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Faculty Recital – Gábor Varga, clarinet; Chih-Yi Chen, piano
Livestream Piano Clarinet Violin Symphony Orchestra
2-6-2025 8:30 pm - 9:30 pm (America/New_York) (1 hour)
Repertoire Saint-Saëns: Sonata in E-Flat Major, Op. 167 (1921)C. Schumann: Drei Romanzen, Op. 22 (1853)Reger: Sonata in A-Flat Major, Op. 49 No. 1 (1900)Reger: Tarantella in G Minor, WoO II/12 (c.1902)Reger: Albumblatt in E-Flat Major, WoO II/13 (c.1902)About the Artists Hungarian-born clarinetist Gábor Varga is associate professor of music in clarinet at the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music. He earned diplomas from the University of Szeged and the Liszt Academy of Music in Budapest and a postgraduate degree from the Paris Conservatory. He has held principal clarinet positions with with the Győr Philharmonic Orchestra, Concerto Budapest, and the Singapore Symphony Orchestra. He has been principal in the Hungarian Radio Symphony Orchestra since 1997. He has also worked regularly with the Franz Liszt Chamber Orchestra since 2001. Winner of numerous national and international prizes, he has performed in more than 25 countries in the Americas, Europe, and Asia, and has appeared as a soloist in such concert halls as the Musikverein in Vienna and the Gewandhaus in Lepzig, participating in various music festivals and appearing at prestigious clarinet festivals. A keen advocate of new music, he has premiered chamber music and commissioned numerous concertos from such leading Hungarian composers as Kovács, Durkó, Fekete, Szentpáli, and Vajda, and he seeks opportunities to introduce new works to audiences. His recordings include chamber works and concertos by Weber and Mozart for Hungarian Radio and CD recordings of the Nielsen Concerto, Dreamdances by Kovács, chamber music by Druschetzky, and Vajda's clarinet works. He regularly gives master classes at major universities in Europe, Asia, and the Americas, and for the International Clarinet Association and European Clarinet Association clarinet festivals. Before joining the Jacobs School, he held teaching positions at the Liszt Academy of Music in Budapest, Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts in Singapore, University of Debrecen, and Tibor Varga Faculty of Musical Arts at the University of Győr, and the Royal Northern College of Music, where he was International Chair of Clarinet. Pianist Chih-Yi Chen's versatile qualities as a collaborative partner, chamber musician, and teacher have contributed to a distinguished international career. Chen has been on the faculty of the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music since 2003 and is the associate chair of the Chamber and Collaborative Music Department. She was a recipient of the 2023 IU Trustees Teaching Award. She has also been on the faculty of the IU Summer String Academy for more than two decades. Chen has been performing with International Violin Competition of Indianapolis Laureates since 2003, when she was first invited to perform with Barnabás Kelemen. She has served as an official pianist for the competition since the 9th Quadrennial in 2014 and was awarded special recognition at the 2018 competition for Best Performances of the Beethoven and Mozart sonatas. She has also served as an official pianist for the China International Music Competition in Beijing. Her early work with the talented young violinists of the IU Violin Virtuosi, directed by renowned pedagogue Mimi Zweig, led to performances in France, Spain, Sweden, Italy, Japan, and throughout the United States. Among the numerous musicians with whom she has collaborated are violinists Jaime Laredo, Mihaela Martin, Kyoko Takezawa, Sirena Huang, Richard Lin, Luke Hsu, Liviu Prunaru, Augustin Hadelich, Kerson Leong, and Sarah Kapustin, violist Atar Arad, cellists Sharon Robinson, Peter Stumpf, and Eric Kim, and clarinetists James Campbell, Howard Klug, Gábor Varga, and Min-Ho Yeh. She has also performed with the Michelangelo, Pacifica, Rubens, and Verona string quartets. Chen has served as an adjudicator for competitions including the National Society of Arts and Letters Instrumental Competitions and the Music Teachers National Association, and she has presented at the CollabFest of the International Keyboard Collaborative Arts Society. She has given master classes in the United States, Taiwan, and Argentina. Born in Taipei, Chen earned Bachelor, Master and Doctor of Music degrees from the Jacobs School where she studied with Lev Vlasenko and with Luba Edlina-Dubinsky, pianist of the Borodin Trio.