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Highlights of Mahan Esfahani’s busy winter and spring included the world premiere of Francisco Coll’s harpsichord Concerto with the Britten Sinfonia in February. His US recital tour in March included dates at the McCarter Theater in Princeton, the 92nd Street Y (read the full NYTimes review here), and Duke Performances. In April/May he joined the Auckland Philharmonic for Poulenc’s Concert Champêtre, had a recital tour in China, gave the world premiere of Elena Kats-Chernin’s harpsichord concerto, ‘Ancient Letters’ (2017) with the Melbourne Symphony, gave a recital at the Sydney Opera House, performed Bach with the Royal Liverpool Orchestra, and repeated Poulenc with the Hamburg Symphoniker and Ion Marin.

Later this year, Esfahani has a BBC3 Lunchtime recital at Wigmore Hall on June 5, followed by festival appearances in Stockholm, Gregynog and Reykjavik. He returns to the Aspen Music Festival on July 19 to perform Bach Harpsichord Concerti sharing a program with Sarah Chang, and returns to Australia for the Australian Festival of Chamber Music.

Marc-André Hamelin‘s winter/spring highlights included Ravel and Shostakovich concerti with the Montreal Symphony and Kent Nagano, Medtner’s Piano Concerto No. 2 with Kirill Petrenko and the Bayerische Staatsorcheter as well as with the Atlanta Symphony and Michael Stern, and Mozart K. 453 with the NDR Sinfonieorchester led by Andrew Manze.  Upcoming he performs Haydn with the Minnesota Orchestra and Osmo Vanska to close their season and joins Ludovic Morlot at the Aspen Music Festival for Brahms 1 and plays Beethoven 5 at the Lanaudiere Festival.

In February he gave the world premiere of his own piano quintet with the Pacifica Quartet, commissioned for the Segerstrom Center for the Arts.

The month of April found him touring and recording with pianist Leif Ove Andsnes in a program of Mozart, Debussy and Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring for two pianos.  They toured throughout Europe including London’s Wigmore Hall, and recorded the program in Berlin.  In the U.S. they were presented in Seattle, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Chicago, Washington, DC, and in New York at Carnegie Hall.

Solo recital highlights included the Celebrity Series of Boston, the Cleveland Piano Competition, Music Toronto and Queens University and next month the Vienna Konzerthaus and Schubertiade.

Hyperion Records released Hamelin’s new recording of Medtner Piano Concerto No. 2 and Rachmaninov Piano Concerto No. 3 with the London Philharmonic led by Vladimir Jurowski.

This week Hamelin begins as a juror for the 2017 Van Cliburn Piano Competition. He was commissioned to compose a new work for the ompetition, to be performed by all 30 competitors, marking he first time that the composer of the commissioned work will also serve on the jury.  Hear Hamelin’s piece performed by competitors this Thursday through next Monday on the Cliburn Competition performances live webcast here.

The technically dazzling and intellectually probing artistry of pianist Ran Dank is on full display as he heads into a November marathon of recitals, chamber music, and performances of the Kevin Puts Piano Concerto.

First, Dank steps in for two significant recitals, performing a program of works by Chopin, Liszt, Rachmaninoff and William Bolcom in Fresno for the Philip Lorenz Memorial Keyboard Concerts on Nov. 13 and on Nov. 15 for The Gilmore.

Next, Dank joins Duo Parnas for a program of piano trios on the Kennedy Center’s Fortas Series, Nov. 17.

And finally, Dank performs the Kevin Puts Piano Concerto, “Night” with Scott Speck and the Mobile Symphony, Nov. 21 and 22.

Looking forward, Ran Dank performs the Brahms Piano Concerto No. 2 with the Charleston Symphony, the Beethoven Piano Concerto No. 4 with the Ashland Symphony, concerts for the ProMusica San Miguel de Allende, and dates with his duo partner and wife, pianist Soyeon Kate Lee.

Watch Ran Dank perform Liszt’s “Reminiscences de Norma” below.

In addition to his work as a soloist, Ran Dank and his wife Soyeon Kate Lee run a New York chamber music series, Music by the Glass, that blends music, wine and conversation.

“He didn’t merely perform a rhapsodic program of Beethoven, Chopin and Liszt; he attacked it, displaying confidence, a deep understanding of the repertoire and a relaxed demeanor that helped focus attention on the music” – The Post and Courier, Oct. 1, 2014

Paul Jacobs‘ season has been shaped by the Christopher Rouse Organ Concerto, which he premiered with the Philadelphia Orchestra led by Yannick Nézet-Séguin on November 17 last year, and has continued performing this spring with dates at the Walt Disney Concert Hall with the LA Philharmonic led by David Robertson at the end of April, and at the Kennedy Center with the National Symphony led by Gustavo Gimeno last week.  While in LA, the New York Times streamed an interview and a performance with Paul.  If you missed it, please enjoy the recorded stream here.  January was spent performing Michael Daugherty’s Once Upon A Castle Symphonie Concertante for organ and orchestra, and other repertoire with the Toledo Symphony.

Coming up, Jacobs returns to the Oregon Bach Festival as director and teacher of the Organ Institute there in July and gives a recital on July 6.  Another highlight of summer is his performance of Lou Harrison’s Organ Concerto for the centennial celebration of Lou Harrison at the Toledo Museum of Art on August 12.

Soyeon Kate Lee had a year full of orchestral performances, playing Bartok’s Piano Concerto No. 3 at the Erie Philharmonic led by Daniel Meyer in January and later with the Eugene Symphony in March.  She also performed Chopin’s Piano Concerto No. 2 with the Asheville Symphony with Daniel Meyer as well.  In August, Lee joins the Gijon festival in Spain and gives a recital on August 23.

Ran Dank has given both orchestral and recital concerts so far this year, starting with the Beethoven Piano Concerto No. 2 with the Toledo Symphony in March, recitals at Bargemusic in April, and a stunning performance of Rzewski’s The People United Will Never Be Defeated! for the University of Chicago Presents.

“…Ran Dank made a spectacular Chicago debut at Mandel Hall. The Israeli pianist delivered a powerhouse performance of Frederic Rzewski’s The People United Will Never Be Defeated! that was as dazzling in its pyrotechnics as it was expressive and insightful…Ran Dank’s performance was so remarkable and complete in every way, it’s hard to believe anyone else could have done better.”

Lawrence A. Johnson, CHICAGO CLASSICAL REVIEW, April 8, 2017

This summer, Dank performs chamber programs at Great Lakes Chamber Music Festival in June, Saint-Saëns’ Piano Concerto No. 2 with Cincinnati Chamber Orchestra on August 12, and a chamber concert at Maverick Concerts with Amernet Quartet on August 20.

Buenos Aires’ Teatro Colón invited pianist and conductor Marino Formenti for a month-long residency which took place this past March. Unable to decide which of the suggested projects to present, the artistic direction invited Marino to mount all three of his current ground-breaking projects in various locations of the newly refurbished and designed Theater. “Nowhere” (an intimate performance in which he plays piano in a public space, exploring a broad range of repertoire as the audience explores the space from any vantage they wish) took place in the Centro de Experimentación, the Sala del CETC from 10am to 10pm for six straight days; “Time to Gather” (an on stage concurrence between Marino Formenti and spectator, who decide what he will play next) was held in the main hall of the Teatro Colón and “One to One” (a musical encounter of two to 10 hours for one spectator at a time) happened in various casual locations.

A taste of “Nowhere” at Teatro Colón

Immediately after the March residency, Marino traveled from Buenos Aires for another week of “Nowhere” in a specially designed installation at the Gulbenkian Foundation during the arts biennial BoCA in Lisbon, Portugal. Enjoy the following videos of the building of the space and discussion with the artist, Ricardo Jacinto.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZC_ZzVpqBtU

Enjoy the recorded stream of Formenti discussing “Nowhere” in Lisbon, here.

May 5-7, with his home orchestra, the Kansas City Symphony, Michael Stern leads the Britten War Requiem with fellow Colbert Artists soprano Christine Brewer and tenor Anthony Dean Griffey in commemoration of the United State’s entry into World War I. (Kansas City is home to the National World War I Museum and Memorial.) May and June highlights include Mozart Piano Concertos with Emanuel Ax in Kansas City, and the Chicago Civic Orchestra with Yo-Yo Ma.

In March, Stern led the highly anticipated world premiere performance of Einojunahi Rautavaara’s “Fantasia” with fellow Colbert Artist, Anne Akiko Meyers and the Kansas City Symphony.

Earlier in March, Stern led a subscription week with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra and Marc-André Hamelin (another Colbert Artist!), in nights of Shostakovich, Tchaikovsky, and Medtner’s Piano Concerto No. 2.

“Under Stern’s impassioned baton, the orchestra produced teeth-rattling forte passages in the fifth movement, which turned abruptly into complete silence. The juxtaposition, which was exaggerated by Stern, emphasized Tchaikovsky’s wittiness.” – The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, March 10, 2017

Stern led a round of several different programs with the National Symphony. and Joshua Bell in Édouard Lalo’s Symphonie Espagnole, and the premiere of Anne Dudley’s The Man With The Violin.

In January, Stern spent two weeks in Guangzhou as Music Director of the Youth Music Culture Guangdong, alongside Artistic Director Yo-Yo Ma, and then returned to the US to lead the Kansas City Symphony in a program of Schubert’s Unfinished Symphony and Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde.

Jayce Ogren wrapped 2016 leading his home organization, Philadelphia’s Orchestra 2001, and the Princeton Symphony Orchestra in Prokofiev and Tchaikovsky in November. He kicked off the New Year at Casa de Musica in Portugal, leading the film score for Charlie Chaplin’s classic, City Lights, before returning to Orchestra 2001 to lead music by David Lang, Bryce Dessner, Peter Maxwell Davies. He then debuted with Filarmonica de Jalisco (Mexico) in Corigliano and Dvořák’s Symphony No. 9, “From the New World.” In April, Ogren appeared at Brooklyn’s National Sawdust and led Orchestra 2001 in performances of John Luther Adams’s immersive outdoor work, Inuksuit .

“…Ogren’s reading was superb. From a restful tempo and impeccable phrasing, the young American director avoided the easy route to be taken away by the charm of the melodies, especially in the most brilliant passages, and got a deep interpretation, as corresponds to the music ‘absolutely Bohemia’ that Dvorak decided to portray. … This was one of the best Dvorak 9’s in the history of the OFJ.” – Jaime García Alías, Informador, March 18, 2017

Ogren led Orchestra 2001 in a program of “Pocket Symphonies” on April 23. Looking forward, he records Bernstein’s West Side Story (a work he has led in notable international dates) in Nashville; returns to the Indianapolis Symphony, leading Mason Bates’s Liquid Interface, a piece for electronica and orchestra, on May 20 as part of the orchestra’s INFusion Festival; leading the Wordless Music Orchestra in the film score of Jackie in LA on June 3; returning to the Philharmonie de Paris to lead Rufus Wainwright’s Prima Donna on June 10; and leading the National Arts Centre Orchestra in Ottawa in an all-Rufus Wainwright program (with Wainwright joining the performance) for Canada Scene, a festival celebrating Canadian artists.

This May, Maestro Ken-David Masur leads the Civic Orchestra of Chicago (his debut with that organization) in works by Beethoven, Brahms, and Mendelssohn at Symphony Center on May 8. In June he oversees the Chelsea Music Festival, of which he is music director, alongside his wife, Melinda Lee Masur. July and August finds him at Tanglewood, leading the Boston Symphony Orchestra on July 23 and the Boston University of Tanglewood Institute (BUTI) Orchestra on August 12. On September 5 he returns to the Hollywood Bowl, leading the Los Angeles Philharmonic and pianist Inon Barnatan in an LA Phil commission, a new piano concerto from Alan Fletcher. Also on the program are Boulanger’s D’un matin de printemps and Dvořák’s Symphony No. 9, “From the New World”.

After leading orchestras in Germany, Korea, and Russia, and in North America with the New England Conservatory of Music and the Boston University Symphony, 2017 began with Masur leading a subscription week with the Boston Symphony Orchestra featuring concertos by Vivaldi, Krommer, Jolivet, Rota, and Schumann, followed by a night leading the Orchestre National de France with Anne-Sophie Mutter in an homage to his late father. Ken just led the Omaha Symphony this month in a program of Strauss, Mozart, and Mendelssohn.

“Masur was charming as a conductor. His natural enthusiasm came across as expressive and familiar. His skill and connection with the orchestra were evident.” – Omaha World Herald, April 8, 2017