A violinist whose music offers listeners an “indulgent pleasure,” a cellist whose every note has “something lovely to say,” and a charismatic flutist.
These three will be joined by seven other elite musicians for the 41st Maui Classical Music Festival, scheduled May 12-21 at three churches and the historic Iao Theater in Wailuku.
Andres Cardenes won second prize in the 1982 Tchaikovsky International Violin Competition and has appeared as a soloist with more than 100 hundred orchestras around the world.
Hearing him perform “proves all the indulgent pleasure of consuming the biggest dessert on the tray,” said Kenneth Herman of the Los Angeles Times.
Also in the Festival lineup are violinist Susie Park, violinist-violist Daniel Phillips, cellists Robert deMaine and Amir Eldan, pianists Rohan De Silva and Cory Smythe and flutist Tara Helen O’Connor, along with violist Yizhak Schotten and pianist Katherine Collier, the festival’s music directors since it began in 1982.
De Silva and Eldan both have performed previously at the festival.
DeMaine brings “a beautiful singing tone, lapidary technical precision…in which every note (has) something lovely to say,” wrote Greg Stepanich of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
O’Connor is the winner of an Avery Fisher Career grant and a two-time Grammy Nominee.
The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette wrote that her sound has “the perfect balance of warmth and elegance,…a delight to listen to.”
Smythe is a Grammy winner, described as “up for any technical challenge.”
Among De Silva’s awards is a special prize for best accompanist at the 9th International Tchaikovsky Competition. He performed at the White House in 2007 for President George W. Bush and Queen Elizabeth, and in 2012 with Itzhak Perlman for President Barak Obama.
Eldan is a winner of the Juilliard Competition. He has served as principal cello of the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra and guest principal with the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra.