中華表演藝術基金會 Chinese Performing Arts Foundation

photos: Cathy Chan

Bion Tsang, Cellist
(Pronounced BEE-on SANG)

Cellist Bion Tsang has been internationally recognized as one of the outstanding instrumentalists of his generation: among his many honors are an Avery Fisher Career Grant, an MEF Career Grant and the Bronze Medal in the IX International Tchaikovsky Competition. Mr. Tsang earned a Grammy nomination for his performance on the PBS special A Company of Voices: Conspirare in Concert (Harmonia Mundi).

Mr. Tsang has appeared as soloist with such orchestras as the New York, Moscow and Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestras, the National, American, Pacific, Delaware and Atlanta Symphony Orchestras, the Saint Paul and Stuttgart Chamber Orchestras, the Louisville Orchestra and the Taiwan National Orchestra. Recent highlights include making his solo debuts at Orchestra Hall in Chicago with Zubin Mehta and the Civic Orchestra of Chicago, at the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles with the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra, and at the Esplanade in Boston with the Longwood Symphony Orchestra. He also gave the U.S. premiere of the Enescu Symphonie Concertante, Op. 8 with the American Symphony Orchestra in Avery Fisher Hall and the U.S. premiere of Tan Dun’s Crouching Tiger Concerto for Cello Solo and Chamber Orchestra at Atlanta’s Symphony Hall. Tsang makes his Mexico City Philharmonic Orchestra debut this season.

As a chamber musician, Mr. Tsang has collaborated with such artists as violinists Pamela Frank, Jaime Laredo, Cho-Liang Lin, Anne Akiko Meyers, Kyoko Takezawa and Chee Yun, violist Michael Tree, cellist Yo-Yo Ma, bassist Gary Karr and pianist Leon Fleisher. He has been a frequent guest artist of the Boston Chamber Music Society, Brooklyn Chamber Music Society, Chamber Music International of Dallas, Fort Worth Chamber Music Society, Da Camera of Houston, Camerata Pacifica of Los Angeles and Bargemusic in New York and performed at such festivals as Marlboro Music Festival, the Cape Cod, Tucson, Portland and Seattle Chamber Music Festivals, the Bard Festival, Bravo! Colorado, Music in the Vineyards and the Laurel Festival of the Arts, where he served as Artistic Director for ten years.

Mr. Tsang’s discography includes the 2010 release from Artek Recordings, Bion Tsang and Anton Nel: Live in Concert, Brahms Cello Sonatas and Four Hungarian Dances, featuring original transcriptions of Joseph Joachim’s violin arrangements of Brahms’ iconic Hungarian melodies. His discography also includes the Kodaly works for solo cello as well as a forthcoming set of the complete Bach Suites for Unaccompanied Cello recorded on the 1713 “Bass of Spain” Stradivarius. He has performed all six Bach Suites in one sitting first in Austin and later in Seattle at Nordstrom Recital Hall at Benaroya Hall. In addition, Mr. Tsang has toured the complete Beethoven works for cello and piano with pianist Anton Nel in, among other venues, Zankel Hall at Carnegie Hall and Jordan Hall in Boston, with the latter performance recorded by WGBH and commercially released on the Artek label.

A versatile collaborator, Mr. Tsang was featured on the soundtrack to Recapturing Cuba: An Artists Journey, a PBS documentary by Trinity Films, winning two Gold Medals—Director’s Choice and Artistic Excellence—at the Park City Film Music Festival, coincident to the Sundance Film Festival. He was a featured guest artist on the KLRU-TV and PBS television production, A Company of Voices: Conspirare in Concert, filmed in Dell Hall at the Long Center for the Performing Arts in Austin, and aired nationally on PBS stations during their March 2009 pledge drives. Tsang has also been featured on KLRU-TV’s In Context recorded in the Austin City Limits studio, the first time classical musicians appeared in that space. A frequent collaborator with the Hong Kong City Contemporary Dance Company, he has performed solo cello onstage alongside the dancers in productions of There, After... (Kodaly Op. 8 Solo Sonata) and Plaza X (Bach Solo Suites).

Mr. Tsang made his professional debut at age eleven in two concerts with Zubin Mehta and the New York Philharmonic. That same year he returned to perform two more concerts with Mehta and the Philharmonic. One of these performances was broadcast worldwide on the CBS Festival of Lively Arts television series. While still in his teens, he became the youngest cellist ever to receive a Gregor Piatigorsky Memorial Prize and the youngest recipient ever of an Artists International Award. He was also chosen as a Finalist of the NFAA’s Arts Recognition and Talent Search and subsequently as a Presidential Scholar in the Arts. At age nineteen, Tsang became the youngest cellist to win a prize in the VIII International Tchaikovsky Competition. He has been featured on America Online as CultureFinder’s “Star Find of the Week,” on the Internet Cello Society as “Artist of the Month,” and most recently in print in the book 21st-Century Cellists.

Born in Michigan of Chinese parents, Bion Tsang began piano studies at age six and cello at age seven. The following year, he entered The Juilliard School. Tsang received his Bachelor of Arts degree from Harvard University and his Master of Musical Arts degree from Yale University, where he studied with Aldo Parisot. His other principal cello teachers have included Ardyth Alton, Luis Garcia-Renart, William Pleeth, Channing Robbins, and Leonard Rose.

Mr. Tsang resides in Austin, TX, where he is Division Head of Strings and holds the Joe R. & Teresa Lozano Long Chair in Cello at the Sarah and Ernest Butler School of Music at The University of Texas at Austin. He was the recipient of the Texas Exes Teaching Award after just his first year of service and soon after was named "Instrumentalist of the Year" by the Austin Critics Table. He has also served as visiting professor at Indiana University in Bloomington. In his spare time, Bion helps his family run the Paul J. Tsang Foundation, a nonprofit organization named in honor of Bion's father and formed to help facilitate educational or career opportunities for promising students and professionals in the arts and sciences. He also enjoys coaching flag football and, especially, trying to keep up with the various adventures and endeavors of his three children: Bailey, Henry and Maia.

Mr. Tsang plays on a Wayne Burak workbench series cello made in April 2011.

AUGUST 2015
Contact: Laura Bond Williams, laura@momentum-pr.com, 512.497.8035

Adam Neiman, pianist

American pianist Adam Neiman is hailed as one of the premiere pianists of his generation, praised for possessing a truly rare blend of power, bravura, imagination, sensitivity, and technical precision. With an established international career and an encyclopedic repertoire that spans more than sixty concerti, Neiman has performed as soloist with the symphony orchestras of Belgrade, Chicago, Cincinnati, Dallas, Detroit, Houston, Indianapolis, Minnesota, Saint Louis, San Francisco, Slovenia, Umbria, and Utah, as well as with the New York Chamber Symphony and the National Symphony Orchestra of Washington D.C. He has collaborated with many of the world’s celebrated conductors, including Jiri Belohlavek, Giancarlo Guerrero, Theodor Gushlbauer, Carlos Kalmer, Uros Lajovic, Yoël Levi, Andrew Litton, Rossen Milanov, Heichiro Ohyama, Peter Oundjian, Leonard Slatkin, and Emmanuel Villaume.

A highly-acclaimed recitalist, Neiman has performed in most of the major cities and concert halls throughout the United States and Canada. His European solo engagements have brought him to Italy, France, Germany, the United Kingdom, and Japan, where he made an eight-city tour culminating in his debut at Tokyo’s Suntory Hall.

Neiman’s recent season highlights include a monumental solo recital tour of North America performing Beethoven’s Diabelli Variations, Op. 120, and “Hammerklavier” Sonata, Op. 106, and he has just recorded those works for release on Sono Luminus in Spring 2015. Neiman will also release a triple disc set consisting of the complete Rachmaninoff Preludes and Études-tableaux, due for commercial release in Fall/Winter 2015. Additionally, audiences may stay tuned for a DVD release of the complete Liszt Transcendental Études, live in Los Angeles. He also premiered his new Concerto for Piano and String Orchestra (commissioned and composed in 2012) with the Manchester Chamber Orchestra and conductor Ariel Rudiakov on tour throughout Vermont and New York, and gave west coast premieres in Las Vegas and Telluride. A high-definition video release of the world premiere performance is available on Neiman’s YouTube channel.

In addition, Neiman commences his second season as the newest member of Trio Solisti, one of America’s celebrated piano trios, comprised of violinist Maria Bachmann and Alexis Pia Gerlach. Freelance festival reengagements include appearances at the Mainly Mozart Festival, Seattle Chamber Music Festival, Telluride MusicFest, and the Manchester Chamber Music Festival.

Current chamber music recording releases include the following: Ravel and Chausson Piano Trios with Trio Solisti, for Bridge; Bernstein Piano Trio with the Seattle Chamber Music Society, for Onyx; Concerto da Camera by Howard Hanson with the Ying Quartet, for Sono Luminus; Dohnanyi’s Sextet for Clarinet, Horn, Violin, Viola, Cello, and Piano with the 45th Parallel ensemble in Portland, Oregon; and piano quartets of Saint-Saëns and Fauré with Maria Bachmann, Hsin-Yun Huang, and Edward Arron. These releases add to a rapidly expanding chamber discography consisting of the following recordings: Arensky’ s Piano Quintet with the Ying Quartet, for Sono Luminus; Sonatas by Franck, Debussy, and Saint-Saëns with violinist Maria Bachmann, for Bridge; and the world premiere recording of Jennifer Higdon’s Piano Trio, for Naxos.

His diverse solo discography includes three major commercial releases for VAI: a two-disc set of Mozart’s early keyboard concertos with the Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra, an award-winning two-disc set entitled “Adam Neiman Live in Recital,” proclaimed “Critic’s Choice” for 2007 and 2008 by the American Record Guide, and a DVD entitled “Adam Neiman: Chopin Recital.” He released a critically-acclaimed recording of solo piano works by Anton Arensky for Naxos, and his debut recording on Lyric Records of a live, unedited solo recital at Tokyo’s Suntory Hall has recently been re-issued.

Neiman’s live recording presence has extended to the Internet, via his own YouTube channel featuring high-definition video footage from recent concert tours, found at: http://www.youtube.com/user/adamneiman

Radio and television broadcasts featuring Neiman regularly span international airwaves, and his live performance of the Brahms Rhapsodies, Op. 79, at the Gilmore International Keyboard Festival on NPR’s “Performance Today” was nominated for a Grammy Award. Chosen as a featured artist by director and Academy Award nominee Josh Aronson, Adam Neiman appeared in the PBS documentary film "Playing for Real," which aired worldwide and continues to air on the Bravo and Ovation networks. He was also featured in Peter Rosen’s “In the Key of G,” a PBS documentary about the Gilmore Festival.

His affiliation with PBS and the documentary genre has merged with his passion for composition: he wrote the score for “Forgiveness: A Time to Love and a Time to Hate,” a film by director and Emmy Award winner Helen Whitney, released on PBS in 2010. His output as a composer encompasses an array of works for solo piano, chamber music, voice, and symphony orchestra, and he is currently polishing a trove of film music samples for his cinematic portfolio. Some of his chamber works have been premiered at the Seattle Chamber Music Festival, Poisson Rouge in New York City, and at the Festival Cervantinos in Mexico, and he frequently performs his own solo piano music in recital. In 2012 he witnessed the world premiere of his first String Quartet at the Seattle Chamber Music Festival, and he is currently in the process of finishing his Second Symphony.

Born in 1978, Neiman has captured the attention of audiences and critics alike since his concerto debut at 11 in Los Angeles’s Royce Hall. Clavier Magazine wrote, "Adam Neiman gave a performance that rivaled those of many artists on the concert stage today...his playing left listeners shaking their heads in disbelief." His formative years saw him at the helm of many competitions, with top prizes at the MTNA’s Junior Baldwin Competition, UCLA’s Samick International Competition, the Joanna Hodges International Competition, the Stravinsky Awards International Competition, the Young Keyboard Artists Association International Competition, the California Concerto Competition, and the California State Bartok Competition. At fourteen, he debuted in Germany at the Ivo Pogorelich Festival, and at fifteen, he won second prize at the Casagrande International Piano Competition in Italy, the youngest medalist in the competition's history. In 1995, Neiman also became the youngest-ever winner of the Gilmore Young Artist Award. The following year, he won the Young Concert Artists International Auditions and went on to make his Washington D.C. and New York recital debuts at the Kennedy Center and the 92nd Street Y. The Washington Post remarked, “A collection of Chopin’s Waltzes and Nocturnes danced and stormed, and Prokofieff’s Second Sonata enthralled with a dazzling display of inner voices rather than a mere display of muscle. This was playing of wisdom and light befitting an artist in the autumn of his career.” Young Concert Artists additionally honored Neiman with the Michaels Award and presented him in a critically acclaimed solo recital at Alice Tully Hall, Lincoln Center.

Two-time winner of Juilliard’s Gina Bachauer International Piano Competition, Neiman received the Rubinstein Award upon his graduation in 1999, the same year in which he received the Avery Fisher Career Grant. Neiman’s principal teachers have included Trula Whelan, Hans Boepple, Herbert Stessin, and Fanny Waterman, and he has participated in master classes with legendary pianists Emanuel Ax, Jacob Lateiner, and György Sandor.

Neiman is an esteemed member of the piano performance faculty at the Chicago College of Performing Arts at Roosevelt University. In addition to his rigorous performance schedule he has been teaching private lessons for more than a decade, and he has presented acclaimed masterclasses throughout the U.S., Europe, and Korea. He regularly serves on the summer chamber music faculty of the Manchester Music Festival in Vermont, and he has taught at the Great Mountains Music Festival in Korea.

As an adjudicator, he has presided over the Philadelphia Orchestra Concerto Competition, KING FM Young Artists Competition, and Reno’s Youth Music Festival.