insidewhat’s Welcome From the Director | 3 Zhou Family Band | 21 The Historian’s Corner | 4 Ying Quartet | 23 Leonard Slatkin Conducts Jeff Beal | 6 Voces8 | 26 Kat Edmonson | 15 Avi Avital & Bridget Kibbey | 32 Ying Quartet | 18 Schumann Quartet | 38 CONTACT US: Location: Eastman School of Music—ESM 101 EASTMAN THEATRE BOX OFFICE Phone: (585) 274-1109 Mailing Address E-mail: [email protected] Eastman School of Music Concert Office 26 Gibbs Street Mike Stefiuk, Director of Concert Operations Rochester, NY 14604 Julia Ng, Assistant Director of Concert Operations Eastman Theatre Box Office Greg Machin, Ticketing and Box Office Manager 433 East Main Street Joseph Broadus, Box Office Supervisor Rochester, NY 14604 Ron Stackman, Director of Stage Operations, Eastman Theatre Phone Jules Corcimiglia, Assistant Director of Stage Eastman Theatre Box Office: (585) 274-3000 Operations (Kodak Hall) Lost & Found: (585) 274-3000 Daniel Mason, Assistant Director of Stage Eastman Concert Office: (585) 274-1109 Operations (Kilbourn Hall) Hall Rentals: (585) 274-1109 Michael Dziakonas, Assistant Director of Stage Operations (Hatch Recital Hall) ADVERTISING This program is published in association with Onstage Publications, Onstage Publications 1612 Prosser Avenue, Kettering, OH 45409. This program may not be reproduced in whole or in part without written permission from the 937-424-0529 | 866-503-1966 publisher. JBI Publishing is a division of Onstage Publications, Inc. e-mail: [email protected] Contents © 2019. All rights reserved. Printed in the U.S.A. www.onstagepublications.com EASTMAN PERFORMANCE SERIES 1 2 EASTMAN PERFORMANCE SERIES experience excellence! o you remember the first time you experienced a live Dperformance? For many of us, it was as children and that memory has stayed with us all these years. The power of the performing arts lets us create lasting memories and experience a full range of human emotions. With the concerts in Eastman Presents, we offer invaluable experiences for you to share with someone — both young and old — and an opportunity for all of us to be brought closer together, building powerful connections with the world around us. Over the next several months, Eastman Presents concerts will allow you to share moments where you will be mesmerized by the live music-to-screen performance of Battleground based on short stories of Stephen King (Slatkin Conducts Beal 11/8); treated to one of the most distinctive performers in contemporary music (Kat Edmonson 11/13); invited to join in on a raucous, musical celebration of the Chinese New Year (Zhou Family Band 1/29); amazed by the impeccably meticulous vocal artistry of one of the greatest ensembles in the world (Voces8 2/12)… and so much more! Embark on a journey with us and participate in unforgettable live music making. Thank you for being here tonight and enjoy the concert! Mike Stefiuk Director of Concert Activity Eastman School of Music P.S — Each year, Eastman’s students, faculty members, and guest artists present more than 900 concerts to the Rochester community — many of which are free or have a very low-ticket price. For a full listing of those concerts and presentations, please visit http://www.rochester.edu/Eastman/calendar/. EASTMAN PERFORMANCE SERIES 3 the historian’s corner Alexander Leventon A Man with a Violin and a Camera by Vincent A. Lenti lexander Leventon died almost seventy years Aago, and he deserves to be remembered as one of Rochester’s most interesting and distinguished residents. He was not only the second concertmaster of the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra for a period of more than twenty years, but he was also a highly distinguished photographer whose work can still be found among the collections at the Minneapolis Institute of Art, the University of Arizona Center for Creative Photography, the George Eastman Museum, and the Art Institute of Chicago. During his life-time, his work was displayed in exhibitions throughout the United States as well as in Europe. Leventon’s photos were frequently Sergei Rachmaninoff encountered in the leading photographic journals of his time, including American Photography, Camera Craft, and Photo Era. Alexander Leventon was born on November 11, 1895, in Rostov-on-Don in Russia. He studied music and law in Moscow, later going to Vienna to continue his musical training as a violinist. Interred by the Austrians at the outbreak of World War I, he escaped and made his way back to Russia. In 1921 he left Russia and went to Turkey. He then immigrated to the United States the following year. Leventon first lived in New York City with his aunt and played for a year as a member of the New York Symphony. In 1923 he came to Rochester to become concertmaster of the Eastman Theatre Orchestra and second concertmaster of the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra. For a brief period of time he was also a member of the Kilbourn Quartet at the Eastman School of Music. Alfred Cortot 4 EASTMAN PERFORMANCE SERIES Fritz Kreisler Jascha Heifetz Leventon’s interest in photography only developed who taught at the Eastman School of Music after his arrival in Rochester, when he opened a or performed as members of the Rochester portrait studio in 1928. He soon established Philharmonic Orchestra. The latter includes himself as perhaps the premiere portrait pictures of the orchestra’s various conductors, photographer in the area. Although his work was including Eugene Goossens, José Iturbi, and not limited specifically to portraits of musicians, Erich Leinsdorf. An especially valued part of it was in this area that his work was most highly this photographic legacy are portraits that recognized and valued. Alexander Leventon died Leventon produced of important visiting suddenly on October 10, 1950 about one month artists such as pianists Sergei Rachmaninoff prior to his fifty-fifth birthday. and Alfred Cortot, violinists Fritz Kreisler and Jascha Heifetz, and conductors Charles Munch The Alexander Leventon Collection of prints and Leonard Bernstein. and negatives was donated to the Eastman School’s Sibley Music Library in 1984 by his wife, Gladys Leventon, a long-time member of the school’s piano faculty. Among the prints are portraits of George Eastman and University of Rochester President Rush Rhees, as well as portraits of many of the prominent musicians EASTMAN PERFORMANCE SERIES 5 Kodak Hall Series Friday, November 8, 2019 at 7:30 PM Kodak Hall at Eastman Theatre Leonard Slatkin Conducts Jeff Beal with Hila Plitmann, soprano and Eastman Philharmonia Pollock Suite (2000) Jeff Beal (b. 1963) The Paper Lined Shack (2019)* Carefree Girl The Red Chair The Paper Lined Shack Our Garden My Heart INTERMISSION Battleground (2018) *Commissioned by The St. Louis Symphony, in honor of Leonard Slatkin’s fifty years with the Orchestra Hila Plitmann, Soprano Leonard Slatkin, conductor St. Louis Symphony Orchestra, May 3, 4, 2019 Leonard Slatkin appears courtesy of COLUMBIA ARTISTS MANAGEMENT LLC Personal Direction: Stefana Atlas, Senior Vice President 5 Columbus Circle @ 1790 Broadway, 16th Floor, New York, NY 10019 www.columbia-artists.com Hila Plitmann is an artist represented by CADENZA ARTISTS LLC 12021 Wilshire Blvd. #710, Los Angeles, CA 90025 www.CadenzaArtists.com 6 EASTMAN PERFORMANCE SERIES guest artists Slatkin has received six Grammy awards and 33 nominations. His recent recordings include works by Saint-Saëns, Ravel, and Berlioz (with the ONL) and music by Copland, Rachmaninov, Borzova, McTee, and John Williams (with the DSO). In addition, he has recorded the complete Brahms, Beethoven, and Tchaikovsky symphonies with the DSO (available online as digital downloads) and conducted the London Symphony Orchestra for an album featuring violinist Anne Akiko Meyers. A recipient of the National Medal of Arts, the highest award given to artists by the United States government, Slatkin also holds the rank of Chevalier in the French National Order of the Legion of Honor. Moreover, he has received LEONARD SLATKIN Austria’s Decoration of Honor in Silver, the League of American Orchestras’ Gold Baton Award, and the 2013 ASCAP Deems Taylor Special Recognition nternationally acclaimed conductor Leonard Award for his debut book, Conducting Business. Slatkin is Music Director Laureate of the Detroit I His second book, Leading Tones: Reflections on Symphony Orchestra (DSO) and Directeur Musical Music, Musicians, and the Music Industry, was Honoraire of the Orchestre National de Lyon published by Amadeus Press in 2017. (ONL). He maintains a rigorous schedule of guest conducting throughout the world and is active as a composer, author, and educator. He holds honorary doctorates from many institutions, including The Juilliard School, New England Conservatory, Michigan State University, In the 2019–20 season, he will celebrate his 75th Indiana University, the University of Rochester, birthday year with several of the orchestras he the University of Maryland-College Park, George has led over the course of his 50-year career, Washington University, the University of Missouri- including the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra, St. Louis, and Washington University in St. Louis. National Symphony Orchestra, Nashville Symphony Orchestra, DSO, and ONL. Other highlights include return engagements with Slatkin has held posts as Music Director of the the Houston Symphony Orchestra, RTÉ National New Orleans Symphony, St. Louis Symphony Symphony in Dublin, Toronto Symphony Orchestra, Orchestra, and National Symphony Orchestra in and NHK Symphony Orchestra in Tokyo; debuts Washington, DC, and he was Chief Conductor with the KBS Symphony Orchestra in Seoul, of the BBC Symphony Orchestra in London. He NDR Radiophilharmonie in Hannover, and Würth has served as Principal Guest Conductor of Philharmonic in Künzelsau, Germany; and three London’s Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and weeks in Spain conducting orchestras in Castile- Philharmonia Orchestra, the Pittsburgh Symphony León, Bilbao, and the Balearic Islands. Orchestra, the Los Angeles Philharmonic at the Hollywood Bowl, and the Minnesota Orchestra EASTMAN PERFORMANCE SERIES 7 guest artists in Minneapolis, where he founded their annual Sommerfest.