ARTSEMPOWERINGLIFE

Lucia Lin & Sergey Schepkin in Concert

Sunday, February 2nd, 3:30 PM
Performing Arts Center, Brewster

Experience the artistry of violinist Lucia Lin and pianist Sergey Schepkin in concert featuring works by French composers Couperin, Debussy and Franck. Renowned for her “genuine, fresh quality,” (Cincinnati Enquirer) Lucia Lin’s performance will leave you spellbound, while Sergey Schepkin’s “uncommon, almost singular capability and integrity” (Boston Globe) promises a masterful musical journey.

Join us for an unforgettable evening at Arts Empowering Life’s new Performing Arts Center in Brewster, hailed as “a beacon of possibility” (Cape Cod Art Magazine). Tickets free for students and youth!

Lucia Lin

Lucia Lin has performed as soloist, as chamber musician, and in orchestras throughout the U.S. and internationally in a diverse multi-faceted career that also includes teaching and collaborative efforts with both visual and performing arts.

Ms. Lin made her debut at age eleven, performing the Mendelssohn Concerto with the Chicago Symphony and went on to be a prize winner in numerous competitions, including Moscow’s prestigious International Tchaikovsky Competition. Described as a soloist with “virtuosity and insight” who is “passionate and graceful” (Indianapolis Star), and whose playing has “a genuine fresh quality not often heard” (Cincinnati Enquirer), Lin’s performances include solo appearances with orchestras in Europe as well as a solo recital at Carnegie Hall’s Weill Recital Hall.

At the age of 22, Lin won a position in the Boston Symphony Orchestra. She then went on to become acting concertmaster with the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra and then spent two years as Concertmaster with the London Symphony Orchestra, where she was leader for numerous recordings and tours, including those to Japan, Italy, Scotland, and Spain.

In 1995, Lin returned to the Boston Symphony and focused on chamber music, when she founded the Boston Trio. She then joined the Muir String Quartet in 1998. The quartet’s dedication to teaching helped to foster Lin’s passion for helping young musicians to discover their own musical voice. With influences from her own mentor —Paul Rolland and Sergiu Luca—reflected in her pedagogy, Lin teaches applied violin, chamber music, and orchestral studies as Professor at Boston University’s College of Fine Arts.

Lucia Lin’s creativity for unique projects has led her to make connections across the arts–including with dance, visual art, and literature. In 2007, Lin collaborated with the dance company Snappy Dance Theater in the world premiere of “String Beings”, an innovative piece integrating music with dance and technology. The pandemic and social uprisings of 2020 was the impetus for Ms. Lin’s project—“In Tandem”— building on Lin’s vision of taking performance, mentoring and collaboration to new levels. In Tandem is a non-profit initiative dedicated to bringing new voices to classical music by commissioning ten emerging composers from the Gabriela Lena Frank Creative Academy of Music. All ten works have been encapsulated in Blu-ray through Parma Records.

Ms. Lin has recorded for Nonesuch Records as a guest of the Boston Symphony Chamber Players, for New World Records on a disc featuring the works of Bright Sheng, for Parjomusic as a founding member of the Boston Trio, and for Harmonia Mundi featuring the works of Astor Piazzolla in collaboration with harpist Ann Hobson Pilot and bandoneon player J.P. Jofre. Her recordings with the Muir String Quartet include works of Kreisler, Berg and Schulhof as well as Klezmer music arranged for clarinetist, Alex Fiterstein and string quartet. In 2022, Ms. Lin and cellist Jonathan Miller released a recording of works of Debussy, Ravel, L. Boulanger and Fauré on Navona Records. Most recently, Ms. Lin released a recording of Leonard Bernstein’s newly discovered string quartet as well as an album featuring the premiere of Gabriela Lena Frank’s duo for violin and cello “Operetta”.

Sergey Schepkin

Praised by The Boston Globe for his “uncommon, almost singular capability and integrity,” Steinway Artist Sergey Schepkin has concertized worldwide, from the United States to Europe to East Asia to New Zealand. The concert series and venues where he has appeared include the Great Performers Series at Lincoln Center; the Celebrity Series of Boston; Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall, Alice Tully Hall, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City; Boston’s Symphony Hall, Jordan Hall, and the Gardner Museum; Sanders Theater and Paine Hall at Harvard University; Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, DC; the LACMA and Maestro series in Los Angeles; the Rockport and Newport music festivals; London’s Steinway Hall and Proms at St Jude’s festival; National Concert Hall in Dublin; Sibelius Academy in Helsinki; Norwegian Music Academy in Oslo; Grand and Chamber Philharmonic Halls in St. Petersburg; Hoam Art Hall in Seoul; and Sumida Triphony Hall in Tokyo, among many others.

Mr. Schepkin’s repertoire includes solo, concerto, and chamber works written over the past four hundred years. He is a renowned interpreter of keyboard works by Johann Sebastian Bach, and was hailed by The New York Times as “a formidable Bach pianist.” Mr. Schepkin’s recordings are frequently broadcast by classical radio stations in the USA and abroad. His recent recording of Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier I is posted on YouTube.

Mr. Schepkin is a recipient of numerous grants and awards, as well as a prizewinner of several international competitions, including the first prize and the special Chopin prize in the 1999 New Orleans International Piano Competition, third prize in the 1988 Crown Princess Sonja of Norway International Piano Competition, and first prize in the 1978 International Competition for Young Musicians in Prague (“Concertino-Praga”).

A naturalized American, Mr. Schepkin was born in St. Petersburg. He studied with Alexandra Zhukovsky, Grigory Sokolov, and Alexander Ikharev at the St. Petersburg Conservatory, graduating summa cum laude in 1985. After his move to the United States in 1990, he studied with Russell Sherman at New England Conservatory, where he earned an Artist Diploma in 1992 and a Doctor of Musical Arts degree in 1999. In 1994–98, he studied French repertoire with the legendary French-American pianist Paul Doguereau. A sought-after educator, Mr. Schepkin has presented master classes and lecture-recitals throughout the USA and abroad. He was an Emerson Instructor at MIT and has taught at Boston University, the Boston Conservatory, and the University of Iowa. He is Professor of Piano at Carnegie Mellon University, having joined the faculty in 2003. He also teaches at the New England Conservatory School of Extended Education and privately in Boston, where he is based.