Picture above: Emmanuel Borowsky (violin), Dr Robert McMahan, Cecylia Barczyk (cello)

A special concert featuring violinist Emmanuel Borowsky, cellist Cecylia Barczyk, and accordionist Dr Robert Young McMahan, will take place at the Mildred and Ernest E. Mayo Concert Hall, The College of New Jersey on February 3, 2018 at 8:00 PM. Admission is free.

The program includes:
“Passacaglia in G Minor on a Theme” by Georg Friedrich Händel (1897),
for violin and cello…….by Johan Halvorsen (1864-1935)

“Triologue” (2003), for violin, cello, and accordion…….. by Lukas Foss (1922-2009)
“Bambuco Almirante” (1955), for violin and cello ………. by Alberto Acosta Ortega
“Spanish Rhapsody, op 9” for solo violin…….. by Jaroslav Vanĕc̆ ek, (1920-2011)
“Introduction and Allegro” (1955), for cello and accordion..by Matyas Seiber (1905-60)
INTERMISSION 10 Minutes
“2 Chôros bis, W227, for violin and cello”…….. by Heitor Villa-Lobos (1887-1959)
I. “Moderé”

II. “Lent – Animè”
“Prelude and Sarabande” (1963), for accordion solo ….. by George Kleinsinger (1914-82)
“Dance Suite for Two” (2012) ……… by Edward McGuire (b. 1928)
I. Courante

II. Air & Slip Jig

III. Hebridean Dolphins

IV. Jig: Lassies O’Stevenston
“Romp 5” (2017), for violin, cello, and accordion ……. by Robert Young McMahan (b.1944)

The bowed string family and the accordion share a high level of expressivity, dynamic range, and nuance in both sustained and moving musical passages largely due to their similar dependence on either moving bellows or bows to produce sound. These features, plus an additionally shared virtuosic capability and a wide assortment of timbral and idiomatic special effects, allow for a unique variety of interesting sonic combinations and contrasts.

The selections on this evening’s program are similarly varied and unique, and we hope that they will bring to the listener a new and interesting experience when the bows and the bellows meet (and, in a few instances, when they do not).

The Artists:
Emmanuel Borowsky began his violin studies at the age of four, and by the age of eight was regularly invited to perform concerts around the USA and abroad. At age twelve, he completed a six-week tour of Israel and Jordan, and represented North America at the World Child Prodigies Concert in Amman. At thirteen, he received the distinguished Cultural Achievement Award from UNESCO, and at fifteen was featured on the nationally-syndicated radio show, From the Top. Mr. Borowsky gave his Carnegie Hall debut recital at seventeen, and then performed for an audience of over 100,000 people at the World Youth Day in Cologne, Germany.

Mr. Borowsky holds degrees from the Icelandic Academy of the Arts and Indiana University (B.M., M.M.). He is currently completing a Doctorate of Musical Arts at the The University of Maryland. His teachers have included Erick Friedman, Dorothy DeLay, Roman Totenberg, Zoltan Szabo, Guðný Guðmundsdóttir, Jamie Laredo, Mark Kaplan, Menaham Pressler, and James Stern.

Cecylia Barczyk has achieved international recognition as a complete artist, successful teacher, and humanitarian. She has given concerts, recitals, and master classes throughout Europe, Asia, North and South America and has appeared as a soloist with prominent orchestras including those of Amman, Baltimore, Beijing, Berlin, Boston, Berlin, Bucharest, Budapest, Jakarta, Leipzig, London, Moscow, New York, Prague, Rio de Janeiro, Salvador, Seoul, Shanghai, Sofia, St. Petersburg, Taiwan, Tel Aviv, Tianjin, Tokyo, and Warsaw. She has frequently performed on radio and television and has recorded much of the standard and new cello literature on the Muza, ICRecords, Melodya, Relief, and CRS labels.

She won prizes in prestigious music competitions including the Danczowski Cello Competition (Poznan), Pablo Casals Cello Competition (Budapest), Tchaikovsky Competition (Moscow), Aldo Parisot International Cello Competition (Brazil), J.S. Bach International Competition (Leipzig), Cassado International Cello Competition (Florence), and W.C. Byrd Young Artists Competition (Michigan). She is on the faculty of Towson University and directs the annual International Cello Festival. In 2003 she was appointed Artistic Director of the International Music Institute and Festival USA

Dr. Robert Young McMahan is Professor of Music and Coordinator of Music Theory and Composition Studies, as well as of the Accordion major, at The College of New Jersey. A native of Washington DC, he studied accordion with the noted artist Louis Coppola and music composition with Robert Hall Lewis, Stefans Grové, and Jean Eichelberger Ivey at The Peabody Institute of The Johns Hopkins University.

He is an award winning composer, noted and recorded classical accordionist, and published music researcher, and is active as both a classical accordionist and composer in a number of contemporary music venues in the middle states region. He presently serves as an officer of the American Accordionists’ Association and the Chair of its Composers Commissioning Committee. (All of the works for or including accordion on this evening’s program, excepting Romp 5, were commissioned by the AAA).mm

In addition to his own music, he has premiered the accordion works of many notable composers, including Ernst Krenek, Lukas Foss, and Samuel Adler, and recently co-wrote the new entry for the accordion with Adler in the latest edition of the latter’s noted orchestration textbook, “The Study of Orchestration”.

Outside of these activities, Dr. McMahan is also a recognized authority on the American composer, Carl Ruggles, and is presently working on reconstructing portions of that composer’s unfinished opera, “The Sunken Bel”l.