Artist Residency Concert

Sarah Rommel, cello
7:30-8:30pm | The Big Barn, Putney VT
Followed by a conversation moderated by Artistic Director Seth Knopp
Free admission | Reserve tickets

The Arioso Project

Sarah Rommel's Arioso Project aims to bring to audiences, through performance and recording, James Simon's Arioso for solo cello, written in 1929 and unknown at the time of the composer's death in Auschwitz. Arioso was dedicated to the cellist Eva Heinitz, who emigrated to the United States and eventually settled in Seattle in 1948, where she became a much-respected and well-known cello professor. The Arioso manuscript is now part of the permanent collection of the University of Washington. Rommel has commissioned five composers (from Iran and the United States) to write a reflection on this piece as a way to "resurrect" it into the present day, through themes of creativity under oppression and in the context of more relevant and contemporary understandings of adversity.

Program

James Simon Arioso
Aftab Darvishi The Ashes are in Flames
Rene Orth Resig Nation for Solo Cello
Hilary Purrington Spine
Kian Ravaei Three Nothings
Derrick Skye Wounds from Roses
James Simon Arioso

About the Artist

Yellow Barn alumna Sarah Rommel is the Third Prize winner of the 2014 George Enescu International Cello Competition and is on the artist roster of Chameleon Arts Ensemble of Boston. She has appeared in solo and chamber music settings as far flung as India and New Zealand, having additionally toured with such prestigious ensembles as Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, East Coast Chamber Orchestra (ECCO), and Musicians from Marlboro. Sarah has participated in Yellow Barn, Ravinia’s Steans Music Institute, and Caramoor’s Evnin Rising Stars Series, and has had the privilege of collaborating with composers John Adams, Sofia Gubaidulina, Steven Mackey, and Kaija Saariaho, pianist Jonathan Biss, violinists Pamela Frank and Donald Weilerstein, and violists Kim Kashkashian and Nobuko Imai. Sarah is the founder and Artistic Director of Jigsaw Chamber Ensemble in Seattle.

Sarah began her musical studies at age nine on piano and was later introduced to the cello through her public school at age twelve. She attended the Curtis Institute of Music, and later pursued graduate studies under the tutelage of renowned pedagogue Ralph Kirshbaum at the University of Southern California. Additional professors include David Geringas, Gary Hoffman, and Hans Jørgen Jensen.