Steven Doane & Barry Snyder

STEVEN DOANE (cello), BARRY SNYDER (piano)

Debussy

Sonata in D minor

Beethoven

Sonata in A major

INTERVAL

Fauré

Romance; Papillon

Chopin

Sonata in G minor

The cello is the instrument most often said to resemble the human voice, and it has certainly elicited some of the music that most keenly explores the human spirit. It works very naturally in partnership with the piano, whose matching strength is imbued with such different tonal characteristics. In this programme, we can hear how differently these four composers utilised these sound worlds, revealing the range of the form.

Known internationally as recitalist, concerto soloist, chamber musician, and master teacher, Steven Doane has travelled frequently to the United Kingdom and Ireland for recitals, clinics, and master classes, and has made recital and concerto appearances in London, Edinburgh, and Dublin. Appearances with American orchestras have included those of Baltimore, San Francisco, Milwaukee, Buffalo, Santa Fe and Rochester, amongst others. He made his Carnegie Hall debut in 1982 in Strauss’ Don Quixote with the Rochester Philharmonic, David Zinman conducting, and followed this by an appearance in the same work at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC.

His New York recital debut was in 1990 at New York's Alice Tully Hall, followed by appearances at Boston's Sanders Theater, Chicago’s “Music Under the Dome series, two recitals at London's Wigmore Hall, and numerous other engagements in the U.S. and U.K. The second in a series of recordings for the Bridge label with pianist Barry Snyder (works by Benjamin Britten and Frank Bridge) won a 1996 Naird award in the U.S. music press, and the Bridge Sonata was declared "the best performance on record" by BBC music magazine. An earlier disc on the Bridge label of the complete works for cello and piano by Faure received a "petit Diapson d'Or" from the French recording press. The duo’s most recent release on the Bridge label is the Rachmaninoff Sonata and Etudes Tableaux Op. 39 for Piano. In addition to recordings on the Bridge label, Steven Doane has recorded for Pantheon, Caedmon, Gasparo and Sony.

He is Professor of Cello at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester N.Y. where he has taught for 35 years. Between 1995 and 1999 he was also an associate in cello at the Royal College of Music in London, and following a series of master classes at the Royal Academy in London in 2003, was named a visiting professor and “Fellow” by that institution. In November 2014 he received a “lifetime achievement award” from the London Violoncello Society, in recognition of his activities both as performer and pedagogue in the UK.

Barry Snyder, internationally acclaimed pianist and teacher, entered onto the international stage after winning three major prizes at the 1966 Van Cliburn International Piano Competition. Since then he has recorded over fifty CD’s and given concerts and masterclasses around the world.

He has performed diverse concerti with orchestras of Baltimore, Washington D.C., Atlanta, Houston, Montreal, Warsaw and Singapore, collaborating with such conductors as Robert Shaw, Leopold Stokowski, David Zinman, Charles Dutroit, Sixten Ehrling and Arthur Fiedler. As a chamber musician Snyder has worked with Hermann Prey, Jan deGaetani, Zvi Zeitlin (recorded the complete works of Stravinsky for violin and piano) Oleh Krysa, Misha Kopelman, Asako Urushihara (recorded the complete Schumann ,Schubert and Brahms works for violin and piano), Sylvia Rosenberg, Bonita Boyd and Steven Doane (recorded the complete works of Gabriel Faure for cello and piano;winner of Diapason d’Or award). Collaboration  with string quartets include Curtis,Cleveland and Chilingarian. He was a founding member of the Eastman Trio, performing with them for many years.

Barry Snyder has been Professor of Piano at the University of Rochester’s Eastman School of Music since 1970. In demand as a teacher, he has given masterclasses in such schools as the Royal Northern College of Music (Manchester,U.K.), Trinity College ,the Guildhall and Royal Academy (London), the Academy of Music(Krakow,Poland), Normal University (Taipei,Taiwan), Hochschule fur Musik (Freiburg,Germany), Beethoven Conservatory (Buenos Aires), Conservatorium and University of Australia (Perth), the Manhattan School of Music ,University of Michigan, Oberlin Conservatory and the University of Houston. 

Barry Snyder studied with renowned teachers Wilbur Hollman,Vladimir Sokoloff and Cecile Genhart as well as John Celentano and Brooks Smith for chamber music.

Barry Snyder is now Professor Emeritus of the Eastman School after 47 years of teaching and currently Adjunct professor at N.Y.U in New York City.