Description

AmiciMusic, the award-winning chamber music organization that started in Asheville, returns for another exciting concert on Tuesday, March 31 at 7:00pm entitled “CELLO POWER.” The amazing cellist, Alicia Ward, from Baltimore will return to perform with pianist and Artistic Director Daniel Weiser in a thrilling program featuring a late Sonata by Claude Debussy, a lyrical work by Robert Schumann, a virtuoso gem by Gaspar Cassadó, and the incredibly powerful Sonata by Edvard Grieg. These are all expressive and Romantic works that also highlight the true power of the cello. You won’t want to miss it!!

Cellist Alicia Ward made her orchestral debut as a featured soloist at the age of twelve, and has since performed throughout the United States and abroad as chamber musician, recitalist and soloist. She has most recently performed as recitalist at Strathmore, the Kennedy Center, the Music on the Lake Series of Lake Barcroft, as well as several of the embassies of Washington, DC. Ward was chosen as an Artist in Residence at Strathmore for the 2010-2011 season, at which time her debut CD Tableaux was released. She has been a soloist with the Fairfax Symphony Orchestra, the Orchestra of St. John, the American Youth Philharmonic and the Peninsula Youth Orchestra. Ward has been a top prize-winner of several competitions throughout the United States including the grand prize at the Music Teacher National Association Young Artists Competition held in Denver, and second place with her piano trio at the Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition. As an active chamber musician, she has performed at the Kneisel Hall Chamber Music Festival, the Menuhin Chamber Music Seminar in San Francisco, the International Music Academy in the Czech Republic, Jordan Hall, Strathmore and the Kennedy Center. In 2005, Ward was one of twelve cellists selected to perform at the International Piatigorsky Seminar for Cellists held at the University of Southern California. She has also been invited to attend the Banff International Cello Master Classes and the Young Artists Program of the National Arts Centre, under the direction of Pinchas Zukerman. Ward began studying cello in San Francisco with Barbara Wampner. She received her Bachelor of Music degree from the Peabody Conervatory as the recipient of the Steven Kates Memorial Scholarship where she studied with David Hardy. Ward received her Master of Music degree from the New England Conservatory as the recipient of the Natica Righter Williams Scholarship, under the tutelage of Laurence Lesser. Her other principal teachers include Sandy Walsh Wilson of the Alexander String Quartet, Tanya Carey, and Hans Jorgen Jensen.

Daniel Weiser, piano, has a Doctorate in Piano/Chamber Music from the Peabody Conservatory, where he studied with Samuel Sanders and Robert MacDonald and won the Richard Franko Goldman prize for outstanding contribution to musical and educational life. He has performed on many great stages, including the Weill Recital Hall of Carnegie Hall, the National Gallery of Art in D.C., and on the Dame Myra Hess Concert Series in Chicago. He has also concertized around the world, including Israel, Thailand, Holland, and France and was the 1996 U.S. Artistic Ambassador Abroad, for which he performed on an eleven-country tour of the Middle East and Asia. He has been on the music faculty of Dartmouth College and the prestigious St. Paul’s School in Concord, NH. Besides founding AmiciMusic, he co-founded and still serves as Artistic Director for Classicopia, a similar type of chamber music organization based in New Hampshire. He was also a founding member of the Adirondack Ensemble, which won a Chamber Music America award for inventive programming and outreach. He has participated in the New Hampshire Music Festival, Musicorda, and the Apple Hill Chamber Music Festival and has been the Music Director of the Da Corneta Opera Ensemble, the Opera North Young Artist program, and Opera New England. A phi beta kappa graduate of Columbia University with a degree in American History, he also spent a year at Harvard Law School at the same time as President Obama. A native of Buffalo, NY, he currently lives in Savannah, GA with his wife, Dr. Kisha Weiser and their twin daughters, Rose and Sophie