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Salutes Yo-YoMaestro Paul Freeman Ma January 28, 2011 An evening celebrating the achievements of Maestro Paul Freeman, Founder and Music Director of the Chicago Sinfonietta. Lead Corporate Sponsor JPMorgan Chase & Co. 2 Letter from the Chairs Dear Friends, We, along with the Board of the Chicago Sinfonietta, would like to extend our sincerest gratitude for your support of the Yo-Yo Ma Salutes Maestro Paul Freeman event. We are very proud to welcome you to this evening’s celebration, commemorating the ground-breaking career of Maestro Freeman. Tonight’s event is timely in many ways. Last Sunday the Chicago Tribune recognized Yo-Yo Ma as a Citizen Musician. A Citizen Musician is any musician who uses their talent and passion for music to enhance the quality of life in their community and beyond. It is clear that tonight, we are privileged to experience the works of two such individuals that exemplify this concept, Maestro Paul Freeman and Yo-Yo Ma. Paul Freeman’s life’s work has been dedicated to breaking down the barriers that had denied aspiring minority and women musicians, composers, and conductors the opportunity to find their places in the classical music field. First, as a pioneering figure who broke the color barrier at over fifty orchestras worldwide, and then as a tireless advocate for minority and women musicians, soloists, and composers, Paul Freeman has impacted the lives of countless people throughout his five-decade career. The culmination of his life’s work was the founding of the Chicago Sinfonietta, an orchestra dedicated to promoting diversity, inclusion and innovation in classical music. We would like to thank JPMorgan Chase & Co. for their generous support of this event as our Lead Corporate Sponsor. We thank Deborah Rutter and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra for their assistance with this event. We would like to thank you for attending this event and to everyone that helped to make this evening a wonderful success. Finally, we sincerely thank Yo-Yo Ma and this evening’s other special guests for their generosity and their incredible talent. We invite you to enjoy this incredible night and to celebrate the work of a true Chicago cultural icon. Sincerely, Sandra Rand John Daniels, Esq. Civic Leader Chairman, Quarles & Brady LLP 3 Maestro Freeman Paul Douglas Freeman was born in Richmond, Virginia, on January 2, 1936. He grew up in modest circumstances in the American South in the middle of the twen- tieth century—difficult beginnings for any African American. “Growing up in seg- regation in Richmond...to have fulfilled my personal dreams and to have helped to found an entity [the Chicago Sinfonietta] that brings dreams to others, even I sometimes can’t believe what we’ve done,” Freeman told the Chicago Sun-Times. Freeman started piano lessons at age five, and he soon took up the clarinet as well. He took clarinet lessons at Richmond's Armstrong High School while still in elementary school and took lessons at Virginia State College in Petersburg while in high school. One of the stories Paul shares is about the first time he ever heard an orchestra perform as a child in his hometown of Richmond. He and his mother were directed to sit in the colored section of the theater, or as he likes to refer to it, the peanut gallery. His conducting debut came at age 14 or 15, when his clarinet teacher fell ill and was unable to conduct the Armstrong school band for its scheduled performance at a PTA meeting. Freeman stepped in as a substitute. “Although the ministry was an earlier career interest, a maestro was born that evening,” Freeman wrote in a letter quoted in the book Black Conductors. In 1996, he was appointed Music Director and Chief Conductor of the Czech National Symphony Orchestra in Prague, a position he held simultaneously with his Chicago Sinfonietta post. From 1979 to 1989, he served as Music Director of the Victoria Symphony in Canada, Principal Guest Conductor of the Helsinki Philharmonic in Finland, Associate Conductor of the Dallas and Detroit Symphony Orchestras, and Music Director of the Opera Theatre of Rochester, New York. 4 A recipient of the Mahler Award from the European Union of Arts, Freeman has been in constant demand as a guest conductor, having led more than 100 orchestras in over 40 countries. As one of America's most successful recording conductors, he has approximately 200 releases to his credit. Freeman has been involved in more than a dozen televised orchestra productions in North America and Europe. He has been nominated for two Emmy Awards and constantly receives rave reviews for his recordings. The December 2000 issue of Fanfare magazine proclaimed Maestro Freeman “one of the finest conductors which our nation has produced.” Dr. Freeman received his Ph.D. from Eastman School of Music. He studied on a U.S. Fulbright Grant in Berlin, and holds honorary doctorate degrees from Dominican and Loyola Universities. In 2005, Maestro Freeman was designated a HistoryMaker, having been nominated by the DuSable Museum of African American History, for his outstanding contributions to African American life, history, and culture. The 2010-2011 Season with the Chicago Sinfonietta will be Maestro Freeman’s farewell season as he steps down from the podium after twenty-four years. Chicago’s WYCC just completed a recent documentary called The Sounds of Diversity on Maestro Freeman and the legacy of the Chicago Sinfonietta. In 2010, Chicago United honored Maestro Freeman as a Bridge Award winner for his demonstrated commitment to advancing diversity within their companies. Operation Push just honored Maestro Freeman with its Legend Award. We anticipate many more accolades including Maestro Freeman’s induction into the Classical Music Hall of Fame. Maestro Freeman’s talent was summarized in the following quotation from Robert Marsh, longtime music critic for the Chicago Sun-Times: “Freeman con- ducts performances which are remarkable for their beauty and communicative force. He brings the sound of the Chicago Sinfonietta to the heights of angels.” 5 Chicago Sinfonietta History Maestro Paul Freeman founded the Chicago Sinfonietta in 1987 in response to the lack of opportunity for minority classical musicians, composers, and soloists. Chicago Sinfonietta musicians truly represent the city’s rich cultural landscape and continue to fulfill the orchestra’s mission of Musical Excellence through Diversity™. A 2007 survey of major orchestras revealed that the Chicago Sinfonietta is the most diverse professional orchestra in the United States. Through this distinction, the Chicago Sinfonietta serves as a national model for inclusiveness in classical music. The mission of the Chicago Sinfonietta is to serve as a national model for inclusiveness and innovation in classical music through the presentation of the highest quality orchestral concerts and related programs. The Chicago Sinfonietta aspires to remove the barriers to participation in, and appreciation of classical music through its educational and outreach programs that expose children and their families to classical music, and by providing professional development opportunities for young musicians and composers of diverse back- grounds enabling new, important voices to be heard. Under the guidance of founding Music Director Paul Freeman, the orchestra performs at the highest artistic level and has achieved an outstanding reputa- tion for its innovative programs. The Sinfonietta is dedicated to the authentic performance of Classical, Romantic and Contemporary repertoire and excels at presenting imaginative new works by composers and soloists of color. During the first ten years, the orchestra embarked on six international tours per- forming concerts in Germany, Austria, Italy, Switzerland and the Canary Islands. 6 The Chicago Sinfonietta has produced fourteen compact discs, including the much heralded three-disc African Heritage Symphonic Series released on Cedille Records in 2002 and a live recording of the 2007 tribute concert to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. The orchestra has performed twice at the John F. Kennedy Center in Washington D.C. In August of 2008, the Chicago Sinfonietta made its debut performance at the Jay Pritzker Pavilion in Millennium Park to over 11,000 people and performed for over 90,000 people during 2009-2010. After Maestro Freeman’s decision to retire from the podium after the 2010-2011, the organization embarked on a two-year international search for his successor. In August 2010, the Chicago Sinfonietta proudly announced Maestro Mei-Ann Chen as its Music Director Designate. Maestro Chen will officially assume the Music Director position in July of 2011, but will perform as a Guest Conductor in May 2011 for Maestro Freeman’s final performance. Mei-Ann Chen made her Sinfonietta podium debut in October 2009 for the Sinfonietta’s critically- acclaimed season opener concert titled West Meets East. The first woman to win the Malko International Conductors Competition (2005), Mei-Ann Chen, 37, is considered one of America’s most exciting and promising young conductors. Concluding a highly successful tenure as Assistant Conductor of the Baltimore Symphony in 2010, she has also accepted a three-year appointment as the Music Director of the Memphis Symphony Orchestra that began in the 2010-2011 season. Maestro Chen is in demand on the podium all over the world. A native of Taiwan, Chen has lived in the United States since 1989. She holds master’s degrees in both conducting and violin from the New England Conservatory, and a D.M.A. in conducting from the University of Michigan, where she was a student of Kenneth Kiesler. Chen was a participant in the National Conducting Institute in Washington, D.C. and the American Academy of Conducting in Aspen. During her five-year tenure as Music Director of the Portland (OR) Youth Philharmonic, she led its sold-out debut in Carnegie Hall, received an ASCAP award for innovative programming, and was honored with a Sunburst Award from Young Audiences for her con- tribution to music education.