Gallery of 2022 Performers
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Jon Nakamatsu in an Interview on Your Classical
Jon Nakamatsu in an Interview on Your Classical It seems to be human nature that when something is forbidden it becomes all the more enticing. When Jon Nakamatsu was a boy, no one in his family was allowed to touch the piano. Can you see where this is going? The story...
Jon Manasse
Among the most distinguished classical artists of his generation, clarinetist Jon Manasse is internationally recognized for his inspiring artistry, uniquely glorious sound and charismatic performing style.
Recent season highlights include return performances with the Seattle Symphony Orchestra and debuts with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, Erie Philharmonic, The Chappaqua Orchestra, Montana’s Missoula Symphony Orchestra and Oregon’s Rogue Valley Symphony. With pianist Jon Nakamatsu, he continues to tour throughout the United States as half of the acclaimed Manasse/Nakamatsu Duo. The Duo’s activities include the world premiere performances of Paquito D’Rivera’s The Cape Cod Concerto with Symphony Silicon Valley, conducted by Leslie B. Dunner.
Jon Manasse’s solo appearances include New York City performances at Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts’ Avery Fisher Hall and Alice Tully Hall, Hunter College’s Sylvia & Danny Kaye Playhouse, Columbia University, Rockefeller University and The Town Hall, fourteen tours of Japan and Southeast Asia – all with the New York Symphonic Ensemble, debuts in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, and Osaka and concerto performances with Gerard Schwarz and the Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra, both at Lincoln Center’s Avery Fisher Hall and at the prestigious Tokyu Bunkamura Festival in Tokyo. With orchestra, he has been guest soloist with the Augsburg, Dayton, Evansville, Naples and National philharmonics, Canada’s Symphony Nova Scotia, the National Chamber Orchestra and the Alabama, Annapolis, Bozeman, Dubuque, Florida West Coast, Green Bay, Indianapolis, Jackson, Oakland East Bay, Pensacola, Princeton, Richmond, Seattle, Stamford and Wyoming symphonies, under the batons of Leslie B. Dunner, Peter Leonard, Eckart Preu, Matthew Savery, Alfred Savia and Lawrence Leighton Smith. Of special distinction was Mr. Manasse’s 2002 London debut in a Barbican Centre performance of Mozart’s Clarinet Concerto with Gerard Schwarz and the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields.
During the 2009-2010 season, Jon Manasse gave the world premiere performances of Lowell Liebermann’s Concerto for Clarinet & Orchestra with the Dayton Philharmonic Orchestra, under the baton of Music Director Neal Gittleman – performances that were recorded for commercial CD release. Subsequent performances included those with the symphony orchestras of Evansville, Juneau, Las Cruces, North State (CA), Roanoke and the University of Massachusetts.
An avid chamber musician, Jon Manasse has been featured in New York City programs with The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center and at Carnegie Hall’s Weill Recital Hall, Alice Tully Hall, Walter Reade Theatre (on Lincoln Center’s “Great Performers Series”), The Sylvia & Danny Kaye Playhouse and Merkin Concert Hall; at the Aspen Music Festival, Caramoor International Music Festival, Colorado Springs Music Festival, Newport Music Festival, Sarasota Music Festival and France’s Festival International des Arts, as well as the chamber music festivals of Bridgehampton, Cape and Islands, Crested Butte, Georgetown, St. Bart’s, Seattle and Tucson. He has also been the guest soloist with many of the leading chamber ensembles of the day, including The Amadeus Trio and Germany’s Trio Parnassus and the American, Borromeo, Colorado, Lark, Manhattan, Moscow, Orion, Rossetti, Shanghai, Tokyo and Ying String Quartets, and has collaborated with violinist Joshua Bell and pianist Jon Nakamatsu.
Manasse is also principal clarinetist of the American Ballet Theater Orchestra and the Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra. In 2008 he was also appointed principal clarinetist and Ensemble Member of the Orchestra of St. Luke’s in New York City. As one of the nation’s most highly sought-after wind players, has also served as guest principal clarinetist of the New York Pops Orchestra, Orchestra of St. Luke’s, Orpheus Chamber Orchestra and New Jersey, Saint Louis and Seattle Symphony Orchestras, under the batons of Gerard Schwarz, Zdenek Macal, Jerzy Semkow, Robert Craft and Hugh Wolff. For several seasons, he was also the principal clarinetist of the New York Chamber Symphony. Mr. Manasse has been a guest clarinetist with the New York Philharmonic in concerts conducted by Valery Gergiev and André Previn, and, during the 2003-04 season, served as the principal clarinetist of The Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, performing under the batons of Artistic Director James Levine and, among others, Andrew Davis, Valery Gergiev and Vladimir Jurowski.
In addition to the premiere performances of Lowell Liebermann’s Clarinet Concerto, which was commissioned for him, Jon Manasse has also presented the world premieres of James Cohn’s Concerto for Clarinet & String Orchestra at the international ClarinetFest ’97 at Texas Tech University and, in 2005, of Steven R. Gerber’s Clarinet Concerto with the National Philharmonic.
Jon Manasse has six critically acclaimed CDS on the XLNT label: the complete clarinet concerti of Weber, with Lukas Foss and the Brooklyn Philharmonic Orchestra; the complete works for clarinet and piano of Weber, with pianist Samuel Sanders; recording premieres of 20th Century clarinet works; “Clarinet Music from 3 Centuries,” including Mozart’s Clarinet Quintet (with the Shanghai Quartet), as well as music by Spohr, Gershwin and James Cohn; James Cohn’sClarinet Concerto #2; and the concerti of Mozart, Nielsen and Copland, with the Slovak Radio Symphony Orchestra. Also available are his recordings of Steven R. Gerber’s Clarinet Concerto with Vladimir Lande and the St. Petersburg State Academic Symphony on the Arabesque label and Lowell Liebermann’s Quintet for Clarinet, Piano and String Trio on KOCH International. His debut CD with pianist Jon Nakamatsu, a harmonia mundi album of the Brahms Clarinet Sonatas, was released to international rave reviews, early in 2008. 2010 saw the release of concerti by Mozart and Spohr with Gerard Schwarz and the Seattle Symphony, also on the harmonia mundi label.
Jon Manasse is a graduate of The Juilliard School, where he studied with David Weber. Mr. Manasse was a top prize winner in the Thirty-Sixth International Competition for Clarinet in Munich and the youngest winner of the International Clarinet Society Competition. Currently, he is an official “Performing Artist” of both the Buffet Crampon Company and Vandoren, the Parisian firms that are the world’s oldest and most distinguished clarinet maker and reed maker, respectively. Mr. Manasse is currently on the faculties of The Juilliard School, The Lynn Conservatory, and The Mannes School of Music.
Jon Nakamatsu
Now in his third decade of touring worldwide, American pianist Jon Nakamatsu continues to draw critical and public acclaim for his intensity, elegance, and electrifying solo, concerto and chamber music performances. Catapulted to international attention in 1997 as the Gold Medalist of the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition — the only American to achieve this distinction since 1981 — Mr. Nakamatsu subsequently developed a multi-faceted career that encompasses recording, education, arts administration, and public speaking in addition to his vast concert schedule.
This season Mr. Nakamatsu returns to live performances throughout the United States and in Europe. Between 2020 and the spring of 2021 he was engaged in a myriad of online events, including recording, masterclasses, and virtual interviews and lectures for organizations such as the Chautauqua Institution Piano Festival, Colorado College Summer Music Festival, Boston University’s Tanglewood Institute, the Van Cliburn Foundation, and the Chopin Foundation of the United States.
Mr. Nakamatsu has been a guest soloist with over 150 orchestras worldwide, including those of Baltimore, Berlin, Boston, Cincinnati, Dallas, Detroit, Florence, Los Angeles, Milan, San Francisco, Seattle, Tokyo, and Vancouver. He has worked with such esteemed conductors as Marin Alsop, Sergiu Comissiona, James Conlon, Philippe Entremont, Hans Graf, Marek Janowski, Raymond Leppard, Gerard Schwarz, Stanislaw Skrowaczewski, Michael Tilson Thomas, and Osmo Vänskä.
As a recitalist Mr. Nakamatsu has appeared at New York City’s Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center, Washington D.C.’s Kennedy Center, the Musée d’Orsay and the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris, and at major centers in Boston, Chicago, Houston, London, Milan, Munich, Prague, Singapore, Warsaw and Zurich. In Beijing he has been heard at the Theater of the Forbidden City, the Great Hall of the People, China Conservatory, and the National Centre for the Performing Arts. His numerous summer engagements have included appearances at the Aspen, Tanglewood, Ravinia, Caramoor, Vail, Wolftrap, Colorado, Brevard, Britt, Evian, Interlochen, Klavierfestival Ruhr, Sante Fe, and Sun Valley festivals. In 2022 he will participate in an extended residency at the Bowdoin Festival in Maine and will return to the Chautauqua Festival in New York, where he has served as Artist-in-Residence since the summer of 2018.
With clarinetist Jon Manasse, Mr. Nakamatsu tours as a member of the Manasse/Nakamatsu Duo. Following its Boston debut in 2004, the Duo released its first CD for harmonia mundi usa (Brahms Sonatas for Clarinet and Piano) which received the highest praise from The New York Times Classical Music Editor James Oestreich, who named it among the “Best of the Year” for 2008. A frequent chamber musician, Mr. Nakamatsu has collaborated repeatedly with such ensembles as the Emerson, Escher, Jupiter, Miró, Modigliani, Prazak, St. Lawrence, Tokyo, and Ying String Quartets, the Imani Winds, and the Berlin Philharmonic Wind Quintet with whom he made multiple tours, beginning in 2000.
Mr. Nakamatsu’s 13 CDs recorded for harmonia mundi usa have garnered extraordinary critical praise. An all-Gershwin recording with Jeff Tyzik and the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra featuring Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue and Concerto in F remained in the top echelons of Biullboard’s classical charts for over six months. Other acclaimed discs include the recording premiere of Lukas Foss’ first Piano Concerto with Carl St. Clair and the Pacific Symphony, the Brahms Piano Quintet with the Tokyo String Quartet in the Quartet’s final recording as an ensemble, and a solo recording including Robert Schumann’s Second Piano Sonata whose YouTube posting has garnered over 500K hits.
Mr. Nakamatsu has been profiled extensively in print, radio, television and online. He has appeared on CBS Sunday Morning, in Readers Digest magazine, and recently on Live from Here! with Chris Thile. In 1999 Mr. Nakamatsu performed at the White House at the special invitation of President and Mrs. Clinton. He has also performed for the United States Mayors Convention in San Francisco, and in 2001 was the featured guest artist during the opening and dedication of the Japanese American Memorial to Patriotism During World War II in Washington D.C.
A former high school teacher of German with no formal conservatory training, Mr. Nakamatsu studied privately with Marina Derryberry for over 20 years beginning at the age of six. He worked with Karl Ulrich Schnabel from the age of nine, and trained for ten years in composition, theory and orchestration with Dr. Leonard Stein of the University of Southern California’s Schoenberg Institute. Mr. Nakamatsu holds undergraduate and graduate degrees from Stanford University in German Studies and secondary education. In 2015 he joined the piano faculty of the San Francisco Conservatory of Music.
Ariel Quartet
Distinguished by its virtuosity, probing musical insight, and impassioned, fiery performances, the Ariel Quartet has garnered critical praise worldwide for more than twenty years. Formed when the members were just teenagers studying at the Jerusalem Academy Middle School of Music and Dance in Israel, the Ariel serves as the Faculty Quartet-in-Residence at the University of Cincinnati’s College-Conservatory of Music.
Recent highlights include the Ariel Quartet’s Carnegie Hall debut, a series of performances at Lincoln Center together with pianist Inon Barnatan and the Mark Morris Dance Group, as well as the release of a Brahms and Bartók album for Avie Records. In 2020 the Ariel gave the U.S. premiere of the Quintet for Piano and Strings by Daniil Trifonov, with the composer as pianist.
The Ariel Quartet has received significant support for its studies in the United States from the American-Israel Cultural Foundation, Dov and Rachel Gottesman, and the Legacy Heritage Fund. Most recently they were awarded a grant from the A.N. and Pearl G. Barnett Family Foundation.
Verona Quartet
Acclaimed as “cohesive yet full of temperament” (The New York Times), the Verona Quartet is the winner of the Chamber Music America’s coveted 2020 Cleveland Quartet Award. The Quartet serves as Quartet-in-Residence at Oberlin college and Conservatory in addition to holding residencies at the Lunenburg Academy of Music Performance and the Chamber Orhcestra of the Triangle.
The Verona has appeared across four continents, at venues such as Carnegie Hall, the Kennedy Center, Jordan Hall, Wigmore Hall and Melbourne Recital Hall, with festival appearances including Caramoor, Bravo! Vail, La Jolla Summerfest, and Chamber Music Northwest.
Mentored by the Cleveland, Juilliard and Pacifica Quartets, the Verona’s rise to international prominence was fueled by top prize wins at the Wigmore Hall, Melbourne, M-Prize and Osaka Chamber Music Competitions. Following the success of their recent debut album, Diffusion, the Quartet’s upcoming album SHATTER showcases works by American composers Julia Adolphe, Michael Gilbertson and Reena Esmail in collaboration with Hindustani vocalist Saili Oak.
The ensemble’s performances emanate from the spirit of storytelling; the name “Verona” pays tribute to William Shakespeare, one of the greatest storytellers of all time.
Ying Quartet
The Grammy Award-winning Ying Quartet occupies a position of unique prominence in the classical music world, combining brilliantly communicative performances with a fearlessly imaginative view of chamber music in today’s world. Now in its third decade, the Quartet has established itself as an ensemble of the highest musical qualifications. Their performances regularly take place in many of the world’s most important concert halls; at the same time, the Quartet’s belief that concert music can also be a meaningful part of everyday life has drawn the foursome to perform in settings as diverse as the workplace, schools, juvenile prisons, and the White House.
The Quartet’s recent seasons have featured performances in major halls throughout the world including New York, Los Angeles, Washington D.C. and Philadelphia, as well as multiple tours throughout China.
A longtime Quartet-in-Residence at the prestigious Eastman School of Music in Rochester, NY, the Ying Quartet teaches in the string department and leads a rigorous, sequentially designed chamber music program. The Quartet is also the Ensemble-in-Residence at the Bowdoin International Music Festival.
Brian Zeger
Widely recognized as one of today’s leading collaborative pianists, Brian Zeger has performed with many of the world’s greatest singers, including Marilyn Horne, Deborah Voigt, Anna Netrebko, Joyce DiDonato, Dame Kiri Te Kanawa, René Pape, Frederica von Stade, Bryn Terfel, Piotr Beczala, Denyce Graves, and Adrianne Pieczonka in an extensive concert career that has taken him to premiere concert halls throughout the United States and abroad.
Among his most recent recordings are All Who Wander, a recital disc with Jamie Barton; Preludios – Spanish songs with Isabel Leonard; a recording of Strauss and Wagner Lieder with Adrianne Pieczonka; Dear Theo: 3 Song Cylces by Ben Moore with Paul Appleby, Susanna Phillips and Brett Polegato; and A Lost World – Schubert Songs and Duets with Susanna Phillips and Shenyang, all for the Delos label.
In addition to his distinguished concert career, Mr. Zeger serves as Artistic Director of the Marcus Institute for Vocal Arts at The Juilliard School. Previously he also served for eight years as the Executive Director of the Metropolitan Opera Lindemann Young Artists Development Program.
eGALitarian Brass
eGALitarian Brass is a classical quintet by day and a brass band by night. The Quintet prioritizes performing music by historically underrepresented composers and commissioning new repertoire with an emphasis on music by women composers, who have often been overlooked in brass repertoire.
The ensemble has performed recitals at the International Women’s Brass Conference, New York Women Composers Gala, and Spectrum’s Female Composers Festival. The Quintet has also presented educational workshops at both Rutgers University and Concept Lab, collaborating with composers on developing new compositions and writing for brass quintet.
eGALitarian Brass also performs as a brass band, collaborating with Shelby Blezinger-McCay on drums, performing jazz, commercial and New Orleans music throughout New York City at venues including HONK Brass Band Festival, Nublu, and The Sampler, as well as private parties and events.
Borromeo Quartet
The Borromeo String Quartet, formed in 1989, has had a rich and multi-faceted career performing all around the world. They have performed in many of the world’s great concert halls, including the Berlin Philharmonie, the Zürich Tonhalle, Dvorák Hall in Prague, Wigmore Hall in London, the Opera Bastille in Paris, Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw, Suntory Hall in Tokyo, the Oriental Arts Center in Shaghai, and the Seoul Arts Center in Korea.
They have worked extensively with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center and the Library of Congress and have, over many years, presented quartet cycles such as the complete quartet of Beethoven and Shostakovich at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston.
They are the Quartet-in-Residence at the New England Conservatory of Music. They have performed at the Tanglewood and Ravinia Festivals, where they also gave special presentations about their unique research into the manuscripts of Beethoven.
Lisa Nakamichi
Hailed by the Honolulu Advertiser as a pianist “born to play Mozart” and “above all beautiful,” Lisa Nakamichi is known for her exquisite performances of Mozart.
Ms. Nakamichi has appeared in numerous recitals and concerto performances in major cities of the U.S., Canada, and Europe. She has appeared in concerto performances throughout Japan with several prestigious ensembles, including the New Star Japan Philharmonic, Kyushu Philharmonic, Kyoto Symphony, and Hiroshima Symphony, among others. Concerto performances with the Hawaii Symphony have totaled over a dozen times under the batons of Hans Graf, JoAnn Falletta and Naoto Ohtomo.
Lisa Nakamichi is the founding Artistic Director of the Aloha International Piano Festival, an annual piano festival held in Honolulu, Hawaii. She received her Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees from The Juilliard School and her D.M.A. from the State University of NY at Stony Brook, studying under the legendary Martin Canin.
Orli Shaham
Hailed as “a first-rate Mozartean” by the Chicago Tribune, Orli Shaham has established an international reputation as one of today’s most gifted pianists. She has performed with many of the major orchestras around the world, and has appeared in recital from Carnegie Hall to the Sydney Opera House. She is Artistic Director of Pacific Symphony’s chamber series Café Ludwig in Costa Mesa, California, and Artistic Director of the interactive children’s concert series Orli Shaham’s Bach Yard, which she founded in 2010.
In the 2021-2022 season Ms. Shaham performs with the Marin, Vancouver, Utah, Youngstown and Reading Symphoony Orchestras, and releases the second and third volumes of the complete Mozart Piano Sonatas. Her Mozart recording project also includes Volume 1 of the Piano Sonatas and her album of Piano Concertos with the St. Louis Symphony, all of which are part of her discography of a dozen titles on Canary Classics.
Orli Shaham is Co-Host and Creative for the national radio program From the Top. She is on the piano and chamber music faculty at The Juilliard School and is Chair of the Board of Trustees at the Kaufman Music Center in New York.
Joyce Yang
Grammy-nominated pianist Joyce Yang captivates audiences with her virtuosity, lyricism, and interpretive sensitivity. She first came to international attention in 2005 when she won the silver medal at the 12th Van Cliburn International Piano Competition. The youngest contestant at 19 years old, she took home two additional awards: Best Performance of Chamber Music, and Best Performance of a New Work. She received an Avery Fisher Career Grant in 2010, and her first Grammy nomination in 2017 for her recording of Franck, Kurtág, Previn and Schumann with Violinist Augustin Hadelich.
In the last decade Yang has blossomed into an “astonishing artist” (Neue Züricher Zeitung), showcasing her colorful musical personality in solo recitals and collaborations with the world’s top orchestras and chamber musicians through more than 1,000 debuts and re-engagements. She has performed with the New York Philharmonic, Philadelphia Orchestra, San Francisco Symphony and Sydney Symphony, among many others. She has appeared in recital at New York’s Lincoln Center and Metropolitan Museum, Washington D.C.’s Kennedy Center, Chicago’s Symphony Hall, and Zürich’s Tonhalle.
Born in Seoul, Korea, in 1986, Yang received her first piano lesson from her aunt at age 4. In 1997 she moved to the United States to study in the pre-college division of The Juilliard School. She graduated from Juilliard with special honors as the recipient of the school’s 2010 Arthur Rubinstein Prize.