Bachianas Brasileiras

More live recordings have been added to the Performance Library: the Prelúdio (Modinha) from Villa Lobos' Bachianas Brasileiras No. 1 (1930) and the Aria (Cantilena) from the Bachianas Brasileiras No. 5 (1938). Both performances were part of Bion's concert in Bates Recital Hall celebrating his first 10 years at UT. The marathon concert featured the debut of the Longhorn Cellos, which Prof. Tsang directs and which appears in these selections. To listen to the performances (and others) in their entirety, Launch the Music Player.

A dazzling concert by Meyers-Tsang-Nel trio

Concert Review

Dallas Morning News Dallas, TX October 20, 2012

PLANO — Pity the poor musicians who’ll be reviewed in the weeks after Saturday night’s concert. Violinist Anne Akiko Meyers, cellist Bion Tsang and pianist Anton Nel set a standard of technical brilliance and sophisticated expressivity rarely encountered anywhere.

It’s too bad the concert, presented by the Asian American Chamber Music Society at St. Andrew United Methodist Church, wasn’t better publicized. (I learned about it from Nel’s posting on Facebook.) It would have gotten a rave review at Carnegie Hall.

All three musicians have significant concert careers, Meyers’ the highest-profile. Tsang and Nel are both on the music faculty of the University of Texas at Austin.

Singly, in pairs and all together, they made the music seem a living, breathing organism. Tension and release were suavely managed, as were interplays between players. In an age plagued by so much overplaying, nothing was ever forced; nuances of piano and pianissimo ravished the ear.

Nel, the only musician who played every work, opened with a solo piece: Granados’ Allegro de concierto, served up with apparently effortless virtuosity but also generous rubato where called for. Then he and Tsang made a riveting case for Britten’s C major Sonata for cello and piano.

Composed for the late Mstislav Rostropovich, this comprises five movements of amazing invention. In the opening “Dialogo,” two-note motifs eventually spin out scales. Succeeding movements explore pizzicato chatters, high cello keenings over pounding piano chords, hushed arpeggios against piano tinklings, glissandos and a final fury of bow bouncings.

Playing with a tone of silken beauty, Tsang made some very challenging music sound utterly natural; Nel seemed to have limitless reserves of dynamics and color. Both evinced exquisite sensitivity to timing, pivotal notes placed just so.

Meyers and Nel brought out every possible nuance in the Ravel Violin Sonata: mysterious interplays, sultry blues, virtuoso skitterings. Soulful moments in the first movement were breathtakingly beautiful.

Meyers’ tone was so big and brilliant that in the Anton Arensky Piano Trio I feared for balances with Tsang’s subtle and refined sound. But adjustments were made, and it’s hard to imagine a more accomplished or more emotionally generous performance of this classic of high-humidity, heavy-breathing late romanticism.

A richly deserved standing ovation was rewarded with a dreamy Astor Piazzola Oblivion.

Wow. What a concert.

By Scott Cantrell

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Bion Tsang celebrates 10 years of cello mastery at UT faculty recital

Concert Preview

CultureMap Austin Austin, TX September 12, 2012

I'I'm going to let you all in on one of the best kept secrets of music school students at universities worldwide. It's called the “faculty recital.”

Faculty recitals are awesome for these reasons:

1. They are always either really cheap or free. 2. Faculty members are playing so the quality of performance is top notch. 3. It’s a good way to get to know the chamber music (music for small groups of instruments, string quartets rather than big ensembles like symphonies, or soprano and piano pieces rather than huge casts like operas) repertoire and hear it live. 4. Small venue equals better seats.

If you would like to experience the faculty recital for yourself, this Friday’s chamber music marathon celebrating cellist Bion Tsang’s 10-year anniversary on faculty at The University of Texas at Austin Butler School of Music would be the perfect place to start.

“What attracts me the most about teaching at the Butler School of Music and living in Austin is the incredible support that I get from the community,” said Bion. “It is so clear that the people here love their artists and everything we do.”

The concert features Butler School of Music faculty Patrick Hughes, Kristin Jensen, Anton Nel, Rick Rowley, David Small, Nathan Williams, Sandy Yamamoto, DaXun Zhang and the Miró Quartet as well as guests Mela Dailey, Amy Levine-Tsang and John Novacek. The diverse program will include works by Bach, Boccherini, Mozart, Novacek, Schubert, Vaughan Williams and Villa-Lobos.

It will also be the debut of UT Cellos, the first all-cello ensemble (16 cellos!) at the University of Texas, which will perform works by Villa Lobos under the direction of Austin Symphony's Peter Bay.

When I asked Bion what he had in mind for the future, he said, “This concert celebrates my first 10 years at UT, and I so look forward to the next 10. As for the future, I'm thinking of changing the name to the Longhorn Cellos. Shall we take a poll?”

By Joelle Zigman

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Bion Tsang on 10 Years at the Butler School of Music

Concert Preview

ATX Classical Austin, TX September 10, 2012

It was Bion Tsang’s debut with the Austin Symphony Orchestra in Dvořák’s Cello Concerto last season that earned him the 2012 Austin Critic’s Table Award for Outstanding Symphonic Performance.

Luke Quinton at the Statesman wrote that his interpretation “kept the crowd on the edge of its seat” and Robert Faires at the Chronicle poetically envisioned Tsang swashing and buckling his way through the work “like a great actor playing Cyrano de Bergerac.”

This Friday, Tsang will be in the spotlight again as he celebrates his first ten years with the Butler School of Music in a special chamber concert at Bates Recital Hall.

“I wanted to kick off my next ten years here by collaborating with as many of my Butler School of Music colleagues as possible,” Tsang writes in an email to ATXclassical. “Chamber music is such a vital component of my performing career outside of Austin. It’s often difficult to coordinate schedules with my BSOM colleagues to perform together on campus. With such happy feelings about teaching and living in Austin, I was determined to make it work.”

It is perhaps a fitting tribute to celebrate ten years of teaching during this year’s National Arts Education Week (Sept. 9-15). Tsang stresses the importance of performing artists teaching a future generation of musicians.

“Performing classical music is an aural craft and physical endeavor that, much like sports, can’t be taught by reading a manual or watching a video,” he writes. “If we performers want keep our art alive, we must continue the tradition of passing down hands-on what we know to the next generation. The great performing musicians that I admired the most growing up—historical figures such as Pablo Casals, Gregor Piatigorsky, Jascha Heifetz and Leonard Bernstein—were also important educators and pedagogues.”

Classical music is alive and well in Austin, and Tsang thinks the strong presence of students and faculty might have something to do with this.

“Maybe I’m biased,” he writes, “but I like to think that the UT Butler School of Music has something to do with the vibrancy of the Austin classical music scene. I feel blessed to be part of such a collection of talent. And we have such generous, proactive contributors within the local community who help the university and BSOM attract and retain such talent in Austin.”

This Friday’s concert features works by Bach, Boccherini, Mozart, Novacek, Schubert, Vaughan Williams and Villa-Lobos. The concert also will be webcast live via the Butler School of Music website.

By Marc van Bree

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Bion Tsang at Blue Rock

Bion Tsang just completed his “encores” recording sessions at Blue Rock Artist Ranch and Studio. He recorded 19 short show pieces for cello and piano with pianist Cecilia Kao. Andy Murphy of Panda Productions engineered the audio while Sam Roden and Nick Hartanto of Rodanti Bros. Films shot video. With all the audio recorded in the first two days, the third day was spent primarily capturing video for a short film linked to the track “Figaro.” Bion’s two boys, Bailey and Henry, were the principal actors. Look for the recording “Bion Tsang at Blue Rock” to be released by the end of 2016.