Hue for Two: Violinist Mari Kimura and Pianist Stephen Gosling

On June 25, 2011 at 8:00 PM at Tenri Cultural Center, 43A West 13th Street, The New Spectrum Foundation will present “Hue for Two: Mari Kimura and Stephen Gosling,” the inaugural recital for the performing duo of Kimura, inventor of Subharmonics for the violin, and Gosling, a virtuoso pianist and master of unlimited styles.

This is the launch of a series of duo concerts they wish to continue every year, presenting a diverse violin/piano duo repertoire, from classical to experimental.

Subharmonics is a technique by which violinist Mari Kimiura plays notes below the open-G string without lowering the tuning. She recently gained broad recognition when she and this revolutionary technique were the subject of a feature story by Matthew Gurewitsch in the New York Times Arts & Leisure on May 15, 2011.

The June 25, 2011 concert will include the premiere of “Hue for Two,” a new work composed by Kimura for violin and piano using Subharmonics. The piece was composed by Kimura as part of her 2010 Guggenheim Fellowship project. It will be the first duo piece using Subharmonics in history of the violin literature.

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Mari Kimura and Stephen Gosling. Photo by Lee Wexler.

Filepe Lara: Prisma for violin and piano (2006 – rv. 2008)

Salvatore Sciarrino: Sonatina pour Violon et Piano (1975) Bernard Cavanna: “Fauve” – Six pieces pour violon seul (1994)

Eziquiel Vinao: Fantasie for piano solo (1998)

Mari Kimura: “Hue for Two” for violin and piano (2011) world premiere.

Claude Debussy: Sonata pour violon et piano (1917)

The New Spectrum Foundation is led by biotechnology entrepreneur Glenn Cornett and located in Palo Alto, CA. It is focused on the support of contemporary music. www.newspectrum.org

ABOUT MARI KIMURA

Violinist Mari Kimura (www.marikimura.com) is a revolutionary musician, composer and 2010 Guggenheim winner who has invented new sonic worlds for the violin. The New York Times has written, “Ms. Kimura is a virtuoso playing at the edge” and All Music Guide has described her as “A plugged-in Paganini for the Digital Age.” New Music Connoisseur asserted, “Mari Kimura is to the violin what perhaps Henry Cowell and later John Cage were to the piano in the 1920’s and 30’s–taking it into the future with extended techniques and sounds.”

Ms. Kimura is also well known for developing the extended technique of “Subharmonics.” This has put her at the forefront of violinists who are extending the technical and expressive capabilities of the instrument. She is also a pioneer in the field of interactive computer music and has earned international acclaim as a soloist and recitalist in both standard and contemporary repertoire. In a New York Times review of an April 11, 2011 concert for Japan relief at the Japan Society, critic Zachary Woolfe attributed “ferociously guttural power” to Ms. Kimura’s Bach deconstructions.

Last year, Ms. Kimura was awarded a 2010 Music Composition Fellowship from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation and completed a three-month residency at IRCAM in Paris.

On May 20, Kimura will appear in “String Theater,” a solo recital at Bohemian Hall, 321 East 73rd Street, hosted by The Vilcek Foundation, New York’s biomedical foundation which supports immigrant artists and scientists. Kimura was chosen as one of their featured artists this year. In this appearance, she will introduce a brand new Subharmonic to the audience for the first time—Subharmonic Fifth, which she has been working on for several years.

Mari Kimura’s recent CD, “The World Below G and Beyond: Works for Violin Subharmonics and Interactive Computer” (October, 2010 on Mutable Music) is devoted entirely to her own compositions. As the title suggests, it focuses primarily on works using Subharmonics, including the premiere recording of “ALT: Three Movements for violin solo,” the piece with which she introduced Subharmonics in concert halls for the first time at a New York solo debut recital in 1994. For a review of the album, see: http://www.juilliard.edu/journal/2010-2011/1102/articles/discoveries.php

Ms. Kimura has recently joined United States Artists, and with support of this organization, will be raising funding for her future projects and this concert. For more info, please see: http://www.unitedstatesartists.org/project/hue_for_two. For an expanded biography of Ms. Kimura, see: http://www.unitedstatesartists.org/user/marikimura.

ABOUT SUBHARMINICS

Subharmonics, a violin technique created by Mari Kimura, has drawn international attention from both the musical and scientific communities. It has been mentioned in Physics and Physics Today. Ms. Kimura has demonstrated the technique at a meeting of Acoustical Society of America and more than a dozen articles about Subharmonics have appeared in musical and scientific journals (including several authored by Kimura herself). The technique is used prominently in “Schemes,” a work for violin and orchestra composed for her by Jean-Claude Risset, which will be Ms. Kimura’s next worldwide touring project. The work was commissioned by the Suntory Music Foundation and debuted in 2007 in Tokyo.

Kimura has recently created a new Subharmonic interval., the “Subharmonic Fifth.” If she plays an Open G string, she can play the fifth below (viola’s C). Previously, she had been performing and composing with the “Subharmonic Octave” and “Subharmonic Third.” The Fifth has actually been in development for a long time. All three intervals are achieved entirely through bowing technique.

ABOUT STEPHEN GOSLING

Pianist Stephen Gosling is a member of the New York New Music Ensemble, Ensemble Sospeso, American Modern Ensemble, the Orchestra of the League of Composers/ISCM, and Ne(x)tworks. He has additionally been a frequent guest artist of many other groups, including the New York Philharmonic, Dutch Radio Philharmonic, Orpheus, the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, Chamber Orchestra of Europe, American Composers Orchestra, the Orchestra of St. Luke’s and Speculum Musicae. He has performed several times in the Lincoln Center and Mostly Mozart festivals, and was the subject of a New York Times profile in October 2005.

Mr. Gosling earned his Bachelor’s, Master’s and Doctoral degrees at the Juilliard School, garnering the Mennin Prize for Outstanding Excellence and Leadership in Music and the Sony Elevated Standards Fellowship. He was also featured as concerto soloist an unprecedented four times.

Mr. Gosling has collaborated with numerous American and European composers, including John Adams, Milton Babbitt, Pierre Boulez, Elliott Carter, Brian Ferneyhough, Oliver Knussen, Steve Reich, Poul Ruders, Charles Wuorinen and John Zorn. He has also worked extensively with New Zealand’s pre-eminent composer, John Psathas, recording two award-winning CDs of his work (Rhythm Spike and Fragments) and premiering his piano concerto Three Psalms with the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra.

Recently Mr. Gosling has performed Corigliano’s Piano Concerto with the Phoenix Synphony and Boulez’s Sur Incises with the Met Chamber Orchestra under James Levine at Zankel Hall; given solo recitals at the Stone and at Bargemusic; completed his third CD of solo piano music by Phillip Ramey; and premiered Gheorghe Costinescu’s “Essay in Sound” at the American Composers Alliance Festival at Symphony Space (this live performance will complete a soon-to-be-released recording of Costinescu’s piano music).

Mr. Gosling has performed throughout the Americas, Europe and Asia, and made over 50 recordings to date.

An additional biography and discography of Mr. Gosling is available at: http://www.naxos.com/person/Stephen_Gosling/6757.htm.

New Spectrum Foundation will present “Hue for Two: Mari Kimura and Stephen Gosling” Saturday, June 25 at 8:00 PM (one night only) at Tenri Cultural Center, 43A West 13th Street, Manhattan. Tickets are $15 general admission. To buy tickets, visit http://www.marikimura.com or call Smarttix, (212) 868-4444.