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NEW TO THE ROSTER
Conductor Robert Franz Joins the Roster. We are delighted to announce that acclaimed conductor Robert Franz has joined our distinguished roster of conductors. Music Director of the Windsor Symphony and Fairbanks Summer Arts Festival, Franz also serves as Associate Conductor of the Houston Symphony. He is busy as a guest conductor whose recent engagements include The Cleveland Orchestra, the Baltimore, Phoenix and St. Louis Symphonies, and the Orchestra da Camera Fiorentina in Italy. A dedicated music educator, advocate for arts education, winner of awards for musical excellence and champion of community partnerships, Franz celebrates his 10th anniversary with the Houston Symphony this year and has been honored as the first member of the Houston Symphony conducting staff with the Raphael Fliegel Award for Visionary Leadership. Press Release. Read more…
CD RELEASE: Conductor Andrew Constantine leads the BBC National Orchestra of Wales in a gorgeous new recording Elgar: The New England Connection – Enigma Variations – and George Chadwick’s Symphonic Sketches just released on Orchid Classics. The critics approve. Of Chadwick’s Symphonic Sketches, ClassicalSource.com remarks: “The whole work is most persuasively presented by Constantine and BBCNOW…” And about Elgar’s Enigma Variations ClassicalSource.com notes that Constantine “leads an impressive account of Elgar’s masterpiece – deeply-felt (not least ‘Nimrod’), insightful, vividly detailed, expressively glowing – one to shortlist, and as superbly played as it is recorded: I have returned to it several times with undiminished admiration.”
” a top notch release” Read more… Video Sampler
NEW TO THE ROSTER
The American Opera Projects production of AS ONE is now available on tour. This winning coming-of-age story on a transgender theme is for two singers and quartet by Laura Kaminsky, with librettist Mark Campbell and filmmaker & librettist Kimberly Reed. The mezzo-soprano and baritone depict the experiences of the sole transgender protagonist, Hannah, as she endeavors to resolve the discord between her self and the outside world. Premiered at BAM with the Fry Street Quartet, Sasha Cooke and Kelly Markgraf, the New York Times hails AS ONE for its “winning humor” and “satisfying emotional arc.” And the Los Angeles Times notes: “The real secret of the opera’s success… is that under everything lays a winning coming-of-age story.” Video. More…
NEW TO THE ROSTER
Award-winning violinist Eunice Kim joins our roster. Jonathan Wentworth Associates is delighted to announce the addition of Eunice Kim to our roster of world-class soloists. A young artist with a unique voice, violinist Eunice Kim has been proclaimed “just superb” by The New York Times and “a born performer” by Epoch Times. A native of the San Francisco Bay Area, the Astral Award-winning violinist has been featured soloist with The Philadelphia Orchestra, Louisville Symphony, St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, the Seongnam Philharmonic, Bakersfield Symphony, and the Albany Symphony Orchestra, with which she has recorded George Tsontakis’s Unforgettable which has just been released on the Naxos Records label. As a guest artist with Curtis on Tour, she has performed in Taiwan, Hong Kong, South Korea, and Germany with violist Roberto Díaz, and appeared at both the Library of Congress and the United Nations for Secretary General Ban Ki-moon. Eunice Kim toured in California and Europe this summer performing the Bruch Violin concerto from San Jose to Zagreb, Budapest and Vienna, followed by performances at Caramoor and beyond. More…
Grammy-winning guitarist Jason Vieaux embarks on a new project with Billboard’s top-selling violinist Anne Akiko Meyers. These two internationally acclaimed artists join forces for upcoming tour dates. Jason and Anne will offer exciting programs featuring works of Bach, Paganini, Corigliano, Bartok, Falla, Glass, Ciupinski, Jobím, Duke Ellington and more. Following their terrific performance at the Eastern Music Festival (where Jason also gave Rodrigo’s Concierto de Aranjuez with conductor Jose-Luis Novo) the Classical Voice of North Carolina reports that Meyers “wowed the audience” and that “Vieaux is a complete master of the guitar”. Performing John Corigliano’s ‘Lullaby for Natalie’, which was written for Ms. Meyers, the critic also had this to say: “This is indeed a gorgeous piece and a marvelously intimate arrangement….The gentle performance completely mesmerized the audience.” More about Jason Vieaux
OLGA KERN JOINS DALI QUARTET ON TOUR
Jonathan Wentworth Associates is pleased to announce that pianist Olga Kern will join the Dalí Quartet for selected dates on tour. During the 2018-2019 season, the Van Cliburn Competition gold-medal winning pianist will join the Dalí Quartet, known for their mix of both “classical roots and Latin soul”. These musical friends will offer a variety of programs, including the towering Shostakovich piano quintet, a good fit for these five passionate musicians. Additional piano quintets offered are those of Brahms and Schumann. More information. Inquire about date availability here.
32 Bright Clouds Through the 2020-2021 concert season, Yael Weiss’ tour programs will include her major new initiative 32 Bright Clouds. This project will bring thirty-two newly commissioned short piano works to the stage alongside Beethoven’s cycle of 32 Piano Sonatas. Composers from 32 different countries, particularly from those of conflict where creative efforts often face insurmountable challenges, are featured, including composers from Indonesia, Jordan, Iran and Bhutan. Read more in News …
Aziz Shokhakimov has won the Nestlè and Salzburg Festival Young Conductors Award at the 2016 Salzburg Festival. Three finalists were selected from a shortlist of eight candidates, drawn from 65 applicants overall. Each of the finalists conducted the Salzburg Camerata during the Award Concert Weekend, and a jury led by Chairman Dennis Russell Davies and Honorary President Plácido Domingo selected Aziz Shokhakimov as the winner. In addition to the cash prize, Aziz will conduct the Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra in a Salzburg Festival concert at the Felsenreitschule concert hall next August. Nestlè Chairman Peter Brabeck-Letmathe said, “The ‘Nestlè and Salzburg Festival Young Conductors Award’ shows once again how meaningful it is to give young conductors the opportunity to present their talent as part of a festival as renowned as the Salzburg Festival. We are happy to support this initiative, unique throughout the world in its kind, and thereby boost the careers of these young talents, introducing them to a broad public through the Award“.
The Carducci Quartet is awarded Royal Philharmonic Society’s Chamber Music Award. The awards are the highest recognition for live classical music in the United Kingdom. On May 10th, the RPS awards singled out the Carducci Quartet “for its Fifteen Shostakovich Quartets in over 60 concerts throughout the UK, including five complete cycles, – one of which was presented in four concerts in one day at the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse. The Carducci Quartet devoted 2015 to a heroic challenge and these were great performances of great chamber music, taken to venues that had not heard the like before.”
The Carducci Quartet’s year-long Shostakovich 15 project included an all-Shostakovich CD and dozens of performances in the UK, Europe and North America, culminating with all fifteen quartets in one day at The Globe in London. The Guardian wrote: “truly extraordinary… astonishing intensity… once in a lifetime event”. Fellow nominees included the Cavatina Chamber Music Trust and the esteemed Nash Ensemble.
More about the award-winning Carducci String Quartet.
Acclaimed violinist Mark Kaplan’s much anticipated 2-CD set of complete solo Bach is released on the Bridge label. Praise for Kaplan’s “extraordinary lyricism” quickly followed. “It is as if every note, every phrase of these monumental works has something to say to Kaplan and, in turn, he has something to say to you about them.” [ArtMusicLounge] Kaplan, who plays a 1685 Stradivarius, is sought after for his Bach performances and lectures at venues as diverse as Indiana University, UCLA, New York’s Bargemusic, Oxford University and the Philharmonie in Cologne. Kaplan enjoys a wide and varied career as a soloist, chamber musician and distinguished educator. He has performed with nearly every major orchestra in the principal cities of Europe, North America, the Far East and Australia. He tours worldwide and records with the Weiss-Kaplan-Stumpf Trio, exploring the masterworks of the piano trio repertoire as well as new works by Lera Auerbach, Fred Lerdahl and others. Kaplan’s previous recordings include violin concerti of Paganini, Wieniawski, Bartok, Dohnanyi, Nono, Lalo, Berg and Stravinsky with such esteemed ensembles as the London Symphony and the Budapest Festival Orchestra. Read more.
Andrè Laplante and the Prokofiev 3rd Piano Concerto: Following his Grieg Concerto with the Montrèal Symphony, pianist Andrè Laplante performed the Prokofiev 3rd to bring a triumphant close to the Orchestre Symphonique de Quèbec’s season. “The presentation of Prokofiev’s Concerto No. 3, with pianist Andrè Laplante, proved at least as strong, if not more convincing, than the Beethoven. ” (Le Soleil) Read More…
And at Ottawa Chamberfest: “His sumptuous sound achieves an almost three-dimensional quality, never harsh or uncontrolled even in the most explosively virtuosic passages. Laplante tossed off thundering cascades of octaves and astounding double trills, but also showed tremendous subtly and delicacy, and all that technical skill only serves his intelligent, emotionally unbridled musicality.” (Ottawa Citizen) More about Andrè Laplante…
NPR’s Tiny Desk concerts series features Jason Vieaux & Yolanda Kondonassis, guitar & harp. The duo gives lushly detailed performances of gorgeous new works in a twenty-minute live presentation behind Bob Boylen’s desk. Hear Jason & Yolanda create a compelling unity from their two instruments on NPR Music’s iconic and eclectic Tiny Desk series.
Azica Records releases 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.
NPR’s All Things Considered featured The Crossroads Project. Hear the story.
Aziz Shokhakimov conducts the Nürnberger Symphoniker, the Magdeburgische Philharmonie, followed by a triumph with the Edmonton Symphony. Aziz makes his debut with the Frankfurt Radio Symphony in a program including Debussy’s La Mer.
Cellist Clancy Newman’s new video series, Pop-Unpopped, is a set of solo cello pieces inspired by #1 US Billboard hits (including Meghan Trainor’s All About That Bass, Taylor Swift’s Shake It Off, and much more. Watch/listen.
Dalí Quartet: “forged a near-instant rapport with the audience… In no time, the 300-plus audience members were on their feet” More… video…
Pianist Christopher Taylor performs Messiaen’s towering “Vingt Regards” in Milwaukee and at the Metropolitan Museum of Art – “remarkable” and “poetic” says The New York Times … review
NEWSLETTER