Swiss Music Night 2021

 

Reflection of Time   

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A kaleidoscope of fascinating concerts celebrating the musical friendship between Switzerland and Taiwan

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The Swiss Music Night Concerts 2021 is the eighth edition of this annual concert series and is all about what the main concern of this concert series is: to enable the collaboration of outstanding musicians from Switzerland and Taiwan and introduce music creation of both countries.

 

The Swiss Music Night Concerts 2021 include a concert in the National Concert Hall in Taipei with orchestra, as well as chamber music concerts in other venues in Taiwan. 

 

For the second time, the Swiss music Night awards a composition commission to a composer in Taiwan. This time to the composer and pianist Ming-Hsiu Yen.

 

With the two works by the Taiwanese composer Ming-Hsiu Yen and Swiss composer Fabian Müller, one will experience a world-premiere and a Taiwan-premiere on this evening. The two concertante works for piano four hands, violoncello and orchestra are surprising and unique in their instrumentation.

 

The Swiss Music Night has also invited the internationally acclaimed Swiss pianist Karl-Andreas Kolly, who will perform the works together with distinguished taiwanese Pianist Chun-Chieh Yen 嚴俊傑  on the piano, the Swiss-Taiwanese cellist Pi-Chin Chien and the Evergreen Symphony Orchestra ESO under the direction of Maestro Gernot Schmalfuss.

 

Two beloved works build the frame for this two premieres: Rossini's Wilhelm Tell Overture to the opera about the famous Swiss legend, as well as the 6th Symphony by Tchaikovsky, who developed a special relationship with Switzerland when he met his dying friend, the violinist Iosif Kotek, who stayed at the health resort of Davos in the Swiss mountains, a journey which inspired him to write his Manfred Symphony. 

 

The Swiss Music Night chamber music concerts in this year are an encounter between the Swiss pianist Karl-Andreas Kolly and the Taiwanese violinist Ching-Ting Chang. Ching-Ting Chang has a warm relationship with Switzerland where she was concertmaster of the Basel Symphony Orchestra before taking on the same position in Shenzhen. 

 

The two exceptional musicians will perform a very attractive program with works by J.S. Bach, S. Rachmaninov, who lived in Switzerland for a long time, as well as a charming work by the now 103-year-old internationally celebrated Swiss composer Julien-François Zbinden. Culmination of the program is the 2nd violin sonata by Johannes Brahms, who stayed several summer in Switzerland at the lake of Thun, which was his retreat for composing. At this lake surrounded by the marvelous landscape of the Bernese Oberland he composed also his 2nd violin sonata in the year 1886. 

 

The Swiss Music Night Concerts 2021 promise very exciting concert evenings to the audience in which composers and musicians from both countries come together to cultivate cultural exchange and friendship.

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Swiss Music Night 2020 – The Artists

 

Ming-Feng Hsin 辛明峰 - violin (USA-Taiwan)

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Ming-Feng Hsin began his violin studies at the age of six in his native Tainan, Taiwan.

At age twelve he was awarded the first prize in the Cathay Pacific Airlines Violin Competition. As part of the prize, he was invited to attend the Hong Kong Music Festival where Yehudi Menuhin heard him and brought him to England to study with him in his school.

 

Mr. Hsin’s solo career began when he won the Glasgow International Violin Competition at the age of fifteen. He subsequently performed with the Scottish National Orchestra and the BBC Orchestra to rave reviews (hailed by the Scotsman as “destined to be one of the giants of the next generation.”) and made his London debut at the Queen Elizabeth Hall. Mr. Hsin has

performed throughout Great Britain with his mentor Lord Yehudi Menuhin and was invited to Washington D.C. as the featured soloist at a special concert for President Ford and Queen Elizabeth of England during the bicentennial celebrations. 

 

After coming to the U.S. to study with Ivan Galamian, Jascha Brodsky and David Cerone at the Curtis Institute of Music, Mr. Hsin was awarded top prizes at several competitions including the Montreal International Violin competition. Mr. Hsin is also an accomplished conductor. After getting a conducting degree from Juilliard with Otto Werner Mueller, he has worked with numerous orchestras throughout the world, and has led productions of the operas Aida, Flying Dutchman, La Boheme, and Ballo in Maschera.

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He won a first violin position at the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra in New York in 1994. In 2017 he retired  from the Met and has now more freedom to pursue solo and chamber music performances. These past few seasons he has performed the concertos of Tchaikovsky, Brahms, Barber, Glazunov, Mendelssohn, Prokofiev, Beethoven, Sibelius, Mozart and Schumann.

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Hsing-Chwen Hsin 辛幸純 - piano (Taiwan)

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Steinway Artist Hsing-Chwen (Giselle) Hsin is one of the most esteemed pianists from Asia. Her predecessor Fou Ts’ong, internationally the most venerated concert pianist from China, recognizes her as “a true artist”, and praises her for “reaching the highest realm in music, especially in the performances of Mozart”. While her live performances have been telecast and broadcast across Asia, England, and the US, she actively appears in concertos, recitals, recordings, and interviews on air. As one of Taiwan’s leading pianists, she is also a piano professor at the National Chiao Tung University.

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On CD, her recording of Mozart, Ravel and Chopin, published by Decca of Taiwan, has won her critical acclaim, resulting in the selection of Editor's Choice in the All Music Magazine. She has also won several competition prizes internationally. These include the prestigious Chappell Gold Medal from London's Royal College of Music, the Mozart Bicentenary Piano Competition of Asia, and New York's Chopin Piano Competition.

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Among the great concert halls of the world, Dr. Hsin has performed in London's Wigmore Hall, and both the Queen Elizabeth Hall and Purcell Room; New York’s 92nd Street Y, and Merkin Hall; California’s Lobero and Arlington Theatres (Santa Barbara); Hong Kong’s Cultural Center and City Hall; Guangzhou’s Xinghai Concert Hall and Hunan’s Cultural Center (China); and Taipei’s National Concert Hall and Novel Hall. She has also given numerous performances elsewhere in England, and in France, Austria, Italy, the Netherlands, United States, Australia, Hong Kong, Singapore and Taiwan.

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Pi-Chin Chien 簡碧青 - cello (Switzerland-Taiwan)

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Pi-Chin Chien is a sought-after, internationally active soloist and chamber musician. She has performed in major concert venues around the world, including New York's Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center, Konzerthaus Berlin, Berlin Philharmonic and Tonhalle Zurich. She appears as a soloist on recordings with the Philharmonia Orchestra London and the Zurich Chamber Orchestra under the direction of David Zinman, Ruben Gazarian and Wen-Pin Chien. 

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In 2015 Pi-Chin Chien enjoyed enormous success with her album "Taiwan Rhapsody", accompanied by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra London and released by Sony Classical. Pi-Chin Chien has performed and recorded world premieres of a number of violoncello concertos and chamber music works, including several compositions dedicated to her.

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In the 90ties Pi-Chin Chien contributed significantly to the rediscovery of the late romantic Swiss composer Paul Juon with numerous concerts of his chamber music and first recordings of his cello concerto "Mysterien", the Triple Concerto "Epidodes Concertantes" and his cello sonata.

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She performed at the Kaiser-Otto Medal award ceremony in honor of the late former German President Richard von Weizsäcker, and twice (1998 and 2016) at the renowned concert series at Taiwan’s Presidential Office on invitation of the President of Taiwan. 

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Pi-Chin Chien is the artistic director of the "Swiss Music Night" concert series in Taiwan and of the "Confluence" Music Festival in Zurich. www.pichin.net

 

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Musical concept and artistic direction „Swiss Music Night“

Pi-Chin Chien & Fabian Müller