LA Philharmonic Principal Concertmaster Martin Chalifour will perform music by Bach Chausson, Hindemith, Kreisler, Prokofieff, Suk, Tchaikovsky and Ysaye at a Redlands Chamber Music Society concert at 7:30 p.m. Sunday, February 20. He will be accompanied by Jiayi Shi, pianist. The concert is in Watchorn Hall, Frederic Loewe Performance Hall at the University of Redlands, 1200 Colton Avenue. Tickets are $20. Admission for any music student is free. For more information, contact (909) 327-6611 or (909) 798-9253.
Martin Chalifour is the principal concertmaster for the Los Angeles Philharmonic and teaches at the University of Southern California. He is the former associate concertmaster of the Cleveland and Atlanta Symphony Orchestras, and has previously served as a faculty member at the Cleveland Institute of Music. Both a solo and recording artist, Chalifour is the founding member of the Cleveland Orchestra Piano Trio and “Myriad” Chamber Ensemble.
Pianist Jiayi Shi maintains an active schedule as a chamber musician and collaborative pianist. She has worked with the internationally renowned violinist Midori, and made her New York recital debut with Midori in March 2004, and San Francisco debut in the Davies Symphony Hall. In addition to numerous chamber performances, Ms. Shi often plays solo piano recitals in North America and in her native China. She has also performed in important venues such as Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center of Performing Arts in New York.
Martin Chalifour began his tenure as Principal Concertmaster of the Los Angeles Philharmonic in 1995. The recipient of various grants and awards in his native Canada, he graduated with honors from the Montreal Conservatory at the age of 18 and then moved to Philadelphia to pursue studies at the Curtis Institute of Music.
In 1986 Chalifour received a Certificate of Honor at the Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow; he was a laureate of the Montreal International Competition the following year. Since then he has concertized extensively, playing hundreds of concerto performances from a repertoire of more than 50 works. He has appeared as soloist with conductors such as Pierre Boulez, Charles Dutoit, Christoph Eschenbach, Sir Neville Marriner, and Esa-Pekka Salonen. Outside the U.S., he has appeared as a guest soloist with the Auckland Philharmonia, the Montreal Symphony, the Hong Kong Philharmonic, the National Orchestra of Taiwan, and the Malaysian Philharmonic, among others.
Chalifour began his orchestral career in 1984 with the late Robert Shaw and the Atlanta Symphony, playing as Associate Concertmaster for six years. Subsequently he occupied the same position for five years in the Cleveland Orchestra, where he also served as Acting Concertmaster under Christoph von Dohnányi. While in Cleveland, Chalifour taught at the Cleveland Institute of Music and was a founding member of two chamber ensembles, Myriad and the Cleveland Orchestra Piano Trio.
Chalifour is a frequent guest at several summer music festivals. Maintaining close ties with his native Quebec, he has returned there often to teach and perform as soloist with various Canadian orchestras. Chalifour and two of his Philharmonic colleagues, Joanne Pearce Martin and Peter Stumpf, met in 1981 while all three were studying at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia; they have joined forces to form the Los Angeles Philharmonic Piano Trio.
Martin Chalifour is a professor at the University of Southern California’s Thornton School of Music.