Contact: Cassandra Kirkpatrick [email protected] 312-957-0000
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Chicago Philharmonic Embarks on Groundbreaking Polish Music Exchange and Festival
Chicago, IL – (March 8 2018) Celebrating Chicago's rich cultural history, the Chicago Philharmonic Society is proud to announce its first-ever international classical music exchange will occur in 2018. The exchange of music, musicians, and culture will take place in Poland this April. Later this year, a five-day festival of Polish music in Chicago, the Chicago Philharmonic Festival: Poland 2018, will join in the worldwide celebration of Poland’s 100-year National Independence Day, which commemorates the restoration of the country’s sovereignty in 1918. The two-part project launches on April 8 2018, when ten Chicago Philharmonic musicians and Artistic Director and Principal Conductor Scott Speck will begin a week-long trip to the Polish cultural capital Kraków.
The musicians will work with students at the Academy of Music in Kraków by leading master classes and side-by-side symphonic rehearsals. The rehearsals, led by Scott Speck, will culminate in a concert of symphonic music by American composers on Friday, April 13 2018 featuring both the Chicago Philharmonic musicians and students from the Academy of Music. Works performed will include Jennifer Hidgon’s blue cathedral, George Walker’s Lyric for Strings, and Leonard Bernstein’s Symphonic Dances from West Side Story.
On Saturday, April 14 2018 the Chicago Philharmonic musicians will travel to the Krzysztof Penderecki European Centre of Music in Lusławice, Poland, a music and culture venue which was conceived and created by famous composer Krzysztof Penderecki and opened officially in 2013. At the Penderecki Centre, Chicago Philharmonic musicians will present a chamber concert showcasing the following American and Chicagoan works for string quartet, solo percussion, and brass quintet:
Guy G. Gauthreaux II American Suite for Unaccompanied Snare Drum
Stacy Garrop String Quartet No. 4: Illuminations Samuel Barber Adagio for Strings William Bolcom Three Rags for String Quartet
John Cheetham Scherzo Jan Bach Laudes; I - Reveille Eric Ewazen Frostfire Leonard Bernstein Dance Suite for Brass Quintet Witold Lutosławski Mini Overture Traveling to Poland with Artistic Director and Principal Conductor Scott Speck and Executive Director Donna Milanovich are musicians:
David Perry violin Kathleen Brauer violin Sally Chisholm viola Barbara Haffner cello Robert Everson percussion William Denton trumpet Mike Brozick trumpet Neil Kimel horn Jeremy Moeller trombone Graeme Mutchler bass trombone
The second part of the project concludes in November with the Chicago Philharmonic Festival: Poland 2018. Chicago Philharmonic anticipates this festival as the first of a biannual initiative showcasing the different communities which make up Chicago’s cultural landscape. Highlights of this five-day festival include a Chicago Philharmonic Orchestra concert featuring works by Ignacy Jan Paderewski, Karol Szymanowski, Andrzej Panufnik, and Frederic Chopin at the Copernicus Center. Featured in this orchestral performance is the young piano virtuoso Łukasz Krupiński, performing Andante spianato et grande polonaise brillante by Chopin and one of “the greatest Polish piano achievements,” Paderewski’s Piano Concerto in A minor. Also a part of the festival is Wojciech Kilar’s Missa Pro Pace (Mass for Peace) for orchestra, organ, choir, and soloists, which will be performed at historic St. Hyacinth Basilica and led by outstanding Polish conductor Marek Moś, Conductor, Artistic Director of the AUKSO chamber orchestra who has received numerous awards including the Contemporary Music Competition in Kraków (1979), the UNESCO International Tribune in Paris (1984, 1988), the Polish Composers’ Union Prize (1994, 2005) and the Ministry of Culture’s ‘Gloria Artist’ silver award (2005).
The festival will also feature guest performances by Poland-based, internationally- renowned artists including the acclaimed Fryderyk Award and 2017 Gramophone Classical Music Award-winning Silesian String Quartet, presenting a concert of all contemporary works. Also featured as a soloist is Polish jazz pianist and composer Piotr Orzechowski, who was the first Polish 1st Prize winner of the legendary Swiss Montreux Jazz Solo Piano Competition. Additionally, the festival will feature an organ recital by Academy of Music and noted Kraków organ professor Andrzej Białko, who has recorded multiple albums with Polish record label Dux Records. The festival will also feature collaborations with two eminent local organizations: The Lira Ensemble and Paderewski Symphony Orchestra and Chorus. The full line-up, tickets and festival pass details will be announced soon.
This project is made possible in part by an International Connections Fund from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, as well as partial support from the Consulate General of the Republic of Poland in Chicago, Polskie Wydawnictwo Muzyczne (Polish Music Publishing House) in Warsaw, the Polish Cultural Institute New York, the Polish Museum of America, Copernicus Center in Chicago, and LOT Polish Airlines.
The Chicago Philharmonic Festival: Poland 2018 is also in part supported by many partner organizations, including the Academy of Music in Kraków, The Krzysztof Penderecki European Centre for Music in Lusławice, and Richard Guérin at RSG Music Inc. in New York.
For more information, contact Marketing Director Cassandra Kirkpatrick at [email protected].
ABOUT THE CHICAGO PHILHARMONIC SOCIETY
The Chicago Philharmonic Society is a collaboration of over 200 of the highest-level classical musicians performing in the Chicago metropolitan area. Governed under a groundbreaking structure of musician leadership, the Society presents concerts at venues throughout the Chicago area that cover the full spectrum of classical music, from Bach to Britten and beyond. The Society’s orchestra, known simply as the Chicago Philharmonic, has been called “one of the country’s finest symphonic orchestras” (Chicago Tribune), and its unique chamber music ensembles, which perform as the Chicago Philharmonic Chamber Players, draw from its vast pool of versatile musicians. The Society’s outreach programs connect Chicago-area youth to classical music and provide performance opportunities for members of the community. Founded 26 years ago by principal musicians from the Lyric Opera Orchestra, the Chicago Philharmonic currently serves as the official orchestra of the Joffrey Ballet, continues its decades-long association with the Ravinia Festival, and presents symphonic concerts in Chicago’s North Shore region and at the Harris Theater where it is a resident company in downtown Chicago.
ABOUT THE PERFORMERS
Scott Speck, conductor
With recent performances in London, Paris, Moscow, Beijing, Chicago, San Francisco, Los Angeles and Washington, Scott Speck has inspired international acclaim as a conductor of passion, intelligence and winning personality.
Scott Speck was named Artistic Director of Chicago Philharmonic in June of 2013, and has been Music Director of the Joffrey Ballet since 2010. His concerts with the Moscow RTV Symphony Orchestra in Tchaikovsky Hall garnered unanimous praise. His gala performances with Yo-Yo Ma, Itzhak Perlman, Joshua Bell, Midori, Evelyn Glennie and Olga Kern have highlighted his recent and current seasons as Music Director of the Mobile Symphony. This season he also collaborates intensively with Carnegie Hall for the seventh time as Music Director of the West Michigan Symphony. He was invited to the White House as former Music Director of the Washington Ballet.
In past seasons Scott Speck has conducted at London’s Royal Opera House at Covent Garden, the Paris Opera, Chicago’s Symphony Center, Washington’s Kennedy Center, San Francisco’s War Memorial Opera House, and the Los Angeles Music Center. He has led numerous performances with the symphony orchestras of Chicago, Houston, Baltimore, Paris, Moscow, Shanghai, Beijing, Vancouver, Romania, Slovakia, Buffalo,
Columbus (OH), Honolulu, Louisville, New Orleans, Oregon, Rochester, Florida, and Virginia, among many others.
Previously he held positions as Conductor of the San Francisco Ballet; Music Advisor and Conductor of the Honolulu Symphony; and Associate Conductor of the Los Angeles Opera. During a tour of Asia he was named Principal Guest Conductor of the China Film Philharmonic in Beijing.
In addition, Scott Speck is the co-author of two of the world’s best-selling books on classical music for a popular audience, Classical Music for Dummies and Opera for Dummies. These books have received stellar reviews in both the national and international press and have garnered enthusiastic endorsements from major American orchestras. They have been translated into twenty languages and are available around the world. His third book in the series, Ballet for Dummies, was released to great acclaim as well.
Scott Speck has been a regular commentator on National Public Radio, the BBC, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, and Voice of Russia, broadcast throughout the world. He has been featured in TED talks and at the Aspen Ideas Festival. His writing has been featured in numerous magazines and journals.
Born in Boston, Scott Speck graduated summa cum laude from Yale University. There he founded and directed the Berkeley Chamber Orchestra, which continues to perform to this day. He was a Fulbright Scholar in Berlin, where he founded Concerto Grosso Berlin, an orchestra dedicated to the performances of Baroque and Classical music in a historically informed style. He received his Master’s Degree with highest honors from the University of Southern California, served as a Conducting Fellow at the Aspen School of Music, and studied at the Tanglewood Music Center. He is fluent in English, German and French, has a diploma in Italian, speaks Spanish and has a reading knowledge of Russian.
David Perry, violin
David Perry enjoys an international career as chamber musician, soloist, and teacher. Mr. Perry has performed in Carnegie Hall, most of the major cultural centers of North and South America, Europe, and the Far East. Mr. Perry joined the Pro Arte Quartet and the UW-Madison faculty in 1995, and was granted a Paul Collins Endowed Professorship in 2003. The Pro Arte celebrated its Centennial Anniversary in 2011-2012. Composers commissioned for the celebration include William Bolcom, John Harbison, Pierre Jalbert, Walter Mays, Benoit Mernier and Paul Schoenfield. Thanks to the Nathan McClure Opportunities Fund, Mr. Perry plays on a 1711 Franciscus Gobetti violin, arranged by Chancellor John Wiley and the UW Foundation.
Former concertmaster of the Aspen Chamber Symphony, Mr. Perry was on the artist- faculty of the Aspen Music Festival and School for nearly two decades and continues to tour the U.S. annually as founding violinist of the Aspen String Trio. Currently concertmaster of the Chicago Philharmonic, he has been a frequent guest concertmaster with such groups as the China National Symphony Orchestra, the Ravinia Festival Orchestra, the American Sinfonietta, and Orpheus Chamber Orchestra. Active with
Orpheus since the late 1980s, he may be heard on many of the ensemble’s Deutsche Grammophon recordings. Mr. Perry’s chamber and solo recordings can be found on the Delos, Naxos and Albany labels. He performs in the summers as first violinist of the Midsummer’s Music Festival in Door County, Wisconsin. A 1985 U. S. Presidential Scholar in the Arts, his first prizes have included the International D’Angelo Competition, National MTNA Auditions, and the Juilliard Concerto Competition.
Kathleen Brauer, violin
Violinist Kathleen Brauer made her solo debut with the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra at the age of 15. She holds degrees in violin performance from the University of Michigan and Yale University. Ms. Brauer has performed with numerous ensembles, including the Chicago Philharmonic, Rembrandt Chamber Players, Ensemble Modern, Fulcrum Point New Music Project, and Pintele piano trio. She has performed in the Aspen, Norfolk, Bowdoin, Hampden-Sydney, Santa Fe Chamber Music, and Kolkata International music festivals. Ms. Brauer is an assistant concertmaster of Music of the Baroque chamber orchestra and has been a featured soloist in several recent seasons. She is a member of the first violin sections of Lyric Opera of Chicago and The Santa Fe Opera.
Sally Chisholm, viola
Sally Chisholm is violist of the Pro Arte Quartet, a Professor of Viola at UW-Madison, and a member of the Chicago Philharmonic. With the Pro Arte, she has performed with artists Leon Fleisher, Samuel Rhodes, Charles Neidich, Nobuko Imai, and Robert Mann. Since 2009 Ms. Chisholm has a regular member of the Marlboro Music Festival in Vermont. She is a permanent member of the Midsummer’s Music Festival, the Northern Lights Chamber Music Institute and the Chamber Music Society of Minnesota. For two decades, she performed at the Festival der Zukunft in Ernen, Switzerland, which was founded by pianist Georgy Sebok.
Before coming to Wisconsin, Ms. Chisholm was a founding member of the Thouvenel Quartet who toured China and Tibet, commissioned quartets by Elliott Carter, Milton Babbitt and Ernst Krenek, were finalists at the Naumberg Chamber Music Competition, and featured on NBC’s Today Show.
A student of Professor Tadeusz Wronski, Ms. Chisholm appeared as a performer and juror for the inaugural Wronski International Violin Competition in Warsaw, was a panelist for his 100th birthday celebration at the Chopin Conservatory in 2015, and performed at the International Viola Congress in Kraków, Poland.
Former students have won prizes in the William Primrose and the Yuri Bashmet International Competition, and hold positions in the Boston and Minnesota Symphonies, the Arianna and Cypress quartets, and professorships at major universities. In spring 2016, Prof. Chisholm was named the Germain Prévost Professor of Music. In January, she performed with Nobuko Imai at the Otaru Viola Festival in Japan, and in 2019 will premiere the John Harbison Viola Sonata.
Barbara Haffner, cello
Music of the Baroque Principal Cellist, Barbara Haffner enjoys an active career performing and recording in Chicago. A member of the Lyric Opera Orchestra, she is also a member of the Chicago Philharmonic. She was a member of the Philadelphia Orchestra for seven seasons. In Dallas, she won the G.B. Dealey International Competition, and performed as soloist in Bloch’s Schelomo.
Barbara’s numerous recordings include several works written specifically for her, including Rich Manners’ “Triste” for seven cellos and voice (she performs all seven cello parts) and Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Richard Wernick’s Concerto For Cello and 10 Players. She has also recorded music by Ralph Shapey and Shulamit Ran for CRI, music by Ruth Crawford Seeger for Musical Heritage, and Elliott Carter’s Cello Sonata for Cedille Records.
Robert Everson, percussion
In his debut performance as a soloist, Robert Everson was hailed by the Chicago Tribune as “a most outstanding performer”, and the Chicago Sun-Times called him a “master timpanist”. Although soloing on the timpani is relatively rare, Mr. Everson has done so many times, playing Darius Milhaud’s Concerto for Percussion and Orchestra with the Chicago Sinfonietta, the Chicago String Ensemble and the Illinois Philharmonic. With the Sinfonietta, he has also performed Georg Druschetzky’s Concerto for Oboe and Eight Timpani, Russell Peck’s Harmonic Rhythm, and the world premiere of Jiri Gemrot’s Concertino for Flute, Bagpipes and Timpani. More recently, he performed the Phillip Glass Concert Fantasy for Two Timpanists with the San Francisco Ballet.
Mr. Everson is the timpanist with many orchestras in the Chicago area in addition to the Chicago Philharmonic, including the Elgin Symphony Orchestra, the Ravinia Festival Orchestra, the Lake Forest Symphony, and Chicago Sinfonietta. He also performs as an extra with the Lyric Opera of Chicago and the Grant Park Symphony. He is a frequent extra player with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra (CSO), and has performed on CSO recordings under Bernard Haitink and Pierre Boulez, the latter having won the Grammy award for best orchestral performance in 2001. He has played with dozens of pop artists, and for many Broadway shows, commercial jingles and TV broadcasts.
Mr. Everson earned his Bachelor's and Master's Degrees in Percussion Performance from DePaul University, and is the percussion instructor at Concordia University Chicago in River Forest, IL as well as at the Birch Creek Music Performance Camp in Door County, WI. He performs solo in-school percussion demonstrations for the International Music Foundation of Chicago, and participates in the educational outreach Chi Phil AMP program with the Chicago Philharmonic. He is a life-long resident of the Chicago area with his wife Ellen and their son Ian, an aspiring singer and music producer.
William Denton, trumpet
Bill Denton regularly performs as Principal Trumpet with the Chicago Philharmonic. He currently serves as Principal Trumpet with the Lyric Opera of Chicago and has appeared as an extra player with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and with the Dempster Street Pro-Musica Chamber Ensemble. He is also a member of the trumpet faculty at DePaul University. Prior to moving to Chicago, he was the Second/Assistant Principal Trumpet with the Alabama Symphony in Birmingham.
Mike Brozick, trumpet
Mike Brozick is a member of the Chicago Philharmonic, Elgin Symphony Orchestra, Kalamazoo Symphony Orchestra, and principal trumpet of the Northwest Indiana Symphony Orchestra. He has performed with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, Lyric Opera of Chicago, Milwaukee Symphony, and the Grant Park Orchestra. He has recorded Gustav Mahler’s Second Symphony with the Chicago Symphony and Richard Strauss’ Elektra, Suite from the Opera with the Pittsburgh Symphony. He has performed on the Pittsburgh Symphony's European tour throughout Spain and in Vienna's Musikverein. As a chamber musician he is a member of the Elgin Chamber Brass and International Chamber Artists. Mr. Brozick earned his Bachelor of Music Education degree from Duquesne University and a Master of Music in performance from Rice University and was a Fulbright Fellow studying at the Stätliche Hochschule für Musik in Detmold, Germany. Mike is an active recitalist and has been featured as a soloist with the Northwest Indiana Symphony, the DuPage Symphony Orchestra, Salt Creek Sinfonietta, and the Kalamazoo Symphony Orchestra.
Neil Kimel, horn
Neil Kimel’s career as a horn player began as anything but a traditional or predictable one. After receiving a B.A. in Cinema Studies from the University of Wisconsin – Milwaukee, he was invited to join the New World Symphony in Miami Beach, Florida where he performed under the baton of its music director, Michael Tilson Thomas. Neil then returned to his home town of Chicago where diverse performance opportunities included backing up various acts on Oprah Winfrey’s popular television show, flying to Hawaii to perform with soprano Charlotte Church, playing in a pit for a Broadway show in New York City, and recording numerous commercial jingles. Summers were filled with performances with many festival orchestras including Spoleto USA, the National Orchestral Institute, and the Tanglewood Music Center where Mr. Kimel was awarded both the C.D. Jackson Memorial Prize and the Harry Shapiro Award for Outstanding Brass Playing. He then won the position of second horn with Chicago’s Grant Park Orchestra in 2000 with whom he has recorded numerous times.
Sir Andrew Davis appointed Mr. Kimel as second horn of the Lyric Opera Orchestra of Chicago in 2008. When Neil leaves the opera pit, he is the principal horn of the Chicago Philharmonic with which he has appeared as soloist, a member of Tower Brass of
Chicago, as well as a chamber music coach at Northwestern University and Adjunct Professor of Horn at DePaul University. Additionally, Neil has performed with the Symphony Orchestras of Kansas City, Nashville, Milwaukee, St. Louis, Toronto, Chicago and the Cleveland Orchestra with whom he toured to Vienna playing in the famed Musikverein.
Jeremy Moeller, trombone
Jeremy Moeller was appointed Principal Trombone of the Lyric Opera of Chicago Orchestra by Music Director Sir Andrew Davis in 2009. He also currently serves as Assistant Principal/Second Trombone for the Grant Park Orchestra during the summer season, a post he has held since 2004, and Principal Trombone with the Chicago Philharmonic. Prior to his appointment at the Lyric Opera of Chicago, Jeremy served as Acting Second Trombone with the Cincinnati Symphony and Cincinnati Pops for two seasons. He has also performed with the Chicago, Detroit, Houston, Atlanta, San Antonio, Charleston, and Grand Rapids Symphonies, and the National Opera at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC.
As a chamber musician, Jeremy has performed and can be heard on recordings with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra Brass and Brass Quintet, Chicago Trombone Consort, the Burning River Brass, the Tower Brass of Chicago, and the Avatar Brass Quintet. He has also performed on Chicago WTTW’s “Chicago Tonight” and ABC’s “News This Morning”.
Jeremy received a Bachelors Degree in Applied Music and a Performer’s Certificate from the Eastman School of Music, where he studied with John Marcellus. He later received a Masters of Music degree at Rice University’s Shepherd School of Music, where he studied with David Waters. He is currently on faculty at Northern Illinois University and coaches brass chamber ensembles at Northwestern University’s Bienen School of Music. Jeremy is an artist/clinician with the Antoine Courtois Instrument Company.
Graeme Mutchler, bass trombone
Graeme, a native of Dallas, Texas, attended Wheaton College and graduated with a BM in 2006. His teachers and mentors in Chicago were Michael Mulcahy, John Schwalm and Charles Vernon. He then pursued a MM at the Juilliard School where his principle teachers were Donald Harwood and Joseph Alessi. Before joining the Lyric Opera of Chicago ,Grant Park Festvial Orchestra, and the Chicago Philharmonic in 2017, he was a member of the Utah Symphony from 2012-2017, the Kansas City Symphony from 2008- 2012 and the Honolulu Symphony in 2007. Graeme has also performed with other orchestras such as The Cleveland Orchestra, Pittsburgh Symphony, Seattle Symphony, Malaysia Philharmonic, Baltimore Symphony, Minnesota Orchestra and the Atlanta Symphony. Graeme is also a performing artist for the S. E. Shires Instrument Company.
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