Evan Kahn Announces First (of two) Graduate Recitals

Regular readers may recall that, a little over a year ago, cellist Evan Kahn was featured as soloist at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music (SFCM) when Eric Dudley conducted the Conservatory Orchestra in a performance of Dmitri Shostakovich’s Opus 107 (first) cello concerto in E-flat major. Kahn is pursuing a Master’s degree in Chamber Music with cellist Jennifer Culp; and anyone fortunate to have been at that concerto performance may still remember the intense fearlessness that he took in jumping through all the hoops that Shostakovich had set up for him. (Actually, Shostakovich set them up for Mstislav Rostropovich; but they have remained in place for future generations of cellists.)

Kahn is now on the final stretch of his studies; and, at the beginning of next month, he will give the first of his two graduate recitals. He has prepared a program of chamber music, both solo and with piano accompaniment, and two concerto movements (also with piano accompaniment). Indeed, his program will enlist three different pianists in three different settings.

Kahn will open his recital with Brahms’ own arrangement of his Opus 78, originally his first violin sonata in G major, called the “Regensonate” (rain sonata) due to his appropriation from his “Regenlied,” the first in his Opus 59 collection of eight songs. The cello version was transposed into the key of D major. Kahn will play the first movement of this arrangement accompanied by Christopher Basso at the piano. He will then conclude the first half of the program with Johann Sebastian Bach’s solo cello suite in C minor, BWV 1011.

The second half will consist primarily of two concerto movements. Kahn will begin with the opening movement from Robert Schumann’s Opus 129 concerto in A minor, accompanied by Hye Young Min. This will be followed by the opening movement of Samuel Barber’s Opus 22 concerto (also in the key of A minor), with accompanist Margaret Halbig. The program will conclude with two of the twelve Opus 25 caprices for solo cello composed by Carlo Alfredo Piatti, the seventh and the tenth.

This recital will begin at 7:30 p.m. on Monday, December 4. SFCM is located at 50 Oak Street, about halfway between Van Ness Avenue and Franklin Street. This is a short walk from the Van Ness Muni station. The event will be free, and neither tickets nor reservations will be required.