by Daniel Hathaway
Last Tuesday evening, December 5, the Emerson String Quartet visited the Cleveland Chamber Music Society series at Plymouth Church in Shaker Heights for the first time in several years. They made up for that hiatus with performances of striking works by Haydn, Britten, and Shostakovich, the last of the three all the more intense for having been played with most of the lights out. [Read more…]
by Neil McCalmont
On September 27, Tuesday Musical opened its 129th season with the world premiere of Mark-Anthony Turnage’s Shroud as performed by one of the world’s leading chamber groups, the Emerson String Quartet. With their legendary clarity and musicality, violinists Eugene Drucker and Philip Setzer, violist Lawrence Dutton, and cellist Paul Watkins brought to life the Turnage and works by Mozart and Beethoven. [Read more…]
by Daniel Hathaway
On Tuesday, October 27 at 7:30 pm, pianist Wu Han, violinist Philip Setzer, and cellist David Finckel will return to the Tuesday Musical Series at E.J. Thomas Hall in Akron to present the second and final installment of their project to perform all six of Ludwig van Beethoven’s trios for piano, violin, and cello in two concerts.
Last April, the three musicians played the first and third trios from Op. 1 and the “Archduke,” Op. 97. On October 27, they’ll finish the cycle with the G-Major Trio (Op. 1, No. 2), the D-Major Trio (Op. 70, No. 1), and the “Ghost” Trio in E-flat (Op. 70, No. 2). (Read a review of their March performance here.) [Read more…]
by Daniel Hathaway
The Piano Trio With No Name (pianist Wu Han, violinist Philip Setzer, and cellist David Finckel) launched their most recent touring project — eventually to include all six of the Beethoven trios — with a brilliant performance on the Tuesday Musical Series at E.J. Thomas Hall in Akron on March 31. They’ll be back next season to finish the job. [Read more…]
by Daniel Hathaway
On Tuesday, March 31 at 7:30 pm, Tuesday Musical will present pianist Wu Han, violinist Philip Setzer and cellist David Finckel in a program of Beethoven piano trios at E.J. Thomas Hall in Akron. We caught up with the effervescent Wu Han by cell phone to chat about next week’s program.
Daniel Hathaway: I’m guessing from the calendar on your website that you must be somewhere between Georgia and California.
Wu Han: (Laughs) Right now, I’m in downtown San Francisco driving towards the Napa Valley vineyard country.
DH: You have quite a travel schedule. Are you ever home?
WH: Good question! The answer is no.
DH: How do you manage such a busy musical life?
WH: I have a lot of help — people taking care of schedules and reservations for hotels, airlines and cars. All I have to think about is music, music, music, and thank God for that. You have to manage your life. I don’t get bogged down by the details. So you miss your flight? Wow, what’s the big deal? Let’s go have a coffee. Let’s listen to some Spotify.
by Daniel Hathaway
We took advantage of a last-minute opportunity to chat on the phone with violinist Philip Setzer of the Han-Setzer-Finckel Trio on the morning before the ensemble’s performance on the Cleveland Chamber Music Society series on Tuesday, September 23 at 7:30 pm at Plymouth Church in Shaker Heights. [Read more…]
by Daniel Hathaway
The famous piano trio with no name of its own, consisting of pianist Wu Han, violinist Philip Setzer and cellist David Finckel, will launch the sixty-fifth season of the Cleveland Chamber Music Society at Plymouth Church in Shaker Heights on Tuesday, September 23 at 7:30. The program will include Beethoven’s Trio in G, op. 1, no. 2, Shostakovich’s Trio No. 2 in e, op. 67 & Mendelssohn’s Trio in c, op. 66. A 6:30 pm pre-concert lecture will feature WCLV’s Robert Conrad in a talk entitled “Not Your Father’s Radio Station.”
by Daniel Hathaway
David Finckel, Wu Han & Philip Setzer
The trio with no name, but made up of three eminent musicians (violinist Philip Setzer, cellist David Finckel and pianist Wu Han) plays Schubert Trios on the Cleveland Chamber Music Society series on Tuesday, March 23 at Fairmount Temple Auditorium. Finckel and Setzer play in the Emerson Quartet; Finkel and Wu Han are husband and wife, owners of the recording company ArtistLed and co-artistic directors both of Chamber Music at Lincoln Center and Music at Menlo in California. Their Schubert tour derived from an ArtistLed recording project. Due to their busy schedules, we spoke with the trio in three different conversations. We reached David Finckel in Vienna, Wu Han in New York between rehearsals, and spoke with Philip Setzer soon after he returned from Europe.
DAVID FINCKEL
DH: I just read the interview the three of you had with Classical Archives’ artistic director Nolan Gasser in February, and you touched on every subject I could possibly think to ask you about!
DF: That was quite some interview, wasn’t it.
DH: It must have taken some time to do, but I’ll try to find some interesting questions for you. First off, congratulations on the 13th anniversary of ArtistLed. How is the company doing in the current economic climate?
DF: Fine, because our decimal point is in another place. We manage to make ends meet because we have a loyal following. We keep our costs low without having it affect quality at all and we always manage to recoup our expenses through the sales of the recordings, which I think is the golden rule. So as long as we can do that, we can just keep going ahead and making more recordings.
[Read more…]