MUsaics of the bay

Cellist

Chase Park

with pianist Audrey Vardanega

Dec. 1

Musaics of the Bay will present a concert on Sunday, December 1 at 4 p.n. at the Piedmont Center for the Arts featuring the spectacular 21-year old cellist Chase Park with pianist Audrey Vardanega, a Bay Area native. 

The program showcases Masterpieces for cello and piano, including Prokofiev's rousing Cello Sonata in C Major and Beethoven's Fourth Sonata for Cello and Piano, exploring the dynamic range of sounds produced by cello and piano. The two musicians met in 2017 at the prestigious Ravinia Steans' Music Institute in Highland Park, Illinois, and have been collaborating ever since. 

The program will include

Bach’s Cello Suite No. 6 in D major, Beethoven’s Sonata No. 4 in C major,

Prokofiev’s Cello Sonata, and Klengel’s Scherzo. 

A reception with the musicians will be held following the concert. 

Tickets are $20 in advance and $25 at the door. Student and Senior tickets are $15 advance and $20 at the door.

MUSICIAN BIOS

Chase Park, cello

Born in 1998, Chase Park began his musical training at the age of 4 with Madeleine Golz at the JCC Thurnauer School of Music in Tenafly, NJ.

At age 11 he accepted into the Perlman Music Program, where he spent 7 consecutive summers intensively studying chamber music and cello performance under the tutelage of Merry Peckham, Ronald Leonard, Paul Katz, Zvi Plesser and Itzhak Perlman. He began his studies at the Juilliard School’s Precollege division the same year studying under Minhye Clara Kim.

In 2014, Chase was featured on NPR’s From the Top, performing the Schubert Impromptu No. 3 in G Major accompanied by Christopher O’Riley. He also collaborated with the Shanghai Quartet, performing Brahms’ String Sextet in G major. He was invited to participate in National Young Arts Week in Miami. He has performed in cello master classes with Carter Brey, Colin Carr, Jonathan Spitz, Peter Wiley, Steven Isserlis, Ron Leonard, Paul Katz, Gary Hoffman, and Zvi Plesser. 

Chase currently studies at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia with Peter Wiley and Carter Brey. He plays on a 1780 John Betts cello on loan from the Ravinia Steans Institute.

Most recently he was invited in September this year as the only student to tour with Curtis on Tour where he performed solo and chamber works in Berlin, Paris and Athens.

Audrey Vardanega, Piano

Audrey Vardanega has performed as a solo and collaborative pianist across Europe, China, and the United States. She has studied with Leon Fleisher, Thomas Adés, Gidon Kremer, Robert Levin, Miriam Fried, and Jonathan Biss, and currently is a student of Richard Goode. 

She is the Founder and Artistic Director of Musaics of the Bay, a nonprofit chamber music series dedicated to music mentorship in the Bay Area. Highlights include her participation in Argentina’s New Docta Music Festival in August 2019, her two-part Beethoven Piano Sonata Project at the Berkeley Maybeck Studios.

For more information, go to www.musaics.org.