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KALEIDOSCOPIC
VIOLIN & PIANO RECITAL BY HYEYOON PARK & BENJAMIN GROSVENOR
SUNDAY 25 SEPTEMBER 2022
5:00PM
VICTORIA CONCERT HALL
“Park shined in a range of iridescent colours. Her refinement of tone… blossomed out into a rainbowed intensity, and the piping effects… which are treacherous high harmonics, were flawlessly projected.” (The Arts Desk)
The youngest-ever first prize winner of the ARD International Music Competition in Munich at the age of 17 in 2009 and recipient of the Borletti-Buitoni Trust Award in 2011, violinist Hyeyoon Park is an artist of outstanding style and virtuosity, combining integrity with elegance and focus with panache. A student of Antje Weithaas in Berlin and Christian Tetzlaff in Kronberg, she has since achieved international acclaim with the best-known conductors and orchestras across Europe, Japan and her native South Korea, and in recital at the most prestigious venues.
With acclaimed British pianist Benjamin Grosvenor, she has formed an exquisite partnership, most recently touring North America together, culminating in a recital at New York’s Frick Collection. Of their recital in May 2022 in Munich, the Süddeutsche Zeitung hailed it “an exemplary evening of violin and piano, of the highest quality in every respect. As respective masters of their instruments and in the breathtaking interplay of their ensemble playing both fulfilled the duties of higher virtuosity”.
Park and Grosvenor present a sophisticated programme full of colouristic possibilities for their debut recital in Singapore as a duo. Opening with the classical elegance of Mozart, the high-sensitivity expressivity of quiet Webern leads beautifully to Debussy’s Violin Sonata, imbued with a profound air of melancholic nostalgia, subtly coloured by the Hungarian gypsy flavour of violin playing. This rustic latter quality comes to the fore in Bartók’s Violin Rhapsody No. 1, before the recital ends with Schubert’s Fantasy in C, his greatest work for the violin, in rare virtuosic form, placing the extreme difficulties of both instrument parts around beautiful melodies and the adventurous harmonic explorations.
PROGRAMME
MOZART - Violin Sonata No. 24 in F major, K. 376
WEBERN - 4 Pieces for violin and piano, Op. 7
DEBUSSY - Violin Sonata in G minor, L 140
BARTÓK - Rhapsody No. 1 for violin and piano, Sz. 86
SCHUBERT – Fantasy in C major, D. 934
(Programme subject to change at the artists' discretion)
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HYEYOON PARK, violin
“Technical brilliance and rousing virtuoso fire, charmed by a unique natural sweetness in tone, free from sentimentality.” (Süddeutsche Zeitung)
Combining integrity with elegance and focus with panache, Hyeyoon Park is an artist of outstanding style and virtuosity. Since making her orchestral debut at the age of nine with the Seoul Philharmonic, she has achieved international acclaim with orchestras such as the Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks, hr-Sinfonieorchester Frankfurt, Orchestre Symphonique de Montreal, NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchester, Chamber Orchestra of Belgium, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, Wiener KammerOrchester, Mariinsky Orchestra St Petersburg, Malmö Symphony Orchestra, NHK Symphony Orchestra and Yomiuri Nippon Symphony Tokyo. In spring 2016, she made her London Philharmonic Orchestra debut performing the Korngold Violin Concerto under the baton of Osmo Vänskä.
The youngest ever first prize winner of the ARD International Music Competition in Munich at the age of 17 in 2009, she was also a recipient of the Borletti-Buitoni Trust Award in 2011. Hyeyoon went on to receive the London Music Masters Award in 2012, which led to numerous concerts in prominent venues throughout the UK. Passionate about education, this award has also provided her with a regular platform to bring music and performance into London’s schools, many in underprivileged areas, and in 2018 she featured prominently in the organisation’s celebrations for its ten-year anniversary.
Recent and forthcoming highlights include performances with Stuttgarter Philharmoniker, Württembergische Philharmonie Reutlingen, Mecklenburgische Staatskapelle Schwerin, the Orchestra of Casa da Musica Porto, Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra, BBC National Orchestra of Wales, Bath Philharmonia, and an acclaimed North American recital tour with pianist Benjamin Grosvenor, culminating in a performance at New York’s Frick Collection.
An avid chamber musician, she regularly appears at major festivals and venues around the world, such as London’s Southbank Centre, Birmingham’s Town Hall, Spannungen Festival Heimbach, Moritzburg Festival, Les Rencontres Musicales d'Évian, Internationales Musikfestival Koblenz, Molyvos International Music Festival and Marlboro Festival at the invitation of Mitsuko Uchida. She has collaborated with Gidon Kremer, Andras Schiff, Christian Tetzlaff, Antje Weithaas, Yuri Bashmet, Lars Vogt, Daniel Hope, Alban Gerhardt, Jan Vogler, Kian Soltani and Florian Uhlig, to name a few.
With Huw Watkins she gave the world premiere of a work written especially for her by Mark Bowden at the Newbury Spring Festival, subsequently recording this for the NMC record label. She has also given recitals at the Tonhalle Zurich, Vienna’s Konzerthaus, Schleswig-Holstein Festival, Rheingau Musik Festival, Festspiele Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Musical Olympus Festival and Les Violons de la Paix.
Born in Seoul in 1992, Hyeyoon studied at the junior colleges of the Korean National University of Arts and University of Cincinnati with Professor Piotr Milewski. She also studied with Professor Antje Weithaas at the Hochschule für Musik “Hanns Eisler” in Berlin and with Christian Tetzlaff as a Young Soloist at the Kronberg Academy, where she completed her Master’s degree in 2016. These studies were funded by the Nikolas Gruber Stipendium.
Hyeyoon Park plays a violin made by the German violinmaker Stefan-Peter Greiner.
THE ARTISTS
BENJAMIN GROSVENOR, piano
“Simply phenomenal... the young pianist showed why he has long been hailed as one of the world's finest in his field... Grosvenor impressed with measure, taste and buoyant grandeur" (Süddeutschen Zeitung)
British pianist Benjamin Grosvenor is internationally recognized for his sonorous lyricism and understated brilliance at the keyboard. His virtuosic interpretations are underpinned by a unique balance of technical mastery and intense musicality. Grosvenor has been heralded one of the most important pianists to emerge from the UK in several decades.
His 22/23 season begins with Prokofiev‘s Piano Concerto No. 3 with RSO Wien conducted by Marin Alsop at the BBC Proms. He is ’Artist in Focus’ at The Sage Gateshead, and performs three projects across the season with the Philharmonia Orchestra, including both Chopin Piano Concerti and Beethoven’s Triple Concerto with Sheku Kanneh-Mason and Nicola Benedetti.
Other concerto highlights of the 22/23 season include engagements with KBS Symphony and Myung-Whun Chung (Chopin 1), touring with the London Philharmonic and their Chief Conductor Edward Gardner, Orchestra of St Luke’s at Carnegie Hall (Mendelssohn 1), Auckland Philharmonia, Prague Radio, Bern, San Diego and City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestras, Hallé Orchestra, Royal Scottish National Orchestra and Orchestre de Lyon with Leonard Slatkin.
In recital, Grosvenor makes gives his debut at the Luxembourg Philharmonie, in Mainz as part of the SWR2 Internationale Pianisten series and Oldenburg. He also returns to the Théâtre des Champs Elysées, Wigmore Hall, Sage Gateshead, Kennedy Centre, Washington and embarks on a tour of Latin America including returns to Sao Paolo and Montevideo. A keen chamber musician, regular collaborators include Hyeyoon Park, Timothy Ridout, Kian Soltani – whom he appears with at Cologne Philharmonie, and the Doric String Quartet with whom he tours the USA in Spring 2023.
In 2011 Benjamin signed to Decca Classics, becoming the youngest British musician ever, and the first British pianist in almost 60 years, to sign to the label. Released in 2020, his second concerto album featuring Chopin’s piano concerti, recorded with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra under the baton of Elim Chan, received both the Gramophone Concerto Award and a Diapason d'Or de L’Année, with Diapason's critic declaring that the recording is “a version to rank among the best, and confirmation of an extraordinary artist.” His renewal of the Decca partnership in 2021 coincided with the release of Benjamin’s latest album Liszt, centred around the composer’s Sonata in B minor, which was awarded ‘Chocs de l’année’ and Prix de Caecilia.
Grosvenor has received Gramophone’s ‘Young Artist of the Year’, a Classical Brit Critics’ Award, UK Critics’ Circle Award for Exceptional Young Talent and a Diapason d’Or Jeune Talent Award. He has been featured in two BBC television documentaries, BBC Breakfast, Front Row, as well as in CNN’s ‘Human to Hero’ series. In 2016, he became the inaugural recipient of The Ronnie and Lawrence Ackman Classical Piano Prize with the New York Philharmonic.
He studied at the Royal Academy of Music with Christopher Elton and Daniel-Ben Pienaar, where he graduated in 2012 with the ‘Queen’s Commendation for Excellence’ and in 2016 was awarded a RAM Fellowship. Benjamin is an Ambassador of Music Masters, a charity dedicated to making music education accessible to all children regardless of their background, championing diversity and inclusion.
