0313 - Ariel Concert Series

Bach Suite Marathon - Horn

Edward Elgar: Salut d'Amour for String Quartet

Bach Cello Suite No.5 in C minor arr. for horn
Sarabande
Gavottes I&II
Gigue

Wayne Lu: 11 Exigent Etudes
No.5 Contraction
No.6 Simple Song
No.7 Prelude For J.S

Alexander Borodin; String Quartet No.2 in D Major
III. Notturno

About the Program

Salut d’ Armour written by Edward Elgar in 1988 was originally titled “Liebesgruss” or “Love’s Greeting”. The piece was written for either violin and piano, violin and cello, piano solo, or small orchestra. Elgar dedicated the piece to his love Caroline Alice Roberts and presented the composition as an engagement present. Caroline became his wife a year later. “Liebesgruss” did not sell well under that title, so the name was changed to “Salut d’ Armour. Subsequently, the piece had a great deal of success.

Johann Sebastian Bach published Six Suites for cello between the years 1717 and 1720. The exact dates are unknown, but it is thought that the Cello Suites were written prior to the six Violin Sonatas and Partitas which were dated 1720. The Sarabande, Gavottes, and Gigue are selected movements from the Cello Suite no. 5. All are based on popular Baroque dances of the time. The Cello Suites are transcribed for various intstruments including viola, guitar, piano, string ensembles, and solo wind and brass instruments. Bach himself wrote a transcription of Suite no. 5 for lute. As one of the most notoriously difficult suites to play on cello, one can only imagine the virtuosity required to play the piece on horn!

Wayne Lu published 11 Exigent Etudes for horn study in 2014. Lu is a horn player himself and a prolific composer of music for wind and brass instruments, as well as full orchestra and various chamber ensembles.

The second string quartet of Alexander Borodin was written in 1881 almost forty years after the quartets of Schumann. He found time to write the piece during a busy career as a doctor and a chemist. Music was his hobby and passion. He dedicated the quartet to his wife Ekaterina Protopova, and according to several scholars presented the piece as a gift on their twentieth wedding anniversary. It is rumored that the composition is reminiscent of their first encounter in Heidelberg, Germany. The third movement of the quartet, “Nocturne”, is evocative of the moods and emotions of night-time. It is the most memorable movement of the quartet as it is hard to forget the dreamy melodies being passed between violin and cello.

-Ann Fink

Concert Artists

Victoria Knudtson/Horn
Minnesota-born horn player Victoria Knudtson joined the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra as assistant/utility horn during the 2019/2020 season. Born to a pianist mother and singer father, Knudtson found her artistic voice on the horn when she was 16 years old after a coincidental meeting with her first teacher, Wayne Lu. In 2014, Knudtson began studying with Jeffery Nelsen at Indiana University. Thanks to the horn department at the Jacobs School of Music, she also benefited from the orchestral pedagogy of Dale Clevenger and studied early music performance on the natural horn with Richard Seraphinoff. Knudtson also spent six months in Vienna, Austria, studying with Wolfgang Vladar of the Vienna Philharmonic. While pursuing her undergraduate degree, she served as principal horn of the Columbus Indiana Philharmonic. She successfully completed her studies in December 2017.

In March 2018, Knudtson joined the St. Louis Brass (a quintet started in 1964 by then-members of the SLSO) with whom she occasionally tours the country giving performances and teaching masterclasses. Knudtson began an artist diploma at the Curtis Institute of Music under Jennifer Montone and Jeffery Lang before winning the position with the SLSO in September 2019. While in Philadelphia, Knudtson held a core horn position with the ensemble Symphony in C, and performed frequently throughout the city with various chamber groups. As a soloist, she performed with the Indiana University Symphony Orchestra and the Yale New Music Ensemble, and frequently appeared in recitals on the Curtis stage. She ardently enjoys collaborating with composers and performing new music, especially with friends.
Knudtson was a horn fellow of the Boston Symphony's Tanglewood Music Center in 2019, and at the Pacific Music Festival in Sapporo, Japan with music director Valery Gergiev in 2018. Knudtson plays a leader/teacher roll as a staff member at Kendall Betts Horn Camp.

Hannah Ji/Violin
Violinist Hannah Ji joined the first violin section of the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra in 2020 after spending two seasons as a one-year replacement member. Ms. Ji’s playing has been hailed by critics as "engaging, mature, well thought-out, and honed down to the finest details" (głos na Wieniawskiego,Polish Radio Journal). Ms. Ji holds a Bachelor of Music degree from Curtis Institute of Music, studying with the late Aaron Rosand, a Master of Music degree from The Juilliard School, studying with Ida Kavafian, and an Artist Diploma degree from The Colburn School, studying with Robert Lipsett. Ms. Ji began her musical studies at the age of seven in South Korea and previously attended Manhattan School of Music's Precollege Division, studying with Grigory Kalinovsky.

Additionally, Ms. Ji has held Artist Faculty positions at The Danbury Music Centre's Chamber Music Intensive, The Bronx Conservatory of Music, Manhattan in the Mountains, and The Curtis Institute's SummerFest Young Artists Program & Adult Chamber Music Program. She was a substitute faculty member at The Manhattan School of Music Precollege Division, and had a large studio in New York City, the students of which have been accepted to conservatories and summer festivals across the country. She currently enjoys working as a mentor through SLSO’s Mentoring the Music: Peer to Peer program.

Ann Fink/Violin
Ann Fink most recently performed as a violin fellow with New World Symphony in Miami Beach. She holds bachelors and master’s degrees in music from the Juilliard School and also studied at the Jacobs School of Music at Indiana University. Fink is a past winner of the Kate Neal Kinley Memorial Fellowship from the University of Illinois. She has performed with the Opera in the Ozarks, the National Repertory Orchestra, the Spoleto Orchestra, and the Schleswig Holstein Festival Orchestra and has studied with Alexander Kerr, Elmar Oliveira, Carol Cole, Hyo Kang, and Sergiu Schwartz. Fink recently performed Wieniawski’s Concerto No. 2 with the New World Symphony under the baton of Tito Munoz, after she was selected as one of the 2012-13 New World Symphony concerto competition winners. A certified Suzuki Violin teacher, Ann Fink has worked as violin faculty at the Preparatory Center at Brooklyn College, Lucy Moses School, and the Music Institute of Long Island. Ann currently plays with St Louis Symphony in the 1st violin section.

Andrew Francois/viola
Born and raised in Kankakee, Illinois, violist Andrew Francois began his musical studies at the age of 10 on violin in his school's string program. He joined the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra viola section in September 2019. As a chamber musician and soloist, Francois has given recitals throughout the United States and Europe. He also served as artist faculty with the Anchorage Chamber Music Festival. As an avid orchestral player, Francois has played and served as principal with the Verbier Festival Orchestra, the Spoleto Festival Orchestra, New World Symphony Orchestra, and was in the inaugural class of fellows with the Los Angeles Philharmonic Resident Fellows program.

Francois has received Artistic Excellence Fellowships from the Jacobs School of Music at Indiana University as well as Illinois State University. He enjoys teaching and community outreach, and has traveled to Medellin, Colombia, to teach master classes and lessons at Eafit Universidad. While an undergraduate student, he was a Teaching Assistant and private instructor at Illinois State University in its String Project program. As a graduate of the Jacobs School of music, studying under string department chair Stephen Wyrczynski, Francois held the title of Graduate Assistant for the string department, as well as at on the Jacobs School of Music Council as a Graduate representative.

Grace Eunhey Park/Cello
Grace Eunhey Park, began playing cello at 10 years old. She is a cellist with a passion for ensemble performance. She is a member of Ensemble Secreta, and was a member of Key Trio in Indiana. She is associate principle cellist of the Muncie Symphony Orchestra, and plays regularly with the Marion Philharmonic Orchestra, Anderson Symphony Orchestra, and Peoria Symphony Orchestra. She was an associate member of the Chicago Civic Orchestra and holds substitute positions with in the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra and Huntington (WV) Symphony Orchestra and St. Louis Symphony Orchestra. In 2012 Grace won first prize of Indianapolis Matinee Musical Competition, graduate string/woodwind level and she received honorable mention in the Graduate Concerto Competition at Ball State University in 2011. She is a native of the Republic of Korea where she won the Catholic University of Daegu Competition in 2003, and her ensemble was awarded first prize in the Fringe Festival of the Tongyeong International Music Festival(TIMF) in 2006. Grace took second prize in the string division of Daesin University in 2013 in Korea. She was previously a member of the Daegu Opera Festival Orchestra in Korea. Grace was a cellist in the Orchestre de la Francophonie in Montreal, Canada, in 2013 and in 2008 attended the Festival Ensemble of the TIMF Academy in Korea on a full scholarship.

She earned an Artist Diploma from Ball State University, where she studied with Peter Opie with a full assistantship. Prior to entering Ball State, she completed Bachelor of Music and Master of Music degrees from Yeung-nam University in Korea, where she studied with Seungzhin Lee.