Distance Learning: Archive

LUIGI BOCCHERINI String Quintet in C Major, Op. 42, no. 2 (1743–1805)

Andante con moto
Menuett
Grave
Rondo; Allegro con moto

Pinchas Zukerman and
Asi Matathias, violin
Cong Wu, viola
Amanda Forsyth and
David Geber, cello

PYTOR IL’YICH TCHAIKOVSKY Souvenir de Florence (1840–1893)

Allegro con spirito
Adagio cantabile e con moto
Allegretto moderato
Allegro vivace

Pinchas Zukerman and
Asi Matathias, violin
Cong Wu and Katharina Kang, viola
Amanda Forsyth and
David Geber, cello

Amanda Forsyth, cello
Canadian Juno Award-winning Amanda Forsyth, one of North America’s most dynamic cellists, was principal cello of Canada’s National Arts Centre Orchestra from 1999 to 2015 and has enthralled audiences and critics worldwide as soloist and chamber musician. She has performed on tours with the Royal Philharmonic and Israel Philharmonic Orchestras; appeared with Orchestre Radio de France, Lisbon’s Gulbenkian Orchestra, the English Chamber Orchestra, and the Maggio Musicale Orchestra; and performed with the San Diego, Colorado, Oregon, Dallas, and Grand Rapids Symphonies. Performances with the Moscow Virtuosi were broadcast on national television in 2011, and she appeared with the Mariinsky Orchestra in St. Petersburg conducted by Valery Gergiev in June 2012. In March 2014, Ms. Forsyth made her Carnegie Hall debut with the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra. Ms. Forsyth’s season began in Australia, followed by a South American tour performing Dvorak, Bruch, and Brahms and appearing with the Zukerman Trio. Brahms Double Concerto performances bring her to Mumbai with the Israel Philharmonic; Spain and the U. K. with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra; and North America for performances in Calgary and Greensboro, North Carolina. She performs in Bargemusic’s Masterworks Series and tours Korea, Italy, and Japan with the Zukerman Trio. With the Zukerman ChamberPlayers she has toured Europe, Israel, New Zealand, Turkey, and South America and performed for the Petra Conference for Nobel Laureates in Jordan. A regular guest artist at Japan’s Miyazaki Festival, she appeared in benefit concerts following the Japanese earthquake disaster. With the Zukerman Trio, she has performed in Hungary, Turkey, Russia, Spain, Italy, Switzerland, Romania, and the U. S. and at the major international summer festivals. Ms. Forsyth has recorded on the Sony Classics, Naxos, Altara, Fanfare, Marquis, Pro Arte, and CBC labels and is featured on Wynton Marsalis’s soundtrack for Ken Burns’s PBS documentary The War (2007). Analekta Records released her recording of the Brahms Double Concerto with Pinchas Zukerman and the National Arts Centre Orchestra last fall. Born in South Africa, Ms. Forsyth began playing cello at age three in Canada. A protégé of William Pleeth, she later studied with Harvey Shapiro at the Juilliard School. She is the subject of the Bravo! Canada documentary Amanda Rising: The Amanda Forsyth Story (2002). Ms. Forsyth performs on a 1699 Italian cello by Carlo Giuseppe Testore.

David Geber, cello
Cellist David Geber had his early musical training in Los Angeles, where he was raised in a family of professional cellists. He studied at the Eastman School of Music and the Juilliard School, from which he holds Bachelor of Music and Master of Music degrees. His principal teachers included Claus Adam and Ronald Leonard. Mr. Geber has been the recipient of numerous cello and chamber music awards, including the Walter W. Naumburg Award and the Coleman Chamber Music Prize. He has appeared as soloist at Tanglewood and Aspen, as well as with the Philadelphia Orchestra and Montreal Symphony. A strong supporter of new music, he has premiered numerous works for cello as well as varied chamber music combinations. As a founding member of the American String Quartet, he concertized with that ensemble for twenty-eight years, giving up to 100 annual concerts and performing regularly in most major musical centers of the world. Director of Chamber Music at Manhattan School of Music, Mr. Geber has been a member of the College faculty since 1984 and of the Precollege faculty since 2004. He also maintains summer teaching and performing affiliations with Music Academy of the West in Santa Barbara and the Tanglewood Music Center and is a faculty member with DeTao Masters Academy in China. He has recorded for Albany Records, Capstone Records, CRI, Musical Heritage Society, New World Records, Nonesuch Records, and RCA. Mr. Geber frequently gives recitals and master classes in North America and has adjudicated for major international string competitions including Bordeaux, Evian, and Naumburg. He is on the Board of Directors of the Walter W. Naumburg Foundation and the American Friends of Kronberg Academy. His cello is a rare G. B. Ruggieri, made in Cremona
in 1667.

Katharina Kang (BM ’14), viola
Katharina Kang has performed as a soloist with leading orchestras at Tchaikovsky Concert Hall in Moscow, the St. Petersburg Philharmonia, the Alte Oper Frankfurt, the Concertgebouw Amsterdam, the Tonhalle Düsseldorf, and Grieg Hall in Bergen, as well as Philharmonic Halls in Essen, Wuppertal, Cologne, Berlin, Hamburg, and Munich. Her performances have been broadcast by the BBC; NDR, WDR, and SWR in Germany; and HR in North Carolina. Ms. Kang has worked with conductors Dmitrij Kitajenko, Arnold Katz, Kirill Petrenko, Michael Sanderling, Toshiyuki Kamioka, Ingo Ernst Reihl, Alondra de la Parra, Ruben Gazarian, and Neemi Jarvi. Currently a student of Jaime Laredo at the Cleveland Institute of Music, Ms. Kang received her Bachelor of Music degree from Manhattan School of Music as a student of Pinchas Zukerman and Patinka Kopec in the Pinchas Zukerman Performance Program. Her performances include collaborations with Pavel Gililov, Boris Bloch, Elmar Oliviera, Timothy Eddy, Franz Helmerson, Shmuel Ashkenasi, and Amit Peled. She has attended master classes with Frank Peter Zimmermann, Miriam Fried, Phillip Setzer, Leon Fleisher, Pamela Frank, the Escher String Quartet, and the American String Quartet. In 2014 she was invited to be Artist-in-Residence by the Heifetz International Music Institute in Virginia, the Jamestown Art Center in Rhode Island, and the Baltimore Youth Symphony. Before entering the Pinchas Zukerman Performance Program at Manhattan School of Music, Ms. Kang studied with Rosa Fain at the Robert Schumann Musikhochschule in Düsseldorf. Ms. Kang plays on a Jean-Baptiste Vuillaume violin (Paris 1864).

Asi Matathias (BM ’11, MM ’14), violin
One of the most celebrated talents of his generation, violinist Asi Matathias made his debut at the age of 14 with the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra under the baton of Zubin Mehta. This success was immediately followed by another invitation from Maestro Mehta to perform with him the following season. Since then, Asi Matathias has performed as a soloist with numerous orchestras across the globe, with such conductors as Leon Botstein, Frederic Chaslin, Eduard Topchjan, Dan Ettinger, Stephen D’Agostino, the late Mendi Rodan, Oliver Weder, and Yaron Traub. A student of Pinchas Zukerman and Patinka Kopec in the Pinchas Zukerman Performance Program, Matathias earned both his Bachelor and Master of Music degrees at Manhattan School of Music. Mr. Matathias has recorded for the BBC, CBC, WQXR, IBA, and ORF labels. He is a frequent recitalist and has performed extensively throughout Europe, Asia, the U.S., South America, and Israel, in venues such as Carnegie Hall’s Stern Auditorium, Zankel Hall, and Weill Recital Hall, 92Y, Berlin Philharmonie, Izumy Hall in Osaka, Liederhalle in Stuttgart, and Bronfman Auditorium in Tel Aviv. An enthusiastic chamber musician, he has collaborated with renowned artists such as pianists Yefim Bronfman and Kirill Gerstein, violinists Nikolaj Znaider and Renaud Capucon, violist Nobuko Imai, and cellists Alissa Weilerstein and Frans Helmerson. He has played in the Jerusalem International Chamber Music Festival, the Con Anima Festival in Austria, the Vienna Bezirk Wochen Festspiele, the Israel Festival, and Prussia Cove in England, among other festivals around the world. Mr. Matathias began playing the violin when he was six years old. He studied with Chaim Taub in Israel and was the youngest student to be enrolled at the Universität für Musik und darstellende Kunst in Vienna. He then continued his studies with violinist Aaron Rosand. The recipient of a 2017 Career Grant and a diploma of excellence from the Salon de Virtuosi in New York, Mr. Matathias has been supported by the America–Israel Cultural Foundation since 1997.

Cong Wu, viola
Violist Cong Wu is currently pursuing his doctoral degree at Manhattan School of Music with a full scholarship, studying with Pinchas Zukerman and Patinka Kopec in the Pinchas Zukerman Performance Program. Recently awarded third prize and the Chamber Music Prize in the Fourteenth Primrose International Viola Competition and the Special Prize in the Twelfth Tertis International Viola Competition, violist Cong (pronounced as Ts’ong) Wu has performed throughout North America and Europe. He has collaborated as a chamber musician with such renowned musicians as Christoph Eschenbach, David Finckel, Paul Katz, Paul Neubauer, Itzhak Perlman, Cynthia Phelps, Peter Wiley, and the American String Quartet and appeared as a soloist with the St. Barbara Chamber Orchestra, the Macau Youth Orchestra, and the New York Classical Players. Cong Wu has recently been appointed as guest viola faculty of the National Arts Center Summer Institute in Canada, the artist of Music@Menlo Winter Residency in California, and the assistant faculty of Manhattan in the Mountains Music Festival in New York. He is also a member of New York Classical Players and Jupiter Symphony Chamber Players and a guest member of East Coast Chamber Orchestra (ECCO). His festival appearances include Marlboro Music Festival, Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center Chamber Encounters, Music@Menlo, the Perlman Music Program, and Germany’s Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival. Born in Jinan, China, Cong Wu moved to New York in 2010, after graduating from the Beijing Central Conservatory of Music, where he studied with Wing Ho. He won the Juilliard Alumni Scholarship and received his Master’s degree from the Juilliard School as a student of Heidi Castleman and Hsin-Yun Huang.

Pinchas Zukerman, violin
Pinchas Zukerman has remained a phenomenon in the world of classical music for over four decades, equally respected as violinist, violist, conductor, and chamber musician for his musical genius, prodigious technique, and unwavering artistic standards. Also a devoted and innovative pedagogue, Mr. Zukerman chairs the Pinchas Zukerman Performance Program at Manhattan School of Music, where he pioneered the use of distance-learning technology in the arts over two decades ago. 2017–18 marks his ninth season as Principal Guest Conductor of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra in London and his third as Artist-in-Association with the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra. As soloist and conductor, Mr. Zukerman leads the National Arts Centre Orchestra, Baltimore, San Diego, Vancouver, Nashville, and New West Symphonies and tours with Camerata Salzburg in Romania, Turkey, Hungary, Germany, and Italy and with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra in the U. S., U. K., and Italy. As a soloist, he appears with the San Francisco Symphony, Manchester Camerata, Prague Symphony Orchestra, and Pacific Symphony Orchestra and on tour in China. He joins long-time friend Itzhak Perlman for a gala performance of Mozart’s Sinfonia Concertante for Violin and Viola with the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra at Carnegie Hall. Pinchas Zukerman’s extensive discography has earned him two Grammy awards and 21 nominations. His complete recordings for Deutsche Grammophon and Philips were released in 2016. Recent releases include Baroque Treasury on Analekta with the National Arts Centre Orchestra, cellist Amanda Forsyth, and oboist Charles Hamann; Brahms’s Symphony No. 4 and Double Concerto with the National Arts Centre Orchestra and Ms. Forsyth; and works by Elgar and Vaughan Williams with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. As Music Director of the National Arts Centre Orchestra in Canada from 1999 to 2015, he established the NAC Institute for Orchestra Studies and the Summer Music Institute. He currently serves as Conductor Emeritus of the National Arts Centre Orchestra and Artistic Director of its Young Artist Program. Born in Tel Aviv in 1948, Pinchas Zukerman came to America in 1962 and studied at the Juilliard School with Ivan Galamian as a recipient of the American Israel Cultural Federation scholarship. An alumnus of the Young Concert Artists program, Mr. Zukerman has received the Medal of Arts and the Isaac Stern Award for Artistic Excellence, among many honors.

The FORWARD Puerto Rico Fund (Fondo ADELANTE Puerto Rico) was launched by the Puerto Rico Funders Network (Red de Fundaciones de Puerto Rico) to provide immediate assistance to communities affected by hurricanes Irma and María and to help advance the island’s recovery and rebuilding. The Puerto Rico Funders Network is an association of longstanding and prestigious local foundations with extensive experience in strategic grant-making and a deep involvement in the nonprofit sector. The Fund supports key nonprofit organizations that are committed to moving Puerto Rico forward. Contributions from individuals and organizations are currently being distributed to community-based nonprofit organizations that were the first responders in the wake of the hurricanes. They are responsible for creating innovative initiatives, mobilizing volunteers, addressing basic needs, documenting impacts, and advocating for the most vulnerable. These grass-roots organizations are vital to Puerto Rico’s recovery and transformation because of their knowledge of and commitment to the communities they serve. The members of the Puerto Rico Funders Network have a longstanding commitment to the organizations that receive funds from ADELANTE Puerto Rico and their valuable efforts to move Puerto Rico forward—advancing resilient communities, equity, and government accountability and transparency. All donations are tax-deductible. The Foundation for Puerto Rico, a nonprofit organization classified under section 501c3 of the United States tax code, serves as fiscal sponsor for the Fund.

www.redfundacionespr.org

Fondo ADELANTE Puerto Rico
P.O. Box 362408
San Juan PR 00936-2408

Internationally acclaimed violinist and conductor Pinchas Zukerman accepts a limited number of exceptionally gifted violinists and violists as his students in Manhattan School of Music’s Pinchas Zukerman Performance Program each year. Under his supervision, the program is devoted to the artistic and technical development of these talented students. Mr. Zukerman has adjusted his international performance schedule to permit him to work intensively with the students in a number of private lessons throughout the academic year, including some taught via videoconferencing. In addition, weekly lessons are given by Patinka Kopec, co-director of the program, who was selected by Mr. Zukerman to be his sole teaching associate. Applicants from around the world are auditioned either in person or by videotape by Mr. Zukerman and Ms. Kopec. The class includes three to ten young musicians, ranging from 15-year-old students to young career instrumentalists, as well as traditional-age conservatory students.

In 1996, under the pioneering influence of Maestro Pinchas Zukerman and President Marta Istomin, Manhattan School of Music instituted a groundbreaking distance learning program—the first of its kind at a major conservatory—devoted to exploring the use of state-of-the-art videoconference technology for music education and performance. MSM has since become a proud leader in the field, recognizing the vast potential for the creative use of broadband videoconferencing and its related instructional technologies in the arts as a whole. Led by Christianne Orto, Dean of Distance Learning and Recording Arts, the program provides access to artistic and academic resources that enhance students’ education in musical performance while heightening the global community’s awareness of and participation in the musical arts. The program has become a leading provider of distance learning content for higher education, K–12 schools, and community organizations, including master classes and coachings, clinics, lessons, audition preparation, professional development, and academic seminars. Teaching and learning partnerships have been established with students, educators, and distinguished artists in 46 states and 31 countries, including Australia, China, and Europe, reaching an average of 7,500 students each year.
MSM presented its first webcast in 2003, featuring Pinchas Zukerman conducting a student chamber orchestra in Elgar’s String Serenade. In 2004, the School inaugurated live web streaming of student concerts from the William R. and Irene D. Miller Recital Hall. In 2007, MSM hosted Manhattan Connects: An Internet2 Conference for New York’s Cultural Institutions in collaboration with Internet2, Columbia University, and Nysernet, which celebrated the potential of advanced broadband networking for the arts. In the first live video stream of a classical music event to an iPhone/iPod touch application, the Distance Learning Program partnered with InstantEncore in 2010 to present a master class with renowned baritone Thomas Hampson. In 2011, MSM created an online digital library to give viewers access to the Program’s extensive video archive of past classes and events. In 2012, the Virtual Music Studio pilot program was launched to reach home-based learners via desktop videoconferencing for music. And in 2013, the Program created a special distance learning collaboration with schools throughout Nebraska, in which students received credit for weekly applied music instruction from Manhattan School of Music. In 2013–14, over 800 music lessons to Nebraska were delivered.
Most recently, MSM Distance Learning is pleased to announce the creation of an endowed fund, the Melos Fund for Distance Learning Innovation at Manhattan School of Music, established to support, cultivate, and expand leading-edge music distance learning initiatives and programs at the School.

Founded as a community music school by Janet Daniels Schenck in 1918, today MSM is recognized for its more than 960 superbly talented undergraduate and graduate students who come from more than 50 countries and nearly all 50 states; a world-renowned artist-teacher faculty; and innovative curricula. The School is dedicated to the personal, artistic, and intellectual development of aspiring musicians, from its Precollege students through those pursuing postgraduate studies. Offering classical, jazz, and musical theatre training, MSM grants Bachelor of Music, Master of Music, and Doctor of Musical Arts degrees, as well as the Professional Studies Certificate and Artist Diploma. True to MSM’s origins as a music school for children, the Precollege program continues to offer superior music instruction to young musicians between the ages of 5 and 18. The School also serves some 2,000 New York City schoolchildren through its Arts-in-Education Program, and another 2,000 students through its critically acclaimed Distance Learning Program.

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