With Scenes from Childhood, pianist / composer Cyrus von Hochstetter presents a varied program of music that is succinct yet wildly evocative. Schumann's well-known Kinderszenen is here contrasted with the more obscure Music for Children by Aram Khachaturian, and complemented by a set of Cyrus von Hochstetter's own Piano Miniatures. With Louis Arques joining on clarinet, the program expands to music for clarinet and piano duo in the same spirit.
Cyrus von Hochstetter - Bio (performer)
With his extensive training in both classical and jazz piano, Cyrus von Hochstetter straddles the musical worlds as a pianist, composer and teacher. His musical flexibility and genre-bending fluidity led him to tour the US as a soloist and chamber musician with ensembles and to record with diverse musicians such as Larry Campbell, Ryan Keberle, Stephane Wrembel, David Taylor and Byron Isaacs. As a pianist, Cyrus von Hochstetter has performed in Europe, Japan and Israel, at the Montreux Jazz Festival, Caramoor Center for Music & the Arts. In New York he has appeared at Joe’s Pub and at Cornelia Street Cafe with his 7-piece ensemble the ‘Hat Music’, which navigated a musical spectrum encompassing arrangements of music by Arnold Schönberg, Duke Ellington, Hindemith and Cyrus von Hochstetter’s own composition and songwriting.
A passionate storyteller and communicator, he produces the educational YouTube video series ‘My Music Notes’ which introduces viewers to the development of music and the context behind the classical repertoire.
As the director of the Two Bridges Music program in 2017 and 2018, he launched a free concert series for New York’s Lower East Side community and also designed an innovative composition curriculum teaching children as young as seven years old how to write music from scratch. The ensuing collaborations with InterSchool Orchestras of New York, Metropolitan Youth Orchestra of NY and Third Street Music school orchestras led to public performances of the young composer’s pieces including a concert at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.
He is the founder of the ‘Piano on Park’ series, where he curates and presents an ongoing program of intimate living-room concerts with some of New York’s most accomplished musicians. The series has included performances by David Krakauer, JP Jofre, Rob Schwimmer, Stéphane Wrembel, Daniel Schnyder, David Taylor, Mark Peskanov as well as up- and-coming young musicians.
A Manhattan School of Music graduate under jazz pianists Garry Dial and Jason Moran, he expanded his education in classical piano with Zitta Zohar diving into the heart and language of music.
Louis Arques
Louis Arques is a clarinet virtuoso, saxophonist, singer and conductor. One of the City’s most in-demand artist, he plays Classical and Contemporary music, as well as Brazilian, Afro- Cuban, Jazz music and Early music on period instruments.
As a soloist, Louis performed the Mozart Clarinet Concerto with the Empire State Symphony, the Debussy Clarinet Rhapsody with Camerata New York and the Zych Bass Clarinet concerto with Paris Ostinato Orchestra.
Passionate about orchestra, he is principal clarinet of the Metamorphosis Chamber Orchestra and the String Orchestra of Brooklyn, also occasionally joining the young talents of the Miami New World Symphony.
Sought after chamber music partner, he multiplies collaborations with ensembles including the internationally acclaimed Quintet of the Americas and the City’s finest players of the Metropolis Ensemble. Louis regularly performs recitals in the US with pianist Vladimir Rumyantsev (ABT) and in France with pianist Nima Sarkechik with whom he recorded a Brahms Sonatas album. He recently joined the Bridget Kibbey’s Bach to Brazil Trio and finds the most thrill touring the U.S. concert series and university residencies with them.
Advocating for contemporary music he constantly creates works by composers from the United-States and Europe. His love for the Afro-American rhythms led him to co-found Diálogos Duo with guitarist-composer Richard Boukas. Together they independently released two albums and became the Brazilian music duo with the largest body of original works for clarinet and guitar. Louis is a regular partner of the salsa band Sonido Costeño.
To reconcile Classical and Contemporary music with his generation’s audience, he founded and conducted the orchestra NewOrch, and is now co-directing Metamorphosis Chamber Orchestra.
A Vandoren artist and MA from the New School (Professors Neidich and Krakauer), he taught in France for ten years (including Paris Conservatoire) and recently joined the faculty of the Diller-Quaile School of Music.
Cyrus von Hochstetter: piano
Louis Arques: clarinet
Aram Khachaturian
Album for Children, Vol. 1
Robert Schumann
Kinderszenen, Op. 15
Cyrus von Hochstetter
Selection from: Miniatures for Piano
Camille Saint-Saëns
Clarinet Sonata, Op. 167
Claude Debussy
Première Rhapsodie
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