CAL PEFORMANCES PRESENTS

Sunday Supper with the Stars

A Virtual Celebration and Fundraiser
May 23, 2021

HOST

Hope Boykin

ARTISTS

Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater
Jeremy Denk, piano  •  Mahan Esfahani, harpsichord
Renée Fleming, soprano and Robert Ainsley, piano
Christine Goerke, soprano and Craig Terry, piano
Jazzmeia Horn, vocals with Keith Brown, piano, Eric Wheeler, bass, and Anwar Marshall, drums
Mark Morris Dance Group  •  Beatrice Rana, piano
Takács Quartet  •  Mitsuko Uchida, piano  •  yMusic

PERFORMING WORKS BY

Johann Sebastian Bach  •  Jason Robert Brown  •  Frédéric Chopin
Samuel Coleridge-Taylor  •  George Gershwin (Ira Gershwin)
Mark Morris  •  Matthew Rushing, Clifton Brown, and Yusha-Marie Sorzano
Franz Schubert  •  Harry Warren (Al Dubbin)  •  yMusic

Made possible with support from donors like you and the following generous sponsors:

Visionary

Diane B. Wilsey

Lead

Helen and John Meyer

Major

Amy Roth and Bob Epstein
Sakurako and William Fisher
Maris and Ivan Meyerson
Diana Cohen and Bill Falik & Susan Marinoff and Thomas Schrag

Supporting

Deborah and Bob Van Nest

Contributing

Michael A. Harrison and Susan Graham Harrison
S. Shariq Yosufzai and Brian E. James
Ting & Associates at Merrill Lynch
Anne B. Popkin
Gustavo Houghton and Sara E. Wilson

About the Artists

ROBERT AINSLEY, piano
Active as an opera fanatic and factotum since 2001, Robert Ainsley has explored every facet of the art form across the country, and lives to pass on his enthusiasm to others. He is an alumnus of the University of Cambridge, Mannes College of Music, and the Lindemann Young Artist Development Program at the Metropolitan Opera. Since then, he has been the co-founder and principal conductor of the Greenwich Music Festival, guest chorus master at the English National Opera, associate music director at Portland Opera, head of the music staff and chorus master at Minnesota Opera and Opera Theatre of Saint Louis, and a faculty member at Westminster Choir College’s CoOPERAtive Program. 

Ainsley is now the director of the Washington National Opera’s Cafritz Young Artists program and the American Opera Initiative, seeking out and preparing the finest young American singers, composers, and librettists for international careers. His artists have performed on the world’s leading stages, won the Metropolitan Opera National Council auditions, been finalists in Operalia, and performed with Ainsley at the 2018 White House State Dinner for the President of France. Most recently, he was featured in recital with Renée Fleming as part of the Metropolitan Opera’s “Met Stars Live in Concert” series. 

Ainsley has conducted his own realizations of 17th-century operas, collaborated on a string of world premieres, presented programs of art song in a recital series of his own creation, and lectured on everything from John Adams to Alexander von Zemlinsky. Through it all, he has inspired hundreds of young artists and thousands of audience members to share his passion; he prides himself on the friendships he has formed along the way. 

ALVIN AILEY AMERICAN DANCE THEATER
When Alvin Ailey and a small group of African American dancers took the stage on March 30, 1958 at New York City’s 92nd Street Y, the engagement was for one night only, but it turned out to be the start of a new era in the arts. Ailey envisioned a company dedicated to enriching the American modern dance heritage and preserving the uniqueness of the African American cultural experience. He became one of the trailblazers of modern dance, and the work of his company grew to encompass education, community outreach, and cultural diplomacy. To date, the company has gone on to perform for an estimated 25 million people at theaters in 48 states and 71 countries on six continents—as well as millions more through television, film, and online presentations. More than 270 works by over 100 choreographers have been part of the Ailey repertory. In 2008, a U.S Congressional resolution designated the company as “a vital American cultural ambassador to the world.” Before his untimely death in 1989, Ailey named Judith Jamison as his successor, and over the next 21 years, she brought the company to unprecedented success. Jamison, in turn, personally selected Robert Battle to succeed her in 2011, and since then, the New York Times has declared that Battle “has injected the company with new life.”

KEITH BROWN, piano
Keith Brown—pianist, composer, arranger, and educator—was born and raised in Tennessee and began playing piano and bass at an early age. His father, Donald, is a world-renowned jazz pianist/composer who has performed with many greats, and his mother, Dorothy, is a pianist who also plays various woodwind instruments.

Brown first learned to play songs of artists like Stevie Wonder by ear and then started classical piano lessons at age eight. He began to study jazz seriously after high school, and it was at this time that he began to be influenced by great Memphis pianists such as Phineas Newborn Jr., James Williams, and Mulgrew Miller. By age 18, Brown was playing piano and bass around Knoxville in a variety of jazz, R&B, funk, and country bands. Later, he would go on to earn his bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the University of Tennessee at Knoxville. 

Brown has performed and recorded with some remarkable musicians, both as a leader and a sideman. He has shared the stage with great artists such as Jazzmeia Horn, Camille Thurman, Dezron Douglas, Sherman Irby, Steve Stagle, Kenneth Whalum III, David Weiss, and Bobby Watson, to name a few. “I always try to write and perform in a way that is intellectual but that has a strong sense of melody or groove that can touch those who are open enough to listen.”

Currently Brown resides in New York City, where he continues to make a name for himself as a pianist and composer, both nationally and internationally.

JEREMY DENK, piano

Jeremy Denk is one of America’s foremost pianists. Winner of a MacArthur “Genius” Fellowship and the Avery Fisher Prize, Denk was recently elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He returns frequently to Carnegie Hall and in recent seasons has appeared with the Chicago Symphony, New York Philharmonic, Los Angeles Philharmonic, San Francisco Symphony, and Cleveland Orchestra, as well as on tour with the Academy of St Martin in the Fields, and at the Royal Albert Hall as part of the BBC Proms.

In 2019–20, until the COVID-19 pandemic led to the shutdown of performances, Denk toured Book I of Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier extensively, and was to have those performances culminate with concerts at Lincoln Center in New York and the Barbican in London. Denk returned to Carnegie Hall to perform Beethoven’s Choral Fantasy with the Orchestra of St. Luke’s, and made his solo debut at the Royal Festival Hall with the London Philharmonic, performing Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 4. He also made his solo recital debut at the Boulez Saal in Berlin—performing works by Bach, Ligeti, Berg, and Schumann—and returned to the Piano aux Jacobins Festival in France as well as to London’s Wigmore Hall. Further performances abroad included his debut with the Bournemouth Symphony, his returns to the City of Birmingham Symphony and Finland’s Piano Espoo Festival, and recitals of the violin sonatas of Charles Ives with Stefan Jackiw.

Highlights of recent seasons have also included a three-week recital tour, culminating in the pianist’s return to Carnegie Hall; play-directing Mozart concertos on an extensive tour with the Academy of St Martin in the Fields; and a nationwide trio tour with Joshua Bell and Steven Isserlis. He also performed and curated a series of Mozart violin sonata recitals (“Denk & Friends”) at Carnegie Hall. 

Denk is also known for his original and insightful writing on music, which Alex Ross has praised for its “arresting sensitivity and wit.” He wrote the libretto for a comic opera presented by Carnegie Hall, Cal Performances, and the Aspen Festival, and his writing has appeared in the New Yorker, New Republic, and Guardian, and on the front page of the New York Times Book Review. One of Denk’s New Yorker contributions, “Every Good Boy Does Fine,” forms the basis of a book for future publication by Random House in the US, and Macmillan in the UK. 

Denk’s recording of Bach’s Goldberg Variations for Nonesuch Records reached No. 1 on the Billboard Classical Charts. His recording of Beethoven’s Piano Sonata No. 32 in C minor (Op. 111), paired with Ligeti’s Études, was named one of the best discs of the year by the New Yorker, NPR, and the Washington Post, and his account of the Beethoven sonata was selected by BBC Radio 3’s Building a Library as the best available version recorded on modern piano. Denk has a long-standing attachment to the music of American visionary Charles Ives, and his recording of the composer’s two piano sonatas also featured in many “Best of the Year” lists. His recording c. 1300–c. 2000—featuring works by composers ranging from Guillaume de Machaut, Gilles Binchois, and Carlo Gesualdo, to Stockhausen, Ligeti, and Glass—was released in 2018.

Jeremy Denk is a graduate of Oberlin College, Indiana University, and the Juilliard School. He lives in New York City.

MAHAN ESFAHANI, harpsichord
Since making his London debut in 2009, Mahan Esfahani has established himself as the first harpsichordist in a generation whose work spans all areas of classical music-making, from critically acclaimed performances and recordings of the standard repertoire to working with the leading composers of the day to pioneering concerto appearances with major symphony orchestras on four continents. He was the first and only harpsichordist to be a BBC New Generation Artist (2008–10), a Borletti-Buitoni prize winner (2009), a nominee for Gramophone’s Artist of the Year (2014, 2015, 2017), and on the shortlist as Instrumentalist of the Year for the Royal Philharmonic Society Awards (2013, 2019).

Esfahani’s work with new and modern music is particularly acclaimed, with high-profile solo and concertante commissions forming the backbone of his repertoire for his 2020 Hyperion release Musique?—a compilation of electronic and acoustic works that includes the modern revival of Luc Ferrari’s 1974 Programme commun for harpsichord and tape. 

His discography for Hyperion and Deutsche Grammophon—including the ongoing series of the complete works of Bach for the former—has been acclaimed in the press while garnering a Gramophone Award, two BBC Music Magazine Awards, a Diapason d’Or and “Choc de Classica” in France, and an International Classical Music Award, as well as numerous “Editor’s Choice” selections in a variety of publications and including compilations of essential classical music performances and recordings from the Telegraph and the New York Times. 

Esfahani is a frequent commentator on BBC Radio 3 and Radio 4 for the Record Review, Building a Library, and Sunday Feature; for the BBC’s Sunday Feature he is currently at work on his fourth radio documentary, following popular programs on such subjects as the early history of African-American composers in the classical sphere and the development of orchestral music in Azerbaijan.

Born in Tehran in 1984, Esfahani grew up in the Maryland, studied musicology and history at Stanford University, and worked as a repetiteur and studied in Boston with Peter Watchorn before completing his studies in Prague with the celebrated Czech harpsichordist Zuzana Růžičková. Following several years spent in Milan, Oxford, and London, he now makes his home in Prague. 

RENÉE FLEMING, soprano
Renée Fleming is one of the most highly acclaimed singers of our time, performing on the stages of the world’s greatest opera houses and concert halls. Honored with four Grammy awards and the US National Medal of Arts, she has sung for momentous occasions including the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony and the Diamond Jubilee Concert for Queen Elizabeth II at Buckingham Palace. In 2014, Fleming brought her voice to a vast new audience as the first classical artist ever to sing the “Star-Spangled Banner” at the Super Bowl. On January 20, she sang for the private church service attended by President-elect Biden and Vice President-elect Harris, along with congressional leaders of both parties, prior to the inauguration ceremony.

In May, Fleming launched Music and Mind LIVE, a weekly web series exploring the intersection of music and arts with human health and the brain. In 19 episodes, the show amassed more than 650,000 views from 70 countries. Fleming was inspired to launch the series by the Sound Health initiative she leads as Artistic Advisor to the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, in partnership with the NIH. She has given presentations with scientists and practitioners on this subject around the world. 

Fleming has recorded everything from complete operas and song recitals to jazz and indie rock. Her voice is featured on the soundtracks of Best Picture Oscar winners The Shape of Water and The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King. In 2019, she appeared opposite Ben Whishaw in Norma Jean Baker of Troy to open The Shed in New York City. Later that year, she appeared in the London premiere of The Light in the Piazza, subsequently bringing the acclaimed production to Los Angeles and Chicago. Fleming earned a Tony Award nomination for her performance in the 2018 Broadway production of Carousel. 

Her other awards include the Fulbright Lifetime Achievement Medal, Germany’s Cross of the Order of Merit, and France’s Chevalier de la Légion d’Honneur. www.reneefleming.com.

CHRISTINE GOERKE, soprano
Christine Goerke (soprano) has appeared in many of the most prestigious opera houses of the world, including the Metropolitan Opera, Lyric Opera of Chicago, San Francisco Opera, Royal Opera House, Paris Opera, Teatro alla Scala, Deutsche Oper Berlin, and Teatro Real in Madrid, and at the Saito Kinen Festival in Japan. She has sung much of the great soprano repertoire, beginning with the Mozart and Handel heroines and now moving into dramatic Strauss and Wagner roles.

Goerke has also appeared with a number of leading orchestras, including the New York Philharmonic, Boston Symphony Orchestra, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Cleveland Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Radio Vara, the BBC Symphony Orchestra at the BBC Proms, and both the Hallè Orchestra and the Royal Scottish National Symphony at the Edinburgh International Festival. She has worked with some of the world’s foremost conductors, including James Conlon, Sir Andrew Davies, Sir Mark Elder, Christoph Eschenbach, Claus Peter Flor, James Levine, Sir Charles Mackerras, Kurt Masur, Zubin Mehta, Andris Nelsons, Seiji Ozawa, David Robertson, Donald Runnicles, Esa-Pekka Salonen, the late Robert Shaw, Patrick Summers, Jeffery Tate, Christian Thielemann, Michael Tilson Thomas, and Edo de Waart.

Goerke’s recording of Vaughan Williams’ A Sea Symphony with Robert Spano and the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra won the 2003 Grammy Awards for Best Classical Recording and Best Choral Performance. Her close association with Robert Shaw yielded several recordings, including the Brahms’ Liebeslieder Waltzes, Poulenc’s Stabat Mater, Szymanowski’s Stabat Mater, and a Grammy-nominated recording of Dvořák’s Stabat Mater. Other recordings include the title role in Iphigenie en Tauride for Telarc and Britten’s War Requiem, which received the 1999 Grammy Award for Best Choral Performance. 

Goerke was the recipient of the 2001 Richard Tucker Award, the 2015 Musical America Vocalist of the Year Award, and the 2017 Opera News Award. In March 2021, Michigan Opera Theatre named Goerke as its associate artistic director.

JAZZMEIA HORN, vocals
Blessed with a name perfect for her chosen path—it was the singer’s jazz-loving, piano-playing grandmother who picked it—Jazzmeia Horn was born in Dallas in 1991; grew up in a tightly knit, church-going family filled with musical talent; and began singing as a toddler. She attended Booker T. Washington High School for the Performing and Visual Arts—an institution famous for launching the careers of such musical greats as Roy Hargrove, Norah Jones, and Erykah Badu—and later the New School in New York City. Horn’s education included steering herself to the mentors who would guide her passion for jazz—artists like Bobby McFerrin, Abbey Lincoln, and Betty Carter. Winner of the 2013 Sarah Vaughan International Jazz Competition and the 2015 Thelonious Monk Institute International Jazz Competition, Horn soon signed with Concord Records, releasing her debut album, the Grammy-nominated A Social Call, to great critical acclaim.

In the four years since Horn bowed with that album, she has been busy on the road, honing her vocal skills to a finely tuned level, writing songs of personal relevance and social message, and perfecting a fearless approach to improvisation and performance. The convergence of this drive and development has resulted in Horn’s second Grammy nomination, for Love and Liberation—an album filled with songs of daring musicality, emotional power, and messages of immediate relevancy.

Jazzmeia chose the title because, “‘Love and liberation’ is a concept and mantra that I use consistently in my everyday life. For me, the two go hand in hand and they both describe where I am in my life and career right now. An act of love is an act of liberation, and choosing to liberate—oneself or another—is an act of love.”

ANWAR MARSHALL, drums
Anwar Marshall is a native of Philadelphia and was introduced to music early on by his mother and father, both accomplished musicians and music educators. As a boy, he received a drum set as a Christmas gift, moving on to study percussion in the Philadelphia public school system with Carl Mottola. Marshall attended the High School for Creative and Performing Arts and received his bachelor’s degree from the University of the Arts, where he studied with Erik Johnson and Joe Nero. He was also mentored by Byron Landham, Mike Boone, Sid Simmons, and many other Philadelphia area musicians.

Marshall has enjoyed collaborating with musicians including Orrin Evans, the Captain Black Big Band, Ed Cherry, Tim Warfield, Dave Douglas, Christian McBride, Pat Metheny, Robert Glasper, Adam Blackstone, Somi, and John Swana. He is also co-leader of a 10-piece ensemble, the Fresh Cut Orchestra, with trumpeter Josh Lawrence and bassist Jason Fraticelli.

MARK MORRIS DANCE GROUP
Mark Morris has been hailed as “the most successful and influential choreographer alive, and indisputably the most musical.” (New York Times). In addition to creating over 150 works for the Mark Morris Dance Group, he conducts orchestras, directs opera, and choreographs for ballet companies worldwide. Morris’ work is acclaimed for its ingenuity, musicality, wit, and humanity. Named a Fellow of the MacArthur Foundation in 1991, he has received 11 honorary doctorates to date, and a multitude of awards, including the Samuel H. Scripps/American Dance Festival Award for Lifetime Achievement, the Leonard Bernstein Lifetime Achievement Award for the Elevation of Music in Society, the Benjamin Franklin Laureate Prize for Creativity, the Cal Performances Award of Distinction in the Performing Arts, the Orchestra of St. Luke’s Gift of Music Award, and the 2016 Doris Duke Artist Award. In 2015, Morris was inducted into the National Museum of Dance in Saratoga Springs, New York. His memoir, Out Loud, co-written with Wesley Stace, was published by Penguin Press in 2019.

Formed in 1980, Morris’ internationally-renowned Mark Morris Dance Group (MMDG) has received “highest praise for their technical aplomb, their musicality, and their sheer human authenticity” (Bloomberg News). Live music and community engagement are vital components of the Dance Group. It has toured with its own musicians, the MMDG Music Ensemble, since 1996, and regularly collaborates with orchestras and opera companies around the world. MMDG’s film and television projects include Dido and Aeneas, The Hard Nut, Falling Down Stairs, the UK’s South Bank Show, and Live from Lincoln Center. In 2015, Morris’ signature work, L’Allegro, il Penseroso ed il Moderato, premiered on PBS’ Great Performances. The Mark Morris Dance Center was opened in 2001 to provide a home for the Dance Group, subsidized rental space for local artists, programs for local children and seniors, and dance classes for students of all ages and abilities.

BEATRICE RANA, piano
Beatrice Rana has captured the attention of the international classical music world, drawing admiration and interest from concert presenters, conductors, critics, and audiences in many countries.

Rana performs at the world’s most esteemed concert halls and festivals and collaborates with conductors including Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Antonio Pappano, Fabio Luisi, Riccardo Chailly, Yuri Temirkanov, Gianandrea Noseda, Jun Märkl, Trevor Pinnock, James Gaffigan, Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla, Lahav Shani, Andrés Orozco-Estrada, Susanna Mälkki, Leonard Slatkin, Kent Nagano, and Zubin Mehta. 

During the upcoming seasons, she will debut with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Orchestre de Paris, Bayerische Rundfunk Sinfonieorchester, New York Philharmonic, Deutsches Sinfonie-Orchester, Orquesta Nacional de España, Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra, Toronto Symphony Orchestra, and Orchestre National de Lyon, and will return to the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, Danish National Symphony Orchestra, Dallas Symphony Orchestra, and Antwerp Symphony Orchestra. She will also tour with the London Philharmonic Orchestra and Vladimir Jurowski, the Wiener Symphoniker and Andrés Orozco-Estrada, and the Philharmonia Zurich and Fabio Luisi.

Rana will play recitals at the Berlin Philharmonie, Carnegie Hall, Lisbon’s Gulbenkian Foundation, Barcelona’s Palau de la Musica, Lugano’s LAC, Paris’ Théâtre des Champs-Elysées, Madrid’s Scherzo Great Performers series, the Gilmore Keyboard Festival, Tokyo’s Kioi Hall, and London’s Wigmore Hall, among other venues. 

An exclusive Warner Classics recording artist, Rana received international acclaim for her recordings of Bach’s Goldberg Variations and Prokofiev’s Piano Concerto No. 2 and Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No. 1 with Antonio Pappano and Orchestra dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia. 

Rana came to public attention in 2011, after winning First Prize at the Montreal International Competition, and in 2013, when she won the Silver Medal and the Audience Award at the 14th Van Cliburn International Piano Competition.

Born in Italy into a family of musicians, Rana currently lives in Rome, where she continues her studies with her lifetime mentor, Benedetto Lupo. She studied previously with Arie Vardi at the Hochschule für Musik in Hanover.

TAKÁCS QUARTET
The Takács Quartet, now in its forty-sixth season, is renowned for the vitality of its interpretations. The Guardian (London) recently commented: “What endures about the Takács Quartet, year after year, is how equally the four players carry the music.” BBC Music Magazine described the group’s recent Dohnányi recording with pianist Marc André Hamelin as “totally compelling, encapsulating a vast array of colors and textures.” Based in Boulder at the University of Colorado, violinists Edward Dusinberre and Harumi Rhodes, violist Richard O’Neill, and cellist András Fejér perform 80 concerts a year worldwide.

In June 2020, the Takács Quartet was featured on the BBC television series Being Beethoven. The ensemble also released a CD for Hyperion of piano quintets by Amy Beach and Elgar, a fitting way to celebrate Geri Walther’s 15 years as the Takács’ violist before her retirement from the group. Also that month, the members of the quartet welcomed Richard O’Neill as their new violist. In November 2020 the group recorded a new disc for Hyperion, featuring quartets by Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel and Felix Mendelssohn. In May, the quartet will record Haydn’s last quartets. The members continue in their role as Associate Artists at London’s Wigmore Hall and in August 2021 will perform several concerts in South Korea.

In 2014, the Takács became the first string quartet to receive the Wigmore Hall Medal; the honor, inaugurated in 2007, recognizes major international artists who have a strong association with the hall. Recipients so far include András Schiff, Thomas Quasthoff, Menahem Pressler, and Dame Felicity Lott. In 2012, Gramophone announced that the Takács was the only string quartet to be inducted into its first Hall of Fame, along with such legendary artists as Jascha Heifetz, Leonard Bernstein, and Dame Janet Baker. The ensemble also won the 2011 Award for Chamber Music and Song presented by the Royal Philharmonic Society in London. 

Renowned for its innovative programming, the Takács Quartet performed Philip Roth’s Everyman program with Meryl Streep at Princeton in 2014, and again with her at the Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto in 2015. The program was conceived in close collaboration with Roth. The ensemble first performed Everyman at Carnegie Hall in 2007 with Philip Seymour Hoffman. The Takács Quartet has toured 14 cities with the poet Robert Pinsky, collaborated regularly with the Hungarian Folk group Muzsikas, and in 2010 partnered with the Colorado Shakespeare Festival and David Lawrence Morse on a drama project that explored the composition of Beethoven’s last quartets. Aspects of the quartet’s interests and history are explored in Edward Dusinberre’s Beethoven for a Later Age: The Journey of a String Quartet, which takes the reader inside the life of a professional string quartet, melding music history and memoir as it explores the circumstances surrounding the composition of Beethoven’s quartets.

The Takács records for Hyperion Records, and its releases for that label include string quartets by Haydn, Schubert, Janáček, Smetana, Debussy, and Britten, as well as piano quintets by César Franck and Shostakovich (with Marc-André Hamelin), and viola quintets by Brahms (with Lawrence Power). For its CDs on the Decca/London label, the quartet has won three Gramophone Awards, a Grammy Award, three Japanese Record Academy Awards, Disc of the Year at the inaugural BBC Music Magazine Awards, and Ensemble Album of the Year at the Classical Brits. Full details of all recordings can be found in the recordings section of the quartet’s website.

The members of the Takács Quartet are Christoffersen Faculty Fellows at the University of Colorado Boulder. The quartet has helped to develop a string program with a special emphasis on chamber music, where students work in a nurturing environment designed to help them develop their artistry. Through the university, two of the quartet’s members benefit from the generous loan of instruments from the Drake Instrument Foundation. The members of the Takács Quartet are on the faculty at the Music Academy of the West in Santa Barbara, where they run an intensive summer string quartet seminar, and Visiting Fellows at the Guildhall School of Music.

The Takács Quartet was formed in 1975 at the Franz Liszt Academy in Budapest by Gabor Takács-Nagy, Károly Schranz, Gabor Ormai, and András Fejér, while all four were students. It first received international attention in 1977, winning First Prize and the Critics’ Prize at the International String Quartet Competition in Evian, France. The quartet also won the Gold Medal at the 1978 Portsmouth and Bordeaux Competitions and First Prizes at the Budapest International String Quartet Competition in 1978 and the Bratislava Competition in 1981. The ensemble made its North American debut tour in 1982. The members of the Takács Quartet were awarded the Order of Merit of the Knight’s Cross of the Republic of Hungary in 2001, and the Order of Merit Commander’s Cross by the President of the Republic of Hungary in 2011.

CRAIG TERRY, piano
Grammy Award-winning pianist and arranger Craig Terry (piano) enjoys an international career regularly performing with the world’s leading singers and instrumentalists. Currently Terry serves as music director of the Patrick G. and Shirley W. Ryan Opera Center at Lyric Opera of Chicago after having served for 11 seasons at the Lyric as assistant conductor. Previously, he was assistant conductor at the Metropolitan Opera after joining its Lindemann Young Artist Development Program. Terry has performed with such esteemed vocalists as Jamie Barton, Stephanie Blythe, Christine Brewer, Janai Brugger, Lawrence Brownlee, Nicole Cabell, Sasha Cooke, Eric Cutler, Danielle de Niese, Joyce DiDonato, Giuseppe Filianoti, Renée Fleming, Christine Goerke, Susan Graham, Denyce Graves, Bryan Hymel, Brian Jagde, Joseph Kaiser, Quinn Kelsey, Kate Lindsey, Amanda Majeski, Ana María Martínez, Eric Owens, Ailyn Perez, Nicholas Phan, Susanna Phillips, Luca Pisaroni, Patricia Racette, Hugh Russell, Bo Skovhus, Garrett Sorenson, Heidi Stober, Christian Van Horn, Amber Wagner, Laura Wilde, and Catherine Wyn-Rogers. He has collaborated as a chamber musician with members of the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, the Lyric Opera of Chicago Orchestra, the Gewandhaus Orchester, and the Pro Arte String Quartet. 

Terry is the artistic director of “Beyond the Aria,” a highly acclaimed recital series now in it’s seventh sold-out season, presented by the Harris Theater in collaboration with the Ryan Opera Center and Lyric Opera of Chicago. His discography includes four recently released recordings, including Diva on Detour with Patricia Racette, As Long As There Are Songs with Stephanie Blythe, and Chanson d’Avril with Nicole Cabell; his latest recording project, Songplay with Joyce DiDonato, was released by Warner Classics and won the 2020 Grammy Award for Best Classical Solo Vocal Album. 

Terry hails from Tullahoma, Tennessee, received his bachelor’s degree in music education from Tennessee Technological University, continued his studies at Florida State University, and earned his master’s degree in collaborative piano from the Manhattan School of Music, where he was a student of pianist Warren Jones.

MITSUKO UCHIDA, piano
One of the most revered artists of our time, Mitsuko Uchida is known as a peerless interpreter of the works of Mozart, Schubert, Schumann, and Beethoven, as well for being a devotee of the piano music of Alban Berg, Arnold Schoenberg, Anton Webern, and György Kurtág. 

She has enjoyed close relationships over many years with the world’s most renowned orchestras, including the Berlin Philharmonic, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Bavarian Radio Symphony, London Symphony Orchestra, London Philharmonic Orchestra, and—in the United States—the Chicago Symphony and Cleveland Orchestra, with whom she recently celebrated her 100th performance at Severance Hall. Conductors with whom she has worked closely have included Bernard Haitink, Sir Simon Rattle, Riccardo Muti, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Vladimir Jurowski, Andris Nelsons, Gustavo Dudamel, and Mariss Jansons.

Since 2016, Mitsuko Uchida has been an Artistic Partner of the Mahler Chamber Orchestra, with whom she is currently engaged on a five-year touring project in Europe and North America. She also appears regularly in recital in Vienna, Berlin, Paris, Amsterdam, London, New York, and Tokyo, and is a frequent guest at the Salzburg Mozartwoche and Salzburg Festival.

Mitsuko Uchida records exclusively for Decca, and her multi-award-winning discography includes the complete piano sonatas of Mozart and Schubert. She is the recipient of two Grammy Awards—for Mozart Concertos with the Cleveland Orchestra and for an album of lieder with Dorothea Röschmann—and her recording of the Schoenberg Piano Concerto with Pierre Boulez and the Cleveland Orchestra received the Gramophone Award for Best Concerto.

A founding member of the 0-Buitoni Trust and Director of the Marlboro Music Festival, Mitsuko Uchida is a recipient of the Golden Mozart Medal from the Salzburg Mozarteum, and the Praemium Imperiale from the Japan Art Association. She has also been awarded the Gold Medal of the Royal Philharmonic Society, and holds honorary degrees from the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge. In 2009, she was made a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire.

ERIC WHEELER, bass
Eric Wheeler is a Washington, DC native and has been playing string bass for 20 years. Encouraged by his mother, he began studying classical music at the age of nine at the DC Youth Orchestra Program. At age 13, Wheeler was accepted into the Duke Ellington School for the Arts, where he studied jazz music with Carolyn Kellock, a master educator whose students have included renowned bassists such as Ameen Saleem, Ben Williams, and Corcoran Holt. During his four years at Ellington, Wheeler also enjoyed the opportunity to travel internationally with his school band, trips that greatly influenced his decision to pursue a career in music.

In the fall of 1998, Wheeler was accepted into the prestigious National Symphony Youth Fellowship Program, where he studied with the NSO’s Jeff Weisner. In the fall of 2000, Wheeler was accepted into the jazz studies program at Howard University. During those years, he worked professionally in the DC area as a jazz and classical musician, playing at venues such as Bohemian Caverns, Blues Alley, and the Kennedy Center. Wheeler received both his bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Howard University.

In 2013, Wheeler moved to New York City in hopes of furthering his musical career. Since then, he has toured the world, recording and performing with notable jazz and pop artists including Seal, Jennifer Holiday, Dee Dee Bridgewater, Delfeayo Marsalis, and Pharaoh Sanders. Wheeler can be heard on Theo Croker’s Grammy-nominated Star People Nation. Today, he resides on Long Island, New York, and works as a full time musician.

yMUSIC
yMusic, “six contemporary classical polymaths who playfully overstep the boundaries of musical genres” (The New Yorker), performs in concert halls, arenas, and clubs around the world. Founded in New York City in 2008, the ensemble believes in presenting excellent, emotionally communicative music, regardless of style or idiom. As “one of the groups that has really helped to shape the future of classical music,” (Fred Child, NPR’s Performance Today), its virtuosic execution and unique configuration (string trio, flute, clarinet, and trumpet) has attracted the attention of high profile collaborators—from Paul Simon to Bill T. Jones to Ben Folds—and inspired original works by some of today’s foremost composers, including Nico Muhly, Missy Mazzoli and Andrew Norman.

Last season, yMusic debuted a major new work, Difference, by Grawemayer- and Grammy-winning composer Andrew Norman, set out on a US tour with singer-songwriter Bruce Hornsby, and released Ecstatic Science, its fourth full-length album. The recording, one of Pitchfork’s “6 New Albums You Should Listen to Now,” features music by Missy Mazzoli, Gabriella Smith, Paul Wiancko, and Caroline Shaw. Pitchfork praised the group for its “excellent taste in collaborating with composers” and for creating an album of “fluidly engaging” work. Due to global pandemic restrictions, ensemble members took the 2020–21 season to work on their own collaborative compositions, which they recorded remotely. The ensemble plans to release an album of original work in late 2021. 

Other recent highlights include a sold-out show at Carnegie’s Zankel Hall, a collaborative album release with The Staves on Nonesuch Records, a recording of “God Only Knows” with John Legend for the Grammy Awards, and summer appearances at the Sarasota Music Festival and Caramoor Center for Music and the Arts. yMusic is also featured on “You’ve Got Time” by Regina Spektor, the main title theme for the final season of Netflix’s Orange Is the New Black.

yMusic’s other recordings include 2017’s First, 2014’s Balance Problems, and 2011’s Beautiful Mechanical, selected by Time Out New York as the “#1 Classical Record of the Year.” In addition to performing its own repertoire, yMusic serves as a ready-made collaborative unit for bands and songwriters, and has lent its distinctive sound to dozens of albums, including In the Blue Light by Paul Simon, with whom the group appeared on Saturday Night Live. yMusic also toured arenas, amphitheaters, and outdoor festivals across the globe as featured guests on Paul Simon’s Homeward Bound: The Farewell Tour.