Free Event | In person and streamed at naumburg.org/live
February 2nd at 2 PM ET in Greenfield Hall at the Manhattan School of Music.
The Walter W. Naumburg Foundation in partnership with MSM will present Charles Neidich (1985 Naumburg Clarinet Award) and Carol Wincen(1978 Naumburg Flute Award) in recital, as the latest installment of our new series “Naumburg at MSM”.
Works by:
Connesson
Villa-Lobos
Sirota
Lobanov
Neidich
Faure
Matsui
Schoenfeld
Clarinetist and Conductor Charles Neidich, winner of the 1985 Naumburg Clarinet Award, has gained worldwide recognition as one of the most mesmerizing virtuosos performing today. Mr. Neidich has received unanimous accolades from critics and fellow musicians both in the U.S. and abroad; but it is his musical intelligence in scores as diverse as Mozart and Elliott Carter that has earned for Mr. Neidich a unique place among clarinetists. In the words of The New Yorker, “He’s an artist of uncommon merit – a master of his instrument and, beyond that, an interpreter who keeps listeners hanging on each phrase.”
An ardent exponent of new music and a composer himself, Mr. Neidich has expanded the technical and expressive possibilities of the clarinet and has championed the works of many of the world’s most important composers. He is a leading performer on period instruments and has restored and reconstructed original versions of works of composers from Mozart to Copland. Mr. Neidich can be heard on the Chandos, Sony Classical, Sony Vivarte, Deutsche Grammophon, Musicmasters, Pantheon and Bridge labels, as well as in the Mozart Basset Clarinet Concerto on historical instruments for Bremen Radio Hall Recordings. He is publishing editions of major clarinet and wind chamber music for Keiser Southern Music, has made instrumental videos for Play with a Pro, and together with his wife, clarinetist Ayako Oshima, publishes a monthly column in the Japanese magazine, Pipers.
Under Mr. Neidich and Ms. Oshima’s direction, the WA Concert Series, held at the Tenri Cultural Center Institute, brings lesser-known composers and works to the public, synthesizing Mr. Neidich’s lifetime of musical knowledge, exploration, and thoughtful reflection. As a conductor, Mr. Neidich has guest conducted throughout the U.S., Europe and Japan. Also with Ayako Oshima, they have established the non profit Artena Foundation (artenafoundation.org) with the mission to foster through culture worldwide understanding and tolerance. The foundation’s most recent project is the formation of a new training orchestra, the WA Sinfonietta. Mr. Neidich serves as the foundation’s President Director.
In wide demand as a soloist, Mr. Neidich has collaborated with the world’s leading orchestras and ensembles: the BBC Orchestra, the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, the Netherlands Radio Orchestra, the Bavarian Radio Orchestra, the MDR Orchestra, Halle Staatsorchester, Orpheus, the St. Louis, Jacksonville, Pasadena and San Diego, and Minneapolis Symphonies, the Yomiuri Symphony and Tokyo Philharmonic, Hyogo PAC Orchestra, Tafelmusik, Solamente Naturali, the Juilliard, Guarneri, American, Mendelssohn and Parker Quartets.
A native New Yorker of Belorussian and Greek descent, Charles Neidich began his studies with his father and continued them with the noted pedagogue Leon Russianoff. He received a BA, cum laude, in anthropology from Yale University. While at Yale, he was awarded the Selden Prize for musicianship and scholarship. In 1975 he became the first recipient of a Fulbright grant for study in the former Soviet Union and attended the Moscow Conservatory. His European honors include top prizes at the 1982 Munich International ARD Competition, the Geneva, and the Paris Accanthes International Competitions. Mr. Neidich previously taught at the Eastman School of Music and is currently a member of the faculties of the CUNY Graduate Center, the Juilliard School, Manhattan School of Music, and the Mannes School of Music at the New School. While at Eastman he joined the NY Woodwind Quintet, an ensemble with which he still performs. In 2004, he was awarded the William Schuman Award for performance and scholarship at the Juilliard School, and in 2018, was awarded a lifetime achievement membership in honor of his artistic achievements by the International Clarinet Society and a medal for lifetime achievement from the National Society of Arts and Letters. Now in its 13th season, Mr. Neidich and Ms. Oshima are the co-founders of The Kitakaruizawa Music Seminar.
Hailed "Queen of the flute" by New York Magazine, flutist Carol Wincenc is celebrated worldwide for her dazzling virtuosity, warmth of expression, and adventurous programming.
She was first prize winner of the (sole) Naumburg Solo Flute Competition, as well as the recipient of the Lifetime Achievement Award from the both the USA and China National Flute Associations, the National Society of Arts and Letters Gold Medal for Lifetime Achievement in Music, Distinguished Alumni Award from the Brevard Festival Music Center, and the Martha Graham Dance Company "Five Fearless Women" Award.
Among her many achievements includes her commitment to contemporary music. She has commissioned more than 70 works for the flute. In her 50th Golden Anniversary Legacy Series, Ms. Wincenc premiered new works by Jake Heggie, Pierre Jalbert, Robert Sirota, Larry Alan Smith and Sato Matsui, and released an all-Yuko Uebayashi album with the Esher String Quartet on Azica Records. She also premiered Gabriela Lena Frank's Five Andean Improvisations and Valerie Coleman's Amazonia.
Ms. Wincenc has concertized in Taiwan and China, with a debut residency at the Tianjin Juilliard School, and concerts in Finland, South Korea, Bulgaria and France. She also performed nationally with acclaimed singer Susan Graham and Music from Copland House, as well as numerous performances and appearances at major universities worldwide. Highlights also include: the National Flute Association Conventions (with the world premiere of Matsui's Goldenrod Concerto for Flute and Orchestra in 2023), the Belgrade Serbian Flute Society Convention and a vast tour in Seoul.
This past 2024 season, appearances featured Ms. Wincenc at the Mid-Atlantic Flute Convention in Washington DC, the Tampere, Finland, "Legends" Flute Convention, and tours to Duke, Shenandoah, Salem, and East Carolina Universities. and her hometown, Buffalo, NY.
She has appeared as soloist with the Chicago, San Francisco, Pittsburgh, Detroit, and London symphonies, the BBC, Warsaw, and Buffalo Philharmonics, as well as the Los Angeles, Stuttgart, and Saint Paul Chamber Orchestras. She has performed in countless festivals: the Mostly Mozart, Aldeburgh, Budapest, Frankfurt, Santa Fe, Spoleto, Music at Menlo, Aspen, Yale/Norfolk, Sarasota, Banff, and Marlboro. A Grammy nominee, she has received a Diapason d'Or Award for her recording of the Rouse Flute Concerto with the Houston Symphony, a Recording of Special Merit Award with pianist András Schiff, and Gramophone magazine's "Pick of the Month" with the Buffalo Philharmonic.
A member of the New York Woodwind Quintet, Ms. Wincenc is also a founding member of Les Amies with New York Philharmonic principal’s harpist Nancy Allen and violist Cynthia Phelps, and the Gossamer Trio with Nancy Allen and cellist Claire Marie Soloman.
Ms. Wincenc is known for her Carol Wincenc 21st Century Flute series with Lauren Keiser Music Publishers. She began her profession as the Principal Flutist of the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra from 1972-1977. As a celebrated pedagogue serves on the faculties of The Juilliard School and Stony Brook University. Ms. Wincenc has been on the faculties of Indiana University Jacobs School of Music (full professor), and Rice University Shepherd School.
Ms. Wincenc is the recipient of Manhattan School of Music’s Distinguished Alumni Award where she received her Bachelor or Music degree studying flute with Harold Bennett and chamber music with Stephen Maxym, Lillian Fuchs, and Ursula Mamlock. She also served on MSM’s faculty from 1980-1985.
To learn more and stay connected, please visit her at carolwincencflute.com and on Facebook and Instagram.
Pianist Mohamed Shams enjoys a varied musical life as a recitalist, concert artist, chamber musician and accompanist. He has performed diverse repertoire in chamber music, solo and concerti in the U.S. Europe, the Far East and in his native Egypt. As a recitalist, he has performed in important halls in New York, Scotland, Germany and Egypt and as a soloist has played with: Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Gottingen Symphoniker with Egyptian conductor Nader Abbassi, Cairo Symphony Orchestra and MSM Orchestra with Philippe Entremont. He has been featured at music festivals: Beethoven Festival in Bonn, String Academy in Pilsen, Czech Republic, Brevard Music Festival, the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland Piano Festival and the Egyptian-Finnish Cultural Bridge Festival in Finland. In 2021, Mr. Shams gave a solo recital tour in Serbia, and in 2022 he gave a solo recital in Montenegro, and at the historic UNESCO Gamzigrad site in Serbia.
As a recipient of a Fulbright Scholarship grant in 2006 in research of 20th century American composers, Mr. Shams performed works by Elliott Carter, John Corigliano, Leonard Bernstein and John Musto. He is also a champion of works by forgotten or rarely played late nineteenth century composers such as Medtner, Bortkiewicz and Becawicz. His musical studies earned him a M.M. from Manhattan School of Music and a BM with distinction from Cairo Conservatoire. He earned a second MM from The Royal Scottish Conservatoire. His Doctor of Musical Arts degree is from the Hartt School of Music at the University of Hartford. Mr. Shams is currently a faculty member at the Purchase College of Music-SUNY and University of Saint Joseph (Hartford, CT).
American pianist Mimi Solomon brings warmth, sensitivity and curiosity to her multifaceted career as a chamber musician, soloist, teacher, and artistic director. She has performed throughout the United States, China, Japan and Europe, has appeared as soloist with orchestras: Shanghai Symphony, Philharmonia Virtuosi, and Yale Symphony Orchestra. She has been featured on numerous radio and television broadcasts.
An avid chamber musician, she has appeared at music festivals on both sides of the Atlantic: Santander, IMS Prussia Cove, Lockenhaus, Rencontres de Bel-Air, Ravinia, Taos, Norfolk, Yellow Barn, Charlottesville, and La Loingtaine.
Mimi regularly performs and records with her husband, violinist Nicholas DiEugenio. Their award-winning duo project, “Unraveling Beethoven” includes a full cycle of Beethoven violin sonatas alongside newly commissioned response works by Allen Anderson, D.K. Garner, Robert Honstein, Jesse Jones and Tonia Ko. Their first recording, released on New Focus, was praised as a “touching, committed tribute” (I Care If You Listen) to the late Steven Stucky.
Mimi is co-artistic director of MYCO Chamber Players and is currently on the faculty of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Mimi lived in Paris where she fell in love with historic keyboard instruments. She is a graduate of Yale and Juilliard.
This event will also be live streamed.
