Bijoux Saxophone Duo

The Bijoux Saxophone Duo started their journey at the prestigious Paris Conservatory, where Aiwen Zhang and Valentin Kovalev were the only two saxophonists admitted in 2018. In 2020, Aiwen and Valentin moved from France to the US to pursue their education at the Universiy of Michigan as the most historical classical saxophone program in the country. Natives of Shanghai and Siberia, both of them had launched their solo careers as concert artists since their childhood, and together they had received over 50 prizes and awards internationally, as well as performed across North America, Europe, and Asia.

Since their first collaboration, their musical connection led to a strong romantic relationship. During the pandemic, the couple decided to stay in touch with the listeners and colleagues through the making of creative content. That was the time they developed their passion for filming and editing. Aiwen and Valentin grew out of their love for musical exploration, thanks to the versatility of the saxophone and their cultural diversity, they are able to fuse different music genres with their classical background to present audience boundary-pushing performances.

Since 2022 they are located in Philadelphia's Rittenhouse Square, where they share a home with their newborn daughter (born June 7, 2023) and the furry audience of three cats and one dog.

A visionary artist with a penchant for the eclectic, Aiwen Zhang bridges the worlds of classical music, multi-media art forms, and global cultural exchange. As a classically-trained saxophonist, her mastery knows no bounds – spanning the U.S., Europe, and Asia. A notable highlight of her career includes a performance with the Cleveland Orchestra under the baton of Klaus Makela.

Aiwen is the first person of Chinese descent and the first woman to win a Top Prize at the Londeix International Saxophone Competition in Thailand. Aiwen’s performance dossier features illustrious venues like the Lincoln Center, Kennedy Center, and Beijing’s National Center for the Performing Arts. Aiwen was also awarded first place in prestigious solo competitions including the Musicians Club of Women Awards Competition in Chicago, the Prix de Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique et de Danse de Paris, and the Vandoren Emerging Artist Competition in New York.

A faculty member at Temple University's Preparatory School, Aiwen holds degrees from the University of Michigan, Paris Conservatory, and Eastman School of Music. Her flair for visual arts extends into freelance videography, photography, and editing for V&A TV, where she crafts multi- sensory performances that captivate audiences.

Valentin Kovalev is a fervently committed classical saxophonist, aspiring to elevate the saxophone's role in classical music. In 2023, he was honored with a Career Advancement Award from the Musical Fund Society in Philadelphia. A prolific competitor, Valentin has won numerous international awards, including those from the MTNA Competition (U.S.), Manhattan International Music Competition (U.S.), Classic Winds Competition (Israel), AndorraSaxFest (Andorra), Anches Simples de Toulouse (France), EkaterinburgSaxFest (Russia), and GoldenSax (Ukraine). He is also a distinguished recipient of grants from the Fondation pour la Vocation and the Rostropovich Foundation.

As the recent winner of the esteemed Naumburg Foundation 2022 Saxophone Competition, Valentin is excited for his Carnegie Hall Debut Recital in the 2023-2024 season with a premier of newly commissioned piece from American composer Steve Mackey. Valentin’s musical journey brought him from studying saxophone in Siberia to Moscow, obtaining an undergraduate degree from the esteemed Paris Conservatory, and completing a Master's degree at the University of Michigan.

In August 2023, he shared the stage with renowned electronic dance music violinist Lindsey Stirling in Portsmouth, VA, enthralling a crowd of 6,000. One of his most remarkable achievements is the cultivation of an engaged online community, now comprising over 60,000 music enthusiasts. Valentin is a Henri Selmer, Paris artist and is represented by Philadelphia's Astral Artists.

Program notes

In our opening concert for the series we present a program of music featuring works by composers whose lives were profoundly touched by war and political unrest in the 20th and 21st centuries. These compositions serve as a sonic history, capturing the emotional zeitgeist of the eras they represent and transforming into anthems of resilience or symbols of peace.

The Bijoux Saxophone Duo invites the audience to explore with them the fascinating ways in which composers react to periods of conflict and change, and how their works continue to resonate with us today.

Program

Maurice Ravel, Le Tombeau de Couperin

IV. Rigaudon

Claude Debussy, Noël des enfants qui n'ont plus de maison

Béla Bartók, 44 Violin Duos, Sz.98

10. Ruthenian Song
11. Cradle Song
15. Soldier's Song
36. Bagpipe

Sergei Rachmaninoff, Symphonic Dances (excerpt)

Dmitri Shostakovich / Levon Atovmyan, Suite for Variety Orchestra No. 1

VII. Waltz No. 2

Igor Stravinsky, Three Pieces for Clarinet Solo, K. 033

I. Sempre p e molto tranquillo ♩= 52
III. ♪ = 160

Liang Lei, Memories of Xiaoxiang

Myroslav Skoryk, Melody

John Williams, Schindler's list

Ben Laude

Ben Laude is a concert pianist, music educator, and video producer whose playing has been described by the New York Times as “superb in pace, tone, and eloquence.” He has performed in recent seasons with the Southern Tier Symphony, New Amsterdam Symphony, and Austin Civic Orchestras and has been heard in live broadcasts on WQXR (New York), WFMT (Chicago), and WWFM. He has created hundreds of video lessons and interviews with dozens of world class pianists for the online music education platform Tonebase and received a YouTube Silver Creator Award for the Tonebase Piano YouTube channel. Laude has held faculty positions at Bard College- Conservatory and New York’s Suzuki School for Strings and holds degrees in piano performance from Rice University and the Juilliard School.

Program notes

For more than a century, nation states have called upon particular works of classical music to serve as propaganda in times of war and political strife. While Allied Forces during World War II most notably turned to the “fate motive” from Beethoven’s 5th Symphony as a symbol of victory, another popular symphonic work in C minor – Rachmaninoff’s Second Piano Concerto – played a comparable role in the 1944 Allied propaganda film Victory in Tunisia, a year before it was immortalized in the soundtrack of the 1945 British film Brief Encounter. Composed at the turn of the 20th century in pre-Revolutionary Russia, the Concerto is paradigmatic of the Romantic piano concerto tradition, its fateful dramatic arc and potent symbols of love and heroic triumph all readily exploitable by nations with populations reeling from destruction and loss.

Program

Piano Concerto No. 2 in C minor, Op. 18 — Sergei Rachmaninoff (1873-1943)

I. Moderato

II. Adagio sostenuto

III. Allegro scherzando

Accompanied by G-Phil

Forrest Howell

Forrest Howell is a near-nomadic musician and writer from Woodinville, Washington. His work as a performer embraces an omnivorous taste in music, ranging from historical keyboard instruments to contemporary Broadway productions to experimental sounds and improvisation. Recent highlights include performances at Music Academy of the West, the Gilmore Piano Festival, Hill Auditorium with the Ann Arbor Symphony, the University of Michigan’s Imprint Series, CoLab at Trinity Laban Conservatoire, Round Top Festival Institute, and Porto PianoFest as an artist in residence.

As a writer, Forrest has contributed to I CARE IF YOU LISTEN, American Music Teacher, and The Westfield Center for Historical Keyboard Studies. He is currently developing the program-note essay genre which contextualizes musical interpretation within personal narratives. The first iteration of this project, “Return from Oblivion: Essays During a Recital”, is focused on stories of loss which occurred during his years as a humanitarian worker in São Paulo.

Forrest currently resides in Denver where he is serving as a full-time Senior Resident Teaching Artist with ArtistYear, an AmeriCorps program focused on providing access to arts education in underfunded schools.

Forrest completed studies in music and science at Brigham Young University and the University of Michigan.

Program notes

Many of humanity's most poignant works of art are born as tributes, homages, and memorials. This is in part because the emotions which accompany loss and grief are universally understood, but the sentiments of a particular relationship are unmistakably distinct—the juxtaposition of these two levels of meaning draws us in and speaks to our shared humanity.

The second piano trio by Dmitri Shostakovich is one such example of this phenomenon. Shortly after beginning the work, news of longtime friend Ivan Sollertinsky's death reached Shostakovich, deeply affecting him. Written in the midst of World War II, the piece depicts both his personal loss as well as a collective lamentation for the horrors of war. It presents emotional turbulence alongside dissociative numbness, and concludes with Jewish-inspired themes woven into a "Dance of Death".

Program

Dmitri Shostakovich, Piano Trio No. 2 in E Minor, Op. 67

I. Andante - Moderato
II. Allegro con brio
III. Allegro con brio
IV. Allegretto – Adagio

Jason Moon, violin
Olivia Cho, cello

Logan Skelton

Logan Skelton is a much sought-after pianist, teacher and composer whose work has received international critical acclaim. Skelton has concertized widely in the United States, Europe and Asia and appeared on many national public radio and television stations, as well as on radio in China and national television in Romania. He has recorded numerous discs for Centaur, Albany, Crystal, Blue Griffin, Equilibrium, Supertrain and Naxos Records, the latter two consisting of collaborations with fellow composer-pianist William Bolcom. He has been a juror for prominent piano competitions and regularly appears in international festival settings. As a composer and arranger his work is published by Muse Press. He has creatively reimagined various piano works of Liszt, Mozart, Bartók, and contributed substantially to the upcoming Gershwin complete edition. Skelton has a special affinity for art song, having composed nearly two hundred songs, including numerous song cycles. A devoted teacher, Skelton has been repeatedly honored by the University of Michigan including the Arthur F. Thurnau professorship, among the highest honors given to faculty members at the university. Skelton’s own piano students have won awards in many national and international competitions. He has served on the faculties of Manhattan School of Music, Missouri State University, and the University of Michigan.

Program notes

Hungarian composer Béla Bartók and American composer George Gershwin share much that unites them. Both lived and worked in the early part of the 20th century. They both looked to the people for artistic and musical inspiration, Bartók finding his compositional voice through the study of East European folk music, and Gershwin through assimilating American popular music of the time. Both were pianists who combined their work as composers with great skill as performers, the piano being absolutely central to their music. And like so much of the world in the early 20th century, war was an ever-present background to their lives. Having lived through World War I, Bartók again experienced war through the beginnings of World War II. He eventually emigrated to America in 1940, settling in New York. Gershwin was a New Yorker through and through, born and raised in the city. In many ways, Gershwin’s music represents an outpouring of energy and American optimism in the period immediately following World War I. Bartók, too, had a period of great productivity between the wars, though his final years were a profound expression of uncertainty during World War II. As such, both artists gave voice to their times. While Gershwin’s music is a kind of celebration of joy during peacetime between wars, Bartók’s music often anxiously, even desperately longs for peace.

This presentation gives context and background to help listeners understand what formed the basis of these two composers’ artistic identities, the soil that allowed their music to grow. Representative pieces by both composers are performed in solo and two piano versions.
 

Program

Various piano works by Béla Bartók
Various Gershwin songs and An American in Paris, arranged for two pianos by Logan Skelton. Joined by Sheena Hui, piano.