The use of cameras or recording equipment during the 

performance is not allowed. Please be sure that cell phones,

pagers, and other electronic devices are turned off.

Music Department

National Gallery ofArt

Sixth Street and Constitution Avenue nw

Washington, dc

www.nga.gov

cover: Paul Stevenson Oles, Sketch ofthe East Building Exterior, 1971,

National Gallery ofArt Archives, Gift of I. M. Pei and Partners

The Sixty-ninth Season of

The William Nelson Cromwell and F. Lammot Belin

Concerts

National Gallery ofArt

2,834th Concert

Tanya Anisimova, cellist

Lydia Frumkin, pianist

Carrie Koffman, soprano saxophonist

With projected images by

Alexander Anufriev, artist

Presented in honor ofWomen’s History Month

March 23, 2011

Wednesday, 12:10 pm

East Building Auditorium

Admissionfree
Program

Tanya Anisimova (b. 1966)

Leonardo, for soprano saxophone, cello, and piano (2010-2011)

Franz Schubert (1797-1828)

Sonata in A Minor (“Arpeggione”), D. 821 (1824)

Allegro moderato

Adagio

Allegretto

Anisimova/Alexander Anufriev (b. 1940)

Tanya through the Eyes ofArtists

I. Rene Magritte

II. Pablo Picasso

hi. Vincent van Gogh

iv. Amedeo Modigliani

v. Qajar Style

vi. Chaim Soutine

vii. Alexander Anufriev

The Musicians

TANYA ANISIMOVA

A graduate ofthe Tchaikovsky Conservatory in Moscow, Boston University, 

and Yale University, cellist and composer Tanya Anisimova has been described

by the Washington Post as a “highly focused artist with lots ofideas and the

dexterity to back them up.” Her recent sold-out recital at the International

Music Festival in Morelia, Mexico was described by the press as “one ofthe

most anticipated and emotionally fulfilling events ofthe festival.” She has

performed with internationally known ensembles and soloists including

the Prokofiev Quartet, the Russian Chamber Orchestra, the Symphonicity

Orchestra, and the Saint Petersburg Quartet as well as pianists Ilya Itin

and Vitaly Yunitsky and cellists Ole Akahoshi, Igor Gavrysh, and Paul Katz.

Recent and upcoming engagements include recitals at Carnegie Hall and

in Australia, England, and Mexico.

A composer as well as a performer, Anisimova’s works have been

described as “striking in [their] emotional authenticity and melodic freshness” (Moscow Conservatory Press), and “marrying a sense ofwild fancy and

studied control” (The Washington Post). Her original music for Ofrenda, a

recent film by Mexican director Oscar Carillo, will be featured this summer

in the upcoming production ofChekhov’s The Cherry Orchard at Bethesda,

Maryland’s Quotidian Theatre. Anisimova has recorded seven cds, among

them a 2001 recording of her own cello arrangements ofthe complete violin

sonatas and partitas for cello ofJohann Sebastian Bach.

LYDIA FRUMKIN

Professor of piano at the Oberlin College Conservatory of Music since 1981,

pianist Lydia Frumkin studied in the grand Russian tradition with Mikhail

Muravin and Sedmara Zakarian at the Saint Petersburg (then Leningrad)

Conservatory. Shortly after her graduation with honors, she was invited to

join the roster ofthe Leningrad Philharmonic Music Society. Since coming to the United States, Frumkin has been invited to conduct many master

classes; to teach at festivals in Iceland, Mexico, Russia, Switzerland, and

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The Netherlands; and to perform in Chicago, Cleveland, New Orleans, New

York City, and Pittsburgh. In the Washington, DC, area, she has been heard

at the Corcoran Gallery, McCathran Hall, the Phillips Gallery, and Strathmore 

Hall. Outside the United States, she has performed in Florence, Italy; Mexico

City; Morelia, Mexico; Moscow; and Reykjavik.

CARRIE KOFFMAN

Prior to her appointment in 2003 to the faculty ofThe Hartt School of Music

at the University of Hartford, Carrie Koffman taught saxophone at Boston

University, Penn State University, and the University of New Mexico. Recent

performances have included the Faenza International Saxophone Festival in

Italy; the International Double Reed Convention in Buenos Aires; the Pine

Mountain Music Festival in Michigan; the Virginia Arts Festival; the World

Saxophone Congress in Bangkok, Thailand; and the Xi’an International

Clarinet and Saxophone Festival in China.

Koffman has been a featured soloist with the Albuquerque Philharmonic 

Orchestra, the Elgin and Hartford Symphony Orchestras, the Greater 

Hartford Youth Wind Ensemble (with which she toured Germany and 

Austria), the Hartt Symphonic Band and Wind Ensemble, the Pennsylvania 

Centre Chamber Orchestra, and the University of New Mexico Wind Symphony. With violist Tim Deighton, she is a member ofthe contemporary

chamber music duo The Irrelevants. An enthusiastic champion ofnew music,

Koffman has performed numerous commissions and premieres. A graduate

with high honors from the University of Michigan, where she studied with 

Donald Sinta, and the University of North Texas, where she studied with

James Riggs and Eric Nestler, Carrie Koffman is also a certified Kripalu yoga

teacher, specializing in yoga for performers.

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ALEXANDER ANUFRIEV

Moscow-born Alexander Anufriev had lived for many years as an underground artist, due to the spiritual nature ofhis paintings and his view oflife.

A leading member ofthe Odessa group of exiled and dissident artists, he 

immigrated to the United States in 1981 and now lives and works in the Blue

Ridge Mountains in central Virginia. Anufriev’s paintings have been shown

in many solo and group exhibitions and can be found in private collections

throughout Europe, the former Soviet Union, and the United States. About

his motivation as an artist, Anufriev writes: “When I paint, I stand between 

the heavens and the earth, trying to make the invisible visible. I try to bring

about unification in my painting. Some might call it mysticism—the idea

that we are all linked by our divine beginning. I think this unification is often

expressed by beauty, so I am always looking for beauty.... In my perception

of objects and people, I try to get beyond what exists today, to go beyond the 

temporary in order to express what is eternal.” Strongly influenced by the art 

and ideas ofthe Renaissance, Anufriev draws inspiration from the works of

Pierro della Francesca and Fra Angelico as well as Byzantine icons.

Program Notes

Tanya Anisimova’s composition Leonardo was inspired by Leonardo da

Vinci’s (1452-1519) portrait of Ginevra de’ Benci, which has been in the 

National Gallery’s permanent collection since i960. By way of describing her

creative process, the composer quotes the following poem by Michelangelo

Buonarroti (1475-1564):

Love, tell me please, ifit’s with my eyes

I see that beauty’s truth that I aspire to,

Or ifit is within, since everywhere I gaze 

I see that countenance of hers, sculpted.

You must know, you, who come with her,

To rob me ofmy peace, at which I blaze:

Though I’d not wish one sigh the less,

Nor would I demand a cooler fire.

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“Indeed, the beauty that you see is hers,

But grows in passing to a deeper place,

Sinking through mortal eyes to the soul.

There it is made pure, lovely, and divine,

Like itself as the immortal part wishes.

That is the beauty set before your eyes.”

A miniature example of Schubert’s late chamber music, the Sonata in A

Minor (“Arpeggione”) was composed during the same period (1824-1825) as

his String Quartet in A Minor, D. 810 (“Death and the Maiden”). Although he

was suffering from the later stages ofsyphilis and prone to bouts of depression, the sonata is one of his sunnier compositions. In 1823 the Viennese

guitar maker Johann Georg Staufer (1778-1853) invented the arpeggione, a

now-extinct five-stringed instrument. The following year, arpeggione

virtuoso Vincent Schuster commissioned Schubert to write a sonata for the

instrument, but the work was not published until 1871, by which time use of

the instrument had died out. Today the sonata is usually played in transcription for cello or viola, although it is sometimes performed by double bassists

and flutists. The opening Allegro moderato is built around a gentle, wistful

melody, which never becomes too fast or too loud, since the arpeggione was 

incapable of playing fast and loud at the same time. The rich, hymn-like

Adagio moves without pause into the final Allegretto.

Noting that his wife, Tanya Anisimova, often improvises in response to 

paintings, artist Alexander Anufriev collaborated with her to create Tanya

through the Eyes ofArtists. The composition realizes Anufriev’s desire “to let

the artist and the improviser face each other; to let these artists paint Tanya.”

Since the artists in question—apart from Anufriev himself—have long

been dead, he did the work on their behalf. Taking into account the personal

characteristics of each ofthe chosen masters, he portrayed Tanya as that

artist might have painted her. She, in turn, improvises in response to each

portrait as the work is performed.

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Anufriev provides the following comments on each ofthe movements of

the work:

“Magritte: The last thing he is interested in is a portrait as we might have 

imagined it. All ofhis works are portraits, whether it’s a portrait of a rose, or

of a painting, of a stone, or of a shoe. Everything he paints, he paints as ifit

were alive. One will never find dead matter in his paintings.

Picasso: He is self-confidence personified. A master ofthe artistic ‘here and

now,’ he has an incredible ability to freeze the moment ofthe creative process.

Van Gogh: As paradoxical as this may sound, Brueghel’s influence is present in all ofVan Gogh’s art with a Dutch theme. It is this above all, that places

his art in an entirely different category from that ofhis French contemporaries.

Modigliani: To me, Modigliani is love personified. While his art is unique,

his life was that of a typical Parisian bohemian.

Qajar. This portrait is a celebration of decorative art from the last ofthe

great Persian dynasties.

Soutine: The initial impulse given to the artist is not exhausted until the

work is finished.”

About Tanya through the Eyes ofArtists, Anisimova writes: “Seeing a portrait by a given artist in front ofme, I am rooting my improvisation in a time

frame ofthis artist’s life. However, I am aware ofthe fact that any true artist

is drawing his inspiration from the past as well as the future, and his or her

art truly exists beyond time and place. The musical means of expression are

not unlike those ofthe art of painting. When I improvise, I deal with color

(musical harmony), tone (key, tonality), and rhythmic organization of

sounds (a graphic art). The project is challenging and unique, since I am

sitting in front ofthe portraits and creating a dialogue with the artists that

encompasses past and future, yet is present now, in this very moment.”

Program notes by Tanya Anisimova and Alexander Anufriev.

The performers extend their thanks to Wayne F. Yakes, MD,for allowing the use

ofimagesfrom his collection.

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