Masterful Strings: Inbal Segev, cello

Masterful Strings: Inbal Segev, cello

Wednesday, April 6, 2022 . 8PM
Photo by Grant Legan.

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Renowned cellist Inbal Segev gives a recital as part of the School of Music's Masterful Strings Series.

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Suite No. 5 in C minor, BWV 1011 Johann Sebastian Bach (1685–1750)
  1. Prelude
  2. Allemande
  3. Courante
  4. Sarabande
  5. Gavotte
  6. Gigue
 
Fits and Starts (2003)
Anna Clyne (b. 1980)
 
A Thousand Tongues (2009)
Missy Mazzoli (b. 1980)
 
INTERMISSION
 
Rest These Hands (2009)
Anna Clyne
 
Legend of Sigh (2015)
Gity Razaz (b. 1986)
 
Spinning Song (2008)

Dan Cooper (b. 1970)

Tonight's concert is made possible by the Barbara K. Steppel Memorial Cello Fellowship.

 

 
A Thousand Tongues
MISSY MAZZOLI (b. 1980)
A Thousand Tongues by American composer Missy Mazzoli was commissioned originally by cellist and vocalist Jody Redhage in 2009. Described by the composer as “short but intense,” the work was written in response to a text by 19th-century American author Stephen Crane, who is perhaps best known for his novel “The Red Badge of Courage.” Vocalizations of the text are also featured as an element in the electronic accompaniment, presumably pre-recorded by Redhage for future performances. The text and electronic textures fluidly intertwined with Mazzoli’s lyrically emotional cello line, symmetrically emerging from and receding into silence.
 
Legend of Sigh
GITY RAZAZ (b. 1986)
The evening's focal point, Legend of Sigh (2015) by Gity Razaz, is an immersive multimedia piece for cello and electronics written for Segev with video and projection design by filmmaker Carmen Kordas. Legend of Sigh explores the themes of birth, transformation, and death through the retelling of an old Azerbaijani folktale about a mysterious being, Sigh, who appears every time someone lets out a heartfelt sigh, unknowingly calling out to him.
 
 
 
 
INBAL SEGEV
 
Inbal Segev is “a cellist with something to say” (Gramophone). Combining “thrillingly projected, vibrato-rich playing” (Washington Post) with “complete dedication and high intelligence” (San Francisco Classical Voice), she makes solo appearances at leading international venues and with preeminent orchestras and conductors worldwide. Celebrated for her fresh insights into music’s great masterworks, the Israeli American cellist is equally committed to reinvigorating the cello repertoire, and has commissioned and premiered major new works from an international who’s who of today’s foremost contemporary composers.
 
Segev is personally responsible for commissioning, premiering, recording and championing new works by important living composers from the U.S., Israel and beyond. Most recently, she launched “20 for 2020,” a commissioning, recording and video project for 20 cutting-edge composers including John Luther Adams, Viet Cuong and Vijay Iyer, who is also writing a new concerto for her to premiere next season. Other recent projects include Anna Clyne’s concerto DANCE, which Segev co-commissioned and premiered under Cristian Măcelaru’s leadership at the Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music in California (2019), before recording the work alongside Elgar’s iconic concerto with Marin Alsop and the London Philharmonic Orchestra. Released by Avie, the album was an instant success, topping the Amazon Classical Concertos chart and inspiring glowing praise from The Guardian, BBC Radio 3 and other outlets; DANCE’s opening movement was named among NPR Music’s “Favorite Songs of 2020,” receiving more than 6.5 million listens on Spotify.
 
Segev has also brought to life a host of other new works. It was she who gave the world premiere performance of Timo Andres’s concerto Upstate Obscura at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art (2018); premiered Dan Visconti’s Cello Concerto with the California Symphony (2017); commissioned and premiered Gity Razaz’s multimedia piece Legend of Sigh at Brooklyn’s National Sawdust (2015); premiered and recorded Lucas Richman’s Declaration with the composer conducting the Pittsburgh Symphony (2015); co-commissioned and premiered Avner Dorman’s Cello Concerto with the Anchorage Symphony (2012); and commissioned and premiered Paola Prestini’s Oceano at Columbia University (2002). She also gave the overdue U.S. premiere of Sir Arthur Sullivan’s long-lost, posthumously reconstructed Cello Concerto, and joined the Albany Symphony for the first performance of Christopher Rouse’s Violoncello Concerto since its premiere 24 years earlier by Yo-Yo Ma.
 
Segev’s premiere recordings crown a rich and wide-ranging discography. Having studied Bach’s solo cello suites for many years, she recorded the complete cycle over a six-month period with Grammy-winning producer Da-Hong Seetoo at New York City’s Academy of Arts and Letters for release by Vox Classics in 2015; documenting this process behind the scenes, a companion film by Nick Davis Productions was screened at Lincoln Center and in Maine and Bogotà. Segev’s other recordings include a Romantic program of Schumann, Chopin and Grieg with pianist Juho Pohjonen (Avie, 2018); Dohnányi serenades with the Amerigo Trio (Navona, 2011); and cello sonatas by Beethoven and Boccherini with pianist Richard Bishop (Opus One, 2000). The cellist can also be heard playing music by Peter Nashe on the soundtrack of Bee Season, a 2005 feature film starring Richard Gere and Juliette Binoche.
 
A prodigy who first played for the Israeli president at just eight years old, Segev came to international attention 10 years later when she made concerto debuts with both the Berlin Philharmonic and Israel Philharmonic under the baton of Zubin Mehta. Since then, she has appeared as soloist with such leading orchestras as the London Philharmonic, Orchestre National de Lyon, Dortmund Philharmonic, Pittsburgh Symphony, Baltimore Symphony and St. Louis Symphony, collaborating with Marin Alsop, Stéphane Denève, Lorin Maazel, Cristian Măcelaru, Zubin Mehta and other of the world’s foremost conductors. She co-curated the Baltimore Symphony’s New Music Festival from its inception in 2017.
 
Segev has given solo performances of Bach’s cello suites at international venues from New York’s Lincoln Center and Metropolitan Museum of Art to the Shanghai Concert Hall and Jerusalem Theatre. Her other recital highlights include appearances at New York’s Alice Tully Hall and Merkin Concert Hall, Brooklyn’s National Sawdust, Los Angeles’s Walt Disney Concert Hall, Chicago’s Harris Theater and Bogotá’s Teatro Mayor. Also a dedicated chamber artist, she has undertaken international tours with Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center and collaborated with such esteemed musicians as Emanuel Ax, Jeremy Denk, Anthony McGill, Jason Vieaux and the Vogler Quartet. With former New York Philharmonic concertmaster Glenn Dicterow and violist Karen Dreyfus, she is a founding member of the Amerigo Trio.
 
Besides holding regular interactive live-streamed masterclasses and Q&A sessions at the CelloBello resource center, Segev has been featured in a live Q&A session at Lincoln Center’s Kaplan Penthouse and a dedicated episode of The Musical Life podcast series. Available at her YouTube channel, the cellist’s popular masterclass series, Musings with Inbal Segev, has thousands of subscribers around the world and almost two million views to date.
 
A native of Israel, Inbal Segev began playing the cello at the age of five. At 16, she was invited by Isaac Stern to the U.S., where she continued her cello studies with Aldo Parisot, Joel Krosnick, Harvey Shapiro and Beaux Arts Trio co-founder Bernard Greenhouse, earning degrees from Yale University and the Juilliard School. Today, she lives in New York City with her husband, their three teenage children, and her cellos, made by Francesco Ruggieri (1673) and Carl Becker & Son (1958) respectively.