The Department of Music at Hope College will present “Chamber Music by Two, Three and Four,” featuring a duo, trio and quartet, on Monday, Oct. 23, at 7:30 p.m. in the Concert Hall of the Jack H. Miller Center for Musical Arts.
The public is invited. Admission is free.
The program will feature the “Piano Trio in C major K 48” by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart; “Sonata No. 2 in G Major for Violin and Piano” by Maurice Ravel; and “Piano Quartet No. 3 in C Minor, Op. 40” by Johannes Brahms. The musicians will be Hope faculty members Mihai Craioveanu (violin), Barbara Corbató (viola) and Alicia Eppinga (cello), and guest artist Mark Clinton (piano).
Mihai Craioveanu is professor of violin and chamber music and head of the string area at Hope, where he has taught since 1992. Hailed by the prestigious magazine The Strad as “stunning... brilliant,” He has concertized to great acclaim throughout the world. Renowned pianist Radu Lupu and violinist Jamie Laredo describe him as “very impressive” and a “superb violinist.”
Craioveanu has performed sold-out concerts in legendary venues such as Carnegie Hall in New York City (including two return engagements by popular demand), Palau de la Musica in Barcelona, Atheneum Hall in Bucharest and the nationally televised “Hour of Power” program at the Crystal Cathedral in California. He also performed on the national television program “Joy of Music” hosted by famed organist Diane Bish.
Critics (The Strad) described his Carnegie Hall recital debut as “fresh and distinguished with a keen appreciation of proper style.” Following his Washington, D.C., recital debut at Corcoran Gallery, the Washington Post praised his playing as “... dramatic, nuanced and playful. His violin became his voice. Craioveanu ensured that it was the music, and not the musician, that came first.” He has appeared at major international music festivals in Edinburgh (Scotland), Banff (Canada) and Bodensee (Germany). His China concert debut in 2007, at the Shanghai International Festival, was broadcast live on Chinese television and worldwide on broadband, while his Israel recital debut in Tel Aviv in 2014, at Felicja Blumental Center, was received with great acclaim and an invitation for return engagements.
Craioveanu’s interest in contemporary music has led to world-premiere performances of several works written for him by American composers. He premiered “Velocirhapsody” for Violin and Orchestra by Ray Shattenkirk with the West Michigan Symphony and Holland (Michigan) Symphony Orchestra. His compact disc recording of violin masterpieces titled “Introducing Violinist Mihai Craioveanu” was released during his highly acclaimed concert tour of Spain. The disc has been featured on a multitude of radio stations around the globe and is distributed worldwide at amazon.com.
Barbara Corbató is assistant principal viola of the Grand Rapids Symphony, where she has performed since 1990. In addition, she is an active chamber musician, performing with the Perugino String Quartet since 2005.
She is also active as a teacher, not only serving on the faculty at Hope, where she teaches viola and a viola pedagogy and literature course, but also maintaining a home viola studio. She has also served on the viola faculty at Calvin College.
Before settling in West Michigan, Corbató performed in the New World Symphony, Spoleto Festival of South Carolina and Italy, and the orchestras of Columbus, Flint and Saginaw. She has also participated in music festivals in Santa Barbara, Aspen and Keystone, Colorado and, most recently, Saugatuck. She has received Bachelor and Master of Music degrees from the University of Michigan, where her principal teachers included Donald McInnes and Yizhak Schotten.
Alicia Eppinga joined the Hope music faculty in fall 2014. She has been a member of the Grand Rapids Symphony since 1989 and was appointed assistant principal cello in 1990 and principal cello in 2011. Eppinga was raised in Grand Haven, and attended the Interlochen Arts Academy from 1980 to 1983. She received her Bachelor of Music Performance degree at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music as a student of Richard Kapuscinski and her Master of Music degree at the Eastman School of Music with Steven Doane.
Since moving to Grand Rapids, Eppinga has been a frequent performer in solo and chamber music concerts. She is a member of Ensemble Montage, a group of musicians dedicated to bringing unique and contemporary chamber music to West Michigan. She is also a founding member of Castalia, a piano quartet that focuses on performing music by women composers. She has appeared as a soloist with the Kent Philharmonia, Calvin Alumni Orchestra and on the Richard and Helen DeVos Classical Series with the Grand Rapids Symphony.
Mark Clinton, who is a Steinway Artist, is the Hixson-Lied Professor of Piano and head of the keyboard area at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. He has garnered prizes at prestigious international competitions such as the 1987 William Kapell International Piano Competition and the 1991 Joanna Hodges Piano Competition.
He has been featured frequently on national radio and television broadcasts, including National Public Radio's “Performance Today” and Monitor Radio. Critics have noted his “powerful performance [combined with] sublime lyricism” (Salisbury Daily Times), the “…drive and security of his pianism” (Baltimore Sun), and his “luminous, concentrated playing” (Washington Post). He has appeared throughout the United States as a soloist with numerous orchestras, including the National Symphony, the Baltimore Symphony, the United States Air Force Symphony, the San Antonio Symphony, Concert Artists of Baltimore, the Lincoln Symphony and the Springfield (Missouri) Symphony.
For a number of years, Clinton joined with pianist Nicole Narboni to form the highly successful Clinton/Narboni Duo. They received prizes at several major international competitions, and critical claim for their compact disc recordings featuring previously unpublished works for two pianos by the French composer Germaine Tailleferre and of works for two pianos by Czech composer Bohuslav Martinù.
Highlights of his recent calendar include enthusiastically received recitals at the American Cathedral in Paris, Seattle’s Benaroya Hall and the historic rotunda of Steinway Hall in New York City. Other noteworthy performances have included appearances with the Lincoln Symphony Orchestra and the Chiara Quartet and at the 2016 Illinois Chamber Music Festival, and an international tour with the Montecristo Ensemble.
Clinton has shared his musical insights with gifted students from around the world while serving on the faculties of Salisbury University, the Aspen Institute, Missouri Southern State University, the Ameropa Chamber Music Festival in Prague, Czech Republic, and the International Chamber Music Festival in Kyustendil, Bulgaria. He also frequently serves as an adjudicator for important national and international competitions.
The audience is invited to meet the artists at a reception in the lobby immediately following the performance. The Jack H. Miller Center for Musical Arts is located at 221 Columbia Ave., between Ninth and 10th streets.