The Foundation for Chinese Performing Arts will soon be mounting another exuberant summer concert series. From August 10th to August 26th, 27 distinguished violinists, violists, cellists, pianists, and various chamber configurations across at last a couple of generations will excite the intimate Williams Hall at a time when little else is going on musically in the City. Also, Channing Yu’s Mercury Orchestra will showcase the winner of the related 2023 Fou Ts’ong International Concerto Competition at the orchestra’s Jordan Hall Concert on August 26th. The calendar can be found HERE. Founding President Catherine Chan is “so proud of all the artists presented” and wishes “these magnificent artists to be heard more on the world stage.”
Since 1989, the Foundation for Chinese Performing Arts has been promoting Asian musicians and the Eastern musical heritage through performing arts and has presented over 151 concerts in Boston’s Symphony Hall, Jordan Hall, Harvard’s Sanders Theater, Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum’s Calderwood Hall, and New York’s Carnegie Hall featuring renowned Asian musicians like Yo-Yo Ma, Fou Ts’ong, Tan Dun, Hung-Kuan Chen, Bion Tsang, Nai-Yuan Hu, Dang Thai-Son, The Shanghai Quartet, Ning An, and Haochen Zhang… to critical acclaim. For 28 years, the FCPA had also hosted its Annual Music Festival at Walnut Hill School for the Arts, attracting students from all over the world and had included students like Lang Lang, George Li, Yeol Eun Son, Eric Lu and Kate Liu. The summer series at NEC also welcomes artists from the west.
The 2023 Fou Ts’ong International Concerto competition constitutes one of the highlights of the festival. Eleven semi-finalists from all over the world will compete for a cash prize and a performance with the Mercury Orchestra in Jordan Hall on Saturday, Aug 26th. This year’s concerto is a rarely performed edition of Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No. 1, with rolled chords in the beginning and more differences in the first and third movements.
Seventeen-year-old pianist Hao Rao, a finalist at the 2021 Chopin International Piano Competition in Warsaw, will kickoff the series. Subsequent concerts in short: pioneering pianist and co-chair of the NEC piano department, Bruce Brubaker will essay Philip Glass, Chelsea Guo, a rare pianist-soprano doubler will play and sing works by the Schumanns and Brahms; Han Chen, whose Naxos CD “Ligeti Complete Etudes” was named one of the “Best Classical Music Albums Of 2023,” will perform some Ligeti etudes and others; Yutong Sun, prize winner of many acclaimed international competitions will feature two sets of Brahms’s Intermezzi; Nan Ni, the winner of last year’s FCPA concerto competition has inked Scarlatti, Faure, Beethoven and Qigang Chen; Yukiko Sekino, Gold Medalist of the 2006 International Russian Music Piano Competition lists Beethoven, Scriabin and Ravel for her concert; The Psychopomp Ensemble, (pianists Xiaopei Xu and Chi-Wei Lo) will spotlight Smetana, Ravel and Weber, as well as newly arranged Rzewski, Duke Ellington and Bill Evans.
Celebrated pianist Xun Pan, who has achieved the colossal milestone of performing all of Beethoven’s 32 piano sonatas, all of the piano and violin, piano and cello sonatas (and many more…..,) will join forces with Hai-Ye Ni, the principal cellist of the Philadelphia Orchestra, for a monumental night. Cellist Leland Philip Ko, and pianist Adria Ye will deliver from Haydn to Fazil Say. Violinist Luke Hsu, laureate of the Queen Elisabeth competition will collaborate with pianist Chih-Yi Chen in Ravel, Bartók, Chausson, and Schubert.
Pianist and arranger Sahun Sam Hong brings back Ensemble 132, including Maria Ioudenitch (violin), Stephanie Zyzak (violin), Luther Warren (viola), and Zachary Mowitz (cello). Other larger Ensembles include Trio Flamecrest, featuring Jean Huang (violin), Amy Galluzzo (violin/viola), and Carol Ou (cello). Pianist Yinfei Wang will appear with The New York Philharmonic all-star lineup, featuring Audrey Wright (violin), Cong Wu (viola), and Nathan Vickery (cello).
The free concerts are open to the public, but the Foundation suggests a voluntary $10. Children under 6 should not attend.
