Artist Biographies (alphabetical by last name).............18-32

JI SU JUNG

Percussion soloist Ji Su Jung has a distinctive voice that is instantly recognizable for its lyricism and sincerity. Her artistic breadth carries her with equal ease from the solo marimba medium to multiple percussion solos and European theatrical performance pieces. Born in South Korea, Jung is a rarity in the world of percussion having begun her studies at the age of four. Her exceptional talent was recognized early on and led to recitals and concerto performances at such a young age that she needed a small platform to stand upon just to reach the keyboard of the instrument. That platform was soon left behind as her stature and musical voice matured and numerous solo performances throughout her native country followed. In 2011, she moved to the United States where she completed her undergraduate studies at the Peabody Institute of the Johns Hopkins University thanks to a generous grant from The Brookby Foundation in Wisconsin and later received her Masters and Artist Diploma from the Yale School of Music under the tutelage of famed percussionist Robert van Sice. Her exceptional potential quickly blossomed into professional success leading to concerto performances with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, Aspen Festival Orchestra, Houston Symphony, the Romanian Symphony Orchestra, Grand Rapids Symphony and the Windsor Symphony in Canada. Recitals across America have won over new audiences for the marimba and her appearance at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C resulted in an unexpected invitation to join the faculty at The Peabody Institute of Johns Hopkins University. Miss Jung was the first percussionist in 26 years to win the First Prize at the 2018 Ima Hogg Competition of the Houston Symphony where she also garnered the Audience Choice Award. NPR radio host Fred Childs invited her to be a young artist-in-residence on his nationally syndicated program, Performance Today. Ji Su has presented master classes at the Curtis Institute of Music, New York University, The Shepherd School of Music at Rice University, and the Beijing Conservatory in China. In 2015, she was a laureate at the renowned International Marimba Competition in Linz, Austria. Since 2018, Jung has performed as a member of the spectacular Percussion Collective, an all-star collection of young percussionists performing concertos and recitals in major concert venues around the world. The Vic Firth mallet and drumstick company has made numerous performance videos of Ji Su that have garnered close to a million views on their website. Through this medium, her lyrical approach to the marimba and solo percussion has drawn accolades throughout the world from composers and percussionists alike.

OLGA KERN

Russian-American pianist Olga Kern has established herself as one of the leading pianists of her generations. Born in Moscow in a family of musicians, she jumpstarted her U.S. career with her historic Gold Medal win at the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition in Fort Worth, Texas as the first woman to do so in more than thirty years. First prize winner of the Rachmaninoff International Piano Competition at seventeen, Ms. Kern is a laureate of many international competitions. In 2016 she served as Jury Chairman of both the Seventh Cliburn International Amateur Piano Competition and the first Olga Kern International Piano Competition, where she also holds the title of Artistic Director. Ms. Kern frequently gives masterclasses and since September 2017 has served on the piano faculty of the prestigious Manhattan School of Music. Beginning with the 2019 season, Ms. Kern was appointed the Connie & Marc Jacobson Director of Chamber Music at the Virginia Arts Festival. Ms. Kern was honored with the Ellis Island Medal of Honor in New York City in 2017. Recent and upcoming highlights include performances with the Minnesota Orchestra, the symphony orchestras of Baltimore, St. Louis, Grand Rapids, Colorado and Toledo, the New Mexico Philharmonic, the National Symphony Orchestra of Washington DC, the Iceland Symphony Orchestra, the Nordwestdeutsche Philharmonie, the Orquesta de Sao Paulo, and the New West Symphony. Ms. Kern has toured extensively in the United States with many international orchestras such as the Royal National Scottish Orchestra, the Royal Philharmonic, the National Symphony Orchestra of Ukraine and many others. In 2019 she helped celebrate Leonard Slatkin’s 75th Birthday in a series of special concerts with the National Symphony at the Kennedy Center. She will appear in recitals in Orford, Sunriver, Fort Worth (Cliburn), Carmel, San Francisco, Sicily, and Calvia. In spring of 2020 Olga Kern has hosted her Second Olga Kern International Piano Competition. In the coming seasons, she will serve on the jury of many international competitions. Ms. Kern’s discography includes her Grammy Nominated recording of Rachmaninoff’s Corelli Variations and other transcriptions (2004), Brahms Variations (2007) and Chopin Piano Sonatas No. 2 and 3 (2010), the Tchaikovsky piano concerto with the Rochester Philharmonic, a CD of Russian composers including works by Balakirev, the Chopin concerto with the Warsaw Philharmonic and a CD of the Rachmaninoff cello sonatas with Sol Gabetta. She was featured in several documentaries including the award-winning films about the 2001 Cliburn Competition, Playing on the Edge; “They came to play” and “Olga’s journey”.

This year, attendees of specific concerts will also receive a link by email to stream the concert for up to 30 days. Livestream concert dates are: July 1 & 2, July 3 (family concert), July 8 & 9, 15 & 16, 22, 29, and August 5.

AARON JAY KERNIS

PHOTO: RICHARD BOWDITCH

Winner of the 2002 Grawemeyer Award for Music Composition, 1998 Pulitzer Prize, and 2012 Nemmers Prize, Aaron Jay Kernis is one of America’s most honored composers. His music appears prominently on concert programs worldwide, and he has been commissioned by America’s preeminent performing organizations and artists, including the New York Philharmonic, San Francisco, Toronto, and Melbourne (AU) Symphonies, Los Angeles and Saint Paul Chamber Orchestras, Walt Disney Company, Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, Renee Fleming, Dawn Upshaw, Joshua Bell, Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg, and Sharon Isbin. Recent and upcoming commissions include his 4th Symphony for the New England Conservatory (for its 150th anniversary) and Nashville Symphony; concerti for violinist James Ehnes, cellist Joshua Roman, violist Paul Neubauer, and flutist Marina Piccinini; a horn concerto for the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic and Grant Park Music Festival; a work for the Borromeo String Quartet; and a piece for the San Francisco Girls and Brooklyn Youth Choruses with The Knights for the New York Philharmonic Biennial. His works have been recorded on Virgin, Dorian, Arabesque, Phoenix, Argo, Signum, Cedille and many other labels. Recent recordings include his Goblin Market, and Invisible Mosaic II (Signum); Three Flavors, featuring pianist Andrew Russo, violinist James Ehnes and the Albany Symphony with conductor David Alan Miller (Albany); and a disc of his solo and chamber music, On Distant Shores, (Phoenix). Kernis’s conducting engagements include appearances with the Pascal Rioult Dance Company, at major chamber music festivals in Chicago and Portland, and with members of the San Francisco and Minnesota Orchestras and New York Philharmonic. He is the Workshop Director of the Nashville Symphony Composer Lab and, for 11 years, served as New Music Adviser to the Minnesota Orchestra, with which he co-founded and directed its Composer Institute for 15 years. Kernis teaches composition at Yale School of Music, and was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters and the Classical Music Hall of Fame. Leta Miller’s book-length portrait of Kernis and his work was published in 2014 by University of Illinois Press as part of its American Composer series.

Colorado Music Festival and Colorado Chautauqua Association are two distinct organizations, though we have a long-term partnership that began when the Festival was created in the 1970s.

HANNAH LASH

Hailed by The New York Times as “striking and resourceful… handsomely brooding,” Hannah Lash’s music has been performed at Carnegie Hall, Los Angeles’ Walt Disney Concert Hall, Lincoln Center, the Times Center in Manhattan, the Chicago Art Institute, Tanglewood Music Center, Harvard University, The Aspen Music Festival & School, The Chelsea Art Museum, and on the American Opera Project’s stage in New York City. Commissions include The Fromm Foundation, the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, Carnegie Hall, Chamber Music Northwest, the McKim Fund in the Library of Congress, Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music, American Composers Orchestra, Columbia University’s Miller Theatre, The Naumburg Foundation, the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, the Arditti Quartet, the Great Lakes Chamber Music Festival, the Colorado Music Festival, and the Aspen Music Festival and School, among many others. Lash has received numerous honors and prizes, including the ASCAP Morton Gould Young Composer Award, a Charles Ives Scholarship (2011) and Fellowship (2016) from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, a Fromm Foundation Commission, a Chamber Music America Classical Commissioning Grant, a fellowship from Yaddo Artist Colony, the Naumburg Prize in Composition, the Barnard Rogers Prize in Composition, the Bernard and Rose Sernoffsky Prize in Composition, and numerous academic awards. Her orchestral work Furthermore was selected by the American Composers Orchestra for the 2010 Underwood New Music Readings. Her chamber opera, Blood Rose, was presented by New York City Opera’s VOX in the spring of 2011. Recent premieres include the multi-movement orchestral work The Voynich Symphony by the New Haven Symphony, Form and Postlude for Chamber Music Northwest, a new Requiem for the Yale Choral Artists, How to Remember Seeds for The Calidore String Quartet, Three Shades Without Angles, for flute, viola and harp, by the Boston Symphony Chamber Players, Two Movements for violin and piano, commissioned by the Library of Congress for Ensemble Intercontemporain, and a new chamber opera, Beowulf, for Guerilla Opera, as well as several new orchestral works: Chaconnes, for the New York Philharmonic’s Biennial, Eating Flowers, for the Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music, Nymphs, for the Alabama Symphony Orchestra, and This Ease, for the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, as well as two concerti for harp premiered by the American Composers Orchestra (Concerto No. 1 for Harp and Chamber Orchestra) and the Colorado Music Festival (Concerto No. 2 for Harp and Orchestra), both with Lash as soloist.

LUDOVIC MORLOT

Ludovic Morlot’s élan, elegance and intensity on stage have endeared him to audiences and orchestras worldwide, from the Berlin Philharmonic to the Boston Symphony. During his eight years as Music Director of the Seattle Symphony he pushed the boundaries of traditional concert programming, winning several Grammys. He is now Conductor Emeritus in Seattle, and in 2019 he was appointed Associate Artist of the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra with whom he has had a close relationship over many years. He is also Artistic Director and a founding member of the National Youth Orchestra of China; he conducted their inaugural concerts at Carnegie Hall and in China in 2017, and took them on tour to Europe in 2019. From 2012-2014 he was Chief Conductor of La Monnaie, conducting new productions in Brussels and at the Aix Easter Festival including La Clemenza di Tito, Jenufa and Pelléas et Mélisande.

Morlot has conducted the Berliner Philharmoniker, Royal Concertgebouw, Czech Philharmonic, Dresden Staaksapelle, London Philharmonic and Budapest Festival orchestras, and many of the leading North American orchestras, notably the New York Philharmonic, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Chicago and Boston Symphony orchestras. Morlot has a particularly strong connection with Boston, having been the Seiji Ozawa Fellowship Conductor at Tanglewood and subsequently appointed Assistant Conductor for the Boston Symphony. His tenure in Seattle formed a hugely significant period in the musical journey of the orchestra. His innovative programming encompassed not only his choice of repertoire, but theatrical productions and performances outside the traditional concert hall space. There were numerous collaborations with musicians from different genres, commissions and world premieres. Some of these projects, including John Luther Adams’ Become Ocean, Aaron Jay Kernis’ Violin Concerto performed by James Ehnes and an exploration of Dutilleux’s music, have earned the orchestra five Grammy Awards, as well as the distinction of being named Gramophone’s 2018 Orchestra of the Year. Morlot has released 19 recordings with the Seattle Symphony Media label which was launched in 2014. In the 2020/21 season Morlot is due to conduct the Orchestre de Paris, San Francisco Symphony, Barcelona Symphony and the Royal Scottish National Orchestras for the first time, and returns to the Bergen Philharmonic, City of Birmingham Symphony, and Iceland symphony orchestras as well as to the Seattle Symphony and BBC Philharmonic. Trained as a violinist, Morlot studied conducting at the Pierre Monteux School (USA) with Charles Bruck and Michael Jinbo. He continued his education in London at the Royal Academy of Music and then at the Royal College of Music as recipient of the Norman del Mar Conducting Fellowship. Ludovic is Affiliate Professor at the University of Washington School of Music in Seattle and a Visiting Artist at the Colburn School in Los Angeles. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Music in 2014 in recognition of his significant contribution to music.

CREDIT LISA-MARIE MAZZUCCO

REALLY INVENTIVE STUFF

Founded in 2004 by Sara Valentine and Michael Boudewyns, Really Inventive Stuff has the honor of performing family and education concerts with orchestras, conductors and musicians from all around the world. Based outside of Portland, Maine, our company of classicallytrained performers is committed to sharing inspiring, memorable experiences with audiences of all ages. Our productions are created with a core commitment to imaginative, playful, and entertaining storytelling. With a sprinkling of child-like enthusiasm, we create skillful, delightful performances that combine our love of vaudeville and our passion for classic theatre, while keeping the music in the spotlight.

Simone St. John, Josh Hartwell, and Diana Dresser in BETC’s production of TINY BEAUTIFUL THINGS by Cheryl Strayed, adapted for the stage by Nia Vardalos (photography: Michael Ensminger)

This year, attendees of specific concerts will also receive a link by email to stream the concert for up to 30 days. Livestream concert dates are: July 1 & 2, July 3 (family concert), July 8 & 9, 15 & 16, 22, 29, and August 5.

Still . Different animal.

For fifteen years, Boulder Ensemble Theatre Company has presented profound theatrical stories that enriched the Boulder community. We hit the road this summer with a new name, new programs, and a new vision for theatre in Colorado.

Learn more at betc.org

ST. LAWRENCE STRING QUARTET

Geoff Nuttall, violin Owen Dalby, violin Lesley Robertson, viola Christopher Costanza, cello “Modern,” “dramatic,” “superb,” “wickedly attentive,” “with a hint of rock ‘n roll energy” are just a few ways critics describe the musical phenomenon that is the St. Lawrence String Quartet (SLSQ). The Quartet is renowned for the intensity of its performances, its breadth of repertoire, and its commitment to concert experiences that are at once intellectually exciting and emotionally alive. Established in Toronto in 1989, SLSQ quickly earned acclaim at top international chamber music competitions and was soon playing hundreds of concerts per year worldwide. It established an ongoing residency at Spoleto Festival USA, made prize-winning recordings for EMI of music by Schumann, Tchaikovsky, and Golijov, earning two Grammy nominations and a host of other prizes before being appointed ensemble-in-residence at Stanford University in 1998. At Stanford, SLSQ is at the forefront of intellectual life on campus. It directs the music department’s chamber music program, and frequently collaborates with other departments including the Schools of Law, Medicine, Business and Education. The Quartet frequently performs at Stanford Live, hosts an annual chamber music seminar attracting musicians from all over the world, and runs the Emerging String Quartet Program through which they mentor the next generation of young chamber musicians. The Quartet is especially dedicated to the music of Haydn, recording his groundbreaking set of six Op. 20 quartets for a free, universal release online as well as for purchase on compact disc and high quality vinyl. According to The New Yorker, “...no other North American quartet plays the music of Haydn with more intelligence, expressivity, and force...” SLSQ is thrilled to announce a new creation and a unique collaborative venture for the 2021-22 season: an octet for strings by the renowned composer Osvaldo Golijov. The new work offers presenters an opportunity to foster an unusual collaboration and connection between the St. Lawrence and four locally based “solo” string players (two violins, viola, cello), who may in fact be soloists, orchestral section leaders, or exceptionally talented conservatory or university students. In Golijov’s own words, the work will “explore the dimensions opened by combining an organism with its own breathing and metabolism, like a string quartet, (especially one that is “mature” as SLSQ) together with four individual players that come to orbit, interact, and disrupt this organism.” In recent years, the St. Lawrence has collaborated with Michael Tilson Thomas and the SF Symphony, Gustavo Dudamel and the LA Philharmonic and Marin Alsop and the Baltimore Symphony in John Adams’s Absolute Jest for string quartet and orchestra. Fiercely committed to collaboration with living composers, SLSQ’s fruitful partnership with Adams, Golijov, Jonathan Berger, and many others has yielded some of the finest additions to contemporary quartet literature. Geoff Nuttall (violin) and Lesley Robertson (viola) met as students while studying music in their native Canada and in 1989 founded the St. Lawrence String Quartet. Christopher Costanza (cello) joined the ensemble in 2003 after performing for many years with the Chicago String Quartet. Owen Dalby (violin) is a founding member of Decoda, the Affiliate Ensemble of Carnegie Hall. He joined the SLSQ in 2015. 2021-22 season

CONRAD TAO

Conrad Tao has appeared worldwide as a pianist and composer and has been dubbed a musician of “probing intellect and open-hearted vision” by The New York Times. He is the recipient of the prestigious Avery Fisher Career Grant and was named a Gilmore Young Artist—an honor awarded every two years highlighting the most promising American pianists of the new generation. As a composer, he was also the recipient of a 2019 New York Dance and Performance “Bessie” Award, for Outstanding Sound Design / Music Composition, for his work on More Forever, his collaboration with dancer and choreographer Caleb Teicher. Conrad Tao has recently appeared with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Cleveland Orchestra, New York Philharmonic, and Boston Symphony. In 20-21, he was the focus of a series of concerts and interviews with the Finnish Radio Symphony, performing Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 4 with Hannu Lintu and Andrew Norman’s Suspend with Sakari Oramo, live on television. While most performances in the 2021 season were canceled due to the COVID epidemic, he appeared with the Cincinnati Symphony and Louis Langrée, and returned to the Seattle Symphony to perform Beethoven Concerto No. 4. Further invitations included the National Symphony Orchestra, the San Francisco Symphony, New Jersey Symphony, and Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra. His creation with Caleb Teicher, More Forever, commissioned by Works & Process at the Guggenheim, was planned for tours across the US, including Dance Cleveland and Fall for Dance, Toronto. Tao and Teicher’s latest collaboration for Works & Process, Rhapsody in Blue, kicked off the Guggenheim’s return to in-person performances and was lauded by The New York Times as “monumental.” The duo also gave the inaugural virtual recital of the season for Concerts from the Library of Congress. In the 2019-20 season, Tao was presented in recital by Carnegie Hall, performing works by David Lang, Bach, Julia Wolfe, Jason Eckhardt, Carter, Rachmaninoff, and Schumann. He also made his debut in recital at Walt Disney Concert Hall, where the LA Phil presented him in works by Copland and Frederic Rzewski. Following his debut at Blossom Music Center, the Cleveland Orchestra invited Tao to perform at Severance Hall in a special program featuring music by Mary Lou Williams and Ligeti, and improvisation alongside pianist Aaron Diehl. After his debut with the Boston Symphony at Tanglewood, his return date was cancelled due to COVID; instead he was invited to give a streamed recital in their Great Performers series, where he played works by Felipe Lara, Crawford Seeger, Tania León, David Lang, and Beethoven.

Tao was born in Urbana, Illinois, in 1994. He has studied piano with Emilio del Rosario in Chicago and Yoheved Kaplinsky in New York, and composition with Christopher Theofanidis.

CHRISTOPHER TAYLOR

“Those who know the pianist Christopher Taylor tend to speak of him in the hushed, reverent tones typically reserved for natural wonders if not the otherworldly. Colleagues trip over words like “innocence,” “fervor,” “beauty” and “vision” in an attempt to capture his elusive personality. Critics praise his virtuosity, his cerebral interpretations tempered by an aching tenderness, his unconventional programming and his advocacy of late-20th-century music.” So goes the opening of the recent New York Times preview article about this remarkable young American pianist, an artist pursuing a varied and truly acclaimed career. Following his thoughtful programming compass, Christopher Taylor is involved in several other fascinating projects – from the Bach Goldberg Variations performed on a unique dualmanual Steinway, to the complete Messiaen “Vingt Regards sur L’Enfant Jesus” from memory, currently in DVD release. Engagements in recent seasons include performances for such distinguished venues and series as Carnegie Hall, the Kennedy Center, the Cleveland Museum of Art, the Detroit Chamber Music Society, Spivey Hall, the Krannert Center at the University of Illinois, the Ravinia Festival, Caramoor Festival, Duke University, Columbia University, La Jolla Music Society, Stanford University, Music Academy of the West, Voices of Change in Dallas, the University of Chicago, the University of California at Davis and the University of California at Berkeley. In addition he is frequently tapped for concerto repertoire from Liszt and Beethoven to Gershwin and Ullman.

At home in the U.S. he has appeared with such orchestras as the New York Philharmonic, Los Angeles Philharmonic, and the Symphonies of Colorado, Detroit, St. Louis, Atlanta, Houston, Indianapolis, the Boston Pops. Mr. Taylor has toured North America with the Polish Chamber Philharmonic. And with Orpheus, he has toured the premiere performances of Sir Peter Maxwell Davies’ “Sea Orpheus”, including an appearance at Carnegie Hall about which the New York Times wrote “Christopher Taylor gave a brilliant, energetic account”. During the recent “Hope From Despair” project Taylor gave two performances of the Viktor Ullman Piano Concerto and the Concertino by Wladyslaw Szpilman with the Colorado Symphony. About the Ullman, The Denver Post wrote: “Taylor, a versatile, ready-for-anything soloist, delivered a brilliant, intense performance, adroitly handling the pounding, sometimes repetitive passagework of the opening movement. He then showed a totally different side, bringing a suave elegance to Wladyslaw Szpilman’s surprisingly upbeat Concertino for Piano and Orchestra, a kind of Polish “Rhapsody in Blue.” Christopher Taylor was honored with an Avery Fisher Career Grant, he is the winner of the Kapell Competition, the Gilmore Young Artist Award, and the Bronze Medal at the Van Cliburn Competition. He is Paul Collins Professor of Piano Performance at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. His many recordings include works of Bolcom, Messiaen and Liszt.

JOEL THOMPSON

Emmy award-winning composer, Joel Thompson (b. 1988) is a composer, pianist, conductor, and educator from Atlanta. His largest work, Seven Last Words of the Unarmed for TTBB chorus, strings and piano, was premiered in November 2015 by the University of Michigan Men’s Glee Club under the direction of Dr. Eugene Rogers. His pieces have been performed by the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, Tallahassee Symphony Orchestra, Atlanta Master Chorale, Los Angeles Master Chorale, EXIGENCE, and the San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus. Thompson was a composition fellow at the Aspen Music Festival and School where he worked with composers Stephen Hartke and Christopher Theofanidis. Thompson taught at Holy Innocents’ Episcopal School in Atlanta 2015-2017, and also served as Director of Choral Studies and Assistant Professor of Music at Andrew College 2013-2015. Thompson is a proud Emory alum, graduating with a B.A. in Music in 2010, and an M.M. in Choral Conducting in 2013. His teachers include Eric Nelson, William Ransom, Laura Gordy, Richard Prior, John Anthony Lennon, Kevin Puts, Robert Aldridge, and Scott Stewart. Thompson is currently pursuing his D.M.A. in composition at the Yale School of Music.

JOAN TOWER

Joan Tower is widely regarded as one of the most important American composers living today. During a career spanning more than sixty years, she has made lasting contributions to musical life in the United States as composer, performer, conductor, and educator. Her works have been commissioned by major ensembles, soloists, and orchestras, including the Emerson, Tokyo, and Muir quartets; soloists Evelyn Glennie, Carol Wincenc, David Shifrin, Paul Neubauer, and John Browning; and the orchestras of Chicago, New York, St. Louis, Pittsburgh, Baltimore, Nashville, Albany NY, and Washington DC, among others. Recent awards: in 2020 Chamber Music America honored her with its Richard J. Bogomolny National Service Award; Musical America chose her to be its 2020 Composer of the Year; in 2019 the League of American Orchestras awarded her its highest honor, the Gold Baton. In 1990, Tower became the first woman to win the prestigious Grawemeyer Award for Silver Ladders. She is the first composer chosen for a Ford Made in America consortium commission of sixty-five orchestras. The Nashville Symphony and conductor Leonard Slatkin recorded that work, Made in America, with Tambor and Concerto for Orchestra for the Naxos label. The top-selling recording won three Grammy awards in 2008: Best Contemporary Classical Composition, Best Classical Album, and Best Orchestral Performance. Nashville’s latest all-Tower recording includes Stroke, which received a Grammy nomination for Best Contemporary Classical Composition. From 1969 to 1984, she was pianist and founding member of the Naumburg Award-winning Da Capo Chamber Players, which commissioned and premiered many of her most popular works. Her first orchestral work, Sequoia, quickly entered the repertory. Tower’s tremendously popular six Fanfares for the Uncommon Woman have been played by over 600 different ensembles. She is currently Asher Edelman Professor of Music at Bard College, where she has taught since 1972.

CREDIT BERNIE MINDICH

ALISA WEILERSTEIN

Alisa Weilerstein is one of the foremost cellists of our time. Known for her consummate artistry, emotional investment and rare interpretive depth, she was recognized with a MacArthur “genius grant” Fellowship in 2011. Today her career is truly global in scope, taking her to the most prestigious international venues for solo recitals, chamber concerts, and concerto collaborations with all the preeminent conductors and orchestras worldwide. “Weilerstein is a throwback to an earlier age of classical performers: not content merely to serve as a vessel for the composer’s wishes, she inhabits a piece fully and turns it to her own ends,” marvels the New York Times. “Weilerstein’s cello is her id. She doesn’t give the impression that making music involves will at all. She and the cello seem simply to be one and the same,” agrees the Los Angeles Times. As the UK’s Telegraph put it, “Weilerstein is truly a phenomenon.” Bach’s six suites for unaccompanied cello figure prominently in Weilerstein’s current programming. Over the past two seasons, she has given rapturously received live accounts of the complete set on three continents, with recitals in New York, Washington DC, Boston, Los Angeles, Berkeley and San Diego; at Aspen and Caramoor; in Tokyo, Osaka, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, London, Manchester, Aldeburgh, Paris and Barcelona; and for a full-capacity audience at Hamburg’s iconic new Elbphilharmonie. During the global pandemic, she has further cemented her status as one of the suites’ leading exponents. Released in April 2020, her Pentatone recording of the complete set became a Billboard bestseller and was named “Album of the Week” by the UK’s Sunday Times. Born in 1982, Alisa Weilerstein discovered her love for the cello at just two and a half, when she had chicken pox and her grandmother assembled a makeshift set of instruments from cereal boxes to entertain her. At 13, in 1995, she made her professional concert debut, playing Tchaikovsky’s “Rococo” Variations with the Cleveland Orchestra, and in March 1997 she made her first Carnegie Hall appearance with the New York Youth Symphony. A graduate of the Young Artist Program at the Cleveland Institute of Music, where she studied with Richard Weiss, Weilerstein also holds a degree in history from Columbia University. She was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes (T1D) at nine years old, and is a staunch advocate for the T1D community, serving as a consultant for the biotechnology company eGenesis and as a Celebrity Advocate for JDRF, the world leader in T1D research.Born into a musical family, she is the daughter of violinist Donald Weilerstein and pianist Vivian Hornik Weilerstein, and the sister of conductor Joshua Weilerstein. She is married to Venezuelan conductor Rafael Payare, with whom she has a young child.

CREDIT PAUL STEWART

ERINA YASHIMA

German-born conductor Erina Yashima is the Assistant Conductor of The Philadelphia Orchestra since September 2019. In this role, she assists Music Director Yannick NézetSéguin as well as guest conductors, and leads The Philadelphia Orchestra in different concert programs. Recent and forthcoming highlights as guest conductor, include her debut at the Arena di Verona, her return to the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, her debuts with the San Francisco Symphony, the Albany Symphony, the Colorado Music Festival, and with the Rostov State Philharmonic, new opera productions of Mozart’s Così fan tutte with the Washington National Opera at the Kennedy Center, and Don Giovanni at the Teatro di Pisa in Italy as well as her returns to the Civic Orchestra of Chicago, the Transylvania State Philharmonic of Cluj-Napoca, and the Brandenburg State Orchestra Frankfurt (Oder). Further updates for the coming season will be announced soon. Yashima had numerous engagements planned for the 2020/21 season that had to be cancelled or postponed due to COVID-19, including her debuts with the Albany Symphony and the Eugene Symphony, her French debut with the Orchestre national d’Île-de-France, new opera productions at the Glimmerglass Festival and the Teatro Filarmonico di Verona, as well as revivals of her Don Giovanni production in Livorno and Lucca, and an engagement as cover conductor at the Metropolitan Opera in New York. Equally committed as opera conductor, Yashima has made her debut at the Salzburg Festival in 2017 with Der Schauspieldirektor for children. She has conducted Mozart’s Le Nozze di Figaro in Novara and Ravenna in February 2019 as well as Rossini’s La Cenerentola in her Italian opera debut 2017 in Lucca, Ravenna and again 2018 in Piacenza with the Luigi Cherubini Youth Orchestra. Previously in 2015, Yashima has served as répétiteur with conducting duties at the Pfalztheater Kaiserslautern, where she has conducted performances of My Fair Lady. As one of the three finalists of the prestigious Nestlé and Salzburg Festival Young Conductors Award Yashima performed with the Camerata Salzburg at the Salzburg Festival 2018. In November 2018 she has worked as assistant conductor to Zubin Mehta and the Bavarian Radio Orchestra during their Asia Tour. Further orchestras that Yashima has performed with include the Konzerthausorchester Berlin, Württembergische Philharmonie Reutlingen, Orchestra Sinfonica di Sanremo, and members of the NDR Radiophilharmonie Hannover in various education and chamber music series. As a pre-college piano student of Bernd Goetzke, Yashima started her musical studies at the Institute for the Early Advancement of the Musically Highly Gifted (IFF) in her hometown of Hannover where she got her first conducting lessons at the age of 14. After studying conducting in Freiburg with Scott Sandmeier and in Vienna with Mark Stringer, she completed her studies at the Hanns Eisler School of Music Berlin under the guidance of Christian Ehwald and Hans-Dieter Baum.

ANGELO XIANG YU

Violinist Angelo Xiang Yu, recipient of both a 2019 Avery Fisher Career Grant and a 2019 Lincoln Center Emerging Artist Award as well as First Prize in the 2010 Yehudi Menuhin competition, has won consistent critical acclaim and enthusiastic audience response worldwide for his astonishing technique and exceptional musical maturity. In North America, Angelo Xiang Yu’s recent and upcoming performances with orchestra include appearances with the San Francisco, Pittsburgh, Detroit, Toronto, Vancouver, Houston, Colorado, North Carolina, San Antonio, Puerto Rico and Charlotte symphonies and the Rochester and Calgary Philharmonic among others. Internationally, he has appeared with the New Zealand Symphony, Shanghai Philharmonic, Auckland Philharmonia, Norwegian Radio Symphony, Munich Chamber Orchestra and the Oslo Philharmonic. In March 2017, Mr. Yu was chosen to be a member of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center’s prestigious The Bowers Program (formerly CMS Two). Also an active recitalist, he has performed in a number of world-renowned venues such as the Konzerthaus Berlin, the Louvre in Paris, National Centre for the Performing Arts in Beijing, Victoria Theater in Singapore, Shanghai Symphony Hall, Oslo Opera House, Auckland Town Hall, Alice Tully Hall at Lincoln Center, and Jordan Hall and Symphony Hall in Boston. Mr. Yu is a frequent guest at summer music festivals in the US and Europe, including the Ravinia Festival, Grant Park, Music@Menlo, Sarasota Music Festival, Chamber Music Northwest and the Bridgehampton Music Festival, as well as at the Verbier and Bergen Festivals in Europe. In the summer of 2019, he made his debuts at the Aspen Music Festival and the Saratoga Performing Arts Center and returned to Music@Menlo and the Sarasota Music Festival, where he opened the festival playing the three Brahms sonatas with Jeffrey Kahane at the keyboard. Born in Inner Mongolia, China, Angelo Xiang Yu moved to Shanghai at the age of 11 and received his early training from violinist Qing Zheng at the Shanghai Conservatory. He earned his Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees as well as the prestigious Artist Diploma at the New England Conservatory of Music where he was a student of Donald Weilerstein and Miriam Fried and served as Mr. Weilerstein’s teaching assistant. He joined the faculty of the New England Conservatory Preparatory Department in 2016. In the summer of 2020, he was invited to become the newest member of the Shanghai Quartet. As a member of the Quartet, he serves as a faculty member at the John J. Cali School at Montclair State University in New Jersey and as a resident faculty member of the Juilliard School in Tianjin, China. Mr. Yu resides in Boston and performs on the Joachim Stradivarius violin courtesy of the Nippon Foundation.