Icelandic cellist Geirþrúður Anna Guðmundsdóttir, an ASF fellow, joins us for a performance with pianist Tomomi Sato and cellist Drake Driscoll of works by Boccherini, Beethoven, and Rachmaninoff.
The program includes Luigi Boccherini’s Sonata for Cello in G major, Ludwig van Beethoven’s Cello Sonata no. 5 in D major, Op. 102 No. 2, and Sergei Rachmaninoff’s Cello Sonata in G minor, Op. 19.
Musicians
Geirþrúður Anna Guðmundsdóttir is an Icelandic-American cellist born in 1994. She holds degrees from the Reykjavík College of Music and Northwestern University. She has been the recipient of various awards including The Jerome and Elaine Nerenberg Foundation Scholarship Award from the Musicians Club of Women, The Evanston Music Club Scholarship Award and the Iceland Symphony Orchestra Concerto Competition Award. She recently received awards from the Valitor Foundation in Reykjavík and the American-Scandinavian Foundation in New York. In 2013 she was featured as a soloist with the Iceland Symphony Orchestra. She has recently performed solo recitals in the U.S., Iceland, and Holland and performed as a soloist with the Ungfónía Youth Orchestra in Iceland in 2017.
Geirþrúður served as a member of the Civic Orchestra of Chicago during their 2017-18 season and was a member of Quartet Amí, a string quartet founded at Northwestern. They were recently first prize winners at the 2017 WDAV Young Chamber Musicians Competition and the 2017 Dover String Quartet Competition. They also performed as the quartet-in-residence at the Mineral Point Chamber Music Festival in June 2017.
An eager performer of contemporary repertoire, she has performed with the Axiom Ensemble, the Contemporary Music Ensemble at Northwestern and Ensemble Dal Niente, and collaborated composers such as Steve Reich and Hans Thomalla. Her passion for chamber music and contemporary repertoire lead her to co-found the Elja Ensemble, an Icelandic chamber collective dedicated to innovative programming and performance. Geirþrúður recently started her master’s degree at The Juilliard School in New York, where she studies with Natasha Brofsky. Geirþrúður plays on a Pierre Silvestre cello from 1857.
Japanese pianist Tomomi Sato enjoys her diverse career as a highly solo and collaborative pianist and pedagogue of various genres, ranging from classical to jazz and global popular music. A prizewinner of 2013 Seattle International Piano Competition, Tomomi has performed in the US, as well as in Europe, Asia, and South America. Her recent engagements include a performance in Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall, a broadcasted solo recital at LACMA’s Bing Theater as a part of their Sunday’s Live Series.
Dedicated to community outreach, Tomomi is passionate about performing to the audience outside of regular concertgoers. She is a festival artist at Mellon Music Festival, whose mission is to make classical music concerts more accessible in Davis, CA and has served as Artist Faculty at Classical Music Institute in San Antonio TX teaching music to children in underprivileged neighborhoods. As a fellow, she has attended a number of festivals include the Music Academy of the West in Santa Barbara, Centrum Chamber Music Workshop in Port Townsend, WA, Dino Ciani Festival and Academy in Cortina d’Ampezzo, Italy, California Institute of Music in Engers, Germany, among others. Tomomi also currently serves as a staff pianist at the Juilliard School’s College and Pre-College division and regularly works with renowned violinist Midori. During 2018-2019 season, she collaborates with emerging young artists in concert series including Tri-County in Philadelphia and WQXR midday masterpieces in New York City.
Currently based in New York City, Tomomi is pursuing her Master of Music degree in Collaborative Piano at The Juilliard School, where she studies with Jonathan Feldman, Lydia Brown, and Brian Zeger. She holds a Bachelor and a Master of Music Degree in Piano Performance from University of Southern California Thornton School of Music, where she was a Graduate Teaching Assistant and received the Keyboard Studies Departmental Award for both degrees, given to the most outstanding graduate. Her past teachers include Bernadene Blaha, Dr. Mark Sullivan, and Kazuko Yasukawa.
Drake Driscoll, 23, is currently pursuing her master’s degree at the Juilliard School where she studies with Natasha Brofsky. She is originally from Raleigh, North Carolina, but recently moved to NYC from Evanston, IL where she attended Northwestern University and graduated with a bachelor’s degree in cello performance.
Drake made her solo debut with orchestra in 2012 and has since performed with a number of orchestras. She has played in master classes for Jens Peter Maintz, Raphael Wallfisch, Gary Hoffman, Clive Greensmith, Johannes Moser, and Lynn Harrell. A passionate teacher, Drake often coaches pre-college chamber music at the Juilliard School. In the summers of 2017 and 2016, Drake served as the Teaching Assistant to Hans Jorgen Jensen and Julia Lichten at the Meadowmount School of Music. In 2015, Drake was selected to perform on the National Public Radio in the Netherlands. Drake is an avid chamber musician, and in 2014, she performed on NPR’s From the Top with Quartet Noce, a semifinalist quartet at the Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition. Drake also performed Mendelssohn’s D minor Piano Trio with faculty at the Heifetz International Music Institute in 2013, and participated in ChamberFest at the Juilliard School in January 2019.
Drake also has a strong interest in contemporary music and community engagement. In 2016, Drake was selected to perform at the opening concert for the Block Museum of Art’s tribute to avant-garde cellist Charlotte Moorman, and went on to become a member of Northwestern University’s Contemporary Ensemble. She also performed John Corigliano’s Poem in October in Alice Tully Hall as a part of one of Juilliard’s contemporary ensembles, AXIOM. In 2018, she founded the VISION String Trio, a group formed through the Chamber Music Community Engagement Seminar at the Juilliard School. The group’s first project, “Music for Harmony,” aims to build meaningful relationships with and among refugees by visiting refugee centers and sharing and exchanging music from different cultures. VISION is currently partnering with Building One Community, YMCA New Americans Initiative (Flushing location), and IRC in New Jersey to bring music to refugees and new immigrants.
March 7, 2019
March 7, 2019