Oct. 18: Sony Classical Presents Charles Ives – The Anniversary Edition in celebration of the 150th Anniversary of the American Composer

Sony Classical Presents
Charles Ives – The Anniversary Edition
in celebration of the 150th Anniversary of
American Composer Charles Ives

The first re-issue of Columbia Masterworks legendary
Anniversary Edition from 1974
In collaboration with Yale Music Library, home of the Charles Ives papers

Album Release Date: October 18, 2024
Reviewer Rate Upon Request

On the 150th anniversary of the birth of Charles Ives – acclaimed by his champion Leonard Bernstein as the “first great American composer”, who, “all alone in his Connecticut barn, created his own private musical revolution” – Sony Classical presents the most authoritative recording collection ever released of works by this eccentric, prophetic genius. The 5-CD box set Charles Ives – The Anniversary Edition, which will be released by Sony Classical on October 18, 2024, is a unique and provocative introduction only released previously 50 years ago on LP by Columbia Masterworks under the art direction of Henrietta Condak to celebrate Ives’s centenary.

The first disc examines “The Many Faces of Charles Ives” through eight diverse works recorded between 1964 and 1970: Bernstein conducts the New York Philharmonic in The Fourth of July and The Unanswered Question; General William Booth Enters into Heaven, one of Ives’s towering achievements, and The Circus Band are performed by the Gregg Smith Singers; baritone Thomas Stewart sings the moving song In Flanders Fields; organist E. Power Biggs plays Ives’s Variations on “America”; composer Gunther Schuller conducts The Pond for chamber orchestra; and the Largo cantabile Hymn is performed by the New York String Quartet and double bass player Alvin Brehm.

CD 2, “The Celestial Country”, offers Ives’s early cantata by that name, composed in 1897–99 for his conservative Yale composition teacher Horatio Parker. It is sung by the Gregg Smith Singers (accompanied by the Columbia Chamber Orchestra), who also perform arrangements of four of Ives’s most powerful patriotic songs with the American Symphony Orchestra and Leopold Stokowski conducting.

“The Things Our Fathers Loved”, CD 3, contains 25 of Ives’s songs, delivered by the soprano Helen Boatwright, who specialized in American song. She is partnered by John Kirkpatrick, who studied and worked closely with Ives and is still regarded as the most authoritative interpreter of his piano music. Gramophone in 1974 praised this famous recording as “the finest selection ever to appear” on LP of “what may well turn out to be considered his most important, characteristic and consistently inspired body of music.”

The next CD is unusually revealing: “Ives Plays Ives” features the composer himself in 1933, 1938 and 1943, thumping out snippets of his pathbreaking “Concord” Sonata and shorter piano pieces in the New York recording studio of Mary Howard, Toscanini’s recording engineer. In his performance of the “Concord” Sonata’s slow movement, “The Alcotts”, wrote a Gramophone commentator, Ives “Ives’s playing is heartfelt but objective, a yin-meets-yang quality that wise performances embrace.” During three brief extracts from “Emerson”, the sonata’s opening movement, the writer goes on to say, “Ives hands pianists a timbral blueprint for the base sound he imagined: bangy attack, boozy rhythmic freedom; this is not the time or the place for consciously refined, ‘pretty’ playing.”

The last disc in the set is called “Charles Ives Remembered”. This fascinating collage of spoken reminiscences was the first-ever documentation of a musical figure using oral history. More than 50 interviews with family, friends, neighbors and colleagues create a vivid memory portrait of this enigmatic figure in the voices of the people who knew him best. Moving from Ives’s childhood and years at Yale to his public career as an insurance executive and his private career as a composer, the memories and reflections assembled by award-winning musicologist Vivian Perlis provide a multi-faceted and humanizing view of an enigmatic American musical icon.

SET CONTENTS

DISC 1

The Many Faces Of Charles Ives
The Fourth Of July • The Unanswered Question • In Flanders Fields • Hymn (Largo Cantabile) • The Pond • Variations On "America" • The Circus Band • General William Booth Enters Into Heaven

DISC 2

The Celestial Country
They Are There! (Choral Version) • Majority (Or The Masses) • An Election • Lincoln, The Great Commoner

DISC 3

The Things Our Fathers Loved
25 Ives Songs
Helen Boatwright, soprano; John Kirkpatrick, piano

DISC 4

Ives Plays Ives
Charles Ives performs his own works at the piano

DISC 5

Charles Ives Remembered
Reminiscences Of the Composer By Relatives, Friends And Associates
With A. J. "Babe" LaPine, Bernard Herrmann, Bigelow Ives, Charles Buesing, Chester Ives, Elliott Carter, George Tyler, John Kirkpatrick, Julian Myrick, L. Parkins, Lehman Engel, Mary Howard, Mrs. George F. Roberts, Richard Ives, Watson Washburn
Interviewer: Vivian Perlis

Newport Classical Announces Free Fall Community Concerts on September 8 and October 6

Newport Classical Community Concert in 2023, featuring Kinan Azmeh CityBand, at Newport Craft Brewing. Available in high resolution here.

Newport Classical Announces Fall Community Concerts

Free, Casual, and Welcoming to All
Presented by BankNewport

Fulton Chamber Players
Sunday, September 8, 2024 at 2:30pm
Newport Craft Brewing | 293 JT Connell Highway | Newport, RI

Bridge & Wolak
Sunday, October 6, 2024 at 2:30pm
Newport Classical Recital Hall | 42 Dearborn Street | Newport, RI

Information & Registration: www.newportclassical.org

Newport, RI – Newport Classical presents two fall Community Concerts featuring Fulton Chamber Players on Sunday, September 8, 2024 at 2:30pm at Newport Craft Brewing (293 JT Connell Highway) and Bridge & Wolak on Sunday, October 6, 2024 at 2:30pm at the Newport Classical Recital Hall (42 Dearborn Street). Audiences can look forward to these casual, engaging, and welcoming concerts – presented right in their own Newport neighborhoods. The performances are free and advanced registration is requested but not required for both performances.

On September 8, Fulton Chamber Players (Paul Hauer, violin; Amy Hess, viola; Addison Teng, violin) kick off the 2024-2025 Newport Classical Community Concerts Series at Newport Craft Brewing. This well-traveled, world-class ensemble aims to give back to communities while inspiring the next generation of musicians. They will bring a sweeping selection of classical music from Bach and Dvořák to Scott Joplin and George Gershwin to Newport Craft’s expansive lawn overlooking the Pell Bridge in a casual, family-friendly concert. Audiences are invited to take full advantage of this unorthodox classical concert with Newport Craft beer and bites available for purchase during the outdoor performance. 

On October 6, Newport Classical welcomes the globe-trotting musical duo Bridge & Wolak (Michael Bridge, accordion, and Kornel Wolak, clarinet) to the Newport Classical Recital Hall in downtown Newport. The Canadian duo combine their shared love for classical, jazz, and world music into life-affirming concerts full of beauty, virtuosity, and humor. Their genre-fusing programs are sure to create a passionate and engaging musical adventure. It’s fun for the whole family in Newport Classical’s newly air-conditioned home venue.

These free concerts are generously presented as part of the BankNewport Community Concerts Series with additional support from the Rhode Island Foundation Newport County Fund and a Rhode Island Foundation Community Grant.

Up next, Newport Classical presents a free Children's Concert at the Newport County YMCA on Saturday, August 17 at 4pm, featuring WindSync performing Prokofiev's famous Peter and the Wolf, complete with costumes and choreography. Newport Classical’s Chamber Series opens this fall at the Newport Classical Recital Hall on September 13 with the “entrancing” (BBC Music Magazine) Merz Trio in an exploration of melody. On September 27, the Ariel Quartet, distinguished by its virtuosity and fiery performances, performs a concert of catharsis featuring music written in response to loss. Finnish-Cuban pianist Anton Mejias brings the US premiere of composer Philip Lasser’s response to Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier to Newport on October 18. On November 1, baritone Markel Reed, known for his appearances at the Metropolitan Opera, sings the music of Brahms, Margaret Bonds, Terence Blanchard, and more. Cellist Seth Parker Woods, celebrated by The Guardian as “a cellist of power and grace,” explores three centuries of music with Bach’s contemplative Sarabandes as a point of departure and return in his solo cello concert on November 15. Newport Classical’s Chamber Series continues through June 2025.

For Newport Classical’s complete concert calendar, visit www.newportclassical.org/concerts

About Newport Classical:

Newport Classical is a premier performing arts organization that welcomes people of every age, culture, and background to intimate, immersive musical experiences. The organization presents world-renowned and up-and-coming artistic talents at stunning, storied venues across Newport – an internationally sought-after cultural and recreational destination.

Originally founded in 1969 as Rhode Island Arts Foundation at Newport, Inc., Newport Classical has a rich legacy of musical curiosity having presented the American debuts of hundreds of international artists and is most well-known for hosting three weeks of concerts in the summer in the historic mansions throughout Newport and Aquidneck Island. In the 55 years since, Newport Classical has become the most active year-round presenter of music on Aquidneck Island, and an essential pillar of Rhode Island’s cultural landscape, welcoming thousands of patrons all year long.

Newport Classical invests in the future of classical music as a diverse, relevant, and ever-evolving art form through its four core programs – the one-of-a-kind Music Festival; the Chamber Series in the Newport Classical Recital Hall; the free, family-friendly Community Concerts Series; and the Music Education and Engagement Initiative that inspires students in local schools to become the arts advocates and music lovers of tomorrow. These programs illustrate the organization’s ongoing commitment to presenting “timeless music for today.”

In 2021, the organization launched a new commissioning initiative – each year, Newport Classical will commission a new work by a Black, Indigenous, person of color, or woman composer as a commitment to the future of classical music. To date, Newport Classical has commissioned and presented the world premiere of works by Stacy Garrop, Shawn Okpebholo, Curtis Stewart, and Clarice Assad.

November 1: Sony Classical Presents Emanuel Feuermann – The Complete RCA Album Collection

Sony Classical Presents
Emanuel Feuermann – The Complete RCA Album Collection

New Release Date: November 1, 2024
Reviewer Rate: $34.40

Pre-Order Available Now

“Anything he played he engraved in your memory” – Richard Taruskin

For the first time ever, Sony Classical is issuing a complete collection of the recordings made for RCA Victor by the fabled Austrian cellist Emanuel Feuermann with 11 works for the first time on CD transferred from the original master discs. The set, which will be released on September 20, 2024, comes with new liner notes by violin expert John Maltese as well as photos and facsimiles from the private archives of cellist Marika Hughes, granddaughter of Emanuel Feuermann.

In his tragically short career – mainly in Germany, until the Nazi regime dismissed him from his position at the Berlin conservatory in 1933, and in the US, where he emigrated five years later – Feuermann took the art of cello playing to new heights. Eugene Ormandy declared that his cello revealed to the conductor what music really means. In the words of American critic-pianist-composer Jed Distler, “Feuermann had everything: an intense, focused tone that sings with expressive economy, controlled warmth, centered intonation, a smooth yet variegated bow arm, one of the most adroit left hands in the business (what effortless double stops!), unswerving integrity, and impeccable taste.” “Anything he played he engraved in your memory,” wrote musicologist Richard Taruskin.

Feuermann made some celebrated recordings in Germany and England, but it is the post-emigration albums for RCA on which his iconic reputation largely rests. Produced in New York, Philadelphia and Hollywood between 1939 and 1941, the year before he died at the age of only 39 (the result of negligence during a routine operation) – they include the Brahms Double Concerto (with violinist Jascha Heifetz) and Strauss’s Don Quixote, both with the Philadelphia Orchestra under Ormandy; and Bloch’s Schelomo with the Philadelphians under Leopold Stokowski.

Feuermann’s benchmark RCA chamber music catalog comprises Beethoven, Schubert, Mozart and Brahms piano trios with Heifetz and Rubinstein; a Beethoven string duo and a Dohnányi string trio with Heifetz and viola great William Primrose; as well as a host of duo recordings – some never before issued at all – with the outstanding German-American pianist Franz Rupp (accompanist of Fritz Kreisler and singers from Lotte Lehmann and Beniamino Gigli to Marian Anderson), including Mendelssohn’s Second Cello Sonata and shorter works and transcriptions ranging from Bach and Handel to Fauré and Canteloube.

SET CONTENTS

DISC 1:

Brahms: Concerto for Violin and Cello in A Minor, Op. 102 with Jascha Heifetz, violin
Bloch: Schelomo - Hebraic Rhapsody for Cello & Orchestra

DISC 2:

Schubert: Piano Trio in B-Flat Major, D. 898 with Jascha Heifetz, violin; Arthur Rubinstein, piano

DISC 3:

Beethoven: Piano Trio in B-Flat Major, Op. 97 with Jascha Heifetz, violin; Arthur Rubinstein, piano
Beethoven: Duet in E-Flat Major, WoO 32 with William Primrose, viola

DISC 4:

Mozart: Divertimento in E-Flat Major, K. 563 with Jascha Heifetz, violin; Arthur Rubinstein, piano

DISC 5:

Brahms: Piano Trio No. 1 in B Major, Op. 8 with Jascha Heifetz, violin; Arthur Rubinstein, piano
Dohnanyi: Serenade, Op. 10 with Jascha Heifetz, violin; William Primrose, viola

DISC 6:

R. Strauss: Don Quixote, Op. 35: Fantastic Variations on a Theme of Knightly Character

DISC 7:

Mendelssohn: Cello Sonata No. 2, Op. 58
Canteloube de Maralet: Bourée Auvergnate in A
Fauré-Casals: Après un rêve, Op. 7, No. 1 (Transcribed for Cello by Pablo Casals)
Handel-Feuermann: Organ Concerto, Op. 4, No. 3: Movement I (Arranged for Cello and Pinao by Emanuel Feuermann)
Handel-Feuermann: Organ Concerto, Op. 4, No. 3: Movement II
Beethoven: Introduction and Polonaise brilliante, Op. 3
Chopin-Feuermann: 12 Variations from Mozart's Die Zauberflöte, Op. 66
Davidov: 4 Pieces, Op. 20: 2. Am Springbrunnen
J.S. Bach-Casals-Siloti: Organ Toccata in C Major, BWV 564: Adagio
Handel-Feuermann: Organ Concerto, Op.4, No.3: Movement I
Canteloube de Maralet: Bourée Auvergnate in A
Davidov: 4 Pieces, Op. 20: 2. Am Springbrunnen
Fauré-Casals: Après un rêve, Op. 7, No. 1 (Transcribed for Cello by Pablo Casals)
Ochs: Arioso -"Dank Sei Dir, Herr" with Hulda Lashanska, soprano
Schubert-Pasternack: Litanei, D. 343 with Hulda Lashanska, soprano

Sept. 5: Violinist Yevgeny Kutik & Pianist Renana Gutman Presented by the Ravinia Festival – Performing Selections from Kutik’s Celebrated Album Music from the Suitcase

Violinist Yevgeny Kutik and Pianist Renana Gutman
Presented by the Ravinia Festival

Performing Selections from Kutik’s Celebrated Album
Music from the Suitcase

Plus Major Works by Darius Milhaud, Ernest Bloch, and Felix Mendelssohn

Thursday, September 5, 2024 at 7:30pm
Bennett Gordon Hall (in the John D. Harza Building) | Highland Park, IL

Tickets and More Information

“polished dexterity and genteel, old-world charm” – WQXR

www.yevgenykutik.com

Highland Park, IL — On Thursday, September 5, 2024 at 7:30pm, longtime friends and collaborators violinist Yevgeny Kutik, known for his “dark-hued tone and razor-sharp technique,” (The New York Times) and pianist Renana Gutman, will perform at the Ravinia Festival’s Bennett Gordon Hall. The two musicians will perform selections from Kutik’s acclaimed album, Music from the Suitcase, as well as major works by Darius Milhaud, Ernest Bloch, and Felix Mendelssohn.

Recorded in 2014 on Marquis Classics, this year marks the tenth anniversary of Music from the Suitcase. The recording highlights works Kutik and his family found meaningful during their journey to the U.S. from the Soviet Union in 1990. The album’s title refers to an actual suitcase – one of only two pieces of luggage – that Kutik’s mother insisted be filled with old sheet music and brought with them to the U.S.

Most recently, Gutman, who is a Ravinia Steans Music Institute alumna, performed with Kuitk as part of the spring 2024 edition of the Birch Festival – a music and arts festival in the Berkshires of Massachusetts held twice a year* in the fall and spring, of which Kutik is the founding Artistic Director. The Birch Festival is dedicated to promoting and propelling distinct voices in music, bringing world-leading musicians for artist residencies and working in tandem with local business and cultural partnerships.

At Ravinia, Kutik and Gutman will perform an extensive and diverse concert program of selections from Music from the Suitcase, including: Preludes Nos. 10, 15, 16, and 24 from op. 34 (arr. Dmitri Tziganov) by Dmitri Shostakovich; Romance in E-flat major, Op. 44, No. 1 (arr. Henryk Wieniawski) by Anton Rubinstein; and Waltz from Cinderella, Op. 87 (arr. Mikhail Fikhtengolts) by Sergei Prokofiev. The concert will also include Le Boef sur le Toit (The Ox on the Roof) by Darius Milhaud, Violin Sonata in F major by Felix Mendelssohn; and Baal Shem (Three Pictures of Chassidic Life) by Ernest Bloch.

This concert program speaks to Kutik’s appreciation for how music can connect people and cultures alike. Le Boef sur le Toit is especially meaningful for Kutik, as he was introduced to the music of Milhaud through his long time teacher and friend, Roman Totenberg: “I had spent several weeks working on the Brahms Concerto with Mr. Totenberg in painstaking detail, and he could sense I was in desperate need of a ‘fun’ distraction. He suggested the music of Milhaud, with whom Mr. Totenberg had had a particularly close working relationship, even touring South America as a violin/piano duo,” Kutik explains.

“The piece was inspired by Brazilian folk tunes and French nightclub culture. The tunes were so catchy, the extensive bitonal passages and numerous dissonant notes all so blatantly "wrong" sounding--I had never encountered a piece quite like [Le Boef sur le Toit],” Kutik says. ”It's extremely difficult for both piano and violin and I realize now that it provided me the perfect opportunity to continue my growth as a violinist and artist against the backdrop of a fun, light-hearted work.”

Kutik says of the Mendelssohn Sonata: “It is remarkable for a number of reasons but particularly so that it was unpublished for over 100 years, until Yehudi Menuhin discovered it and edited it down. It's a clear demonstration of Mendelssohn's lyric and energetic brilliance and has some very poignant moments. In my opinion, I've always seen parts of it as an exploration of his mixed background - he was baptized as a Lutheran, while his grandfather was one of the most prominent Jewish philosophers.”

Bloch composed Baal Shem Suite: ​​Three Pictures of Chassidic Life, also a tribute piece, in 1923. Dedicated to the composer's mother who passed away two years prior, the three movement work is Bloch’s deeply personal reflection on various Jewish themes.

About Yevgeny Kutik: Violinist Yevgeny Kutik has captivated audiences worldwide with an old-world sound that communicates a modern intellect. Praised for his technical precision and virtuosity, he is also lauded for his poetic and imaginative interpretations of both standard works and newly composed repertoire. Kutik is also ​​Artistic Director and co-founder of The Birch Festival.

A native of Minsk, Belarus, Kutik began violin studies with his mother, Alla Zernitskaya, and immigrated to the US with his family at the age of five. An advocate for the Jewish Federations of North America, the organization that assisted his family in coming to the US, he regularly speaks and performs across the country to promote the assistance of refugees from around the world. Kutik’s discography, all on Marquis Classics, includes The Death of Juliet and Other Tales (2021), Meditations on Family (Marquis Classics 2019), Words Fail (2016), Music from the Suitcase (2014), and Sounds of Defiance (2012). Music from the Suitcase is being developed into an immersive stage and performance production for the 2024-2025 season.

Yevgeny Kutik was a featured soloist in Joseph Schwantner’s The Poet’s Hour – Soliloquy for Violin on episode six of Gerard Schwarz’s All-Star Orchestra, a made-for-television classical music concert series released on DVD by Naxos and broadcast nationally on PBS. In 2021, Kutik made his debut with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra led by Leonard Slatkin, performing the world premiere of Schwantner’s Violin Concerto, an expansion of The Poet’s Hour, written specifically for Kutik. Kutik gave the world premiere of Cântico, a work for solo violin by Andreia Pinto Correia, at the Tanglewood Music Festival in August 2022. The work was co-commissioned for Kutik by the Boston Symphony Orchestra. In 2019, he made his debuts at the Kennedy Center, presented by Washington Performing Arts, and at the Ravinia Festival. Kutik made his major orchestral debut in 2003 with Keith Lockhart and The Boston Pops as the First Prize recipient of the Boston Symphony Orchestra Young Artists Competition. In 2006, he was awarded the Salon de Virtuosi Grant as well as the Tanglewood Music Center Jules Reiner Violin Prize.

Kutik holds a bachelor’s degree from Boston University and a master’s degree from the New England Conservatory and currently resides in Boston. Kutik’s violin was crafted in Italy in 1915 by Stefano Scarampella.

For more information, please visit www.yevgenykutik.com.

About Renana Gutman: Praised by The New York Times for her “passionate and insightful” playing, Renana Gutman has performed across four continents as an orchestral soloist, recitalist and collaborative artist. She played at venues like The Louvre Museum, Grenoble Museum (France), Carnegie Recital Hall, People’s Symphony Concerts, Merkin Hall (New York), St. Petersburg’s Philharmonia (Russia), Stresa Music Festival (Italy), Ravinia Rising Stars (Chicago), Jordan Hall, Gardner Museum (Boston), Herbst Theatre (St. Francisco), Menuhin Hall (UK), UNISA (South Africa), Marlboro (VT), and National Gallery, Phillips Collection, and Freer Gallery (Washington DC). Her performances are heard frequently on WQXR Young Artists Showcase, NY, WFMT Dame Myra Hess, Chicago, and MPR in Performances Today, MN.

Renana was one of four young pianists selected by the renowned Leon Fleisher to participate in his workshop on Beethoven piano sonatas hosted by Carnegie Hall, where she presented performances of “Hammerklavier” and “Appassionata” to critical acclaim. Her recording of Chopin etudes op.25 will be released soon by “The Chopin Project.” A top prize winner at Los Angeles Liszt competition, International Keyboard Festival in New York, and Tel-Hai International Master Classes, she performed concerti such as Brahms 2nd, Rachmaninoff-Paganini Variations, and Beethoven’s “Emperor” with the Jerusalem Symphony, Haifa Symphony, Belgian “I Fiamminghi”, and Mannes College Orchestra. Her festival appearances included Marlboro and Ravinia, where she collaborated with prominent musicians like pianist Richard Goode, clarinetist Anthony McGill and members of the Guarneri string quartet, to name a few.

Renana joined the piano faculty of Boston’s Longy School of Music of Bard College in the fall of 2019. She had previously been on the piano faculty of the Yehudi Menuhin Music School in the UK. A native of Israel, Renana started playing at the age of six, and soon after, garnered multiple awards and honors. She received scholarships from the America Israel Cultural Foundation, and the Jewish Foundation for the Education of Women. She completed her Bachelor and Master of Music degrees at Mannes College of Music, NY, where she studied with Richard Goode. In Israel, her teachers were pianists Natasha Tadson, Viktor Derevianko, and the Israeli composer Arie Shapira. Renana became an American citizen in 2015 and makes her home in Boston, MA. She also pursues her passion for Argentinian Tango, languages, and poetry.

About Ravinia Festival: Ravinia believes in the power of shared, live-music moments to inspire ourselves and the world. Beyond presenting outstanding performances by the world’s greatest musicians, the nonprofit’s mission to develop broader, more diverse audiences and performers in the music industry can be seen through its community engagement and education programs like Reach Teach Play and the Steans Music Institute. Together, Ravinia’s initiatives serve tens of thousands of students, families, and young professional musicians.

The 36-acre park is home to North America’s longest-running outdoor music festival and serves as an enchanting place to experience concerts throughout the summer. Performances range from Yo-Yo Ma to John Legend to the annual summer residency of one of the world’s finest orchestras: the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. Guests can bring their own picnics, including food and liquor. A full range of dining options is available at the park, from concession carts to fine dining. Ravinia performances occur rain or shine. Audiences are invited to come early to enjoy various pre-concert activities, including the festival’s sculpture tour, the interactive musical playground KidsLawn, and the Ravinia Music Box.

Ravinia is the only private train stop in Illinois, with Metra’s Union Pacific North line stopping at the Grand Entrance. Since 2021, in collaboration with Metra, all trains on the Union Pacific Line honor Ravinia tickets as train fares; patrons can show their dated concert e-ticket for a free train ride to and from the park on the day of the event. The festival is located about 20 miles north of Chicago at Green Bay and Lake Cook Roads in Highland Park. Onsite parking is limited, and the festival operates a free park-and-ride shuttle bus service to nearby lots along the train line.

The safety of audiences, artists, staff and the community is Ravinia’s top priority. Expert advice guides our safety protocols, which are currently updated to ensure best practices; a variety of specialized programs and technology are engaged to ensure the venue is accessible and safe for all its patrons.

Visit the website for the most up-to-date programming and protocols. Tickets are on sale now.

For Calendar Editors:

Description: Violinist Yevgeny Kutik, described by The New York Times as having a “dark-hued tone and razor-sharp technique,” and pianist Renana Gutman, praised for her “passionate and insightful” performance, are presented as part of the Ravinia Festival on Thursday, September 5, 2024 at 7:30pm. Together, Kutik and Gutman will perform an extensive concert program featuring assorted selections from Music from the Suitcase. Released in 2014 on Marquis Classics, this marks the tenth anniversary of Music from the Suitcas – an album which highlights works Kutik and his family found meaningful during their journey to the U.S. from the Soviet Union in 1990. Their concert program will also include major works by Darius Milhaud, Ernest Bloch, and Felix Mendelssohn.

Concert details:

Who: Violinist Yevgeny Kutik and Pianist Renana Gutman
Presented by the Ravinia Festival
What: Performance of selections from Kutik’s 2014 release, Music from the Suitcase – an album featuring music Kutik and his family found meaningful when traveling to the U.S. from the Soviet Union in 1990.
When: Thursday, September 5, 2024 at 7:30pm
Where: Bennett Gordon Hall (in the John D. Harza Building) | Highland Park, IL 60035
Tickets and information: www.ravinia.org/Online/Article/090524-YevgenyKutik

Aug. 30: Violinist Joshua Bell Reunites with Cellist Steven Isserlis and Pianist Jeremy Denk in New Sony Classical Recording of Felix Mendelssohn’s Piano Trios

Album Artwork – For Media Use (Download)

Violinist Joshua Bell Reunites with Cellist Steven Isserlis and Pianist Jeremy Denk
in a New Sony Classical Recording of Felix Mendelssohn’s Piano Trios

Piano Trio No. 1 In D Minor, Op. 49: II. Andante Con Moto Tranquillo
Out Now - Listen Here

Album Release Date:
(Digital) August 30, 2024
(CD) October 25, 2024
Presave and Pre-Order Here

Violinist Joshua Bell reunites with two of his favorite collaborating artists and friends – cellist Steven Isserlis and pianist Jeremy Denk – for Sony Classical’s new recording of the piano trios of Felix Mendelssohn, to be released digitally on August 30 and on CD on October 25 – presave and pre-order here. Accompanying today’s news is the release of the first track from the forthcoming recording - Piano Trio No. 1 in D Minor, Op. 49: II. Andante con moto tranquillo – listen here.

The new recording follows a unique all-Brahms collection For the Love of Brahms – released by Sony Classical in 2018 – that was also a collaboration of Bell, Isserlis and Denk.

Of the new Mendelssohn Piano Trio recording, Joshua Bell notes: “Steven Isserlis and Jeremy Denk have been my most cherished chamber music partners for decades.  They bring seemingly limitless imaginations and uncanny musical intelligence to every work I have had the privilege of exploring with them. It is my hope that our mutual joy for playing chamber music and, in particular, our shared deep love for the genius of Felix Mendelssohn comes through in this recording of these Piano Trios. I am forever grateful for having the opportunity to make this album.”

The two Mendelssohn trios – No. 1 in D Minor, Op. 49 (1839) and No. 2 in C Minor, Op. 66 (1845) – are regarded as being among the composer’s masterpieces.

In his liner notes for the new recording, Isserlis quotes Robert Schumann’s belief – written shortly after the premiere of his friend’s Piano Trio No. 1 – that “Mendelssohn… has soared so high, that we may venture to say that he is the Mozart of the nineteenth century, the brightest among musicians, the one who looks most clearly of all through the contradictions of the time and reconciles us to them.”

Interestingly, the writing of the first trio tested even Mendelssohn’s genius, as the second would, as well.

With that in mind, listeners to this recording will find a revelatory bonus track – the original version of the song-like second movement (Andante con moto tranquillo) of Piano Trio No. 1.

"Of course, Mendelssohn had excellent reasons for his revisions,” Isserlis writes in the liner notes, “including the addition of the deeply expressive middle section; but there are a few touches in the original version which have a delightful freshness to them – which is why we decided to include it as an extra track on this disc. (Here I would like to offer thanks to the Israeli pianist Ron Regev, whose fascinating article about the two versions, and painstaking transcription of the original, made this possible.)"

Such insight is among the reasons Joshua Bell has enjoyed creative partnerships with Isserlis and Denk for much of his career, in concert and on recordings, as both a performing partner and as the music director of London’s Academy of St Martin in the Fields. Their collaboration has a lively history.

As Denk told Strings Magazine, after the Brahms recording was complete, “Steven loves to argue – but it’s in good humor – and is more obsessed with structure, Josh with the flow of the narrative. I love both structure and narrative and might be in the middle, moderating from this black monster with its keys. We know each other’s foibles and tendencies and have all chosen to play with each other over a long period of time.”

About Joshua Bell: With a career spanning almost four decades, GRAMMY® Award-winning violinist Joshua Bell is one of the most celebrated artists of his era. Bell has performed with virtually every major orchestra in the world and continues to maintain engagements as soloist, recitalist, chamber musician, conductor, and Music Director of the Academy of St Martin in the Fields.

Sony Music Masterworks comprises Masterworks, Sony Classical, Milan Records, XXIM Records, and Masterworks Broadway imprints. For email updates and information please visit www.sonymusicmasterworks.com.
 

Follow Joshua Bell
Website || Facebook || Instagram || Twitter || YouTube

Nov. 1: Sony Classical Releases Human Universe – New Album from Pianist and Composer Hayato Sumino

Sony Classical Releases Human Universe
New Album from Pianist and Composer Hayato Sumino

Album Release Date: November 1, 2024
Pre-order available now

Press downloads available upon request

Sony Classical announces the upcoming release of Human Universe by extraordinary young New York-based Japanese pianist and composer, Hayato Sumino (also known as Cateen), scheduled for release on November 1, 2024. The latest single from the album, Solari by Ryuichi Sakamoto, is out now.

Sumino is an exceptional artistic phenomenon: Known as Cateen, he has garnered over 1.5 million followers globally across his platforms and nearly 200 million views on YouTube to date. His participation at the 2021 International Chopin competition, where he reached the semifinals, caused a sensation and gained over 8.5M views on YouTube. In April 2024, he made a spectacular Royal Albert Hall debut with his performance of Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue capturing the spotlight both online and in the concert hall.

Human Universe showcases Sumino’s multi-faceted gifts in a diverse selection of works that run the gamut from Bach, Handel, Purcell, Chopin, Fauré and Debussy to iconic film composers like Hans Zimmer and Ryuichi Sakamoto as well as Sumino’s own compositions and arrangements. The recording highlights his distinctive style, seamlessly merging his refined classical technique with the discerning ear of an arranger and exceptional improvisational talent.

A prodigious composer, Hayato Sumino possesses a unique and captivating style that effortlessly combines his diverse musical interests, ranging from classical and jazz to film music, post-classical, and electronica. He is also much in-demand for film and TV scores in Japan and is rapidly gaining a place as one of the leading members of the next generation of musicians for whom genre borders are simply no obstacle.

About Hayato Sumino: Born and raised in Japan, Sumino first gained international recognition in the 2021 International Chopin Piano Competition in Warsaw, where his unique and characterful performances captured the hearts of the audience and where he progressed to the semi-finals. Recognized for his distinctive style which carefully blends a well-honed classical technique with the fine ear of an arranger and strong improvisational skills, he brings a unique and refreshing musical approach to the piano.

Sumino has appeared as a soloist with numerous orchestras around the world, including the Hamburg Symphony, NHK Symphony Orchestra, Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra, Japan Philharmonic Orchestra and the Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra, with whom he made a recording under Marin Alsop. He shares his music with enthusiastic audiences both online and in his many live performances throughout North America, Europe and Asia. He won a coveted spot on the Forbes Japan 30 Under 30 list, became a Steinway Artist in 2021 and is an ambassador for CASIO electronic musical instruments.

Sept. 13: Sony Classical Presents Misha Dichter – The Complete RCA Victor Recordings

Sony Classical Presents
Misha Dichter – The Complete RCA Victor Recordings

First re-issue of the complete remastered RCA Victor recordings
Silver Medal winner at the 1966 International Tchaikovsky Piano Competition

Album Release Date: September 13, 2024
Reviewer Rate: $22.51

Misha Dichter was born in 1945 in Shanghai, where his Polish parents had fled, by way of the trans-Siberian railroad, in order to wait out the war. In 1947, the Dichter family moved to Los Angeles where Misha began studying piano. His first significant teacher was Aube Tzerko, who had studied with Artur Schnabel. “He literally started me from scratch,” Dichter recalled. But the hard work finally paid off when he was accepted into Rosina Lhévinne's class at the Juilliard School.

“In the fall of 1965 I saw a poster in the Juilliard coatroom announcing the third annual Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow,” recalls Dichter. “I had just lost a few local competitions in Los Angeles, so I thought, why not just go for the big one?” The young pianist’s Silver Medal victory in 1966 led to a contract with RCA Victor, for whom he made the three acclaimed albums reissued here, and to the international career of this “most polished pianist” (High Fidelity).

It was inevitable, perhaps, that Dichter’s début release for the label would be given over to the Tchaikovsky B-flat minor Concerto, the same work that catapulted the competition’s first winner Van Cliburn to international stardom. Dichter was to perform the Tchaikovsky at Tanglewood, with the Boston Symphony Orchestra under Erich Leinsdorf, so RCA duly set up recording sessions.

Dichter’s second RCA Victor album juxtaposed selected Brahms piano pieces with Stravinsky’s 3 Movements from Petrushka, and with his third RCA release, the pianist devoted himself to Beethoven and Schubert. Arthur Rubinstein approved of Dichter’s Schubert, to the extent that he famously invited his younger colleague to his Paris home, where a film crew captured Dichter playing Schubert’s B-flat Sonata D 960 in Rubinstein’s presence. Dichter holds an equally special affinity for the A major Sonata D 959 – “it still represents to me what paradise looks and sounds like.” Sony Classical will release the first re-issue of Misha Dichter's complete remastered RCA Victor recordings on September 13, 2024.

SET CONTENTS

DISC 1:

Tchaikovsky: Concerto for Piano and Orchestra No. 1 in B-flat minor op. 23

DISC 2:

Brahms: Intermezzo in A minor op. 118/1
Brahms: Intermezzo in A major op. 118/2
Brahms: Capriccio in C-sharp minor op. 76/5
Brahms: Intermezzo in E major op. 116/4
Brahms: Rhapsody in E-flat major op. 119/4
Stravinsky: 3 Movements from Petrushka

DISC 3:

Beethoven: Andante in F major “Andante favori” WoO 57
Schubert: Piano Sonata in A major D 959

Sept. 13: Sony Classical Announces Jonas Kaufmann Puccini: Love Affairs – Six of Puccini’s Greatest Duets and Scenes Each with a Different Soprano

Sony Classical Presents
Jonas Kaufmann Puccini: Love Affairs

Album Release Date: September 13, 2024
Pre-order Available Now

The tenor’s new release presents six of Puccini’s greatest duets and scenes, each with a different soprano, celebrating the composer’s centenary this year.

with Anna Netrebko, Asmik Grigorian, Malin Byström, Maria Agresta,
Pretty Yende and Sonya Yoncheva.
Two famous tenor arias complete the program

Following on from his phenomenally successful GRAMMY-nominated first Puccini album in 2015, Nessun Dorma, Jonas Kaufmann now presents a new album of Puccini highlights to mark the composer’s 2024 anniversary year. He has selected for the new recording six great duets and scenes with six outstanding sopranos – legendary love scenes, emotionally-charged Love Affairs. Pre-order is available now.

“What really appealed to me was recording these very different duets with different partners,” says Kaufmann. “With almost all of them I’ve experienced unforgettable moments on stage.”

Manon Lescaut is sung by Anna Netrebko, with whom he has appeared many times over the course of his career. This year alone audiences have heard them together in two productions of Ponchielli’s La Gioconda. Tosca is sung by Sonya Yoncheva, who recently partnered with him at the Arena di Verona. The part of Butterfly is sung by Maria Agresta, who will be touring with Kaufmann this October to mark the Puccini centenary and performing some of the repertoire on this album. In the wake of their stunning success in the new Vienna production of Turandot in December 2023, Asmik Grigorian and Jonas Kaufmann now portray the tragic lovers in Il Tabarro. And as in the performances of the opera at the Bavarian State Opera in Munich, Malin Byström is here once again his partner in La Fanciulla del West. The album also has a debut, with Jonas Kaufmann and Pretty Yende heard together for the first time, in the famous love duet from La Bohème.

Asher Fisch, the album’s conductor, is a regular collaborator of Kaufmann’s: “We’ve known each other for many years. This is also now our second album, after Dolce Vita, which we recorded in Palermo in 2016. This time we went to Bologna, and the brilliant orchestra of the Teatro Comunale, whom I gave a concert with a few years ago.”

The new album also features two of Puccini’s tenor hits that didn’t appear on the first album in 2015: “Che gelida manina” from La Bohème and “E lucevan le stelle” from Tosca.

For Jonas Kaufmann, Puccini’s music is and remains a unique phenomenon: “The buttons he pushes with his music still work, a hundred years after his death – and do so in a modern society that is completely jaded from an endless flood of bad news and experiences. Much has been written about Puccini, but as I see it, no one has ever yet been able to explain how he managed to evoke such unbelievably powerful emotions with just a few notes. That is a mystery that probably no AI in the world can comprehend.”

Puccini: Love Affairs will be released internationally on September 13, 2024 via Sony Classical as a limited-edition deluxe CD and on all digital platforms.

Tracklist:

Giacomo Puccini 1858–1924

LA BOHÈME (Act I, Rodolfo & Mimì)
Libretto: Giuseppe Giacosa & Luigi Illica

1 “O soave fanciulla”

with Pretty Yende

MANON LESCAUT (Act II, Manon & Des Grieux)
Libretto: Domenico Oliva, Giulio Ricordi, Luigi Illica & Marco Praga

2 “Tu, tu, amore? Tu?”

with Anna Netrebko

TOSCA (Act I, Tosca & Cavaradossi)
Libretto: Giuseppe Giacosa & Luigi Illica

3 “Mario!” – “Son qui!”
4 “Ah, quegli occhi!” – “Qual occhio al mondo”

with Sonya Yoncheva

LA FANCIULLA DEL WEST (Act I, Minnie, Johnson, Nick)
Libretto: Guelfo Civinini & Carlo Zangarini

5 “Mister Johnson, siete rimasto indietro”
6 “Quello che tacete”

with Malin Byström

IL TABARRO (Giorgetta & Luigi)
Libretto: Giuseppe Adami

7 “O Luigi! Luigi! … Dimmi: perché gli hai chiesto”

with Asmik Grigorian

MADAMA BUTTERFLY (Act I, Pinkerton & Butterfly)
Libretto: Giuseppe Giacosa & Luigi Illica

8 “Viene la sera”
9 “Bimba dagli occhi pieni di malia”
10 “Vogliatemi bene”

with Maria Agresta

LA BOHÈME (Act I, Rodolfo)

11 “Che gelida manina!”

TOSCA (Act III, Cavaradossi)

12 “E lucevan le stelle”

Jonas Kaufmann tenor
Pretty Yende · Anna Netrebko · Sonya Yoncheva
Malin Byström · Asmik Grigorian · Maria Agresta sopranos
Orchestra del Teatro Comunale di Bologna
Asher Fisch conductor 

Newport Classical Announces 2024-2025 Chamber Series - Expanded Season of Twelve Concerts - Tickets on Sale July 30

Photos available in high resolution here.

Newport Classical Announces 2024-2025 Chamber Series
Tickets on Sale July 30

Presenting an Expanded Season of Twelve Concerts from September 2024 through June 2025

“It all pointed to a thriving musical community, generously supported by locals whose love of the arts equals their pride in the town’s elegant past. And with Fox’s bold new refresh, the next 50 years of Newport Classical look set to equal the success of the last.” – BBC Music Magazine

Information & Tickets: www.newportclassical.org

Newport, RI – Following its record-breaking 55th summer festival, Newport Classical presents its fourth full-season Chamber Series held on select Fridays at 7:30pm, newly expanded to twelve concerts held between September 2024 and June 2025, at the organization’s newly air-conditioned home venue, Newport Classical Recital Hall (42 Dearborn St.). Tickets will go on sale to the public on July 30 at www.newportclassical.org.

Newport Classical Executive Director Gillian Fox says, “This year’s Newport Classical Music Festival drew thousands of attendees, with 32.5% of audience members attending a concert for the first time and 8.4% growth in total patrons. We are so thrilled to have welcomed so many familiar faces and new patrons to experience classical music with us in an inviting and intimate atmosphere. Our Chamber Series continues this programming throughout the year, and we can’t wait to share with the community the incredible artistry of these world-class musicians who will be coming to perform from September through June in downtown Newport.”

Newport Classical's Chamber Series takes place at Newport Classical Recital Hall in downtown Newport, known for its striking architecture and excellent acoustics. The Chamber Series reaffirms Newport Classical’s commitment to year-round classical music programming. Audiences are invited to enjoy performances by world-class classical musicians in a relaxed setting, with a complimentary glass of wine from Greenvale Vineyards and homemade treats by Newport Classical volunteers. Both performers and audience members alike have described these concerts as some of their favorites. “Beautiful concert, high artistry and exciting programming . . . a deeply moving and soulful experience, with a rousing and brilliant virtuosity that kept you on the edge of your seat,” raved one attendee.

As part of Newport Classical’s desire to create connections between classical music, the artists who perform it, and the Newport community, all musicians performing on the Chamber Series will also go into the Newport-area public schools to perform for and speak with students, through Newport Classical’s Music Education and Engagement Initiative. 

Newport Classical’s Chamber Series opens this fall on September 13 with the “entrancing” (BBC Music Magazine) Merz Trio in an exploration of melody sung into and for the night, beginning with the 12th-century chants of Hildegard von Bingen and spanning the music of Schumann, Alma Mahler, and Brahms, all the way through Thelonious Monk in the 20th-century. On September 27, the Ariel Quartet, distinguished by its virtuosity and fiery performances, performs a concert of catharsis featuring music written by composers Mendelssohn, Lera Auerbach, and Britten in response to loss. Finnish-Cuban pianist Anton Mejias brings the US premiere of composer Philip Lasser’s response to Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier to Newport on October 18. On November 1, baritone Markel Reed, known for his appearances at the Metropolitan Opera, sings the music of Brahms, Margaret Bonds, Terence Blanchard, and more. Cellist Seth Parker Woods, celebrated by The Guardian as “a cellist of power and grace,” explores three centuries of music with Bach’s contemplative Sarabandes as a point of departure and return in his solo cello concert on November 15.

The Chamber Series continues in 2025 with the Telegraph Quartet, described as “powerfully adept, with a combination of brilliance and subtlety” by the San Francisco Chronicle, presenting music rarely experienced by its creators, the composers Rebecca Clarke, Beethoven, and Smetana, on January 24. Boyd Meets Girl comes to Newport for a performance on Valentine’s Day, February 14 – the impressive husband-and-wife guitar and cello duo has toured the world sharing their eclectic mix of music from Debussy and Bach to Radiohead and Beyoncé. On February 28, the acclaimed Trio Karénine, which has established itself in recent years as a key group on the French and international stage, pairs Schubert’s second piano trio with Dvořák’s rarely programmed second piano trio, filled with color, warmth, lively dance, and Slavic folk elements. Oboist James Austin Smith, hailed by The New York Times as “virtuosic,”and for his “dazzling” and “brilliant” performances, joins forces with acclaimed pianist Gloria Chien in music by William Grant Still, Clara Schumann, Camille Saint-Saëns, and more, on March 21. On April 25, Bulgarian-American violinist Bella Hristova, who has won international acclaim for her “expressive nuance and rich tone” (The New York Times) presents the music of Bach and Messiaen, alongside works by Grieg and Indian-American composer Reena Esmail, with pianist Anna Polonsky. Pianist Orion Weiss, known for his “powerful technique and exceptional insight” (The Washington Post) returns to Newport for a solo recital of Bach’s beloved Goldberg Variations on May 16. On June 13, the GRAMMY-nominated Norwegian Trio Mediaeval, who captivate audiences with their crystalline voices, closes the 2024-2025 Newport Classical Chamber Series with an enchanting evening of Norwegian and Swedish traditional songs, hymns, fiddle tunes, and ballads.

Single tickets start at $45 and packages are available starting at $200 for five concerts. AARP members and their guests receive discounts on fall Chamber Series tickets and packages, and thanks to a generous grant from the Gruben Charitable Foundation, a limited number of free student tickets are available on a first-come, first-served basis.

During the 2024-2025 season, Newport Classical will also present several free family-friendly Community Concerts at neighborhood-centered locations, generously sponsored by BankNewport, and two holiday programs, which will be announced later this year. The 2025 Newport Classical Music Festival will take place from July 4-22, 2025.

Newport Classical 2024-2025 Chamber Series Schedule At-A-Glance:

September 13: Merz Trio performs Schumann and Brahms

September 27: Ariel Quartet performs Mendelssohn and Britten

October 18: Anton Mejias performs US Premiere of Lasser's responses to Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier

November 1: Baritone Markel Reed sings Brahms, Bonds, and Blanchard

November 15: Cellist Seth Parker Woods – Bach Sarabandes and Responses

January 24: Telegraph Quartet performs Beethoven

February 14: Boyd Meets Girl

February 28: Trio Karénine performs Schubert and Dvořák

March 21: Oboist James Austin Smith and pianist Gloria Chien

April 25: Violinist Bella Hristova performs Bach and Grieg

May 16: Orion Weiss performs The Goldberg Variations

June 13: Trio Mediaeval

Complete concert details can be found at www.newportclassical.org/concerts. All Chamber Series concerts are held on select Fridays at 7:30pm at Newport Classical Recital Hall (42 Dearborn Street).

About Newport Classical

Newport Classical is a premier performing arts organization that welcomes people of every age, culture, and background to intimate, immersive musical experiences. The organization presents world-renowned and up-and-coming artistic talents at stunning, storied venues across Newport – an internationally sought-after cultural and recreational destination.

Originally founded in 1969 as Rhode Island Arts Foundation at Newport, Inc., Newport Classical has a rich legacy of musical curiosity having presented the American debuts of hundreds of international artists and is most well-known for hosting three weeks of concerts in the summer in the historic mansions throughout Newport and Aquidneck Island. In the 55 years since, Newport Classical has become the most active year-round presenter of music on Aquidneck Island, and an essential pillar of Rhode Island’s cultural landscape, welcoming thousands of patrons all year long. 

Newport Classical invests in the future of classical music as a diverse, relevant, and ever-evolving art form through its four core programs – the one-of-a-kind Music Festival; the Chamber Series in the Newport Classical Recital Hall; the free, family-friendly Community Concerts Series; and the Music Education and Engagement Initiative that inspires students in local schools to become the arts advocates and music lovers of tomorrow. These programs illustrate the organization’s ongoing commitment to presenting “timeless music for today.”

In 2021, the organization launched a new commissioning initiative – each year, Newport Classical will commission a new work by a Black, Indigenous, person of color, or woman composer as a commitment to the future of classical music. To date, Newport Classical has commissioned and presented the world premiere of works by Stacy Garrop, Shawn Okpebholo, Curtis Stewart, and Clarice Assad.

The Telegraph Quartet Begins Three-Year Residency at The University of Michigan

Photo of the Telegraph Quartet by Lisa Marie Mazzucco available in high resolution here.

The Telegraph Quartet Begins Three-Year Residency
at The University of Michigan School of Music, Theatre & Dance

www.TelegraphQuartet.com

Ann Arbor, MI -- The University of Michigan School of Music, Theatre & Dance is pleased to announce that the Telegraph Quartet will begin a three-year artist residency at SMTD in fall 2024. The members of the quartet – Eric Chin and Joseph Maile (violins), Pei-Ling Lin (viola), and Jeremiah Shaw (cello) – will coach student chamber music groups, conduct studio classes or seminars, and offer mentorship sessions to students interested in chamber music careers. During the residency, the quartet will also perform several times each year on campus and will have opportunities to explore collaborative performance-based projects with students and faculty across the school and the university. 

“We are so honored that the Telegraph Quartet has chosen to engage in an extended residency at the University of Michigan,” said Santa Ono, president of U-M. “For me personally, few activities provide greater joy than playing the cello. As one of the nation’s foremost public universities, we are dedicated to being as excellent in the sciences as we are exceptional in the arts. What’s more, through our Vision 2034, we have dedicated ourselves to providing a life-changing education, and the gifts of art and creativity that the members of the Telegraph Quartet offer to our students, staff, and faculty will long resonate throughout our community.”

David Gier, dean of SMTD and Paul C. Boylan Collegiate Professor of Music, described the importance of this residency for the school: “I’m delighted that the School of Music, Theatre & Dance is engaging the Telegraph Quartet for this residency, which will beautifully complement the dynamic work of our resident faculty in the Departments of Strings and Chamber Music. Our students will benefit significantly from sustained and focused interactions with this gifted professional quartet that will help them develop as chamber musicians and envision and plan for their lives as working musicians.”

Formed in 2013, the Telegraph Quartet explores standard chamber music repertoire as well as contemporary, non-standard works. They have performed in concert halls and at music festivals and academic institutions throughout the United States and internationally. They have collaborated with notable musicians, including pianists Leon Fleisher and Simone Dinnerstein, cellists Norman Fischer and Bonnie Hampton, violinist Ian Swensen, and the St. Lawrence and Henschel Quartets. The Telegraph Quartet has premiered works by numerous composers – including John Harbison, Richard Festinger, Robert Sirota, and Osvaldo Golijov – and has earned honors such as the 2016 Walter W. Naumburg Chamber Music Award and the Grand Prize at the 2014 Fischoff Chamber Music Competition.

“We are excited to begin our new role as the faculty quartet-in-residence at the University of Michigan and overjoyed to be calling Ann Arbor our new home!,” the quartet’s members stated. “It’s thrilling to be aligned with such a vibrant and forward-thinking university that is so dedicated to the future through creative exploration. We are looking forward to bringing with us one of the most cherished aspects of chamber music – working together synergistically – and partnering with the faculty to nurture the experience for all the students within the university and the community abroad.”

The Telegraph Quartet has garnered praise for its recordings Into the Light (Centaur, 2018), featuring the works of Leon Kirchner, Anton Webern, and Benjamin Britten, and Divergent Paths (Azica Records, 2023), the first in a series of recordings titled 20th Century Vantage Points. In addition to performing and recording, the quartet is also dedicated to education. Among many other engagements, the quartet has given master classes at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music Collegiate and Pre-College Divisions, through the Morrison Artist Series at San Francisco State University, and abroad at the Taipei National University of the Arts and in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico. 

Most recently, the quartet served on the chamber music faculty at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music as the quartet-in-residence. “We want to express our heartfelt thanks to our community in the Bay Area and at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music who have so deeply supported us these past ten years,” the members shared. “We look forward to creating connections between our first home and our next at the University of Michigan!” 

David Halen, chair of the Department of Strings and professor of music, described the significance of the quartet’s SMTD residency, for the student body and the broader community: “The appointment of the Telegraph Quartet is truly historic in that it represents a groundbreaking opportunity for our students to learn through the mentorship of these four exemplary artists. With their broad and eclectic programming, they will bring an even greater variety of musical experiences to campus, and we predict they will magnificently represent the wealth of offerings at the University of Michigan through their wide-ranging performing career.”

Matt Albert, chair of the Department of Chamber Music and associate professor of music, shared his view of the ways the quartet will impact SMTD: “It's been so inspiring for our students, faculty, and staff to begin to see Eric's, Joseph's, Pei-Ling's, and Jeremiah's passion and commitment for string quartet playing throughout their audition process. These four people connect with one another deeply and respectfully. Their ability to help others connect in equally meaningful ways will lift up our entire chamber music community, from strings through woodwinds, brass, and piano, in music old, new, and not yet written."

San Francisco Girls Chorus Kicks Off Summer with International Performances

Summer with the San Francisco Girls Chorus

• Premiere Performances of Thierry Pécou’s O Future at Théâtre de Caen
• In Concert at the 50th Anniversary Kronos Festival in SF
• Tour of South Africa July 10-21

Watch O Future on France 3 TV

Information: www.sfgirlschorus.org

San Francisco, CA –The San Francisco Girls Chorus (SFGC), under the direction of Artistic Director Valérie Sainte-Agathe, is in the midst of a busy summer season which has included the world premiere performances of composer Thierry Pécou’s multidisciplinary opera O Future at Théâtre de Caen in France with Ensemble Variances, as well as an appearance at the 50th Anniversary Kronos Festival at SF Jazz in San Francisco. Up next, SFGC tours South Africa from July 10-21, 2024, including premiere performances of a new work by South African composer Mokale Koapeng.

SFGC joined forces with La Maîtrise de Caen (Caen Boys Chorus) in the world premiere production of Thierry Pecou’s O Future at Théâtre de Caen, directed by Bernard Kudlak, in June. Librettist and scenographer Alice Kudlak created the text for the opera using interviews with SFGC choristers as well as choristers from La Maîtrise de Caen. O Future follows the path of a group of children, concerned about the future of the Earth and in search of meaning. The work draws on the cultures and wisdom of ancient and forgotten peoples: the Aztecs, the Cree of North America, the Bushmen of South Africa and the Moai of Easter Island. The entire opera was broadcast on France 3 TV, and the replay is currently available online.

Also this month, SFGC performed as part of the Kronos Festival, marking the quartet’s 50th anniversary and the farewell performances of longtime Kronos members John Sherba and Hank Dutt. During this “who’s who of new music stars” (Mercury News) SFGC took the stage at SF Jazz with Kronos to perform works by Vladimir Martynov, Yoko Ono, Hawa Kassé Mady Diabaté, and Pete Seeger.

From July 10-21, SFGC heads to South Africa for a tour consisting of several cities and collaborations with local musical organizations. Their touring program will include Toro Ya Alkebulan (He Had A Dream, An African Dream), by South African composer Mokale Koapeng, with lyrics adapted from a poem by Njeri Wangari, commissioned by Classical Movements 2024. SFGC gave the world premiere of this piece in San Francisco this spring, during their May 19 concert. 

Since 1978, SFGC has provided girls and young women the unique opportunity not only to perform at the highest artistic caliber, but also to develop self-confidence, leadership skills, and an awareness of the role of the arts in civic engagement. A leader in the Bay Area and national music scenes, SFGC produces award-winning concerts, recordings and tours; empowers young women in music and other fields; and sets the international standard for the highest level of performance and education. SFGC has been recognized through numerous honors including five GRAMMY Awards, four ASCAP/Chorus America Awards for Adventurous Programming, and in 2002, becoming the first youth chorus to receive Chorus America's prestigious Margaret Hillis Achievement Award for Choral Excellence. Each year, hundreds of singers of diverse backgrounds from 45 Bay Area cities ranging in age from age four to eighteen participate in SFGC’s programs. The organization consists of a six-level choral training program, which includes the Premier Ensemble, a professional-level chorus of treble voices.

Under the direction of Artistic Director Valérie Sainte-Agathe, SFGC has achieved an incomparable sound that underscores the unique clarity and force of impeccably trained treble voices fused with expressiveness and drama. As a result, the SFGC vibrantly performs 1,000 years of choral masterworks from plainchant to the most challenging and nuanced contemporary works, many created expressly for them, in programs that are as intelligently designed as they are enjoyable and revelatory to experience.

More about the San Francisco Girls Chorus: www.sfgirlschorus.org/about 

More about Valérie Sainte-Agathe: www.sfgirlschorus.org/valerie-sainte-agathe 

The San Francisco Girls Chorus receives support from Grants for the Arts, The Kimball Foundation, National Endowment for the Arts, Sequoia Trust, The Aaron Copland Fund for Music, Inc., The Sam Mazza Foundation, The Bernard Osher Foundation, and the Joseph and Vera Long Foundation.

Aug. 4: Pianist Sarah Cahill Presented by Gretna Music in The Future is Female – Plus the World Premiere of Bending Light by Tina Davidson & Music by Maria Corley

Photo of Sarah Cahill by Kristen Wrzesniewski available in high-resolution at www.jensenartists.com/artists-profiles/sarah-cahill

Pianist Sarah Cahill Presented by Gretna Music
Performing Music by Women Composers from Around the Globe
in The Future is Female

Featuring the World Premiere of Tina Davidson’s Bending Light
Plus a Performance of Lucid Dreaming by Maria Corley

Sunday, August 4, 2024 at 7:30pm
Mount Gretna Playhouse | 200 Pennsylvania Ave. | Mt. Gretna, PA
More Information

“a series distinctive for its finesse and conviction”
– Gramophone on Cahill’s The Future is Female

Watch Sarah Cahill’s NPR Tiny Desk Concert

www.sarahcahill.com

Mt. Gretna, PA – On Sunday, August 4, 2024 at 7:30pm, Sarah Cahill, described as “a sterling pianist and an intrepid illuminator of the classical avant-garde” by The New York Times, will perform music from her ongoing project The Future is Female in a concert presented by Gretna Music at the Mount Gretna Playhouse (200 Pennsylvania Ave.). The concert will be preceded by Conversation with Composers, a talk featuring Lancaster County composers Maria Corley and Tina Davidson from 6:45-7:05pm. Cahill will be performing Corley’s work Lucid Dreaming, as well as giving the world premiere of Bending Light, a new work for piano and two three-inch drywall screws composed by Davidson.

Corley says of her work: “Lucid Dreaming was the first piece I wrote for solo piano as an adult. I used to have lucid dreams as a child. In each case, I would fly, usually to escape danger, sometimes with difficulty, sometimes barely above the ground. The opening depicts falling asleep (my favorite part of the day), and then the chase is on, with harmonies that feel a bit off-kilter. The middle section is about soaring, for a brief moment. At the end, the situation has gotten intense enough to wake the dreamer, who sinks back into the pillow, relieved that the dream is over.”

Of her new piece Bending Light, Davidson says: “For some reason, I have been thinking about light often. What if light were a solid and you could actually pick it up and bend it, soft and warm in your hands? Or, maybe, you could stretch it thin, and spin it like gold thread, letting it fly off into the air.”

The Future is Female is Cahill’s exploration of music for solo piano by women composers from the Baroque to the present day, which now includes more than 70 pieces from around the globe, some commissioned by Cahill as part of the project.

In addition to the works by Davidson and Corley, Cahill will perform music for solo piano by women composers that span from 1687 to 2024, encompassing the Baroque, Classical, Romantic, and Modern periods. Her program includes selections from Keyboard Suite in D minor (1687) by Élisabeth-Claude Jacquet de La Guerre; Sonata No. 9, op. 5 no. 3 (1811) by Hélène de Montgeroult; Two Etudes, Op. 26 (1839) by Louise Farrenc; Vítězslava Kaprálová’s April Preludes (1937); and Praeludium in C major (1878) by Ethel Smyth.

Sarah Cahill has been featured performing music from The Future is Female in an NPR Tiny Desk concert as well as in eight-hour marathon performances at the Barbican Centre in London and the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC, both celebrating International Women’s Day. She has also brought the project to venues across the U.S. including Carolina Performing Arts in Chapel Hill, NC; Carlsbad Music Festival in San Diego, CA; the University of Iowa; Bowling Green New Music Festival in Ohio; Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive; North Dakota Museum of Art; the EXTENSITY Concert Series’ Women Now Festival in New York; the Newport Classical Music Festival in Rhode Island, and more.

In addition, Cahill recorded 30 works from The Future is Female on a three-volume set of albums released in 2022 and 2023 on the First Hand Records label, which included many world premiere recordings and was widely acclaimed by publications including in the Wall Street Journal, The Guardian, BBC Music Magazine, International Piano, The Wire, Gramophone Magazine, and more. BBC Music Magazine reported, “the American pianist [Sarah Cahill] takes us on a chronological journey that zips around the world, stitching together contrasting styles into an enjoyable musical patchwork,” while New Music Buff notes the “impressive command of baroque, classical, romantic, and modern idioms” that Cahill brings to these recordings.

Listen to The Future is Female, Vols. 1-3 (First Hand Records):

Vol. 1: https://lnkfi.re/CahillFutureisFemaleVol1
Vol. 2: https://lnkfi.re/CahillFutureisFemaleVol2
Vol. 3: https://lnkfi.re/CahillFutureisFemaleVol3

Sarah Cahill began working on The Future is Female in 2018. She says:

“For decades I had been working with many living American composers, including Pauline Oliveros, Tania León, Eve Beglarian, Mary D. Watkins, Julia Wolfe, Ursula Mamlok, Meredith Monk, Annea Lockwood, and many more, but I felt an urgent need to explore neglected composers from the past, and from around the globe. Like most pianists, I grew up with the classical canon, which has always excluded women composers as well as composers of color. It is still standard practice to perform recitals consisting entirely of music written by men. The Future is Female, then, aims to be a corrective towards rebalancing the repertoire. It does not attempt to be exhaustive . . . The possibilities are, in fact, limitless.”

More about Sarah Cahill: Sarah Cahill, which the San Francisco Chronicle describes as being “As tenacious and committed an advocate as any composer could dream of…” has commissioned and premiered over seventy compositions for solo piano. Composers who have dedicated works to Cahill include John Adams, Terry Riley, Frederic Rzewski, Pauline Oliveros, Julia Wolfe, Roscoe Mitchell, Annea Lockwood, and Ingram Marshall. She was named a 2018 Champion of New Music, awarded by the American Composers Forum (ACF). Sarah Cahill’s discography includes more than twenty albums on the New Albion, CRI, New World, Tzadik, Albany, Innova, Cold Blue, Other Minds, Irritable Hedgehog, and Pinna labels.

Cahill’s radio show, Revolutions Per Minute, can be heard every Sunday evening from 8 to 10 pm on KALW, 91.7 FM in San Francisco. She is on the faculty of the San Francisco Conservatory of Music and is a regular pre-concert speaker with the San Francisco Symphony and the Los Angeles Philharmonic.

For more information, visit www.sarahcahill.com.

For Calendar Editors:

Description: Pianist Sarah Cahill, described as “a sterling pianist and an intrepid illuminator of the classical avant-garde” by The New York Times, will perform music from her ongoing project The Future is Female in a concert presented by Gretna Music. The Future is Female is Cahill’s exploration of music for solo piano by women composers from the Baroque to the present day, which includes more than 70 pieces from around the globe, some commissioned by or for Cahill as part of the project. Cahill will perform works from her project that include music by Élisabeth-Claude Jacquet de La Guerre, Hélène de Montgeroult, Louise Farrenc Vitêslava Kaprálová, and Ethel Smyth The concert will also feature the world premiere of Bending Light by Tina Davidson and a performance of Lucid Dreaming by Maria Corley.

Concert details:

Who: Pianist Sarah Cahill
Presented by Gretna Music
What: Music by Élisabeth-Claude Jacquet de La Guerre, Hélène de Montgeroult, Louise Farrenc, Vitêslava Kaprálová, and Ethel Smyth, Tina Davidson and Maria Corley.
When: Sunday, August 4, 2024 at 7:30pm.
Where: Mt. Gretna Playhouse, 200 Pennsylvania Ave, Mt Gretna, PA 17064
Tickets and information: www.gretnamusic.org

Aug. 15: GRAMMY®-nominated Pianist Simone Dinnerstein Performs at the Aspen Music Festival and School in Music by J.S. Bach, Philip Lasser, Keith Jarrett, and Jean-Philippe Rameau

Photo by Lisa Marie Mazzucco available in high resolution at: www.jensenartists.com/artists-profiles/simone-dinnerstein

GRAMMY®-nominated Pianist Simone Dinnerstein
Performs at the Aspen Music Festival and School

In Music by J.S. Bach, Philip Lasser,
Keith Jarrett, and Jean-Philippe Rameau

Thursday, August 15, 2024 at 6:00pm
Harris Concert Hall | 960 North 3rd Street | Aspen, CO
Tickets and More information

“colorful and idiosyncratic” – The New York Times

Simone Dinnerstein: www.simonedinnerstein.com

Aspen, CO – GRAMMY®-nominated pianist Simone Dinnerstein, described by The Philadelphia Inquirer as “an intrepid artistic personality,” performs on Thursday, August 15, 2024 at the Aspen Music Festival and School at Harris Concert Hall (960 North 3rd Street). Dinnerstein –– who is celebrated for her Bach recordings –– will perform the music of J.S. Bach and other Baroque era-inspired selections: Philip Lasser’s Twelve Variations On A Chorale By J.S. Bach (2002); Gavotte et 6 Doubles From Nouvelles Suites de Pieces de Clavecin by Jean-Philippe Rameau (c. 1729-30); J. S. Bach’s Fifteen Sinfonias, BWV 787–801 (1720-23); and Encore From Tokyo (1978) by Keith Jarrett.

Dinnerstein shares this of the concert program: “I have entitled this program Reflections, as I think that each work sounds unusual because of the way it is reflected against the music around it. To enhance this quality, I play each half of the program (Rameau-Lasser and Bach-Jarrett) without pause between the pieces.”

Dinnerstein has been playing Philip Lasser’s Twelve Variations on a Chorale by J.S. Bach for over two decades –– including as part of The Berlin Concert, her 2008 album. Lasser takes the chorale from Cantata No. 101 in which, he says, “Bach chooses a particular melodic moment from the Lutheran hymn and infuses all the other voices of the Chorale with this unique sonority, with an almost maniacal insistence. In my Variations, I take on this mania to see how far one can go.”

Bach’s contemporary Rameau also composed a set of variations but on his own gavotte: Gavotte et 6 doubles from Nouvelles suites de pieces de clavecin. In his preface, Bach wrote that his Fifteen Sinfonias were, “An honest guide by which the amateurs of the keyboard – especially, however, those desirous of learning – are shown a clear way…to achieve a cantabile style in playing and at the same time acquire a strong foretaste of composition." Keith Jarrett’s Encore from Tokyo embraces the Baroque convention of a descending repeating bass line and builds a harmonically adventurous and wide-ranging improvisation around it.

About Simone Dinnerstein: American pianist Simone Dinnerstein first came to wider public attention in 2007 through her recording of Bach’s Goldberg Variations, reflecting an aesthetic that was both deeply rooted in the score and profoundly idiosyncratic. She is, wrote The New York Times, “a unique voice in the forest of Bach interpretation.”

Dinnerstein has played with orchestras ranging from the New York Philharmonic and Montreal Symphony Orchestra to the London Symphony Orchestra and the Orchestra Sinfonica Nazionale Rai. She has performed in venues from Carnegie Hall and the Kennedy Center to the Berlin Philharmonie, the Vienna Konzerthaus, Seoul Arts Center and Sydney Opera House. She has made thirteen albums, all of which topped the Billboard charts. During the pandemic she recorded three albums which form a trilogy: A Character of Quiet, An American Mosaic, and Undersong. An American Mosaic was nominated for a Grammy.

In recent years, Dinnerstein has created projects that express her broad musical interests. She gave the world premiere of The Eye Is the First Circle at Montclair State University, the first multi-media production she conceived, created, and directed, which uses as source materials her father Simon Dinnerstein’s painting The Fulbright Triptych and Charles Ives’s Piano Sonata No. 2. She premiered Richard Danielpour’s An American Mosaic, a tribute to those affected by the pandemic, in a performance on multiple pianos throughout Brooklyn’s Green-Wood Cemetery. Following her recording Mozart in Havana, she brought the Havana Lyceum Orchestra from Cuba to the U.S. for the first time, performing eleven concerts. Philip Glass composed his Piano Concerto No. 3 for her, co-commissioned by twelve orchestras. Working with Renée Fleming and the Emerson String Quartet, she premiered André Previn and Tom Stoppard’s Penelope at the Tanglewood, Ravinia and Aspen music festivals, and performed it at Carnegie Hall, the Kennedy Center, and presented by LA Opera. Dinnerstein has also created her own ensemble, Baroklyn, which she directs. The Washington Post comments, “it is Dinnerstein’s unreserved identification with every note she plays that makes her performance so spellbinding.” In a world where music is everywhere, she hopes that it can still be transformative. For more information, please visit www.simonedinnerstein.com.

For Calendar Editors:

Description: GRAMMY-nominated® pianist Simone Dinnerstein, described by The Philadelphia Inquirer as “an intrepid artistic personality,” will perform a program of Baroque-era inspired works at the Aspen Music Festival and School. Known for her dedication to learning about and performing the music of J.S. Bach, the program will include J.S. Bach’s technical collection of Fifteen Sinfonias (1720-23), Philip Lasser’s Twelve Variations on a Chorale by J.S. Bach (2002), Keith Jarrett’s Encore From Tokyo (1978), and Jean-Philippe Rameau’s Gavotte et 6 Doubles (c. 1729-30).

Concert details:

Who: Pianist Simone Dinnerstein
Performing as part of the Aspen Music Festival
What: Music by J.S. Bach, Philip Lasser, Keith Jarrett, Jean-Philippe Rameau
When: Thursday, August 15, 2024 at 6:00pm
Where: Harris Concert Hall, 960 North 3rd Street, Aspen, CO 81611
Tickets and information: www.aspenmusicfestival.com/events/calendar/a-recital-by-simone-dinnerstein-piano-1/

Sept. 6: Pianist Mao Fujita to Release 72 Preludes – Sony Classical Recording Crosses Continents and Eras – New Single Out Now

Sony Classical Presents Pianist Mao Fujita
New Recording Crosses Continents and Eras with 
72 Preludes

24 Preludes: No. 8. in F-Sharp Minor - Andante tempo di Barcarolle
Out Now - Listen Here

Preludes Cycles By Chopin, Scriabin - Also Includes World Premiere Recording of Akio Yashiro’s ‘24 Preludes’

Available September 6, 2024 – Preorder Now

“The very model of a modern major pianist” – Gramophone

“Mao Fujita’s Mozart strikes a perfect balance between clarity and elegance, the exquisite and the down to earth.” – The Guardian

Following his “consistently impressive” (Gramophone) traversal of Mozart’s complete Piano Sonatas for Sony Classical - winner of an Opus Klassik Award - Japanese pianist Mao Fujita presents a similarly ambitious project: matching sets of 24 Preludes by three composers, Frédéric Chopin, Alexander Scriabin and Akio Yashiro. In so doing, Fujita unites the Europe in which he now lives with the Japan where he was born and raised. His new Sony Classical Album - 72 Preludes - is set for release on September 6, 2024 and available for preorder now. Accompanying today’s news is the new track 24 Preludes: No. 8. in F-Sharp Minor - Andante tempo di Barcarolle – listen here.

Chopin’s landmark set of 24 Préludes, completed in 1839, was the first work to treat the piano prelude as a self-contained work capable of standing alone. After the model laid down in Bach’s Well Tempered Clavier, the set traverses every key from C major to D minor, alternating major tonalities with their relative minors.

On his new album 72 Preludes, Fujita treats Chopin’s expressive yet elusive cycle as the basis for a dialogue that traverses borders and epochs. In 1884, Russian visionary Alexander Scriabin began work on his own set of 24 Preludes, directly inspired by Chopin’s. Scriabin’s pieces build on the grace and fluency of Chopin’s - also using his key scheme - while showing glimpses of the composer’s emerging radical harmonic and rhythmic character. They suggest that Scriabin, known for music on a huge scale, was an exquisite miniaturist.

Mao Fujita - recognized increasingly for his intelligent programming as well as for his affectionate, rooted and deeply poetic playing - was keen to combine these European masterpieces with work from his homeland. In the 24 Preludes by Japanese composer Akio Yashiro, he found a perfect companion.

Akio Yashiro was born in Tokyo and studied with Olivier Messiaen in Paris, where the two became close friends. His 24 Preludes, mapping the same cycle of keys as those by Chopin and Scriabin, date from 1945 - before the 15-year-old composer had traveled to Europe.

The works incorporate a huge variety of moods and styles as their young composer explores varied harmonic and rhythmic devices with panache. Fujita likens the contents of his new recording to a refreshing but hearty sushi meal: “If the Chopin and the Scriabin are the fish and the rice, the base, the Yashiro is the wasabi - just as vital, and with that special kick to create something delicious.”

In 1976, Yashiro died aged just 46. Fujita has since developed a friendship with the composer’s widow, who has shared stories surrounding the composer’s weekly Saturday concerts of new music and the compositional methodology of his 24 Preludes, which the composer once described as “the pieces in which I express myself most fully and one of the greatest pieces I ever wrote.” Fujita consulted the original manuscripts before recording the work.

As he consolidates his reputation as one of the world’s most distinctive pianists, Fujita sees it as his responsibility to shine a light on the culture of his homeland. “When I came to Europe, there were no Japanese pianists except Mitsuko [Uchida],” the 25-year-old pianist says.

It was only a matter of time before Fujita brought his distinctively weightless, cantabile playing style and crystalline clarity of expression to the music of Chopin. When Fujita included Chopin encores in his acclaimed Mozart Sonata series at Wigmore Hall in London, The Guardian concluded that “an all-Chopin programme from Fujita is now a priority.”

Fujita says he was drawn to Chopin’s particular character of expression and believes he was “able to make something of this special sound; this melodic poetry and beautiful harmony.”

The allure of Scriabin’s 24 Preludes was no less strong. “These are phenomenal pieces, with things you cannot find in Chopin,” Fujita says. “I fell in love with them, especially the way Scriabin uses not just tonality but also time - the atmosphere he creates in those pauses and rests.”

With three four-day sessions allocated to the recording, Fujita believes Sony Classical gave him the space, conditions and staff to get his recording exactly as he wanted it. “The studio is fantastic - the same studio we used for the Mozart - and Martin Kistner, the engineer and producer of this album is fantastic, I respect him a lot,” says the pianist. “We are a good team and it was a wonderful process.”

Mao Fujita makes his BBC Proms debut on August 28 with the Czech Philharmonic under Jakub Hrůša.

U.S. Tour Dates Feat. Album Repertoire:

Date: November 10, 2024
City: New York, NY
Venue: Carnegie Hall
Repertoire: Yashiro Preludes

Date: March 16, 2025
City: Chicago, IL
Venue: Symphony Center
Repertoire: Chopin Preludes

Sony Music Masterworks comprises Masterworks, Sony Classical, Milan Records, XXIM Records, and Masterworks Broadway imprints. For email updates and information please visit www.sonymusicmasterworks.com/.
 

Connect With Mao Fujita
Website | Instagram | Twitter | Facebook | YouTube

July 30; Aug. 1 & 2: Bay Chamber Presents Jupiter String Quartet and GRAMMY®-winning Pianist Michelle Cann in Machias and Camden, Maine

L-R Jupiter Quartet, credit to Todd Rosenberg; Michelle Cann, credit to Titilayo Ayangade

Bay Chamber Presents Jupiter String Quartet and
GRAMMY®-winning Pianist Michelle Cann
in Machias and Camden, Maine

July 30: Centre Street Congregational Church | 9 Center St. | Machias, ME
Presented by Machias Bay Chamber Concerts
7:00pm: Tickets and Information

August 1: Hammer Hall at Bay Chamber | 5 Mountain St. | Camden, ME
5:30pm: Tickets and Information
8:00pm: Tickets and Information

August 2: Hammer Hall at Bay Chamber | 5 Mountain St. | Camden, ME
8:00pm: Tickets and Information

“The Jupiter String Quartet, an ensemble of eloquent intensity, has matured into one of the mainstays of the American chamber-music scene.” – The New Yorker

www.jupiterquartet.com |  www.michellecann.com | www.baychamber.org

Machias & Camden, ME – Bay Chamber Concerts will present the internationally esteemed Jupiter String Quartet –  winner of the Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition and the Banff International String Quartet Competition – in four concerts with GRAMMY®-winning pianist Michelle Cann, who is described by Gramophone as “a pianist of sterling artistry.” On Tuesday July 30, 2024 at 7pm, the Quartet and Michelle Cann will be presented by Bay Chamber’s sister organization Machias Bay Chamber Concerts, in Machias, ME at the Centre Street Congregational Church (9 Center St). The Jupiter and Cann give the Opening Night Concerts of Bay Chamber’s summer festival on Thursday, August 1, 2024 at 5:30pm and 8pm and perform a program titled Resonance on Friday, August 2, 2024 at 8pm, all at Bay Chamber’s new home – the renovated Hammer Hall (5 Mountain Lane) in the Bixler Music Center.

On July 30 in Machias, the Jupiter Quartet will perform Mozart’s String Quartet in D Major, K. 575. They will then be joined by Michelle Cann for a performance of Antonin Dvořák’s vivid Piano Quintet No. 2 in A Major, Op. 81. They repeat this program on August 1 for Bay Chamber’s Opening Night concerts at Hammer Hall in Camden. On August 2, in a program entitled Resonance, the Jupiter will perform excerpts from At the Octoroon Balls, String Quartet No. 1 by Wynton Marsalis; Michelle Cann will perform Margaret Bonds’ Spiritual Suite and Florence Price’s Fantasie Nègre No. 1 In E Minor; and together, they will combine to perform the final movement of Amy Beach’s Piano Quintet, Op. 67.

The Jupiter Quartet says, “We are so pleased to return to the wonderful Bay Chamber concerts series, a favorite venue of ours since we first performed there over 15 years ago. We look forward very much to our first collaboration with the fantastic pianist Michelle Cann, and hope audiences will enjoy the selection of works we have chosen to play, which represent a wide variety of perspectives and styles.”

Based in Urbana and giving concerts all over the country, the Jupiter String Quartet is a particularly intimate group, consisting of violinists Nelson Lee and Meg Freivogel, violist Liz Freivogel (Meg’s older sister), and cellist Daniel McDonough (Meg’s husband, Liz’s brother-in-law). Founded in 2001, the Jupiter Quartet was brought together by ties both familial and musical. Exuding an energy that is at once friendly, knowledgeable, and adventurous, the Quartet celebrates every opportunity to bring their close-knit and lively style to audiences.Their connections to each other and the length of time they’ve shared the stage always shine through in their intuitive performances. The quartet has performed in some of the world’s finest halls, including New York City’s Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center, London’s Wigmore Hall, Boston’s Jordan Hall, Mexico City's Palacio de Bellas Artes, Washington, D.C.’s Kennedy Center and Library of Congress, Austria’s Esterhazy Palace, and Seoul’s Sejong Chamber Hall.

GRAMMY®-award winning pianist Michelle Cann is lauded as “technically fearless with…an enormous, rich sound” (La Scena Musicale). Cann has become one of the most sought-after pianists of her generation. She made her debut with The Philadelphia Orchestra in 2021 and has recently performed concertos with The Cleveland Orchestra, National Symphony Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, and the symphony orchestras of Atlanta, Baltimore, and Cincinnati. Highlights of her 2023-24 season included appearances with the Charlotte, Hawaii, Indianapolis, Québec, Sarasota, and Winnipeg symphony orchestras, and recitals in New York City, Portland, Berkeley, Beverly Hills, and Denver. Cann was the recipient of the 2022 Sphinx Medal of Excellence, the highest honor bestowed by the Sphinx Organization. She also received the Cleveland Institute of Music’s 2022 Alumni Achievement Award and the 2022 Andrew Wolf Chamber Music Award.

More About Jupiter String Quartet: The Jupiter String Quartet has performed in some of the world’s finest halls, including New York City’s Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center, London’s Wigmore Hall, Boston’s Jordan Hall, Mexico City's Palacio de Bellas Artes, Washington, D.C.’s Kennedy Center and Library of Congress, Austria’s Esterhazy Palace, and Seoul’s Sejong Chamber Hall. Their major music festival appearances include the Aspen Music Festival and School, Bowdoin International Music Festival, Cape Cod Chamber Music Festival, Rockport Music Festival, Music at Menlo, Tucson Winter Music Festival, the Seoul Spring Festival, and many others. In addition to their performing career, they have been artists-in-residence at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign since 2012, where they maintain private studios and direct the chamber music program. 

Their chamber music honors and awards include the grand prizes in the Banff International String Quartet Competition and the Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition; the Young Concert Artists International auditions in New York City; the Cleveland Quartet Award from Chamber Music America; an Avery Fisher Career Grant; and a grant from the Fromm Foundation. From 2007-2010, they were in residence at the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center’s Chamber Music Two. 

The quartet's latest album is a collaboration with the Jasper String Quartet (Marquis Classics, 2021), produced by GRAMMY®-winner Judith Sherman. This collaborative album features the world premiere recording of Dan Visconti’s Eternal Breath, Felix Mendelssohn’s Octet in E-flat, Op. 20, and Osvaldo Golijov’s Last Round. The quartet’s discography also includes numerous recordings on labels including Azica Records and Deutsche Grammophon. The quartet chose its name because Jupiter was the most prominent planet in the night sky at the time of its formation and the astrological symbol for Jupiter resembles the number four. 

More about Michelle Cann: Lauded as “exquisite” by The Philadelphia Inquirer and “a pianist of sterling artistry” by Gramophone, Michelle Cann has become one of the most sought-after pianists of her generation. She made her debut in 2021 with The Philadelphia Orchestra and has recently performed concertos with The Cleveland Orchestra, the National Symphony Orchestra, the Orquestra Sinfônica Municipal de São Paulo, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and the symphony orchestras of Atlanta, Baltimore, and Cincinnati. Highlights of Cann’s 2023-24 season included appearances with the Charlotte, Hawaii, Indianapolis, Québec, Sarasota, and Winnipeg symphony orchestras, and recitals in New York City, Portland, Berkeley, Beverly Hills, and Denver.

Recognized as a leading interpreter of the piano music of Florence Price, Cann performed the New York City premiere of Price’s Piano Concerto in One Movement with The Dream Unfinished Orchestra in July 2016. Her recording of the concerto with the New York Youth Symphony won a Grammy Award in 2023. Her acclaimed debut solo album Revival, featuring music by Price and Margaret Bonds, was released in May 2023.

Cann was the recipient of the 2022 Sphinx Medal of Excellence, the highest honor bestowed by the Sphinx Organization. She holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees in piano performance from the Cleveland Institute of Music and an Artist’s Diploma from the Curtis Institute of Music. Cann joined the Curtis piano faculty in 2020 as the inaugural Eleanor Sokoloff Chair in Piano Studies, and she joined the piano faculty of the Manhattan School of Music in 2023.

For Calendar Editors:

Description: The Jupiter String Quartet, described as “an ensemble of eloquent intensity” by The New Yorker, is presented by Bay Chamber Concerts, in four performances with “exquisite” (Philadelphia Inquirer) GRAMMY®-winning pianist Michelle Cann. Bay Chamber is dedicated to bringing “transformative musical experiences to Midcoast Maine.” On July 30 in Machias, ME the Jupiter Quartet and Michelle Cann will perform works by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Antonín Dvořák. For the following three concerts in Camden, ME on August 1 and 2, the Quartet and Cann will perform music by Mozart and Dvořák, as well as works by Margaret Bonds, Wynton Marsalis, Florence Price, and Amy Beach.

Concert details:

Who: Jupiter String Quartet and GRAMMY®-winning Pianist Michelle Cann
Presented by Machias Bay Chamber Concerts
What: Music by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Antonin Dvořák
When: Tuesday, July 30, 2024 at 7:00pm
Where: Centre Street Congregational Church, 9 Center St., Machias, ME 04654
Tickets and information: www.machiasbaychamberconcerts.com/performances/current-details.php/2024-07-30-00-00-00-36/

Who: Jupiter String Quartet and GRAMMY®-winning Pianist Michelle Cann
Presented by Bay Chamber Concerts
What: Music by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Antonin Dvořák
When: Thursday, August 1, 2024 at 5:30pm
Where: Hammer Hall at Bay Chamber, 5 Mountain St. Camden, ME 04843
Tickets and information: www.baychamber.org/calendar/michelle-cann-piano-530

Who: Jupiter String Quartet and GRAMMY®-winning Pianist Michelle Cann
Presented by Bay Chamber Concerts
What: Music by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Antonin Dvořák
When: Thursday, August 1, 2024 at 8:00pm
Where: Hammer Hall at Bay Chamber, 5 Mountain St. Camden, ME 04843
Tickets and information: www.baychamber.org/calendar/michelle-cann-piano-8

Who: Jupiter String Quartet and GRAMMY®-winning Pianist Michelle Cann
Presented by Bay Chamber Concerts
What: Music by Margaret Bonds, Wynton Marsalis, Florence Price, and Amy Beach
When: Friday, August 2, 2023 at 8:00pm
Where: Hammer Hall at Bay Chamber, 5 Mountain St. Camden, ME 04843
Tickets and information: www.baychamber.org/calendar/jupiter-string-quartet

July 12: Sony Classical Announces Louis Lane Conducts the Cleveland Orchestra – The Complete Epic and Columbia Album Collection

Sony Classical Announces
Louis Lane Conducts the Cleveland Orchestra
The Complete Epic and Columbia Album Collection

Conductor Louis Lane’s Complete Cleveland Recordings

Album Release Date: July 12, 2024
Reviewer Rate Upon Request
Pre-Order Available Now

He went on to head major orchestras in Dallas and Atlanta and to guest conduct leading ensembles all over the world. But before that, Louis Lane honed his craft while working in the shadow of one of the great masters: in 1947, legendary maestro George Szell chose the young, inexperienced Texan to assist him in Cleveland – “I think you will do” was the gruff maestro’s verdict, exceptional praise indeed from that notorious perfectionist.

Lane remained with the Cleveland Orchestra for more than two decades, moving up the ladder to become associate conductor. Playing his important role in Szell’s transformation of a respected second-tier ensemble into arguably the finest symphony orchestra in America, Lane earned a sterling reputation of his own, directing the renowned Cleveland Pops and broadening the orchestra’s repertoire with no fewer than 75 local premières.

Between 1959 and 1972 – with the full Cleveland Orchestra, the somewhat smaller Cleveland Pops and the chamber-sized Cleveland Sinfonietta – Louis Lane made a series of critically acclaimed recordings for Columbia. They display the “exceptional breadth and impeccable taste” for which this gifted but perennially undervalued conductor was lauded in a tribute by the orchestra’s executive director. Sony Classical is pleased to present them now – many for the first time on CD – in a new 14-disc set, to be released on July 12, 2024. Pre-order is available now.

Reviewers were effusive in their praise when these albums were originally released on LP. Here is a sampling:

• Pop Concert U.S.A. (1959) – music by Copland, Gershwin, Bernstein and other American composers: “If only all the pops (or, for that matter, all the classics) were as good as this! … The orchestra plays splendidly” (Gramophone).

• On the Town with the Cleveland Pops (1960) – selections from On the Town, My Fair Lady, Oklahoma, The King and I and other Broadway musicals: “Scintillating … Under Lane’s enthusiastic direction, the Clevelanders play these familiar musical comedy excerpts with such precision and virtuosity that they emerge with glistening freshness” (High Fidelity).

• Music from the Films (1961) – Henry V, Louisiana Story, Bridge on the River Kwai, Gigi, Exodus and other motion pictures: “This concert of music from the movies is so superior to most issues of its kind that it calls for special commendation … Lane has coaxed some beautiful playing from the Cleveland orchestra, and the engineers have provided him with rich and glorious sound” (High Fidelity).

• Romances and Serenades (1963) – music by Vaughan Williams, Delius, Warlock, Sibelius and Françaix: “All the polish, assurance and musical sympathy one would expect from a Cleveland performance ... Not the least attraction of this splendid disc is the recording, firm and realistic with a glorious bloom on the instruments” (Gramophone).

Lane also recorded classical repertoire with the Clevelanders, including Mozart in 1966 (“A marvelous D major Divertimento K. 334” – ClassicsToday), Beethoven in 1967 (“…the complete Creatures of Prometheus, led with dramatic flair and character” – ClassicsToday), and a French collection of Debussy, Ravel and Satie (“Moving now to Cleveland we rediscover the striking sensibility of another underrated American conductor, Louis Lane ... Magic ... refinement of feeling. The warm ambience of Severance Hall is another asset ... The 1969 recording is most musically balanced” – Gramophone).

All these performances and many other gems are contained in this newly remastered anthology of Louis Lane’s Cleveland recordings, a long overdue homage to this outstanding American conductor.

SET CONTENTS

DISC 1:

Gould: American Salute (Based on “When Johnny comes marching home”)
Anderson: Serenata
Copland: Three Dance Episodes from "Rodeo"
Bernstein: Candide: Overture
Piston: Suite from the Ballet “The Incredible Flutist”

DISC 2:

Gershwin: Cuban Overture
Bernstein: Fancy Free Ballet: Variation III "Danzon"
Gould: Latin-American Symphonette: III. Guaracha
Benjamin: From San Domingo
Benjamin: Jamaican Rumba
Lecuona: Andalucía: 2. Andaluza
Lecuona: Andalucía: 6. Malagueña
Guarneri: Brazilian Dance
Villa-Lobos: Bachianas brasileiras No. 2: IV. Toccata “The Little Train of the Caipra”
Galindo: Sones de Mariachi

DISC 3:

Porter: Can-Can
Loewe: My Fair Lady: Embassy Waltz
Bernstein: On the Town: The Great Lover displays himself
Bernstein: On the Town: Lonely Town (Pas de deux)
Bernstein: On the Town: Times Square (Finale, Act I)
Rodgers: Love Me Tonight: Lover
Rodgers: Jumbo: The Most Beautiful Girl in the World
Rodgers: Boys from Syracuse: Falling in Love with Love
Rodgers: Oklahoma: Oh, What a Beautiful Morning
Rodgers: The King and I: March of the Siamese Children
Rodgers: On Tour Toes: Slaughter on Tenth Avenue

DISC 4:

Griffes: Poem for Flute and Orchestra
Foote: A Night Piece
Honegger: Concerto da camera, H. 196
Hanson: Serenade for Flute, Harp, and Strings, Op. 35

DISC 5:

Berlioz: La damnation de Faust, H 111: March Hongroise
Schubert: Marche militaire in D Major, Op. 51, No. 1
Hindemith: Symphonic Metamorphosis of Themes by Weber: IV. Marsch
Pierné: Cydalise et le chèvre-pied: Marche des petits faunes
Elgar: Pomp and Circumstance March No. 1, Op. 39 No. 1
Rimsky-Korssakov: Le Coq d'Or: Introduction and Wedding Procession
Ippolotov-Ivanov: Caucasian Sketches, Op. 10: 4. Precession of the Sardar
Tchaikovsky: Slavonic March, Op. 31

DISC 6:

Rome: Theme from “Fanny”
Loewe: Suite from “Gigi”
Rodgers: It Might As Well Be Spring from “State Fair”
Gold: Exodus, an Orchestral Tone Picture
Alfred: Bridge Over the River Kwai: Colonel Bogey March
Walton: Death Of Falstaff (Passacaglia) from “Henry V”
Walton: Touch Her Sweet Lips and Part from “Henry V”
Thomson: Acadian Songs and Dances from the film score Louisiana Story (Excerpts)

DISC 7:

Copland: An Outdoor Overture
Menotti: Suite From Amahl and the Night Visitors
Riegger: Dance Rhythms, Op. 58
Elwell: The Happy Hypocrite - Ballet Suite
Shepherd: Horizons: The Old Chisholm Trail

DISC 8:

Tchaikovsky: Sleeping Beauty, Op. 66, Act I: Waltz
Tchaikovsky: The Nutcracker, Op. 71, Act I, Scene 2: Waltz of the Snowflakes
Tchaikovsky: The Nutcracker, Op. 71, Act III: Waltz of the Flowers
Tchaikovsky: Swan Lake, Op. 20, Act I: Waltz
Tchaikovsky: Serenade for Strings, Op. 48: II. Waltz
Tchaikovsky: Eugen Onegin, Act II, Scene 1: Waltz
Debussy: Petite Suite, L. 65
Ravel: Introduction and Allegro for Harp, Flute, Clarinet and Strings
Satie orch. Debussy: Gymnopédie No. 1
Satie orch. Debussy: Gymnopédie No. 3

DISC 9:

Vaughan-Williams: Romance for Violin & Orchestra "The Lark Ascending"
Sibelius: Romance in C Major for String Orchestra, Op. 42
Francaix: Serenade for Small Orchestra
Delius arr. Beecham: Hassan, Act I: Serenade (Arr. T. Beecham for Violin, Harp and Orchestra)
Warlock: Serenade for Strings

DISC 10:

Chabrier: España (Spanish Rhapsody)
Alfén: Swedish Rhapsody
Enescu: Romanian Rhapsody No. 1, Op. 11
Herbert: Irish Rhapsody
Liszt: Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2 in C-Sharp Minor, S. 244

DISC 11:

Mozart: Divertimento No. 17 in D Major, K. 334

DISC 12:

Mendelssohn: Symphony No. 1 in C Minor, Op. 11
Mendelssohn: III a. Scherzo (orchestral arrangement of the Octet for Strings in E-flat Major, Op. 20)
Schubert: Symphony No. 1 in D Major, D. 82

DISC 13:

Beethoven: Die Geschöpfe des Prometheus, Op. 43

DISC 14:

Bach-Walton: The Wise Virgins (Suite)
Scarlatti-Tommasini: The Good-Humored Ladies (Ballet Suite)

July 21: Pianists Simone Dinnerstein & Awadagin Pratt Perform as part of An Appalachian Summer Festival

Pianists Simone Dinnerstein and Awadagin Pratt
Performing as part of An Appalachian Summer Festival
A Broyhill Classic Concert Series Event

Presented by Appalachian State University
Office of Arts Engagement and Cultural Resources

Sunday, July 21, 2024 at 2:00pm
Rosen Concert Hall, Broyhill Music Center
813 Rivers St. | Boone, NC

Tickets and Information

www.simonedinnerstein.com | www.awadagin.com

Boone, NC – GRAMMY-nominated pianist Simone Dinnerstein, described by The New York Times as “colorful and idiosyncratic,” along with GRAMMY-winning pianist Awadagin Pratt, will be presented in concert by the Appalachian State University Office of Arts Engagement and Cultural Resources, as part of An Appalachian Summer Festival’s Broyhill Classic Concert Series. The concert will take place in Rosen Concert Hall, Broyhill Music Center, (813 Rivers St.) on Sunday, July 21, 2024 at 2:00pm. Supporting sponsorship is provided by the Broyhill Family Foundation and Campus Store.

American pianist Simone Dinnerstein has a distinctive musical voice and remains steadfast in her commitment to sharing classical music with everyone. Dinnerstein first came to wider public attention in 2007 through her recording of Bach’s Goldberg Variations, reflecting an aesthetic that was both deeply rooted in the score and profoundly idiosyncratic. She is, wrote The New York Times, “a unique voice in the forest of Bach interpretation.” Dinnerstein has played with orchestras ranging from the New York Philharmonic and Montreal Symphony Orchestra to the London Symphony Orchestra and the Orchestra Sinfonica Nazionale Rai. She has performed in venues from Carnegie Hall and the Kennedy Center to the Berlin Philharmonie, the Vienna Konzerthaus, Seoul Arts Center and Sydney Opera House. She has made thirteen albums, all of which topped the Billboard charts.

Beyond their mutual passion for and prestige with the piano, Dinnerstein and Pratt share a long time friendship and appreciation for collaborative performance. The two musicians have performed together many times over their respective careers, cultivating a deep respect and admiration for one another’s artistry. For this performance, Dinnerstein and Pratt will collaborate on a program featuring several selections for piano: two pianos, piano with four hands, and solo selections for piano, including: Castillo Interior by Pēteris Vasks, performed by Pratt; Philip Glass’s Etude No. 6, performed by Dinnerstein; Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s Sonata for Two Pianos in D Major, K. 448 performed by Dinnerstein and Pratt; and Ludwig van Beethoven’s stately Symphony No. 6 in F, Op. 68 “Pastoral” –– as arranged by Selmar Bagge –– performed by Dinnerstein and Pratt together at a single piano.

Of performing this program with Awadagin Pratt, Dinnerstein says:

“There is an intimacy to the two-piano repertoire that makes a concert hall feel like a living room. This repertoire was meant to be played at home. Historically, symphonies were arranged for two-piano as a way of becoming familiar to music lovers long before the days of recording, and when live orchestral performances were few and far between. Orchestral transcriptions require so much imagination, and also reveal elements of the counterpoint that may be different than what one’s impressions are from hearing the fully orchestrated version. I’m anticipating that this concert will have a friendly and more informal feel to it as a result of this quality in the music itself.”

More about Simone Dinnerstein: In recent years, Dinnerstein has created projects that express her broad musical interests. She gave the world premiere of The Eye Is the First Circle at Montclair State University, the first multi-media production she conceived, created, and directed, which uses as source materials her father Simon Dinnerstein’s painting The Fulbright Triptych and Charles Ives’s Piano Sonata No. 2. She premiered Richard Danielpour’s An American Mosaic, a tribute to those affected by the pandemic, in a performance on multiple pianos throughout Brooklyn’s Green-Wood Cemetery. Following her recording Mozart in Havana, she brought the Havana Lyceum Orchestra from Cuba to the U.S. for the first time, performing eleven concerts. Philip Glass composed his Piano Concerto No. 3 for her, co-commissioned by twelve orchestras. Working with Renée Fleming and the Emerson String Quartet, she premiered André Previn and Tom Stoppard’s Penelope at the Tanglewood, Ravinia and Aspen music festivals, and performed it at Carnegie Hall, the Kennedy Center, and presented by LA Opera. Dinnerstein has also created her own ensemble, Baroklyn, which she directs. The Washington Post comments, “it is Dinnerstein’s unreserved identification with every note she plays that makes her performance so spellbinding.” In a world where music is everywhere, she hopes that it can still be transformative.

For more information, please visit www.simonedinnerstein.com.

About Awadagin Pratt: Among his generation of concert artists, pianist Awadagin Pratt is acclaimed for his musical insight and intensely involving performances in recital and with symphony orchestras. Born in Pittsburgh, Awadagin Pratt began studying piano at the age of six. Three years later, having moved to Normal, Illinois with his family, he also began studying violin. At the age of 16 he entered the University of Illinois where he studied piano, violin, and conducting. He subsequently enrolled at the Peabody Conservatory of Music where he became the first student in the school’s history to receive diplomas in three performance areas – piano, violin and conducting. In recognition of this achievement and for his work in the field of classical music, Mr. Pratt received the Distinguished Alumni Award from Johns Hopkins as well as an honorary doctorate from Illinois Wesleyan University after delivering the commencement address in 2012.

For more information, please visit: www.awadagin.com

For Calendar Editors:

Description: GRAMMY-nominated pianist Simone Dinnerstein, described by The Washington Post as “an artist of strikingly original ideas and irrefutable integrity,” and GRAMMY-winning pianist Awadagin Pratt, are presented in concert by the Appalachian State University Office of Arts & Cultural Programs as part of An Appalachian Summer Festival - A Broyhill Classic Concert Series Event. Dinnerstein and Pratt will perform a program featuring music written for two pianos, piano with four hands, as well as solo selections. The concert will include music by Pēteris Vasks, Philip Glass, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Ludwig van Beethoven/Selmar Bagge.

Concert details:
Who: Pianists Simone Dinnerstein and Awadagin Pratt
Presented by Appalachian State University’s Office of Arts Engagement and Cultural Resources as part of An Appalachian Summer Festival’s Broyhill Classic Concert Series
What: Music by Pēteris Vasks, Philip Glass, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Ludwig van Beethoven
When: Sunday, July 21, 2024 at 2:00pm
Where: Rosen Concert Hall, Broyhill Music Center, 813 Rivers St., Boone, NC 28608
Tickets and information: www.appsummer.org/event/simone-dinnerstein-and-awadagin-pratt-piano

Aug. 23: The Knights and Composer Anna Clyne Announce Sony Classical Album Shorthand – Featuring Performances by Avi Avital, Colin Jacobsen, Pekka Kuusisto, and Yo-Yo Ma

The Knights and Composer Anna Clyne
Announce New Sony Classical Album
Shorthand
Set for Release on August 23 

Featuring Performances by Avi Avital, Colin Jacobsen,
Pekka Kuusisto and Yo-Yo Ma

Pre-Order Available Now

New York-based ensemble, The Knights, announce their new Sony Classical album, Shorthand, featuring the works of one today’s most in-demand composers, Anna Clyne, set for release on August 23, 2024. Shorthand explores the sound of strings through a collection of works that represent and reflect artistic friendships and the power of collaboration and features performances by mandolinist Avi Avital, violinists Colin Jacobsen and Pekka Kuusisto, plus cellist Yo-Yo Ma. 

The Knights’ Artistic Directors Colin Jacobsen and Eric Jacobsen and Composer Anna Clyne note:

“Shorthand represents over two decades of artistic friendships and collaborations – each of the artists on this album has played an important part in our artistic lives. It has brought together so many creative spirits and it has been an honor to record these works with them all. Over the span of two years, starting at the Clark Art Institute in Massachusetts to Power Station Studios in New York City, we have come together to create this special album that we are excited to share with you.” 

Shorthand brings together a host of internationally acclaimed artists and presents new interpretations of Anna Clyne’s music, including its title-track, Shorthand, for cello and string orchestra recorded here with Yo-Yo Ma. Three Sisters is performed by its dedicatee, mandolinist Avi Avital, and Clyne’s double violin concerto Prince of Clouds places violinists Colin Jacobsen and Pekka Kuusisto in the spotlight. With works spanning more than a decade, Shorthand presents musical conversations between the soloists and The Knights, and within the ensemble itself. The album was recorded by close collaborator, GRAMMY® Award-winning audio engineer Jody Elff. 

Shorthand also features Clyne’s most personal work, Within Her Arms, written as a tribute to her late mother. Scored for fifteen individual string parts, the music is shaped around a simple motif which grows and moves around the listener throughout the piece. The title is taken from a poem by the Vietnamese Buddhist monk and peace activist, Thich Nhat Hanh.

Earth will keep you tight within her arms dear one—
So that tomorrow you will be transformed into flowers—
This flower smiling quietly in this morning field—
This morning you will weep no more dear one—
For we have gone through too deep a night.
This morning, yes, this morning, I kneel down on the green grass—
And I notice your presence.
Flowers, that speak to me in silence.
The message of love and understanding has indeed come.

—Thich Nhat Hanh
(From "Message" in Call Me By My True Names, 1999, with permission of Parallax Press)

Poetry, art and music are reflected throughout the album, with Prince of Clouds drawing on Baudelaire’s poem L’Albatros. Three Sisters reflects on three stars found in the constellation of Orion, whilst Shorthand muses on Beethoven’s Kreutzer Sonata and the novella by Tolstoy of the same name. The album also features the premiere recording of Shorthand (Redux), a reimagining of Clyne’s thoughtful work. 

Connect With The Knights

Website | Instagram | YouTube | Facebook 

Connect With Anna Clyne
Website | Instagram | YouTube | Facebook

Sony Music Masterworks comprises Masterworks, Sony Classical, Milan Records, XXIM Records, and Masterworks Broadway imprints. For email updates and information please visit  www.sonymusicmasterworks.com.

July 5: GRAMMY-nominated Pianist Simone Dinnerstein Makes Highly Anticipated Return to San Francisco – Performing as part of Art of the Piano Festival Presented by Awadagin Pratt

Photo of Simone Dinnerstein by Arianna Dominguez available in high resolution at: https://jensen-artists.squarespace.com/artists-profiles/simone-dinnerstein 

GRAMMY-nominated Pianist Simone Dinnerstein
Performing as part of Art of the Piano Festival
Presented by Awadagin Pratt

Friday, July 5, 2024 at 7:00pm
San Francisco Conservatory of Music
Barbro Osher Recital Hall | 200 Van Ness Avenue | San Francisco, CA

Tickets and More information

“an intrepid artistic personality” – The Philadelphia Inquirer

Simone Dinnerstein: www.simonedinnerstein.com

San Francisco, CA – GRAMMY-nominated pianist Simone Dinnerstein, described by The Washington Post as an “an artist of strikingly original ideas and irrefutable integrity,” will perform on Friday, July 5, 2024 as part of the Art of the Piano Festival, presented by pianist Awadagin Pratt. The performance will be held in the San Francisco Conservatory of Music’s Barbro Osher Recital Hall (200 Van Ness Avenue).

This concert marks Dinnerstein’s first return to San Francisco since early 2020, just before the pandemic began. Her last concert in the area featured her in performance with Lynn Harrell, Daniel Hope, and the New Century Chamber Orchestra, performing the Beethoven Triple Concerto. The concert would end up becoming Harrell’s final performance of this work.

Dinnerstein, who is celebrated for her distinctive musical voice and commitment to sharing classical music with everyone, will perform several selections found on her 2022 Orange Mountain Music album Undersong –– the final installment in a trilogy of albums recorded at her home in Brooklyn during the pandemic between 2020 and 2022, which also includes A Character of Quiet (Orange Mountain Music, 2020) and Richard Danielpour’s An American Mosaic (Supertrain Records, 2021). The latter surpassed two million streams on Apple Music and was nominated for a 2021 GRAMMY Award in the category of Best Classical Instrumental Solo. The concert program will include Robert Schumann’s Arabesque in C Major, Op. 18 and Kreisleriana, Op. 16; François Couperin­’s Les Barricades Mysterieuses; Philip Glass’s Mad Rush; and Erik Satie’s Gnossienne No. 3.

Dinnerstein explains of Undersong’s title: “Undersong is an archaic term for a song with a refrain, and to me it also suggests a hidden text. Glass, Schumann, Couperin and Satie all seem to be attempting to find what they want to say through repetition, as though their constant change and recycling will focus the ear and the mind. This time has been one of reflection and reconsidering for many of us, and this music speaks to the process of revisiting and searching for the meaning beneath the notes, of the undersong.”

About Simone Dinnerstein: American pianist Simone Dinnerstein first came to wider public attention in 2007 through her recording of Bach’s Goldberg Variations, reflecting an aesthetic that was both deeply rooted in the score and profoundly idiosyncratic. She is, wrote The New York Times, “a unique voice in the forest of Bach interpretation.”

Dinnerstein has played with orchestras ranging from the New York Philharmonic and Montreal Symphony Orchestra to the London Symphony Orchestra and the Orchestra Sinfonica Nazionale Rai. She has performed in venues from Carnegie Hall and the Kennedy Center to the Berlin Philharmonie, the Vienna Konzerthaus, Seoul Arts Center and Sydney Opera House. She has made thirteen albums, all of which topped the Billboard charts. During the pandemic she recorded three albums which form a trilogy: A Character of Quiet, An American Mosaic, and Undersong. An American Mosaic was nominated for a Grammy.

In recent years, Dinnerstein has created projects that express her broad musical interests. She gave the `world premiere of The Eye Is the First Circle at Montclair State University, the first multi-media production she conceived, created, and directed, which uses as source materials her father Simon Dinnerstein’s painting The Fulbright Triptych and Charles Ives’s Piano Sonata No. 2. She premiered Richard Danielpour’s An American Mosaic, a tribute to those affected by the pandemic, in a performance on multiple pianos throughout Brooklyn’s Green-Wood Cemetery. Following her recording Mozart in Havana, she brought the Havana Lyceum Orchestra from Cuba to the U.S. for the first time, performing eleven concerts. Philip Glass composed his Piano Concerto No. 3 for her, co-commissioned by twelve orchestras. Working with Renée Fleming and the Emerson String Quartet, she premiered André Previn and Tom Stoppard’s Penelope at the Tanglewood, Ravinia and Aspen music festivals, and performed it at Carnegie Hall, the Kennedy Center, and presented by LA Opera. Dinnerstein has also created her own ensemble, Baroklyn, which she directs. The Washington Post comments, “it is Dinnerstein’s unreserved identification with every note she plays that makes her performance so spellbinding.” In a world where music is everywhere, she hopes that it can still be transformative. For more information, please visit www.simonedinnerstein.com.

For Calendar Editors:

Description: Pianist Simone Dinnerstein, described by The Washington Post as “an artist of strikingly original ideas and irrefutable integrity,” will perform as part of the Art of the Piano Festival presented by pianist Awadagin Pratt. Dinnerstein will perform several selections found on her 2022 Orange Mountain Music release, Undersong, including Robert Schumann’s Arabesque in C Major, Op. 18 and Kreisleriana, Op. 16; François Couperin­’s Les Barricades Mysterieuses, and Philip Glass’s Mad Rush; and Erik Satie’s Gnossienne No. 3.

Concert details:

Who: Pianist Simone Dinnerstein
Performing as part of The Art of the Piano Festival presented by Awadagin Pratt
What: Music by François Couperin­, Robert Schumann, Philip Glass, and Erik Satie
When: Friday, July 5, 2024 at 7:00pm
Where: San Francisco Conservatory of Music, Barbro Osher Recital Hall, 200 Van Ness Avenue, San Francisco, CA 94102
Tickets and information: www.artofthepiano.org/calendar-of-events/dinnerstein-recital-2024

July 14: Newport Classical Music Festival Presents Violinist Anne Akiko Meyers at The Breakers

Photo by David Zentz available in high resolution here.

Newport Classical Music Festival presents
An Evening with Violinist Anne Akiko Meyers

Sunday, July 14, 2024 at 8:00 PM
The Breakers | 44 Ochre Point Ave | Newport, RI
Tickets and Information

Watch Anne Akiko Meyers’ NPR Tiny Desk Concert

“Vigorous mastery, unflinching technical skills and stylish elegance” – Los Angeles Times

“...a national treasure. She is a musical wizard, with astonishing access to every kind of expressive color.” – The San Diego Union-Tribune

“violinist Anne Akiko Meyers is without doubt a rock star” – Salt Lake City Weekly

Newport, RI – Celebrating its 55th Anniversary, the 2024 Newport Classical Music Festival (July 4-21) presents revolutionary violinist Anne Akiko Meyers on Sunday, July 14, 2024 at 8:00pm at The Breakers (44 Ochre Point Ave). The GRAMMY®-nominated violinist is joined by the virtuosic pianist Max Levinson. For her Newport debut, Meyers brings an exquisite program of Corelli, Beethoven, and Morten Lauridsen, plus one of the first performances of a new work written for her by the iconic American composer Philip Glass, and a premiere of Arturo Márquez’s seductive Danzón No.2, arranged for Meyers by the composer, promising an unforgettable evening of music. 

Anne Akiko Meyers is one of the world’s most esteemed violinists, admired for her purity of sound, poetic interpretations, gorgeous performances, and innovative programming. She has been called “the Wonder Woman of commissioning” by The Strad, and collaborates as muse and champion of many of today’s most-performed composers, creating a remarkable collection of new violin repertoire for future generations. Some of Meyers’ career highlights include a performance of the Barber Violin Concerto at the Australian Bicentennial Concert for an audience of 750,000 in Sydney Harbour; performances for the Emperor and Empress Akihito of Japan; for Queen Máxima of the Netherlands, in a Museumplein Concert with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra; and the national anthem at T-Mobile Park in Seattle and Dodger Stadium.

Meyers’ first national television appearances were on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson at the age 11, followed by performances that include Evening At Pops with John Williams, CBS Sunday Morning, Great Performances, Countdown with Keith Olbermann (in a segment that was the third most popular story of that year), The Emmy Awards, and The View. John Williams personally chose Anne to perform Schindler’s List for a Great Performances PBS telecast and Arvo Pärt invited her to be his guest soloist at the opening ceremony concerts of his new center and concert hall in Estonia. 

Outside of traditional classical, Meyers has collaborated with artists including jazz icons Chris Botti and Wynton Marsalis; avant-garde musician Ryuichi Sakamoto; electronic music pioneer Isao Tomita; pop-era act Il Divo; and singer Michael Bolton. Meyers received a GRAMMY® Award nomination for her live recording with Gustavo Dudamel and the L.A. Philharmonic of Arturo Márquez’s Fandango, a concerto for violin and orchestra written for her in 2021. The work has already been performed close to 30 times, and the recording is the latest of her more than 40 releases, which have become staples of classical music radio and streaming platforms.

Anne Akiko Meyers’ Newport Classical Music Festival concert on July 14 features Philip Glass’s New Chaconne for violin and piano, which she premiered this past February. The new piece was written specifically for her and is a testament to Meyers’ dedication to Glass, his indelible impact, and his musical legacy. In summer 2023, Meyers visited Philip Glass at his home in Manhattan, and in September 2023, Glass made the pilgrimage to hear her performance at the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles. It was this experience, new friendship and the simple joy of making music that sparked the creation of this work in which, as Richard Guérin explains in program notes, “the form itself became fodder for reinvention.”

In addition to Glass’s New Chaconne, Meyers’ Newport program showcases the nostalgia and jubilance of Arturo Márquez’s Danzón No. 2, a work Meyers fell in love with at first listen and which inspired Márquez to write Fandango. The poetic poignance of Morten Lauridsen’s Sure on This Shining Night and Dirait-On; Corelli’s Sonata in D minor Op. 5, No. 12 La Folia; and Beethoven’s Violin Sonata No. 5 in F Major, Op. 24, Spring complete the program.

Watch Anne Akiko Meyers’ NPR Tiny Desk Concert:

Set against the picturesque backdrop of the City-by-the-Sea, the Newport Classical Music Festival presents 27 concerts held in 11 historic venues over 18 days from July 4-21, featuring a total of 120 musicians from around the world. Patrons can easily craft a Festival itinerary tailored to their preferences – be it the discovery of a new composer, the rhythm of percussion, or revisiting a beloved work with a fresh perspective. For 55 years, Newport Classical has been a beacon for artistry, drawing in countless concertgoers to revel in exceptional performances within unique and intimate settings.

Highlights include Opening Night with the dynamic and inspiring Sphinx Virtuosi and cello soloist Thomas Mesa; the return to Newport of Chanticleer, Canadian Brass, and A Far Cry with special guests Kinan Azmeh and Dinuk Wijeratne; the Music Festival debut of the storied Handel and Haydn Society; two enchanting evenings with Tony Award-winning Broadway star Laura Benanti; plus performances by star pianists Lara Downes, Joyce Yang, Llewellyn Sánchez-Werner, Drew Petersen, and Daniel del Pino; and appearances by numerous celebrated chamber ensembles including the Isidore String Quartet; PUBLIQuartet; Duo Kayo; Lincoln Trio; Poulenc Trio with accordionist Hanzhi Wang; and Sō Percussion with vocalist and Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Caroline Shaw.

More about Anne Akiko Meyers:

Anne Akiko Meyers grew up in Southern California where she and her mother would travel eight hours round trip from the Mojave Desert to Pasadena for lessons with Alice and Eleonore Schoenfeld at the predecessor to the Colburn School of Performing Arts. She moved to New York at the age of 14 to study at The Juilliard School with legendary teacher, Dorothy DeLay, and with Masao Kawasaki and Felix Galimir; she signed with management at 16; and recorded her debut album of the Barber and Bruch Violin Concertos with the RPO at Abbey Road Studios at 18. 

Since her teens, Anne Akiko Meyers has performed around the world as soloist with leading orchestras and in recital. She has worked closely with some of the most important composers of the last half century, including Arvo Pärt (Estonian Lullaby), Einojuhani Rautavaara (Fantasia, his final complete work), John Corigliano (cadenzas for the Beethoven Violin Concerto; Lullaby for Natalie), Arturo Márquez (Fandango), Michael Daugherty (Blue Electra), Mason Bates and Adam Schoenberg (violin concertos), Jakub Ciupiński, Jennifer Higdon, Samuel Jones, Morten Lauridsen, Wynton Marsalis, Akira Miyoshi, Gene Pritsker, Somei Satoh, and Joseph Schwantner, performing world premieres with the symphony orchestras of Chicago, Dallas, Los Angeles, Nashville, Pittsburgh, San Diego, Seattle, Washington D.C., Helsinki, Hyogo, Leipzig, London, Lyon, and New Zealand.

Anne Akiko Meyers has received the Avery Fisher Career Grant, Distinguished Alumna Award and an Honorary Doctorate from The Colburn School. She serves on the Board of Trustees of The Juilliard School and will be inducted into the Asian Hall of Fame this October, to be broadcast on Roku. She performs on Larsen Strings with the Ex-Vieuxtemps Guarneri del Gesù, dated 1741, considered by many to be the finest sounding violin in existence.

About Max Levinson:

Meyers is joined by pianist Max Levinson, first prize winner at the Dublin International Piano Competition (1997) and the first American to achieve this distinction. Levinson is also a recipient of the Avery Fisher Career Grant (1999) and the Andrew Wolf Award (2005). He has performed as a soloist with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, St. Louis Symphony, Detroit Symphony, San Francisco Symphony, Baltimore Symphony, Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, Oregon Symphony, Indianapolis Symphony, Colorado Symphony, New World Symphony, Utah Symphony, Boston Pops, San Antonio Symphony, Louisville Symphony, Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, and National Symphony Orchestra of Ireland, as well as in recital at New York’s Alice Tully Hall at Lincoln Center, the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., London’s Wigmore Hall, Zürich’s Tonhalle, the Musée d’Orsay in Paris, Jordan Hall in Boston, and throughout the United States, Canada, and Europe.

About Newport Classical:

Newport Classical is a premier performing arts organization that welcomes people of every age, culture, and background to intimate, immersive musical experiences. The organization presents world-renowned and up-and-coming artistic talents at stunning, storied venues across Newport – an internationally sought-after cultural and recreational destination.

Originally founded in 1969 as Rhode Island Arts Foundation at Newport, Inc. and previously known as Newport Music Festival, Newport Classical has a rich legacy of musical curiosity having presented the American debuts of hundreds of international artists and is most well-known for hosting three weeks of concerts in the summer in the historic mansions throughout Newport and Aquidneck Island. In the 55 years since, Newport Classical has become the most active year-round presenter of music on Aquidneck Island, and an essential pillar of Rhode Island’s cultural landscape, welcoming thousands of patrons all year long.

Newport Classical invests in the future of classical music as a diverse, relevant, and ever-evolving art form through its four core programs – the one-of-a-kind Music Festival; the Chamber Series in the Newport Classical Recital Hall; the free, family-friendly Community Concerts Series; and the Music Education and Engagement Initiative that inspires students in local schools to become the arts advocates and music lovers of tomorrow. These programs illustrate the organization’s ongoing commitment to presenting “timeless music for today.”

In 2021, the organization launched a new commissioning initiative – each year, Newport Classical will commission a new work by a Black, Indigenous, person of color, or woman composer as a commitment to the future of classical music. To date, Newport Classical has commissioned and presented the world premiere of works by Stacy Garrop, Shawn Okpebholo, Curtis Stewart, and Clarice Assad.

For Newport Classical’s complete concert calendar, visit www.newportclassical.org/concerts