BIOGRAPHIES

Kathryn Guthrie, soprano

Soprano Kathryn Guthrie’s sharpwitted style is equally adapted to musical theater and contemporary classical music. Her 2012 New York City Opera debut, in singersongwriter Rufus Wainwright’s Prima Donna, “outshone any other single moment on stage” (Huffington Post). She has traveled the world promoting the opera in concerts with Mr. Wainwright, and reprises her role in the cast recording of Prima Donna with the BBC Symphony Orchestra. A champion of new music, Kathryn made her Lincoln Center debut in Paul Hindemith’s The Long Christmas Dinner in 2014 with Leon Botstein and the American Symphony Orchestra. She also performed with New York City Opera in the VOX 2012 concert, in which she “fearlessly tore into the operatic equivalent of Meg Ryan’s orgasm scene in ‘When Harry Met Sally” (New York Times), and as Alice/The Cheshire Cat in Unsuk Chin’s Alice in Wonderland. She has appeared several times as a guest artist in the American Lyric Theater’s Composer and Librettist Development Program. She appears on The Shakespeare Concerts’ THE FAIR OPHELIA, and will appear as Miranda on the recording of Joseph Summer’s The Tempest. Ms. Guthrie was a winner of Astral Artists’s 2012 National Auditions, and is the recipient of awards from the Metropolitan Opera National Council. She was a member of Glimmerglass Opera’s Young American Artists Program and the Ravinia Festival’s Steans Institute Program for Singers. The daughter of an American diplomat, Kathryn grew up in Vienna, Austria and Canton, Connecticut, and now calls New York City home. Kathryn holds a Master of Music from the Peabody Conservatory, where she received the Phyllis Bryn-Julson Award for Contemporary Music, and a Bachelor of Music from the University of Connecticut. (back to menu)

 

 

Josef Špaček violin

The young Czech violinist Josef Špaček is fast emerging as one of the most talented virtuosos of his generation. He has been guided by some of the most highly regarded pedagogues, including Ida Kavafian and Jaime Laredo at the Curtis Institute of Music and Itzhak Perlman at the Juilliard School. In May 2012 he was laureate of the International Queen Elisabeth Competition in Brussels; in 2009 Josef won the Michael Hill International Violin Competition (New Zealand) and both Third Prize and the Young People’s Jury Prize at the Carl Nielsen International Violin Competition in 2008. He currently combines a flourishing solo career with the position of concert master of the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra.

 

As a soloist, Josef has appeared with the Philadelphia Orchestra, Czech Philharmonic Orchestra, Prague Philharmonia, Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra, Kansas City Symphony, Queensland Symphony Orchestra, National Orchestra of Belgium, Czech Chamber Orchestra, Brno Philharmonic, Bohuslav Martinu Philharmonic and the Russian Chamber Philharmonic. He has soloed under conductors including Jiří Bělohlávek, Christoph Eschenbach, Manfred Honeck, James DePreist, Asher Fisch, Roy Goodman, Jakub Hrůša, Eliahu Inbal and Rossen Milanov. A regular at music festivals, Josef has performed at the Dvořák Prague Festival, Bravo! Vail Valley Music Festival, Ravinia Festival, Bohuslav Martinů Festival, Moravian Autumn Music Festival and the Prague Spring Festival.

 

The Supraphon label released Josef’s first recital recording in April 2013. Together with pianist Miroslav Sekera he performs works by Janáček, Smetana and Prokofiev. His 2010 recording of various works by H.W. Ernst was released on Naxos in March 2013. In 2006 he recorded his debut CD featuring the complete sonatas for solo violin by Eugène Ysaÿe. Future and recent concert highlights include solo performances with the Czech Philharmonic conducted by Jiří Bělohlávek and Jakub Hrůša (including concerts in Prague, the UK, Japan and Australia), the Malaysian Philharmonic Orchestra, the Janáček Philharmonic, the Martinů Philharmonic, the Erkel Chamber Orchestra, the Prague Symphony Orchestra, and recital appearances in Europe, Asia and the USA. Josef Špaček plays a violin made in 1855 in the workshop of JeanBaptiste Vuillaume. (back to menu)

 

 

Miroslav Sekera, piano

A child prodigy on violin and piano, Miroslav Sekera won numerous competitions on both instruments, gaining the attention of Milos Forman who cast him at the age of six as the child Mozart in the 1985 film Amadeus. Eventually, Mirek chose to concentrate on piano and in 1991 he won first prize in the Chopin Competitionat Mariánské Lázne. Other awards include first prizes in the National Competition of Czech Conservatories, the Baden Competition for Best Performance of a work by Leos Janáček, the 1999 Prague Academy of Music Arts, and the 2002 Johannes Brahms International Competition at Portschach, Austria. He has also achieved prize winning performances at the Gaillard International Piano Competition in France as well as the Nadezda Sazinova Piano Competition. Sekera has performed solo recitals throughout the world, including Austria, Switzerland, Belgium, Holland, France, the Caribbean, and Jakarta, Indonesia. A perennial artist with The Shakespeare Concerts, he participated in both the 2003 debut season and the inaugural 2005 recording What A Piece Of Work Is Man. In his many seasons with The Shakespeare Concerts Mirek has premiered eleven compositions by Joseph Summer, including The Dumb Show in Boston in 2004. Critic Roger Lakins, writing about Sekera in the 2003 The Shakespeare Concerts, opined that he is "an awesome talent. As both a solo performer and accompanist, he is absolutely amazing... This young performer has so much going on that is far surpassing technical brilliance. His performance of the 'Tempest Sonata' of Beethoven was a mystical experience. This listener heard new things in a work that has been a favorite most of his life. In Sekera's hands, the second movement is otherworldly. Form, line, harmony they all disappeared. Just sheer beauty, beauty unfolding in all those ways and many more." (back to menu)

 

 

Andrea Chenoweth, soprano

Andrea Chenoweth, soprano, is a two time regional finalist in the Metropolitan Opera National Council auditions. She has appeared with the Cleveland Orchestra, the Dayton Philharmonic Orchestra, Cleveland Opera, Dayton Opera, Commonwealth Opera, Lyric Opera Cleveland, the Springfield Symphony, the Bach Society of Dayton, Mansfield Symphony Orchestra, and Arcadia Players. Career highlights include her recent Carnegie Hall debut singing Verdi’s Requiem and touring Japan with Maestro Neal Gittleman and the Telemann Chamber Orchestra. She has sung numerous operatic roles, including Lucia in Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor; Fiordiligi in Mozart's Così fan tutte, and Atalanta in Handel's Xerxes. A proponent of new music, Ms. Chenoweth has worked with many living composers including Libby Larsen, Joseph Summer, Jonathon Sheffer, and Monica Houghton. Ms. Chenoweth received her Masters of Music degree in Voice from The Cleveland Institute of Music and her Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Dayton. Her teachers include Ruth Golden, George Vassos, Ellen Shade, and Linda Snyder. Ms. Chenoweth is an Artistin Residence at the University of Dayton.

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Neal Ferreira, tenor

Tenor Neal Ferreira, especially noted for his dynamic and captivating stage presence, is quickly gaining national recognition. In the current season and beyond, performances include a return to Syracuse Opera as Alfred in Die Fledermaus, the Judge/Amelia's Servant in Un ballo in maschera with the Boston Youth Symphony Orchestra, and the role of Ferdinand in the world premiere of Joseph Summer's THE TEMPEST with The Shakespeare Concerts. Most recent engagements include Tancredi in John Musto's The Inspector with Boston Lyric Opera, for which Opera News praised his "moving performance," Charlie Gould (Orlofsky) in Die Fledermaus with Anchorage Opera, and Spoletta in Tosca with the Boston Youth Symphony Orchestra. Last season his performance as Basilio/Curzio in Le nozze di Figaro with Syracuse Opera garnered him the company’s 201213 Artist of the Year Award. He has also appeared with Florida Grand Opera, Virginia Opera, The Glimmerglass Festival, Opera Colorado, Opera Boston, the American Repertory Theatre, Boston Midsummer Opera, and Guerilla Opera. Mr. Ferreira received the 2009 Stephen Shrestinian Award for Excellence from Boston Lyric Opera, and has since performed there in many roles including Monostatos in The Magic Flute, Traveler in Clemency, Spoletta in Tosca, Snout in A Midsummer Night's Dream, the Gran Sacerdote in Mozart's Idomeneo, re di Creta, and Spanzani/Andrès in Les contes d'Hoffmann. (back to menu)

 

 

SangYoung Kim, piano

Praised by the Cleveland Plain Dealer for her “Brilliant and solid performances,” and by pianist Wha Kyung Byun for her “innate lyricism” and “poetic enchantment,” internationally acclaimed pianist SangYoung Kim has gained attention through numerous competitions and concerto performances, including the Gold Medal from the Usasu Bösendorfer International Piano Competition. Since her orchestral debut at age 9 with the Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra, Ms. Kim has appeared as a soloist with the Yewon Orchestra and won numerous prizes in Korea. After coming to the United States in 2002, Ms. Kim has continued to meet success in competitions such as the New England Conservatory Concerto Competition and the Heida Hermannes International Music Competition, and obtained not only the Gold Medal but also the Russian and Chopin etude Prizes from the Usasu Bösendorfer International Piano Competition. Other prizes include the highest honors from the both the Yewon Art School and the Seoul Art High School and the Carol and Robert T. Henderson Presidential Scholarship from the New England Conservatory. Ms. Kim has appeared as soloist with the NEC Philhamonia Orchestra, Concord Orchestra, Orchestre Royal de Chambre de Wallonie in Belgium and Phoenix Symphony Orchestra. In 2009, Ms. Kim was invited to the Kennedy Center in Washington D. C to give a recital as the part of Millennium Stage Concert series. As a chamber music lover, Ms. Kim’s chamber performances have been frequently heard in Jordan Hall, Fraser Performance Studio in WGBH radio station and Harvard University. Ms. Kim participated in an extensive tour of the Boston area, playing Schoenberg’s Pierrot Lunaire with members including flutist Paula Robison as the narrator. She also collaborated with composer, Michael Gandolfi in a performance of his Resin in Resonance (2008) which was broadcast by WGBH. (back to menu)

 

 

John McGinn, piano

Composer/pianist John McGinn served as music director (now emeritus) of The Shakespeare Concerts from 2003-08. He has performed throughout the United States and Europe and appeared on more than a dozen commercial recordings, among them three by The Shakespeare Concerts (Albany and Navona labels) including the recent THE FAIR OPHELIA album, Luc Ferrari’s Les Émois d’Aphroditewith the MC Band (Belgian Sub Rosa label), John Adams’ opera Nixon in China with the Orchestra of St. Luke’s (Nonesuch) and a critically acclaimed solo album, The 20th-Century Piano (AmCam). McGinn currently serves as Associate Professor of Music (Theory/Composition) at Austin College in Sherman, Texas. He received his undergraduate music degree from Harvard University and his doctorate in composition from Stanford University in 1999. Among his teachers are such noted composers as Jonathan Harvey, Leon Kirchner, Ivan Tcherepnin and John Adams. His own works have won several honors and been performed at colleges and festivals nationwide. Recent premieres include a Trio (2013) for clarinet, violin and piano with colleagues at Austin College; a vocal setting of Yolanda Lockett's “It’s a Letter” in A River of Words Song Cycle (2011), a collaborative cycle commissioned by baritone Bruce Cain and guitarist David Asbury and performed at more than a dozen venues in the United States and Europe including Washington D.C.'s Kennedy Center and the Library of Congress; and Score for Score (2009) for 20 players by the Inscape Chamber Orchestra of Bethesda, MD. As an arranger, McGinn has created piano reductions of several largescale works including JohnAdams’ Nixon in China, The Death of Klinghoffer, I Was Looking at the Ceiling/And Then I Saw the Sky, Gnarly Buttons and Violin Concerto and Christopher Rouse’s Pulitzer-winning Trombone Concerto, all for publication by Boosey & Hawkes. (back to menu)

 

 

Arcadia Players

The Arcadia Players are a professional ensemble of musicians founded in 1989 by Margaret Irwin Brandon, with the invaluable assistance of founding patron T. Marc Futter. Currently under the direction of renowned keyboardist and conductor Ian Watson, they present a series of concerts each year in several communities in western Massachusetts, performing chamber music, opera, orchestral and choral repertoire, including highly acclaimed performances of Handel's Messiah. They also regularly collaborate with vocal ensembles throughout New England, at institutions such as Dartmouth College, Mount Holyoke College, Yale University, and the Hartt School, as well as Commonwealth Opera and the Connecticut Early Music Festival. Arcadia Players is in residence at the Massachusetts Center for Interdisciplinary Renaissance Studies at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst.

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LUNAR Ensemble

LUNAR seeks to present and perform music in ways that redefines today's concert experience. A proponent of music by living composers, LUNAR aims to engage and challenge audiences through the immersion and education of hot-off-the-press music. Founded in 2010, and now in its fifth season, the LUNAR ensemble is a Baltimore based new music group with the Pierrot instrumentation (flutes, clarinets, piano, percussion, violin/viola, cello and sopranos) as its core. Dedicated to breathing life into new works, LUNAR has premiered 27 works since their founding, and has also held residencies at the Peabody Conservatory, SUNY Fredonia and Tulane University. LUNAR has performed at music festivals such as the LAUNCH Music festival (Lancaster PA) and the ArtScape Festival (Baltimore MD), and at various venues in including the An Die Musik Hall, the Brown Center, the Enoch Pratt Free Library and Shriver Hall. Under the direction of Gemma New, the ensemble includes Stephanie Ray (flute), Gleb Kanasevich (clarinet), Lisa Perry (soprano), Terry Sweeney (percussion), Peter Kibbe (cello), and Katarzyna Bryla (violin/viola). (back to menu)

 

 

2013: Joseph Summer before a lecture atMinzu University, Beijing; with musician/translatorssoprano: Summer Anni (seated) and composer:GUO Bing. Photograph by Su Lin.Joseph Summer

My (Joseph Summer’s) operas include The Tempest, Hamlet, Hippolytus, The Tenor’s Suite, and a cycle of comedies that I’ve been working on for decades titled collectively: The Hebdomad. The cycle tells the story of the last week in the life of a 14th-century Franciscan monk, Andreuccio Cipolla, a reprobate and rake; derived from the stories of Boccaccio. (Shakespeare borrowed tales from Boccaccio’s Decameron to create All’s Well That Ends Well, Troilus and Cressida, and portions of Cymbeline and The Merchant of Venice). The four completed Hebdomad operas are 1) And The Dead Shall Walk The Earth, 2) Courting Disaster, 3) Their Fate In The Hands Of The Friar, and 4) Gianetta. I am currently working on the next two operas in the Hebdomad: Also Known As and The Ignoble, The Grotesque, The Heretical. (The opera Gianetta, though complete, I will allow to be subsumed by the two I am working on, so it will cease to exist as a separate opera when I am done. This is because I have found it intriguing to carry the labyrinthine plots forward in a bifurcated pair of operas that occur on the same day, but at different locations and hours. It’s complicated, but it works. I like how the characters run in and out of scenes between the operas in a way that is logical in one perspective as well as in another, yet not comprehensible at times to the characters within the operas). I’ve set an inordinate amount of Shakespeare in eight “books” (each of which contains many songs and scenes) which I have labeled The Oxford Songs, labeled thus because I am 90% certain that Edward de Vere, the 17th earl of Oxford is the author of the works collected under the pseudonymous attribution of Shakes-Speare (rather than the country bumpkin and wannabe William Shaxper or Shagsper or whatever lame attempt at his name the illiterate attempted). I’ve also written cantatas and some non-vocal music such as chamber music and a horn concerto (which latter I mention because it allows me to note it won an award). I have completed one string quartet, The Garden of Forking Paths, and am working on a second: Picasso Trigger. (back to menu)

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