Pre-Chanukah Celebration featuring Violinist Basil Alter and Pianist Riko Higuma

Basil Alter
Hailed as a “teenage virtuoso” in his Commercial Appeal profile, violinist Basil Alter began violin lessons with his mother at age three. Following studies with Joy Wiener, he attended the University of Memphis’s Rudi E. Scheidt School of Music, where he was the violinist of the Contemporary Chamber Players and concertmaster of all three of the school’s symphonic and opera orchestras. He also was profiled in the University of Memphis Magazine. He later continued schooling in New York at Manhattan School of Music, where he was a rotating concertmaster of the school orchestras, working with conductors including Rob Kapilow and Kent Tritle. He was featured in Jewish Scene Magazine’s article “Basil Alter’s World of Music.

This past year, he was a featured guest performer at Temple Emanu-El of NYC, performing on a Landolfi violin on loan to the temple from “Violins of Hope,” a traveling exhibit which serves to educate and memorialize the lives of prisoners in concentration camps. He has performed as a soloist with the Armenian Philharmonic in Yerevan, in addition to the University of Memphis orchestra and the Germantown Symphony. Outside of violin, he is a sought-after music transcriptionist and arranger. His transcriptions commissioned from musicians on YouTube have gained millions of views worldwide. Tonight, Basil is performing on a Baldantoni violin, circa 1820.

Riko Higuma

Versatile pianist Riko Higuma made her U.S. debut as a soloist with the Fort Worth Symphony. A sought-after collaborative pianist, she has shared the concert stages with artists such as Aaron Rosand, Neil Rosenshein, Cho-Liang Lin, Alan Gilbert, Ray Chen, and Timothy Eddy, and she has collaborated (engaged by the New York Philharmonic) with Leonidas Kavakos, Gil Shaham, and Michael Tilson Thomas. Performance highlights as a member of the Zodiac Trio include Festival Radio France/Montpellier, Ottawa Chamberfest, Edinburgh Festival, and Shanghai Oriental Art Center. She has been featured in music festivals around the world, including Zodiac Music Academy & Festival in France, La Jolla Music Society Summerfest, New Docta in Argentina, and LidalNorth in Norway. Her performances were featured by France 3 Television, Radio France, CBC, WXQR, WFMT, WGBH, and NPR. She is a staff pianist and vocal coach at the Manhattan School of Music, where she studied with Phillip Kawin.