ARTIST PROFILE

Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center

BIOGRAPHY

The Chamber Music Society's numerous activities -- from concerts and education programs, to commissioning projects and young artist development programs -- are informed by this vision, articulated over thirty years ago when the Chamber Music Society was founded.

Violinist Ani Kavafian is enjoying the 30th anniversary of a prolific career as soloist, recitalist, and chamber musician. This season, Ms. Kavafian will appear in concerts throughout the United States as part of the Kavafian-Shifrin-Schub Trio, which includes clarinetist David Shifrin and pianist André- Michel Schub. Ms. Kavafian will also perform alongside her sister, Ida, with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra in Britten's Double Concerto. Due for release in the fall of 2004 is a recording on the Helicon label of Ms. Kavafian playing the complete Bach violin and keyboard sonatas, with Kenneth Cooper on the fortepiano. In the spring of 2005 Ms. Kavafian, as part of the daSalo String Trio, will release a recording of the string trios of Beethoven and Mozart. For the past ten years, Ms. Kavafian has been director, along with cellist Carter Brey, of the chamber music series in New Jersey, Mostly Music. In the spring of 2003, Ms. Kavafian celebrated her long association as an Artist Member of The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center in a series of concerts at which she performed the complete violin sonatas of Mozart with pianist Lee Luvisi. She appears regularly at festivals such as Mostly Mozart, Ravinia, Chamber Music Northwest, and Schleswig-Holstein in Germany, and has appeared with virtually all of America's leading orchestras, notably the New York Philharmonic, the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Pittsburgh Symphony, and the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra. Ms. Kavafian resides in Westchester county with her husband, artist Bernard Mindich, and their son, Matthew. She plays a 1736 Muir McKenzie Stradivarius violin.

Hailed by The New York Times as "a pianist who balances qualities of excitement and spontaneity with clarity and elegance," pianist Anne-Marie McDermott will appear this season with the Houston Symphony, the New Jersey Symphony, and the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, among other ensembles. She continues her association with violinist Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg and as an Artist Member of The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center with performances in New York and across the country. Highlights of recent seasons include performances with the Guarneri String Quartet at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and performances with the Indianapolis Symphony and the Nashville Symphony. The piano and chamber music of Prokofiev have played a pivotal role in Ms. McDermott's recent musical activity. She performed the complete cycle of sonatas and chamber music at the Lincoln Center Festival in July 2003. She followed this appearance with performances of the cycle at the University of Arizona in February, at Chamber Music Northwest in Portland in March, and at UCLA's Schoenberg Hall in May. She also recorded the complete cycle of sonatas and chamber works for Arabesque Recordings, which released the first three volumes in July 2003. Ms. McDermott debuted with the New York Philharmonic in 1997 under Christian Thielemann and has since appeared with the orchestras of Atlanta, Baltimore, Dallas, Pittsburgh, St. Louis, and Seattle. A winner of the Young Concert Artists Auditions, Ms. McDermott was also the recipient of the Avery Fisher Career Development Award, the Andrew Wolf Memorial Chamber Music Award, the Joseph Kalichstein Piano Prize, the Paul A. Fish Memorial Prize, the Bruce Hungerford Memorial Prize, and the Mortimer Levitt Career Development Award for Women Artists.

PAUL NEUBAUER's exceptional musicality and effortless playing distinguish him as one of this generation's quintessential artists. Balancing a solo career with performances as an artist member of The Chamber Music Society, Neubauer at age 21 was the youngest principal string player in the New York Philharmonic's history. In November of 2005, Mr. Neubauer will perform the world premiere of "Purple Rhapsody" a viola concerto by Joan Tower with the Omaha Symphony at the opening of the Holland Performing Arts Center in Omaha, Nebraska. This will be followed by performances with the Buffalo Philharmonic, Kansas City Symphony, Virginia Symphony, Chautauqua Symphony Orchestra, Peninsula Music Festival Orchestra and the ProMusica Chamber Orchestra as the result of a co-commission. Mr. Neubauer has just released an all Schumann recital album with Society pianist Anne-Marie McDermott for Image Recordings and recently recorded works that were written for him: Wild Purple for solo viola by Joan Tower, Viola Rhapsody, a concerto by Henri Lazarof and Soul Garden for viola and chamber ensemble by Derek Bermel. He has appeared with over 100 orchestras throughout the United States, Europe, and Asia including the New York, Los Angeles Helsinki and Royal Liverpool Philharmonics, National, St. Louis, Detroit, Dallas, San Francisco and Bournemouth Symphonies, Santa Cecilia and English Chamber and Beethovenhalle Orchestras. He gave the world premiere of the revised Bartók Viola Concerto as well as Concertos by Penderecki, Picker, Jacob, Lazarof, Suter, Müller-Siemens, Ott and Friedman. He has performed at the festivals of Verbier, Ravinia, Stavanger, Hollywood Bowl, Lincoln Center, Mostly Mozart, and Marlboro and is the chamber music director at the OK Mozart Festival. Mr. Neubauer was an Avery Fisher Career Grant recipient and the first prizewinner of the Whitaker, D'Angelo and Lionel Tertis International Competitions and has been featured in Strad, Strings and People magazine. He is on the faculty of The Juilliard School and Mason Gross School of the Arts at Rutgers University.

The San Francisco Chronicle calls the playing of clarinetist David Shifrin, "a revelation in just how beautifully the clarinet can be played." Highlights of the 2004-2005 season include performances of the Copland Clarinet Concerto with the Daejon Philharmonic in Korea and the Detroit Symphony, as well as chamber music appearances in Japan, Chicago, and New York. Artistic Director of the Chamber Music Society from 1992 to 2004, Mr. Shifrin will be joined by fellow CMS Artist Members in May of 2005 at Alice Tully Hall to give the premiere of a new work by Lalo Schifrin. This past season included re-engagements with orchestras throughout the U.S., a debut with the Taipei Symphony in Taiwan, duo recitals with pianist Andre-Michel Schub, chamber music performances with artists such as the Emerson String Quartet and pianist Andre Watts, and an appearance at Carnegie Hall's Zankel Hall with pianist Emmanuel Ax. Mr. Shifrin has served as principal clarinetist with the American Symphony Orchestra and the Cleveland Orchestra, amongst others. His recordings continue to garner praise, as well as awards. He has received three Grammy nominations, and his recording of the Mozart Clarinet Concerto with the Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra was named Record of the Year by Stereo Review. In 2000 Mr. Shifrin won the Avery Fisher Prize and is the recipient of a Solo Recitalists Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts. Since 1981, Mr. Shifrin has been Artistic Director of Chamber Music Northwest in Portland, OR. He is currently a professor of music at Yale University.

Violinist Joseph Silverstein continues to blend his exquisite playing with his passion for conducting. This season he will do so when he leads the Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia, as conductor and violinist, in Vivaldi's Violin Concerto in E-flat major, and again with the New Jersey Symphony in Beethoven's Violin Concerto. Additional performances as violinist will take him to the stages of the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival and Chamber Music Northwest, while his conducting engagements include the Northwest Chamber Orchestra and the Rochester Philharmonic. Mr. Silverstein's extensive recordings can be heard on the RCA, Deutsche Grammophon, and Nonesuch labels, amongst others. One of his most recent releases includes the Bach Brandenburg Concertos with The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, where Mr. Silverstein has been an Artist Member since 1993. Mr. Silverstein served as concert master of the Boston Symphony for over 20 years, where he also held the position of assistant conductor, performing in that capacity on more than 100 occasions. He has also been music director of various ensembles that include the Utah Symphony Orchestra, the Chautauqua Symphony, and the Boston Symphony Chamber Players. A former faculty member of Yale and Boston universities, he is presently on the faculties of the Tanglewood Music Center and the Curtis Institute of Music.

Bassoonist Milan Turkovic is one of the few internationally known bassoon soloists performing today. He is a member of the Ensemble Wien-Berlin -- a woodwind quintet he formed together with principal players of the Berlin and Vienna philharmonics -- the Concentus Musicus of Vienna, and since 1993 an artist member of The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. This season Mr. Turkovic will appear at the 92nd Street Y with the Ensemble Wien-Berlin, with the Bamberg (Germany) Symphony playing the bassoon concertos of Mozart and Michael Haydn under the direction of Christopher Hogwood, and will release Wynton Marsalis' Quintet for Bassoon and String Quartet entitled Meeelaan! on the Camerata Tokyo label. Mr. Turkovic has performed as a soloist in most of the musical centers of the world with numerous renowned orchestras including the Vienna Symphony, Stockholm Philharmonic, Munich Philharmonic, Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, St. Louis Symphony, and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. His discography currently consists of 15 CDs of solo repertoire, 26 CDs of chamber music, and over 200 CDs with Concentus Musicus. From 1984 until 1992, he was professor of bassoon at the Universitaet Mozarteum in Salzburg. As a conductor, Milan Turkovic appears regularly with chamber orchestras and large wind ensembles. He has conducted in concert halls in Vienna, Salzburg, Venice, Milano, Florence, New York, Osaka, and other venues. Mr. Turkovic is an avid writer on music and musicians. His third book dealing with international music life will be published in Germany in the spring of 2005. He is married to Ingrid Wendl, a current member of Austrian Parliament.

This season, cellist Fred Sherry adds to his vast discography of music by living composers with the recent release of Fast Fantasy, featuring the music of Charles Wuorinen, and Necronomicon, music of John Zorn. Upcoming releases include the Elliott Carter Cello Concerto with the BBC Symphony Orchestra, Oliver Knussen conducting, and Steve Mackey's Cello Concerto Banana Dump Truck with BMOP, Gil Rose conducting. Mr. Sherry continues to collaborate with Robert Craft on recordings of music of Schoenberg, Stravinsky, and Webern; recordings of the Schoenberg String Quartet Concerto and music of Anton Webern are due out in December. During the 2004-2005 season Mr. Sherry will appear at Zankel Hall, Miller Theater, the 92nd Street Y, and the Guggenheim Museum, as well as on tour and at Alice Tully Hall as an Artist Member of The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. Mr. Sherry has had numerous pieces written for him by such composers as Mario Davidovsky, Lukas Foss, and Charles Wuorinen, and has performed these compositions with the San Francisco Symphony, Municipal Orchestra of Buenos Aires, the American Composers Orchestra, and the Orchestra of St. Luke's. In 2001, in collaboration with the Chamber Music Society and Merkin Concert Hall, Mr. Sherry created and directed "A Great Day in New York," the groundbreaking festival featuring the music of 52 living composers. Mr. Sherry is a founding member of the groups Tashi and Speculum Musicae and is a member of the chamber music and cello faculty at The Juilliard School of Music.

Pianist Andre-Michel Schub has been described by The New York Times as pianistically flawless... a formidable pianist with a fierce integrity." During the current season Mr. Schub appears with the Miró Quartet, at Chamber Music International with violinist Cho-Liang Lin and cellist Gary Hoffman, and on national and international tours with violinist Ani Kavafian and clarinetist David Shifrin. Last season Mr. Schub gave world premieres of pieces by Chen Yi and Bruce Adolphe, as well as performed with the ProMusica Chamber Orchestra and at SummerFest La Jolla. He has repeatedly performed with the world's most prestigious orchestras, among them the Boston Symphony, the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Chicago Symphony, the Cleveland Orchestra, the Los Angeles and New York philharmonics, the Detroit Symphony, the Royal Concertgebouw, and the Bournemouth Symphony. Since 1997 he has been artistic director of the Virginia Waterfront International Arts Festival, planning its chamber music programming and performing on a number of programs each year. Mr. Schub was the 1981 grand prize winner of the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition, 1977 recipient of the Avery Fisher Recital Award, and 1974 winner of the Naumberg International Piano Competition. Born in France, Mr. Schub came to the United States with his family when he was eight months old; New York City has been his home ever since. He began his piano studies with his mother when he was four and later continued his work with Jascha Zayde. Mr. Schub first attended Princeton University and then transferred to the Curtis Institute, where he studied with Rudolf Serkin from 1970 to 1973. André-Michel Schub's recordings, for Vox Cum laude and CBS Masterworks (now SONY Classical), include works of Beethoven, Brahms, and Liszt, as well as an all-Stravinsky album with Cho-Liang Lin.