Concert Season at Peabody
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2019–20 concert season at Peabody Wind Faculty Showcase Sunday, February 16, 2020 FROM THE DEAN Welcome to the Peabody Institute of the Johns Hopkins University. We’re delighted you are here and I hope you enjoy this performance. Founded in 1857 as the first major arts and intellectual center in an American city, the Peabody Institute today trains a diverse cohort of musicians and dancers from 30 countries around the world, stages nearly 1,000 concerts and events each year, and extends artistic training and performance throughout the greater Baltimore community. Our faculty are among the finest performing artists and pedagogues anywhere, and our talented students represent the dynamic future of the performing arts. Excellence is at the core of everything we do. So is the commitment to training 21st century artists. With our new Breakthrough Curriculum, Peabody is at the forefront of training emerging artists for a world that is constantly changing, but still rooted in a tradition of great performance. Your attendance here demonstrates why this is important, and inspires us in our work. Thank you for being here. Fred Bronstein February 16, 2020 • 7:30 pm Leith Symington Griswold Hall WIND FACULTY SHOWCASE Marina Piccinini, flute Nicholas Stovall, oboe Jane Marvine, oboe Alexander Fiterstein, clarinet Phillip Kolker, bassoon Brad Balliett, bassoon Robert Rearden, horn Wei-ping Chou, horn Seth Knopp, piano Ludwig van Beethoven (17701827) Quintet in E-flat major, Op. 4 Allegro con brio Andante Menuetto piu Allegretto and Trio I, Trio II Finale - Presto Marina Piccinini, flute Nicholas Stovall, oboe Alexander Fiterstein, clarinet Robert Rearden, horn Brad Balliett WORLD PREMIERE Marshlands Marina Piccinini, flute Brad Balliett, bassoon Seth Knopp, piano Paul Hindemith (18951963) Kleine Kammermusik for Woodwind Quintet, Op. 24, No. 2 Marina Piccinini, flute Jane Marvine, oboe Alexander Fiterstein, clarinet Brad Balliett, bassoon Wei-ping Chou, horn For your own safety, look for your nearest exit. In case of emergency, walk, do not run to that exit. ARTIST BIOGRAPHIES Brad Balliett, bassoon Brad Balliett loves life as a musical omnivore, focusing equal parts of his diverse career on composing, playing bassoon, and teaching artistry. He has been described as “impressive” (The New Yorker), and his bassoon playing as “a saxophone one moment, a ship’s horn the next” (New York Times). Balliett has performed with the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, Metropolitan Opera, Houston Symphony, New York City Ballet, and the International Contemporary Ensemble. He has performed at festivals including the Marlboro, Tanglewood, Stellenbosch, Newport Jazz, and Lucerne Festivals. He is a member of Signal and Metropolis Ensemble, and has performed as a soloist with the Johannesburg Symphony Orchestra and the KZN Philharmonic in South Africa. As a composer, Balliett has witnessed and participated in a steady stream of premieres of his orchestral, chamber, choral, opera, and incidental music. Most recently, his oratorio for large chorus and orchestra, co-written with his twin brother Doug, was performed at Carnegie Hall. Balliett is a member of the band/composer-collective Oracle Hysterical, with whom he has released several critically acclaimed albums and produced a number of evening-length works, including a song cycle with the string orchestra A Far Cry and an opera premiered at the Lucerne Festival. With his brother, Brad teaches history courses at Juilliard, gives lectures for Carnegie Hall, and has developed a series of interactive Shakespeare reading parties. As a teaching artist, Balliett regularly leads composition and song-writing workshops in prisons, schools, hospitals, and homeless shelters around the country. This season he is in residence in four maximum security prisons, helping incarcerated men write songs and compose pieces. He is a faculty member at the Peabody Conservatory, the Juilliard School (Evening Division), and Musicambia (Sing Sing Correctional Facility). Raised in Westborough, Mass., Balliett graduated summa cum laude from Harvard University in 2005, where he studied composition with John Harbison and Robert Levin, and holds a master’s degree from Rice University, where he studied with Benjamin Kamins. He is passionate about Shakespeare, Nabokov, sonnets, and birds. Wei-Ping Chou, horn Praised by the New York Times for her “consistent, strong” and “smooth and full” horn playing, Wei-ping Chou was the first and only horn player in Juilliard School history to be awarded the artist diploma. A native of Taoyuan, Taiwan, she began playing the horn at the age of 9 and continued her studies at the Idyllwild Arts Academy under Kurt Snyder. She received her bachelor’s degree from the Manhattan School of Music as a student of Jerome Ashby, and her Master of Music degree from the Juilliard School under the tutelage of Julie Landsman. 2 Prior to her return to New York in 2011, she was acting assistant principal horn for the San Diego Symphony from 2007-2011. As an active freelancer in New York City, she performed regularly with orchestras and chamber groups, such as Orchestra of St. Luke’s, American Symphony Orchestra, The Knights, Wind Soloists of New York, The Metropolis Ensemble, The Decoda Ensemble, and Genghis Barbie. She can be heard in their newest album Amp It Up. As a chamber musician, she spent many of her summers at the Marlboro Music Festival and performs on Musicians from Marlboro tours. Chou currently holds the second horn position with the Kennedy Center Opera House Orchestra/Washington National Opera Orchestra. When not playing the horn, she enjoys cooking, baking, crafting, and last but definitely not least, flying trapeze. Alexander Fiterstein, clarinet Clarinetist Alexander Fiterstein is considered one of today’s most exceptional artists. Fiterstein has performed in recital, with distinguished orchestras, and with chamber music ensembles throughout the world. He won first prize at the Carl Nielsen International Clarinet Competition and received the prestigious Avery Fisher Career Grant Award. The Washington Post has described his playing as “dazzling in its spectrum of colors, agility, and range. Every sound he makes is finely measured without inhibiting expressiveness,” and The New York Times described him as “a clarinetist with a warm tone and powerful technique.” A dedicated performer of chamber music, Fiterstein frequently collaborates with distinguished artists and ensembles and regularly performs with the prestigious Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. Among the highly regarded artists he has performed with are Daniel Barenboim, Yefim Bronfman, Mitsuko Uchida, Richard Goode, Emanuel Ax, Marc-Andre Hamelin, Pinchas Zukerman, and Steven Isserlis. He is a founder of the Zimro Project, a unique ensemble dedicated to incorporating Jewish art music into chamber music programs. He performed as principal clarinet of the West-East Divan Orchestra at the invitation of Daniel Barenboim and has appeared as guest principal clarinet with the Israel Philharmonic with Zubin Mehta, KBS Orchestra with Yoel Levi, and with the St. Paul and Orpheus Chamber Orchestras. Fiterstein has a prolific recording career and has worked with composers John Corigliano and Osvaldo Golijov and had pieces written for him by Samuel Adler, Mason Bates, Paul Schoenfield, and Chris Brubeck, among others. His most recent recording released by Naxos is a performance of Sean Hickey’s Concerto for Clarinet and Orchestra with the St. Petersburg State Academic Symphony. Fiterstein was born in Belarus and immigrated to Israel at the age of 2 with his family. He graduated from the Juilliard School and won first prize at the Young Concert Artists International Auditions. Fiterstein is a Bu¨et Crampon and Vandoren Performing Artist. Fiterstein is a clarinet faculty artist and chair of the Woodwinds Department at the Peabody Conservatory. 3 Seth Knopp, piano Pianist Seth Knopp serves on the piano and chamber music faculties of the Peabody Conservatory. In 1983, Knopp met violinist Violaine Melançon forming the Knopp-Melançon Duo, an artistic collaboration which would eventually expand to become the Peabody Trio, winner of the 1989 Naumburg Chamber Music Award and Peabody ensemble-in-residence from 1987 to 2016. In 2000, Knopp was named artistic director of the Yellow Barn Music School and Festival, an international gathering of artists who meet each summer to explore the vast riches of the chamber music repertoire. Knopp has performed in North America, Europe, the Far East, and Middle East with appearances at New York’s Alice Tully Hall, London’s Wigmore Hall, Israel’s Jerusalem Music Center, and the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C. He has conducted master classes at Eastman, San Francisco Conservatory, New York University, Conservatoire de Montreal, Jerusalem Music Center, and Wolf Trap Center for the Performing Arts. Knopp’s solo and chamber music performances can be heard on the Albany Records, Analekta, Artek, CRI, Koch, and New World Records labels. Knopp studied at the New England Conservatory with Leonard Shure, at the San Francisco Conservatory, where he studied with Nathan Schwartz, and with Leon Fleisher. Phillip Kolker, bassoon Phillip Kolker was Principal Bassoon of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra for 38 years, retiring from that position in the fall of 2010. Kolker began his professional playing career at the age of 14 as second bassoon in the Albany Symphony,