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Dalí Quartet hits the road: Following its warm reception in New England – “The Dali Quartet offered more than just technical brilliance or stylistic range on Sunday. They offered conviction, enthusiasm, and a visceral sense of purpose” writes The Berkshire Edge – the Dalí Quartet hits the road for summer concerts, workshops, and more. Travel beckons for Chamber Music America’s 2024 Ensemble of the Year, with return engagements at New York’s Maverick Concerts, in Colorado at Off the Hook Arts and in Mexico for SA’OAXACA International Music Festival. The Dalí makes debut performances in Vermont at the Central Vermont Chamber Music Festival, in Washington state at Icicle Creek Center for the Arts and opens the Hood College Summer Concert Series in Maryland. Bringing Latin music to an equal standing alongside the Classical and Romantic canon, the group will also host the 22nd Annual Dali Quartet International Music Festival for eight days in July and August. A glimpse into 2026 shows the Dalí immersed in the Beethoven Quartet cycle. More news soon! Link here to the Dalí Quartet schedule, and to its latest CD, Voces Latinas (Centaur).
Marsalis-McAllister-Ames Trio A sparkling new collaboration of Grammy Award-winning saxophonists Branford Marsalis and Timothy McAllister with the brilliant artistry of pianist Liz Ames. This new trio presents a rich and engaging program combining Marsalis’s emotive jazz style, McAllister’s cutting-edge techniques, and Ames’s sophisticated piano to create an intriguing mix of improvisation and precision, blending jazz’s spontaneity with the structured elegance of classical music. In collaboration with Opus3Artists.
More Information: PDF
2024 PULITZER PRIZE in MUSIC to Tyshawn Sorey: Timothy McAllister premiered Tyshawn Sorey’s Adagio (for Wadada Leo Smith) and we are thrilled to announce that Sorey has just been awarded the 2024 Pulitzer Prize in Music for the Adagio (LINK to excerpt). Described by the Pulitzer board as “an introspective saxophone concerto, with a wide range of textures, presented in a slow tempo, a beautiful homage, that’s quietly intense, treasuring intimacy rather than spectacle” McAllister gave the world premiere with the Lucerne Festival Orchestra, and the U.S. premiere with the Atlanta Symphony.
“McAllister was comfortable standing with one foot in each of the normally disparate worlds of classical refinement and hard bop intimacy.” ArtsATL
“Sorey’s writing for the solo sax establishes whole another brand of virtuosity, one wrought of long lines, where each note is given its singular identity; a procedure akin to the playing of the concerto’s dedicatee as well as the tintinnabulations of Arvo Pärt.” AIM-Adventures in Music
Pulitzer Prize in Music Finalists & Announcement
The Weiss Kaplan Stumpf Trio welcomes the release of the complete set of Beethoven’s piano trios in a 3-CD set on Bridge Records. The deluge of stellar reviews praise the artistic power of pianist Yael Weiss, violinist Mark Kaplan and cellist Peter Stumpf as “absolute magic… the music explodes in the sixth variation and proceeds after a sentimental cello aria to a moment of absolute magic, with the piano singing against the pulsing strings, paced perfectly as only a few recordings have done.” (Gramophone)
“great musical capacities, perfect interpretation, and stylistic consistency make this 3-disc album an extraordinary example of the highest quality recording” (EarRelevant)
“these three artists expose the creative spark…. This has to be one of the most convincing and cohesive recordings of Beethoven’s music for piano trio so far.” “all you hear is the composer’s vision and intent, free of superfluous gestures and mannerisms.” (Classical Music Sentinel)
“The stellar New York City based trio offer deep and full-bodied interpretations of eight immortal masterworks.” (Grigorian.com)
The trio’s previous Bridge Records releases include works of Brahms, Smetana, Paul Chihara, Lera Auerbach, Chen Yi, Clancy Newman, Paul Schoenfeld and Fred Lerdahl.
Listen on Spotify Listen on YouTube Weiss Kaplan Stumpf Trio – live at Tonhalle Düsseldorf
Rising Tide is on tour. Inspiring audiences to change course. The Crossroads Project confronts a planet under siege and a future in peril. Grounded in science, elevated by art, igniting response. Available as a live performance with residency programming options, the show is also a feature-length cinematic performance fusing compelling science, evocative imagery, and powerful music in an exploration of nature, humanity, and the paths that lie before us. Featuring physicist Dr. Robert Davies and the Fry Street Quartet, Rising Tide: The Crossroads Project confronts a planet under siege and a future in peril – inspiring audiences to change the course.
Acclaimed violinist Eunice Kim appeared at the Cabrillo Festival to premiere the Duo Concerto for Violin & Double Bass by composer and double bassist Xavier Foley. This superb musician, with her quick mind and a maverick bow arm [link here to her Mendelssohn Violin Concerto video] has been soloist with the Philadelphia Orchestra, Louisville Orchestra, St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, Pro Musica Columbus, Boulder Philharmonic, Akron Symphony, New West Symphony, Wheeling Symphony, Williamsburg Symphony and the Seongnam Philharmonic, among others. Concerto repertoire list here.
Saxophonist Timothy McAllister (two Grammy nods) welcomes a newly commissioned concerto from the esteemed and beloved American composer Adolphus Hailstork for the 2024/25 season (available following McAllister’s January 2025 premiere). More high profile composers with new concertos lined up for Timothy McAllister include Steven Mackey for 2025/26, Viet Cuong for 2026/27 and, ready for premiere in 2023, the Whimsical Concerto of Fanciful Birds by Canadian composer Vincent Ho. Whimsical Concerto is scored for also saxophone solo and spatialized ensemble of eight saxophones in the hall, drawn from high level students in the community for a special musical and public experience. Saxophonist Timothy McAllister “stood with one foot in the classical world, and the other in jazz” (ArtsAtl.org) in performance with the Atlanta Symphony in the U.S. premiere of Tyshawn Sorey’s Adagio (For Wadada Leo Smith) in 2023. Today’s most celebrated saxophonist, McAllister has premiered concertos dedicated to him by John Adams, John Corigliano and Guillaume Connesson, among others. About the Corigliano Triathlon 2022 premiere: “he gave the piece the knockout performance it deserved” with the San Francisco Symphony (San Francisco Chronicle) and the New York Times hails his “satiny alto saxophone”.
More about Timothy McAllister here.
Mezzo-soprano Sasha Cooke and guitarist Jason Vieaux, two internationally acclaimed Grammy-winning artists, premiered the new Andy Poxon arrangement of Michael Tilson Thomas’ Not everyone thinks that I’m beautiful at their San Francisco Performances recital in 2023. The encore crowned “a radiantly beautiful concert that featured music from three centuries and continents” (San Francisco Classical Voice). Available for selected dates, Sasha and Jason have brought their collaboration to the Kennedy Center, Music@Menlo, Round Top and beyond. Their new program focuses on music more naturally suited to the intimate and colorful magic of voice and guitar, by composers including Villa-Lobos, Schubert, de Falla, Jobím, Metheny, Sondheim, Lennon, Jaime Ovalle and Peter Scott Lewis.
Meanwhile, Jason has added the gorgeous new Avner Dorman concerto How to Love to his extensive concerto list. He gives “eloquent and vibrant performances” writes Gramophone Magazine of his Bach Vol. 2 release (Azica). NPR’s #NowPlaying says: “The notes cascade in waterfalls, and in Vieaux’s immaculate, joyful performance you hear all of Bach’s interlocking voices” More about Jason Vieaux.
Robert Franz is interviewed on NPR. In a new episode on how we experience time, Ted Radio Hour host Manoush Zomorodi invites Robert Franz to talk about the perception of time while experiencing music. Music is architecture in time – not in space, but in time, says Franz. Link here to the Ted Radio Hour with Robert Franz and link here to Franz’s TedTalk on active listening. Robert Franz is the award-winning conductor and Music Director of the Windsor Symphony, Artistic Director of Boise Baroque, and Music Director of the UNCSA Symphony Orchestra. At home in Windsor (where this US citizen has Canadian permanent residency status) Robert Franz has brought the Windsor Symphony to new prominence. Under his baton the WSO released its first commercial recording in 15 years “Christmas, eh” and given world premieres of new works by Farhad Poupel and Nicole Lizée. Recent guest engagements include conducting an ABBA celebration with the Fort Worth Symphony and the premiere of the new saxophone concerto Whimsical Concerto of Fanciful Birds by Canadian Composer Vincent Ho with the Saskatoon Symphony and acclaimed saxophonist Timothy McAllister.
Following an extensive national search spanning two seasons, conductor Michael Butterman has been named Music Director of the Williamsburg Symphony Orchestra. Butterman remains the Music Director of the acclaimed Boulder Philharmonic, which opened the inaugural SHIFT Festival at the Kennedy Center, as well as Music Director of the Shreveport Symphony and the Pennsylvania Philharmonic, an orchestra uniquely focused on music education. As a guest conductor, Michael Butterman has led many of the country’s preeminent ensembles, including the Cleveland Orchestra, Philadelphia Orchestra, National Symphony, Detroit Symphony, Ft. Worth Symphony and Houston Symphony. Butterman, who spent his childhood in Northern Virginia and later earned two degrees from the University of Virginia is delighted to return to the Commonwealth. The Williamsburg Symphony is thrilled to welcome Michael Butterman to the community. Learn more here.
Sean Chen steps out with a debut at the Allegheny Riverstone Center and returns to the Sunriver Music Festival and the New West Symphony. His double-header with conductor Michael Christie and the New West Symphony features both the Strauss Burleske and the Francaix Concertino. The American pianist is a “thoughtful musician well beyond his years” (The Republic) and is hailed as a rising star with a “million-volt smile” and a “formidable set of fingers” (Dallas Morning News). Sean Chen is a performer of tremendous depth who is also a composer and arranger. This powerful triple-play has earned him three high-profile awards and an impressive following. In 2013 Chen won the American Pianists Association’s DeHaan Classical Fellowship, one of the most lucrative and significant prizes available to an American pianist. As the first American to reach the finals of the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition since 1997, he went on to win the Bronze Medal in 2013, and then became the 2015 recipient of the $100,000 Leonore Annenberg Fellowship. Acclaimed for his “penetrating artistic intellect” (Audiophile Audition) and “ravishing tone and cogently contoured lines” (Gramophone), the young American pianist has already appeared as soloist on return engagements with the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra, Fort Worth Symphony and Indianapolis Chamber Orchestra, made debuts with the Philadelphia Chamber Orchestra at the Kimmel Center and with the orchestras of Milwaukee, Phoenix, Hartford, Santa Fe, Tucson, North Carolina, San Diego, the New West Symphony and many others in the U.S. and South America (in an extensive concerto repertoire). A collaborative artist, Sean Chen is held in high esteem by such conductors as Gerard Schwarz, who spoke of his Bartok Concerto #2 as “stupendous”. More…
Grammy-winning guitarist Jason Vieaux performs Four Paths of Light Part on Pat Metheny’s latest album Road to the Sun. Upon release in March, it arrived on the Billboard Classical chart at number one — and on the UK and Germany charts at number one as well. Written for and recorded by Jason Vieaux, this expansive four-movement suite is part of a unique recording featuring two major Pat Metheny compositions performed by others. This new genre-defying recording from 20-time Grammy Winning Guitarist/Composer Pat Metheny is his first on Modern Records and includes a new work commissioned by the Los Angeles Guitar Quartet, and Metheny’s performance of Arvo Pärt’s Für Alina.
London Jazz News has this to say: “If anyone’s going to play this suite, Jason Vieaux is the perfect choice.”
“And as well as an obvious love for Metheny’s compositions, Vieaux has a well-matched playing style of meticulous clarity combined with lush romanticism.”
Listen to Jason Vieaux perform Part 2 of Four Paths of Light on YouTube Music.
More information here.
Rising Tide: The Crossroads Project – Grounded in science, elevated by art, igniting responses
The Fry Street Quartet collaborates with climate physicist and communicator, Dr. Robert Davies in Rising Tide: The Crossroads Project, an evocative performance about global sustainability that weaves art and science together through music, prose, and stunning visual imagery.
Rising Tide: The Crossroads Project is a live performance and is available as a full length film. Sample here.
Rising Tide: The Crossroads Project Feature Film is “a transfixing film that signifies the enlightened intertwining of science, social conscience, music and art…” link to film here.
10th Anniversary, the Artists Reflect: Sample here.
The Crossroads Project confronts a planet under siege and a future in peril – inspiring audiences to change course.
Educational Outreach components on tour focus on solutions.
Internationally acclaimed cellist Colin Carr is the complete artist – renowned for his concerto appearances with symphonies worldwide, his many distinguished recordings, his landmark performances of the complete Bach Suites and his long-standing commitment to the chamber music repertoire. Acclaimed for performances that are “unfailingly musical, logically thought through and convincingly argued” (New York Times) he has appeared with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Royal Philharmonic, BBC Symphony, the Philadelphia Orchestra, the symphonies of Chicago, Los Angeles, Montréal, and more. He is currently on a widely celebrated tour of the Bach cello suites through Asia and North America. “His supreme technique gives him the freedom to hold together long complicated phrases that many more mortal cellists can’t manage without breaking their arcs. And with his bouncy, jig-like ebullience, Carr is better than anybody in the final Gigues”. (Boston Musical Intelligencer) Colin Carr is honored with the First Prize in the Naumburg Competition, the Gregor Piatigorsky Memorial Award, and as winner of the Young Concert Artists competition, among other accolades. More…
Christopher Taylor brings breathtaking experiences to the concert hall performing the Franz Liszt transcriptions of all the Beethoven 9 Symphonies. Individual works are available, as is the entire set. “What is remarkable is not that it makes the piano sound like an orchestra but that the reduction really sounds like piano music — on a grand scale, but pianistic nevertheless” writes the Boston Musical Intelligencer, which continues: “The way this version of a symphony that everyone knows and loves could best succeed is with dancelike lightness and momentum, and Taylor managed that feature completely, with unfailing and often effortless energy.”
Azica Records has released Together, the new CD from Yolanda Kondonassis & Jason Vieaux. The gorgeous CD is comprised entirely of original works for harp and guitar including two world premieres of works commissioned by Jason and Yolanda: Knock on Wood, by Keith Fitch, and Hypnotized, by Gary Schocker. Hear the interview and samples from WRCJ Detroit.
Jonathan Wentworth Associates is located respectfully on the traditional lands of the Piscataway Peoples and the Piscataway-Conoy Peoples, past and present. We honor with gratitude the land itself and the people who have stewarded it throughout the generations.
