News & Press

Sep 30, 2011

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DANVILLE, KY - Centre College’s Norton Center for the Arts welcomes dynamic violin virtuoso and performance artist HAHN-BIN on Friday, September 30, kicking off the Center’s newly created Club Weisiger Series. 

Warning: This is not your typical violin recital. HAHN-BIN has re-envisioned the classical music concert, and it is fierce. He is an artist who embodies the 21st Century of classical music, fusing his highly evocative repertoire with pop performance art in "extraordinary, intelligent and beautiful" ways (The Washington Post) with "inspired, innovative and bracing programs” (The New York Times). Adding to his mixed repertoire program of familiar classical and contemporary works will be theatre and performance art, costume changes and lighting, and mesmerizing youth and vitality.

Imagine the love-child of fiery violinist Paganini and super-diva Grace Jones and you start to understand HAHN-BIN’s brilliance. In an interview with The New York Times this past February, HAHN-BIN elaborated on his blend of fashion and musicality:  “What I choose to wear or how I choose to express myself visually is equally important as the music itself. Fashion teaches spiritual lessons. It has taught me who I am and showed me what I didn’t know about myself.”  He collaborated with up and coming video artist Ryan McNamara on “Production,” a performance at NYC’s Louis Vuitton store during Fashion’s Night Out last year and walked the runway for the designer Elise Overland last September.

“We are truly excited that HAHN-BIN will be the first performer in our newly established Club Weisiger Series this season.  With an overall theme of the 2011-2012 Norton Center Series to ‘REIMAGINE’, the intent for this more intimate series, which takes place in the 367-seat Weisiger Theatre, is to create an experience for our patrons where they can be transformed through award-winning, savory music that is speckled with unexpected twists and turns,” remarked Steve Hoffman, Norton Center Executive Director. “HAHN-BIN has flare and everyone who attends his performance will not only be amazed at his extraordinary skill with the violin, but also by how the music is enhanced by his visual artistry as well.”

Born in Seoul, HAHN-BIN made his international debut at the young age of twelve at the 42nd Grammy® Awards in an event honoring Isaac Stern.  Following a decade of study under the tutelage of Itzhak Perlman at the Juilliard School, HAHN-BIN made his Carnegie Hall debut last season with the world premiere of "Still Life" for Violin and Orchestra, written by Christopher Cerrone.  The work was commissioned for HAHN-BIN by the New York Youth Symphony and recieved critical acclaim.

“Till Dawn Sunday,” HAHN-BIN’s newest recital project in four episodes, is being toured this season throughout the U.S. in Kentucky, Vermont, Maryland, Florida and Washington. In 2010, his highly acclaimed recital project "The Five Poisons,” included performances in New York at the Rubin Museum of Art and Le Poisson Rouge, in Los Angeles at the Hammer Museum, and in Berlin at the Konzerthaus.  Earlier this year, he performed “Soliloquy for Andy Warhol” to huge crowds at the Museum of Modern Art throughout the show’s installation in New York.

HAHN-BIN has appeared at the Auditorium du Louvre in Paris, The Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston, as well as in the Far East with the Queensland Orchestra in Australia and all of the major Korean orchestras including the Seoul, Bucheon, and Daejeon Philharmonics, both in Korea and on tour in Japan.   He is also the recipient of an award from the Jack Romann Special Artists Fund of Young Concert Artists.

Joining HAHN-BIN’s performance is John Blacklow, a pianist of unusual versatility. As a soloist, as a collaborator with many ensembles and recital partners, and as an interpreter of repertoire both past and current, he has been presented in many prestigious venues and concert series throughout the U.S., Europe, and Asia.

As soloist, Blacklow has performed in venues such as Alice Tully Hall and Merkin Hall in New York, Wigmore Hall in London, Musikverein in Vienna, the Royal Conservatoire in Brussels, the Dame Myra Hess Memorial Concert Series in Chicago, and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.  As keyboardist, he worked under conductors Esa-Pekka Salonen, Pierre Boulez, Leonard Slatkin, and Marin Alsop, and performed in the world premiere of “Soundings” by John Williams at the gala opening of the Walt Disney Concert Hall. He is Associate Professor of Piano at the University of Notre Dame, and has served as a jury member for national and international competitions.

HAHN-BIN’s performance begins at 8:00 PM in the Weisiger Theatre. Tickets, all $30, are on sale now and can be purchased on the web at www.NortonCenter.com or by calling the box office at 1-877-HIT-SHOW.