Chamber music: Acclaimed cellist, pianist to play at Arts Center of Greenwood

Ramakrishan and Hochman will be playing selections by composers including Beethoven, Britten and Brahms.

Seating is limited. Tickets are through the event organizer, Dr. Robert Anholt of the Clemson Center for Human Genetics in Greenwood.

Anholt is with Clemson as a Provost’s Distinguished Professor in the department of genetics and biochemistry. Anholt also has a leadership role in the College of Science as the director of Faculty Excellence Initiatives. Anholt’s wife is geneticist Dr. Trudy Mackay, director of Clemson’s Center for Human Genetics and the Self Family Endowed Chair of Human Genetics and professor of genetics and biochemistry.

According to media materials, the visiting cellist, a son of a scientist father and book author mother was raised with a love of music.

Ramakrishnan was a member of the Horzowski Trio and a founding member of the Daedalus Quartet. Ramakrishan has performed as a guest principal cellist with the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra and was a guest member of Yo Yo Ma’s Silk Road Ensemble. Ramakrisnan is an artist member of the Boston Chamber Music Society and a faculty member at Bard College.

Benjamin Hochman debuted as a soloist at Carnegie Hall with the Israel Philharmonic under Pinchas Zukerman, appearing as a soloist with the New York, Los Angeles and Prague philharmonic orchestras and the Chicago, Pittsburgh, San Francisco and Jerusalem symphony orchestras. Hochman has conducted the English Chamber Orchestra, The Orchestra Now, at Bard Music Festival, and the Juilliard Orchestra, among others.

In an email to the Index-Journal through Hochman’s artist management firm, Hochman wrote, “I am so looking forward to playing with cellist Raman Ramakrishnan in Greenwood, SC.

“Raman and I first met and played together at the Marlboro Music Festival in Vermont in 2001 and have since played together many times throughout the US. Apart from our musical collaboration, he is also a dear friend, so it’s always great fun to play concerts and travel together.

“We are playing a program of beautiful music by “Three B’s”. But rather than Bach, Beethoven and Brahms we are playing Beethoven, Britten, and Brahms! I love the music of Benjamin Britten and his only sonata for cello and piano is truly a masterpiece: full of imagination, character, and color. The Beethoven 2nd Sonata and Brahms 2nd Sonata are wonderful: each conveys a varied, expressive, and deeply rich musical world.”

Anholt said Greenwood is fortunate to host this evening of music a day after the two formally-trained musicians are part of a science and music lecture at Clemson University’s Brooks Center for the Performing Arts.

“This event is a follow-up to the science and music event I am organizing at the Brooks Center,” Anholt said. “The scientist who is part of that event is an old friend of mine, Venki Ramakrishan, a Nobel laureate for chemistry, who will be talking about his book, ‘Gene Machine.’ He is cellist Raman’s father. ...Venki, and colleagues discovered the structure of ribosomes (complex minute particles in all cells involved in making proteins.) It is the site where the genetic code is translated into proteins.”

Raman, the cellist, who is based in New York, Anholt said, initially followed in his father’s science footsteps and received a physics degree from Harvard.

“And, then, he (Raman) decided he liked music and he want to the Juilliard school and became a virtuoso cellist,” Anholt said. “He’s played all over the world. ...I’ve seen him play twice and he is spectacular.”

Anholt says Hochman is “a fantastic pianist” who is also a conductor, coming to Greenwood by way of Berlin and New York.

The Clemson University Center for Human Genetics facility in Greenwood focuses on research into genetic and environmental risk factors for human diseases. Its campus is adjacent to the Greenwood Genetic Center.