Frederic Chopin, who was most known for his solo piano works, wrote only a handful of chamber works including a full-length piano trio and several works for cello and piano. In this program you will hear cellist Angela Lee and pianist Elizabeth Schumann perform Chopin's celebrated masterpiece, the G Minor Sonata, Op. 65 for Cello and Piano. Other works on this recital will be announced the day of performance.
A graduate of The Juilliard School and Yale School of Music, cellist Angela Lee is a recipient of a Fulbright scholarship to study in London with William Pleeth, a grant from the Foundation for American Musicians in Europe, the Jury Prize in the Naumburg International Cello Competition, and a cello performance fellowship from the American-Scandinavian Foundation.
Ms. Lee is a founding member of The Lee Trio, which won top prizes in the Kuhmo International Chamber Music Competition in Finland and the Gaetano Zinetti International Chamber Music Competition in Italy. In its third decade, the Trio regularly gives master classes and performs worldwide and has commissioned and premiered works of numerous living composers and has recordings on Delos, Innova and the Chelsea Music Festival Records labels. The Trio's latest album, "Midsummer Night Magic," was released in 2024 to critical acclaim.
Using music to foster peace and goodwill, Ms. Lee has made humanitarian trips to the Republic of the Philippines and the former Yugoslavia. While on a UN-sanctioned tour of six war-torn cities throughout Bosnia-Herzegovina, she performed for NATO troops and displaced civilians.
As a member of Ensemble SF since 2022, she continues to delve into a vast array of chamber music, allowing this multi-faceted art form to inspire and connect with others in unconventional settings. Ms. Lee has been coaching chamber music at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music since 2017 and serves on the San Francisco Symphony Youth Orchestra Alumni Association Leadership Council and on the Board of The Resonance Project, which promotes empathy through live music. She plays on a 1762 Nicolo Gagliano cello from Naples.
Pianist Elizabeth Schumann has a diverse career portfolio of projects, recordings and performances which have brought her all over the world as recitalist, chamber musician and concerto soloist. The Washington Post Magazine noted her playing as "deft, relentless and devastatingly good—the sort of performance you experience not so much with your ears as your solar plexus."
The first-place winner of both the Bösendorfer International Piano Competition and the Pacific International Piano Competition, Ms. Schumann has won over 25 prizes and awards in other major national and international competitions, including the Cleveland International Piano Competition and the Hilton Head International Piano Competition. She was honored with the prestigious Gilmore Young Artists Award and was highlighted in a PBS television documentary on the Gilmore Festival.
Ms. Schumann has performed in such venues as the Kennedy Center, Vienna's Bösendorfer Saal, Toronto's Koerner Hall and Montreal's Place des Arts. She was featured at the Cannes Film Festival, the Gilmore Festival, Australia's Huntington Festival, the Ravinia "Rising Stars" Series and National Public Radio's "Performance Today." Her recitals have been broadcast live on public radio and television in cities around the world, including Washington D.C., New York, Sydney, Cleveland, Montréal, Dallas and Chicago. She also gave the world premiere performance of Carl Vine's Sonata No. 3, which the composer dedicated to her.
Ms. Schumann and her sister, Sonya Schumann, formed the Schumann Duo to engage diverse audiences with innovative combinations of piano music, theater, literature, art and technology. The Schumann Duo's tours of the US, Canada and Australia were acclaimed by critics and audiences alike. In response to declining funding for arts education in the United States, Ms. Schumann devised and directed Piano Carnival, a Schumann Duo project to introduce free, high quality classical concert music to children in areas without arts education. Over 20,000 copies of Piano Carnival have been distributed for free and multimedia lesson plans and the Piano Carnival iPad and iPhone applications are available free online. She currently serves as the Billie Bennett Achilles Director of Keyboard Studies and Assistant Professor of Piano at Stanford University.
Senior Programs are made possible in part by generous contributions from the Jewish Community Federation & Endowment Fund, the John R. Schwabacher Family, as well as many other individual donors. We are grateful for their generous support.
Tuesday, April 22, 2025
1:00–2:00 PM | Doors open at 12:30 PM
The Nourish Cafe on campus is open for lunch before the concert. | Linger after the concert for a snack and beverage in the lobby.
Albert and Janet Schultz Cultural Arts Hall (Bldg. F)
$15 tickets purchased online before April 15 | $25 after April 15 online and at the door.
Contact: Michelle Rosengaus | [email protected]