Saint Saens - Ysaye
Caprice D’après L’Etude en forme de Valse
Muyan Yang (USA/China), Violin
Matthew Graybil (USA), Piano
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E. Grieg (1843-1907)
Sonata for Violin and Piano No. 3 in c minor, Op. 45
I. Allegro molto appassionato
Elias Elias (Israel), Violin
Matthew Graybil (USA), Piano
R. Schumann(1810-1856)
Marchenbilder, Op. 113
I. Nicht schnell III. Rasch
Natanel Laevsky (Israel), Viola
Matthew Graybil (US), Piano
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G. F. Händel (1685-1759)
Passacaglia for Two Violins
(arr. Halvorsen/Heifetz)
Hina and Fiona Khuong-Huu, Violins
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E. Bloch(1880-1959)
Baal Shem,
Three pictures of Chassidic life
III. Simchas Torah (Rejoicing)
Ani Schnarch (UK-Israel), Violin
Angela Yoffe (US-Israel), Piano
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E. Elgar(1857-1934)
Salut d’amour, Op. 12
Ensemble of all the participants
Angela Yoffe (US-Israel), Piano
Elias Elias
(Israel), VIOLIN
Elias Elias is a student of the well-known violist Chaim Taub in Israel and Prof. Mihaela Martin at the Barenboim Said Academy. He won 1st prize in the Israeli Conservatory Competition for Chamber Music, Israel, and the Grits Strings Competition at the Jerusalem Academy of Music. He is a recipient of the America-Israel Cultural Foundation (AICF) scholarships for several years. As a soloist, Elias performed with the “Israeli Camerata” and the Ra’anana Sinfonietta. He played as a soloist at the Heifetz International Music Institute, as well. As a chamber musician he has played at the Keshet Eilon Music Center, at the Jerusalem Music Center, and also played with the PMP string orchestra conducted by Maestro Perlman. Elias participated in Masterclasses with the late Ida Haendel (2007); Miriam Fried (2008, 2011, 2014, and 2016); Sergio Schwartz (2014) and Leonidas Kavakos (2019). He plays a violin made by Gagliano.
Fiona Khuong-Huu
(USA), VIOLIN
Born in New York City, fourteen-year-old Fiona studies the violin with Professor Li Lin and Kenneth Renshaw at the Juilliard Pre-College division. She was recently awarded the prestigious career grant award from Salon De Virtuosi and performed at the Bouchaine Vineyard as part of the Young Concert Artist Series at the Napa Valley Festival. She performed at Buckingham Palace for the Oxford Philharmonic’s 20th Anniversary where she and her sister played Vivaldi’s Concerto for Four Violins together with Maestros Maxim Vengerov and Marios Papadopoulos. Fiona also performed with her sister Sarasate’s “Navarra” at the Juilliard Pre-College Centennial Gala and at the Bozar Concert Hall in Brussels with the Flanders Symphony Orchestra. She performed the Vivaldi Concerto for Two Violins with the Oxford Philharmonic Orchestra at the Frick Collection in New York. She has also given solo performances with the Mitteleuropa orchestra at “Il Piccolo Violino Magico” in San Vito al Tagliamento, Italy and the Juilliard Pre-College Symphony when she won the Juilliard Concerto Competition. First prize winner at the 2017 Grumiaux competition, Fiona also received first prizes in the solo and duo category with her sister Hina at the Osaka International Competition in 2016. She won the third prize and the best virtuoso interpretation at the Louis Spohr Competition in 2019. Fiona took part in the 2020-21 Keshet Eilon Summer Mastercourses. She attends the Spence School in New York.
Hina Khuong-Huu
(USA), VIOLIN
A prizewinner of the 2018 Menuhin Competition held in Geneva, Violin Channel “Rising Star” Hina Khuong-Huu has been playing the violin since the age of three. A native of New York, she studies under Professor Li Lin at the Juilliard Pre-College and attends the Spence School in New York. Hina has performed as a soloist with the Oxford Philharmonic Orchestra, Chamber Orchestra of Geneva, Flanders Symphony Orchestra, Mitteleuropa Orchestra, and the Musica Mundi Orchestra. Some notable performances include her performance of Sarasate’s “Navarra” at the Juilliard Pre-College Division’s Centennial Gala with her sister Fiona, and a performance with Maxim Vengerov at Buckingham Palace for Princess Alexandra. She worked with violinist Jennifer Koh in her “Alone Together” series throughout the spring and summer of 2021. Hina has performed on the NPR radio show “From the Top” and was recently a recipient of the Salon De Virtuosi Career Grant. During the past summers, she studied with artists such as Itzhak Perlman at the Perlman Music Program, with Shlomo Mintz at Crans Montana Classics in Switzerland, and with Ivry Gitlis and Menahem Pressler in Belgium.
Ani Schnarch
(Israel/UK), VIOLIN
Romanian- Israeli- British violinist, winner of the prestigious Francois Shapira, Israel and Mozart Memorial Prizes, England, Ani Schnarch is internationally regarded as one of the most exciting and versatile violinists of her generation. Born in Bucharest, Romania, Ani started performing at the age of seven. In 1974 she moved to Israel and continued her studies with Felix Andrievsky at the Samuel Rubin Music Academy, Tel Aviv University, with whom she also studied later at the Royal College of Music, London. Among Ani Schnarch’ s recital performances have been a highly acclaimed program of Bartok and Ysaye at the South Bank and her Wigmore Hall debut in 1989, where she was invited to return numerous times. Ani has broadcast for radio and television and on the web in Austria, France, Germany, Israel, Norway, Romania, the US and on BBC3 including a unique series of all Bartok’s works for violin and piano. In concerto, Ani has appeared with major orchestras worldwide and at the main venues in England, France, Israel, Italy, Norway, Romania, Spain, the USA, Russia and Far East. She has played at the Bath, Bergen, Bowdoin, Lake District, Moscow and Windsor Festivals, to mention but a few. In addition to her busy concert schedule, Ani is in great demand as a professor of violin at the Royal College of Music, London, gives master classes in Europe, USA, Canada, Israel, Japan and Singapore, and has been a Juror of numerous International Violin Competitions. She is one of the founders and faculty member of the international renowned Keshet Eilon Violin Mastercourse, Israel, and the Artistic Director of New Virtuosi Mastercourse and Festival in UK and Italy. In 2019, in appreciation of her services to music and to the College, she was awarded Fellowship of the Royal College of Music by His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales.
Muyan Yang
(USA/China), VIOLIN
Muyan was born in 2001 in China and began studying violin at age five. She studied with Hui Jin at the China Conservatory of Music and has performed throughout China. She is pursuing her Bachelor’s degree at Cleveland Institute of Music, studying with Ilya Kaler and Olga Kaler.
She is a recipient of the Martha Bell Sanders Excellence Scholarship and has been selected to receive the 2022 Anna Y. Tringas Award for Violin, recognized as an exceptional violinist. She has been awarded the Honorable Mention for the concerto competition of 2022 spring at the Cleveland Institute of Music. Muyan also won 1st prize at the Beijing Forbidden City International Violin Competition, the Excellent Student Scholarship Award 2014-2018 at the China Conservatory of Music, and more. Muyan has attended masterclasses given by Shmuel Ashkenasi, Vadim Gluzman, Mihaela Martin, and James Ehnes, to mention only a few.
Natanel Laevsky
(Israel), VIOLA
Natanel was born in Israel in 2000 and started studying the violin at 7 with Mr. Simon Ostrovsky and later with Ms. Ludmila Feldman. A graduate of the Thelma Yellin High School of the Arts and the David Goldman Chamber Music Program at the Jerusalem Music Center, he currently studies with Prof. Pinchas Zukerman and Prof. Patinka Kopec at the Manhattan School of Music in NY. He has appeared in concerts, international festivals, and masterclasses in Israel, Switzerland, Italy, Canada, the USA, the Netherlands, and Japan, and has played with renowned musicians such as the Jerusalem Quartet, cellist Zvi Plesser (Israel), violinist Peter Winograd (USA), and pianist William Wolfram (USA). Since 2013 he has been a scholarship recipient of the America-Israel Foundation and the Ronen Foundation (2015). Natanel plays a Samuel Zygmuntowicz 1987 viola, generously loaned to him by the AICF.
Angela Yoffe
(USA), PIANO
Pianist, producer, and educator, Angela Yoffe, is widely admired for her dazzling musicianship and passion for music education. Yoffe is the founder and executive director of The Music Makers, an international organization that produces Chicago’s annual North Shore Chamber Music Festival, the Music Makers Israel, and the Arkady Fomin Scholarship Fund, which has provided early career support, guidance and inspiration to more than 25 gifted young artists from around the world interested in pursuing a career as a performer. Yoffe is also the founder of the Collaborative Piano Class at the Chicago College of Performing Arts at Roosevelt University. Her Creative Learning Program has led collaborative projects with the International Center on Deafness and the Arts and the Lurie Children’s hospital. Angela Yoffe records exclusively for BIS Records and her discography includes a recent album of Sergey Prokofiev’s Violin and Piano Sonatas with violinist Vadim Gluzman. Born in Riga, Latvia into a family of respected musicians. After studying piano performance in the Soviet Union and Israel, she continued with Joaquín Achúcarro and Jonathan Feldman in the United States and became an assistant to Dorothy DeLay at the Juilliard School of Music. Angela resides between Chicago and Tel Aviv with her husband, violinist Vadim Gluzman, and their daughter Orli.
Matthew Graybil
(USA), PIANO
Praised by The New Yorker as an “exceptional young artist” American pianist Matthew Graybil has performed throughout the United States, Canada, France and Holland and Mexico in venues such as Carnegie’s Weill Recital Hall, Le Poisson Rouge, Verizon Hall at the Kimmel Center and Lincoln Center. He has appeared on radio and television, including WNYC, WQXR, WWFM, CBS Chicago, the Discovery Channel and PBS. Since making his orchestral debut at age 14, he has performed with the Fort Worth Symphony and the National Chamber Players among others.He has been a prizewinner in the MTNA/Yamaha National Piano Competition, the New York Piano Competition, the National Foundation for the Advancement of the Arts, the Juilliard Gina Bachauer Competition, Missouri Southern International Piano Competition and the Wideman International Piano Competition. Graybil was a pupil of Harvey Wedeen for six years and completed his Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees from The Juilliard School, where he worked with Jerome Lowenthal and Matti Raekallio.
Elias Elias
(Israel), VIOLIN
Elias Elias is a student of the well-known violist Chaim Taub in Israel and Prof. Mihaela Martin at the Barenboim Said Academy. He won 1st prize in the Israeli Conservatory Competition for Chamber Music, Israel, and the Grits Strings Competition at the Jerusalem Academy of Music. He is a recipient of the America-Israel Cultural Foundation (AICF) scholarships for several years. As a soloist, Elias performed with the “Israeli Camerata” and the Ra’anana Sinfonietta. He played as a soloist at the Heifetz International Music Institute, as well. As a chamber musician he has played at the Keshet Eilon Music Center, at the Jerusalem Music Center, and also played with the PMP string orchestra conducted by Maestro Perlman. Elias participated in Masterclasses with the late Ida Haendel (2007); Miriam Fried (2008, 2011, 2014, and 2016); Sergio Schwartz (2014) and Leonidas Kavakos (2019). He plays a violin made by Gagliano.
Fiona Khuong-Huu
(USA), VIOLIN
Born in New York City, fourteen-year-old Fiona studies the violin with Professor Li Lin and Kenneth Renshaw at the Juilliard Pre-College division. She was recently awarded the prestigious career grant award from Salon De Virtuosi and performed at the Bouchaine Vineyard as part of the Young Concert Artist Series at the Napa Valley Festival. She performed at Buckingham Palace for the Oxford Philharmonic’s 20th Anniversary where she and her sister played Vivaldi’s Concerto for Four Violins together with Maestros Maxim Vengerov and Marios Papadopoulos. Fiona also performed with her sister Sarasate’s “Navarra” at the Juilliard Pre-College Centennial Gala and at the Bozar Concert Hall in Brussels with the Flanders Symphony Orchestra. She performed the Vivaldi Concerto for Two Violins with the Oxford Philharmonic Orchestra at the Frick Collection in New York. She has also given solo performances with the Mitteleuropa orchestra at “Il Piccolo Violino Magico” in San Vito al Tagliamento, Italy and the Juilliard Pre-College Symphony when she won the Juilliard Concerto Competition. First prize winner at the 2017 Grumiaux competition, Fiona also received first prizes in the solo and duo category with her sister Hina at the Osaka International Competition in 2016. She won the third prize and the best virtuoso interpretation at the Louis Spohr Competition in 2019. Fiona took part in the 2020-21 Keshet Eilon Summer Mastercourses. She attends the Spence School in New York.
Hina Khuong-Huu
(USA), VIOLIN
A prizewinner of the 2018 Menuhin Competition held in Geneva, Violin Channel “Rising Star” Hina Khuong-Huu has been playing the violin since the age of three. A native of New York, she studies under Professor Li Lin at the Juilliard Pre-College and attends the Spence School in New York. Hina has performed as a soloist with the Oxford Philharmonic Orchestra, Chamber Orchestra of Geneva, Flanders Symphony Orchestra, Mitteleuropa Orchestra, and the Musica Mundi Orchestra. Some notable performances include her performance of Sarasate’s “Navarra” at the Juilliard Pre-College Division’s Centennial Gala with her sister Fiona, and a performance with Maxim Vengerov at Buckingham Palace for Princess Alexandra. She worked with violinist Jennifer Koh in her “Alone Together” series throughout the spring and summer of 2021. Hina has performed on the NPR radio show “From the Top” and was recently a recipient of the Salon De Virtuosi Career Grant. During the past summers, she studied with artists such as Itzhak Perlman at the Perlman Music Program, with Shlomo Mintz at Crans Montana Classics in Switzerland, and with Ivry Gitlis and Menahem Pressler in Belgium.
Ani Schnarch
(Israel/UK), VIOLIN
Romanian- Israeli- British violinist, winner of the prestigious Francois Shapira, Israel and Mozart Memorial Prizes, England, Ani Schnarch is internationally regarded as one of the most exciting and versatile violinists of her generation. Born in Bucharest, Romania, Ani started performing at the age of seven. In 1974 she moved to Israel and continued her studies with Felix Andrievsky at the Samuel Rubin Music Academy, Tel Aviv University, with whom she also studied later at the Royal College of Music, London. Among Ani Schnarch’ s recital performances have been a highly acclaimed program of Bartok and Ysaye at the South Bank and her Wigmore Hall debut in 1989, where she was invited to return numerous times. Ani has broadcast for radio and television and on the web in Austria, France, Germany, Israel, Norway, Romania, the US and on BBC3 including a unique series of all Bartok’s works for violin and piano. In concerto, Ani has appeared with major orchestras worldwide and at the main venues in England, France, Israel, Italy, Norway, Romania, Spain, the USA, Russia and Far East. She has played at the Bath, Bergen, Bowdoin, Lake District, Moscow and Windsor Festivals, to mention but a few. In addition to her busy concert schedule, Ani is in great demand as a professor of violin at the Royal College of Music, London, gives master classes in Europe, USA, Canada, Israel, Japan and Singapore, and has been a Juror of numerous International Violin Competitions. She is one of the founders and faculty member of the international renowned Keshet Eilon Violin Mastercourse, Israel, and the Artistic Director of New Virtuosi Mastercourse and Festival in UK and Italy. In 2019, in appreciation of her services to music and to the College, she was awarded Fellowship of the Royal College of Music by His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales.
Muyan Yang
(USA/China), VIOLIN
Muyan was born in 2001 in China and began studying violin at age five. She studied with Hui Jin at the China Conservatory of Music and has performed throughout China. She is pursuing her Bachelor’s degree at Cleveland Institute of Music, studying with Ilya Kaler and Olga Kaler.
She is a recipient of the Martha Bell Sanders Excellence Scholarship and has been selected to receive the 2022 Anna Y. Tringas Award for Violin, recognized as an exceptional violinist. She has been awarded the Honorable Mention for the concerto competition of 2022 spring at the Cleveland Institute of Music. Muyan also won 1st prize at the Beijing Forbidden City International Violin Competition, the Excellent Student Scholarship Award 2014-2018 at the China Conservatory of Music, and more. Muyan has attended masterclasses given by Shmuel Ashkenasi, Vadim Gluzman, Mihaela Martin, and James Ehnes, to mention only a few.
Natanel Laevsky
(Israel), VIOLA
Natanel was born in Israel in 2000 and started studying the violin at 7 with Mr. Simon Ostrovsky and later with Ms. Ludmila Feldman. A graduate of the Thelma Yellin High School of the Arts and the David Goldman Chamber Music Program at the Jerusalem Music Center, he currently studies with Prof. Pinchas Zukerman and Prof. Patinka Kopec at the Manhattan School of Music in NY. He has appeared in concerts, international festivals, and masterclasses in Israel, Switzerland, Italy, Canada, the USA, the Netherlands, and Japan, and has played with renowned musicians such as the Jerusalem Quartet, cellist Zvi Plesser (Israel), violinist Peter Winograd (USA), and pianist William Wolfram (USA). Since 2013 he has been a scholarship recipient of the America-Israel Foundation and the Ronen Foundation (2015). Natanel plays a Samuel Zygmuntowicz 1987 viola, generously loaned to him by the AICF.
Angela Yoffe
(USA), PIANO
Pianist, producer, and educator, Angela Yoffe, is widely admired for her dazzling musicianship and passion for music education. Yoffe is the founder and executive director of The Music Makers, an international organization that produces Chicago’s annual North Shore Chamber Music Festival, the Music Makers Israel, and the Arkady Fomin Scholarship Fund, which has provided early career support, guidance and inspiration to more than 25 gifted young artists from around the world interested in pursuing a career as a performer. Yoffe is also the founder of the Collaborative Piano Class at the Chicago College of Performing Arts at Roosevelt University. Her Creative Learning Program has led collaborative projects with the International Center on Deafness and the Arts and the Lurie Children’s hospital. Angela Yoffe records exclusively for BIS Records and her discography includes a recent album of Sergey Prokofiev’s Violin and Piano Sonatas with violinist Vadim Gluzman. Born in Riga, Latvia into a family of respected musicians. After studying piano performance in the Soviet Union and Israel, she continued with Joaquín Achúcarro and Jonathan Feldman in the United States and became an assistant to Dorothy DeLay at the Juilliard School of Music. Angela resides between Chicago and Tel Aviv with her husband, violinist Vadim Gluzman, and their daughter Orli.
Matthew Graybil
(USA), PIANO
Praised by The New Yorker as an “exceptional young artist” American pianist Matthew Graybil has performed throughout the United States, Canada, France and Holland and Mexico in venues such as Carnegie’s Weill Recital Hall, Le Poisson Rouge, Verizon Hall at the Kimmel Center and Lincoln Center. He has appeared on radio and television, including WNYC, WQXR, WWFM, CBS Chicago, the Discovery Channel and PBS. Since making his orchestral debut at age 14, he has performed with the Fort Worth Symphony and the National Chamber Players among others.He has been a prizewinner in the MTNA/Yamaha National Piano Competition, the New York Piano Competition, the National Foundation for the Advancement of the Arts, the Juilliard Gina Bachauer Competition, Missouri Southern International Piano Competition and the Wideman International Piano Competition. Graybil was a pupil of Harvey Wedeen for six years and completed his Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees from The Juilliard School, where he worked with Jerome Lowenthal and Matti Raekallio.