DAVID FINCKEL & WU HAN

2009/ 10 Full Biography (1058 words)

Cellist David Finckel and pianist Wu Han rank among the most esteemed and influential classical musicians in the world today. The talent, energy, imagination, and dedication they bring to their multifaceted endeavors as concert performers, recording artists, educators, artistic administrators, and cultural entrepreneurs go unmatched. Their duo performances have garnered superlatives from the press, public, and presenters alike. London's Musical Opinion said of their Wigmore Hall debut: “They enthralled both myself and the audience with performances whose idiomatic command, technical mastery and unsullied integrity of vision made me think right back to the days of Schnabel and Fournier, Solomon and Piatigorsky.”

In high demand year after year among chamber music audiences worldwide, the duo appears each season at the most prestigious venues and concert series across the United States, including New York’s Lincoln Center, Morgan Library, Town Hall, and 92nd Street Y; Washington’s Kennedy Center, Smithsonian Institute, and Dumbarton Oaks; San Francisco Performances and Stanford Lively Arts; Wisconsin’s Union Theater; Milwaukee’s Pabst Theater; UCLA’s Performing Arts Series; Atlanta’s Spivey Hall; the University of Chicago’s Mandel Hall; Boston’s Gardner Museum; Princeton University Concerts; the University of Iowa’s Hancher Auditorium; the Cleveland Chamber Music Society; New Orleans Friends of Chamber Music; Santa Barbara’s UCSB Arts and Letters; the Tulsa Performing Arts Center; and Aspen’s Harris Concert Hall. The duo is regularly featured in the country’s leading music festivals. Recent highlights include performances at the Aspen Music Festival, Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, Sanibel Music Festival, Savannah Music Festival, La Musica Chamber Festival, Music@Menlo, and Chamber Music Northwest. The duo’s international engagements have taken them to Mexico, Canada, the Far East, and Europe to unanimous critical acclaim. Highlights include their debuts in Germany and at Finland’s Kuhmo Festival, their presentation of the complete Beethoven sonatas for cello and piano in Tokyo, and their signature all-Russian program at London’s Wigmore Hall. The 2009-10 season features numerous performances of the Beethoven cycle, including the duo’s Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center recital in January; and a nationwide tour performing the Schubert piano trios with violinist Philip Setzer.

Beyond the duo’s recital activities, David Finckel also serves as cellist of the Emerson String Quartet, which has won eight Grammy Awards including two honors for “Best Classical Album,” three Gramophone Magazine Awards, and the prestigious Avery Fisher Prize, awarded in 2004 for the first time to a chamber ensemble; and holds honorary doctorates from Bard College and Middlebury College. Through its insightful performances, brilliant artistry, and technical mastery, the Emerson String Quartet has established itself among the world’s foremost chamber ensembles, playing over 100 concerts annually on the world’s most prestigious stages.

In addition to their distinction as world-class performers, David Finckel and Wu Han have established a reputation for their dynamic and innovative approach to the recording studio. In 1997, they launched ArtistLed, classical music’s first musician-directed and Internet-based recording company, which has served as a model for numerous independent labels. All eleven ArtistLed recordings, including David Finckel and Wu Han’s recent recording of the Schubert piano trios with Philip Setzer, have met with critical acclaim and are available via the company’s website at www.artistled.com. Audiophile Audition hailed the Schubert trios release as “a performance to rival the Busch brothers/Serkin inscription of two generations ago.” In Time magazine, Terry Teachout hailed ArtistLed’s Tchaikovsky disc as “a performance that ranks among the great chamber music recordings of the postwar era.” The label’s “Russian Classics,” release, featuring works by Rachmaninov, Prokofiev, and Shostakovich, received BBC Music Magazine’s coveted “Editor's Choice” award. This season, ArtistLed releases its twelfth album, featuring contemporary works for cello and piano, composed for the duo, by Bruce Adolphe, Lera Auerbach, Pierre Jalbert, and George Tsontakis.

David Finckel and Wu Han have served as Artistic Directors of The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center since 2004. They are also the founders and Artistic Directors of Music@Menlo, a chamber music festival and institute in Silicon Valley that has garnered international acclaim since its inception in 2003. In these capacities, they have overseen the establishment and design of The Chamber Music Society’s CMS Studio Recordings label, as well as a recording partnership with Deutsche Grammophon (which includes CMS concert downloads made available through the Digital DG Concerts Series); and Music@Menlo LIVE, Music@Menlo’s exclusive recording label, which has been praised as a “breakthrough” (Billboard) and “probably the most ambitious recording project of any classical music festival in the world” (San Jose Mercury News).

The duo’s repertoire spans virtually the entire literature for cello and piano, with an equal emphasis on the classics and the contemporaries. Their modern repertoire includes all the significant works, from Prokofiev and Britten to Alfred Schnittke and André Previn. Their commitment to new music has brought commissioned works by Bruce Adolphe, Lera Auerbach, Gabriela Lena Frank, Pierre Jalbert, Augusta Read Thomas, and George Tsontakis to audiences around the world.

David Finckel and Wu Han have been the subject of numerous feature stories around the globe in publications including The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, San Francisco Chronicle, Toronto Star, New York Newsday, The Mercury News, Billboard, The Strad, BBC Music Magazine, Time Out London, and Tokyo’s Ongaku-no-Tomo. On television, they have appeared on NBC Nightly News, A & E Network’s Breakfast with the Arts, New York Channel 13’s New York Voices, CNN’s Turner Entertainment Report and European Business News. They have also been frequent guests on American Public Media’s Performance Today, Saint Paul Sunday, and other popular classical radio programs.

David Finckel and Wu Han have achieved universal renown for their passionate commitment to nurturing the careers of countless young artists through a wide array of education initiatives. For many years, the duo taught alongside the late Isaac Stern at Carnegie Hall and the Jerusalem Music Center. They appeared annually on the Aspen Music Festival’s Distinguished Artist Master Class series and in various educational outreach programs across the country. This season, under the auspices of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, David Finckel and Wu Han have established chamber music training workshops for young artists in both Korea and Taiwan, intensive residency programs designed to bring student musicians into contact with an elite artist-faculty comprising such luminaries as pianist Leon Fleisher, violinist Arnold Steinhardt, and others. David Finckel and Wu Han reside in New York with their fifteen-year-old daughter, Lilian.

For more information, please visit www.davidfinckelandwuhan.com.