Mio Takahashi & Sherri Lun

Performers

Notes on the performers

Born in 2001, Japanese violinist Mio Takahashi moved to London at the age of three. She is currently pursuing her master’s degree at the Royal Academy of Music (RAM) under Professor Philippe Honoré, after completing her Bachelor of Music there, graduating with first-class honours. She is a recipient of The Clarence Myerscough Trust Award 23-24. Mio was a strings category finalist of the BBC Young Musician of the Year 2020, where her playing was described as ‘gorgeous and effortless’. In February 2022, she gave the world premiere of Shinuh Lee’s Caprice No.4 for violin, ‘Totentanz’, as part of RAM’s 200 PIECES series, launched to celebrate the Academy’s bicentenary.

Passionate about chamber music, Mio frequently performs with her quartet who were selected to be Britten Pears Young Artists for 23-24, and most recently won the RAM Harold Craxton Prize alongside pianist Sherri Lun. They receive regular coaching from John Myerscough, cellist of the Doric String Quartet, through the RAM Advanced Specialist Strings Ensemble Training Scheme, generously funded by the Frost Trust. They have been invited to perform with Brett Dean at the Calne Music and Arts Festival in October 2024.

Other previous festivals she has been invited to are the Mendelssohn-on-Mull festival, where she collaborated with the Doric String Quartet, and the Hatfield House Chamber Music Festival, performing Mendelssohn Octet with the Carducci Quartet, Guy Johnston and Magnus Johnston. She has also performed at Conway Hall with Roger Vignoles and James Gilchrist.

Mio was accepted onto the London Symphony Orchestra String Experience Scheme, gaining the opportunity to perform in their 2022-2023 season, working under conductors Marin Alsop, François-Xavier Roth and Michael Tilson Thomas. She has also performed with Knussen Chamber Orchestra in the Aldeburgh Festival 2022, under the baton of Ryan Wigglesworth.

Sherri Lun was named ‘2020 Performing Artist of the Year’ by South China Morning Post. Graduating from the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts Junior Music Programme, she now studies under Prof. Christopher Elton at the Royal Academy of Music with a prestigious scholarship from RAM and the Hong Kong Scholarship for Excellence Scheme. She is also a KNS Classical and Keyboard Charitable Trust Artist.

Selected as a Young Scholar of the Lang Lang International Music Foundation in 2013, Sherri made her concerto debut at Ravinia Festival with the Midwest Young Artists. Subsequent performances took her to renowned venues such as Millennium Park (Chicago) and Fondation Louis Vuitton (Paris), collaborating with ensembles including the Salzburg Chamber Soloists, Hong Kong Youth Orchestra, and Kölner Kammerorchester. Sherri has participated in various festivals including Oxford, Pianale, Frost Chopin, Beijing International Music Festival, and most recently the Hammerklavier Recital Series in Spain. At the Royal Academy, she won consecutively the 2022 Sterndale Bennett Prize, 2023 Chung Nung Lee Prize, and 2024 Harold Craxton Prize. She was invited to perform in the 2022 Bicentenary celebration concert of RAM in Wigmore Hall.

Sherri is also a prize-winner in international competitions including Robert Schumann Competition (Düsseldorf), Zhuhai Mozart, ASEAN Chopin, Singapore, and Steinway & Sons Youth Piano Competition. Her performance has been broadcasted by the Radio Television Hong Kong. In December 2023, she finished a 4-recital tour in Malaysia, and released her debut album (‘Romantic Reveries’) with KNS Classical. Upcoming season highlights include recitals in London, Spain, Italy, and Hong Kong. More information available on her website.

Programme

Programme notes

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Violin Sonata No.18 in G major, K.301

1. Allegro con spirito
2. Allegro

Violin Sonata No. 18 in G major (K. 301/293a) was composed by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart in March 1778 in Mannheim, Germany, and was first published in the same year as part of Mozart’s Opus 1 collection, which was dedicated to Countess Palatine Elisabeth Auguste of Sulzbach and are consequently known as the Palatine Sonatas (Kurfürstin Sonaten).

Source: Wikipedia

Claude Debussy

Violin Sonata in G minor

1. Allegro vivo
2. Intermède: Fantasque et léger
3. Finale: Très animé

The sonata for violin and piano in G minor, L. 140, was written in 1917. It was the composer’s last major composition and is notable for its brevity; a typical performance lasts about 13 minutes. The premiere took place on 5 May 1917, the violin part played by Gaston Poulet, with Debussy himself at the piano. It was his last public performance.

Source: Wikipedia

J. Brahms (1833-1897)

Scherzo in C Minor, from the FAE Sonata

1. Scherzo

The F-A-E Sonata, a four-movement work for violin and piano, is a collaborative musical work by three composers: Robert Schumann, the young Johannes Brahms, and Schumann’s pupil Albert Dietrich. It was composed in Düsseldorf in October 1853.

The sonata was Schumann’s idea as a gift and tribute to violinist Joseph Joachim, whom the three composers had recently befriended. Joachim had adopted the Romantic German phrase “Frei aber einsam” (“free but lonely”) as his personal motto. The composition’s movements are all based on the musical notes F-A-E, the motto’s initials, as a musical cryptogram.

Schumann assigned each movement to one of the composers. Dietrich wrote the substantial first movement in sonata form. Schumann followed with a short Intermezzo as the second movement. The Scherzo was by Brahms, who had already proven himself a master of this form in his E flat minor Scherzo for piano and the scherzi in his first two piano sonatas. Schumann provided the finale.

Source: Wikipedia

J. Brahms (1833-1897)

Sonata No.2 for Violin and Piano in A major, Op100

1. Allegro amabile
2. Andante tranquillo — Vivace — Andante — Vivace di più — Andante — Vivace
3. Allegretto grazioso (quasi andante)

The Violin Sonata No. 2 in A major, Op. 100 (“Thun” or “Meistersinger”), by Johannes Brahms was written while spending the summer of 1886 in Thun in the Bernese Oberland, Switzerland.

The second Violin Sonata is the shortest and is considered the most lyrical of Brahms’s three violin sonatas. It is also considered the most difficult of the three to bring off successfully, and to exhibit its balance of lyricism and virtuosity. It maintains a radiant, happy mood throughout.

Source: Wikipedia