Hummel & Prokofiev
Thu, Oct 31, 6:30 & 9:00 pm
Daniel and Joanna S. Rose Studio at CMS
1 hour, no intermission
Program
Johann Hummel
(1778–1837)Quartet in E-flat major for Clarinet, Violin, Viola, and Cello
(1808)Sergei Prokofiev
(1891–1953)Quintet in G minor for Oboe, Clarinet, Violin, Viola, and Bass, Op. 39
(1924)
Julian Rhee
Yura Lee
Jonathan Swensen
Nina Bernat
James Austin Smith
Tommaso Lonquich
Praised for his “sophisticated, assured tone, superb intonation, and the kind of poise and showmanship that thrills audiences,” (The Strad) Julian Rhee is the Silver Medalist of the 11th Quadrennial International Violin Competition of Indianapolis, winner of Astral Artists’ National Auditions, and the first-prize winner of the 2020 Elmar Oliveira International Competition, where he was also awarded the special Community Award. He made his Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra debut at age 8, and has gone on to perform with orchestras such as the Indianapolis Symphony, Santa Rosa Symphony, Pittsburgh Symphony, East Coast Chamber Orchestra, Aspen Philharmonic, Eugene Symphony, Madison Symphony, and San Diego Symphony, among others. A passionate chamber musician, he has performed at and attended festivals including the Ravinia Steans Institute, Marlboro Festival, Rockport Music and North Shore Chamber Music Festivals. He studied with Hye-Sun Lee and Almita Vamos at the Music Institute of Chicago Academy. He received his bachelor’s degree and is currently pursuing a master’s degree with Miriam Fried at the New England Conservatory. A member of CMS’s Bowers Program beginning in 2024, Rhee is the recipient of the outstanding 1699 “Lady Tennant” Antonio Stradivari on extended loan through the generosity of the Mary B. Galvin Foundation and the efforts of the Stradivari Society, a division of Bein and Fushi, Inc.
Violinist/violist Yura Lee is a multifaceted musician, as a soloist and as a chamber musician, and one of the very few that is equally virtuosic on both violin and viola. She has performed with major orchestras including those of New York, Chicago, Baltimore, Cleveland, San Francisco, and Los Angeles. She has given recitals in London’s Wigmore Hall, Vienna’s Musikverein, Salzburg’s Mozarteum, the Palais des Beaux-Arts in Brussels, and the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam. At age 12, she became the youngest artist ever to receive the Debut Artist of the Year prize at the Performance Today awards given by National Public Radio. She is the recipient of a 2007 Avery Fisher Career Grant and the first prize winner of the 2013 ARD Competition. She has received numerous other international prizes, including top prizes in the Mozart, Indianapolis, Hannover, Kreisler, Bashmet, and Paganini competitions. Her CD Mozart in Paris, with Reinhard Goebel and the Bayerische Kammerphilharmonie, received the prestigious Diapason d’Or Award. As a chamber musician, she regularly takes part in the festivals of Seattle, Marlboro, Salzburg, Verbier, and Caramoor. Her main teachers included Dorothy DeLay, Hyo Kang, Miriam Fried, Paul Biss, Thomas Riebl, Ana Chumachenko, and Nobuko Imai. An alum of CMS's Bowers Program, Lee is on the faculty at the USC Thornton School of Music in Los Angeles. She lives in Los Angeles with her dog Nugget.
Rising star of the cello Jonathan Swensen is the recipient of an Avery Fisher Career Grant and was featured as “One to Watch” in Gramophone Magazine upon the release of his debut recording Fantasia, an album of works for solo cello which received rave reviews on its release. Jonathan fell in love with the cello upon hearing the Elgar Concerto at the age of six, and ultimately made his concerto debut performing that very piece with Portugal’s Orquestra Sinfónica do Porto Casa da Música. He has performed with the Philharmonia Orchestra, Orquesta Ciudad de Granada, Copenhagen Philharmonic, Mobile Symphony, Greenville Symphony, and the Aarhus, Odense, and Iceland symphonies. He made his critically acclaimed recital debuts at the Kennedy Center’s Terrace Theater and New York’s Merkin Concert Hall, with additional performances in Boston’s Jordan Hall, the Morgan Library and Museum, and the Krannert Center. He is a frequent performer of chamber music in the US and Europe, appearing at the Tivoli Festival, Copenhagen Summer Festival, Chamberfest Cleveland, Krzyżowa-Music, Vancouver Recital Society, and San Francisco Performance, among others. He has captured first prizes at the Windsor International String Competition, Khachaturian International Cello Competition, and the Young Concert Artists International Auditions. In 2024, he begins his tenure as a member of CMS’s Bowers Program. A graduate of the Royal Danish Academy of Music, Swensen continued his studies with Torleif Thedéen at the Norwegian Academy of Music in Oslo and Laurence Lesser at New England Conservatory, where he receives his Artist Diploma in May 2023.
Double bassist Nina Bernat, acclaimed for her interpretive maturity, expressive depth, and technical clarity, emerges onto the world stage as a recipient of a 2023 Avery Fisher Career Grant. Recent first prizes include the Barbash J.S. Bach String Competition, the Minnesota Orchestra Young Artist Competition, the Juilliard Double Bass Competition, and the 2019 International Society of Bassists Solo Competition. She was invited in 2019 to perform as guest principal bassist with the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, serving under the batons of András Schiff and Osmo Vänskä. Among her chamber performances are appearances with the Jupiter Symphony Chamber Players, Bridgehampton Chamber Music Series, and Mostly Music. This summer, she heads to Vermont for her second season at both the 2023 Marlboro Music Festival and the Lake Champlain Music Festival. She also returns to the 2023 Grace Note Farm Summer Music Festival in Rhode Island for her third season, as both performer and co-organizer. Her 2023–24 season includes a concerto debut with the Minnesota Orchestra and performances as guest principal of the Oslo Philharmonic. In 2024, she begins her tenure as a member of CMS’s Bowers Program. Bernat performs on a beautiful and sonorous early-18th-century bass, attributed to Guadagnini and handed down to her from her father.
A chamber musician praised for his “virtuosic,” “dazzling,” and “brilliant” performances (New York Times) and his “bold, keen sound” (New Yorker), James Austin Smith is driven by the communicative nature of live performance. As an oboist and on-stage host he appears regularly at leading national and international chamber music festivals, at Carnegie Hall and on tour as Co-Principal Oboe of the conductor-less Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, and as an artist of the International Contemporary Ensemble. As Artistic and Executive Director of Tertulia Chamber Music he curates intimate evenings of food, drink, and music designed to engage audiences hungry for singular cultural experiences in New York, San Francisco, and Serenbe, Georgia. He mentors graduate-level musicians as a professor of oboe and chamber music at Stony Brook University and the Manhattan School of Music, and as a regular guest at London’s Guildhall School of Music and Drama. An alum of CMS’s Bowers Program, he holds a master’s degree from the Yale School of Music and bachelor’s degrees in political science and music from Northwestern University. He spent a year as a Fulbright Scholar at the Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy Conservatory in Leipzig, Germany, and is an alum of Carnegie Hall’s Ensemble Connect. Born in New York and raised in Connecticut, Smith’s principal teachers are Stephen Taylor, Christian Wetzel, Humbert Lucarelli, and Ray Still.
Italian clarinetist Tommaso Lonquich enjoys a distinguished international career, having performed on the most prestigious stages of four continents. Praised by reviewers for his “passion, sumptuous tone, magical finesse, and dazzling virtuosity,” he is Solo Clarinetist with Ensemble MidtVest, the acclaimed chamber ensemble based in Denmark. As a chamber musician, he has partnered with Christian Tetzlaff, Pekka Kuusisto, Carolin Widmann, Ani and Ida Kavafian, Nicolas Dautricourt, David Shifrin, David Finckel, Wu Han, Gilbert Kalish, Anneleen Lenaerts, Yura Lee, Gilles Vonsattel, Juho Pohjonen, and the Danish and Vertavo string quartets. As a guest principal in several orchestras, he has collaborated with conductors including Zubin Mehta, Vladimir Ashkenazy, Fabio Luisi, and Leonard Slatkin. As a soloist, he has appeared with the Radio Television Orchestra of Slovenia and the Orchestra del Teatro Olimpico of Vicenza. He is Founder and Co-Artistic Director of Schackenborg Musikfest, a summer festival set in a castle in Denmark. He is also Artistic Co-Director of KantorAtelier, a vibrant cultural space based in Florence dedicated to the exploration of music, theatre, art, and psychoanalysis. He has conceived several collaborative performances with dancers, actors, and visual artists and has been particularly active in improvisation, leading workshops at the Juilliard School. He has given master classes at the Manhattan School of Music, Purchase College, and at the Royal Welsh College of Music. Lonquich can be heard on recordings with Ensemble MidtVest and Music@Menlo and is an alum of CMS’s Bowers Program.