Calendar of Cultural Events

Please verify dates and times with The Kosciuszko Foundation Director of Cultural Affairs
Tom Pniewski -- (212) 734-2130 ext. 214

Joel Fan, Piano and Ens String Quartet
Open 2006-7 Chamber Music Series
Sunday, November 19 at 3 PM

Joel Fan, Laureate of the 1985 Kosciuszko Foundation Chopin Piano Competition, returns to the Foundation with the Enso String Quartet, to open the 2006- 2007 Chamber Music Series on Sunday, November 19, at 3 PM. The featured work is Chopin's Piano Concerto No. 1 in E minor; Barber's moving Adagio for Strings and Wolff's lyrical Italian Serenade are also on the program. Tickets are $30 ($25 for KF members) and can be reserved by calling the Foundation office at 212.734-2130. As space is limited, early booking is strongly recommended.

Joel Fan was born in the United States to parents from Taiwan. He began studying piano seriously at the Juilliard School and has received both a Bachelor of Arts degree from Harvard University and a Master of Music degree in Piano Performance from the Peabody Institute. His performing career began with the New York Philharmonic at the age of 11 after winning the Philharmonic's Young People's Concert Auditions. He has since made appearances internationally in recital and with orchestras such as the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra, New Symphony Orchestra of Bulgaria, Santa Fe Pro Musica, and the Singapore Symphony Orchestra.

In January 2006 Fan recorded his first solo album World Keys: Virtuoso Piano Music, which includes pieces from all over the globe by both famous composers such as Prokofiev, Liszt, and Schumann, as well as lesser known ones from countries not usually associated with piano music, for example Halim El-Dabh (Egypt), Qigang Chen (China), Peteris Vasks (Latvia), and A. Adnan Saygun (Turkey).

Fan is a member of Yo-Yo Ma's Silk Road Project with whom he performed at the BBC Proms for the first time in 2004 alongside Wu Tong, Wu Man and the London Sinfonietta. His other performances with the ensemble range from venues such as Carnegie Hall, the Kennedy Center and the Concertgebouw to television appearances on Good Morning America and David Letterman.

Other than winning the Philharmonic's Young People's Concert Audtions, Fan has won numerous international competitions, notably the D'Anglo Young Artists International Competition and Busoni International Piano Competition. He has also been named a Presidential Scholar by the National Foundation for Advancement in the Arts.

Lauded for stellar and diverse qualities, among them "lyricism" (The Strad) and "crisp, incisive playing.with just the right quotient of sass" (The Ann Arbor News), the Ens String Quartet has earned its place in the ensemble world with high profile engagements, residencies and a new recording, all underscored by impressive competition successes.

Engagements for the Enso String Quartet in this season include the Library of Congress, Da Camera of Houston, the Dame Myra Hess series and the Ravinia Festival's Rising Stars series. Previous seasons have brought the ensemble coast to coast for performances at Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall, the Chautauqua Institution, the Kennedy Center, the Phillips Collection, the Krannert Center, the Great Lakes Music Festival and La Jolla SummerFest and overseas for concerts in Panama, Costa Rica, Canada, England, France, Australia and New Zealand.

In summer of 2006, the ensemble was named Quartet-in-Residence at the Boston University Tanglewood Institute and is resident with the Houston-based new music organization Musiqa. Since 2004, the quartet's members have been Lecturers in String Quartet at Rice University's Shepherd School of Music.

The Enso String Quartet received multiple honors at the 2004 Banff International String Quartet Competition, and claimed victories at the 2003 Concert Artists Guild International Competition, the Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition and the Chamber Music Yellow Springs Competition. Its performances have been broadcast on PBS and many other radio stations.

The quartet formed in 1999 as students at Yale University and completed graduate residencies at Northern Illinois University with the Vermeer Quartet and at the Shepherd School of Music at Rice University

The concert will be broadcast over WQXR 96.3 FM on Sunday, November 26 at 6 PM. The broadcast is made possible by generous support from Jack Radgowski, Founder and CEO of Central Semiconductor Corp.,of Hauppauge, Long Island, NY.

For additional information, please call the Kosciuszko Foundation Office at 212.734-2130.

All events take place at the Foundation House, unless otherwise noted. Programs subject to change. Click here for directions.

Kosciuszko Foundation programs are supported by the The Anne Felicya Cierpik Fund, the Mary Koons Charitable Trust, and the Kosciuszko Foundation Cultural Fund. 

The Kosciuszko Foundation invites you to join the many foundations and individuals who support its programs.  If you can join them, please call Tom Pniewski, Cultural Affairs, at 212.734-2130, x. 214.

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Joel Fan

Ens String Quartet