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Azica Records has announced the release of a new recording (ACD-71243) featuring American violinist Soovin Kim, with colleagues Nelson Lee, Megan Freivogel McDonough, Liz Freivogel, and Daniel McDonough of the Jupiter String Quartet, and pianist Jeremy Denk, in the music of Gabriel Fauré and Ernest Chausson. The disk combines familiar repertoire with a lesser-known gem: Fauré’s Sonata No.1 in A Major, Op.13 and Chausson’s Concert in D Major, Op.21, for violin, piano, and string quartet. “With this CD I have the best of both worlds in the realm of chamber music,” says Kim, “The Concert is a work of grand proportions - a visceral experience full of drama, passion, and vibrant color; the Fauré sonata is an intimate dialogue between violinist and pianist. I think they make a wonderful pairing as a listening experience, and they were a complete delight to record.” The Fauré/Chausson pairing is the fifth recording to feature Soovin Kim, in either solo or chamber music repertoire. Other recordings include the Paganini Caprices, also on Azica (ACD-71235); a CD by the MIK Ensemble, a collection of new works by young Korean composers on Stomp Music; a pairing with cellists Janos Starker and Zuill Bailey of string quintets of Boccherini and Schubert released by Delos (DE 3344), and his first duo recording, with pianist Jeremy Denk, for Koch-Discover in works of Schubert, Bartók, and Strauss. At the outset of Mr.Kim’s 2008-09 season, he performs with an all-star collection of chamber musicians and soloists as part of Leon Botstein’s Prokofiev and His World at this year’s prestigious Bard Festival; he makes multiple appearances at the Marlboro Festival; and he appears in concert programs combining new music with standard repertoire at chamber music festivals in Bridgehampton and Charlottesville. The season includes three tours: one with the legendary Guarneri Quartet, as part of their last season before the public, one with Musicians from Marlboro, and one in Europe with fellow winners of the Borletti-Buitoni Trust Award. Sprinkled throughout the year are numerous recital appearances and collaborations with such partners as Mitsuko Uchida, Ignat Solzhenitsyn, Colin Carr, the Johannes Quartet, William Purvis, Gilbert Kalish, Martin Fröst, the Chiara Quartet, David Soyer, and Jeremy Denk, in some of the world’s most prominent venues - the Concertgebouw, Queen Elizabeth Hall, Royce Hall, Herbst Theatre, Lincoln Center, and Strathmore Hall among them. The project with the Guarneri String Quartet is unusual because it brings together contrasting elements on a number of levels - the eminent Guarneri Quartet, in the final season of their performing career, with the Johannes Quartet (of which Mr.Kim is first violinist), a sterling group (“the passion and attack that characterize the best of quartet playing.” -Philadelphia Inquirer) just a few years into their career - plus a program consisting of three newly commissioned pieces combined with one of the great chestnuts of the standard repertoire. The program (in a series of performances initiated last season and concluding this season) features Passing Through, a new quartet written for the Guarneri Quartet by Derek Bermel; Homunculus, written for the Johannes Quartet by composer/conductor Esa-Pekka Salonen; Double Quartet, an octet written for them all by William Bolcom, and Mendelssohn’s mighty Octet in E-flat Major, Op.20. Every member of both quartets is a graduate of the Curtis Institute, and all have mingled for years in summers at Marlboro. In the words of Ann Arbor News critic Susan Nisbett after the second of this series of concerts last February, “...the concert...was about passing the torch and keeping the flame burning...Almost any performance of the Mendelssohn makes a great finale, but this one, with Kim in the lead, was exceptional: in verve, whimsy and lightness; in consolation; and above all, in joy.” The remaining performances in this series take place in Costa Mesa (19 Nov 08), San Francisco (20 Nov), Phoenix (21 Nov), Los Angeles (22 Nov), Kansas City (23 Mar 09) and New York (25 Mar 09). Born in the U.S., Soovin Kim started to play the violin at age 4. At 15, he was accepted to the Cleveland Institute of Music, where he studied with David Cerone and Donald Weilerstein; he ultimately moved to the Curtis Institute of Music, where he worked with Victor Danchenko and Jaime Laredo. At the age of 20, he was the first American in 24 years to win the Paganini Competition. He plays the 1709 “ex-Kempner” Stradivarius. For more information about Soovin Kim, call 831-620-1332 and visit www.soovin.com; and www.kathrynkingmedia.com. |
