"A miracle of control and feeling..." - The Sunday Times
This Art of the Recital program features the electric violinst Kerson Leong alongside pianist Gilles Vonsattel
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PROGRAM
Johann Sebastian Bach: Sonata for Violin and Harpsichord No. 3 in E Major, BWV 1016
Edvard Grieg: Sonata No. 2 in G Major for Violin and Piano, Op 13
Clara Schumann: Three Romances for Violin and Piano, Op 22
Johannes Brahms: Sonata No. 1 in G Major for Violin and Piano, Op. 78
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KERSON LEONG, violin
Kerson Leong has been described as “not just one of Canada’s greatest violinists but one of the greatest violinists, period” (Toronto Star). Forging a unique path since his First Prize win at the International Yehudi Menuhin Violin Competition in 2010, he continues to win over colleagues and audiences alike with “a mixture of spontaneity and mastery, elegance, fantasy, intensity that makes his sound recognizable from the first notes” (Le Monde).
His latest album, featuring the Britten and Bruch violin concertos with the Philharmonia Orchestra and Patrick Hahn for Alpha Classics, was released to widespread critical acclaim, including having been awarded ‘Editor’s Choice’ by Gramophone, ‘The Strad Recommends’ by The Strad, and the ‘Choc de Classica’ by Classica as well as five-star recommendations from the Sunday Times and Diapason among others.
Recent season highlights include solo performances with such ensembles as the Royal, Oslo, Brussels, Kansai, and Liège Royal Philharmonic Orchestras, the Seattle, Singapore, Toledo, Montreal, Tucson, Bilkent, Toronto, Vancouver, Stavanger, and Wuppertal Symphony Orchestras, a tour of Sweden with the Camerata Nordica, a recital tour of the Midwestern United States, and recording John Rutter’s Visions with the composer himself and the Aurora Chamber Orchestra, after giving its world premiere in London, UK.
As a sought-after soloist, he was hand-picked by Yannick Nézet-Séguin to be his artist-in-residence with the Orchestre Métropolitain during the 18/19 season and has performed in such prestigious venues as Carnegie Hall’s Stern Auditorium, Wigmore Hall, the Auditorium du Louvre and the National Center for the Performing Arts in Beijing.
As a passionate chamber musician, he has performed at such international festivals and concert series as the Verbier Festival, Rheingau Musik Festival, Gstaad Menuhin Festival, Festspiele Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Flâneries musicales de Reims, and Bergen International Festival among others.
Passionate about pedagogy and music outreach, he has been invited to give masterclasses and teach at various festivals and universities including the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music, the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki, the Gustav Mahler Academy, the Domaine Forget Festival Academy, the University of Ottawa, and Dalhousie University among others.
Fostering a significant audience away from the concert hall as well, he is cementing his noteworthy role in reaching young people, aspiring musicians, and potential music lovers alike with his art in creative and engaging ways on social media. He is an associate artist of the Queen Elisabeth Music Chapel in Belgium, where he was mentored by Augustin Dumay.
He has always been keen on making connections between music and other fields. Ever since his dad started introducing him to physics concepts about string resonance, they have strongly influenced his playing and philosophy on sound production. Together with his dad, he has given lectures about this subject in places such as the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing, the Barratt-Due Music Institute in Oslo, and various universities in California.
Kerson performs on the ‘ex Bohrer, Baumgartner’ Guarneri del Gesu courtesy of Canimex Inc, Drummondville (Quebec), Canada.
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GILLES VONSATTEL, piano
A "wanderer between worlds" (Lucerne Festival), "immensely talented" and "quietly powerful pianist" (New York Times), Swiss-born American Gilles Vonsattel is an artist of extraordinary versatility and originality. Recipient of an Avery Fisher Career Grant, laureate of the Honens, Cleveland, and Dublin competitions, and winner of the Naumburg and Geneva competitions as well as the 2016 Andrew Wolf Chamber Music Award, he has appeared with the Boston Symphony, Tanglewood, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Munich Philharmonic, Gothenburg Symphony, San Francisco Symphony, and Detroit Symphony Orchestra, while performing recitals and chamber music at the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, Ravinia, Tokyo’s Musashino Hall, Wigmore Hall, Bravo! Vail, Music@Menlo, the Gilmore festival, the Lucerne festival, and the Munich Gasteig. His 2014 New York solo recital was hailed as “tightly conceived and passionately performed…a study in intensity” by The New York Times.
As a soloist he has also appeared with the Warsaw Philharmonic, Calgary Philharmonic, Edmonton Symphony, l’Orchestre Symphonique du Québec, Boston Pops, Nashville Symphony, Musikkollegium Winterthur, Staatskapelle Halle, and L’orchestre de chambre de Genève. Chamber partners include musicians such as James Ehnes, Frank Huang, Ilya Gringolts, Nicolas Altstaedt, David Shifrin, David Finckel, Stefan Jackiw, Jörg Widmann, Gary Hoffman, Carter Brey, David Requiro, Paul Huang, Anthony Marwood, Paul Neubauer, Paul Watkins, Philip Setzer, Emmanuel Pahud, Karen Gomyo, David Jolley, Stella Chen, and Ida Kavafian. He has appeared in concert with the Emerson, Pacifica, Orion, St. Lawrence, Ebène, Danish, Miró, Daedalus, Escher, and Borromeo Quartets. Mr. Vonsattel is Principal Pianist of Camerata Pacifica, a member of the Swiss Chamber Soloists, and plays alongside Ida Kavafian and David Jolley in Trio Valtorna. Deeply committed to the performance of contemporary works, he has premiered numerous works both in the United States and Europe and worked closely with notable composers such as Jörg Widmann, Heinz Holliger, and George Benjamin. His recording for the Honens/Naxos label of music by Debussy, Honegger, Holliger, and Ravel was named one of Time Out New York’s 2011 classical albums of the year, while a 2014 release on GENUIN/Artist Consort received a 5/5 from FonoForum and international critical praise. His solo release (2015) for Honens of Scarlatti, Webern, Messiaen, Debussy, and George Benjamin’s Shadowlines received rave reviews in Gramophone, The New York Times, and the American Record Guide.
Recent highlights include a performance of Carlos Chávez's Piano Concerto in Carnegie Hall’s Stern Auditorium with The Orchestra Now, a debut at Mainly Mozart in San Diego, a critically acclaimed recording of music by Richard Strauss and Kurt Leimer with The Bern Symphony Orchestra and Mario Venzago for the Schweizer Fonogramm label. In 2025, Vonsattel begins a three year complete Beethoven piano sonatas cycle for Camerata Pacifica. He will perform the entire cycle over the 2026-7 season for both Music@Menlo and at the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center.
Mr. Vonsattel received his bachelor’s degree in political science and economics from Columbia University and his master’s degree from The Juilliard School, where he studied with Jerome Lowenthal. He is Professor of Piano at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. Gilles Vonsattel is a Steinway Artist.
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