Wellspring, Oil on Canvas, 65"x92", 2014, RACHEL SAGER
November 2, 2014, 3pm
Nourse Theater
Bruch: Violin Concerto No. 1
Kenneth Renshaw, violin
Mahler: Symphony No. 1
About our soloist...
Winner of the 2012 Yehudi Menuhin International Violin Competition, 20 year old violinist Kenneth Renshaw has appeared as soloist with orchestras in Europe, North America, South America and Asia, including the Lithuanian National Orchestra, the China Philharmonic, the China NCPA Orchestra, the Jenaer Philharmonie, the Staatskapelle Weimar, the California Symphony, the American Philharmonic, and the Orquestra de Festival Ushuaia. He has given sold-out recitals at the Menuhin Festival Gstaad and the Mecklenburg-Vorpommern Festspiele, and has been featured on the national radio stations of Germany, Argentina, Lithuania, and the United States. His playing has been hailed as “vivid and eloquent” by the San Francisco Chronicle and praised for its “natural and honest sense of communication” by The Strad magazine.
In addition to winning First Prize at the Menuhin Competition, he won the EMCY prize for the best Semifinal Recital, and in 2010 he received First Prize, the Mozart Concerto Prize, and the Sonata Prize at the 6th Louis Spohr International Violin Competition in Weimar, Germany. Other awards include First Prizes in the 2009 Los Angeles Philharmonic Competition, the 2011 Stewart Brady Strings Competition, and the Mondavi Center for the Arts Chamber Music Competition – as a member of the Soleil Piano Trio. He was also the recipient of the 2012 Avanti Award, California’s 2012 Sunny Brown Memorial Award, and a Jack Kent Cooke Young Artist Award from National Public Radio’s From the Top in 2009.
Kenneth was concertmaster of the internationally acclaimed San Francisco Symphony Youth Orchestra from 2008 to 2010. As an orchestral musician, Kenneth has worked with conductors Michael Tilson Thomas, Sir Simon Rattle, Yan-Pascal Tortelier, Charles Dutoit, and Hugh Wolff. He has collaborated in chamber music performances with other esteemed musicians, including violinists Augustin Dumay, Cho-Liang Lin, violist Atar Arad, and flutist Sir James Galway. Kenneth has attended the Ravinia Festival's Steans Institute, the Perlman Music Program’s Residencies in Sarasota (Florida) and Stowe (Vermont), Music@Menlo’s International Chamber Music Festival, and the 2013 Kronberg Academy Violin Masterclasses. He has studied with Donald Weilertstein on full scholarship at New England Conservatory, Itzhak Perlman at the Perlman Music Program, and Li Lin at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. Kenneth currently studies at the Juilliard School as a recipient of the prestigious Kovner Fellowship. He has been generously loaned violins from Bein&Fushi/The Stradivarius Society of Chicago, Ifshin Violins of Berkeley, Reuning&Sons of Boston, Christophe Landon Rare Violins, and the Maestro Foundation of Southern California.
About the artist..
Rachel Sager is an Oil Painter living and working in the San Francisco Bay Area. She received a BFA from Tyler School of Art in Philadelphia after studying at Lorenzo de' Medici in Florence, Italy. Her work has been seen in local and internationally juried exhibits including CA Open Exhibition and 75th Crocker-Kingsley: California's Biennial Juried Competition, and was featured in the Emmy Award-winning Documentary, Sketching the Silk Road.
In my oil paintings, matter is presented in a decomposed state, suspended between earth and sky. Inspired by brush fires, demolition explosions, and storm clouds, I explore my subjects in a visceral, intuitive manner. My goal is to produce the differences existing between the varying states of matter in these circumstances, neither solid or gas. In doing so, I intend to create sweeping, emotionally charged landscapes that convey the dissonance I experience in self expression. The turmoil, represented by the debris-filled smoke, is juxtaposed by sun infused skies and cirrus clouds, projecting a duplicity that is unavoidable, overwhelming, and at times, awe-inspiring.