Amy Sue Barston and Edward Klorman, Artistic Directors | P. O. Box 717, Canandaigua, NY 14424 | 585-690-1220 | info@lakemusicfestival.org
FESTIVAL ARTISTS 2009
Winner of the 2007 Avery Fisher Career Grant
Winner of Lincoln Center's Martin E. Segal Award (2001)
Winner of the Cleveland Quartet Award (1998)
Ensemble-in-Residence for NPR's Performance Today (1998-99)
Top Prize at the International String Quartet Competition in Evian, France (1990)
Since their explosive debut in 1989, the critically acclaimed Borromeo String Quartet have become one of the most sought after strings quartets in the world, performing over 100 concerts of classical and contemporary literature across three continents each season. Audiences and critics alike champion their revealing explorations of Beethoven, Bartok, Schoenberg, Shostakovich, and Golijov, and their affinity for making even the most challenging contemporary repertoire approachable and enlightening. The Borromeo Quartet’s long-standing and celebrated residency at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum has been called “one of the defining experiences of civilization in Boston” [Boston Globe] and their ongoing concert series at the Tenri Cultural Institute in New York has been hailed as “one of New York’s best kept secrets” [New York Sun].
As Quartet-in-Residence at the prestigious New England Conservatory of Music for seventeen years, the Borromeo have made opening the doors of perception to chamber music their principle mission. Their informal public masterclass series at NEC, “Early Evenings with the Borromeo,” regularly attracts standing-room-only crowds. The ensemble is also an artist-in-residence at Dai-Ichi Semei Hall in Tokyo, and return to New Mexico this Summer for a fourth season of mentoring emerging musicians at the famed Taos School of Music.
The Chicago Tribune calls the Borromeo “a remarkably accomplished string quartet, not simply for its high technical polish and refined tone, but more importantly for the searching musical insights it brings.” The San Diego Reader calls their performances “a musical experience of luminous beauty,” and the Boston Globe says "Each of the greatest string quartets has redefined what the possibilities of the medium are: through the perfection of its ensemble and intonation, through its poise and its passion, the Borromeos are recreating the medium anew and we are lucky to be here to hear it.”
Since their explosive debut in 1989, the Borromeo have been regularly heard in the world’s most illustrious concert halls, including the Philharmonie, Casals Halls, the Concertgebouw, Opera Bastille, and Wigmore Hall. In the United States, the group is a favorite at Weill Recital Hall and Alice Tully Hall, Jordan Hall, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Library of Congress, the Kennedy Center, and the National Gallery. The quartet is regularly invited to perform in distinguished chamber music series across the United States and abroad and has participated in the Spoleto Festival in Italy, the Orlando Festival in the Netherlands, the Stavanger Festival in Norway, Music Isle Festival in Korea, and in North America at the Ravinia, Tanglewood, Caramoor, Santa Fe, Rockport, Cape Cod, and Vancouver chamber music festivals, among others. First violinist Nicholas Kitchen recently completed a six-year tenure as Artistic Director of the Cape Cod Chamber Music. [Read more at www.borromeoquartet.org.]
Widely regarded as the premier piano trio of its generation, the Claremont Trio is sought after for its thrillingly virtuosic and richly communicative performances. First winners of the Kalichstein-Laredo-Robinson International Trio Award and the only piano trio ever to win the Young Concert Artists International Auditions, the Claremonts are consistently lauded for their "aesthetic maturity, interpretive depth, and exuberance" (Palm Beach Daily News). To celebrate their 10th anniversary season, the trio returns to New York's Carnegie Hall and Washington D.C's Kennedy Center, and appears in more than 60 halls throughout the country.
Equally passionate about the standard repertoire and the music of our time, the Claremonts launch the 2008-2009 season with the release of two CDs, spanning music from Beethoven to Mason Bates. "American Trios" on Tria Records will be the first disc to present both of Leon Kirchner's piano trios and will honor his 90th birthday this year. The disc also features Paul Schoenfield's "Café Music", Ellen Zwilich's "Trio", and Mason Bates' "String Band" (written for the Claremont Trio in 2002). The group's second 2008 CD, to be released by Ongaku Records, is a collaborative project with clarinetist Jonathan Cohler including works by Beethoven, Brahms, and Dohnanyi.
The Trio maintains a strong New York presence this season, performing at Carnegie Hall, Symphony Space, Merkin Hall, and Miller Theatre. Their extensive countrywide tour encompasses major venues in Washington D. C., Boston, Seattle, Phoenix, Anchorage, Syracuse, Columbus, and Puerto Rico as well as universities including Duke, Kansas State and SUNY Purchase. Deeply committed to expanding the trio repertoire, the Trio will present the world premiere performance of a work by Nico Muhly at Washington D.C.'s Kennedy Center and will also premiere a new piece written for them by Howard Frazin. They will perform Mason Bates' new work, "Red River" (2007) for piano trio, clarinet, and electronics and perform in special concerts celebrating Leon Kirchner's 90th and Elliott Carter's 100th birthdays.
Twin sisters Emily Bruskin (violin) and Julia Bruskin (cello) formed the Trio with Donna Kwong (piano) in 1999 at The Juilliard School. The Claremonts are based in New York City near their namesake: Claremont Avenue. [Read more at www.claremonttrio.com.]
Mayumi Seiler began her musical upbringing in Osaka, Japan, where she was born of Japanese/German parentage. Wedded to the violin from the age of three, Ms. Seiler received her musical education at the renowned Mozarteum during the formative years of her childhood in Salzburg, Austria. She is currently based in Toronto, Canada where she lives with her two greatest accomplishments, her daughter Hana and her son Seiji. With a busy schedule as a soloist and chamber musician throughout Europe, Japan and North America, Ms. Seiler is also the Artistic Director and founder of Via Salzburg Chamber Music, a Toronto based chamber music organization whose chamber orchestra Ms Seiler leads form the first desk. Via Salzburg is entering the 10th season with wonderfully imaginative programming and international guest artists performing with the best Canadian talent.
Ms. Seiler has performed with numerous renowned orchestras and conductors including Neville Marriner, Christopher Hogwood, Peter Oundjian, Sandor Vegh and has been the featured soloist with orchestras such as the City of London Sinfonia, the Royal Philharmonic, the Berlin Symphony, the Moscow Symphony, the Hong Kong Philharmonic, the Australian Chamber Orchestra, Camerata Academica Salzburg and the Toronto Symphony Orchestra. She was invited by legendary violinist Ruggiero Ricci to perform with him in his final concert in Washington DC. Her performances as soloist with the UBS Verbier Festival Chamber Orchestra under the baton of Maxim Vengerov saw her perform to critical acclaim in such major venues at Toronto's Roy Thompson Hall, New York's Carnegie Hall, Amsterdam's Concertgebouw and Vienna's Musikverein and the Barbican in London.
Ms. Seiler has recorded many of the violin concertos and chamber repertoire for such labels as Virgin Classics, JVC Victor, Hyperion, and Capriccio. Ms. Seiler is very proud to have received the sponsorship of Acura Canada. Thanks to the very generous support of a private benefactor, her faithful partner in her musical travels is an exquisite J.B. Guadagnini violin, circa 1740.
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An active performer of solo, chamber and orchestral repertoire and founding member of the Jupiter Trio and the Callisto Ensemble, violinist Robert Waters has performed throughout the U.S. and abroad. Previous to his appointment to the DePaul faculty in 2003, Mr. Waters had been a member of the San Francisco Opera Orchestra since 1996, and Associate Concertmaster since 1998.
As a member of the Jupiter Trio, which has performed throughout the U.S., he was awarded First Prize in the 2002 Osaka International Chamber Music Competition in Osaka, Japan. Chosen from 54 ensembles representing 19 countries, the Jupiter Trio was the first American ensemble in the history of the competition to win the gold medal, and was invited to return to Japan in 2004 for an 11-city tour. The Trio’s CD on Bridge Records, featuring works of Beethoven and Shostakovich, immediately received great critical acclaim, winning the Samuel Sanders Award for Collaborative Performance from the Classical Recording Foundation. Additional recordings by the Jupiter Trio include a CD released by the Japan Chamber Music Foundation with music of Mozart, Hummel, and Dvorak; a trio by Martin Bresnick, recorded for Canteloupe Music; and a trio by fellow DePaul faculty member, Kurt Westerberg, recorded for Southport Records.
As a core member of the Callisto Ensemble, Mr. Waters performs regularly in what John von Rhein of the Chicago Tribune calls "one of the city's finest new chamber groups." The Callisto Ensemble performs in and outside of Chicago, programming new works by the most compelling composers of our time alongside masterworks from the past. Mr. Waters is also a featured artist on the Ensemble’s debut recording of chamber music by Augusta Read Thomas, which was released to many favorable reviews in the Fall of 2006.
Mr. Waters has appeared at such festivals as El Paso Pro-Musica, Saratoga Chamber Music Festival, Caramoor, Marlboro, and the Stellenbosch International Chamber Music Festival in South Africa. In addition to several summers at Marlboro, Mr. Waters toured the Eastern U.S. under the Musicians from Marlboro auspices and is a featured performer on its 50th Anniversary CD. He has collaborated in performance with such noted artists as Claude Frank, David Soyer, Toby Appel, Midori, and Felix Galimir.
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A native of Rochester, Edward Klorman is rapidly emerging as an avid chamber musician and an innovative leader in the music community. He has performed as soloist with the Rochester Chamber Orchestra, Camerata Notturna, and the Queens College Chamber Orchestra under the baton of Charles Neidich. As a recitalist, he has performed throughout North America and Europe, including appearances at Aspen Music Festival, Lincoln Center’s Wednesdays at One series, Centre d’Arts Orford (Quebec), IMS Prussia Cove (England), and Oberstdorfer Musiksommer (Germany). An avid chamber musician, he has collaborated with such renowned artists as the Orion String Quartet, Ying Quartet, Claude Frank, Joseph Kalichstein, and Charles Neidich, with performances in such venues as Alice Tully Hall, Music@Menlo, Sarasota Music Festival, and Taos School of Music. Mr. Klorman teaches viola at Queens College and also teaches music theory at The Juilliard School.
A founder of two chamber music series – the Canandaigua LakeMusic Festival and Music at the Bowery (at the historic St. Mark’s Church-in-the-Bowery in Manhattan’s East Village) – Mr. Klorman is deeply committed to sharing classical music with broader audiences. The Canandaigua Lake Chamber Music Festival's extensive community outreach program - which has included collaborations with Strong National Museum of Play, The Commission Project, as well as local public schools and hospitals - have recently garnered grant support from the National Endowment for the Arts and the New York State Music Fund. In 2007, at the invitation of David Finckel and Wu Han, Mr. Klorman organized the Music@Menlo Winter Residency, an integrated educational residency that used chamber music to teach academic subjects. He has participated in educational outreach programs at The Juilliard School, and has been an invited guest speaker for The Academy – a Program of Carnegie Hall, The Juilliard School, and The Weill Music Institute.
Mr. Klorman graduated with distinction from The Juilliard School, where he held the Irene Diamond Scholarship and received the William Schuman Award and the John Erskine Graduation Prize. His major teachers include Hsin-Yun Huang, Daniel Phillips, Thomas Riebl, Steven Tenenbom, and Heidi Castleman, for whom he currently serves as teaching assistant. A musical scholar as well as a performer, Mr. Klorman is pursuing a Ph.D. from the City University of New York, funded in full by a Jacob K. Javits Fellowship from the Department of Education. He has presented illuminating lectures and master classes that integrate music performance and the historical imagination at the Salzburg Mozarteum, Université de Montréal, Aspen Music Festival, and The Juilliard School. Mr. Klorman makes his home in New York City.
Praised as “passionate and elegant” by The New York Times, cellist Amy Sue Barston has performed as a soloist and chamber musician on stages all over the world, including multiple appearances in such venues as Carnegie Hall, Alice Tully Hall, The Ravinia Festival, The Caramoor International Music Festival, Haan Hall (Jerusalem), The Power House (Sydney, Australia), The Banff Centre for the Performing Arts (Canada), The International Musicians’ Seminar (Cornwall, England), and Chicago’s Symphony Center.
At age seventeen, she appeared as soloist with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra on live television. The same year, she was the Grand Prize winner in the Society of American Musicians’ Competition, and won First Place and the Audience Prize in the Fischoff International Chamber Music Competition. Amy studied with Nell Novak at the Music Institute of Chicago, Eleonore Schoenfeld at the University of Southern California, and Joel Krosnick at The Juilliard School, where she earned her Masters degree. Amy is also the cellist of two critically acclaimed chamber ensembles, the Corigliano Quartet and Divahn.
The Corigliano Quartet has been hailed by The New York Times as having "an excellent, smooth sense of ensemble, but with each part vigorously alive," and by Strad Magazine as having "abundant commitment and mastery." Divahn is a unique all-female quartet that specializes in Middle Eastern music and improvisation using vocals, percussion, violin, cello, and an array of exotic Mediterranean instruments. Above all, Amy is a devoted teacher: in her home, at the New York School for Strings, as an assistant teacher at The Juilliard School, and at numerous summer music festivals. Several of her students commute for lessons from hundreds of miles away, some from as far away as Alaska and Japan. Each year, Miss Barston gives recitals, masterclasses, chamber music performances, and solo performances with orchestra throughout the US and abroad.
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Robert McDonald has performed extensively throughout the United States, Europe, Latin America, and the Far East as a solo recitalist and as a recital partner to Isaac Stern and Midori, among other artists. An active chamber musician, he has collaborated with the Juilliard, American, Muir, Takács, Brentano, Fine Arts, Orlando, and Chicago quartets, as well as with Musicians from Marlboro on several of their tours. He has also appeared as soloist with the San Francisco, Baltimore, Milwaukee, Omaha, and Curtis symphony orchestras, with the Orquesta Sinfónica Nacional of Costa Rica, and with the Orchestra Sinfonica Haydn di Bolzano e Trento in Italy.
McDonald has a strong commitment to music education. He is on the piano faculties of both the Juilliard School and the Curtis Institute of Music. For the past 18 summers, he has been director of the keyboard program at the Taos School of Music and Chamber Music Festival in New Mexico. Other summer teaching and festival activities have taken him to the Marlboro, Brevard, and Caramoor festivals in the United States; the Montreaux, Lucerne, Bergen, and Besançon festivals in Europe; and the International School for Musical Arts in Canada. He also gives piano and chamber music master classes at prominent universities, music schools, and music festivals in North America, Japan, and Europe. Robert McDonald’s discography includes recordings for the Sony Classical, Vox, Bridge, Musical Heritage Society, and CRI labels with Midori, Isaac Stern, and Elmar Oliveira. His most recent release features the violin sonatas of Franck and Elgar, with Midori, on Sony Classical.
Among numerous awards, prizes, and grants, McDonald has won the Gold Medal at the Busoni International Piano Competition in Italy, the William Kapell International Competition, and the Washingt on International Competition. He is also the recipient of the National Federation of Music Clubs Artist Award, a National Endowment for the Arts Solo Recitalist Grant, and a Career Grant from the Philadelphia Foundation Arthur Hill Fund.
A magna cum laude graduate of Lawrence University in Wisconsin, where Theodore Rehl was his principal teacher, Robert McDonald continued his studies at the Curtis Institute of Music with Seymour Lipkin, Rudolf Serkin, and Mieczyslaw Horszowski; at the Juilliard School with Beveridge Webster; and at the Manhattan School of Music with Gary Graffman.
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llewellyn kingman sanchez werner, piano (young artist-in-residence)
“This young man’s prodigious talent brings to mind the young Mozart and Mendelssohn,” reflected Dr. Burns Taft about the 6-year-old full time college student taking his advanced music theory course. Quite young, Llewellyn revealed an extraordinary fascination with music, and learning in general, that led to beginning piano at 2, a first composition at 5, and college studies also at 5. His orchestral debut as a piano soloist was at age 6.
At present, Llewellyn is a 12-year-old piano and composition student at the Juilliard School of Music Pre-College Division in New York, where he studies piano with Julian Martin and composition with Ira Taxin. His love of music coupled with a sincere desire to help make the world a better place led him to collaborate with the United Nations, through UNICEF, engaging music and music makers as instruments of diplomacy. In an upcoming cross-cultural exchange, Llewellyn will perform with the Iraqi National Symphony Orchestra, in Baghdad, Iraq. Similarly, with the opening of a new chapter in the US-Syrian relationship, Llewellyn will be performing with the Syrian National Symphony Orchestra in Damascus, Syria.
Earlier this summer Llewellyn performed in Africa, including a private performance for President of Rwanda Paul Kagame at the Presidential Residence, as well as at a gathering of humanitarian, political, and corporate leadership, hosted by US Ambassador to Rwanda Stuart Symington. Llewellyn was witness to the remarkable progress that President Kagame’s leadership has brought about in the 15 years since the well-documented genocide.
Another of Llewellyn’s interests has been to find more ways to make classical music more accessible and relevant to younger generations. Towards that goal, the Canadian National Academy Orchestra and the New West Symphony featured Llewellyn as piano soloist in a series of 16 Symphonic Adventures Concerts for over 20,000 schoolchildren in Canada and in the United States.
In Spain, Llewellyn performed a two-hour solo piano recital at the Universidad Laboral as one of the special events of the International Piano Festival at Gijon. Among other master classes, he was selected by Emanuel Ax for a sold out Piano Master Class in the Aspen Music Festival’s Harris Concert Hall.
He has traveled extensively, benefiting greatly from performing and immersing in the cultures of such diverse places as Austria, Canada, Czech Republic, England, Egypt, France, Ireland, Italy, Kenya, Mexico, Rwanda, Singapore, Spain, and the United Arab Emirates, as well as several states throughout America.
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