HINA KHUONG-HUU, VIOLIN; lana suran, piano | 7:30 PM, FRI, FEB 21, 2025

Program:

Edvard Greig: Violin Sonata No. 3, Op. 45

Fritz Kreisler: A Variety of Works for Violin and Piano

INTERMISSION

Cesar Franck: Sonata for Violin and Piano in A Major

Maurice Ravel: Tzigane

Hina Khuong-Huu, Violin

First-Prize winner of the 2023 Elmar Oliveira International Violin Competition, violinist Hina Khuong-Huu has performed around the globe appearing as soloist and collaborator with many of today's leading ensembles and musicians.

One of the centerpieces of Hina’s 23/24 season is her Kennedy Center debut performing Anna Clyne’s The Prince of Clouds alongside Grammy Award-winner Jennifer Koh. Also in 23/24, Hina is a featured soloist with The Symphonia in Boca Raton, FL under the direction of Alastair Willis, for Tchaikovsky’s Souvenir D’un Lieu Cher, and will dazzle audiences with her interpretation of Ravel’s Tzigane when she appears with the Northbrook Symphony under the leadership of Mina Zikri and Vadim Gluzman. In recital this season, Hina joins forces with the critically acclaimed pianist Rohan De Silva for an intimate program on the Artist Series Concerts of Sarasota in Florida.

Named a "VC Artist" by the Violin Channel, Hina has appeared as a soloist with the Oxford Philharmonic Orchestra, Chamber Orchestra of Geneva, Flanders Symphony Orchestra, The Symphonia, Mittel Europa Orchestra, and the Musica Mundi Orchestra. She has collaborated with artists such as Jennifer Koh in her “Alone Together” series and shared the stage with Maxim Vengerov at Carnegie Hall and Buckingham Palace. She has performed on NPR's “From the Top” and was a recipient of the Salon De Virtuosi Career Grant. In 2018 she placed 5th in the Junior Division of the Menuhin Competition.

As a chamber music advocate, Hina regularly plays with the Jupiter Symphony Chamber Players in New York, and has studied with several leaders in the industry, including the renowned faculty of the Perlman Music Program. Her mentors include such luminaries as Shlomo Mintz, Vadim Gluzman, and Menahem Pressler. Hina studies with Professors Li Lin and Itzhak Perlman at The Juilliard School and Columbia University through their double degree program.

Hina performs on a violin by Antonio Stradivari, Cremona c1722 ‘Lord Wandsworth’, which is on loan from Ryuji Ueno Foundation and Rare Violins In Consortium, Artists and Benefactors Collaborative.

Visit the Official Website: Hina Khuong-Huu

Lana Suran, Piano

Lana Suran is an award-winning Swedish pianist and one of the leading Scandinavian pianists of her generation. Hailed by the Augsburger Allgemeine as ‘simply an outstanding artist’, Lana is armed with the insights that flow from a deep understanding of her nature and the ability to communicate the most powerful and personal emotions. Her expressive pianism rises directly from the heart to reveal the tremendous vitality and range of her inner emotional landscape. The eloquent honesty of her interpretations is supported by a rare sensibility for tonal nuance and shading, a combination that gives surging life to strikingly mature performances of an equally striking range of repertoire.

Lana’s artistic credo has been shaped by her determination to grow naturally as a performer, without undue haste or cutting corners. “Making music, for me,” she notes, “is something that cannot be compromised. I want people to feel something when they hear me play. This demands giving more of everything, physically, emotionally, spiritually.” Fluent in six languages and at home on both sides of the Atlantic, her cosmopolitan outlook is reflected in the breadth of her recital programmes and explorations in the field of chamber music. Herrepertoire list encompasses the great landmarks of the keyboard literature, including Beethoven’s ‘Diabelli’ Variations, Chopin’s Ballades and Schumann’s Humoreske and such 20th -century classics as Shostakovich’s Piano Concerto No.2 and Prokofiev’s late piano sonatas.

Lana has collaborated in person with James MacMillan, Frederic Rzewski and Martin Stauning and programmed pieces by, among others, Thomas Adès, Lera Auerbach, György Kurtág and Pēteris Vasks. She is also passionate about chamber music and working with like-minded performers in works from across the chamber repertoire. Above all, however, she is devoted to the fine art of the piano recital. “I think programming is one of the things that makes me me,” she observes.

In recent seasons Lana has participated in the Cincinnati-based Art of the Piano festival; the Yellow Barn Festival in Vermont, where she was a Leon Fleisher Fellow; the International Musicians Seminar at Prussia Cove; Festival Internacional de Música de Esmeraldas; the Schiermonnikoog Festival; the Helsingborg Piano Festival; and the Musica Mundi Chamber Music Festival in Belgium. She made her concerto debut at Flagey in Brussels in December 2021 performing the Mendelssohn Double Concerto for Piano and Violin with Yossif Ivanov under the leadership of Alexei Ogrintchouk. In October 2022, she gave her solo debut during “Schubert Days Flagey” curated by Paul Lewis, and returned in 2023 with the French Ars Nova Ensemble in a performance of Philip Glass’s Piano Concerto No.3 “Tirol”. She gave her debut recital at the Copenhagen Philharmonic in May 2023 and performed Beethoven’s ‘Diabelli’ Variations for her first appearance at the Antwerp Spring Festival in 2024. As a concerto soloist, she has worked with the Orchestre Chambre Royal de Wallonie, the Listening Collectif, Sweden’s Dalasinfoniettan and Ars Nova Ensemble and such conductors as Daniel Blendulf, Vahan Mardirossian and Alexei Ogrintchouk, to name a few.

Lana Suran was born in Stockholm in 1992. Although her immediate family was not musical, they encouraged her to take piano lessons at the age of five and to enroll soon after at Stockholm’s Lilla Akademien or ‘Junior Academy’ to study piano with Elena Power and Victoria Power. Following her debut at the Gothenburg Concert Hall when she was eight, she progressed to win prizes in competitions throughout Scandinavia; she also received several scholarships from the Royal Swedish Academy of Music, including the Mai von Rosen scholarship.

Lana successfully auditioned for a place at Walnut Hills School for the Arts near Boston, Massachusetts and began studying there with Tema Blackstone and Hung Kuan Chen. She subsequently enrolled at the school’s sister institution, the New England Conservatory, where she studied with Alexander Korsantia for eight years. Lana continued her studies at the Mannes School of Music in New York and with Ursula Oppens and Jens Elvekjaer at the Royal Danish Academy of Music in Copenhagen.

After twelve years in the United States, she returned to Europe as an Artist in Residence at the Queen Elisabeth Music Chapel in Belgium between 2020 and 2024, where she was mentored by Avedis Kouyoumdjian and Frank Braley. Her studies have been enhanced by masterclasses and coachings with such distinguished artists as Leif Ove Andsnes, Paul Biss, Bertrand Chamayou, the Danish String Quartet, Vladimir Feltsman, Richard Goode, Christian Ihle-Hadland, Anthony Marwood, Sergio Tiempo, Donald Weilerstein, Vivian Hornik-Weilerstein, and by collaborations with Andrey Baranov, Frank Braley, Avedis Kouyoumdjian, Philippe Koch, Astrid Schween of the Juilliard Quartet, Philippe Graffin, the Kodály Quartet and others.

Lana’s long run of competition successes continued in 2023 when she was awarded first prize at the Oxana Yablonskaya International Piano Competition and reached the semi-finals of Danish Radio’s P2 Chamber Music Competition. Other credits include representing Sweden at the Busoni International Piano Competition (2022), second prize at the 2020 Verão Clássico Award in Lisbon, receiving the Steinway Award from Mannes School of Music (2019) and the Sigrid Paskéll Award from SWEA International (2015).

Lana makes her home in Stockholm and Berlin, she is currently pursuing postgraduate studies with Professor Kouyoumdjian at Vienna’s University of Music and Performing Arts (MDW) and an Associated Artist of the Queen Elisabeth Music Chapel in Belgium. Her forthcoming engagements include a UK tour with the critically acclaimed violist Shiry Rashkovsky and concerto debuts in Europe, the USA and South America. “I have been so inspired by my wonderful mentors,” she comments. “They have encouraged me to be open to music of all periods and always to be true to myself. I am excited about the prospects that are opening up for me to connect with new audiences and look forward to exploring fresh creative opportunities.”