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Conductor and Music Director of the Kansas City Symphony, Michael Stern just led a subscription week with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra and fellow Colbert Artist, Marc-André Hamelin 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.” – Jon Ross, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, March 10, 2017

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

Stern returned from two weeks in Guangzhou in January as Music Director for the Youth Music Culture Guangdong, alongside Artistic Director Yo-Yo Ma, to finish his tenth week with the Kansas City Symphony in a program of Schubert’s Unfinished Symphony and Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde.

Next up, Stern will premiere Rautavaara’s Violin Concerto with Anne Akiko Meyers and the Kansas City Symphony on March 24, 25, & 26.

Amarcord is pleased to announce their 2017 run of A Cappella, a music festival and competition celebrating a cappella music from April 21 to 30 in Leipzig, Germany!  To learn more, please visit the festival’s website.

In 2016, Harpist Yolanda Kondonassis released her album Ginastera: One Hundred, a centennial celebration of the composer, Alberto Ginastera, featuring his harp concerto written in 1956.  Yolanda spoke with Mike Goldberg from NPR about the album, Ginastera’s contributions to harp repertoire, and how she approaches new projects. Listen to the interview here.

“He created the work that pushed the harp out of its box and gave us the kind of indelible, substantive composition that makes or breaks a solo career like mine.”
– Yolanda Kondonassis (from the liner notes of Ginastera: One Hundred)

“The album is a masterpiece. Kondonassis’s playing in the concerto is rhythmically exact, yet passionate. It is mesmerizing…”
– Jeremy Reynolds, Ginastera: One Hundred, CLEVELAND CLASSICAL, October 14, 2016

“Kondonassis has done a service to Ginastera’s legacy with One Hundred and we are the beneficiaries of her advocacy. I would say if you own one record of Ginastera it should be this one.”
– JEREMY SHATAN, November 1, 2016

Yolanda’s next project is a harp concerto commission with Grammy and Pulitzer Prize-winning composer, Jennifer Higdon. Yolanda premieres the concerto in the spring of 2018 and performances with commissioning partners are slated for the 18/19 season.

Yolanda began 2017 with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, performing Mozart’s Concerto for Flute and Harp, as part of the orchestra’s Mozart Festival.  Watch the performance on the Detroit Symphony Orchestra’s website here.

Next month, Yolanda and her recording partner, guitarist Jason Vieaux, visit the Schubert Club of Saint Paul for an educational program about preserving the environment on March 3, and a program from their album, Together, on March 5, for the Music in the Park series.

JACK Quartet launched into the new year with a bi-coastal tour: University of Washington, Santa Cruz with the Lightbulb Ensemble, and Wallis Center in LA on the west coast, and on the East Coast: Boston University, Treetops Chamber Music Society in Connecticut, and Carnegie Hall’s Neighborhood Concert series in Brooklyn.

“…the JACKs captured the fleeting gossamer essence of music seemingly impossible to capture.”

 Mark Swed, LOS ANGELES TIMES, January 16, 2017 

After stops for performances at University of Maryland and Eastman School of Music, the Quartet returns to Wigmore Hall, where they will perform a day-long marathon of the complete quartets (plus one quintet) of Iannis Xenakis. Next is Italy for concerts in Florence and Genoa, featuring music by Ruth Crawford Seeger, Julia Wolfe, Derek Bermel, Morton Feldman, and Cenk Ergün.

“With fine backing from the winds, Golka gave a performance that was both subtle and true to the spirit of Gershwin.” – Olin Chism, Star-Telegram, December 31, 2016

On New Year’s Eve, Adam Golka returned to his home state of Texas to perform Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue with the Fort Worth Symphony. A favorite and frequent guest of the orchestra, Adam was chosen by the symphony to celebrate the breaking of their strike in a festive performance. To further welcome in the new year on a playful note, Adam and Music Director, Miguel Harth-Bedoya, performed a Victor Borge-esque comedic music routine at the closing of the concert.

“… on New Year’s Eve, I was extremely humbled to be asked as a guest artist for Rhapsody in Blue with the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra, conducted by their Music Director, Miguel Harth-Bedoya. This was their first concert after a four-month silence; the orchestra had declared a strike when their salaries received a devastating cut. It is wonderful news for the Fort Worth community and the musicians that they have re-started their season, and I am crossing my fingers that the electric atmosphere of the New Year’s concert is a promise of great things to come. This was my ninth concerto performance with Miguel and the FWSO; this group of musicians has been an instrumental part of my growth.” – Adam Golka

Last August, following a recital at the Duszniki International Chopin Festival, Adam reconnected with Alfred Brendel, in a return to the Krzyzowa Festival in Poland. This collaboration was documented in a short film.

This year, Adam continues solo and chamber performances in New York at Merkin Hall and at Barge Music in Brooklyn, and performed last week at (Le) Poisson Rouge and 11th Street Arts. A frequent guest at the Cliburn, Adam returns to give a repeat performance of the program, An American Hero, in the upcoming 55th anniversary of the international piano competition this June.

Adam launched his newsletter at the end of the year, in which he delves into the process of recording his new album of Schubert and Schumann with his friends, pianists Michael Brown and Roman Rabinovich, at the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Read the entire story of his recording adventure with other updates in his newsletter and watch it in action in this video!

Conductor Daniel Meyer appears in Germany three times during January and February. He returns to the Württembergische Philharmonie in Reutlingen for concerts of Gerswhin, Mintzer and Rachmaninoff; debuts with the Staatsorchester Darmstadt in concerts of JC Bach, Ligeti, Janacek and Rachmaninoff’s Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini with pianist Joseph Moog; and debuts with the Nuremberg Symphony in a program of Strauss, Beethoven and the Higdon Percussion Concerto.

“My family’s roots are in Bavaria and Alsace-Lorraine. On a Rotary International Scholarship, I was fortunate enough to study conducting at the Hochschule fur Musik in Vienna and, during the same period, sang Mozart, Schubert and Haydn on a regular basis as a member of the St. Augustine Choir; an up close and personal immersion experience, if you will, in a language and culture that had always fascinated me. Those student days set me up on a good path to feel at home in the German speaking world — and I love it that I’m getting to conduct there more frequently these days.” – Daniel Meyer

Highlights in North American this winter/spring include guest conducting engagements with the Detroit Symphony and the West Virginia Symphony. As music director of the Erie Philharmonic, he leads their residency with Emanuel Ax in early March. Also Music Director of the Asheville Symphony, Meyer leads the 2nd annual Amadeus Festival there March 10-19, 2017 featuring a residency by Midori.

Paul Jacobs gives the world premiere of the Organ Concerto by Christopher Rouse on November 17 with the Philadelphia Orchestra led by their Music Director, Yannick Nezet-Seguin, in an organ extravaganza program that also includes Barber’s Toccata Festiva for Organ and Orchestra, and Saint Saën’s Symphony No. 3.  Paul will repeat the Rouse Concerto later this season with co-commissioners Los Angeles Philharmonic and the National Symphony Orchestra.
“It was touching to see Mr. Jacobs use all his weight and force to squeeze every ounce of sound out of the grand final chord.” 
– James R. Oestreich, THE NEW YORK TIMES, September 19, 2016

He spends Thanksgiving weekend this month playing Barber’s Toccata Festivawith the Montreal Symphony.  Other fall highlights included a return to the Cleveland Orchestra to open their season with Copland’s Symphony for Organ and Orchestra led by Music Director, Franz Welser-Most, and a return to the Kansas City Symphony with Music Director, Michael Stern, for Alexander Guilmant’s Symphony No. 1.

“Whether interacting subtly with individual musicians or letting the organ rip in regal displays with the full ensemble, Jacobs displayed perfect senses of balance and registration in addition to technical fluidity and musical insight. Through often strange, winding, and unpredictable territory, the organist proved an assured and compelling guide, taking care to point out all the music’s curious wonders.”
– Zachary Lewis, CLEVELAND PLAIN DEALER, September 30, 2016

Wearing a different hat, Paul Jacobs added a journalistic twist to his career, advocating for the re-institution of the pipe organ in the New York Philharmonic concert hall with his piece published in the Wall Street Journal:
“Many people think of the organ as a solemn, lonely instrument, and organists as primarily a support for congregational singing. The organ’s sacred setting over the past millennium should not be underestimated or diminished, and church organists continue to play an indispensable role. But the artistic possibilities for organ music have blossomed significantly beyond the sanctuary.” – Paul Jacobs (to view the full article on the Wall Street Journal site, click here)