The Cultural Arts box office opens one hour prior to performance. Advance tickets are not available.
For more information, contact seymoura@uncw.edu or 910.962.3415
The evening's concert is presented as part of the UNCW Cello Festival.
The festival is open to cellists of all ages and abilities,
For information about the festival, contact Chris Johns: johnsc@uncw.edu or 910.962.2901.
Or visit http://www.uncw.edu/music/smc/cellofestival.html
_______________________________________
Alan
Black, cello, and Dana Protopopescu,
piano, perform works by Reger, Janáček, Beethoven.
ABOUT THE ARTISTS
Alan Black, cello
Alan Black is in his 24th season as principal cellist with the Charlotte
Symphony. His performance experience covers the complete spectrum of music;
from classical music including chamber music, solo recitals, and concertos with
the Charlotte Symphony, to appearing on stage as a soloist and chamber musician
with artists such as Yo-Yo Ma, Lynn Harrell, Bobby McFerrin, Van Cliburn Gold
Medal pianist Jon Nakamatsu, and fiddler Mark O’Connor. He has performed throughout
the Southeast, including chamber music concerts at Spivey Hall near Atlanta,
the Piccolo Spoleto Festival in Charleston and the Eastern Music Festival in
Greensboro. He has performed recitals and concerts in Europe with violinist
Liviu Prunaru, concertmaster of the
Royal Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, and recording artist and pianist Dana
Protopopescu, who serves on the faculty of the Conservatoire Royal de Musique
de Bruxelles in Brussels. From 2006-2008, Black coached and performed with Prunaru
and Protopopescu in the Corso Internazionale di Musica da Camera in Tuscania,
Italy. In December 2006, Black traveled to Belgium to play a four-recital tour
with Protopopescu, sponsored in part by a Regional Artist Project Grant from
the Arts and Science Council of Mecklenburg County.
Black founded Chamber Music at St. Peter’s in 1996, and four years ago
started the summer Teen Chamber Music Workshop that now resides at Christ
Episcopal Church. He coaches and performs in the Chapel Hill Chamber Music
Workshop for Adults, has conducted and coached the orchestra for the Charlotte
Community School of the Arts Band and Orchestra Camp, and teaches at
Gardner-Webb University and Davidson College.
In Charlotte, Black has received many awards, including the $5,000
Mecklenburg County Arts and Science Council Fellowship in 1997, and an Emerging
Artists Grant in 1990. In 2001, he was honored by the Charlotte Observer's year-end review for his contribution to the
arts community as Founder of Chamber Music at St. Peter’s. He received the 2001
Spirit Award, an annual award given by the Charlotte Mint Museum and Royal and
SunAlliance to recognize those whose involvement and commitment to the arts
have made a significant impact on the quality of life in the Charlotte
community.
Black graduated in 1980 from UCLA, and received a Masters Degree from
Indiana University in 1983, where he was a teaching assistant to Fritz Magg.
Other teachers include former Principal Cellist of the Los Angeles Philharmonic
Ronald Leonard, Jeffrey Solow, Gary Hoffman, and most recently, David Hardy,
Principal Cellist of the National Symphony in Washington D.C. As a student he
also appeared in masterclasses with such notable musicians as Leonard
Bernstein, James Buswell, Bernard Greenhouse, and Janos Starker.
Black performs on a 1995 Moes & Moes cello, originally built for
and owned by Yo-Yo Ma.
Dana Protopopescu, piano
Dana Protopopescu, a disciple of Karl Engel, made her orchestra
debut at the age of 16 in Romania, her native country. She has received the
Music Critics Award in Romania three times, which recognizes the finest
musicians in the country. She has worked with conductors such as Igor
Markevitch, Alexander Rahbari, Louis Langree and Horia Andreescu, and collaborated
as a chamber musician with violinists Augustin Dumay, Mihaela Martin, Yayoi
Toda, Martin Beaver, and Marco Rizzi, and cellists Frans Helmerson and Gary
Hoffman, among others. Performances include recitals in Abu-Dhabi, Barcelona,
Boston, Brussels, Bucharest, Charlotte, London, Luxembourg, Madrid, Moscow, Montreal,
Paris, Seoul and Washington D.C.
Protopopescu CDs include the complete piano works of Mendelssohn, and
concertos by Clara Schumann, Hummel and Weber, which won critics choice awards
for outstanding recording. She has completed several recording projects with
violinist Liviu Prunaru, and released the complete Beethoven Violin Sonatas in
2004. Most recently, she has recorded the three Grieg sonatas.
Since 2004 Protopopescu has coached the violin class of Augustin Dumay, and currently
works with the cello class of Gary Hoffman in the Queen Elizabeth College of
Music in Belgium. She also is an official pianist for the Queen Elizabeth Violin
Competition in Brussels.