Penrith Con July Music Workshop
Important Update: Penrith Con July Music Workshop on 7 July 2021 will not go ahead at this time.
Important Update: In line with NSW Health advice, the Joan Sutherland Performing Arts Centre is temporarily closed to the public until at least 11.59pm Friday 9 July. Hence, Penrith Con July Music Workshop on 7 July will not go ahead at this time. All ticket holders will be contacted via email over the next week with an update and options – please keep an eye on your email inboxes. In this unprecedented situation, our Box Office is fielding a tremendous volume of requests and we are working to be as responsive as possible. We ask that you please wait for us to get in touch, and please bear with us as we work through our lists.
Schumann Piano Project | Piano & Violin Masterclasses
In these upcoming July holidays 2021, Penrith Conservatorium invites all students to this multi-part music project, complete with masterclasses for piano and violin, and a chance for piano students to discover and perform a work from Schumann’s Op. 68 Album for the Young.
Join us for a half day filled with music – perform, observe, listen and learn! Afternoon tea is included.
Book your ticket now!
Want to perform in the Schumann Piano Project? Open to all piano students.
- Please chose one piece from this list: Chose your piece HERE
- Email your chosen piece to meena.ahn@penrith.city to secure your spot! She will email you back to confirm your choice.
SCHEDULE
- 10am: Schumann Project – Piano Recital
Piano students will showcase and perform their pre-selected work from Schumann’s Op. 68 Album for the Young. Open to audience members, students, friends and family are invited to watch and listen! Remember, you don’t have to perform, you can simply attend as an audience member – everyone is welcome!
- 11.30am: Lunch break
- 12 noon: Part 2 – Piano Masterclass
Masterclass with renowned pianist Andrea Lam. 5 students have been selected to perform and receive instruction. - 1.15pm: Part 3 – Short Performance
by Andrea Lam (pianist) and Emily Sun (violinist) - 1.30pm: Part 4 – Violin Masterclass
Masterclass with renowned violinist Emily Sun. 5 students have been selected to perform and receive instruction. - 2.45pm: Conclusion
WHAT TO BRING:
- Lunch and water
- Supervision will also be provided throughout the program. However, any student under 18 without a guardian present must bring written parental permission on the day if they wish to step outside the venue to get lunch.
FOR MORE INFORMATION:
Contact: meena.ahn@penrith.city
- Key Info:
- Dates & Times
- Tickets
Date: Wednesday 7 July (school holiday period)
Time: 10am – 2.45pm
Location: Malcolm Borland Foyer at The Joan
The Masterclass
Andrea Lam - Pianist
“Ms. Lam was, in a word, fabulous, handing in what may have been the best piano playing of the entire festival” – Oregon Arts Watch, 2017
“[Andrea’s] delicate keyboard approach not only anchored the score but also allowed it to spiral into the heavens” – The Washington Post, 2015
Pronounced a “real talent” by the Wall Street Journal, New York-based Australian pianist Andrea Lam performs with orchestras and leading conductors in Australasia, Japan, China and the United States, including the San Francisco Ballet Orchestra, Hong Kong Philharmonic, and all major Australian symphony orchestras. From New York’s Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center to the Sydney Opera House, she has played for Sydney Festival, Musica Viva’s Huntington Festival (Australia), Orford Festival (Canada), Chelsea Music Festival (USA) with works from Bach, Schumann and Chopin to Aaron Jay Kernis, Lilya Ugay, and Nigel Westlake.
Recent engagements include New York’s Chelsea Music Festival, Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum and the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Melbourne Recital Centre, Monash University and as soloist with the Melbourne and Canberra Symphony Orchestras, Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra, and Australian Youth Orchestra. 2020/21 performances included Sydney Festival, Sydney Opera House’s International Piano Day livestream, Chelsea Music Festival (including the world premiere of Glyndebourne composer-in-residence, Ninfea Cruttwell-Reade), with Australian String Quartet at Dunkeld Festival (VIC), and soloist with Canberra Symphony Orchestra conducted by Jessica Cottis; for Musica Viva, Sanguine Estate Music Festival and Melbourne Digital Concert Hall.
A keen chamber musician, Andrea also performs and records extensively as pianist of New York’s acclaimed Claremont Trio. Andrea Lam was a Semifinalist in the 2009 Van Cliburn Competition, Silver Medalist in the 2009 San Antonio Piano Competition, and winner of the ABC’s ‘Young Performer of the Year’ Award in the Keyboard section, and the Yale Woolsey Hall Competition. She holds degrees from both the Yale, and the Manhattan Schools of Music. Recordings include Mozart concerti with the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra and for Huntington Festival’s commemorative album (ABC Classics) and with renowned cellist Matt Haimovitz (Pentatone Oxingale). Andrea features as pianist on Nocturnes, violinist Emily Sun’s debut album for ABC Classics’ (2021).
“This performance was one of sublime beauty from beginning to end… packed so full of emotion… This was tear-jerking stuff. The finale was thrilling… building to a conclusion that, unsurprisingly, brought cheers and thunderous applause from the large audience.” [4.5 stars] – Limelight Magazine, May 2021 (live review, Rachmaninoff piano concerto no.2, Canberra Symphony Orchestra)
andrealam.com / claremonttrio.com / cinqueartistmanagement.com
Emily Sun - Violinist
“There was a fine balance… with Sun’s excellent playing bringing it all together.” – ArtsHub (live review, Elder Hall Adelaide, 2020 (5 stars)
“radiates vitality and optimism… Possessed of a superb talent… she has all the qualities you would wish for in a young musician.” – The Adelaide Adveriser (live review, UKARIA, 2019)
Possessed of ‘a superb talent’ (The Advertiser), with ‘a perfect balance of expressivity and formidable strength’ (The Australian), violinist Emily Sun is remarkable for her versatility across the concerto, recital and chamber music repertoire, performing by invitation at Buckingham Palace alongside Maxim Vengerov for HRH Prince of Wales, and at the Royal Palace of Brussels in the presence of the King and Queen of Belgium. Awarded the Tagore Gold Medal from the Royal College of Music, where she now serves on faculty, and prizes at international competitions, Emily is also recipient of the 2018 ABC Young Performer Award and the 2016 UK Royal Overseas League ‘Commonwealth Musician of the Year’.
As a concerto soloist, Emily has appeared with orchestras worldwide from Belgium to the USA and China, including the Sydney, Queensland and Melbourne Symphony Orchestras, raising funds for Australian bushfire relief with MSO in the Myer Music Bowl to audience of over 9,000 people. She has performed recitals in some of the world’s leading concert venues including Sydney Opera House, Wigmore Hall London, and Tchaikovsky Great Hall Moscow. An active chamber musician, Emily has collaborated with renowned musicians such as Maxim Vengerov, Gary Hoffman, Danny Driver, and Tamara-Anna Cislowska. In Australia she has performed for Sydney Festival, at City Recital Hall (Sydney), UKARIA Cultural Centre and toured nationally with Selby & Friends. As a teen, Emily shot to fame in the acclaimed Australian documentary ‘Mrs Carey’s Concert’; in 2020 she was invited to feature in Grammy award-winning jazz artist Melody Gardot’s ‘From Paris with love’ project. As recent ABC Artist-in-Residence, and BBC Introducing Artist, she is regularly broadcast on Classic FM, BBC Three (UK), Kol Hamusica (Israel), WXQR (USA), and Musiq 3 (Belgium). In 2021, Emily’s engagements include Sydney Festival, a national tour for Musica Viva Australia, performances for UKARIA Cultural Centre, Melbourne Digital Concert Hall and the release of her debut albums, Nocturnes, for ABC Classics, with pianist Andrea Lam.
Emily plays a 1760 Nicolò Gagliano violin, kindly loaned to her through the Beare’s International Violin Society.
“the rich timbres of Sun’s violin… Sun gave her running passages in the central Andante cantabile a sense of wistful longing… before the sparkling finale.”– Limelight magazine (live review, City Recital Hall Sydney, March 2020)
emilysunviolin.com / cinqueartistmanagement.com
Robert Schumann Op. 68 Album for the Young
Album for the Young (Album für die Jugend), Op. 68, was composed by Robert Schumann in 1848 for his three daughters. The album consists of a collection of 43 short works. Unlike the Kinderszenen, they are suitable to be played by children or beginners. The second part, starting at Nr. 19 (“Kleine Romanze“), is marked Für Erwachsenere (For adults; For more grown-up ones) and contains more demanding pieces.
In 1843, Robert Schumann expressed concern for the the lack of quality pedagogical piano music available for teaching his own young daughters as he admitted that supporting a family had forced him to take into consideration financial responsibilities and had turned to teaching. In the final years of his life, he thus began composing works that aimed at the demand of amateur music for the rising middle-class.
Schumann’s Album for the Young, Op. 68, revolutionised viewpoints about music education and pedagogy, and also inspired a completely new genre of piano literature – programmatic music written for children. The success of the Op. 68 spurred Schumann to write even more children’s pieces and helped revolutionise the philosophy of pedagogy to one that was forward-looking.*
*Deahl, Lora. “Robert Schumann’s “Album for the Young” and the Coming of Age of Nineteenth-Century Piano Pedagogy.” College Music Symposium 41 (2001): 25-42. Accessed May 27, 2021. http://www.jstor.org/stable/40374451.
