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Ballade
Samuel Coleridge-Taylor
Ballade in C Minor, Op. 73
Nokothula Ngwenyama,
violin
Mihae Lee, piano
EDI Records 9259 (2005)
J. S. Bach
Partitas
Nokuthula Ngwenyama, viola
Michael Long, guitar
EDI Records 6738
CHE! : A
Musical Biography
Miguel Corella
Nokuthula Ngwenyama, viola
Michael Long, guitar
EDI Records 6254 (2004)
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Nokuthula Ngwenyama
(b. 1976)
African American Violist & Violinist
"One of the Foremost Instrumentalists of
Her Generation"
1
Classical Music's Appeal
Nokuthula Ngwenyama is an American violist and violinist of Zimbabwean and
Japanese descent. She was born June 16, 1976, and grew up in Southern
California. Her earliest musical instruments were the piano and the
violin. She faced resistance at first, as she explains at her Web site,
http://www.ngwenyama.com/new/home.html :
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My father, a Ndebele man from Zimbabwe,
discouraged me from the start. 'Why are you
playing this white man's music?' he would ask.
He didn't understand that this kind of music
spoke to me in a way not affected by race. |
2 Viola Studies & Debut
At the age of 12, young Nokuthula switched from violin to viola because
she was captivated by the sound of the instrument. The Web site
www.AmericanViolaSociety.org describes her early career:
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Nokuthula Ngwenyama is recognized as one
of the foremost instrumentalists of her
generation. Her acclaimed
appearances as soloist, recitalist, and
chamber musician garner great attention, as
she plays 'music beautifully, with dazzling
technique in the virtuoso fast movements and
deep expressiveness in the slow movements
(The Washington Post).'
Ms. Ngwenyama came to international
attention when she won the Primrose
Competition and Young Concert Artists
International Auditions - both at age 17. Her
debut recitals in Washington, D.C. at the
Kennedy Center and in New York at the 92nd
Street 'Y' were widely praised, and in 1997 she
received an Avery Fisher Career Grant.
|
The Web site goes on to say that Ngwenyama graduated
from the Curtis Institute of Music in 1996, and that a Fulbright
Scholarship enabled her to study at the Conservatoire National Superieur
de Musique de Paris.
3 Life Beyond Music
Ngwenyama's interests in life extend beyond music. She completed a
Master's Degree of Theological Studies at Harvard University in 2002,
after studying the religions of Africa and Asia. Her Web site features an
illustrated journal of her first trip to Africa. She met her father's
relatives in Zimbabwe and participated in concerts in that country and in
South Africa.
4 Recordings
EDI Records has released two CDs on which Ngwenyama plays viola or violin
and Michael Long plays guitar: CHE! : A Musical Biography, EDI Records
6254 (2004), composed by Miguel Corella of Spain; and J.S. Bach Partitas, EDI Records 6738.
Nokuthula Ngwenyama plays violin, accompanied on piano
by Mihae Lee, on the CD Ballade, EDI Records 9259 (2005). The program
includes works by Edvard Grieg and Claude Debussy as well as Ballade in C
Minor, Op. 73 (13:36) by the Afro-British composer Samuel Coleridge-Taylor
(1875-1912).
Rubinstein Sonatas
is a forthcoming EDI recording on which Nokuthula Ngwenyama joins forces
with pianist Jennifer
Lim. The works are Rubinstein's Sonata for Violin and Piano,
Op. 13, and Sonata for Viola and Piano, Op. 49. A release
scheduled for September 2007 is Il Principe: Courtly Airs and Dances, with
Nokuthula Ngwenyama, viola; Michael Long, guitar; and David Brewer,
violin.
This page was last updated on
September 15, 2007 |
