New Asia Chamber Music Society

Four  young virtuosos perform  fresh arrangements of Japanese folk songs; music by  Asian and Asian American  composers for violin, cello, piano, and erhu (Chinese fiddle); and Beethoven’s Quartet for Piano and Strings in E-flat, in honor of the composer’s 250th birth year anniversary. Their recording is being made especially for the Freer and Sackler for this debut broadcast and includes commentary by the composers and performers.  
 
The New Asia Chamber Music Society gave its inaugural performance at a sold-out Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall. They have since performed at Lincoln Center’s David Geffen Hall, Kaufman Music Center’s Merkin Concert Hall, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art and have toured Taiwan’s major concert halls.   
 
The program features  Japanese folksong  arrangements  by  Yui Kitamura,  director of Multicultural Sonic Evolution (MuSE), whose works have been heard at Tokyo’s Suntory Hall and Triphony Hall, Carnegie Hall, and Lincoln Center; the Piano Trio by Tyzen Hsiao, whose Formosa Requiem received its North American premiere at Lincoln Center; Unwavering Light, for erhu, violin, and cello by Ke-Chia Chen, a frequent collaborator with the Philadelphia Orchestra; and flashback moments for erhu, violin, cello, and piano by Shih-Hui Chen, a winner of the Rome Prize and a Guggenheim Fellowship. 
 
The ensemble’s director Wei-Yang Andy Lin was praised by The Strad as having “elicited some of the night’s most sensitive work,” and the New York Times called him “a virtuoso on the erhu . . . he gave a brilliant performance.” Violinist Tien-Hsin Cindy Wu, a veteran of the Marlboro Music Festival, was praised by the Seattle Times as “simply marvelous.” She has collaborated with such artists such as Gary Graffman, Ida Kavafian, Cho-Liang Lin, Midori, Yuja Wang, and members of the Berg, Guarneri, Orion, and Tokyo string quartets at Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, and the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival.  Joining them are cellist Nan-Cheng Chen and pianist Tzu-Yi Chen. 
 
This program is made possible through support from the Taiwan Academy, Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office in the United States, and is part of the 28th season of the Bill and Mary Meyer Concert Series.