Join us for a performance by cellist Noémie Raymond-Friset and pianist Zhenni Li-Cohen. This is Ms. Raymond-Friset’s first appearance at these concerts.
Program
The program will be announced soon.
About the Artists
Noémie Raymond-Friset
One of the most promising Canadian cellists of her generation, Noémie Raymond-Friset is a passionate musician, praised for her sensitive and refined playing. An internationally active artist, she enjoys a diverse career and has appeared as a soloist with reputable orchestras in prestigious venues, travelled around the world as a chamber musician and educator and was recently named one of the “30 Hot Canadian Classical Musicians under 30” by CBC Music.
Born in Montreal, Quebec, Noémie was a top prize winner in numerous national and international competitions, such as the Stepping Stone Competition, the Edwin H. and Leigh W. Schadt String International Competition, the Prix d’Europe and the WAMSO Young Artist Competition. Moreover, she was previously a laureate of the Musical Instrument Bank competition by the Canada Council for the Arts and has been a grant recipient from the same organization on numerous occasions.
Noémie has been fortunate to work with many internationally renowned cellists. In 2014, she performed for a master class led by Yo-Yo Ma at the Claude-Champagne hall in Montreal in front of an audience of more than 1000 people, a performance that was warmly acclaimed by the public and described as a “beautiful and sensitive performance”- La Scena Musicale.
Noémie plays the beautiful Matteo Goffriller “Ex-Curtis” cello (1700) generously on loan to her by Canimex Inc. of Drummondville (Quebec).
Zhenni Li-Cohen
Hailed as “…an artist of tremendous conviction, who fascinates even as she provokes… “ by Gramophone Magazine, “…a thrillingly good pianist…” by The New Yorker and for her “…big, gorgeous tone and a mesmerizing touch” by The Philadelphia Inquirer, pianist Zhenni Li-Cohen has performed in such notable venues as Carnegie Hall, Alice Tully Hall, Merkin Concert Hall, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, WQXR’s Greene Space in New York, the Smithsonian Museum in Washington, D.C., Kimmel Performing Arts Center, the Helsinki Music Centre in Finland, the Grieghallen in Norway and the Berliner Philharmonie. She has appeared as a soloist with the Bergen Philharmonic and the Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia. Her second album for the Steinway & Sons label was released in 2023.
Zhenni Li-Cohen has garnered worldwide recognition as the winner of the New York Concert Artists Worldwide Debut Audition, Astral Artist’s National Auditions and the Grieg International Competition in Norway. Ms. Li-Cohen is currently the Associate Professor of Piano at University of Alberta. She holds a Bachelor and Master of Music degree, both on a full scholarship, from The Juilliard School, under the tutelage of Seymour Lipkin and Joseph Kalichstein. After obtaining her Artist Diploma with Peter Frankl at Yale School of Music, she completed her doctorate studies at the McGill School of Music under Dr. Stéphane Lemelin.
Ms. Li-Cohen is the co-founder and Artistic Director of Opus 71 Concerts, a multimedia concert series near New York’s Lincoln Center. In her spare time, she enjoys learning jazz and new languages, looking forward to becoming pentalingual, traveling and meeting people of different cultures.
Zhenni Li-Cohen is a Steinway Artist.
About the Concert
This performance begins at 3:00 pm. Join us an hour earlier for a pre-concert discussion about the music on the program. After the performance, you’ll have an opportunity to meet the artist(s) and learn about their backgrounds, interests, and career plans.
The address of the venue is 103 North Road, Wakefield, Rhode Island 02879. Driving time from Providence, Newport, Westerly, and southeastern Connecticut is under an hour, and Kingston Station is only five miles away.
Contributions
The suggested contribution for this concert is $40 per person, collected at the door. Children under 18 are welcome to join us free of charge. We accept cash, personal checks, and cards. Checks should be payable to “Core Memory Music”. To make your contribution in advance, click here. All contributions go directly to our performing artists.
Reservations
If you’d like to attend this concert, send us an email with the full name of each person in your party. If seating is still available, we’ll confirm your reservation.
If you can’t attend the concert in person, we invite you to listen to the audio livestream (no reservation required).