AWARD winning composer Jeffrey Ching will present the Philippine premieres of his composition “Celestial-Infernal Grand Nuptial Rite” as well as transcriptions of Schumann (“Kundiman ni Schumann”) and Wagner (“Wesendonck Sonata”) on August 29, 2015 at the Cultural Center of the Philippines’ Little Theater at 7:30 P.M.
Ching’s concert features soprano Andión Fernández, Brazilian cellist Matias de Oliveira Pinto and multi-awarded Japanese pianist Kiai Nara together on stage.
Jeffrey Ching is the composer of the critically acclaimed opera Das Waisenkind (The Orphan) which was awarded the Theater Erfurt Audience Prize (Zuschauerpreis) for the best opera production of 2009-2010. In November 2013, the two halves of his ‘incantation’ Diese So-Geliebte were played separately in Dessau and Magdeburg and simultaneously broadcast live by DeutschlandradioKultur and MDR Figaro, a unique technological tour de force enabling concert and radio listeners to hear both halves as a complete score. His compositions have been featured in radio portraits on Rundfunk Berlin-Brandenburg (rbb) and Deutschlandfunk (DLF), and in Neue Zeitschrift für Musik.
Soprano Andión Fernández was born in Manila and graduated with honors from the Universität der Künste, Berlin. A soloist of the Deutsche Oper Berlin (2001-10) and prizewinner of Operalia International Opera Competition (Placido Domingo World Opera Contest) and Cardiff Singer of the World, she has sung in major European theatres from Lisbon to St. Petersburg under many famous conductors, as well as in China, Hong Kong, Japan, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Singapore. She lives in Berlin and is married to Jeffrey Ching, who created his principal vocal works for her, including the title role of Das Waisenkind.
The cellist Matias de Oliveira Pinto was born into a family of artists in São Paulo, Brazil, and began learning piano and cello in early childhood. At the age of 18, he became a teacher at the Music University in Curitiba, Brazil. In the same year he won a scholarship from the Herbert von Karajan Foundation. In Berlin he studied with Prof. Eberhard Finke, and in Budapest with Prof. Csaba Onczay. Concert tours have taken him through South America, Europe, USA, Japan, Australia and New Zealand. Since 2005, he has been guest professor at the Universität der Künste (University of Arts) Berlin.
Pianist Kiai Nara finished BA with highest honors and her post-graduate degree from the Universität der Künste, Berlin. She won First Prize and Gold Medal at the Robert Schumann International Competition in Zwickau, Germany, and high prizes from the Arthur Schnabel Competition in Germany, Busoni International Piano competition in Italy, Jose Iturbi International Piano Competition in Spain, and Hamamatsu International Piano Competition in Japan. Currently, she is a full-time faculty-member at the KUNITACHI College of Music in Tokyo, a lecturer at SOAI University in Osaka, and a special lecturer at SHOWA Academia di Musicae in Kanagawa, in Japan.
(From Cultural Center of the Philippines)