7th SFIPF – Opening Night – Fauré Centennial Celebration – Friday, August 23 at 8 pm

The 7th annual San Francisco International Piano Festival opens with a centennial celebration of Gabriel Fauré (1845-1924). Fauré’s oeuvre contains many treasures both beloved and unfamiliar, from the enchanting first Nocturne to the imposing Theme and Variations, the disarming tenderness of the Dolly Suite to the ardor of his first violin sonata. This varied landscape of beauty is truly unique to Fauré’s musical voice.

Festival favorite and authoritative interpreter Gwendolyn Mok will join artistic director Jeffrey LaDeur and special guests including violinist Eric Chin and piano duo Sarah Yuan and Munan Cheng in this opening concert. Bienvenue à tous!

About the artists

Born in New York City, Gwendolyn Mok has appeared in many of the world’s leading concert halls, including the Barbican, Carnegie Hall, the Kennedy Center, Avery Fisher Hall, Alice Tully Hall, Davies Symphony Hall, and the Hong Kong Performing Arts Center. She is frequently invited to play and record with major international orchestras, such as the London Symphony, the Philharmonia, the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra, the Beijing Philharmonic Orchestra and the Residency Orchestra of the Hague.

Ms. Mok is a recording artist for Nonesuch/Elektra, Musical Heritage Society, Musician Showcase Recordings, Cala Records, and EMI. Her highly acclaimed debut CD with the Philharmonia of Ravel’s Piano Concerto in G major on the Cala label was nominated for an Alternative Edison award. A second Cala recording of Saint-Saëns’s Africa—Fantasy for Piano and Orchestra with the London Philharmonic has been equally applauded. Three solo CDs, Ravel Revealed (Ravel’s piano works) and Brahms: Late Piano Works, and Legacy, The Spirit of Beethoven were recorded on historic pianos for the Musicians Showcase Recording label. All 3 CDs received outstanding reviews and are broadcast frequently around the world. Recently two new CDs have been released: Poldowski Art Songs with soprano Angelique Zuluaga and pianist Gwendolyn Mok on the Delos label and EKTA Trilogy, featuring Mok as soloist on EKTA II, a concerto written for her by composer Brent Heisinger.

As a chamber musician, Ms. Mok appears regularly in the San Francisco Symphony Chamber Music Series, as well as in the San Jose Chamber Society and the Sacramento Chamber Society series. She collaborates often with members of the New York Philharmonic and the Philadelphia Orchestra. A popular soloist with the Symphony Silicon Valley, Ms. Mok co-produced and appeared in four sold-out performances of The Gershwin Radio Hour. In 2016 Ms. Mok was named President’s Scholar by San Jose State University, the highest honor given to an outstanding faculty member for their scholarship and research. Mok was also presented with the Artistic Achievement Award by the College of Humanities & the Arts in 2008.

Ms. Mok began her studies at the Juilliard School of Music, completed her undergraduate work at Yale University, and earned her Masters and Doctorate at the State University of New York at Stony Brook. She is currently Coordinator of Keyboard Studies at San Jose State University and maintains a busy performing and recording schedule.

Munan Cheng, 17, is a rising freshman at Stanford University. She currently studies with Dr. Sharon Mann. She was also a member of the Young Chamber Musicians program in the Bay Area.

Munan was most recently a 2024 YoungArts Winner and a 2023-2024 scholarship recipient from the Chopin Foundation of the United States. She has been a prize winner of the Emory Young Artist Piano Competition, Ross McKee Piano Competition, Celia Mendez Beethoven Competition, Dubois Piano Competition, Nashville International Piano Competition, and the KAMSA Competition.

Munan has performed for the San Francisco Piano Festival and has also attended the Gina Bachauer International Piano Festival, Music@Menlo, Bowdoin International Music Festival, PianoTexas, and the Vivace Music Festival. Munan has had the honor to participate in masterclasses with Gilbert Kalish, Garrick Ohlsson, John Perry, Jerome Lowenthal, Tamás Ungár, Boris Slutsky, Antonio Pompa-Baldi, Stephen Prutsman, and Ronald Brautigam. Munan is also a member of Bay Area Youth Music Society, a non-profit community service program.

Sarah Yuan, age 19, is a rising sophomore at Princeton University. She began piano studies at age seven and is now a student of Dr. Francine Kay at Princeton, having previously studied with Dr. Sharon Mann at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. Sarah was an Honorable Mention winner of the 2022 and 2023 National YoungArts competitions and is the inaugural recipient of the 2023 John Cron Career Development Award from the Ross McKee Foundation. Over the past several years, she has performed in masterclasses for artists such as John Perry, Ida Kavafian and Peter Wiley, James Giles, Támas Ungár, and the Gryphon Trio. Sarah is currently the pianist for the Aveta Trio, which won the gold medal at the 2021 Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition. She was a five-year participant of the Young Chamber Musicians program based in Burlingame, California; at Princeton, she is currently a member of Opus Chamber Music. Sarah has performed for the San Francisco International Piano Festival as well as the Noontime Concert series in San Francisco, and has also attended international summer music programs such as Aspen, Bowdoin, and PianoTexas.

Jeffrey LaDeur is known for his rare blend of insight, spontaneity, and approachable, communicative stage presence. Clic Musique Magazine (France) lauded “…an irreproachable legato, a beautiful palette of nuances, and an always well-balanced sound.” Having inherited a rich tradition of pianism and interpretation from Annie Sherter, student of Vlado Perlemuter and Alfred Cortot, LaDeur has established himself as a compelling exponent of classic and new repertoire. In March of 2018, LaDeur made his solo recital debut at Carnegie Hall on the centennial of Claude Debussy’s death. He appears regularly with orchestra and maintains a repertoire of over 40 concerti. LaDeur is the founder and artistic director of the San Francisco International Piano Festival and president of the American Liszt Society, San Francisco Bay Area Chapter.

LaDeur’s most recent solo recording features music of Liszt and was released by Music & Arts in April of 2022. Critic Henry Fogel wrote, “The beauty of his coloration, the rightness of his phrasing, and his sensitive dynamic shaping, all draw the listener into Liszt’s world.” A chamber musician of distinction, Jeffrey’s collaboration with mezzo soprano Kindra Scharich has produced To My Distant Beloved, an album exploring the connections between Beethoven and Schumann through cycles in song and solo piano works. LaDeur has collaborated with distinguished artists such as Robert Mann, Bonnie Hampton, Ian Swensen, Axel Strauss, Geoff Nuttall, and the Alexander String Quartet.

An active educator, Jeffrey offers masterclasses frequently as guest artist in universities throughout the United States and coaches gifted pre-college piano and string ensembles at Young Chamber Musicians in Burlingame, California. LaDeur holds degrees from the Eastman School of Music and San Francisco Conservatory of Music in piano performance and chamber music, respectively. Jeffrey counts among his teachers Mark Edwards, Douglas Humpherys, Yoshikazu Nagai, and Robert McDonald.

Visit his websites JeffreyLaDeur.com  and SFPIANO.ORG for more information

Violinist Eric Chin, a founding member of the recently acclaimed Telegraph Quartet, is equally passionate about performing and teaching. Captivated by chamber music, he founded the award-winning Nexus String Quartet in 2007 at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. After the final season of the Nexus String Quartet, Mr. Chin received invitation to join the Hausmann Quartet and the chamber music and string faculty at San Diego State University, and held that position until 2014. He then decided to move back to the San Francisco Bay Area, where he later co-founded the Telegraph Quartet.

Mr. Chin’s concert tours as a soloist, chamber musician, and concertmaster have taken him performing throughout Europe as well as in Asia, Canada, and the United States. He has appeared on faculty at festivals such as the Capistrano International Chamber Music Festival, LyricaFest, and Chamber Music Connection Ohio, and was invited abroad to give concerts and masterclasses at the top art universities in Taiwan, including the National Taiwan University of Arts, Tunghai University, National Pingtung University of Education, Wenzao Ursuline College, and Taiwan Normal University. Mr. Chin has also appeared as performing artist at the Great Lakes Music Festival and at Music Mountain.

As a chamber musician, Mr. Chin has performed with some of the most sought-after musicians of our time, including members of the Juilliard, Concord, Meliora, Miami, Takács, and Alexander string quartets.

Mr. Chin currently maintains a committed teaching studio in the San Jose and San Francisco Bay area.