Program
| Composer | Work | Year |
|---|---|---|
| Johann Sebastian Bach | Violin Sonata in G minor, BWV 1001 (movements I & II) | 1720 |
| The Art of Fugue, BWV 1080 (Contrapuncti I-II-III-IV) | 1746? | |
| Ludwig van Beethoven | Violin Sonata No. 2 in A major, Op. 12 No. 2 | 1798 |
| Intermission | ||
| Eugène Ysaÿe | Sonata No. 5 in G major (ded. Mathieu Crickboom) | 1923 |
| Arseniy Gusev | 3 Bagatelles | 2020 |
| Sergei Prokofiev | Violin Sonata in D major, Op. 94a | 1944 |
About the Artists
Emma Meinrenken
Praised for her effortless technique and virtuosity, as well as her skill in interpreting contemporary music, Canadian-German violinist Emma Meinrenken is a recipient of the 2023 Sylva Gelber Music Foundation Award, the 2023 Yale Presser Foundation Music Award, and a 2024 Yale Alumni Association Award. Upon graduating from the Curtis Institute of Music, where she studied with renowned pedagogue Ida Kavafian, Meinrenken received the Milka Violin Artist Prize. Originally from Toronto, Canada, she spent her formative years in the studio of Atis Bankas as a student in the Taylor Performance Academy for Young Artists. She has a Master of Musical Arts from Yale, where she was under the tutelage of the violin luminary Augustin Hadelich, and will start her doctorate degree at the CUNY in the fall.
She received 1st place at the Stradivarius International Violin Competition, the Prix Ravel at the Ecole d’Art Américaines de Fontainebleau, and has participated in festivals such as the NUME Festival in Italy, the Gstaad Menuhin Festival, the Verbier Festival Academy, the Norfolk Chamber Music Festival, and the Four Seasons Winter Workshop. Meinrenken debuted with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra in 2011, and has since performed with orchestras across North America and Europe. She often collaborates with composers, and has been the dedicatee of many new compositions for solo violin. She made her Carnegie Hall debut giving the New York premiere of a piece for violin and guitar by Fred Lerdahl, and most recently premiered a violin concerto by Maya Miro Johnson with the Curtis Symphony Orchestra.
She currently plays on the 1717 Windsor-Weinstein Stradivarius violin, generously on loan from the Canada Council for the Arts.
Arseniy Gusev
Pianist and composer Arseniy Gusev was born in St. Petersburg in 1998 and has been studying music since the age of five. In 2015, he went to the Boston University Tanglewood Institute. In 2017, he graduated with honors from the Specialized Music School of the St. Petersburg Rimsky-Korsakov State Conservatory, and afterwards studied at the St. Petersburg Conservatory. In 2018, he moved to the US, in 2022, received his bachelor’s degree from the Cleveland Institute of Music, and in 2024, finished his master’s program at the Yale School of Music as a composer. He now continues his studies at the Juilliard School as a pianist. Sergei Babayan, Keith Fitch, Chris Theofanidis, and David Lang are among his teachers.
Arseniy actively performs in the US and abroad, and has given solo concerts in Austria, Belgium, Italy, Slovakia, Russia, and Germany. His compositions are performed in Mariinsky Theater, Carnegie Hall, Konzerthaus Dortmund, St. Petersburg Philharmonic and other major venues. He collaborated with such conductors as Arkady Steinluht, Dmitry Vasiliev, Robert Carter Austin, Alexander Titov, Ilya Derbilov, Mikhail Golikov, and Mikhail Mosenkov, and performed together with such musicians as Jaime Laredo, Sharon Robinson, Olga Kaler, and Anthony Roth Costanzo.
In 2025, Arseniy was awarded the prestigious Charles Ives Fellowship by American Academy of Arts and Letters. As of 2024, two solo piano albums by Arseniy were published: “Enfleurage” (Etymology Classics, 2023), and “Musical Offering” (Steinway & Sons, 2024).