Long Islanders will have a rare opportunity to hear one of classical music’s rising stars when the winner of the 2023 Lillian and Maurice Barbash J.S. Bach Competition, 25 year-old Emmanual …
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Long Islanders will have a rare opportunity to hear one of classical music’s rising stars when the winner of the 2023 Lillian and Maurice Barbash J.S. Bach Competition, 25 year-old Emmanual Coppey, concludes his first U.S. tour with a performance at the popular Island Symphony Bach Festival.
A highlight of Long Island’s cultural calendar, the festival will be held at 2:00 PM on Sunday, Jan. 26, 2025 at St. Peter’s By-the-Sea Episcopal Church in Bay Shore.
The annual festival brings Bach to life in a way that mesmerizes all who listen, especially with a different guest soloist at the festival each year. The Island Symphony Bach Festival showcases the winner of the Lillian and Maurice Barbash J.S. Bach Competition as a guest soloist. The prestigious competition was started by Lillian and Murray’s children in honor of the Brightwaters couple’s lifelong support of the arts on Long Island.
As a City Music Foundation Artist, artist-in-residence at the Queen Elisabeth Music Chapel and a member of the Ensemble Modern Academy in Frankfurt, this year’s featured soloist Emmanuel Coppey is building a remarkable career. Coppey graduated from the Royal Academy of Music and the Paris Conservatory, where he studied with Philippe Graffin and Svetlin Roussev. His repertoire spans from Baroque to contemporary music and includes the complete Sonatas and Partitas by Bach, with which he won the 2023 New York Bach Barbash Competition.
Since July 2024, he has been an artist-in-residence at the Singer-Polignac Foundation, playing a magnificent 1735 Guarnerius violin from the Guttman Collection.
The second half of the Island Symphony Bach Festival program will be devoted to a performance of Johannes Brahms’s Symphony No. 3 in F Major, Op. 90 by the Island Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Eric R. Stewart. Though most often associated with the Romantic era, Brahms venerated J.S. Bach. From his formative youth until his last days, Brahms studied, performed, and conducted a great deal of Bach’s music.
The Islip Bulletin had the opportunity to chat all things Bach with Coppey prior to the upcoming Bay Shore festival.
Islip Bulletin: What were your feelings upon winning the 2023 New York Bach Barbash Competition?
Coppey: I was very happy to win such a prize. It was a big adventure for me as I had to travel from France to attend the competition, and my flight was delayed, so I made it just in time to perform [in] the finals. There were amazing other contestants, so I felt very honored and I had a very interesting conversation and advice from the Jury.
Also, Bach’s music has been a centerpiece in my musical journey as I cannot even remember when I started working on his sonatas and partitas as a child, so it felt like a great recognition of the place it takes in my heart and life.
Islip Bulletin: What do you appreciate most about Bach’s music?
Coppey: I would say that it is the amount of different emotions this music carries, and the subtlety with which it does. It is a thread between the divine and the profane, and yet it stays very human.
Islip Bulletin: How has performing in the U.S. differed from performing in Europe?
Coppey: I find the U.S. audience to be very warm and keen to communicate after the performance, which isn’t always the case elsewhere. Nevertheless, Europe is very diverse and people don’t welcome music the same way in Budapest than in Paris, but I would say that music connects people to what is universal in human beings, and that people are always very much happy to hear live music anywhere in the world. The un-replicability of concerts is something we should cherish, in a world where most music we listen to is recorded and digital!
Islip Bulletin: Any thoughts about looking forward to performing at the Island Symphony Bach Festival?
Coppey: I am so happy to be part of this festival for the first time! I have been looking forward to this opportunity for a while now, and each visit to the U.S. makes me feel privileged to play in such great places and to meet again with an incredibly warm audience.
I cannot thank the Barbash competition enough for these concerts, and especially Susan and Cathy Barbash, who lead this organization with great dedication and passion, and who always welcome me with incredible friendship.
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