Arie van Vuuren ’22, an economics major and standout alpine skier from Boulder, Colo., has played the cello since the second grade when his parents chose it for him so he could perform duets with his sister on the violin.

He’s asked how playing the cello makes him feel.

“Contented. Is that a word? Content. Fulfilled. It’s almost like a warmth, a feeling of warmth.�

After four years of cello lessons with Christina Chute at ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ — and two and a half years of piano lessons with collaborative pianist Chiharu Naruse — van Vuuren performed his senior recital on the evening of Oct. 27, 2021, in the Olin Arts Center Concert Hall.

A few hours before the concert, van Vuuren and his teacher rehearsed the program together.

“It’s awesome,� he says of playing with Naruse.

“She just follows me wherever I go. I can mess up and she will just follow me.� The duo have been working on this performance for a month and a half; they practiced maybe five times.

Naruse says that what she enjoys most in working with ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ students is their “energy and enthusiasm.â€�

In this case, it’s also a longstanding teacher-student relationship. “I know who he is. We know who we are. It’s collaboration.�

Naruse is a well-respected music teacher, chamber music coach, music competition adjudicator, and accompanist. Many of her students receive competition prizes.

She has participated in several international piano competitions, and won the silver prize in the Hyogo Piano Competition in Japan. Since moving to Maine in 2002 to study with the late pianist Frank Glazer, she has performed throughout the state.

The recital showcased their talents with a program of Edward Elgar’s Salut d’Amour, op. 12; Gabriel Fauré’s “Après un rêveâ€�; Francis Poulenc’s “Serenadeâ€�; and Beethoven’s Cello Sonata No. 3 in A major, op. 69.

Watch the recital here.

The program also includes sonatas by J.S. Bach, Debussy and Poulenc. Tickets cost $12 for general admission and $6 for seniors and students, and are available at www.batestickets.com. For more information, contact 207-786-6135 or this olinarts@bates.edu.

Resembling a bowed guitar, the arpeggione enjoyed a brief popularity in the early 19th century. Schubert’s sonata, composed in 1824, is the only substantial piece of music for the instrument, and today cello is generally used for the arpeggione part.

Queyras and Tharaud’s recording of the piece was released in October 2006 by Harmonia Mundi France on a disc also including music by Webern and Berg. The recording’s success brought the pair numerous performance opportunities at venues including Frankfurt’s Alte-Oper and the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam. The album was an “Editor’s Choice” in Gramophone and a “Chamber Music Choice” in the BBC Music Magazine.

Queyras’ focus is on repertoire for solo cello that brilliantly demonstrates the exceptional narrative and expressive force of the instrument. He has appeared as a soloist with orchestras around the world and performed at Carnegie Hall with Concerto Köln in March 2004. A professor at the Musikhochschule in Stuttgart, Germany, he plays a cello made by Gioffredo Cappa in 1696.

Tharaud has performed with leading orchestras across Europe and in Asia. His recordings for Harmonia Mundi, such as the 2001 collection of Rameau’s “Nouvelles Suites de Pièces de Clavecin” and 2003’s complete piano works of Ravel, have received lavish critical acclaim. He graduated from the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique in Paris and started his international career in earnest by winning second prize at the ARD Competition in Munich. Tharaud is resident artist at the Opéra de Rouen.

The young American cellist has won unanimous praise for playing that combines natural virtuosity with impassioned musicianship. The New York Times called her “an enormously talented musician” whose performance of a Dvorak cello concerto featured “boldness, assured technique and vibrant tone.”

Born in 1982, she began playing the cello at age four and a half. She performed her first public concert six months later. A student of Richard Weiss, she is a member of the Young Artist Program at the Cleveland Institute of Music. Weilerstein made her Cleveland Orchestra debut in October 1995 at age 13, playing the Tchaikovsky Rococo Variations. She first appeared at Carnegie Hall with the New York Youth Symphony in March 1997 and also has given concerts with the Albany Symphony, the California Symphony, the Puerto Rico Symphony and the Rochester Philharmonic.

During the 1997-98 season, Weilerstein returned to the Rochester Philharmonic and made debuts with the Barcelona Symphony Orchestra under Lawrence Foster’s direction and the Long Island Philharmonic. During the last two summers, she participated in the Verbier Festival in Switzerland and also made her recording debut in London with a recital album for EMI Classics.

Weilerstein also has performed at the Cleveland Museum of Art, as part of the young artists recital series of the La Jolla Chamber Music Society in San Diego and the Ravinia Festival. During her first tour to Japan in 1999, she gave a Suntory Hall recital in Tokyo in 1999.

Weilerstein plays regularly throughout the country with her parents, Donald and Vivian, as the Weilerstein Trio. She first performed with them at age 6 at the Round Top Festival in Texas. Since then, the trio has performed in Akron, Cleveland, Chicago and Toronto, as well as the Eastman School of Music and the Aspen Music Festival. They recorded their debut CD, The Ives Piano Trio, in 1998.

Alisa Weilerstein has played for many musicians including Yo-Yo Ma, David Finckel, Paul Katz, Lynn Harrell and Dorothy DeLay. She was profiled in 1998 by CBS This Morning as part of its nationally televised series on the “Class of 2000.”

The next concert in the ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ College Concert Series will be Shanghai String Quartet and Eliot Fisk, guitar, who will perform at 8 p.m., Monday, Feb. 7, in the Olin Arts Center Concert Hall. Tickets for this concert are also $10 for general admission and $8 for students and seniors and may be purchased by calling 207-786-6252.

Rostropovich, who before coming to the United States was one of the best- known dissidents in the Soviet Union, will perform during the program, which begins at 12:30 p.m. in Alumni Gymnasium.

ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ President Donald W. Harward will speak during the convocation, which marks the 141st anniversary of ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½’ founding on April 5, 1855.

Rostropovich, widely considered the world’s greatest living cellist, was music director of the National Symphony in Washington, D.C., for 17 years starting in 1977. He now holds the title music director laureate.

Rostropovich’s fame as a cellist started at the age of 13 in 1940, when he played with an orchestra conducted by his father. He first performed in the United States in 1956 as part of a Soviet-American cultural exchange program.

He began his conducting career in 1961 and he led orchestras throughout the former USSR and Eastern Europe before moving to the United States in 1977. He is credited with moving the National Symphony into the front rank of symphony orchestras.

Among the composers who have written works for Rostropovich are Dmitri Shostakovich, Sergei Prokofiev, Benjamin Britten and Leonard Bernstein. He has received the Albert Schweitzer Music Award and the Ernst von Siemens Foundation Music Prize, previously awarded only to Britten and Olivier Messaien.

His other honors include the Presidential Medal of Freedom (U.S.), the Order of the British Empire (United Kingdom) and the Officer’s Cross of the Order of Merit (Germany). He is only the second non-native to be named Commander of the Legion of Honor in France.

Declared persona non grata in the former Soviet Union for his defense of Alexander Solzhenitsyn, Rostropovich has returned to Russia several times in recent years. He has helped raise funds for Armenian earthquake relief, for children’s health care in Russia and for Russian military veterans returning from the Baltic states.

In October 1995, he organized a gala concert in Moscow to benefit the rebuilding of the Cathedral of Christ the Savior, a national memorial to the Russian victory over Napoleon. The church was torn down on Stalin’s orders in 1931.