PROGRAM
Gabriel Fauré - Cello Sonata No. 2 in G minor Op. 117 (1921)
Ludwig van Beethoven - Cello Sonata No. 2 in G minor Op. 5 No. 2 (1796)
Sergei Rachmaninoff - Cello Sonata in G minor Op. 19 (1901)
Andrew Briggs - Cello and Ari Livne - Piano
ARI’S BIO
Ari Livne is a classically trained pianist, actor, and versatile performer based in New York City, who loves to tell stories with and about music. Ari cares deeply about creating a warm, welcoming environment for audiences. Whether his concerts center around a single composer, a theme, or a moment in history, he always provides a unifying principle that the audience can settle into. Some performances delve deeply into the repertoire of a single composer: he performed the complete Rachmaninoff Etudes Tableaux in Elebash Hall and presented a lecture-recital on the Goldberg Variations at the Bridenthal Concert Series. Others focus on new music: he has premiered new works by the composer Cyrus Von Hochstetter and performed the American premiers of works by Peter Maxwell Davies and Volodymyr Runchak, the latter at the Ukrainian Contemporary Music Festival in 2020.
Ari is also an avid collaborator and chamber musician. He recently completed a second tour of Japan with violinist Sho Omagari, performing in nine cities and doing outreach concerts at more than twenty schools and hospitals. He has appeared twice with the Aurea Ensemble in Providence, RI. His duo with cellist Clare Monfredo has spent two summers at the Avaloch Farm Music Institute and performed interactive recitals in New York, NY; Ellsworth, ME; Hudson, NY; and Philadelphia, PA.
He also recently presented programs centered around Schoenberg’s Book of Hanging Gardens and Faure’s La chanson d’Ève with mezzo-soprano Sophie Delphis in Brooklyn, NY and Concord, NH. Ari holds degrees from Yale University and The Juilliard School. He has studied acting with John Anthony and Eric Tucker, singing with Kayla Green, and more recently discovered the joy of clown school with Christopher Bayes.
ANDREWS BIO
Praised as “an artist with an already expanding reputation and a bright future” (The Well-Tempered Ear), cellist Andrew Briggs has recently appeared as a soloist and chamber musician at the Radio France Montpellier Festival, the Bridging Arts Festival (Nuremberg, Germany), and the Opus 16 Concerten (Netherlands).
Highlights of recent seasons include solo and chamber music performances at the Fontainebleau Festival, performances of Dvořák’s Cello Concerto with several orchestras, and concerts at Carnegie Hall with the New York String Orchestra Seminar. He has also performed chamber music with Gregor Horsch, principal cellist of the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, and has served as principal cellist with the Orchestre Symphonique de Bretagne and the Juilliard Chamber Orchestra.
A graduate of the Juilliard School, Andrew moved to Paris as a recipient of the Harriet Hale Woolley Scholarship from the Fondation des États-Unis, where he further explored the works of Duport, Debussy, and Poulenc. He later joined the Cité internationale des arts, dedicating two years to projects centered on Beethoven’s works for cello and world music collaborations with Ensemble Kimya. He performs regularly as a soloist, as principal cellist of Ensemble Atmosphères, and with the cello sections of the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France and the Orchestre National d’Île-de-France, as well as appearing as co-principal cellist with the Orchestre National de Metz.
arilivne.com; @arilivne andrewbriggscello.com, @andrewbriggscello