Boston based Canadian concert violinist Adrian Anantawan has dedicated his life to impacting people in and outside the concert hall. As a violinist he has performed in concert halls all over the globe and as a speaker, educator and disabilities advocate he has worked on bringing awareness to issues of access and equity in the arts for disabled communities. Adrian joins with pianists Leigh McAllister and Molly Joyce for a program of classical favorites and new arrangements for his Rockport debut.
PROGRAM
J.S. BACH: Partita No. 3 in E major, 1006 BWV
CHOPIN: “Cello” Etude Op. 25, No. 7 in C-sharp Minor
BEETHOVEN: Sonata No. 10 in G Major, Op. 96
MOLLY JOYCE:
I was a Figure
Anatomy is Destiny
Blue Swell
The End
Adrian Anantawan holds degrees from the Curtis Institute of Music, Yale University and Harvard Graduate School of Education. As a violinist, he has studied with Itzhak Perlman and Pinchas Zukerman, and Anne-Sophie Mutter. Memorable moments include performances at the White House, the Opening Ceremonies of the Athens and Vancouver Olympic Games and the United Nations. He has played for the late Christopher Reeve, Pope John Paul II, and His Holiness the Dalai Lama. Adrian has performed extensively in Canada as a soloist with the Orchestras of Toronto, Nova Scotia, Winnipeg, Saskatoon, Montreal, Edmonton and Vancouver. He has also presented feature recitals at the Aspen Music Festival and Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall. He has also represented Canada as a cultural ambassador in the 2006 Athens Olympics, and was a featured performer at the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics Opening Ceremonies. Adrian helped to create the Virtual Chamber Music Initiative at the Holland Bloorview Kids Rehab Centre. The cross-collaborative project brings researchers, musicians, doctors and educators together to develop adaptive musical instruments capable of being played by a young person with disabilities within a chamber music setting. He is also the founder of the Music Inclusion Program, aimed at having children with disabilities learn instrumental music with their typical peers.
From 2012-2016, he was the co-Director of Music at the Conservatory Lab Charter School, serving students from the Boston area, kindergarten through grade eight—his work was recognized by Mayor Marty Walsh as a ONEin3 Impact Award in 2015. Adrian is also Juno Award nominee, a member of the Terry Fox Hall of Fame, and was awarded a Diamond Jubilee Medal from Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II for his contributions to the Commonwealth. He is the current Chair of Music at Milton Academy, the Artistic Director of Shelter Music Boston and is on faculty at Boston University Tanglewood Institute during the summer.
Molly Joyce has been deemed one of the “most versatile, prolific and intriguing composers working under the vast new-music dome” by The Washington Post. Her music has additionally been described as “serene power” (New York Times), written to “superb effect” (The Wire), and “unwavering” and “enveloping” (Vulture). Her work is concerned with disability as a creative source. She has an impaired left hand from a previous car accident, and the primary vehicle in her pursuit is her electric vintage toy organ, an instrument she bought on eBay which engages her disability on a compositional and performative level.
Molly’s creative projects have been presented and commissioned by Carnegie Hall, TEDxMidAtlantic, Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Bang on a Can Marathon, Danspace Project, Americans for the Arts, National Sawdust, Gaudeamus Muziekweek, National Gallery of Art, Classical:NEXT, and in Pitchfork, Red Bull Radio, and WNYC’s New Sounds. Molly is a graduate of Juilliard, Royal Conservatory in The Hague, Yale, and alumnus of the YoungArts Foundation. She holds an Advanced Certificate in Disability Studies from City University of New York, and is a forthcoming doctoral student at the University of Virginia in Composition and Computer Technologies. She has served on the composition faculties of New York University, Wagner College, and Berklee Online.
Leigh McAllister is a Chinese-American adoptee raised in Sonoma County, California. Born with three fingers on her left hand and no left elbow, Leigh has what is called a left ulnar deficiency. With a yearning to meet her biological mother one day, Leigh has been on a passionate, academic journey with piano performance; she has performed in both Weill Hall and Schroeder Hall at the Green Music Center of Sonoma State University (SSU), and in Seully Hall at the Boston Conservatory. In February of 2017, she performed Camille Saint-Saëns’ Le Carnaval des Animaux for two pianos and orchestra with the SSU Symphony and with her colleague, pianist Talyn Imhoff, and in December of 2018, Leigh filled Schroeder hall for her Senior Recital to complete her Bachelor of Music degree. The following year, Leigh performed a concert in Schroeder Hall, with the opportunity to perform several solo piano works as well as collaborative works with the Santa Rosa Symphony’s principal clarinetist Roy Zajac and Leigh’s teacher, pianist Marilyn Thompson. Leigh has received the Evert B. Person and Vesta Jelte Music Scholarships for outstanding performance, and she is a recent scholarship graduate from the Boston Conservatory, where she studied with Jessica Chow Shinn. While working as a collaborative pianist in Greater Boston, Leigh aspires to eventually attain her doctorate degree.