Gershwin’s Piano Concerto
Featuring Natasha Paremski in Gershwin’s Piano Concerto in F Major
Saturday, June 21, 7 p.m.
Harrigan Centennial Hall
The first half of the program will be announced soon, featuring a selection of chamber works performed by world-class musicians. The second half of the evening is dedicated to George Gershwin’s dazzling Piano Concerto in F Major, a masterpiece that blends jazz, classical, and American energy. Acclaimed pianist Natasha Paremski takes center stage, joined by a stellar ensemble.
Program
First Half – TBA
— Intermission —
George Gershwin – Piano Concerto in F Major
Artists
Natasha Paremski, Piano
Emily Daggett Smith, Violin
Jessica Shuang Wu, Violin
Allison Bailey, Viola
Guang Wang, Cello
About the Artists
Natasha Paremski, Piano
With her consistently striking and dynamic performances, pianist Natasha Paremski reveals astounding virtuosity and profound interpretations. She continues to generate excitement from all corners as she wins over audiences with her musical sensibility and a powerful, flawless technique.
Natasha is a regular return guest of many major orchestras, including Minnesota Orchestra, San Francisco Symphony, Grant Park Festival, Winnipeg Symphony, Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony, Oregon Symphony, Elgin Symphony, Colorado Symphony, Buffalo Philharmonic, Virginia Symphony, and Royal Philharmonic Orchestra with whom she has performed and toured frequently since 2008 in venues such as Royal Albert Hall, Royal Festival Hall, and Cadogan Hall. She has performed with major orchestras in North America including Dallas Symphony Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra, San Diego Symphony, Toronto Symphony, Baltimore Symphony, Houston Symphony, NAC Orchestra in Ottawa, Nashville Symphony. She has toured extensively in Europe with such orchestras as Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, Vienna’s Tonkünstler Orchester, Royal Scottish National Orchestra, Orchestre de Bretagne, the Orchestre de Nancy, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, Tonhalle Orchester in Zurich, Moscow Philharmonic, under the direction of conductors including Thomas Dausgaard, Peter Oundjian, Andres Orozco-Estrada, Jeffrey Kahane, James Gaffigan, JoAnn Falletta, Fabien Gabel, Rossen Milanov and Andrew Litton. In addition, she has toured with Gidon Kremer and the Kremerata Baltica in Latvia, Benelux, the United Kingdom and Austria as well as appearances with National Taiwan Symphony Orchestra in Taipei.
Natasha has given recitals at the Auditorium du Louvre in Paris, Wigmore Hall, Schloss Elmau, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern Festival, Verbier Festival, San Francisco Performances, Seattle’s Meany Hall, Kansas City’s Harriman Jewell Series, Santa Fe’s Lensic Theater, Ludwigshafen BASF Series, Teatro Colon in Buenos Aires, Tokyo’s Musashino Performing Arts Center and on the Rising Stars Series of Gilmore and Ravinia Festivals.
A passionate chamber musician, Natasha is a regular recital partner of Grammy winning cellist Zuill Bailey, with whom she has recorded a number of CDs. Their Britten album on Telarc debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard Classical Chart, remaining there for a number of weeks, in addition to being featured on The New York Times Playlist. She has been a guest of many chamber music festivals such as Jeffrey Kahane’s Green Music Center ChamberFest, the Lockenhaus, Toronto, Sitka Summer Music, and Cape Cod Chamber Music festivals to name a few.
Natasha was awarded several prestigious prizes at a very young age, including the Gilmore Young Artists prize in 2006 at the age of eighteen, the Prix Montblanc in 2007, the Orpheum Stiftung Prize in Switzerland. In September 2010, she was awarded the Classical Recording Foundation’s Young Artist of the Year. Her first recital album was released in 2011 to great acclaim, topping the Billboard Classical Charts, and was re-released on the Steinway & Sons label in September 2016 featuring Islamey recorded on Steinway’s revolutionary new Spirio technology. In 2012 she recorded Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No. 1 and Rachmaninoff’s Paganini Rhapsody with Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and Fabien Gabel on the orchestra’s label distributed by Naxos.
With a strong focus on new music, Natasha’s growing repertoire reflects an artistic maturity beyond her years. In the 2010-11 season, she played the world premiere of a sonata written for her by Gabriel Kahane, which was also included in her solo album.
Natasha continues to extend her performance activity and range beyond the traditional concert hall. In December 2008, she was the featured pianist in choreographer Benjamin Millepied’s Danses Concertantes at New York’s Joyce Theater. She was featured in a major two-part film for BBC Television on the life and work of Tchaikovsky, shot on location in St. Petersburg, performing excerpts from Tchaikovsky’s First Piano Concerto and other works. In the winter of 2007, Natasha participated along with Simon Keenlyside in the filming of Twin Spirits, a project starring Sting and Trudie Styler that explores the music and writing of Robert and Clara Schumann, which was released on DVD. She has performed in the project live several times with the co-creators in New York and the U.K., directed by John Caird, the original director/adaptor of the musical Les Misérables.
Natasha began her piano studies at the age of four with Nina Malikova at Moscow’s Andreyev School of Music. She then studied at San Francisco Conservatory of Music before moving to New York to study with Pavlina Dokovska at Mannes College of Music, from which she graduated in 2007. Natasha made her professional debut at age nine with El Camino Youth Symphony in California. At the age of fifteen she debuted with Los Angeles Philharmonic and recorded two discs with Moscow Philharmonic Orchestra.
Born in Moscow, Natasha moved to the United States at the age of eight, becoming a U.S. citizen shortly thereafter, and is now based in New York City where she is Artistic Director of the New York Piano Society, a non-profit organization that supports pianists whose professions lie outside of music.
Emily Daggett Smith, Violin
Praised as playing “gorgeously” (The Boston Globe) and with “irrepressible élan” (The Seattle Times), violinist Emily Daggett Smith has performed across the United States, Europe, South America and Asia. Dr. Smith made her New York concerto debut playing the Beethoven Concerto with the Juilliard Orchestra in Alice Tully Hall, and has since performed with orchestras including Iris Orchestra, the Festival Mozaic Orchestra and the New York Classical Players. She has given solo recitals across the country at venues including the Kennedy Center’s Terrace Theater and Music in the Loft in Chicago. Dr. Smith has performed with renowned musicians including members of the Cleveland, Emerson and Juilliard String Quartets, and her performances have taken place at some of the world’s greatest halls including Carnegie Hall, Alice Tully Hall, the Shanghai Grand Theatre and the Vienna Konzerthaus. As concertmaster of the Juilliard Orchestra she worked with conductors including Michael Tilson-Thomas and Leonard Slatkin, and has appeared as guest concertmaster of orchestras including Iris Orchestra, the Orlando Philharmonic, and The Knights. Equally passionate about performing old and new music, Dr. Smith has commissioned and premiered dozens of works, both as a soloist, chamber musician and as a member of The Knights Chamber Orchestra. Despite her busy performance schedule, Dr. Smith is dedicated to teaching and has served on faculty at the Bard Conservatory Pre-College, Bard College at Simon’s Rock, Stony Brook University, and The Juilliard School, where she is assistant for Laurie Smukler. She holds Bachelor and Master of Music degrees from The Juilliard School and a Doctor of Musical Arts degree from Stony Brook University. Her teachers have included Soovin Kim, Philip Setzer, Joel Smirnoff, Laurie Smukler, and Donald Weilerstein. She plays on a Johannes Cuypers violin, generously donated by Dr. Marylou Witz.
Jessica Shuang Wu, Violin
As a founding member of the Vega Quartet, violinist Jessica Shuang Wu has performed extensively throughout Asia, Europe and North America. She regularly collaborates in chamber music concerts with today’s leading artists, including Zuill Bailey, Andrés Cárdenes, David Coucheron, William Ransom, Christopher Rex, Sara Sant’Ambrogio, and Richard Stoltzman.
A dedicated educator, Ms. Wu serves on the faculty of Emory University as violin and chamber music professor. Her private students have been accepted into leading music conservatories and universities such as the Manhattan School of Music, the Peabody Conservatory, and Northwestern University, and at music festivals such as the Bowdoin International Music Festival and the Brevard Music Center Summer Institute. Ms. Wu’s students have performed at Carnegie Hall and won numerous prizes and recognitions, including the Emory Youth Symphony Orchestra and Emory University Symphony Orchestra Concerto Competitions.
Ms. Wu holds a Master of Music from the Manhattan School of Music and a Bachelor of Music from the Harid Conservatory. As a child she attended the prestigious Shanghai Conservatory. Her teachers include Peter Winograd, Sergiu Schwartz, Lina Yu and members of the Amadeus, American, Cleveland, Emerson, Guarneri, Juilliard, Orion and Tokyo string quartets.
Allison Bailey, Viola
Allison Bailey began violin studies at the age of four, developed a love for orchestral playing, and became the youngest member of the Prince William Symphony Orchestra at age ten. Ms. Bailey attended Peabody Conservatory of Music, the University of Oregon, and the Manhattan School of Music. She holds a Bachelor’s degree, Graduate Performance Diploma, a Master’s degree in violin performance, and a Master’s degree in orchestral performance.
Prior to returning to Virginia in 1999, Ms. Bailey lived and worked in New York City, where she experienced a variety of performing engagements including frequent orchestral performances at Carnegie Hall, recording sessions at Sony studios for Quincy Jones Productions, performing on the soundtrack to the A&E Biography of Irving Berlin, and coaching actress Juliana Margulies in a violinist role for the NBC hit drama Homicide.
Ms. Bailey has served as guest conductor for All-County, District, and Regional Orchestras in Fairfax and surrounding counties in addition to serving as adjudicator for the New York Orchestra Festival at Carnegie Hall and state assessments throughout Virginia. She has also served as audition coach for Senior Regional Prep Day in Fairfax and Spotsylvania Counties, and faculty member of the Virginia Governor’s School for the Arts in Richmond.
In addition to her post as Concertmaster of the Manassas Ballet Theatre Orchestra, Ms. Bailey also serves as Associate Concertmaster of the Alexandria Symphony Orchestra, Associate Concertmaster of the Fairfax Symphony Orchestra, and is an active freelance musician in the Washington area. In recent years Ms. Bailey has been a featured soloist with the Alexandria Symphony Orchestra, and chamber musician at the Sitka Music Festival in Alaska and the Highlands-Cashiers Chamber Music Festival in North Carolina.
Guang Wang, Cello
Chinese-born cellist Guang Wang began his cello studies at the age of eight. In 1994 he became one of the youngest titled players in the history of the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra, serving as Assistant Principal Cellist under world-renowned conductors such as Michael Tilson Thomas and Christoph Eschenbach, and performing over 200 concerts throughout Asia before moving to the United States to continue his studies. Mr. Wang holds a Bachelor of Arts from the Shanghai Conservatory of Music, an Artist Diploma from the Harid Conservatory, and a Master of Music from the Manhattan School of Music.
Mr. Wang is a founding member of the Vega String Quartet, which has been Emory University’s Quartet-in-Residence since 2006. He routinely gives both chamber music and cello masterclasses across the U.S, most recently at Kennesaw State University, the University of Alabama, the University of Alaska Southeast, and the University of Texas at El Paso.
Mr. Wang strongly believes in music education at all levels and regularly performs outreach at area schools as well as provides in-depth teaching to passionate adult amateurs. His students have won awards at several iterations of the American Protégé International Piano and Strings Competition, as a result performing in Carnegie’s Weill Recital Hall, as well as at various young artist competitions in the greater Atlanta metropolitan area.
About the Sitka Music Festival
The Sitka Music Festival (SMF) inspires audiences, sparks creativity, and strengthens community across Alaska through live chamber music performances, music education, and training by artists of the highest caliber.
For over 50 years, SMF has presented classical music at the highest artistic standards. Throughout its history, SMF musicians have shared their music with Alaskans who would otherwise not have access to live chamber music of the highest caliber and, in turn, Alaskans have shared their music, traditions, and ways of life with the visiting musicians. These shared experiences have taken SMF musicians to more than 40 Alaskan communities, many of which are small, remote villages off the road system. As a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, SMF remains dedicated to bringing exceptional music experiences to communities statewide.