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January
27
Thursday,
7:30 pm
$9 - $13 adult; $5 - $9 student
Upper level seats are listed first. Includes all fees.
Giora began studying the violin at age 4 as a prodigy, but Schmidt says that he didn’t really get serious about music until he found himself at New York’s Julliard School at 16, in the pre-college program, taking a lesson from Itzhak Perlman and the esteemed violin teacher Dorothy DeLay. “Not only are you playing for one of the greatest violinists alive, but you’re playing for one of the greatest violin teachers, who has heard everybody. That got me to work. I realized that if I have this opportunity, then I’m not going to fool around.”
Schmidt heard music from day one. His father is a violinist and his mother plays piano and cello. Both his younger sisters play instruments. “Music was the family value.” However, Schmidt’s musical influences include the great German Baritone Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau and two living fiddlers: Perlman and Pinchas Zukerman with whom he shared the stage at Carnegie Hall a few years ago. He loves Perlman’s mix of “intensity and lyricism” and speaks of Zukerman’s “robust, dark sound and the incredible strength and power of his playing.” Giora appreciates the rare 1743 Guarneri Del Gesu violin on loan from the Julliard School which allows him to achieve many nuances of tone. “Music is my life, but there are other parts of my life that I enjoy as well. You can’t just be in one mindset all the time because your music suffers.”
Giora has won numerous prizes throughout his student years. Perhaps the greatest accolade is the 2003 Avery Fisher Career Grant that recognizes musicians who show great potential for a long career. Giora was the youngest recipient of the five so honored. A previous winner was Joshua Bell who played on the CFA Series in 1985. Giora endeared himself to students and adults alike in his participation last season in the Perlman/Schmidt/Bailey Trio.
Selections on this concert have wide appeal. They include sonatas by Antonio Vivaldi and Cesar Franck, “Vocalise” by Philip Lasser born in 1963, Suite
Populaire Espangnole by Manuel de Falla and a set of pieces by Fritz Kreisler. Accompanist Daniel Spiegel is pursing a Master of Music degree in Piano Performance at the Juilliard School where he studies with Joseph Kalichstein. He received concurrent Bachelor of Arts degrees in English from John Hopkins University and in Music from Peabody Conservatory. He has been a collaborative artist with both instrumentalists and vocalists in Canada and France, especially in performances of new music, such as the Aspen Contemporary Ensemble.
Schmidt will visit selected orchestra classes in the Caldwell schools funded in part from Caldwell School District #132, the Whittenberger Foundation, and the Arts-Powered Learning Grant from the Idaho Commission on the Arts and the National Endowment for the Arts.
(www.colbertartists.com)
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