FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Wu Han LIVE III  is the third collaborative release between the ArtistLed and Music@Menlo  LIVE  labels. Showcasing the extraordinary artistry of the festival’s musicians, the recordings for this Music@Menlo  LIVE  offering are selected from the rich catalog of thirteen seasons of Music@Menlo festival performances. This special release features moving performances of Fauré’s dazzling piano quartets from previous Music@Menlo festivals. Artists featured in collaboration with Wu Han are violinists Chad Hoopes and Arnaud Sussmann , violists Paul Neubauer and Richard O’Neill , and cellists Clive Greensmith and Dmitri Atapine . Wu Han  LIVE  III was recorded and remastered by the Grammy award-winning sound engineer and producer, Da-Hong Seetoo.

Program

FAURE: THE PIANO QUARTETS

Piano Quartet No. 1 in c minor, Op.15

Clive Greensmith, cello; Paul Neubauer, viola; Chad Hoopes, violin; Wu Han, piano

Piano Quartet No. 2 in g minor, Op. 45

Dmitri Atapine, cello; Arnaud, Sussmann, violin; Richard O’Neill, viola; Wu Han, piano

About Wu Han

Co-Artistic Director of the Chamber Music Society, pianist Wu Han is among the most esteemed and influential classical musicians in the world today. She is a recipient of Musical America’s Musician of the Year award and has risen to international prominence through her wide-ranging activities as a concert performer, recording artist, educator, arts administrator, and cultural entrepreneur. In high demand as a recitalist, soloist, and chamber musician, Wu Han appears at many of the world’s most prestigious venues, and performs extensively as duo partner with cellist David Finckel. Together, they co-founded ArtistLed, classical music’s first musician-directed and Internet-based recording company, whose catalogue has won widespread critical praise. Recent recordings include a set of three Wu Han  LIVE  albums, a collaborative production between the ArtistLed and Music@Menlo  LIVE  labels. Complementing her work as a performing artist, Wu Han artistic partnerships bring her to new audiences here and abroad: she is Artistic Advisor of The Wolf Trap Foundation for the Performing Arts’ Chamber Music at the Barns series, Co-Founder and Artistic Director of Music@Menlo Chamber Music Festival and Institute in Silicon Valley, and served as Co-Artistic Director for Chamber Music Today in Seoul, Korea. In recognition of her passionate commitment to music education, Montclair State University has appointed her a special Artist in Residence this season.

Music@Menlo  LIVE , the festival’s exclusive recording label, has received rave reviews from critics and customers alike. The label, launched in 2003, has been praised as a “breakthrough” (Billboard) and “probably the most ambitious recording project of any classical music festival in the world” (San Jose Mercury News). One critic hailed Music@Menlo  L IVE ’s recordings as “without question the best CDs I have ever heard” (Positive Feedback Online). Music@Menlo’s recordings are engineered and produced by  Da-Hong Seetoo   using state-of-the-art recording technology.

ArtistLed, an independent recording company established by cellist David Finckel and pianist Wu Han in 1997, is an enterprise which evolved out of the desire of two musicians to produce recordings in an environment free from constraints: artistic, commercial, technical and procedural. ArtistLed is not as much a company as a means for musicians to record what they want the way they want, and to offer their records directly to the public. The musicians are controlling participants in every aspect of the recording process, from selecting the repertoire and recording venue to setting the sound, running the sessions, constructing the edits, and determining the final mix. The result is a performance which combines the excitement and spontaneity of a live concert with the sonic and musical perfection expected of a studio recording. To date, ArtistLed has released twenty- one recordings, all to critical acclaim.



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