Centre Symphony Orchestra
Marc Kissóczy, Guest Conductor
Hsing-Chwen Hsin, Piano
Ming-Feng Hsin, Violin
Suggested donation $20. Online box office opens six weeks before the concert.
Ludwig van Beethoven Symphony No. 6, Opus 68, F Major (Pastorale)
Felix Mendelssohn Concerto for Piano, Violin and Strings in D Minor
Hsing-Chwen Hsin, Piano
Ming-Feng Hsin, Violin
Hsing-Chwen Giselle Hsin is one of the most esteemed pianists from Asia. Her predecessor Fou Ts'ong, internationally the most venerated concert pianist from China, recognizes her as "a true artist", and praises her for "reaching the highest realm in music, especially in the performances of Mozart". She is also a piano professor and served several terms as Director of the Institute of Music at the National Chiao Tung University in Taiwan. She has adjudicated, lectured and given master classes nationwide and internationally, such as at Portugal’s Coimbra World Piano Meeting, England’s Royal Northern College of Music and the Yehudi Menuhin School, and Singapore’s Yong Siew Toh Conservatory of Music, Germany’s SRIMF, and Israel’s Tel Aviv International Piano Competition.
On CD, her recording of Mozart, Ravel and Chopin, published by Decca of Taiwan, has won her critical acclaim, resulting in the selection of Editor's Choice in the All Music Magazine. She has also won several competition prizes internationally. These include the prestigious Chappell Gold Medal from London's Royal College of Music, the Mozart Bicentenary Piano Competition of Asia, and New York's Chopin Piano Competition. Among the great concert halls of the world, Dr. Hsin has performed in London's Wigmore Hall, South Bank’s Queen Elizabeth Hall and Purcell Room; New York's 92nd Street Y, and Merkin Hall; California's Lobero and Arlington Theatres (Santa Barbara); Hong Kong's Cultural Center and City Hall; Guangzhou's Xinghai Concert Hall and Hunan's Cultural Center (China); and Taipei’s National Concert Hall and Novel Hall. She has also given numerous performances elsewhere in England, and in France, Austria, Italy, the Netherlands, United States, Australia, Hong Kong, Singapore and Taiwan.
At 17, she performed as a duo with Sir Yehudi Menuhin in the D Minor Violin Sonata by Brahms at the Uppottery Festival, England. That same year she was also invited to give a solo recital debut in the Archbishop of York’s Palace. In her native country Taiwan, she was honored by its President to perform at the Presidential Hall Concert in 1994. As a soloist in concertos, she has performed with USA’s Santa Barbara Symphony, Augustus Symphony, Long Island South Shore Symphony, Stony Brook Orchestra; Taiwan’s National Symphony Orchestra, Taipei Symphony, Taipei Philharmonic Orchestra, Taiwan Symphony Orchestra; the Guildhall String Ensemble of England, the Guangzhou and Hunan Symphony Orchestras of China, and the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra. Moreover, she gave the world premier of Concertino for Piano and Orchestra, written in 1999 for her, by one of Taiwan’s foremost composers, Tsung-Hsien Yang, as well as a Taiwan Premier of Hans Tutschku’s Cells-Lines for piano and live-electronics in 2015. Starting from 2014, her recitals aim to combine musical experience with visual creations in collaboration with artist colleagues. In 2016, her solo recital at the National Concert Hall in Taipei featured imageries for Ravel’s Gaspard de la Nuit, created by visual artist Chi-Min Hsieh on stage. More recitals have taken places including ones that commemorated Debussy and Ma Shui-Long in 2018. Her set of two CDs published by National Chiao Tung University Press includes a Chinese/English dual language booklet of the pianist’s own essay From Bach to Mozart to Chopin: a Retrospective Chopin Approach. This has been widely recognized as a hallmark of integrating scholarship, with exquisite performance.
As an avid and versatile chamber music artist, collaborating in duo and chamber music recitals with internationally renowned first prize winners, including violinist Cho-Liang Lin (Queen Sofia), Qian Zhou (Jacques Thibaud) and Nai-Yuan Hu (Queen Elizabeth), she has also partnered with distinguished international artists, such as violinists James Buswell and Christophe Boulier; violist Hsin-Yun Huang; cellists Gary Hoffman, Antonio Lysy, Pi-Chin Chien, as well as pianists Gilbert Kalish and Pi-Hsien Chen. In 2005, Prof. Hsin founded a leading chamber group of Taiwan, the ChiaoTa Chamber Ensemble, representing NCTU’s Institute of Music and dedicated to the promotion, including the premiering, of classic and contemporary chamber music repertoire in Taiwan.
After winning First Prize at the National Piano Competition for juniors, Ms. Hsin – at 13 - went on to study as a protégé of Baroness Léni Fé Bland at England’s renowned Yehudi Menuhin School. Further studies included a Performer’s Diploma from the Royal College of Music, a Master of Fine Arts from UCLA, and a Doctor of Musical Arts from SUNY Stony Brook. She has studied with Simon Nicholls, Louis Kentner, Vlado Perlemuter, Kendall Taylor, Jerome Lowenthal, Andras Schiff, Ick Choo Moon, Aube Tzerko, Gilbert Kalish and Leon Fleisher. Combining their inspiration and her own further distillation in artistic search, she enjoys passing a healthy and stylistically suitable way of playing to her students. While developing the students’ technical ease and prowess, she also firmly believes in the power and experience of chamber music towards fine musicianship.
Hailed by the Scotsman as “destined to be one of the giants of the next generation” after winning the first prize at the Glasgow International Violin Competition at age 15, Ming-Feng Hsin has enjoyed a unique and rich journey as a multifaceted musician. He has lived through roles as a child prodigy, soloist, chamber musician, orchestra musician, and conductor. Having experienced a major setback from a career-ending accident at the cusp of a very promising solo career, he later triumphed over such upheaval which brought him the grounding to become a revered artist and an insightful mentor for the next generation.
Ming-Feng Hsin began his musical journey as a child-prodigy national hero in Taiwan. At age 13, he was discovered by his mentor Lord Menuhin with whom he has performed throughout Great Britain, and in Washington D.C. where Ming also starred as soloist playing for President Ford and Queen Elizabeth during America's bicentennial celebrations. Later he soloed with orchestras such as the Scottish National Orchestra and the BBC Orchestra to rave reviews. After coming to the U.S. to study with Ivan Galamian, Jascha Brodsky at the Curtis Institute of Music, he won top prizes in several competitions including the Montreal International Violin Competition, but was soon sidelined by an injury that took years to heal. After realizing he could not live a life without music and being on stage, he decided to pursue conducting and graduated from the conducting class of Otto Werner Mueller at The Juilliard School. In the 1990’s Ming was the Music Director of the South Shore Symphony of Long Island, while also conducting orchestras throughout the US and Taiwan. As his finger healed gradually, he often led these orchestras as soloist/conductor.
In 1994, despite not being a violinist for 10 years, Ming won a first violin position at the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra and began his 24-year tenure there. Even with the rigorous schedule at the Met, Ming started to play more and more solo and chamber concerts, as well as still keeping up with conducting, such as full opera productions of Aida, The Flying Dutchman with the Taipei Symphony Orchestra, concerts with the Prometheus Chamber Orchestra and Curtis Orchestra at Rockefeller Center. He also guest conducted frequently the top orchestras in Taiwan and worked with many youth and college orchestras in the New York area as well as in Taiwan. In 2018 Ming retired from the Met to spend more time with his children, and to devote his energies to more playing, conducting and teaching.
Internationally recognized as a conductor of extraordinary versatility, musicality and discernment, Marc Kissóczy has led performances of symphonic music, contemporary ensembles, opera, operetta and Symphonic Pops to equal acclaim.
Mr. Kissóczy has been Music Director and Principal Conductor of Zurich Youth Symphony Orchestra from 1996 to 2002. From 2002 to 2009, he was appointed Music Director of and Conductor of the highly renowned Camerata Zurich, a professional chamber orchestra with a large tradition and a strong commitment to contemporary music.
In addition to his work in opera and operetta, Mr. Kissóczy has enjoyed great success on the concert stage. He has conducted the Zurich Tonhalle and Zurcher Kammerorchester, the Basel and Berne Symphony Orchestras, the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, the Orchestre National de Lyon, Orchestre Philharmonique de Monte-Carlo, Nuremberg Symphony Orchestra, Orchester des Saarlaendischen Rundfunks, Slowenian Philharmonic Orchestra, Cairo Symphony Orchestra, Tampere Philharmonic, Orquestra Municipal do Sao Paulo, Taipei Sinfonietta, Ensemble Intercontemporain Paris and many other orchestras in France, Germany, Switzerland, Portugal, Spain, Italy, Finland, Brazil, Taiwan and other countries.
Marc Kissóczy has conducted a variety of Pops productions over the years including the traditional and prestigious New Years Concerts with the Aargau Symphony Orchestra and has achieved considerable success conducting operas, operettas, Pops and Children’s Concerts, film soundtracks and contemporary music. He led many premieres and his concerts are being broadcast on radio and TV stations in Europe, Asia and South America.
Since 1996 he is on the faculty of the Musikhochschule (Music Academy) at the University of the Arts in Zurich; since 2005 as professor of orchestral conducting and is Artistic Director and Principal Conductor of the Camerata Zurich. Since 2011 he also leads a conducting class at the Conservatorio della Svizzera Italiana.
Marc Kissóczy, born 1961 in Canada to Hungarian-Swiss parents, studied Violin and Conducting at the Music Academies of Zurich, Basel and Berne (Switzerland) and graduated with highest honours. At the Pierre Monteux School in Maine, USA, he completed his studies in conducting and won thereafter a number of national and international prizes, among them at the prestigious ‘Ernest Ansermet’ Competition in Geneva (1994) where he was a standing member and also president of the jury in the following years. Further studies took him to the Tanglewood Music Centre, to Sergiu Celibidache, Pierre Boulez and others. The critics repeatedly acclaim his outstanding musicality and sensitivity, his expressiveness and precise conducting technique.
In 1999, the government of Vietnam has awarded Marc Kissóczy the highest medal of culture in recognition of his merits in restoration of the musical life in Vietnam working very extensively with the Vietnam National Symphony Orchestra. He is frequently asked as member of the jury at national and international competitions.