Event details

The Donna Weng Friedman ’80 Masterclass Series presents a masterclass with celebrated harpist, Mariko Anraku, on Saturday, October 26th, at 3PM. The Series provides students from across campus the unique opportunity to connect one-on-one with renowned performers in a workshop format that is open to the public.

Tickets

Free, Unticketed

Musicians

Mariko Anraku, Harp

Participating Students:

• Patrick Chen playing Debussy’s Danses Sacreé et Profane
• Calene Lee playing Henriette Renie’s Contemplation
• Allie Bernstein playing Marcel Tournier's Etude de Concert "Au Matin"

About Mariko Anraku

Mariko Anraku is hailed as “a manifestation of grace and elegance” (Jerusalem Post) and has enchanted audiences through numerous appearances as soloist, as well as chamber and orchestral musician. The New York Times has hailed her as a “masterful artist of intelligence and wit”.

Since 1995, she has held the position of Associate Principal Harpist of the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra. Since her debut as soloist with the Toronto Symphony led by Sir Andrew Davis, Ms. Anraku has appeared with the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, the Vienna Chamber Orchestra, New Japan Philharmonic Orchestra, Tokyo Symphony, Yomiuri Symphony Orchestra, Concerto Soloists of Philadelphia, among others. As a recitalist, she has performed in major concert halls on three continents, including Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall and Merkin Concert Hall in New York, Jordan Hall in Boston, Bing Theater at the LA County Museum, The Opera Comique in Paris, the Palazzo delle Esposizioni in Rome, the Casals, Kioi and Oji Halls in Tokyo, The Shanghai Oriental Arts Center among many others.

Ms. Anraku’s impressive list of awards include First Prize at the First Nippon Harp Competition, First Prize, the Channel Classics Recording Prize and the ITT Corporation Prize at the Concert Artists Guild Competition in New York, and the Pro Musicis Foundation International Award. She was also awarded Third Prize and the Pearl Chertok Prize for the best performance of the required Israeli composition at the 11th International Harp Contest in Israel.

Ms. Anraku’s strong commitment to contemporary music and the expansion of boundaries of the harp repertoire has included an invitation to premiere works by Toshio Hosokawa at the Donaueschingen Musiktage in Germany, the Wien Modern in Austria, and festivals in Tubinger and Cologne, Germany, collaborating with traditional Japanese musicians and monks. Ms. Anraku also gave the USA premiere of Jean-Michel Damase’s Concerto “Ballade” with the Cincinnati Chamber Orchestra at the American Harp Society Conference. She has also collaborated in a “Tribute to Takemitsu” performance at Merkin Concert Hall in New York.

An active chamber musician, Ms. Anraku has performed at the Spoleto, Tanglewood, Newport and Bridgehampton Chamber Music Festivals in the USA, The Banff Centre and the Festival of Sound in Canada, the Spoleto Festival in Italy, and the Karuizawa and Takefu Music Festivals, among others in Japan. She has also performed at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Harvard Music Association, and Columbia University, and has collaborated with artists including clarinetist Richard Stoltzman and flutists Emmanuel Pahud, Carol Wincenc, Paula Robison, Emily Beynon, Michael Parloff, Marina Piccinini, Stefan Ragnar Hoskuldsson and Denis Bouriakov.

Ms. Anraku has recorded exclusively for EMI Classics, including three solo recordings and “Beau Soir” a collaboration with eminent flutist Emmanuel Pahud. “Music for Harp”, a compilation from her solo CDs is also available.

Ms. Anraku is a faculty member of the Manhattan School of Music and The Pacific Music Festival (PMF). She is a devoted teacher, deeply committed to the mentoring and development of young musicians and has given masterclasses at The Curtis Institute of Music, The Juilliard School, Peabody Institute, The Glenn Gould School, Conservatorium Maastricht, The Central Conservatory and China Institute of Music in Beijing, The Shanghai Conservatory of Music etc. She is often invited to be a jury member at local and international competitions.

She holds Bachelor’s and Master’s Degrees from The Juilliard School and is a recipient of an Artist’s Diploma from The Glenn Gould School in Toronto. Her teachers have included Judy Loman, Nancy Allen, Lanalee deKant and her aunt Kumiko Inoue. Ms. Anraku also studied Oriental Art History at Sophia University in Tokyo, Japan, and enjoys playing community service concerts at hospitals, drug rehabilitation centers, prisons and other venues.

About Donna Weng Friedman

Award-winning pianist Donna Weng Friedman enjoys a distinguished career as a soloist, chamber musician, educator, curator, producer, and filmmaker. Donna was selected as one of Musical America's Top 30 Professionals of 2024 for her outstanding contribution to the performing arts. In the special January issue featuring these top professionals, Musical America will announce her latest initiative: Heritage and Harmony: BRAVA Maestra! This project, in partnership with the International Alliance for Women in Music, and WNET/PBS multi-media platform All Arts, aims to spotlight women conductors of color, further demonstrating Donna’s commitment to promoting diversity and inclusivity in the classical music world.

Donna was inducted into the Steinway & Sons Teacher Hall of Fame in 2023, for her "passionate commitment to teaching and inspiring young people in music" - Gavin English, President of Steinway & Sons Americas.

Donna wrote, directed and produced the award winning documentary short, NEVER FADE AWAY featuring Chun Wai Chan, the first principal dancer of Chinese descent in New York City Ballet’s 75-year history. NEVER FADE AWAY is the true story of how a radio and a waltz changed her immigrant father's life. History-making dancer Chun Wai Chan portrays her father as a young man and dances a riveting pas de deux -choreographed exquisitely by Ariel Grossman- with Xiaoxiao Cao. The short film premiered at NYU"s Jack Crystal Theater in celebration of AAPI and Immigrant Heritage Month in May, and has since won forty-four laurels from film festivals worldwide. Here is the teaser for Never Fade Away.

Never Fade Away is archived at the Bob Hope Memorial Library at Statue of Liberty National Monument and Ellis Island in perpetuity by the National Park Service for use in permanent and temporary exhibits, for loan to other institutions, and for research by historians and others interested in the Statue of Liberty and American immigration.

A short clip of Never Fade Away was shown on the big screen at Times Square on May 1st in honor of AAPI Heritage Month. Donna has since been featured on CBS Morning Newscast with Cindy Hsu, ABC Eyewitness News, NBC News 4 NY, WPIX 11 News with Magee Hickey, WCBS News Radio and Asian American Life.

Donna is the inaugural winner of the Women Who Innovate Grant 2023, awarded by the International Alliance for Women in Music, Global Initiatives committee for her "impactful and meaningful" work.

Her album Heritage and Harmony: Silver Linings, featuring exclusively AAPI/BIPOC artists, garnered two Silver Medals at the 2022 Global. Music Awards. Intended as a response to the wave of violence against Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) individuals, her pandemic EP aims to promote understanding and tolerance among people of all backgrounds.

In collaboration with WQXR, Donna created and produced Heritage and Harmony, a virtual concert series in celebration of Asian Pacific Heritage Month. Her story was featured on Asian Americans of New York & New Jersey | WLIW21, a segment of which has been aired on PBS numerous times.

Donna was awarded a 2022 New York Women Composer’s grant. She is the co-creator and co-host of HER/MUSIC;HER/STORY with soprano Allison Charney, a mini-series on WQXR as well as a concert series that shines a light on women composers, past and present. She was the guest speaker on TEDx Santa Barbara’s series Making Waves: Conversations with Influencers and Disruptors. Donna is the Artistic Advisor of Ariel Rivka Dance, an all-female dance company.

Donna was the featured guest artist on the National Women’s History Museum’s series NWHM Presents: Sundays@Home, honoring women whose activism and talents serve to inspire others. On March 8th, 2022, she launched a virtual education program in collaboration with the National Women’s History Museum called Heritage and Harmony: Her Art, Her Voice, featuring leading female BIPOC role models in the arts who share their stories of heritage, their challenges and their triumphs, as they seek to inspire and empower future generations of groundbreaking young women.

Donna has performed in concert halls worldwide, and appeared as soloist with major symphony orchestras, including the Atlanta, Philadelphia and Shanghai Symphony Orchestras. She has collaborated with world-class artists including Carter Brey, Anthony McGill, Elizabeth Mann, Ani Kavafian, David Shifrin, St. Luke’s Chamber Ensemble, Paul Neubauer, Marya Martin and Kelly Hall-Tompkins.

The curator of the Donna Weng Friedman '80 Master Class Series at Princeton University, she is also a member of Princeton University Music Department’s Advisory Council. Donna is currently serving as Vice Chair to the Friends of Thirteen Advocacy Board/WNET. She received a Bachelor of Arts degree from Princeton University where she was a University Scholar and a Master’s of Music Degree from the Juilliard School where she was a winner of the highly coveted Gina Bachauer Piano Competition as well as the William Petschek full scholarship award. Donna had the honor and privilege of studying with the great pedagogue Nadia Boulanger and the inimitable pianist Radu Lupu. She is on the piano faculty of the Mannes School of Music.

Donna was the music supervisor and recording artist for the award-winning film documentary “Frames of Life” as well as for the documentaries “Living Liberty” and “Morris Engle: The Independent”. Ms. Weng Friedman created “The Music Bee Club” interactive classical music app series for children ages 2-8 featuring principal cellist of the NY Philharmonic Carter Brey and flutist Elizabeth Mann, produced by twenty-five-time Grammy Award winner David Frost.