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PHILIP SETZER, VIOLIN Violinist Philip Setzer, a founding member of the Emerson String Quartet, was born in Cleveland, Ohio, and began studying violin at the age of five with his parents, both former violinists in the Cleveland Orchestra. He continued his studies with Josef Gingold and Rafael Druian, and later at the Juilliard School with Oscar Shumsky. In 1967, Mr. Setzer won second prize at the Marjorie Merriweather Post Competition in Washington, DC, and in 1976 received a Bronze Medal at the Queen Elisabeth International Competition in Brussels. He has appeared with the National Symphony, Aspen Chamber Symphony (David Robertson, conductor), Memphis Symphony (Michael Stern), New Mexico and Puerto Rico Symphonies (Guillermo Figueroa), Omaha and Anchorage Symphonies (David Loebel) and on several occasions with the Cleveland Orchestra (Louis Lane). He has also participated in the Marlboro Music Festival. Mr. Setzer has been a regular faculty member of the Isaac Stern Chamber Music Workshops at Carnegie Hall and the Jerusalem Music Center. His article about those workshops appeared in The New York Times on the occasion of Isaac Stern’s 80th birthday celebration. He also teaches as Professor of Violin and Chamber Music at SUNY Stony Brook and has given master classes at schools around the world, including The Curtis Institute, London’s Royal Academy of Music, The San Francisco Conservatory, UCLA, The Cleveland Institute of Music and The Mannes School. The Noise of Time, a groundbreaking theater collaboration between the Emerson Quartet and Simon McBurney–about the life of Shostakovich–was based on an original idea of Mr. Setzer’s. In April of 1989, Mr. Setzer premiered Paul Epstein’s Matinee Concerto. This piece, dedicated to and written for Mr. Setzer, has since been performed by him in Hartford, New York, Cleveland, Boston and Aspen. Recently, Mr. Setzer has also been touring and recording the piano trios of Schubert and Mendelssohn with David Finckel and Wu Han.

2015-2016 ARTIST ROSTER BENJAMIN BEILMAN, VIOLIN 2015 NICHOLAS CANELLAKIS, CELLO THE ESCHER STRING QUARTET SIR JAMES GALWAY, FLUTE MARK HOLLOWAY, VIOLA SEAN LEE, VIOLIN GILLES VONSATTEL, PIANO STEPHANIE BLYTHE, MEZZO-SOPRANO TIMOTHY COBB, BASS YING FANG, SOPRANO LADY JEANNE GALWAY, FLUTE STEFAN JACKIW, VIOLIN CRAIG TERRY, PIANIST PAUL WATKINS, CELLO PAOLO BORDIGNON, HARPSICHORD JEREMY DENK, PIANO RAFAEL FIGUEROA, CELLO RICHARD GOODE, PIANO KRISTIN LEE, VIOLIN DANBI UM, VIOLIN

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THE ESCHER STRING QUARTET The Escher String Quartet has received acclaim for its profound musical insight and rare tonal beauty. Championed by the Emerson String Quartet, the group was a BBC New Generation Artist from 2010–2012, giving debuts at both Wigmore Hall and BBC Proms at Cadogan Hall. In its home town of New York, the ensemble serves as Artists of The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, and in 12/13 presented a critically acclaimed 3-concert series featuring the quartets of Benjamin Britten. In 2013, the quartet became one of the very few chamber ensembles to be awarded the prestigious Avery Fisher Career Grant. Within months of its inception in 2005, the Escher Quartet was invited by both Pinchas Zukerman and Itzhak Perlman to be Quartet in Residence at each artist’s summer festival: the Young Artists Programme at Canada’s National Arts Centre; and the Perlman Chamber Music Programme on Shelter Island, NY. The quartet has since collaborated with artists including David Finckel, Leon Fleischer, Wu Han, Lynn Harrell, Cho Liang Lin, David Shifrin, and guitarist Jason Vieaux. Last season, the Escher Quartet undertook an extensive UK tour with pianist Benjamin Grosvenor. The Escher Quartet is increasingly making a distinctive impression throughout Europe as it builds important debuts into its diary and receives consistently high acclaim for its work. Recent such engagements have included the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, the Auditorium du Louvre in Paris and the Conservatoire de Musique in Geneva among others. In 2013, the group’s first appearance at Israel’s Tel Aviv Museum of Art resulted in an immediate re-invitation, and its performance at Wigmore Hall was followed by an invitation to establish a regular relationship with the venue. The current season sees further significant debuts at London’s Kings Place, Berlin’s Konzerthaus, and Slovenian Philharmonic Hall in Ljubljana, as well as Great Music in Irish Houses and the Risør Festival in Norway. Alongside its growing European profile, the Escher Quartet continues to flourish in its home country, performing at Alice Tully Hall in New York, Kennedy Center in Washington DC, and Ravinia and Caramoor festivals. Last season saw a critically acclaimed debut at Chamber Music San Francisco and an appearance at Music@Menlo in California. Elsewhere, the group gave its first Australian performances at Perth International Arts Festival in 2012, and this season makes its debut at the Hong Kong International Chamber Music Festival. Adding to the current season is the quartet’s involvement in the education of young musicians, with coaching activities at Campos do Jordão Music Festival in Brazil and the Royal Academy of Music in London. The quartet has recorded the complete Zemlinsky String Quartets on the Naxos label, releasing two highly acclaimed volumes in 2013 and 2014 respectively. Forthcoming releases include the complete Mendelssohn Quartet cycle on the BIS label. The Escher Quartet takes its name from Dutch graphic artist M.C. Escher, inspired by Escher’s method of interplay between individual components working together to form a whole.

February 20, 2022 – Danbi Um, violin; Juho Pohjonen, piano ERICH WOLFGANG KORNGOLD (1897-1957) Suite from Much Ado about Nothing, op. 11 February 20, 2022 – Danbi Um, violin; Juho Pohjonen, piano Erich Wolfgang Korngold showed an incredible gift for composition at an early age. Upon hearing him play his cantata Gold in 1907, Gustav Mahler proclaimed him a genius and recommended that he study with Alexander Zemlinsky at the Vienna Conservatory. At age eleven he composed a ballet, Der Schneemann, that so impressed Zemlinsky that the latter orchestrated and produced it at the Vienna Court Theater in 1910 to sensational acclaim. Richard Strauss was deeply impressed by Korngold’s Schauspiel Ouvertüre (1911) and Sinfonietta (1912), as was Puccini by his opera Violanta (1916). The pinnacle of Korngold’s early career came at the age of twenty-three when his opera Die tote Stadt achieved international recognition. By 1928 a poll by the Neue Wiener Tagblatt considered Korngold and Schoenberg the greatest living composers. In 1934 director Max Reinhardt took Korngold to Hollywood where the second phase of his career began. There he composed some of the finest film scores ever written—nineteen in all, including such classics as Captain Blood (1935), The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938), and The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex (1939); he became Hollywood’s highest paid composer at that time. Yet he was caught between two worlds and two eras. He was criticized in some quarters for selling out to Hollywood and for ignoring modern trends in music; in Hollywood he was criticized for writing scores that were too complex. Even while immersed in the film world he periodically composed works in other genres—the Violin Concerto (1937; 1945) has remained in the repertoire and has even enjoyed a surge in popularity beginning in the 1990s. Korngold’s incidental music for Shakespeare’s Much Ado about Nothing was composed in 1919 for a production at the Schönbrunn Palace in Vienna in 1920, thus it dates from the same period as his successful Die tote Stadt. Though scored originally for chamber orchestra, Korngold arranged Much Ado for violin and piano—he himself played the piano part—when the run of performances was extended but no orchestra was available. He also fashioned several suites from the incidental music—one for violin and piano, one for orchestra, and one for solo piano. The violin and piano Suite consists of four movements. The Maiden in the Bridal Chamber, a graceful ternary-form movement, depicts Hero, the bride-to-be, on her wedding morning, happily unaware that Claudio has been tricked into doubting her fidelity. Occasional “modern” harmonies enliven the prevailing Romantic language. The second movement—Dogberry and Verges. March of the Watch—constitutes a mock serious march to accompany Shakespeare’s Dogberry, the pompous constable who comically confuses words (“comparisons are odorous”), his crony Verges, and the other men of the watch, who protect the good citizens of Messina. Sudden rhythmic shifts that throw the march off kilter add to the humorous effect. The third movement, a slow, flowing waltz with Romantic modulations and sudden key shifts, accompanies an earlier “Scene in the Garden,” in which the plot unfolds to make the play’s other couple, Beatrice and Benedick, fall in love. The two targets, in turn concealed in the bushes, overhear different conversations meant for theirs ears each describing the love of one for the other. The “Masquerade” of the fourth movement actually occurs first in the events of the play described here. The second act begins with a masked ball, which provides a wonderful opportunity for word play between the confirmed bachelor Benedick and the sharp-tongued Beatrice. Korngold’s Hornpipe is a lively dance in rondo form, with a cheerful refrain containing delightful rhythmic shifts and episodes that include folk-like drones, brief touches of minor, and even a quick descending passage in whole tones. The piece ends with an unexpected humorous tag. By Jane Vial Jaffe Return to Parlance Program Notes

November 20, 2022: Steven Banks, Saxophonist-Composer Xak Bjerken, Piano, Principal Strings of The Met Orchestra STEVEN BANKS (1993) Come As You Are for tenor saxophone and piano November 20, 2022: Steven Banks, Saxophonist-Composer Xak Bjerken, Piano, Principal Strings of The Met Orchestra For several years, I have wanted to write a piece that was dedicated to my immediate family (my mother and three sisters) and the influence of my upbringing on my understanding of music and life in general. When preparing the program for my Young Concert Artists debut recital, it dawned on me that there would be no better time than this to share a work that bears such personal significance. When I think back to my childhood, and especially the beginnings of my journey in music, the church is at the center of so much. We were regular church-goers, my grandfather was a pastor in the African Methodist Episcopal (A.M.E.) church, and the church provided us with an incredible community that was very important to my family in the good times and the bad. The church taught me about the transformative and awesome power of music. In an effort to honor both my family and the church, I decided to write a four-movement work in which each movement would be dedicated to a different family member and take inspiration from their favorite Negro spiritual or sacred song. At its core, Come As You Are is an expanded arrangement or setting of these four songs. As a more direct reference to the music played in the church that I grew up going to, the song Total Praise, which is typically sung by a choir, serves as a sort of connective tissue throughout the entire piece. The titles of each movement come from lyrics from Total Praise. The text of each song is vital in understanding the expressive nature of each movement. However, the form and melodic content of each song have been either been expanded, rearranged, or manipulated in a way that is meant to make the message clear when played on instruments that, obviously, can not convey the actual words. Below, I’ve listed the movement titles along with the song that they draw inspiration from. Lift My Eyes (My Lord, What A Morning) Times of the Storm (Wade in the Water) Strength of My Life (His Eye Is On the Sparrow) Lift My Hands (I Still Have Joy) When interpreted through the lens of classical music, these movements are configured in a way that is intended to align with a slightly deviant four-movement sonata form that composers like Schumann, Rachmaninoff, Shostakovich, and many others used in several of their works. In this form, the first movement is an allegro, the second movement is a scherzo or dance, the third movement is an adagio, and the last movement is another fast one, perhaps with a dance feel or including a theme and variations. Come As You Are was conceived of with this in mind, but is not rigidly connected to it. Through the lens of African-American sacred music, the first two movements, Lift My Eyes and Times of the Storm, are inspired by traditional Negro spirituals. It is important to note that spirituals often contained text that was Biblical on the surface, yet deeply personal or communicative in intention. My Lord, What A Morning and Wade in the Water are no exceptions to this tradition. In this spirit, I aimed to strike a balance between the surface-level meaning of these spirituals and what they might have meant for the people that sang them. There may seem to be striking dichotomies in character that are reflective of these varied meanings. The second two movements, Strength of My Life and Lift My Hands, are inspired by songs that are more common in religious practices today. In these, I have tried to make a musical depiction of the lyrics in a way that conveys the message of each song from my perspective. As I wrote this piece, I realized that one of its purposes was to bring together different facets of my own life experience. As a classical musician, the vast majority of my colleagues have little knowledge or understanding of Black culture or how it influences my music-making. As a Black man from North Carolina, many of my family and friends don’t have a true sense of what I do and love as a classical performer and composer. I have also spent an incredible amount of time and energy on keeping these worlds separate and trying to show up in each as if the other didn’t exist. This “two-ness” is akin to a concept called double consciousness that W.E.B. Dubois introduced at the turn of the 20th century in his book The Souls of Black Folk. He outlines this concept, roughly, as having two simultaneous identities. One of these might be described as uniquely American, while the other is uniquely Black. As a composer, I strive to let my internal musical voice be “ok” and to follow it where it wanders, trusting that this amalgamation of experiences is leading me in a direction that is uniquely mine and informed by my various interests and identities. Come As You Are is a significant landmark on this journey to musical individuation. © Jane Vial Jaffe Return to Parlance Program Notes

2018-2019 ARTIST ROSTER EDWARD ARRON, CELLO MICHAEL BROWN, PIANO BARRY CENTANNI, PERCUSSION TIMOTHY COBB, DOUBLE BASS DAVID J. GROSSMAN, DOUBLE BASS PAUL HUANG, VIOLIN CHELSEA KNOX, FLUTE SEAN LEE, VIOLIN MIHAI MARICA, CELLO KEN NODA, PIANO WEN QIAN, VIOLIN SHERYL STAPLES, VIOLIN JASON VIEAUX, GUITAR PINCHAS ZUKERMAN; AMANDA FORSYTH; ANGELA CHENG ELAINE DOUVAS, OBOE MAURYCY BANASZEK, VIOLA THE CALIDORE STRING QUARTET INN-HYUCK CHO, CLARINET EMERSON STRING QUARTET WENDY BRYN HARMER, SOPRANO PAUL JACOBS, ORGAN PIERRE LAPOINTE, VIOLA QIAN-QIAN LI, VIOLIN ANNE AKIKO MEYERS, VIOLIN GARRICK OHLSSON, PIANO DOV SCHEINDLIN, VIOLA ARNAUD SUSSMANN, VIOLIN GILLES VONSATTEL, PIANO JOEL NOYES, CELLO PASCUAL MARTÍNEZ FORTEZA, CLARINET ALESSIO BAX, PIANO NICHOLAS CANELLAKIS, CELLO LUCILLE CHUNG, PIANO DAVID FINCKEL, CELLO MING FENG HSIN, VIOLIN FRIEDRICH HEINRICH KERN, GLASS HARMONICA KRISTIN LEE, VIOLIN MATTHEW LIPMAN, VIOLA EILEEN MOON-MYERS, CELLO CYNTHIA PHELPS, VIOLA EMILY DAGGETT SMITH, VIOLIN DANBI UM, VIOLIN SARAH CROCKER VONSATTEL, VIOLIN KEVIN ZHU, VIOLIN YOOBIN SON, FLUTE

January 19, 2020: Paul Lewis, piano LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN (1770–1827) Fantasia in G minor, Op. 77 January 19, 2020: Paul Lewis, piano Beethoven was miserable during the summer of 1809 owing to Napoleon’s invasion and occupation of Vienna. The composer wrote of this time: We have passed through a great deal of misery. . . . Since May 4th, I have brought into the world little that is connected; only here and there a fragment. The whole course of events has affected me body and soul. . . . What a disturbing, wild life around me; nothing but drums, cannons, men, misery of all sorts. The noise and confusion was especially hard to bear because the court and most of his friends had fled the city, communication was disrupted, and he was unable to spend his customary sojourn in the countryside where his creativity was always rejuvenated. Despite his mood and intermittent inability to write anything “connected,” he composed an impressive number of works during the invasion year: the Fifth Piano Concerto, the Harp Quartet, three piano sonatas (opp. 78, 79, and 81a), several lieder, and a number of miscellaneous pieces, among them the present Fantasia, op. 77. Though Beethoven may have begun writing down the Fantasia during this trying time, he may have actually conceived it in December 1808 for the same concert on which he premiered his Choral Fantasy , which begins with a grand piano introduction in improvisatory style. The solo “Fantasia” that he extemporized on that concert might well have been some form of the present work. In any case, he completed the Fantasia in October, after the armistice was signed and presumably during or following a stay in Hungary with his good friends the Brunsviks—Count Franz, who received the dedication, and his sister Therese. Billed in G minor, the remarkably free-ranging Fantasia touches on that key—never to return—with a cascading scale figure and somber chordal phrase. Repeating the gestures in an unrelated key, Beethoven moves on through a kaleidoscopic array of keys and thematic gestures, eventually settling sweetly in the distant key of B major. He then proposes a simple eight-measure theme in that key and treats it to seven variations before a broad coda reintroduces harmonic uncertainty—even a sweet variant of the theme in C major! The boisterous cascade and subdued chordal gesture of the opening return to settle his main B major key once and for all, to which he adds a comical sign-off. © Jane Vial Jaffe Return to Parlance Program Notes

JOHN UPTON, OBOE John Upton is a freelance oboist in New York City, where he can often be heard performing with the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra. He also frequently performs with The Knights and APEX Ensemble. Before moving to New York, Mr. Upton was principal oboe of The Florida Orchestra for five seasons. He was also a member of the New World Symphony and the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra. Other orchestras with which he has performed include the New York Philharmonic, the Minnesota Orchestra, the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, the National Arts Centre Orchestra (Canada) and the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra. Mr. Upton began his studies at the Eastman School of Music, earning a Bachelor of Music degree. Upon graduation, he was awarded the prestigious Performer’s Certificate, the school’s highest performance prize. Mr. Upton continued his studies at The Juilliard School, where he received his Master of Music degree. After receiving first-prize in the International Double Reed Society’s biennial Young Artist Competition, Mr. Upton was awarded a solo recital at the 2010 International Double Reed Society conference. He has participated in many summer festivals, including the Verbier Festival, Tanglewood Music Festival, and the Mainly Mozart festival in San Diego.

December 4, 2022 – The Sitkovetsky Trio LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN (1770–1827) Piano Trio in G major, op. 1, no. 2 December 4, 2022 – The Sitkovetsky Trio Beethoven carefully considered his presentation to the musical world of Vienna. Though he had composed quite a few works by 1795, he chose the three Trios that form Opus 1 as his first publication. He had been sponsored by Elector Maximilian Franz to move from his hometown of Bonn to Vienna at the end of 1792, to study with the great Joseph Haydn and to make his name in a musically more active world. Haydn was writing piano trios at that time, and though Beethoven probably had started work on his trios before he left Bonn, it was natural for him to work on them under the influence of his new teacher. When Haydn left for a sojourn in London in January 1794, Beethoven immediately began studies with Johann Albrechtsberger, which continued for fourteen months until Haydn’s return. A sketch for one of the movements of the G major Trio, op. 1, no. 2, was found among lessons Beethoven had done for Albrechtsberger. Beethoven’s Opus 1Trios were performed privately in 1794 at the house of Prince Lichnowsky, who received the dedication. Ferdinand Ries, later Beethoven’s pupil, reported many years after the fact that Haydn was among the distinguished guests in the audience and that the older composer had many nice things to say about the works, but advised against publishing the Third in C minor, saying the public would have difficulty understanding it. Ries also reported that Beethoven took this to be a sign of jealousy on Haydn’s part. It has been shown more recently that Ries’s account mixed up the chronology and that any possible qualms Haydn may have had about the C minor Trio were raised upon his second return from London in 1795, after the Trios had already been published. In response to this and other accounts that Haydn was envious of the younger composer, esteemed musicologist James Webster wrote, “It is inconceivable that the powerful and original genius of Haydn at the height of his powers should have had any difficulty with this work . . . or indeed any of Beethoven’s music of the 1790s, unless for reasons that reflect on Beethoven’s limitations rather than his own.” Furthermore, Webster demonstrated that no irreparable falling out between the two composers occurred in the 1790s, though they did experience a period of distrust between 1800 and 1804. Beethoven may have worked more on the Trios after the 1794 performance and perhaps other performances of them at Prince Lichnowsky’s. But his most likely reason for delaying their publication until 1795 was to build up a following—meaning a sufficient number of subscribers. Like the other Opus 1 Trios and the Opus 2 Piano Sonatas, Beethoven conceived of the Trio in four movements, despite the custom of the day to compose chamber works with piano in three movements. The G major Trio opens with an elaborate slow introduction in which the piano predominates. Both the piano and violin preview the main theme of the Allegro vivace, which makes its entrance in the “wrong key” before righting itself to G major. The slow movement contrasts with the surrounding fast movements by its 6/8 meter, expressive nuances, and unusual key of E major. Haydn also used the key of E major for the slow movement of his famous G major Gypsy Trio, but his Trio was written in England in 1795. Beethoven wrote a fleet scherzo instead of a minuet for the third movement of his Trio. Haydn had written minuets in fast enough tempos to be considered scherzos, whereas Beethoven actually called these movements scherzos. The cello, playing quietly in its lowest range, initiates the furtive-sounding main section. The hushed quality remains until the loud closing bars of the main section. The Trio provides contrast in texture, but remains quiet. The principal section’s return is literal, followed by a soft coda that ends pianissimo. The sonata-form finale also begins quietly but soon bursts forth exuberantly. Beethoven’s obvious fun with repeated notes generates the first theme and, in a different fashion, the second. He must also have enjoyed disguising the beginning of his recapitulation, something that Haydn also did on occasion. Beethoven winds down the movement with quiet fragmentation of motives then jolts the listener with the final fortissimo chords. © Jane Vial Jaffe Return to Parlance Program Notes

BENJAMIN LUXON, ACTOR-NARRATOR Benjamin Luxon studied with Walther Gruner at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama (while working part-time as a PE teacher in the East End) and established an international reputation as a singer at the age of 21 when he won the third prize at the 1961 ARD International Music Competition in Munich. Soon afterward he joined composer Benjamin Britten’s English Opera Group. On their tour of the Soviet Union in 1963, he sang the roles of Sid and Tarquinius in Britten’s operas Albert Herring and The Rape of Lucretia , respectively. In 1971, Britten composed the title role of his television opera Owen Wingrave specifically for Luxon’s voice; Luxon created the role later that year with the English Opera Group. The following year, 1972, Luxon made his début at both the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden – creating the role of the Jester in Peter Maxwell Davies’ opera Taverner – and at the Glyndebourne Opera Festival, where he sang the title role in Raymond Leppard’s realization of Monteverdi’s Il ritorno d’Ulisse in patria. Thereafter he became a frequent guest at both venues and also at Tanglewood in Massachusetts, USA. In 1974, Luxon began his long association with the English National Opera, which culminated in his appearance in the title role of Verdi’s Falstaff in 1992. He made his Metropolitan Opera début (as Eugene Onegin) in 1980, his La Scala début in 1986, and his Los Angeles début (as Wozzeck) in 1988. He sang in most of the major European opera houses and made frequent appearances in Munich (Bayerische Staatsoper) and Vienna (Wiener Staatsoper). In addition to his opera work, Luxon also developed a reputation as a concert-giver and recitalist with an unusually broad repertoire, ranging from early music through Lieder to contemporary song, music hall and folk music. He has also been recognised for his work rehabilitating parlour songs from the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, particularly in partnership with Robert Tear. He made several appearances on BBC TV’s long-running Music Hall Variety show, The Good Old Days, both with Robert Tear and on his own. His rendition of the song ‘Give Me a ticket to Heaven’ always met with tremendous acclaim. It was the song for which the BBC received the largest feedback of any featured on the programme. Luxon has made more than one hundred recordings, many featuring early and mid twentieth-century British songwriting and folksong arrangements by composers such as Britten, George Butterworth, Percy Grainger, Ivor Gurney, Roger Quilter, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Gerald Finzi and Peter Warlock. His regular accompanist between 1961 and 1999 was the pianist David Willison. As a guest on the BBC’s Desert Island Discs program, he said that his favourite piece of music is Thomas Tallis’s Spem in alium. Luxon was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 1986 Queen’s Birthday Honours.[1] Starting around 1990, Luxon began to be troubled by hearing loss. Though he explored a variety of conventional and ‘alternative’ treatments, continued fluctuation and deterioration in his hearing forced him to end his singing career by the end of the decade. Since then, however, Luxon has developed a career as a narrator and poetry reader, whilst continuing to give master classes and direct opera. He lives in the Berkshires in Western Massachusetts in the U.S.

SOOHONG PARK, PIANO Pianist Soohong Park's artistry has resonated internationally, with regular performances in Germany and the UK, including celebrated appearances at Carnegie Hall in New York and the renowned Barbican Hall in London as part of the Guildhall Artists Ensemble under the tutelage of Ronan O'Hora from Guildhall School of Music & Drama. He further enriched his musical experience by participating in the IMS Prussia Cove in the UK in 2018 and reaching the finals of the prestigious Tongyeong Isang Yoon International Music Competition in 2019. His talents were further recognised when he won the Guildhall Gold Medal in 2020. In this season, he has made his debut at Teatro de la Zarzuela in Madrid and at Palau de la Música Catalana in Barcelona as a collaborative pianist. Pianist Soohong Park also explores the realm of composition. His composition, inspired by the remarkable female divers of Jeju Island garnered him the grand prize from the Jeju World Cultural Preservation Society in 2020.