Wednesday, November 8, 2017

James Kim at Juilliard

Sonatenabend at the Juilliard School


You never know who's going to be playing at the weekly Juilliard sonata recitals but I always hope to see the astounding cellist James Jeonghwan Kim whose fan club I am. Last night, after Chelsea Starbuck Smith polished off the Alfred Schnittke Sonata No. 1 for violin and piano wearing crenellated witches britches and cowboy boots, Jim Kim (as he likes to be known) appeared like the fulfillment of a dying wish and committed all of us for life to his account of Shostakovich's four movement Sonata for Cello and Piano in D Minor. I last heard this played by Rostropovich 20 years ago during a blizzard in Chicago. Afterwards, because of the weather, almost no one stayed for the Q and A so a few of us got to chat with Rostropovich about rehearsing this piece in Moscow with Shotakovich himself. I'd say Jim Kim played it just as well, but then as Jorges, at the Flame Diner, said afterwards, "He is probably already past his prime. One day they come in with a cello, the next day with children and it is all over for them."

Watch James Jeonghwan Kim and Jin Hee Park play Schubert's Arpeggione Sonata, D 821:





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