SPARK 13 | Concert with SooJin Anjou and Noah Bendix-Balgley (violin) | Discussion: "Biases and First Impressions: The Hidden Lens in Art and Science”


18-19h                               CONCERT

                                              SooJin Anjou, piano

                                        Noah Bendix-Balgley, violin

James Helgeson (b. 1966)        Four Pieces for Piano (2024)*

                                               1. Rapsodia testarda

Robert Saar (1925-1976)         Klavierstücke Op. 16 Nr. 3, 4, 6

Franz Schubert (1797-1828)     Sonata for Violin and Piano in g minor, D. 408

Maurice Ravel (1875-1937)       Sonata for Violin and Piano

*world premiere

19.15-20h                       DISCUSSION

Biases and First Impressions: 

The Hidden Lens in Art and Science

with Noah Bendix-Balgley, James Helgeson, Frank Heppner, Gary Kruppa, Paula Leupold

Hosted by SooJin Anjou and Nikolaus Rajewsky 

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Pianist SooJin Anjou enjoys an astonishingly varied international career as soloist, chamber musician and partner in diverse interdisciplinary projects. Born in South Korea, she was educated in the United States, Hungary and Germany.  She graduated from the Juilliard School as the only person in its history to win both of Juilliard’s undergraduate commencement prizes, for achievement and leadership in music and the liberal arts. While still a student, she was prominently featured in Asahi-TV’s documentary “New York, New Yorkers” , which was televised in many parts of Asia and released on DVD.  

SooJin Anjou is an avid performer of contemporary music, and composers have been entrusting their work to her since she was 15. She has premiered works by, among others, Valentin Silvestrov, Elena Kats-Chernin and David Del Tredici.  Her world-premiere recording of the complete piano works of electronic music legend Morton Subotnick was released to great acclaim, eliciting such praise as “magical and beguiling” (Wire Magazine, London).

As soloist, she made her Boston Symphony Orchestra debut at  age 16 with Prokofiev's 3rd Piano Concerto. She is a laureate of the Robert Schumann International Piano Competition (Zwickau, Germany) and the Orléans International Piano Competition (France).   Her broad repertoire includes more than 40 concertos, ranging from Bach to Berio, as well as the complete works of Ravel.

Noah Bendix-Balgleyis First Concertmaster of the Berlin Philharmonic and tours both as a soloist and chamber musician. His clear and heartfelt personal sound has moved listeners around the world.

Recent highlights include his debut at Carnegie Hall as featured soloist on the Berlin Philharmonic’s US tour, a tour of Japan with the NHK Symphony Orchestra, and concerto appearances with the Philharmonic Orchestras of Dresden, Buffalo, Auckland, and Nagoya. He has also performed with the Shanghai, Guangzhou, Utah, Lyon, and Royal Danish Orchestras. Noah’s album Mozart/Sinigaglia with Kirill Petrenko and the Berlin Philharmonic was released in June 2024 to critical acclaim.

A renowned performer of klezmer music, Noah composed and premiered his own klezmer violin concerto, Fidl-Fantazye, in 2016 with the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra. He has sinnce performed the work more than a dozen times around the world, including with the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, Baltimore Symphony, and Orchestre National de Lyon. 

A passionate chamber musician, Noah is a founding member of the Rosamunde String Quartet and the multi-genre ensemble Philharmonix. Recent festival appearances include the Seattle Music Festival, La Jolla Summerfest and the Aix-en-Provence Festival. 

Born in Asheville, North Carolina, Noah graduated from the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music and the Munich Hochschule. Now a gifted educator himself, Noah teaches at the Curtis Institute of Music (Philadelphia, USA) and the Karajan Academy of the Berlin Philharmonic.

James Helgeson (b.1966) is a composer who serves as Professor and Dean at the Barenboim-Said Akademie in Berlin. His music explores memory, intonation, and the relationship between musical and literary form. His work ranges from chamber opera and ensemble music to solo instrumental cycles and microtonal studies, often engaging with philosophical and poetic texts. Recent projects include the chamber opera Feuergesicht (in progress), the ensemble work September Music, and the solo cello cycle Tierpark. His music has been performed and recorded by musicians including SooJin Anjou, Natalie Clein, Felix Fan, Ben Goldscheider, Carla Rees, Joshua Rubin, Daan Vandewalle, Mingzhe Wang, Ensemble Garage, and the Ostravská Banda.

Helgeson studied composition at the Curtis Institute of Music, where he received the Alfredo Casella Prize for Composition, and at Oberlin Conservatory. He holds doctorates from Royal Holloway, University of London, and Princeton University. Alongside his compositional work, he has pursued interests in literature, aesthetics, and translation, fields that continue to inform his music. He has previously taught French Renaissance literature at Cambridge and Columbia Universities.

Tonight’s featured composition is dedicated to SooJin Anjou and marks the first in a set of four homages to close musician friends.

Frank L. Heppner is Professor of Neuropathology and Chairman of the Department of Neuropathology at Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin, a role he has held since 2007. His work bridges clinical neuropathology and academic research, with a sharp focus on neurodegeneration and neuroinflammation. Specifically, his research employs interdisciplinary approaches to understand how immune processes contribute to neurological diseases. Professor Heppner studied medicine at the universities of Lübeck, Hamburg, Berlin, and London, receiving his MD from the Humboldt University of Berlin. He completed his clinical and research training in Zurich and Bonn, and earned his habilitation in neuropathology at the University of Zurich. Alongside his clinical work, he has served as Vice-Dean for Research at Charité. He is an elected member of the German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina, a recipient of several neuroscience awards, and actively fosters healthcare innovation through founding a therapeutic spin-off and advising life science investment initiatives.

Gary Kruppa is a senior biotechnology executive, currently semi-retired. Most recently, he served as Senior Vice President at Bruker Daltonics Inc. and Executive Director of Bruker SRO, where he managed teams developing revolutionary proteomics applications, including dia-PASEF. Gary earned his Ph.D. in chemical physics from Caltech and began his career with Bruker in Switzerland following postdoctoral fellowships at the University of Basel and Ciba-Geigy. Over his distinguished tenure at Bruker, he served as Vice President for FTMS and Vice President for Business Development (2004–2014). From 2001 to 2004, Gary led his own research lab at Sandia National Laboratories, developing novel mass spectrometry methods for protein structure analysis. He also served as CEO of MRM Proteomics Inc. from 2014 to 2016, commercializing plasma biomarker kits. Upon returning to Bruker in 2016 as Vice President for Proteomics, his team successfully launched the innovative timsTOF Pro QTOF mass spectrometer. Gary has co-authored over 60 publications and holds two patents.

Paula Leupold is a doctoral researcher at the Berlin Institute for Molecular Systems Biology (MDC-BIMSB). After studying biochemistry in Berlin, Stockholm, and El Paso, she joined the Laboratory for Systems Biology of Gene Regulatory Elements at MDC-BIMSB in 2024. Her current research investigates how the human brain responds to viruses and environmental stressors, such as micro- and nanoplastics. Paula’s passion for uncovering the molecular mechanisms of disease sparked during the 2014 Ebola epidemic, later leading her to conduct coronavirus research at the Robert Koch Institute in 2019. Beyond the lab, Paula is a dedicated science communicator who frequently shares her work through panel discussions, presentations, and podcasts. She is also a 2025/26 ZEIT ZIA fellow.