An Evening with Cellist Misha Quint at Mannes

NEW YORK - April 14, 2013 - PRLog -- One of the highlights of this April 20 concert at the Mannes Concert Hall is American jazz musician and composer Nathan Davis’s “Matryoshka Blues”, composed for the Russian émigré cellist Misha Quint, founder and director of the InterHarmony International Music Festival.

The new work’s title “Matryoshka
 Blues” has a double reference 
pointing to its Russian-born 
instrumentalist and the jazz roots of 
its composer. Like matryoshkas, the small, colorful Russian dolls that are embedded one within the other, Davis’s new work is comprised of different layers of sound, which together showcase the full range of musical possibilities for the cello within the jazz form. Svetlana Gorokhovich accompanies on the piano.

In addition to the Davis piece, the concert includes a series of dramatically different works culled from four different centuries.

The recital opens with music from the 18th century: Giuseppe Valentini’s “Cello Sonata.” Originally composed for the violin and demanding great virtuosity from its performer, “Cello Sonata” was then arranged for cello by one of the 19th century’s greatest cellists, Alfred Piatti. The relatively short piece is followed by the emotional roller coaster ride within Alfred Schnittke’s “Sonata No. 1 for Cello and Piano.” Written in 1978 and given to the cellist by the composer, the work demands full use of the cello, from its highest notes to its lowest tones, creating an exciting and wildly changing cycle of sounds, beautiful, thunderous, and disturbing.

The second half of the program begins with “Matryoshka Blues” then travels back in time to Fauré’s 19th-century “Elégie, Op. 24,” followed by Manuel de Falla’s “Ritual Fire Dance” and Alexander Scriabin’s “Etude in B flat minor, Op. 8, No. 11.” Prokofiev is represented with the March from his beloved opera, “Love for Three Oranges,” using a transcription for cello and piano by Mstislav Rostropovich. Following is a performance of George Frederick Handel’s “Sonata for Violin and Basso Continuo in D major, Op. 1, No. 13,” transcribed for cello and piano. The concert concludes with David Popper’s short, charming and technically demanding “Dance of the Elves.” The Bohemian composer is well known for expanding the technical possibilities of the cello.

PERFORMANCE TIMES

The curtain for the April 20 concert is at 8:00p.m.

Tickets: Free

WHERE TO GO

Mannes Concert Hall is located in the Mannes Building on 150 W 85th Street

ARTIST BIOS

MISHA QUINT, who graduated from the Leningrad Special School for the Gifted and the Leningrad State Conservatory, made his orchestral debut at the age of 13 after winning first place in the Boccherini Competition in St. Petersburg. Many other prizes and awards followed before he immigrated from Russia to the United States in 1989. Quint has appeared with such celebrated orchestras as Orquestra Sinfônica do Teatro Nacional do Brasilia, The Metropolitan Symphony, New York Chamber Orchestra, The National Irish Symphony, Brooklyn Philharmonic, New York Chamber Symphony and London Soloists Chamber Orchestra at Queen Elizabeth Hall, The Moscow State Symphony Orchestra, The Leningrad Philharmonic Orchestra, Leningrad State Orchestra, Orchestra of Classical and Contemporary Music as well as with the Symphony

Orchestras of Latvia and Georgia. He has worked with an equally illustrious group of conductors including Maxim Shostakovich, Paul Lustig Dunkel, Colman Pearce, Sidney Harth, Ravil Martinov, Camilla Kolchinsky, Yaacov Bergman and Ira Levin. Misha Quint began to create music festivals in Europe in 1997 (the International Cello Festival in Blonay, Switzerland) followed by the Soesterberg International Music Festival in Holland (1998-2007). InterHarmony Music Festival, which Quint first established in Geneva, Switzerland in 2000, has subsequently taken place in San Francisco, CA (2009), the Berkshires, MA (2007 & 2008), Schwarzwald, Germany (2008-2011), Sulzbach-Rosenberg (2005-present) and Arcidosso, Tuscany, Italy (2012 to present). Quint is on the faculty of the Preparatory Division at Mannes College, The New School for Music, in Manhattan. http://www.interharmony.com http://www.srimf.com http://www.mishaquintcello.com

SVETLANA GOROKHOVICH has performed in international music festivals in Holland, Germany, Italy and New York. She has worked with Misha Quint since 2005. Her latest performances include recitals in Zankel Hall, Weill Recital Hall and Ridotto Music Series. Gorokhovich received her music training in the Kazan State Conservatory and her Ph.D. from St. Petersburg State Conservatory, studying with distinguished professor Tatiana Kravchenko. She immigrated to the U.S. in 1989. Gorokhovich was the 1997 winner of the Bartok-Kabalevsky-Prokofiev International Piano Competition at Radford University and the 1999 IBLA international competition in Italy. Her solo recital at Carnegie Hall in 2000 was highly acclaimed by the New York Concert Review. Her most recent recording, “One Piano Four Hands,” was released in 2012 by SMH Records. She toured world-wide with violinist Dmitri Berlinsky from 1991–1996. Their recording, “Souvenir D’un Lieu Cher” (Helicon), released in 1997, received enthusiastic reviews. Gorokhovich is on the piano faculty of the Music Conservatory of Westchester in White Plains, New York.

Photo: David Milkis

Writing: Ellen Jacobs Associates