Pasadena, CA – The Pasadena Symphony announces the expansion of its 2015-16 Season with an increase to seven concert weekends beginning Fall 2015. Backed by strong single ticket sales and subscriber loyalty, its Singpoli Classics series will increase to six-concerts (from five) with both 2 p.m. and 8 p.m. performances at Pasadena’s historic Ambassador Auditorium. The expansion also includes the annually sold out Holiday Candlelight Concert on December 19, 2015 with both 4 p.m. and 7 p.m. performances at All Saints Church. The Pasadena Symphony also cements its artistic leadership plans with an eye for long term stability in its artistic leaders – Music Director David Lockington and Principal Guest Conductor Nicholas McGegan – who have also renewed their contracts with the Pasadena Symphony through 2019.
The 2015-16 Season kicks off on October 10, 2015 with Dvorák’s New World Symphony and Bella Hristova performing Pulitzer Prize winning composer Kevin Puts’s lyrically beautiful Violin Concerto. Billboard’s 2014 top selling Classical Instrumentalist Anne Akiko Myers will bring her Vivaldi’s Four Seasons on November 7, 2015 – which she recorded with Lockington and debuted #1 on the Classical Billboard Charts. Other season highlights include Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 5 “Emperor,” Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto with Jennifer Frautschi, an alumnus of the Pasadena Youth Symphony Orchestras program, Nicholas McGegan’s masterful interpretation of Mozart Symphony No. 40 alongside David Lockington performing the Sawyer’s Cello Concerto and a French themed season finale in April 2016 with An American in Paris and Cliburn Silver medalist Joyce Yang in Ravel’s Piano Concerto in G Major.
Lora Unger, CEO of the Pasadena Symphony describes the 2015-2016 season as “… a milestone for the orchestra as we enter our 88th season. Since making the Ambassador Auditorium our home nearly 5 years ago, the Singpoli Classics Series has become the premiere destination for live symphonic music in Pasadena and the San Gabriel Valley,” adding “we’ve been poised for growth in our Classics Series for some time now and next season is ripe with a performance schedule you just can’t refuse.”
“Right off the bat, it looks as if Pasadena will have a good time with Lockington… [his] expressive technique is yielding results — and quickly.” – Los Angeles Times
The Pasadena Symphony provides a quintessential experience specially designed for the music lover, the social butterfly, and the inner epicurean in us all with the addition of the lively Sierra Auto Symphony Lounge, yet another addition to the care-free and elegant concert experience the Pasadena Symphony offers. A posh setting at Ambassador Auditorium’s beautiful outdoor plaza, audiences enjoy uniquely prepared menus for each concert from Claud &Co, fine wines by Michero Family Wines, plus music before the concert and during intermission. Six-concert subscription packages start at $180, regular individually priced tickets start at $35 and may be purchased by calling (626) 793-7172 or by clicking the button below.
October 10, 2015
Dvorák’s New World Symphony
David Lockington, conductor
Bella Hristova, violin
Wagner Die Meistersinger: Prelude
Puts Violin Concerto
Dvorák Symphony No. 9 “From the New World”
November 7, 2015
Vivaldi Four Seasons
David Lockington, conductor
Anne Akiko Meyers, violin
Bach Air on the G String
Dorman Concerto Grosso
Pachelbel Canon
Purcell Chacony
Vivaldi The Four Seasons
December 19, 2016
Holiday Candlelight
Grant Cooper, conductor
Christina Saffran, vocalist
The Donald Brinegar Singers
Los Angeles Children’s Chorus
LA Bronze, Handbell Choir
January 9, 2016
Beethoven “Emperor” Piano Concerto
Nicholas McGegan, conductor
Sean Chen, piano
Prokofiev Classical Symphony
Schubert Unfinished Symphony
Beethoven Piano Concerto No. 5 “Emperor”
February 13, 2016
Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto
David Lockington, conductor
Jennifer Frautschi, violin
Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto
Sibelius Symphony No. 2
March 19, 2016
Mozart Symphony No. 40
Nicholas McGegan, conductor
David Lockington, cello
Beethoven Egmont Overture
Sawyers Cello Concerto
Mozart Symphony No. 40
April 30, 2016
An American in Paris
David Lockington, conductor
Joyce Yang, piano
Offenbach Orpheus in the Underworld
Satie Gymnopédie No. 1
Ravel Piano Concerto in G Major
Fauré Pelléas et Mélisande Suite
Gershwin An American in Paris
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ABOUT THE ARTISTS
David Lockington
In his 14th season as Music Director of the Grand Rapids Symphony, David Lockington has created a lasting legacy of artistic achievements and genuine community enrichment. 2005 marked Lockington’s conducting debut at New York’s Carnegie Hall. The New York Times commended the Grand Rapids Symphony, under his artistic leadership for being a model in the Classical music world. Lockington also earned a 2007 Grammy Award nomination and has led five recordings with Grand Rapids. The recordings have received high praise including the CD of Adolphus Hailstork’s Second and Third symphonies, released internationally on the Naxos label in 2007. Additionally, 2008 saw the successful start of the Grand Rapids Symphony Youth Choruses. At his initiative, the Symphony has also reached out to new and diverse audiences through its annual community concert “Symphony with Soul,” now in its 12th season.
Lockington’s guest conducting engagements include appearances with the Saint Louis, Houston, Detroit, Seattle, Toronto, Vancouver, Colorado, Oregon, Phoenix, Indianapolis, Pacific, Nashville, San Diego, Kansas City and Columbus Symphonies; the Louisville Orchestra and National Arts Centre Orchestra in Ottawa; the Buffalo, Rochester, Calgary and Louisiana Philharmonics; and the Orchestra of St. Luke’s at Carnegie Hall. Internationally, he has conducted the China Broadcasting Symphony Orchestra in Beijing and Taiwan, led the English Chamber Orchestra on a tour in Asia and appeared with the Orquesta Sinfonica del Principado de Asturias in Spain and the Northern Sinfonia in Great Britain.
Since September 2007 Mr. Lockington has served as music director of the Modesto Symphony Orchestra in California. In May 2012, he was named principal conductor of Spain’s Orquesta Sinfonica del Principado de Asturias. Prior to leading the Grand Rapids Symphony, Mr. Lockington held the music directorships of the Long Island Philharmonic, New Mexico Symphony Orchestra, Cheyenne Symphony and Ohio Chamber Orchestra. For three years he held the post of assistant conductor with the Denver Symphony Orchestra and Opera Colorado. Mr. Lockington was also associate conductor of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra.
Mr. Lockington began his career as principal cellist with the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain. After completing his Bachelor of Arts degree at the University of Cambridge, he came to the U.S. on a scholarship to Yale University, where he received his master’s degree in cello performance and studied conducting with Otto Werner Mueller.
Nicholas McGegan
“If the performances under Nic McGegan are any indication, the Pasadena Symphony seems to be on the cusp of a golden age. Long may it last.” praised Ted Ayala of the Crescenta Valley Weekly of Principal Guest Conductor of the Pasadena Symphony. As he embarks on his fourth decade on the podium, Nicholas McGegan — long hailed as “one of the finest baroque conductors of his generation” (London Independent) and “an expert in 18th-century style” (The New Yorker) — is increasingly recognized for his probing and revelatory explorations of music of all periods.
Through 27 years as its music director, McGegan has established the San Francisco-based Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra and Philharmonia Chorale as one of the world’s leading period-performance ensembles, with notable appearances at Carnegie Hall, the London Proms, the Amsterdam Concertgebouw, and the International Handel Festival, Göttingen where he was artistic director from 1991 to 2011. Throughout his career, McGegan has defined an approach to period style that sets the current standard: serious and intelligent, but never dogmatic. More recently, Philharmonia Baroque is branching out under his leadership. Calling the group’s recent recording of the Brahms Serenades “a truly treasurable disc,” James R. Oestreich in The New York Times made special note of the performance’s “energy and spirit.”
McGegan’s ability to engage players and audiences alike has made him a pioneer in broadening the reach of historically informed practice beyond the world of period ensembles to conventional symphonic forces. His guest-conducting appearances with major orchestras — including the New York, Los Angeles, and Hong Kong Philharmonics; the Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Louis, Toronto and Sydney Symphonies; the Cleveland and the Philadelphia Orchestras; and the Northern Sinfonia and Scottish Chamber Orchestra — often feature Baroque repertoire alongside Classical, Romantic, 20th-century and even brand-new works: Mendelssohn, Sibelius, Britten, Bach and Handel with the Utah Symphony; Poulenc and Mozart with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra; Mahler and Mozart with the Pasadena Symphony Orchestra; and the premiere, in 2012, of Stephen Hough’s Missa Mirabilis with the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra, paired with Haydn, Brahms and Mendelssohn.
Active in opera as well as the concert hall, McGegan was principal conductor of Sweden’s perfectly preserved 18th-century theater Drottingholm from 1993 to 1996. He has also been a frequent guest conductor with opera companies including Covent Garden, San Francisco, Santa Fe and Washington.
His discography of more than 100 releases includes the world premiere recording of Handel’s Susanna, which garnered both a Gramophone Award and a GRAMMY® nomination, and recent issues of that composer’s Solomon, Samson and Acis and Galatea (the little-known version adapted by Felix Mendelssohn). He is also credited with the first performance in modern times of Handel’s masterly but mislaidGloria. Under its own label, Philharmonia Baroque Productions (PBP), in addition to the Brahms recording Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra has recently released five acclaimed archival recordings: Berlioz’s Les Nuits d’été and selected Handel arias with the late Lorraine Hunt Lieberson; Haydn Symphonies No. 88, 101 and 104, nominated for a GRAMMY® Award; Vivaldi’s Four Seasons and other concerti with Elizabeth Blumenstock as violin soloist; Handel’s Atalanta with soprano Dominique Labelle in the title role; and Brahms’ beloved Serenades.
Mr. McGegan is committed to the next generation of musicians, frequently conducting and coaching students in residencies and engagements at Yale University, the Juilliard School, Harvard University, the Colburn School, Aspen Music Festival and School, and the Music Academy of the West.
Born in England, Nicholas McGegan was educated at Cambridge and Oxford and taught at the Royal College of Music, London. He was made an Officer of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the Queen’s Birthday Honours for 2010 “for services to music overseas.” His awards also include the Halle Handel Prize; an honorary professorship at Georg-August University, Göttingen; the Order of Merit of the State of Lower Saxony (Germany); the Medal of Honour of the City of Göttingen, and an official Nicholas McGegan Day, declared by the Mayor of San Francisco in recognition of two decades of distinguished work with Philharmonia Baroque.
Bella Hristova
Acclaimed for her passionate, powerful performances, beautiful sound, and compelling command of her instrument, violinist Bella Hristova is a young musician with a growing international career as a soloist and recording artist. The Strad has praised, “Every sound she draws is superb,” and The Washington Post noted that she is “a player of impressive power and control.” Recipient of a 2013 Avery Fisher Career Grant, Ms. Hristova’s 2014-2015 season features a mix of concerto, recital and chamber music performances, as well as educational outreach activities. She showcases her wide-ranging repertoire this season, as she performs ten different concertos, from Bernstein and Corigliano to Prokofiev and Sibelius, as well as the world premiere of an unaccompanied work by JoanTower. She performs chamber music with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, and at the Cactus Pear Music Festival, Chamber Music Northwest, the Skaneateles Festival, and the Lake Champlain Chamber Music Festival. Ms. Hristova appears in encore recital performances in the Young Concert Artists Series at Merkin Concert Hall and at the Kennedy Center.
Ms. Hristova has performed extensively as soloist with orchestra including with Pinchas Zukerman and the Orchestra of St. Luke’s at Lincoln Center, with the New York String Orchestra under Jaime Laredo at Carnegie Hall, as well as with the Mississippi Symphony, City of London Sinfonia, Orquesta Sinfonica de Venezuela, Estonian National Symphony Orchestra, Canada’s National Arts Centre Orchestra, Korea’s Cheongju Symphony Orchestra, at the Cerritos Center for the Arts, at Free For All at Town Hall, at the Shanghai International Music Festival, and at Seoul National University. Her most recent recording, Bella Unaccompanied (A.W. Tonegold Records), features works for solo violin by Corigliano, Kevin Puts, Piazzolla, Milstein and J. S. Bach.
A sought-after chamber musician, Ms. Hristova performs frequently with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center and at many music festivals including the Young Concert Artists Festival in Tokyo, the Grand Teton Festival, the Brevard Music Festival, Music@Menlo, Ravinia’s Steans Institute, the Mainly Mozart Festival, Music from Angel Fire, the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival and the Marlboro Music Festival. She has appeared on Garrison Keillor’s A Prairie Home Companion on National Public Radio.
In addition to the 2013 Avery Fisher Career Grant, Bella Hristova is the recipient of numerous prizes and awards, including First Prize in the 2009 Young Concert Artists International Auditions, First Prize in the 2007 Michael Hill International Violin Competition in New Zealand, and Laureate of the 2006 International Violin Competition of Indianapolis. She made her New York debut in the Young Concert Artists Series at Merkin Concert Hall and at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC, and at the Isabella Gardner Museum in Boston. For three seasons, she has been honored with the Gordon and Harriet Greenfield Foundation Artist Management Fellowship of YCA.
As a result of winning the Michael Hill International Violin Competition, Ms. Hristova made a critically acclaimed concert tour of New Zealand, and a similarly acclaimed CD of solo violin works by the Belgian virtuoso Charles de Bériot (Naxos). Music Web International praised her first recording, “…this disc is an absolute winner… …The musical diversity of these pieces is a delight. None of which would count for much if they were not played with the extraordinary virtuosity and musical maturity of Bella Hristova. … Hristova combines jaw-dropping technical prowess with real style.”
Born in Pleven, Bulgaria in 1985 to Russian and Bulgarian parents, Ms. Hristova began violin studies at the age of six. At twelve, she participated in master classes with Ruggiero Ricci at the Mozarteum in Salzburg. In 2003, she entered the Curtis Institute of Music, where she worked with Ida Kavafian (YCA Alumna) and studied chamber music with Steven Tenenbom. She received her Artist Diploma with Jaime Laredo at IndianaUniversity in 2010. Ms. Hristova plays a 1655 Nicolò Amati violin, once owned by the violinist Louis Krasner.
Anne Akiko Meyers
Anne Akiko Meyers is celebrated around the world for her artistry and ability to connect with audiences from the concert stage, online, and in television, and radio broadcasts. She regularly performs in recital and as guest soloist with many of the world’s top orchestras, and is a best-selling recording artist who has released 30 albums.
Future highlights include performances with Leonard Slatkin and the Orchestre de Lyon, Kristjan Järvi and the MDR Leipzig Orchestra, a new recording with Keith Lockhart and the London Symphony Orchestra, and recital and solo appearances throughout North America. An avid commissioner of new music, Meyers will premiere Mason Bates and Somei Satoh’s music as well as new arrangements from the American Songbook music in numerous cities nationwide.
This fall, eOne Music releases The American Masters, Ms. Meyers’s 30th release, featuring the world premiere recordings of the Mason Bates Violin Concerto and John Corigliano’s ‘Lullaby for Natalie’ (written for Ms.Meyers’s first born daughter). Also featured, is the Samuel Barber Violin Concerto, with the London Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Leonard Slatkin. In addition, Anne will make the world premiere of the Samuel Jones Violin Concerto with the All-Star Orchestra, conducted by Gerard Schwarz, in a nationwide PBS broadcast special, to be aired in spring, 2015 and released on DVD by Naxos.
In recent seasons, Anne released the Four Seasons: The Vivaldi Album, and Air, the Bach Album, on eOne Music. Both recordings debuted at #1 on the classical Billboard charts and received great critical acclaim. The Vivaldi Album was the recording debut of the ‘Ex-Vieuxtemps’ Guarneri del Gesu violin, dated 1741, which was recently awarded to Meyers for her lifetime use. This instrument is considered by many to be the finest sounding violin in existence. Watch the story here.
Meyers’s recent performances included recital and concerto appearances in North and South America, Europe and Asia, including performances with the Chicago, Detroit, Nashville, and Richmond Symphony Orchestras of the Mason Bates Violin Concerto, a work she co-commissioned and premiered with the Pittsburgh Symphony in December 2012.
Anne Akiko Meyers has collaborated with a diverse array of artists outside of traditional classical, including jazz icons, Chris Botti and Wynton Marsalis, avant-garde musician, Ryuichi Sakamoto, electronic music pioneer, Isao Tomita, popera group, Il Divo and singer, Michael Bolton. She performed the National Anthem in front of 42,000 fans at Safeco Field in Seattle, and appeared twice on The Tonight Show and was featured in a segment on MSNBC’s Countdown with Keith Olbermann that became the third most popular story of the year.
Ms. Meyers has been featured on NPR’s Morning Edition with Linda Wertheimer and All Things Considered with Robert Siegel and has been regularly featured on Boston’s WGBH, Chicago’s WFMT, New York’s WQXR radio and SiriusXM Radio. Best-selling novelist, J.Courtney Sullivan, consulted with Ms. Meyers for The Engagements, and based one of the main characters loosely on Ms. Meyers’s career. Anne was also featured on the popular NickJr. show, Take Me To Your Mother, with Andrea Rosen on the episode, ‘Andrea Gets in Tune’.
Anne Akiko Meyers was born in San Diego, California and grew up in Southern California. Her teachers include Alice and Eleonore Schoenfeld at the Colburn School of Performing Arts, Josef Gingold at Indiana University, and Felix Galimir, Masao Kawasaki and Dorothy DeLay at the Juilliard School. She received the Avery Fisher Career Grant and serves on the advisory board of Composers Concordance and Young Concert Artists. Ms.Meyers lives with her husband and two young daughters in Austin, Texas.
Sean Chen
Pianist Sean Chen is being hailed as a rising star with a “million-volt smile” and a “formidable set of fingers” (Dallas Morning News). In 2013 Chen won the American Pianists Association’s DeHaan Classical Fellowship, one of the most lucrative and significant prizes available to an American pianist. He also won Third Prize at the 14th Van Cliburn International Piano Competition, becoming the first American to reach the finals since 1997. The 27-year-old American pianist has appeared as soloist with the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra under Gerard Schwarz, Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra under Leonard Slatkin and Miguel Harth-Bedoya, Indianapolis Chamber Orchestra, Corpus Christi, New West, Phoenix and San Diego symphony orchestras, and the Suwon City Philharmonic in South Korea. Last season Chen performed in recital at Jordan Hall in Boston, the Dame Myra Hess Series in Chicago, SubCulture in New York City, the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, and on tour in the Czech Republic.
Highlights of Chen’s 2014-15 season include debuts with the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra, the Philadelphia Chamber Orchestra at the Kimmel Center, the symphony orchestras of Hartford, Tucson, Santa Fe, and Carmel, and his return to the Indianapolis Chamber Orchestra. He appears in recital in the Steinway Series at the Smithsonian in Washington, D.C., the Salk Institute in San Diego, Jacksonville, New Orleans, on tour in Hawaii, and with soprano Jessica Rivera in Thousand Oaks, CA. A proponent of the music of our time, Chen has performed new works by Lisa Bielawa, Michael Williams, Nicco Athens, Michael Gilbertson, and Reinaldo Moya. Recent CD releases include an album of Michael Williams’s solo piano works on the Parma label, a live recording from the Cliburn competition released by Harmonia Mundi, and La Valse, a solo recording on the Steinway label, as part of his American Pianists Association prize. The New York Times praised Chen’s “alluring, colorfully shaded renditions” of works by Scriabin and Ravel on the latter, and Los Angeles Music Examiner noted, “Los Angeles native Sean Chen has the rare ability to combine poetic musical sensibilities and dazzling technical prowess.”
Born in 1988 in Margate, FL, Chen grew up in the Los Angeles area of Oak Park, CA. His impressive achievements before college included receiving an NFAA ARTSweek award, a prize at the California International Young Artist Competition, the Los Angeles Music Center’s Spotlight Award, the Evelyn Vonar Storrs Scholarship, and the Glenn Miller Scholarship. These honors combined with his extraordinary intellect facilitated offers of acceptance by MIT, Harvard, and the Juilliard School. Choosing to study music, Chen earned his Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees at Juilliard, where he won the 2010 Gina Bachauer Piano Competition, the 2010 Munz Scholarship, and first prize at the 2008 Juilliard Concerto Competition.
Chen received his Artist Diploma at the Yale School of Music in 2014 as a George W. Miles Fellowship recipient, and a student of Hung-Kuan Chen and Tema Blackstone. His former teachers include Jerome Lowenthal, Matti Raekallio, and Edward Francis. He has been featured in a nationally syndicated radio series that chronicled the finals week of the APA’s competition, as well as on From the Top, American Public Media’s Performance Today, WQXR (New York), WFMT (Chicago), WGBH (Boston), and WFYI (Indianapolis). The webcast of his April 2013 performance of Bartók’s Piano Concerto No. 2 with the Indianapolis Symphony can be viewed at AmericanPianists.org.
In March 2014 International Piano magazine named Chen “One To Watch.” He is currently under the management of the American Pianists Association. When not at the piano, Chen enjoys tinkering with computers and composing.
Jennifer Frautschi
Two-time GRAMMY nominee and Avery Fisher career grant recipient Jennifer Frautschi has garnered worldwide acclaim as an adventurous musician with a remarkably wide-ranging repertoire. As the Chicago Tribune noted, “violinist Jennifer Frautschi is molding a career with smart interpretations of both warhorses and rarities.” Equally at home in the classic and contemporary repertoire, her recent seasons have featured innumerable performances and recordings of works ranging from Brahms and Schumann to Berg and Schoenberg. She has also had the privilege of premiering several new works composed for her by prominent composers of today.
Ms. Frautschi has appeared as soloist with Pierre Boulez and the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Christoph Eschenbach and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra at the Ravinia Festival, and at Wigmore Hall and Lincoln Center’s Mostly Mozart Festival. Selected by Carnegie Hall for its Distinctive Debuts series, she made her New York recital debut in 2004. As part of the European Concert Hall Organization’s Rising Stars series, Ms. Frautschi also made debuts that year at ten of Europe’s most celebrated concert venues, including the Salzburg Mozarteum, Vienna Konzerthaus, Amsterdam Concertgebouw, La Cité de la Musique in Paris, and Brussels’ Théâtre Royal de la Monnaie. She has also been heard in recital at the Ravinia Festival, La Jolla Chamber Music Society, Washington’s Phillips Collection, Boston’s Gardner Museum, Beijing’s Imperial Garden, Monnaie Opera in Brussels, La Chaux des Fonds in Switzerland, and San Miguel de Allende Festival in Mexico.
Highlights of Ms. Frautschi’s 2013-14 season included performances with the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra and Tucson Symphony, as well as return engagements with the Alabama, Arkansas, Belo Horizonte (Brazil), Chattanooga, Phoenix, and Toledo Symphonies and the Rhode Island Philharmonic. She returned to DaCamera of Houston and the Helicon Foundation in New York for concerts on all-gut strings with period instruments. In the summer of 2014 she performed at the Ojai, La Jolla, Santa Fe, Moab, Bridgehampton, and SaltBay Music Festivals. Recent seasons include the world premiere of James Stephenson’s Violin Concerto, a piece written for her, with the Minnesota Orchestra and Osmo Vänskä; Barber Concerto with the orchestra of the Teatro di San Carlo Opera House in Naples, James Conlon conducting; and performances with the Eugene, Jacksonville, Milwaukee, and Utah Symphonies, and the Buffalo Philharmonic. She has also soloed with the Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia, Kansas City Symphony, Louisville Orchestra, Orchestra of St. Luke’s, San Diego Symphony, and Seattle Symphony, and toured the United States with the Czech Symphony Orchestra.
Ms. Frautschi performs regularly at the Caramoor Center for the Arts, where she has appeared annually since she was first invited by André Previn to play there as a “Rising Star” at the age of 18, during her freshman year at Harvard.
Her discography includes three widely-praised CDs for Artek: an orchestral recording of the Prokofiev concerti with Gerard Schwarz and the Seattle Symphony, and highly-acclaimed discs of music of Ravel and Stravinsky, and of 20th century works for solo violin. She has also recorded several discs for Naxos, including the Stravinsky Violin Concerto with the Philharmonia Orchestra of London, conducted by the legendary Robert Craft, and two GRAMMY-nominated recordings with the Fred Sherry Quartet, of Schoenberg’s Concerto for String Quartet and Orchestra [nominated for ‘Best Instrumental Soloist Performance (with Orchestra)’ in 2006] and the Schoenberg Third String Quartet [nominated for ‘Best Chamber Music Performance’ in 2011]. Her most recent releases are a recording of Romantic Horn Trios, with hornist Eric Ruske and pianist Stephen Prutsman, and the Stravinsky Duo Concertant with pianist Jeremy Denk. With pianist John Blacklow she will soon be featured on two releases by Albany Records: one disc devoted to the three sonatas of Robert Schumann, including the rarely performed posthumous sonata; the second an exploration of recent additions to the violin and piano repertoire by contemporary American composers Barbara White, Steven Mackey, and Stephen Hartke.
Born in Pasadena, California, Ms. Frautschi began the violin at age three. She was a student of Robert Lipsett at the Colburn School for the Performing Arts in Los Angeles. She also attended Harvard, the New England Conservatory of Music, and The Juilliard School, where she studied with Robert Mann. She performs on a 1722 Antonio Stradivarius violin known as the “ex-Cadiz,” on generous loan to her from a private American foundation.
Joyce Yang
Blessed with “poetic and sensitive pianism” (Washington Post) and a “wondrous sense of color” (San Francisco Classical Voice), pianist Joyce Yang captivates audiences across the globe with her virtuosity, lyricism, and magnetic stage presence. At just 27, she has established herself as one of the leading artists of her generation through her innovative solo recitals and collaborations with the world’s top orchestras. In 2010 she received an Avery Fisher Career Grant, one of classical music’s most prestigious accolades.
Yang came to international attention in 2005 when she won the silver medal at the 12th Van Cliburn International Piano Competition. The youngest contestant, she took home two additional awards: the Steven De Groote Memorial Award for Best Performance of Chamber Music (with the Takàcs Quartet) and the Beverley Taylor Smith Award for Best Performance of a New Work.
Since her spectacular debut, Yang has blossomed into an “astonishing artist” (Neue Zürcher Zeitung), and she continues to appear with orchestras around the world. She has performed with the New York Philharmonic, Chicago Symphony, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Philadelphia Orchestra, San Francisco Symphony, Baltimore Symphony, Houston Symphony, and BBC Philharmonic (among many others), working with such distinguished conductors as Edo de Waart, Lorin Maazel, James Conlon, Leonard Slatkin, David Robertson, Bramwell Tovey, and Jaap van Zweden. In recital, Yang has taken the stage at New York’s Lincoln Center and Metropolitan Museum; the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC; Chicago’s Symphony Hall; and Zurich’s Tonhalle.
During the 2013-14 season, Yang completes her Rachmaninoff cycle with de Waart and the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra, makes her debut with the Royal Flemish Philharmonic under de Waart in Belgium, performs as concerto soloist in Brazil, and returns to symphony orchestras including those of Fort Worth, Houston, Nashville, Melbourne, Seoul, and Vancouver. She plays solo recitals in Washington, DC, Houston, and Seattle, and appears at the Kennedy Center with violinist Augustin Hadelich and guitarist Pablo Sáinz-Villegas in the multimedia “Tango, Song, and Dance” project. Other chamber collaborations include concerts with the Alexander String Quartet and Modigliani Quartet, duo recitals with Hadelich in Dallas and Los Angeles, and a residency at the Hong Kong International Chamber Music Festival. Her busy summer includes solo, chamber, and concerto performances at the Aspen, Bravo! Vail, Sun Valley, Rockport, and La Jolla festivals. Spring 2014 brings the release of Wild Dreams, Yang’s second solo disc for Avie Records, with music by Bartók, Hindemith, Schumann, and Rachmaninoff, and she is featured on an Alexander String Quartet recording of the Brahms and Schumann Piano Quintets.
Yang made her celebrated New York Philharmonic debut with Maazel at Avery Fisher Hall in November 2006 and performed on the orchestra’s tour of Asia, making a triumphant return to her hometown of Seoul, South Korea. Subsequent appearances with the Philharmonic included the opening night of the Leonard Bernstein Festival in September 2008, at the special request of Maazel in his final season as Music Director. The New York Times called Yang’s performance in Bernstein’s Age of Anxiety a “knock-out.”
In November 2011, Yang released a solo album for Avie Records, Collage, featuring works by Scarlatti, Liebermann, Debussy, Currier, and Schumann. Gramophone praised her “imaginative programming” and “beautifully atmospheric playing,” while American Record Guide called Collage “an outstanding first recording” and a “display of her wide-ranging talent.”
Born in Seoul, South Korea, Yang received her first piano lesson from her aunt at the age of four. She quickly took to the instrument, which she received as a birthday present, and over the next few years won several national piano competitions in her native country. By the age of ten, she had entered the School of Music at the Korea National University of Arts, and went on to make a number of concerto and recital appearances in Seoul and Daejeon. In 1997, Yang moved to the United States to begin studies at the pre-college division of the Juilliard School in New York with Dr. Yoheved Kaplinsky. During her first year at Juilliard, Yang won the pre-college division Concerto Competition, resulting in a performance of Haydn’s Keyboard Concerto in D with the Juilliard Pre-College Chamber Orchestra. After winning the Philadelphia Orchestra’s Greenfield Student Competition, she performed Prokofiev’s Third Piano Concerto with that orchestra at just twelve years old. She graduated from Juilliard with special honor as the recipient of the school’s 2010 Arthur Rubinstein Prize, and in 2011 she won its 30th Annual William A. Petschek Piano Recital Award.
Yang appears in the film In the Heart of Music, a documentary about the 2005 Van Cliburn International Piano Competition, and she is a frequent guest on American Public Media’s nationally syndicated radio program Performance Today. A Steinway artist, she currently lives in New York City.