Considered one of the great pianists of our time,
HORACIO GUTIÉRREZ
is consistently praised by critics and audiences alike for the poetic insight and technical mastery he brings to a diverse repertoire. Since his professional debut in 1970 with Zubin Mehta and the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Mr. Gutiérrez has ap¬peared regularly with the world’s greatest orchestras and on its major recital series. Mr. Gutiérrez’s Telarc recordings include Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concertos Nos. 2 and 3 with Lorin Maazel and the Pittsburgh Symphony, nominated for a Grammy Award.
In past seasons, Mr. Gutierrez has given recitals at Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw, Berlin’s Philharmonie, the Schleswig-Holstein Festival and New York’s Carnegie Hall and Avery Fisher Hall, as well as in Los Angeles, Boston, Chicago, San Francisco and Cleveland. He recently performed on subscription and on tour with the Cleveland Orchestra. Born in Havana, Cuba, Horacio Gutierrez appeared at the age of 11 as guest soloist with the Havana Symphony. He became an American citizen in 1967. A graduate of the Juilliard School, he is married to pianist Patricia Asher and resides in New York City.
Avery Fisher career grant recipient violinist Jennifer Frautschi has gained acclaim as an adventurous performer with a wide-ranging repertoire, equally at home in the classic repertoire as well as twentieth and twenty-first century works. In the past few seasons she has performed the Britten Concerto, Poul Ruders' Concerto No. 1, Steven Mackey's Violin Sonata and Mendelssohn's rarely played D minor Concerto, along with standards such as the Mozart, Tchaikovsky and Berg Concerti. For more information about Ms. Frautschi, log on to her website: www.jenniferfrautschi.com.
Ms. Frautschi has created a sensation with appearances as soloist with Pierre Boulez and the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Christoph Eschenbach and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra at the Ravinia Festival, and at Wigmore Hall and Lincoln Center's Mostly Mozart Festival. She has also soloed in recent seasons with the Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia, Cincinnati Symphony, Kansas City Symphony, Louisville Orchestra, Orchestra of St. Luke’s, San Diego Symphony, and Seattle Symphony.
Jahja Ling’s distinguished career as an internationally renowned conductor has earned him an exceptional reputation for musical integrity, intensity and expressivity. Mr. Ling is in his seventh season as Music Director of the San Diego Symphony. As a guest conductor, Mr. Ling has conducted all of the major orchestras in North America including Cleveland, Rochester, Baltimore, Honolulu, Phoenix, Houston, Pitts-burgh and Utah. During his tenure with Cleveland Mr. Ling served as Associate Conductor in the 1984-85 season, as Resident Conductor from 1985-2002 and as Blossom Festival Director for 6 seasons (2000-2005). Since then he has continued to appear as guest conductor of the Orchestra every season.
As a guest conductor, Mr. Ling has conducted all of the major symphony orchestras in North America. In the spring of 2004, he received critical acclaim for his performances of Mahler’s First and Fifth symphonies with the Boston Symphony and Pittsburgh Symphony, respectively. In recent seasons, Mr. Ling’s guest conducting engagements have included the Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia and the symphony orchestras of Baltimore, Cleveland, Honolulu, Phoenix, Pittsburgh, San Antonio and Utah. He also demonstrates a strong commitment to working with young musicians, and has conducted the orchestras of the Juilliard School (where he is a regular guest), the Curtis Institute and the Aspen Music Festival.
Pianist Jessie Chang is admired for her beautiful tone, virtuosic technique and individual personality. She graduated with a Master’s Degree in Piano Performance from the Manhattan School of Music in 2001. She has received top honors in more than thirty distinguished piano competitions of national and international stature, including First Prizes in the Joanna Hodges International Piano Competition, the Music Teachers Association of California State Solo Competition, the Los Angeles Liszt Competition, the Southern California Junior Bach Festival and the Chinese Talent Search.
Among the highlights of her career, Ms. Chang performed Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No.3 with the Florida Orchestra, Mozart Piano Concerto in G Major, with the Malaysian Philharmonic and Brahms’s Variations on a Theme of Joseph Haydn, at Carnegie Hall’s Isaac Stern Auditorium.
Being an active chamber musician, Ms. Chang has collaborated with well-known musicians such as William Preucil and Frank Cohen, as well as with several principals of the San Diego Symphony. She has also been featured in solo piano recitals in Washington, D.C., San Francisco, San Diego, Los Angeles, New York and Sicily, Italy. She is married to conductor JAHJA LING.
Always a Philharmonic favorite, internationally acclaimed concert pianist JON KIMURA PARKER’ s extraordinary career has taken him from Carnegie Hall and London's Royal Festival Hall to Baffin Island and Zimbabwe. A true Canadian ambassador of music, Mr. Parker has given two command performances for Queen Elizabeth II, special performances for the United States Supreme Court and has performed for the Prime Ministers of Canada and Japan.
Mr. Parker’s recent summer orchestral festival appearances have included the Hollywood Bowl, Minnesota Sommerfest, Mainly Mozart, Sun Valley and Vail, as well as chamber music festivals in Amelia Island, La Jolla, Santa Fe, Seattle, Steamboat Springs and Orcas Island. Jon Kimura Parker also collaborates regularly with the Tokyo Quartet and Lynn Harrell. An unusually versatile artist, Mr. Parker has jammed with Doc Severinsen in Calgary and Bobby McFerrin in Philadelphia and Baltimore, and has performed with Audra McDonald and the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. For more information about “Jackie” please log on to his website: jonkimuraparker.com.
Recipient of the prestigious Avery Fisher Career Grant in 2008, Canadian violinist Karen Gomyo first caught public attention just one week after her 15th birthday when she won the 1997 Young Concert Artists International Auditions. She became the youngest artist ever to be presented in the Young Concert Artists Series, in a critically acclaimed New York debut as recipient of the Summis Auspiciis Prize and has ever since been heard as soloist, recitalist and chamber musician across the US, Canada, South America, Europe and Asia.
Ms. Gomyo’s North American engagements include performances with the Philadelphia and Minnesota Orchestras, the Baltimore, San Francisco, Cincinnati, Seattle, Vancouver and Oregon Symphonies and the New York and Buffalo Philharmonics. For more information about Ms. Gomyo, please log on to her website: karengomyo.com.
Violinist David Kim was named Concertmaster of the Philadelphia Orchestra in 1999. Born in Carbondale, Illinois in 1963, he started playing the violin at the age of three, began studies with the famed pedagogue Dorothy DeLay at the age of eight, and later received his Bachelor's and Master's degrees from The Juilliard School.
Mr. Kim was founder and, for 20 years ending in 2008, artistic director of the Kingston Chamber Music Festival at the University of Rhode Island, from which he also was awarded the honorary degree of Doctor of Arts in 2001. In conjunction with the Festival, he founded an annual outreach program that took him to elementary schools, performing and speaking about classical music in an effort to cultivate future audiences. In the State of Rhode Island alone, he performed for well over 12,000 young people during his tenure there. For more information about Mr. Kim, please log on to his website: davidkimviolin.com.
Renowned as a unique musician and stage performer, Beth Clayton has been praised for her outstanding performances with America’s leading opera companies and orchestras. Highlights of recent seasons include her debut with the Boston Symphony Orchestra in John Adams’s El Niño; the Composer in Ariadne auf Naxos at Vancouver Opera; Carmen at Opera, Santa Fe Opera and for her company debut at Calgary Opera; Pasqualita in the world premiere of John Adams’s Doctor Atomic at San Francisco Opera; her debut at the Bayerische Staatsoper, Munich in a new production of Handel's Orlando and a return to Lyric Opera of Chicago as Maddalena in a new production of Rigoletto.
Beth Clayton also appears regularly with leading orchestras in an equally varied repertoire. Her most recent appearances include Pergolesi’s Stabat Mater with Orpheus at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and her Cleveland Orchestra debut in the role of Death in Stravinsky’s Le Rossignol conducted by Pierre Boulez. Other concert appearances include her debut with the Montreal Symphony in Mahler's Symphony No. 8 conducted by Charles Dutoit. She made her debut with the National Symphony singing Handel's Messiah with Hogwood. She has also performed this work with the San Diego Symphony, the Dallas Symphony, the Boston Baroque and the Florida Philharmonic. Her Baltimore Symphony debut was in Mendelssohn's A Midsummer Night's Dream. A further highlight was her appearance in a “Live from Lincoln Center” telecast of A Salute to the American Musical.