Sun, May 19, 2024, 11.00 am | Elbphilharmonie, Recital Hall
Jean Françaix: Trio à cordes
Erwin Schulhoff: String quartet no. 1
Anton Webern: String quartet op. 28
Erich Wolfgang Korngold: String sextet in D major op. 10
Violine: Daniel Cho
Violine: Yuri Katsumata-Monegatto
VIola: Naomi Seiler
Viola: Tomohiro Arita
Violoncello: Olivia Jeremias
Violoncello: Saskia Hirschinger
Daniel Cho was born in New Jersey (USA) and began playing the violin in South Korea at the age of six. He received his bachelor's degree from The Juilliard School in the class of Hyo Kang and David Chan. He then continued his studies with Kolja Blacher at the Hanns Eisler School of Music in Berlin. He won numerous international competitions, including the Max Rostal Competition 2019, in which he received the top prize. As a soloist he played with orchestras such as the Hamburger Camerata, the Bucheon Philharmonic Orchestra and Sejong Soloists. In 2010 he made his New York debut in the Weill Hall of Carnegie Hall, presented by the Korea Music Foundation, and in 2013 he made his European debut at the Musée du Louvre in Paris as part of the "Concerts du Jeudi". He also appears as a member of Sejong Soloists and has worked closely with artists such as Gil Shaham, Cho-Liang Lin and Vadim Repin. As concertmaster he played with The Juilliard Orchestra, the Verbier Festival Orchestra and the Budapest Festival Orchestra. From the 2021/22 season he joined the Hamburg Philharmonic State Orchestra as first concertmaster.
Yuri Katsumata-Monegatto was born in Yokohama in 1992 and began playing the violin at the age of seven. She studied with Sonoko Numata at the Tokyo University of the Arts and with Nora Chastain and Marlene Ito at the Berlin University of the Arts, which she attended as a DAAD fellow. She received further musical impulses from the Artemis Quartet, among others. She gained orchestral experience in the Academy of the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin and at the Gewandhaus Orchestra Leipzig and at numerous international festivals such as the Verbier Festival, the Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival and the Pacific Music Festival. Yuri Katsumata is the winner of several competitions. As a soloist, she has performed numerous concerts, including Krzysztof Penderecki’s Double Concerto conducted by the composer himself. Since 2020 she has been a member of the Hamburg Philharmonic State Orchestra.
Naomi Seiler began performing early on with her siblings in the Seiler Quartet, and joined the class of Jürgen Geise at the Mozarteum Salzburg as a junior student when she was 14. She continued her studies with Ulrich Koch in Freiburg and with Hirofumi Fukai in Hamburg. The winner of several awards performs both chamber music (including with the Seiler Quartet and Via Salzburg in Toronto) and as a soloist in Germany, France, Italy, South America and Japan, combined with radio and television appearances. Naomi Seiler has been principal viola of the Philharmonic State Orchestra since 1989. A sought-after chamber musician, she is a champion of chamber music within her own orchestra and teaches at the Hamburg Academy of Music and Theatre.
Tomohiro Arita is from Osaka, Japan. He learned to play the violin as a young child and discovered the viola for himself when he was 15 years old. He completed his bachelor studies with Toshihiko Ichitsubo at University of the Arts Tokio, followed by his master studies with Simone von Rahden at Hochschule für Musik Hanns Eisler Berlin. Already during his studies, he gained orchestral experience with the NHK Symphony Orchestra, the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen and the Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra as a member of the Orchestra Academy, as well as international festivals, such as the Verbier Festival and the Lucerne Festival. As violist with the Japan National Orchestra, he performs in Japan regularly. Tomohiro Arita has been playing with the Hamburg Philharmonic State Orchestra since August 2021.
Olivia Jeremias is one of the outstanding cellists of her generation. She began playing the instrument at the age of five. Taught by renowned cellists such as Peter Bruns, Colin Carr and Josephine Knight, she completed degrees at the Dresden Music Academy Carl Maria von Weber and at the Royal Academy of Music in London, both with honours. At the age of 20, she played the solo part in Dvořák’s Cello Concerto under the baton of Sir Colin Davis at Dresden’s Semper Opera, a performance also recorded for radio. She won international renown with a first prize at the Heran Competition in the Czech Republic and as a finalist in the Antonio Janigro Competition in Zagreb. In 2004 she received the Pierre Fournier Special Award. Olivia Jeremias appears regularly as a soloist with various orchestras, for example as the soloist in Tan Dun’s cello concerto “The Map” with the Essen Philharmonic. She has been invited to well-known festivals such as the Kilkenny Festival in Ireland, the Encuentro de Musica y Academia Festival in Santander, Spain, the Highgate Festival and Spitalfields Festival in London. In the summer 2004 she appeared at the Music at Menlo Festival in San Francisco, USA. In September 2005 Olivia Jeremias moved to Hamburg, where she holds the position of principal cellist of the Philharmonic State Orchestra.
Saskia Hirschinger was born in Halle an der Saale in 1995 and took cello lessons with Tamara Steger from the age of five. In 2014 she began studying with Wen-Sinn Yang at the Munich Academy of Music and Theatre. She received important musical impulses at master courses with Wolfgang Boettcher, Frans Helmerson, Wolfgang Emanuel Schmidt, Jens Peter Maintz and Troels Svane. During the 2018/19 season Saskia Hirschinger was a member of the Academy of the NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra. She subsequently continued her master’s degree studies with Martin Ostertag at the Karlsruhe Music Academy. She also won several competitions and the award of the New Liszt Foundation in Weimar. Saskia Hirschinger was a fellow of “Live Music Now” in Munich and also won a “Deutschlandstipendium” scholarship. She gained orchestral experience as a cellist at the Stuttgart State Orchestra and as a substitute in the Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra and the NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra. In March 2020 Saskia Hirschinger became a member of the Hamburg Philharmonic State Orchestra.
In this special chamber concert, new concertmaster Daniel Cho presents a sparkling selection of the finest gems of chamber music between Paris and Vienna. For the opener, a prodigy of music history takes us to the vibrant Paris of the 1930s, the era of multicolored neoclassicism that echoed the music of Viennese classicism in form and style. There, the young Jean Françaix traced the spirit of the times and, at just 20 years of age, immersed himself in the temptations of the musical city that was to be the artistic home for so many artists and free spirits of the early 20th century. The musicologist and musician Arthur Hoérée simply said of the early work Trio à cordes: "a masterpiece". From Paris, the tour goes to Prague to Erwin Schulhoff, who was one of the most internationally successful composers in the 1920s before he got caught up in the mills of politics. Yet at the premiere of his first string quartet, all signs were still pointing to success, for the tingling nervousness and the folkloristically colored, dazzling variety of sound, the artistic perfection of an entire epoch, thrilled both audience and press. Even today, the work is considered a milestone for every chamber music ensemble. The fact that avant-garde is not just a style, but an inner attitude, is demonstrated by Anton Webern's last string quartet. On March 12, 1938, the day of Hitler's invasion of Austria, he wrote to the Jone-Humplik couple: "I am completely in my work and may, may not be disturbed." And so, under the brutal impressions, a work of unparalleled concentration and technical elegance was created. Erich Wolfgang Korngold's Sextet op. 10 also demands the highest musical precision and virtuosity. The composer, who in his younger years was considered the legitimate successor of none other than Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and was also labeled a "child prodigy," is revered primarily for his operas and film music. A prophetic foreshadowing of his great film scores in rich classical-romantic gesture is given by the String Sextet.
Venue: Elbphilharmonie, Recital Hall, Platz der Deutschen Einheit 4, 20457 Hamburg
