Korean Grace Jee Eun Oh and Romanian Dragoș Cantea in a Spectacular Four Hands Piano Recital

Korean Grace Jee Eun Oh and Romanian Dragoș Cantea, an intrepid musical partnership based in Norway, comes to New York to offer a thrilling four hands piano recital, specially conceived for our popular Enescu Soirees. The program juxtaposes sublime melodies and wild rhythms, blending folk sonorities and ancient soundscapes in a refined display of elegance and virtuosity. Not to be missed!

PROGRAM:

Igor Stravinsky (1882 – 1971), The Rite of Spring (1913)

Edvard Grieg (1843 – 1907), Norsk danse No. 2 & No. 1 (op. 35)

Sabin Păutza (b. 1943), Play from Banat & Divertimento No. 3 “Charleston”

Zequinha de Abreu (1880 – 1935), Tico-Tico no fubá (arr. by Sverre Eftestøl)

George Enescu (1881 – 1955), Carillon Nocturne (1916)

Constantin Silvestri (1913 – 1969), Bacchanale (1933)

Born in South Korea, Grace Jee Eun Oh developed her musical path in the United Kingdom, first as part of the Wells Cathedral School (studying with Hilary Coates-Elton), then moving on to Bachelor studies at the Royal Academy of Music in London, completing her Master Degree at the Guildhall School of Music & Drama in 2017. Since 2018, she is based in Scandinavia, after polishing her studies at the prestigious Norwegian Academy of Music, working with Håvard Gimse and Marianna Shirinyan. Furthermore, she took the opportunity to obtain a Master degree in Music Theory to broaden her musical horizon during the pandemic. Grace is a recipient of the 2015 Charity of Mary Barnes and Leverhulme Trust Scholarships and was invited to perform in prestigious venues such as London’s St. Martin-in-the-Fields, Milton Court and Barbican Centre and in festivals such as Bloomsbury Festival, Cheltenham Festival, Oslo Kammermusikkfestivalen. Promoting her roots, Grace was the first ever Korean pianist to be invited to perform at the 41st Presentation Ceremony of H. R. H. Princess Benedikte of Denmark. Recently, she has been a recipient of the EEA grants, in which her project aimed to showcase hidden gems of Norwegian music across Eastern Europe. These artistic endeavors concluded with an artistic residency status of the Artistic Council of Norway in 2023. An avid promoter of living composers, Grace was actively involved in the Total Immersion: Louis Andriessenproject developed by Guildhall in 2016, and her first release – Vandraren, at Grappa / Simax (2018) featured works by Norwegian Knut Buen. Grace’s artistic research titled “Borderless Ends of the East and the West” became published in 2022. Her appearances as a soloist as well as a chamber musician spread across the UK, Norway, Sweden, Belgium, Romania, Switzerland, Canada, USA and South Korea.

Dragoș Andrei Cantea is an artistic result of the Iași school of music, with Ioana Stănescu as a mentor between 1999 - 2017. This professional partnership concluded in the main formation of the artistic personality of today's young pianist. Dragoș is a collaborator of some of the top philharmonics in Romania, performing in the United States, the UK, Canada, Italy, Switzerland, Austria, Finland, Denmark, Norway, Romania. He collaborated with conductors such as Radu Popa, Ovidiu Balan, Ștefan Novak, Theo Wolters, Fergus MacAlpine, Pawel Kapuła or Cristian Mandeal. He is a triple graduate of the “George Enescu” National University of Arts (UNAGE) in Iași, at the Bachelor's, Master's and Doctoral levels, under the tutelage of Ioana Stănescu and Dan Prelicpean. He is also an alumni soloist of the Norwegian Academy of Music in Oslo, at the classes of Håvard Gimse and Kathryn Stott, graduating with the project “Nationalism in music - an artistic-diplomatic tool for understanding of common values”. Since 2017, he has become the main independent cultural link between Romania and Norway, being responsible both for the celebration of 100 years of diplomacy between the two states, and for the events dedicated to Romania`s Centenary in Scandinavia in 2018. Also in 2018, he took over the artistic direction of the European Creative Futures programme. In 2017, he founded DAC Music Performance, an organization which manages the cultural programmes of Norwegian private and state companies, such as Telenor, Nordea, Eurodent, or DNB Sparebankstiftelsen. Since 2019, he has been an invited lecturer at the University of Applied Sciences in Vaasa, Finland, working interdisciplinary teaching piano, chamber music and creative entrepreneurship. He was also invited as a member of the jury of the Quatre Music Youth Piano Competition in Singapore in 2021, where he held masterclasses for the finalists of the competition. Dragoș is also a beneficiary of several scholarships such as Roche Continents 2018, Act in Art 2019, or the Rising Leaders programme of the United States Embassy in Norway. Currently, Dragoș carries out a strong artistic activity as a soloist and chamber musician in America, Europe and Asia. At the same time, he is a coordinator of international projects under the auspices of the Norwegian Arts Council, co-Founder and artistic director of Classix Festival and honorary counselor of the Romanian Ministry of Culture.