

In her coming seasons, Sarina will be making debuts as both pianist and cellist with the Corpus Christi Symphony and the California Symphony. She will also give solo recital in Middle keys 2010 Concert series in Florida. Sarina is currently enrolled in the pre-college division at Juilliard School studying piano with Yoheved Kaplinsky, cello with Richard Aaron, and composition with Manuel Sosa. Her formal teachers include Titiana Stignev, Vladimir Viardo, Zitta Zohar, Lu-yan Guo and Darrett Adkins. Sarina has performed in master classes for Natalie Gutman, Vladimir Feltsman, Hans Boepple, Antonio Pompa-Baldi, Ralph Sloan.

French-Romanian pianist Alexandra Joan is an active soloist and avid chamber music musician. A regular performer in Europe, she has appeared in Germany, Switzerland, France and also in Israel and Montenegro. She made her chamber music debut in New York in 2007 at Alice Tully Hall, and most recently made her Carnegie Hall solo debut presented by the Lagesse Foundation. She also performed at David Dubal’s lecture series at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and at the New York Society for Ethical Culture.

Along with the masterpieces of the 18th, 19th and 20th century, Alexandra Joan performs new music frequently and is also an advocate of the music of George Enesco. Ms. Joan’s appearances in international Festivals have included Roque d’Antheron International Piano Festival in France, Guebwiller, Colmar International Festival (Vladimir Spivakov), Oberstdorf Festival in Germany and other prestigious festivals and concert series in France. Ms. Joan has performed as soloist with “La Follia” Chamber Orchestra, The Montbeliard Orchestra, The Mulhouse Symphony Orchestra in France and The Orchestra of Radio and Television in Montenegro. Her solo and chamber music performances have been featured on Radio France, Radio Suisse Romande (Switzerland), on Montenegro Television and WQXR in New York.

Ms. Joan has been a recipient of several important awards in France. She has received the “Vocation Prize” from the Marcel Bleustein-Blanchet Foundation in 2005 and the ADAMI Grant in 2006 and 2007 to study in the United States. In 2001, she won the 3d Prize at the Andorra International Piano Competition. Born in 1984, Ms. Joan began her studies at the Colmar Conservatory with Rena Shereshevskaya and gave her first public performance at the age of six.
In 2004 she completed her Bachelor of Music Degree at the Paris Conservatory under the tutelage of Brigitte Engerer. She worked with artists such as Pierre-Laurent Aimard, Itamar Golan, Vladimir Krainev, Vera Gornastaeva, Staffan Scheja, Pnina Salzman and Emanuel Krasovsky. A recipient of the Florence Gould Scholarship. Alexandra Joan recently graduated from the Juilliard School of Music where she completed her Graduate Diploma as a student of Jerome Lowenthal’s.

WMP Concert Hall is located at 31-33 East 28th Street, between Park and Madison. No food or beverages are permitted in the concert hall.

Future Shows:

Monday, December 21st @ 12:30pm:
Violinists Paolo Alberghini and Bruno Peña, Violist Kristin Sawyer, Cellist Sokol Nikaj and Pianist Enika Gjokoreci

More Details and Source: WMP Concert Hall

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