David Finckel and Wu Han – March 19, 2024

Sanibel Music Festival Program Notes from Dr. Richard Rodda for the March 19
David Finckel and Wu Han Concert

Cellist David Finckel and pianist Wu Han are the recipients of Musical America’s Musicians of the Year Award, the highest honor bestowed by the organization. They enjoy a multi-faceted musical life that encompasses performing, recording, and artistic direction at the highest levels. Their concert activities have taken them from New York’s stages to the most important concert halls in the United States, Europe and Asia. They regularly perform a wide range of music that includes the standard repertoire for cello and piano, commissioned works by living composers, and virtually the entire chamber music literature for their instruments.
In 1997, David Finckel and Wu Han founded ArtistLed, the first internet-based, artist-controlled classical recording label. ArtistLed’s catalog of more than 20 releases includes the standard literature for cello and piano, plus works composed for the duo by George Tsontakis, Gabriela Lena Frank, Bruce Adolphe, Lera Auerbach, Edwin Finckel, Augusta Read Thomas, and Pierre Jalbert. Artistic Directors of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center since 2004, they recently led the 53-year vanguard organization through two pandemic seasons, conceiving and producing over 270 digital events that sustained chamber music communities across the country. A 2022 contract extension positions them to become the longest-serving artistic directors in the Society’s history. Founders, and Artistic Directors of Silicon Valley’s Music@Menlo since 2002, the festival’s innovative thematic programming and educational initiatives have set an example that is admired internationally. The festival’s exclusive recording label, Music@Menlo LIVE, has to date released over 130 audiophile-quality CDs.
Passionately dedicated to education for musicians of all ages and experience, the duo was instrumental in transforming the CMS Two Program into today’s Bowers Program, which admits stellar young musicians to the CMS roster for a term of three seasons. They also oversee the Chamber Music Institute at Music@Menlo, which immerses some forty young musicians every summer in the multi-faceted fabric of the festival. The duo was privileged to serve on multiple occasions as faculty members of Isaac Stern’s Chamber Music Encounters in Israel, New York, and Japan. In addition, the Resource section of their website (davidfinckelandwuhan.com/resource) provides, at no cost, a wealth of guidance for students on both music study and careers, as well as invaluable information for arts organizations and individuals on every aspect of concert presenting.
Born in Taiwan, Wu Han came to the United States as a graduate student, where her talent quickly came to the attention of noted musicians. Mentored by legendary pianists such as Lilian Kallir, Menahem Pressler, and Rudolf Serkin, Wu Han thrived at the Marlboro and Aspen Music Festivals and subsequently won the prestigious Andrew Wolf Award. She currently serves as Artistic Advisor for Wolf Trap’s Chamber Music at the Barns series and for Palm Beach’s Society of the Four Arts, and in 2022 was named Artistic Director of La Musica in Sarasota, Florida. David Finckel was raised in New Jersey, where he spent his teenage years winning competitions, among them the Philadelphia Orchestra’s junior and senior divisions, resulting in two performances with the orchestra. The first American student of Mstislav Rostropovich, David Finckel went on to become the cellist of the Emerson String Quartet, which, during David’s 34-season tenure, garnered nine Grammy Awards and the Avery Fisher Prize. David is a professor at both the Juilliard School and Stony Brook University.

David Finckel and Wu Han married in 1985 and divide their time between touring and residences in New York City and Westchester County.

© Dr. Richard E. Rodda 2023

Reviews David Finckel and Wu Han

“Wu Han and David Finckel have made it their life’s work to define the genre of chamber music — or perhaps to greatly expand the definition it already had. As directors of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, these two powerhouses have, over a period of decades, had an enormous, worldwide impact on chamber music — old and new — and have actually helped shape how people think about it in the 21st century. Each season, they present about 200 concerts, lectures, master classes, and outreach events.”
– The Berkshire Eagle

“Mr. Finckel and Wu Han gave eloquent and deeply committed performances. He played with a deep and burnished tone and she with a sparkling virtuosity. Best of all was how keenly they listened to each other.”
– The New York Times

“In the chamber music world they are rock stars.”
– Chamber Music America

“This irrepressible husband and wife team has initiated a quiet revolution in music often regarded as too rarefied to attract a large following. They are changing that perception and garnering new fans… And they have done it through sheer determination and elbow grease.”
– Musical America

“Since taking over the [The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center] in 2004, the husband and wife team of cellist David Finckel and pianist Wu Han has forged it into an unstoppable entity—an exploding star in the musical firmament. Its directors seem incapable of anything but success.”
– The Wall Street Journal
“Finckel and Han deserve a standing ovation… I suspect many ‘music types’ don’t fully appreciate the type of entrepreneurial talent it takes to create a Music@Menlo out of thin air. Somehow the two New York-based musicians saw the potential of Silicon Valley to support and sustain a world-class chamber music festival—then proceeded to convert that dream into reality. Very few people, especially top-caliber musicians, are capable of doing that.
– Music Matters
“Superb…a musical experience that was at once vibrant, beautiful and intellectually stimulating.”
– San Francisco Chronicle

“Mr. Finckel and Wu Han gave eloquent and deeply committed performances. He played with a deep and burnished tone and she with a sparkling virtuosity. Best of all was how keenly they listened to each other.”
– The New York Times

“When a pair of genuine artists explodes on the stage, exuding not only glamour and theatrical flair but also superb musical insight, the audience’s thrill is twofold. It was a performance in which lyricism and virtuosity shared equal roles, but what made it particularly memorable was the degree of exquisitely intimate ensemble achieved by Finckel and pianist Wu Han, with spontaneity, vigor and seamless melody. Breathtaking!”
– The Washington Post

“Finckel and Wu Han displayed tight ensemble and exceptional accompaniment of each other and their expression of the heroic spirit of this music was most impressive…The key here is that heroes take risks, they live on the edge.”
– The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

“Finckel and Han are top-notch, well-matched individual performers. Finckel possesses a robust sound with a beautiful, earthy bottom and an authoritative, compelling performance style, and Han brings seemingly boundless technique and appealing zestfulness to her playing.”
– Chicago Sun-Times

“There was a sense of absolute certainty in the way cellist and pianist completed each other’s sentences, yet their long familiarity with each other’s musical responses did not rob their performances of freshness, spontaneity or directness… …this was deep, life-giving music. The playing of both was polished, even breathtakingly virtuosic.”
– Chicago Tribune
“Partners in music and in life, Finckel and Wu Han surmount all the formidable technical, tonal, and musical challenges and play with absolute security, conviction, and authority. The playing of both was polished, even breathtakingly virtuosic.”
– Strings
“To be sure, the couple still knows how to bring down the house…”
– Boston Musical Intelligencer

“This chamber music duo is an inspired pairing, conversant with the material and each other’s motions. Finckel makes his instrument sing with a natural eloquence, at once muscular and supple. Han, for her part, dispatches musical material without flinching and without losing emotional mooring.”
– The Los Angeles Times

“It’s hard to imagine a piano trio playing on a higher level of technical accomplishment and musical expressivity than the Finckel-Han-Setzer Trio.”
– The Dallas Morning News

“Together their playing was almost startlingly intimate. Imitative lines whispered to each other, inner voices spoke out quietly, and everything proceeded with the lightest of touch and with amazing transparency. Their ensemble is seamless…”
– The Washington Post

“The music unfolded like a spontaneous, heady conversation among three intimate friends. Performances don’t get more exciting than this. The program, showcasing Schubert’s two piano trios, offered a thrilling combination of technical prowess and almost telepathic communication onstage. Throughout the evening we felt the performers’ sheer delight in making music together.”
– Chicago Classical Review