Violinist Jennifer Koh and pianist Shai Wosner will give this year’s Louis K. Thaler Concert Violinist Series performance at Ithaca College on Friday, April 9. The free concert will begin at 8:15 p.m. in Ford Hall in the James J. Whalen Center for Music. The program will included sonatas and sonatinas by Mozart and Schubert.
In addition to the public performance, Koh will give a master class at 9 a.m. on Saturday, April 10, in the Hockett Family Recital Hall, and Wosner will present a piano master class at the same time in Beeler Rehearsal Room in the Whalen Center. The series was established in 2002 to honor Louis Thaler’s lifelong love of the violin.
Highlights of Koh’s 2009–2010 season include return guest appearances with the numerous ensembles, including the New Jersey and New World Symphonies and the National Symphony of Washington, D.C. Abroad, she made her PROMS debut with the BBC Symphony, directed by Jiri Belohlávek, in the UK premiere of Augusta Read Thomas’s violin concerto, “Juggler in Paradise.” A new concerto written and commissioned for Koh by Klas Torstensson will be premiered in Amsterdam with the NIEUW Ensemble in May.
Shai Wosner continues to attract international recognition for his exceptional artistry, imaginative programming and musical integrity. With a wide-ranging repertoire from Mozart and Beethoven to Ligeti and composers of his own generation, he has been hailed by the “Financial Times” as “an artist to follow keenly.” His recent and upcoming engagements include recitals at London’s Wigmore Hall, the Musée d’Orsay in Paris and the 92nd Street Y in New York, a critically acclaimed debut with the Cleveland Orchestra, and appearances with the symphony orchestras of Chicago, Atlanta, Houston, Los Angeles and Philadelphia.
The Louis K. Thaler Concert Violinist Series was established in the Ithaca College School of Music by the Thaler/Howell Foundation. Ani Kavafian inaugurated the series in October 2002. Subsequent performers were Elmar Oliveira and Jaime Laredo. Louis’s son Manley H. Thaler and his immediate family provided the impetus for this gift. Before his death in 1979, Louis Thaler had a long and successful career as an Ithaca attorney and was the founder and senior partner in the Thaler and Thaler law firm. In addition to his professional and civic activities, Louis Thaler was an amateur violinist. In 1927 Thaler married the former Rachel Shulman, a native Ithacan who studied piano at the Ithaca Conservatory of Music. Louis and Rachel Thaler were devoted supporters of the Friends of Ithaca College. The Rachel S. Thaler Concert Pianist Series, established in 1991, along with the creation of the Louis K. Thaler Concert Violinist Series, honor the Thalers’ love of music and their support of the College and the School of Music. The Thaler/Howell Foundation, through the efforts of Manley H. Thaler, endowed both series to recognize and honor Rachel and Louis Thaler and to ensure that outstanding violinists and pianists would always perform for the Ithaca College community and the residents of the surrounding area.
Individuals with disabilities requiring accommodation should contact the School of Music at 607-274-3169 (voice), the Office of Equal Opportunity Compliance at 607-274-3909 (voice), or 607-274-1767 (TDD) as much in advance of the event as possible.
https://www.ithaca.edu/intercom/article.php/20100405105109188