Concert Details

Ricardo Morales, clarinet with Natalie Zhu, piano and Efe Baltacigil, cello

Monday, December 1, 2008 - 8:00 PM

Price: $23.00

American Philosophical Society

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Ricardo Morales, clarinet with Natalie Zhu, piano and Efe Baltacigil, cello Photo

Debussy: Premiere Rhapsodie
Thomas Dunhill: Phantasy Suite
Bernstein: Clarinet Sonata
INTERMISSION

Zemlinsky: Trio in D Minor
for Clarinet, Cello, and Piano, Op. 3

Morales, Zhu, and Baltacigil

"The aura of delicacy was reinforced by Ms. Zhu, a pianist with wonderful technique and musical instincts who evidently has never heard a piano tone that she could not make more beautiful" (The New York Times)

Hailed by The New York Times as having "utterly natural musical grace and the lyricism and breath control of a fine opera singer,” Ricardo Morales joins PCMS on Monday, December 1 at 8 pm. Beginning studies at the Escuela Libra de Musica in his native Puerto Rico, Morales was appointed principal clarinet of the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra at the age of 21. He now holds that same position in the Philadelphia Orchestra, and he has also performed at the Kennedy Center, the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center.

Accompanying Morales are pianist Natalie Zhu and cellist Efe Baltacigil. Zhu, who began performing as a child in her native China, is a frequent soloist at the Amelia Island Festival, in addition to appearances at the Marlboro Music and Tanglewood Festivals. Thoughtful, intelligent, and graceful in her playing, Zhu joined the Curtis faculty as staff pianist in 2001 and in 2003 received an Avery Fisher Career Grant and the Andrew Wolf Memorial Chamber Music Award.

Efe Baltacigil has been lauded by The Philadelphia Inquirer as "a highly individualized solo artist" with "gorgeous sound - refined, but with glints of strong personality." Baltacigil has been selected as a member of the European Concert Hall Association's (ECHO) Rising Stars program, performing at the Barbican in London, Vienna Musikverein, Amsterdam Concertgebouw, Brussels Palaix des Beaux Arts, Athens Concert Hall, Stockholm Konzerthuset, and Carnegie Hall in New York. He was awarded an Avery Fisher Career Grant in 2006 and is currently associate principal cellist of the Philadelphia Orchestra.

For more information on these musicians, please visit:

http://www.philorch.org/styles/poa02e/www/bios.php?page=moralesricardo
http://www.nataliezhu.com
http://www.chambermusicsociety.org/artistDetail/44/artistID=408