Hahn-Bin performing with a rainbow flag.

On Wednesday evening, during a particularly poignant passage of the Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto, blood began pouring out of the mouth of the young violinist Hahn-Bin.

The violinist Hahn-Bin donned a rainbow flag as a cape at the conclusion of his performance of Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto at Alice Tully Hall on Wednesday, in a program that also included the cellist Narek Hakhnazaryan and the pianist Ran Dank.

Tchaikovsky wears his heart on his sleeve. Hahn-Bin, it seemed to me, was making that literal.

It was an unlikely occasion for one of Hahn-Bin’s dazzling, genuinely provocative takes on classical music as performance art. The Young Concert Artists gala at Alice Tully Hall is usually a proper affair, with talented rising artists playing the standard repertory with assurance.

The first half of Wednesday’s program went according to that script. Narek Hakhnazaryan brought sweet, warm tone to Elgar’s Cello Concerto, and Ran Dank met the tremendous technical challenges of Prokofiev’s Second Piano Concerto. But neither had a unique or powerful take on the music: I wanted more intense lyricism from Mr. Hakhnazaryan and a deeper sense of the Prokofiev’s dark side from the genial Mr. Dank.

But it was clear when the audience returned from intermission that something quite different was happening. The stage had been set with a chair of crumpled black plastic and a small set of steps. The concertmaster of the Orchestra of St. Luke’s placed a violin on the chair. The conductor, Jorge Mester, came in, and the music began.

Hahn-Bin entered, draped in an American flag, which he tossed aside, along with a can of Budweiser, revealing a sleeveless denim shirt over a white tank top stained with red; skintight denim shorts; and chunky black leather boots. When the woman behind me asked what was written on the back of the shirt in big pink letters, I was obliged to tell her: It was a derogatory word for gay men, followed, alliteratively, by “freak.”

The playing that followed was excellent: alternately husky and honeyed, forceful and impassioned. Hahn-Bin’s jerky, aggressive movements — pacing the stage, making dramatic swipes in the air with his bow — heightened the tension between soloist and orchestra that is fundamental to the concerto form.

This is a tension that comes through in any good performance, even a more typical one, but Hahn-Bin’s also touchingly suggested a connection between Tchaikovsky’s aching emotionalism and his agonizing battle with his homosexuality.

Other classical artists, including the pianists Yuja Wang and Jean-Yves Thibaudet, have long experimented with unusual concert attire, but Hahn-Bin goes further, evoking something of what Liszt’s deliriously sweaty, grandiosely hypersexualized concerts must have felt like.

After uncertain, ragged playing in the program’s first half, the St. Luke’s ensemble was fully committed by the Tchaikovsky blazing finale, where Hahn-Bin was in triumphal mode, wearing a rainbow flag as a cape and marching up the set of stairs. Whether or not the performance was intended as a nod to President Obama’s endorsement of gay marriage a few hours before, the timing was impeccable.

Renata Artman Knific’s

As violinist of the Merling Trio, Knific performs 20 to 40 concerts annually throughout the world, including appearances at Merkin Hall, Carnegie Hall, St. John’s, London, and the Banff Center for the Arts. She has released 4 CD’s with the trio and premiered many works written for the group. The Merling Trio were finalists for the Naumburg Foundation Chamber Music Award in 1994. She has also appeared in chamber music festivals and as a soloist throughout Europe, the United States, and Canada.

 Renata Artman Knific is Professor of Music at Western Michigan University. She is the 2007 recipient of the College of Fine Arts Outstanding Service Award. She has also taught at the Encore School for Strings, the Cleveland Institute of Music, the Interlochen Arts Academy, and the Lancut Festival in Poland. She served as artist-in-residence at The China Conservatory, Beijing, in 2009 and 2011. She performs and teaches at the Orfeo International Festival and Academy in Italy, and at the Skaneateles Festival in New York. Her former students perform in the Cavani, Pro Arte and Cypress Quartets and in orchestras throughout the world including the Cleveland, Houston, Honolulu, Vancouver and Sao Paulo Symphonies as well the New York Philharmonic and Metropolitan Opera Orchestra.

Renata Artman Knific is a founding member of the contemporary ensemble, OPUS 21, and has premiered over two dozen works by many leading composers in recent years. In 2003, Knific released “West of Everywhere”, a crossover recording featuring her with a variety jazz greats including Gene Bertoncini, Sir Roland Hanna, John Abercrombie, Jamey Haddad and Billy Hart. In 2004 Leonarda Records released her premiere recording of Marga Richter’s concerto for piano, violin, cello and orchestra entitled “Variations and Interludes on Themes from Monteverdi and Bach” to critical acclaim. She recently recorded the works for violin and piano by William Bolcom, at the composer’s request, for MSR Classics. The CD has received sterling reviews and was selected as “CD of the Month” by The BBC Music Magazine for February 2008.

Original Article Posted Here

Madeleine Mitchell is one of Britain’s liveliest musical forces and foremost violinists’ (The Times). She has performed in over 40 countries as a soloist in a wide repertoire in major venues. She has been nominated for Woman of the Year, the European Women of Achievement and the Creative Briton Awards.

Madeleine Mitchell has performed a wide repertoire of concertos with major orchestras including the Czech and Polish Radio Symphony, Wurttemberg and Munich Chamber, the Royal Philharmonic and other London orchestras; Welsh Chamber, Orchestra de Bahia Brazil, Malaga Symphony of Spain, Kiev Philharmonic and for the BBC. She also directs concertos from the violin such as Bach and Vivaldi Seasons and commissioned and premiered a unique ‘concerto’ for violin and voices by Jonathan Harvey, Roxanna Panufnik and Thierry Pecou at Bath and Spitalfields festivals. She performed Lou Harrison Violin Concerto with Percussion Orchestra in Symphony Hall Birmingham International Series as part of her collaboration with Ensemble Bash, supported by a major award from Arts Council England. Her recording of this and other new works, ‘FiddleSticks’ on the Signum label, received 5 star reviews in both BBC Music and Classic FM Magazines and was shortlisted for Grammy, BBC Music and Midem awards last year. Most recently she performed as soloist with the St Petersburg Philharmonic in November – Vaughan Williams The Lark Ascending – and stepped in at 12 hours notice to perform Bruch Violin Concerto with the Bath Philharmonia in their New Year Gala to a capacity audience in the Theatre Royal.

Madeleine Mitchell is well known for her recitals, frequently broadcast for television and on BBC Radio 3, ABC (Australia), Bayerischer Rundfunk, National Spanish Radio etc and for her imaginative programming and engaging spoken introductions. After a recital in Glasgow the Chief Music Critic of the Herald wrote: ‘Madeleine Mitchell is a violinist in a million. Staggering virtuosity, unparalleled musicianship, her amazing big-toned, sweetly lyrical, vibrantly intense playing is unmistakable..virile Elgar, exuberant Mozart, breathtakingly rumbustuous Dvorak, spellbinding MacMillan written for her.’ She represented Britain in both the festival UKinNY with a recital at Lincoln Center, and for the centenary of Entente Cordiale with France as well as Brazil 2008 where she was widely featured on TV. She has given recitals at Sydney Opera House, Seoul Center for the Arts and Hong Kong – part of a 3 month world tour supported by the British Council, played at many international and most of the major British festivals including the BBC Proms and frequently performs in London. She was chosen by Norbert Brainin, legendary leader of the Amadeus Quartet, to play with him for his 80th birthday concert at Wigmore Hall. Other artists with whom she has collaborated include Joanna MacGregor, Paul Watkins, Kathryn Stott and Craig Ogden. 2010 sees her return to the USA for a tour and two new collaborations – with pianist Noriko Ogawa in several UK festivals and with soprano Patrica Rozario.

Her burgeoning discography includes ‘Violin Songs’ (www.divine-art.com) – popular pieces and rarities with Andrew Ball piano and Elizabeth Watts soprano – Classic FM’s CD of the Week: ‘a CD full of small joys wonderfully played’ (The Strad); 2 albums for Naxos: Alwyn chamber music and the violin works by Howard Blake, accompanied by the composer (2008); ‘In Sunlight: Pieces for Madeleine Mitchell’ (NMC) – attractive works written for her by many of Britain’s best known composers including MacMillan and Nyman: ‘wonderfully accomplished performances’ (Gramophone); ‘British Treasures’ – early 20th century romantic violin sonatas for Somm, Hummel violin sonatas for Meridian and Messiaen Quartet for the End of Time with Joanna MacGregor.

A highly creative personality, Madeleine devised the Red Violin Festival under Lord Menuhin’s patronage in 1997, the first international eclectic festival of the fiddle across the arts, which took place again in October 2007 successfully throughout Cardiff over 10 days with extensive media coverage. 

Madeleine Mitchell was awarded the Tagore Gold Medal as Foundation Scholar at the Royal College of Music where she has been a Professor since 1994. As Fulbright/ITT Fellow she gained a master’s degree in New York studying with Dorothy DeLay, Donald Weilerstein and Sylvia Rosenberg at the Eastman and Juilliard schools. She gives master classes worldwide, is Director of the London Chamber Ensemble and is on the faculty of the Schlern International Festival in the Italian Alps in July and the Interharmony Festival in Germany.