jump to: PEIWEN CHEN, piano | DAISUKE YAMAMOTO, violin | NEAL CARY, cello
PEIWEN CHEN, piano
Highlights of Peiwen Chen’s recent engagements include concerts in Washington, D.C., as well as in Virginia and Maine, piano duo concerts in France, and Bach concerti in Lithuania. Additionally, she has served as coach and conductor for operas including Der Schauspieldirektor by Mozart, The Telephone by Menotti, Incoronazione di Poppea by Monteverdi, and Alcina and Ariodante by Handel in concert version with New York Lyric Opera. She has also performed Czerny piano concertos for one piano in France, and for four hands in Moldova, and complete Rachmaninoff music for two pianos. In the spring of 2017, Ms. Chen was the official pianist of the Classical Singers Magazine Competition in Shanghai. In 2020, Ms Chen served as a jury member for many international online voice competitions in Russia, China and the United States.
Since 2021, Ms. Chen has joined New Camerata Opera in New York City for their productions both in operas and concerts. In spring, 2022, Ms Chen played a series of concerts in the project of complete Brahms chamber music for piano duets, including Brahms Liebeslieder waltzes and Neue Liebeslieder walzes with the soloists from the Lithuanian State Opera in Vilnius. In April 2022, Ms Chen, with husband Alexander Paley, premiered “Hommage a Rachmaninoff für 2 Klaviere,“ by renowned German composer Thomas Böttger in France. In August 2022, Ms Chen joined the Savannah Voice Festival in the production of Menotti’s Medium.
Ms Chen has recorded complete Saint-Saens symphonies in the version for piano duo in season 2022-23. In addition during the season, she served as a rehearsal pianist for productions like Ravel’s L’Heure Espangnole, Lili Boulanger’s Faust et Helene, Mozart’s Don Giovanni.
Ms Chen is a member of faculty at Mannes College of Music and Cali School at Montclair University.
Born in Taipei, Taiwan, Ms. Chen graduated from the National Academy of Art with highest honors in 1990, where she performed Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 4. In 1992, she entered Mannes College of Music, where in 1994 she performed Rachmaninoff’s Rhapsody on the theme of Paganini under the baton of Maestro Michael Charry. Shortly after her graduation from Mannes with a special piano award, Ms. Chen made her Carnegie Hall debut at Weill Recital Hall as a winner of the 1995 New York Concert Artists Competition. Frequently performing as a piano duo with her husband Alexander Paley, Ms. Chen performs annually as part of the Alexander Paley Music Festival in Richmond, Virginia, as well as Moulin d’Ande, France.
In December 2001, Ms. Chen made her Paris debut playing Liszt’s Concerto Pathetique for two pianos in Salle O. Messiaen, Maison de Radio France. Following in 2003, she performed Rimsky-Korsakov’s Sheherazade in the composer’s own one piano, four hands version, which was broadcast live worldwide from Seattle, USA on kings.org. In March 2004, Ms. Chen performed both Mozart and Mendelssohn Piano Concertos for two pianos with the Lithuanian State Symphony Orchestra in Vilnius, Lithuania. In the summer of 2009, Ms. Chen returned to Taiwan and gave a gala concert in the National Concert Hall in Taipei to benefit young musicians there. In 2011, she performed Mozart Concertos for two and three pianos in Klaipeda, Lithuania.
As a collaborative artist, Ms. Chen has worked with artists including Licia Abanese, Elly Ameling, Regina Resnik, Jon Vickers, Evelyn Lear, Diane Soviero, Deborah Voigt, Ruth Falcon, Mignon Dunn, Sherril Milnes, and Olga Peretyako, among others. In 1998, she joined the production of Fedora for Washington Opera. In addition, Ms. Chen served as a pianist for the Metropolitan Opera Guild as well as Amato Opera, New York Lyric Opera Theatre, and Regina Opera in NYC for many seasons. She has been a member of the music faculty for IVAI in both Virginia and NYC, CVAI in Canada, as well as a faculty member for VOICExperience in Florida, CoOperative at Rider University and Savannah Voice Festival.
Highlights of Ms. Chen’s past engagements include concerts in Washington, D.C. as well as in Virginia and Maine, piano duo concerts in France, and Bach Concerti in Lithuania. Additionally, she has served as coach and conductor for operas including Der Schauspieldirektor by Mozart, The Telephone by Menotti, Incoronazione di Poppea by Monteverdi, and Alcina and Ariodante by Handel in concert version with New York Lyric Opera; Czerny Piano Concerto for one piano, four hands in Moldova and complete Rachmaninoff music for two pianos in France. In the spring of 2017, Ms. Chen was the official pianist of the Classical Singers Magazine Competition in Shanghai. In 2020, Ms Chen served as a jury member for many international online voice competitions in Russia, China and the United States.
Since 2021, Ms. Chen has joined New Camerata Opera in New York City for their productions both in operas and concerts. In spring, 2022, Ms Chen played a series of concerts in the project of complete Brahms chamber music for piano duets, including Brahms Liebeslieder waltzes and Neue Liebeslieder walzes with the soloists from the Lithuanian State Opera in Vilnius. In April 2022, Ms Chen, with husband Alexander Paley, premiered “Hommage a Rachmaninoff für 2 Klaviere,“ by renowned German composer Thomas Böttger in France. In August 2022, Ms Chen joined the Savannah Voice Festival in the production of Menotti’s Medium.
Ms Chen has recorded complete Saint-Saens symphonies in the version for piano duo in season 2022-23. In addition during the season, she served as a rehearsal pianist for productions like Ravel’s L’Heure Espangnole, Lili Boulanger’s Faust et Helene, Mozart’s Don Giovanni.
Ms Chen is a member of faculty at Mannes College of Music and Cali School at Montclair University. TOP
DAISUKE YAMAMOTO, violin
(from RSO website) Violinist Daisuke Yamamoto, known for exhibiting “immense virtuosity and probing musicianship,” is originally from Marietta, GA. Concertmaster of the Richmond Symphony since 2013, he has been featured as a soloist on several occasions since his arrival, including a performance of the Theme from Schindler’s List for the Holocaust Remembrance Concert, which was broadcast statewide. Other performances include Saint-Saëns’ Introduction and Rondo capriccioso, Ravel’s Tzigane and Vivaldi’s “Autumn” from The Four Seasons. Before coming to Richmond he was a member of the New World Symphony. While at New World, he soloed with the orchestra, performing Bruch’s Scottish Fantasy. He has also collaborated with Jaime Laredo in a performance of Vivaldi’s Concerto for Four Violins. He was also hand-picked by Michael Tilson Thomas to participate in the Thomashefsky Project, an homage to Tilson Thomas’s grandparents who were pioneers of the American Yiddish Theater. The project was recorded for DVD and was aired on PBS Great Performances. He was also invited to Medellín, Colombia, where he led sectionals and masterclasses as well as performed Mozart’s Violin Concerto No. 5 with the Orquesta Filarmónica de Medellín.
An avid orchestral performer, he has performed with many orchestras across the US, including The Cleveland Orchestra on numerous occasions both on tour and in Cleveland, New World Symphony, and the Spokane Symphony. As a concertmaster, he has led the New World Symphony on several occasions both at the New World Center and the Adrienne Arsht Center, Louisville Symphony Orchestra, Spokane Symphony, Youngstown Symphony Orchestra, and the Blossom Festival Orchestra. His performances have taken him to many great concerts halls in America and Europe, including Carnegie Hall, Severance Hall, Benaroya Hall, Suntory Hall, Festspielhaus and the KKL Luzern Concert Hall. He has worked with such notable conductors as Michael Tilson Thomas, Franz Welser-Möst, Fabio Luisi, Osmo Vänskä, Nicholas McGegan, Robert Spano, Jeffrey Tate and David Zinman. As a chamber musician, he has collaborated with Robert McDuffie, Ida Kavafian, Peter Wiley, Steven Tenenbom, Jasper String Quartet, members of The Cleveland Orchestra, Tokyo String Quartet, Duo Patterson and Jerry Wong.
Yamamoto currently resides in Richmond with his wife, who is a math teacher at Atlee High School, and their 2 cats. TOP
NEAL CARY, cello
(from RSO website) Neal Cary has been praised for his “robust tone and high-romantic phrasing,” and the “tremendous amount of emotion and heart” he brings to his performances.
He has been principal cellist with the Richmond Symphony since 1988, and has served as principal cellist of the Williamsburg Symphonia since 2002. In 1984, he joined the faculty of the Eastern Music Festival in Greensboro, North Carolina, and has served as principal cellist there every summer since 1988. In August of 2012, Neal Cary was a member of the All-Star Orchestra—an orchestra comprised of some of the finest musicians in the United States. This orchestra was created for the production of eight television programs which aired in the fall of 2013 on various PBS stations throughout the country (but unfortunately not in the Richmond area).
In addition to his symphony work, Neal Cary has been on the performing artist faculty at the College of William and Mary since 1991. Since 1989, Neal Cary has been a member of the Richmond Chamber Players which performs in Richmond on each Sunday in August.
Previous to his employment in the Richmond area, Neal Cary was co-principal cellist of the Kansas City Philharmonic and assistant principal cellist of the Tulsa Philharmonic, the San Antonio Symphony, and the Denver Symphony Ochestra. From 1994–98, he was on the adjunct faculty at Virginia Commonwealth University. While a student at The Juilliard School, he was a chamber music teaching assistant to Earl Carlyss and Claus Adam in 1980–81. While a student at Meadowmount School of Music during the summers of 1980 and 1981, he was a chamber music teaching assistant to Joseph Gingold.
Neal Cary’s major teachers have included Pat Ficarra, Robert Newkirk, Channing Robbins, and the world-renowned Leonard Rose. Mr. Cary holds a Bachelor of Music degree from the Catholic University of America, and a Master of Music degree from The Juilliard School of Music.
Notable recital performances in the Richmond area include performances from memory of the 40 Popper Études and all the Bach Suites for Solo Cello. Mr. Cary has completed a “performance edition” of the Popper Études (as yet unpublished) and is working on a companion book which explains how to practice these études. He has also completed an unpublished edition of the Bach Suites for Solo Cello, based on three surviving copies of Bach’s manuscript.
Concerto performances include nearly 50 performances of most of the major cello concertos, unusual works, and a world premier with orchestras on the East Coast. YouTube videos of Mr. Cary include a live performance of the Elgar Cello Concerto, a performance of the Saint-Saëns Concerto No. 2, and a video lesson on the Saint-Saëns.
In addition to his musical endeavors, Neal Cary is a staunch supporter of religious liberty, freedom from religion, and state/church separation. In furtherance of these goals, he has served on the board of American Atheists since 1995, and has been Chairperson since 2009. From 1996 through 2001, he was the National Outreach Director of American Atheists where he headed the American Atheists Volunteers, and organized a new national system of State Directors geared toward Atheist activism. He wrote the “American Atheists Activists Handbook” and the “State Director Handbook.” As National Outreach Director, he began the annual American Atheists Letter to the Editor Competition in 2000 and ran it through 2010.
In his spare time, he enjoys spending time with his wife Catherine, his daughter Emma, and son Alan. TOP