Skyline Happenings

Thanks to Diane S.

This coming Thursday, from 2:30 to approximately 5 PM, there will be an open rehearsal of one of the pieces which will be played the following evening at the Seattle Chamber Music Society’s Summer Festival in Nordstrom Hall, Benaroya.  We had our first open rehearsal in Skyline’s new performance Center at the last SCMS Winter Festival and many of you found the experience a wonderful one so I am happy it can be repeated once again.

Please find below detailed information as well as bios of the two musicians who will be participating.  Since this is a rehearsal you may come any time between 2:30 and 5:00 PM although I advise coming on the early side as it is up to the musicians to determine how long a rehearsal they need.

I also want to confirm that transportation to and from Benaroya Hall will be provided to the one matinee performance on Sunday, July 31st.  Please go to the Caremerge calendar for July 31st to sign up or contact Jensen Ng by phone.  As of today, there are three people signed up and there may well be a minimum number needed for the transportation to remain available.  For details on the concert that day, kindly go to seattlechambermusic.org. 

I look forward to seeing many of you at the rehearsal and at Benaroya Hall.  Best regards to all,  Diane  (Member of the SCMS Board)

Yegor Dyachkov

Lauded for his remarkable stage presence, depth of insight, nuance and generosity, cellist Yegor Dyachkov is an inspired recitalist, chamber musician and concerto soloist. Since being proclaimed Artist of the Year by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, in 2000, Mr. Dyachkov has gone on to perform throughout Europe, Latin America, Asia, Canada and the United States, making his New York debut at Lincoln Center in October 2000. He has appeared with major orchestras in such cities as Antwerp, Geneva, Montreal, Rio de Janeiro, Toronto and Vancouver, and has performed at numerous international festivals in Évian, Kronberg, Lanaudière, Ottawa, and Tanglewood.

A champion of new music, Yegor Dyachkov has premiered works dedicated to him such as the Sonata by Jacques Hétu, Ironman by Michael Oesterle, Vez for solo cello by Ana Sokolovic, as well as Menuhin : Présence by the late André Prévost.  He was invited by Yo-Yo Ma and Sony Music to take part in the Silk Road Project.

Winning the Orford International Competition led to an invitation from the Chandos label to record his debut CD in 1997. His other acclaimed recordings can be found on the Brioso, Pelléas and Analekta, Riche Lieu and Atma labels. Yegor Dyachkov’s principal mentors have been Aleksandr Fedorchenko in Moscow, Yuli Turovsky in Montréal and Boris Pergamenschikow in Cologne. He teaches at the Schulich School of Music of McGill University and at l’Université de Montréal and offers frequent masterclasses.

Joyce Yang

Blessed with “poetic and sensitive pianism” (Washington Post) and a “wondrous sense of color” (San Francisco Classical Voice), Grammy-nominated pianist Joyce Yang captivates audiences with her virtuosity, lyricism, and interpretive sensitivity.

She first came to international attention in 2005 when she won the silver medal at the 12th Van Cliburn International Piano Competition. The youngest contestant at 19 years old, she took home two additional awards: Best Performance of Chamber Music (with the Takàcs Quartet), and Best Performance of a New Work. In 2006 Yang made her celebrated New York Philharmonic debut alongside Lorin Maazel at Avery Fisher Hall along with the orchestra’s tour of Asia, making a triumphant return to her hometown of Seoul, South Korea. Yang’s subsequent appearances with the New York Philharmonic have included opening night of the 2008 Leonard Bernstein Festival – an appearance made at the request of Maazel in his final season as music director. The New York Times pronounced her performance in Bernstein’s The Age of Anxiety a “knockout.”

In the last decade, Yang has blossomed into an “astonishing artist” (Neue Zürcher Zeitung), showcasing her colorful musical personality in solo recitals and collaborations with the world’s top orchestras and chamber musicians through more than 1,000 debuts and re-engagements. She received the 2010 Avery Fisher Career Grant and earned her first Grammy nomination (Best Chamber Music/Small Ensemble Performance) for her recording of Franck, Kurtág, Previn & Schumann with violinist Augustin Hadelich (“One can only sit in misty-eyed amazement at their insightful flair and spontaneity.” – The Strad). She has become a staple of the summer festival circuit with frequent appearances on the programs of the Aspen Summer Music Festival, La Jolla SummerFest and the Seattle Chamber Music Society.

Other notable orchestral engagements have included the Chicago Symphony, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Philadelphia Orchestra, San Francisco Symphony, Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, the BBC Philharmonic, as well as the Toronto, Vancouver, Sydney, Melbourne, and New Zealand symphony orchestras. She was also featured in a five-year Rachmaninoff concerto cycle with Edo de Waart and the Milwaukee Symphony, to which she brought “an enormous palette of colors, and tremendous emotional depth” (Milwaukee Sentinel Journal). 

In solo recital, Yang’s innovative program has been praised as “extraordinary” and “kaleidoscopic” (Los Angeles Times). She has performed at New York City’s Lincoln Center and Metropolitan Museum, the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., Chicago’s Symphony Hall and Zurich’s Tonhalle. In 2018, Musica Viva presented Yang in an extensive recital tour throughout Australia.

As an avid chamber musician, Yang has collaborated with the Takács Quartet for Dvořák – part of Lincoln Center’s Great Performers series – and Schubert’s “Trout” Quintet with members of the Emerson String Quartet at the Mostly Mozart Festival at Lincoln Center. Yang has fostered an enduring partnership with the Alexander String Quartet, which continued in the 2018/2019 season with performances in Davis, Tucson, San Francisco, Dallas, Aliso Viejo, Rockville and Seattle. Following their debut disc of Brahms and Schumann Quintets, their recording of Mozart’s Piano Quartets was released in July 2018 (FoghornClassics). Jerry Dubins of Fanfare Magazine wrote that the renditions were “by far, hands down and feet up, the most amazing performances of Mozart’s two piano quartets that have ever graced these ears.”