WILLIAM TELL OVERTURE

CARLOS KALMAR

Artistic Director & Principal Conductor

Carlos Kalmar has been Principal Conductor of the Grant Park Music Festival since 2000, and was named Artistic Director in 2011. Under Kalmar’s leadership, the Grant Park Music Festival has become one of the world’s preeminent classical music festivals, and his role has been essential in shaping its artistic vision.

In May 2021, Kalmar was named Director of Orchestral and Conducting Programs and Principal Conductor of the Cleveland Institute of Music. He previously served as music director of the Oregon Symphony for nearly 20 years, and served as the Chief Conductor and Artistic Director of the Spanish Radio/Television Orchestra and Choir in Madrid as well as the Music Director for the Hamburg Symphony, the Stuttgart Philharmonic, Vienna’s Tonkünstler Orchestra, and the Anhaltisches Theater in Dessau, Germany. Kalmar keeps an active schedule conducting in concert halls and opera houses around the world. Carlos Kalmar is Uruguayan-Austrian and lives in the United States.

The position of Artistic

Director and Principal

Conductor is partially underwritten by a generous gift from Sage Foundation. The position of Chorus Director is partially underwritten by a generous gift from Joyce Saxon.

CHRISTOPHER BELL

Chorus Director

Christopher Bell has served as Chorus Director of the Grant Park Chorus since 2002 and conducts the orchestra and chorus for several concerts each summer. During his tenure, he and the chorus have been recipients of the coveted Margaret Hillis Award for Choral Excellence given by Chorus America, as well as glowing reviews from both critics and audiences alike. In 2013, Bell won the Michael Korn Founders Award for Development of the Professional Choral Art.

Largely responsible for the formation of the National Youth Choir of Scotland in 1996, he has been its Artistic Director ever since. Between 2007 and 2018 Bell was chorus director of the Edinburgh Festival Chorus, and between 2018 and 2020 he was Artistic Director of the Washington Chorus. Bell was awarded an Honorary Doctorate in Music from the Royal Conservatoire in Scotland in 2012 in recognition of his contribution to performing arts in Scotland. In 2015, he was awarded an Honorary Doctorate from the University of Aberdeen.

GRANT PARK CHORUS

Christopher Bell, Chorus Director

Soprano

Laura Lynch Anderson Alyssa Bennett Bethany Clearfield Nathalie Colas Kaitlin Foley Saira Frank Katherine Gray-Noon Katelyn Lee Rosalind Lee Hannah Dixon McConnell Susan Nelson Angela Presutti Korbitz Alexia Rivera Emily Sinclair Catherine Spitzer* Sarah van der Ploeg Sherry Watkins

Alto

Lindsey Adams Melissa Arning Rebekah Kirsten Askeland Hannah Busch Julie DeBoer Stacy Eckert Margaret Fox Ilana Goldstein Carla Janzen Chelsea Lyons Amy Pickering* Sarah Ponder Emily Price Suzanne A. Shields Cassidy Smith Corinne Wallace-Crane

Tenor

Madison Bolt Hoss Brock Erich Buchholz John J. Concepcion Ace Gangoso Klaus Georg Tyler Lee Stephen D. Noon Peder Reiff Matthew W. Schlesinger Joe Shadday Aaron Short Peter J. Sovitzky Alan Taylor Eric West

Bass

Derek Boemler* Ryan J. Cox Dominic German Robert Heitzinger Jan Jarvis Woo Chan Lee* Eric Miranda John E. Orduña Wilbur Pauley Martin Lowen Poock Dan Richardson Stephen Richardson Benjamin D. Rivera Scott Uddenberg Ronald Watkins

Accompanist Paul Nicholson

* denotes leave of absence

WHY CHICAGO IS ONE OF THE BEST PLACES FOR SINGERS