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Datebook
| May 1: Arrasate, Spain
Alessio Bax
Recital
May 2: Mount Kisco, NY
Inon Barnatan
Mount Kisco Concert Assoc.
Works by Adès, Schubert, Chopin, Ravel
May 4: Omaha, NE
Inon Barnatan
Tuesday Musical Concert Series
Recital with Alisa Weilerstein
May 5: Denver, CO
Inon Barnatan
Friends of Chamber Music
Recital with Alisa Weilerstein
May 5-9: Toronto, ON
Stefan Jackiw
Toronto Symphony
Mozart: Violin Cto. 3
May 9-13: Netherlands tour:
Rotterdam, Amsterdam, Groningen, Utrecht
Inon Barnatan
Brahms with Liza Ferschtman and Cora Burggraaf
May 13: Lubeck, Germany
Alessio Bax
Kammermusikfest
May 15: Paris, France
Pablo Heras-Casado
Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France
May 16: London, UK
Inon Barnatan
Wigmore Hall recital
Schubert, Adès, Ravel
May 17: New York, NY
Alessio Bax
Jupiter Chamber Players
Brahms, Schubert, and Thuille
May 20: Greenwood, SC
Susanna Phillips
Greenwood Music Festival recital
May 20-23: NJ tour
Alessio Bax
New Jersey Symphony
Works by Schumann, Mussorgsky, Rachmaninoff, Mozart
May 22: Oklahoma City, OK
Stefan Jackiw
Oklahoma City Philharmonic
Sibelius: Violin Cto.
May 22, 30; June 4: Fort Worth, TX
Susanna Phillips
Fort Worth Opera Festival
Don Giovanni (Donna Anna)
May 22, 24, 27: Israel tour
Haifa, Jerusalem, Tel Aviv Israel
Inon Barnatan
With the Carmel String Quartet
May 29: Rome, Italy
Brooklyn Rider
American Academy in Rome
Lisa Bielawa, composer
May 29; June 1-10: Vancouver, BC
James Valenti
Vancover Opera
Madama Butterfly (Lt. Pinkerton)
June 6-13: Charleston, SC
Inon Barnatan
Spoleto Festival USA
Chamber music
June 8,10: Charleston, SC
Brooklyn Rider
Spoleto Festival USA
Music in Time
June 9-11: Germany
Alessio Bax
Schloss Elmau
Bach, Stravinsky, Piazzolla+
June 10: Seattle, WA
Joshua Roman
TownMusic Series
Recital with Pianist Helen Huang
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About 21C Artists To Watch
| 21C Artists To Watch is an image- and awareness-building
program for artists on the brink of major careers in classical music.
Each month, 21C Media Group publishes an e-newsletter profiling several
members of this select group and highlighting their recent and upcoming
activities. Read past newsletters here.
For inquires regarding any of the 21C Artists To Watch, please contact:
Wende Persons
Program Director
21C Media Group
ph (917) 691-1282
click here to e-mail
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Susanna Phillips receives Beverly Sills Artist Award
|  "Toasting now, posting later," wrote Susanna Phillips on Twitter after the April 21st presentation ceremony of the fifth annual Beverly Sills Artist Award from the Metropolitan Opera. The $50,000 award is the largest of its kind in the U.S., and is designated for extraordinarily gifted singers between the ages of 25 and 40 who have already appeared in solo roles at the Met. The 28-year-old Alabama native has sung Musetta in La bohème and Pamina in The Magic Flute, roles she will reprise next season.
Phillips is the first soprano to win the award established in honor of Beverly Sills in 2006 by an endowment gift from Met board member Agnes Varis and her husband Karl Leichtman. Previous recipients are baritone Nathan Gunn in 2006, mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato in 2007, tenor Matthew Polenzani in 2008, and bass John Relyea in 2009.
"Beverly Sills was the first soprano voice I remember hearing," Phillips told Met Radio host Margaret Juntwait, as she described the huge influence of Sills's recordings on her musical life. While this intermission feature aired during Saturday's broadcast of Tosca, Phillips was many miles away, crossing the finish line in the Nashville Country Music Half Marathon.
For more information, visit SusannaPhillips.com or the IMG Artists web site.
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James Valenti receives Richard Tucker Award
|  As if the thrill of making his Metropolitan Opera debut as Alfredo in La traviata last month wasn't enough, on April 15th tenor James Valenti was named the 2010 recipient of the Richard Tucker Award. Often described as the "Heisman Trophy of Opera," the $30,000 prize from the Richard Tucker Music Foundation recognizes an American singer poised on the edge of a major international opera career. Previous recipients have included Renée Fleming, Deborah Voigt, David Daniels, Stephanie Blythe, Joyce DiDonato, Matthew Polenzani, and Lawrence Brownlee. Read the Musical America story.
For Valenti, "This whole experience has been surreal. I worked very hard to get to the Met. I used to listen to Angela Gheorghiu and Thomas Hampson on CDs when I was in college, and in La traviata they've been my colleagues. I relished every minute of my Met debut, and now to be recognized by the Richard Tucker Foundation with this prestigious award is the cherry on top of a very big sundae."
The 32-year-old tenor is off to Vancouver Opera to sing Lt. Pinkerton in Madama Butterfly. He will be reunited on stage with Gheorghiu in July when he makes his Covent Garden debut as Alfredo.
For more information, visit jamesvalenti.com or the IMG Artists web site. |
Joyce Yang awarded Avery Fisher Career Grant
|  In a near sweep by a trio of high-profile pianists, on April 28th Van Cliburn Silver Medalist Joyce Yang was awarded an Avery Fisher Career Grant from Lincoln Center's Avery Fisher Artist Program, along with DG recording artist Yuja Wang and 2010 Gilmore Artist Kirill Gerstein, plus violist David Aaron Carpenter. Established in 1974 by the late Avery Fisher as part of a major gift to Lincoln Center, the $25,000 Career Grants give professional assistance and recognition to talented instrumentalists with great potential for solo careers. Former recipients include Jonathan Biss, Jeremy Denk, Hilary Hahn, the Miró Quartet and Alisa Weilerstein.
The festivities were held at Lincoln Center's Kaplan Penthouse where Yang performed Lowell Liebermann's fiendishly dazzling Gargoyles. Tune to 105.9 FM WQXR on Wednesday, May 12 at 9 PM to hear the broadcast of the event. Yang's performance will also be posted online at LincolnCenter.org and televised on Thirteen/WNET New York's Sunday Arts this summer.
Yang, who just turned 24, celebrates her graduation (finally, she says!) from Juilliard this month. She moved to the States from Korea in 1997 to study in Juilliard's pre-college division. But after capturing three awards at age 19 in the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition, she has juggled college time with a demanding schedule of recitals, chamber music and appearances with major orchestras from coast to coast, including the New York and Los Angeles Philharmonics, and the Chicago Symphony.
More more information, visit Joyce Yang's new web site or the Opus 3 Artists web site.
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Alessio Bax wins raves for Bach Transcribed CD
|  The name of pianist Alessio Bax is surfacing frequently in major music magazines. The 2009 Avery Fisher Career Grant recipient and winner of the 2000 Leeds International Pianoforte Competition is pictured in the April issue of BBC Music's preview of this summer's Music@Menlo festival, where he'll travel from Bach to Berio in a three-part "Carte Blanche" recital.
Bach is the main event for Bax's latest recording, Bach Transcribed, selected as a "CD of the Week" on the UK's Classic FM. "This disc is a must," says Phillip Scott in the March/April issue of Fanfare. "The transcriptions can only be mastered by someone with an amazing technique. Audiences still like to be astonished. Alessio Bax astonishes along with the best of the them."
Gramophone calls Bach Transcribed "an unmissable disc of transcriptions," and praises Bax's stylistic perception and palette of tone colors "together with a level of technical control that gives new meaning to the word 'awesome'." His 2004 disc, Baroque Reflections (Warner Classics), earned Gramophone's "Editor's Choice."
Behind the scenes, the New York-based native of Bari, Italy can be heard playing Bach on a TV commercial he recorded for American Express. Watch it here.
For more information, visit alessiobax.com or the Barrett Vantage Artists web site.
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21C Artists To Watch in the news
| iTunes - 4/27/10 (Stefan Jackiw)
Brahms Violin Sonatas CD with pianist Max Levinson now available on iTunes [Sony; Steven Epstein, producer]
Times Union, Albany - 4/23/10 (Joshua Roman)
"Roman's playing was lean and exacting, yet delivered with an off the cuff ease. His combination of charming personality and utter musicality should take him far." - Joseph Dalton
Opera News - 4/21/10 (Susanna Phillips)
"Susanna Phillips is a wonderfully talented young artist, and the first soprano to win the Sills award. I'm sure Beverly would be thrilled. With her gorgeous voice and charming presence, Susanna is a perfect example of the kind of young singer Karl and I wanted to support with this award." - Beverly Sills Artist Award benefactor Agnes Varis
The Washington Post - 4/19/2010 (Joyce Yang)
"In Schumann's E-flat Piano Quintet, pianist Joyce Yang joined the ensemble, relishing the imperial swagger in the composer's bolder writing but proving just as memorable in her delicate treatment of the more inwardly focused passages. Yang's skill at melding her keyboard tone with the strings suggested musical maturity well beyond her 23 years of age." - Joe Banno
NPR's "All Things Considered" - 4/18/10 (Brooklyn Rider)
"Well, they're not your grandfather's string quartet, as you might say. They are a very versatile, alive, young quartet, and I think the interesting thing about them is that they are willing to take some chances. " - host Guy Raz
New York Post - 4/12/10 (James Valenti)
"Six-foot-five and movie-star handsome - he models on the side - Valenti is truly a tenor for our time. He sings, he acts, he tweets. He also has a Facebook fan page and a Web site." - Barbara Hoffman
wqxr.org, NYC - 4/10/10 (Inon Barnatan)
Listen to the podcast of Barnatan's January 2010 event at (Le) Poisson Rouge. "A pianist of diverse musical interests, he can be found regularly touring the globe with everything from the established classical canon to music fresh off the press."
Forth Worth Star-Telegram - 4/10/10 (Alessio Bax)
"The Chamber Music Society of Fort Worth ended its 21st season Saturday with some of the finest small-ensemble playing I've heard this year ... [Bax] is a marvelous performer and collaborator." - Chris Shull
Portland Ovations, ME - 4/9/10 (Stefan Jackiw)
"I was moved by the liquid silver tone and depth of interpretation they served up so eloquently ... He is the real thing." - Jim Morgan
Photos: Ken Howard (Phillips), Dario Acosta (Valenti), Oh Seok Hoon (Yang), Lisa-Marie Mazzucco (Bax)
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