Invitation to my solo audiovisual concert in NY
- News
- February 15, 2019
Tri-I Noon Recitals at The Rockefeller University Presents Pianist Jenny Q Chai, February 22
A Multi-Sensory Concert Featuring Works by Schumann and Jarosław Kapuściński
Watch the Trailer for Kapuściński’s Where’s Chopin?
Watch an Excerpt of Kapuściński’s Side Effects:
“dynamic and unconventional” – The New York Times
New York, NY — On Friday, February 22, 2019 at 12:00pm, Tri-I Noon Recitals at The Rockefeller University presents contemporary Chinese-American pianist Jenny Q Chai in a multi-sensory program that features the first two movements of Schumann’s Kreisleriana and two audio-visual works by Polish composer and Stanford University Music Department Chair, Jaroslaw Kapuściński: Side Effects and Where is Chopin?.
Kapuściński’s Where is Chopin? is a performance installation that examines the perceptions and emotions on the faces of people around the world as they listen to Chopin’s Preludes Op. 28. These expressions are shown with re-composed essences of the music. Kapuściński says, “To obtain the images, I travelled to 12 cities around the world to hold listening sessions with volunteers. In each country I collaborated with a local photographer or cinematographer. For me, the piece is almost a social experiment: Are the reactions different by culture, or are they different by gender or generation? How does music touch people from completely different backgrounds, professions and cultures?”
Side Effects started as a photographic documentary by Kacper Kowalski that was shown in exhibitions and was published as a book. It features complex relationships between people and nature as seen from 150 meters above ground. The estranged perspective revealed unexpected metaphoric and structural dimensions that inspired Jarosław Kapuściński to propose an audiovisual collaboration. The two artists collaborated closely on video editing and musical composition to offer a personal guided experience of 10 locations in the north of Poland, with each movement titled by the geographic coordinates of the shown place. Side Effects was commissioned by Spoleto USA Festival in 2017.
Chai is a champion of Kapuściński’s music and has collaborated with him to test early versions of the groundbreaking synchronous score-following software program, Antescofo. Developed at IRCAM by scientist Arshia Cont and composer Marco Stroppa, the software offers a real-time computer response to live performance elements, enabling performers to create multimedia presentations of sophisticated and expressive fluency. Chai explored and helped hone Antescofo in residence at IRCAM alongside Kapuściński, and has since toured internationally with the software, offering multimedia performances in Shanghai, New York, Havana, and elsewhere.
Program Information
Tri-I Noon Recitals at The Rockefeller University Presents Pianist Jenny Q Chai
Friday, February 22, 2019 at 12:00pm
The Rockefeller University | 1230 York Avenue | New York, NY 10065
Program:
Schumann: Kreisleriana, Movements I and II
Jarosław Kapuściński: Side Effects
Jarosław Kapuściński: Where is Chopin?
About Jenny Q Chai
An artist of singular vision, pianist Jenny Q Chai is widely renowned for her ability to illuminate musical connections throughout the centuries. With radical joie de vivre and razor-sharp intention, Chai creates layered multimedia programs and events which explore and unite elements of science, nature, fashion, and art.
Based in both Shanghai and Paris, Chai’s instinctive understanding of new music is complemented by a deep grounding in core repertoire, with special affinity for Schumann, Scarlatti, Beethoven, Bach, Debussy, and Ravel. She is a noted interpreter of 20th-century masters Cage, Messiaen, and Ligeti, and her career is threaded through with strong relationships and close collaborations with a range of notable contemporary composers, including Marco Stroppa, Jarosław Kapuściński, and György Kurtág. With a deft poetic touch, Chai weaves this wide-ranging repertoire into a gorgeous and lucid musical tapestry.
Other notable highlights include her Carnegie Hall debut in 2012; many performances at (le) Poisson Rouge, including a 2016 Antescofo-supported program, Where’s Chopin?; lectures and recitals at the Shanghai Symphony Hall; a featured performance at the Leo Brouwer Festival in Havana, Cuba; Philippe Manoury’s double-piano concerto, Zones de turbulences, at the Warsaw Autumn International Festival of Contemporary Music (with duo partner, pianist Adam Kośmieja and the Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra); and much more.
Her immersive approach to music is also channeled into her work with FaceArt Institute of Music, the Shanghai-based organization she founded and runs, offering music education and an international exchange of music and musicians in China and beyond. Additionally, Chai serves on the Board of Directors of the New York City-based contemporary music organization Ear to Mind, and has published a doctoral dissertation on Marco Stroppa’s Miniature Estrose.
Chai has recorded for labels such as Deutschlandfunk, Naxos, and ArpaViva. In 2010, she released her debut recording, New York Love Songs – featuring interpretations of works by Cage and Ives, among others – and her most recent recording, Life Sketches: Piano Music of Nils Vigeland was released in 2014 by Naxos. She can also be heard on Michael Vincent Waller’s Five Easy Pieces and Cindy Cox’s Hierosgamos.
The recipient of the Yvar Mikhashoff Trust’s 2011 Pianist/Composer Commissioning Project, the DAAD Arts and Performance award in 2010, and first prize winner of the Keys to the Future Contemporary Solo Piano Festival, Jenny Q Chai has studied at the Shanghai Music Conservatory, the Curtis Institute of Music, the Manhattan School of Music, and in Cologne University of Music and Dance. Her teachers include Pierre-Laurent Aimard, Seymour Lipkin, Solomon Mikowsky, and Anthony de Mare.
*Photo at the top of release by Lêa Giradin
Free admissions to the concert
