NATCHITOCHES – Northwestern State University faculty member Chialing Hsieh will join guest artist Nathan Nabb of Stephen F. Austin State University for a recital on Wednesday, March 17 at 7:30 p.m. in Magale Recital Hall.
The performance is for NSU students, faculty and staff only. Audience size is limited to 72. Masks and social distancing are required. The performances will be livestreamed at capa.nsula.edu/livestream.
The recital will feature French music from 1885 to 1950 with Hsieh on piano and Nabb on saxophone. They will perform “Sonata in C# for Alto Saxophone and Piano” by Fernande Decruck, “Petite Suite” by Claude Debussy and “Sonata No. 1, Op. 75” for Violin and Piano by Camille Saint-Saëns.
Hsieh says the piece by DeCruck, a female French composer, is the only one on the program that is composed for saxophone. The second piece is originally for piano duet (4 hands) and the last piece was originally for violin and piano. The transcriptions are quite challenging for saxophone as string (Sonata by Saint-Saëns) and piano (Petite Suite by Debussy) do not need breathing places.
An avid performer of contemporary music, pianist Chialing Hsieh is devoted to promoting new piano solo and chamber works. Hsieh has been a featured pianist on seven CD’s for the Centaur, Innova, Enharmonic and Ballpark record labels. Hsieh has received several grants to promote new American music, including an Artist Enrichment Grant from the Kentucky Foundation for Women.
A sought after collaborative pianist, Hsieh has performed with members of the New York Philharmonic, Chicago Symphony Orchestra and Lyric Opera Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, National Symphony Orchestra of Taiwan and the symphony orchestras of Detroit, Cleveland, St. Louis, Minnesota and Memphis. She has performed with the faculty of Julliard, Northwestern University, New England Conservatory, University of Cincinnati and Arizona State University. She joined NSU’s faculty in 2016.
Nabb maintains a vibrant and diverse international schedule as a performer, clinician and teacher. A regular performer with the St. Louis and Houston symphonies, he has worked with renowned conductors Michael Tilson-Thomas, David Robertson, Hans Graf, Marin Alsop, Michael Stern and Keith Lockhart. His solo and chamber recordings on the Amp, BIS and Innova labels have clearly positioned Nabb as a bold champion of new music, featuring acclaimed performances of composers ranging from Luciano Berio and Milton Babbitt to Philip Glass and Mari Takano.
In addition to other engagements with the Minnesota Orchestra, New World Symphony and IRIS Chamber Orchestra, Nabb performed in the second major staging of John Adams’ “Nixon in China” in 2004. As a chamber musician, Nabb is the soprano chair of the Oasis Quartet whose debut recording was released in the spring of 2011 on Innova Recordings. His solo CD, “Tangled Loops,” was released in 2009 on AMP Recordings.
