2002
Festival
Season
2002
Concert Schedule
2002
Artists
2002 Artists
THE ARTISTS
Evelina Chao, Assistant Principal Violist of the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, joined that ensemble in 1980. Also an accomplished violinist, Chao was formerly Acting Concertmaster of the Indianapolis Symphony, and toured the United States and Europe as first violinist of the Amici Quartet. Chao has appeared as soloist with the National Symphony, Arlington Symphony, Fairfax Symphony, the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, and has presented recitals at the Phillips Gallery, in Washington, D.C., and in New York. She has also appeared in chamber music concerts with Pinchas Zukerman, Joseph Silverstein, Jaime Laredo, Scholomo Mintz, Yo Yo Ma, Steven Doane, Seyda Ruga Suzuki, and William Preucil. In the summers, Chao has performed at the Grand Teton Music Festival, Strings in the Mountains in Steamboat Springs, Colorado, and for the past six years has taught and performed at the Madeline Island Music Camp. In the Twin Cities, Ms. Chao has appeared as guest artist with the Chopin Society, The Musical Offering chamber ensemble, the Chamber Music Society of Minnesota, and Sommerfest. A graduate of the Juilliard School, where she was a scholarship student of Dorothy DeLay and Ivan Galamian, Chao is also a novelist. Her first novel, Gates of Grace, was published in 1985. She completed her second novel in 1990, and is currently at work on a fictional memoir. In 2001, she received certification as a life coach through Coaches Training Institute and established a private practice serving clients to reach their personal and professional goals.
Physicist and violin maker William Frederick (Jack) Fry is Emeritus Professor of Physics at the University of Wisconsin - Madison, where, in 1952, he established the Experimental High Energy Physics Program. This group, of which he was Principal Investigator (Director) for 43 years, became the second largest in the U.S., with yearly support of $6.8 million from the U.S. Department of Energy. Fry was also instrumental in establishing High Energy physics programs at Padova and Milan Universities. He has been advisor to many leading physics laboratories and has published an lectured throughout the world. Fry's work on violin acoustics began in 1965. He has applied principles of acoustics and physics to the complex problems of string instrument construction. His work has been featured on PBS Nova (The Great Violin Mystery) and he has presented 250 public lectures on his violin research in twenty-three states and six countries. In 1992 Rose Mary Harbison performed her Berlin Radio American Music concert (still in circulation in Germany) on a Fry instrument. Fry is also a discerning collector of everything from rare books to early 20th century fountain pens. Recently he donated his unique collection of Italian fascist period materials to the University of Wisconsin Library.
Pianist Judith Gordon gave her New York recital debut at the Metropolitan Museum of Art's 'Introductions' series. She has been heard as soloist with the Boston Pops, the Pro Arte Chamber Orchestra, the Civic Symphony of Boston, and the Boston Modern Orchestra Project. Since 1998, Gordon has played often on the FleetBoston Celebrity Series, including a recital in the Emerging Artists Series, a performance of Beethoven's 'Appassionata' sonata in What Makes It Great? with Robert Kapilow, and in January 2001, a program on their Boston Marquee series, Judith Gordon & Friends. This concert included the Boston premiere of John Harbison's Gatsby Etudes, the world premieres of new songs by Martin Brody, Alan Fletcher, David Horne, Lee Hyla, and works by Brahms and Ravel. In 2000-01, Gordon participated in chamber music festivals at Charlottesville, Aspen, Santa Fe, Rockport (MA), and Token Creek (WI). Among Gordon's colleagues in recital and chamber music are violinists Rose Mary Harbison and Andrew Kohji Taylor; violists James Dunham, Cynthia Phelps, and Marcus Thompson; cellists Andrés Díaz, Yo-Yo Ma, and Rhonda Rider; vocalists Lisa Saffer, Lorraine Hunt Lieberson, William Hite and James Maddalena; oboist Douglas Boyd; the Borromeo and Lydian String Quartets; and many members of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. A graduate of the New England Conservatory, Judith Gordon was named Musician of the Year by the Boston Globe in their 'Best of 1996 Classical.'
Composer John Harbison is artistic co-director of the Token Creek Chamber Music Festival. Among his principal works are three string quartets, large orchestral works, three operas, and a cantata, "The Flight Into Egypt," which earned him the Pulitzer Prize (1987). Other awards include the Kennedy Center Friedheim First Prize (1980), a MacArthur Fellowship (1989), and the Heinz Award (1997). Harbsion has been composer-in-residence with the Pittsburgh Symphony, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Tanglewood, Marlboro, Aspen, Ojai, and Santa Fe Festivals, and the American Academy in Rome. Fifty of his pieces have been recorded on Nonesuch, Northeastern, Harmonia Mundi, New World, Deutsche Grammophon, Decca, Koch, Albany, and CRI labels. His opera, The Great Gatsby, received its first performance December 20, 1999 at the Metropolitan Opera in New York. Four Psalms, for the fiftieth anniversary of the State of Israel, was presented by the Chicago Symphony and Chorus in April 1999. Premieres in 2001 include Partita with the Minnesota Orchestra, and the ensemble version of North and South with the Chicago Chamber Musicians. Harbison has conducted the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Boston Symphony, the Cantata Singers, and the Handel and Haydn Society. For many years he has been principal guest conductor of Emmanuel Music, Boston, leading performances of Bach cantatas, seventeenth century motets, and contemporary music. Harbison is Institute Professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He serves on the board of directors of the Koussevitsky Foundation and is President of the Copland Fund.
Rose Mary Harbison, violin, is artistic co-director of the Token Creek Festival. She has recorded for DDG, CRI, Koch, Northeastern, and New World. Her recent releases include recordings of John Harbison's Fantasy Duo (with Robert Levin) and Concerto for Violin. Her recording of the Schoenberg Violin Concerto is due for release on Koch. Among her concert partners are Leonard Stein, Judith Gordon, Ursula Oppens, and Robert Levin. She appeared as soloist with the Oakland, Milwaukee, and Pittsburgh Symphonies, and has worked directly with many composers, including Aaron Copland and Roger Sessions. She has been guest artist with the Santa Fe, Aspen, Tanglewood, and Berlin Festivals. She performed with the Los Angeles Philharmonic New Music Group in Vienna's historic Secession Museum. With Rudolph Kolisch she founded the Kolisch Ensemble, and is a founding member of Emmanuel Music Boston, with whom she performed the Beethoven Violin Concerto in November 2000. Harbison has taught at Brandeis University and MIT, and was a Scholar at the Radcliffe Institute and winner of an Ingram-Merrill Award. She twice taught chamber music at Tanglewood: in 1992 specializing in recent music, and as part of Emmanuel Music's Bach Institute in 2001. In January of 2001 she performed at the 92nd Street Y, New York, on the series Ned Rorem Presents.
Cellist Parry Karp is Professor of Music, Artist-in-Residence, and director of the string chamber music program at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music. He became a member of the Pro Arte Quartet in 1976. Mr. Karp received his early training in Vienna, Austria and continued his studies with Peter Farrell in Urbana, Illinois. He studied first at the University of Michigan, then at the University of Illinois as a scholarship student of Gabriel Magyar. He was awarded the Kate Neal Kinley fellowship for excellence in the arts and won the National String Artist Competition in 1977. Parry Karp frequently performs solo recitals in the United States and Canada, and has performed as soloist with the San Salvador Symphony and many symphony orchestras in the United States and abroad. Recently, he gave the premiere of Lloyd Ultan's Cello Concerto, the second performance of John Harbison's new Cello Concerto, and performed at the International Enescu Festival. During his tenure with the Pro Arte Quartet, he has recorded prolifically, most recently works of Roger Sessions, Samuel Rhodes, Walter Mays and Antonin Dvorak. As a solo recording artist, he has recorded works of Frank Bridge, Rebecca Clarke, Ernest Chausson, Sergei Rachmaninoff, Alberic Magnard, Richard Strauss, and John Ireland. His recently completed a CD recording of Ernest Bloch's cello music will be released by Laurel Records later this year. Recent performances include the Six Suites for cello of J.S. Bach, the Dvorak Concerto, and rarely heard music of Georges Enesco. Last summer he produced a four-CD set celebrating his parents' musical careers, Howard and Frances Karp: A Half-Century of Music-Making.
Boston-based violinist Danielle Maddon performs on both period and modern violin with groups such as Emmanuel Music, Boston Baroque, The Handel & Haydn Society, and The Boston Pops Esplanade Orchestra. She is concertmaster of Emmanuel Music, and is heard often on WGBH Boston's broadcasts of Emmanuel's Bach Cantata series. As a soloist, she has appeared with the New England Philharmonic, the Brookline Symphony, the Brandeis University Orchestra, Boston Baroque, the Handel & Haydn Society, and Emmanuel Music, in concertos ranging from Vivaldi and Bach through Mendelssohn and Bruch, and on to Alban Berg and Witold Lutoslawski. In April 2002, she will perform John Harbison's Violin Concerto with the New England Philharmonic. Her chamber music groups include Boston Musica Viva, Music At Eden's Edge, The Art of Music Chamber Players, and The Onyx Ensemble. A Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Texas Christian University and Ohio University, she was twice awarded full fellowships to both the Tanglewood and Los Angeles Philharmonic Institutes, where she won concertmaster positions for conductors Kurt Masur, Andre Previn, Michael Tilson- Thomas, and Leonard Slatkin. Post -graduate studies at Boston University include work with Rafael Druian, Eugene Lehner, Bayla Keyes, Raphael Hillyer, and the Muir String Quartet.
Robert H. March has been on the Faculty of the University of Wisconsin in Madison, Wisconsin since 1962. He has taught in the physics department and in an interdisciplinary program called Integrated Liberal Studies. He was educated at the University of Chicago, where he began his scientific career as a technician in the laboratory of Enrico Fermi. He has done experimental research in particle physics at laboratories in the United States and in Europe, and since 1980 has focused his research on astrophysics, using facilities located in the Hawaiian Islands.. He is also a popularizer of science. His book, Physics for Poets, has been translated into twelve languages.
A native of St. Louis, Missouri, Lawrence Neuman joined the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in 1991. He holds Degrees from the Eastman School of Music and the University of Southern California, and studied with Heidi Castleman, Donald McInnes, and Robert Vernon. Before coming to Chicago, he was violist with the Miami String Quartet. He has been heard as a chamber musician in many venues in the Chicago area and has performed nationally at such festivals as the Marlboro Music Festival, Summerfest LaJolla, the Portland Chamber Music Festival, the Chamber Music Quad Cities, and the Chamber Music Conference at Interlochen. During the 1998-1999 season, Mr. Neuman took a leave of absence from the CSO to play principal viola with the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra. When not playing the viola, he loves to play ice hockey and is passionate about anything having to do with the bicycle, which is his first choice of transportation both in the city and the countryside.
Cellist Rhonda Rider is a founding and current member of the Naumburg Award winning Lydian Quartet and the piano trio Triple Helix. An active touring artist, she has been heard as a member of the Lydian at international festivals including Concerts Spirituel de Geneve (Switzerland), Septembre Musique de LOrne (France), the Aspen Music Festival, the American Academy in Rome (Italy), and the US/USSR Contemporary Music Festival (Russia). She has performed at the Kennedy Center, Lincoln Center and the Library of Congress. As a soloist, Rider has won New Yorks Concert Artists Guild Award and an Aaron Copland Fund Grant for Recording. She has introduced and recorded music by many contemporary composers, among them Elliott Carter, Lee Hyla, Donald Martino and Steve Mackey. Her solo disc of contemporary cello music and her duo recording with pianist, Lois Shapiro have both been cited as Best of the Year in the Boston Globe. Rider has given numerous masterclasses at such school as the Yale School of Music, Oberlin Conservatory, New England Conservatory, the University of Oregon, Northwestern University and Princeton. Hailed as Boston's answer to the Beaux Arts Trio (Boston Globe), Triple Helix (Bayla Keyes, violin and Lois Shapiro, piano) has been heard on the BankBoston Emerging Artists Series and was recently awarded a grant from Chamber Music America to commission a new work by composer Lee Hyla. In the 2001-2002 season they will present the complete piano trio of Beethoven with concerts in Boston and Los Angeles. During the summer months Rider has performed at the Norfolk Chamber Music Festival (Yale Summer School), Music From Salem (NY), Monadnock Music (NH), Tanglewood (MA) and the Token Creek Festival (WI). In addition to her position as Chamber Music Coordinator and cello instructor at the Boston Conservatory she is a member of the Boston Conservatory Chamber Players.
Cheryl Bensman Rowe, soprano, is known to both new music and early music audiences in this country and abroad. Her voice of "timbral purity with dramatic intensity" (New York Times) has been heard in premieres of works by Steve Reich, Ingram Marshall, Michael Torke and William Bolcom. Orchestral engagements include performances with the New York Philharmonic, Chicago Symphony, Israel Phiharmonic, the St. Louis Symphony and the St. Luke's Chamber Orchestra. A former member of the Waverly Consort and Western Wind Vocal Ensemble, she has also performed with the Folger Consort, The Smithsonian Chamber Ensemble and Pomerium Musices. Ms. Bensman Rowe has toured extensively in North and South America, Europe and Japan. Festival appearances include concerts at Aspen, Brooklyn Academy of Music, Ravinia, Caramoor, Casals, Mostly Mozart, Wiener Festwochen, Holland and Bobigny. A Grammy award winner in 1999, she has recorded for Nonesuch, ECM, CBS Masterworks. She is co-director, with Paul Rowe, of the Madison Early Music Festival, and has appeared this season with Present Music in the premiere of a new piece by Michael Torke.
Christopher Taylor was appointed Assistant Professor of Piano at UW-Madison in the Fall of 2001. In 1990 he was one of the first four recipients of the Gilmore Young Artists Award and he took First Prize in the William Kapell International Piano Competition, held at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. In 1993, he won the Bronze Medal in the 9th Van Cliburn International Piano Competition, the first American to reach the finals since 1981. In 1996, he joined a distinguished group of young musicians when he was honored with the Avery Fisher Career Grant. Since his first solo recital at ten, he has performed in many cities, including New York (at both Carnegie and Alice Tully Halls), Boston, Washington, Chicago (where he has performed at the Ravinia Festival), Denver, and Los Angeles, as well as in Europe, Asia and the Caribbean. He made his debuts with the New York Philharmonic and the Detroit Symphony in the 1998-1999 season, and has appeared as well with the Saint Louis Symphony, the Atlanta Symphony, the Houston Symphony, the National Symphony, the Boston Pops, the Seoul Philharmonic, and numerous other orchestras. Mr Taylor began his piano studies in his native Boulder, Colorado under Julie Bees, and has since studied with Francisco Aybar, Russell Sherman, and Maria Curcio Diamand. At the same time as he was advancing as a pianist, he was pursuing his undergraduate degree in mathematics at Harvard University, which he received in 1992, summa cum laude. In addition to performing, Mr Taylor has won several awards for his own compositions.