FREE Online Event
Saturday, October 23, 2021
Online Premiere at 7:30pm
Celebrating all our Voices: Stamford Symphony 2021 Virtual Gala
WATCH THE REBROADCASTFREE Online Event
Saturday, October 23, 2021
Online Premiere at 7:30pm
Celebrating all our Voices: Stamford Symphony 2021 Virtual Gala
WATCH THE REBROADCASTFREE Online Event
Saturday, October 23, 2021
Online Premiere at 7:30pm
Celebrating all our Voices: Stamford Symphony 2021 Virtual Gala
WATCH THE REBROADCASTTime to event
Duration
1 hour
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About this performance:
This year’s Gala, Celebrating All Our Voices, places the spotlight on our burgeoning education programs. Funds raised at the Gala will go towards Play, Sing, Listen! The Education Fund of Stamford Symphony to support our five-year, comprehensive education plan to deepen our collaboration with current and new music education partners. From Greenwich to Bridgeport, we are making a difference.
Program to include:
Mozart Piano Concerto No.9, Finale
Chelsea Guo, piano
Bach Concerto for Two Violins
Gil Shaham and Adele Anthony, violins
Strauss Emperor Waltz
Stamford Symphony
Michael Stern, conductor
A Message From Music Director Michael Stern
A Message From Guest Artists Gil Shaham and Adele Anthony, violins
A Message From Guest Artist Chelsea Guo, piano
PLUS, we will celebrate the Orchestra’s educational partners!
This concert has been generously sponsored by:
Featured Artists:
Gil Shaham, violin
Gil Shaham is one of the foremost violinists of our time; his flawless technique combined with his inimitable warmth and generosity of spirit has solidified his renown as an American master. The Grammy Award-winner, also named Musical America’s “Instrumentalist of the Year,” is sought after throughout the world for concerto appearances with leading orchestras and conductors, and regularly gives recitals and appears with ensembles on the world’s great concert stages and at the most prestigious festivals.
Highlights of recent years include the acclaimed recording and performances of J.S. Bach’s complete sonatas and partitas for solo violin. In the coming seasons in addition to championing these solo works he will join his long time duo partner pianist, Akira Eguchi in recitals throughout North America, Europe, and Asia.
Appearances with orchestra regularly include the Berlin Philharmonic, Boston Symphony, Chicago Symphony, Israel Philharmonic, Los Angeles Philharmonic, New York Philharmonic, Orchestre de Paris, and San Francisco Symphony as well as multi-year residencies with the Orchestras of Montreal, Stuttgart and Singapore. With orchestra, Mr. Shaham continues his exploration of “Violin Concertos of the 1930s,” including the works of Barber, Bartok, Berg, Korngold, Prokofiev, among many others.
Mr. Shaham has more than two dozen concerto and solo CDs to his name, earning multiple Grammys, a Grand Prix du Disque, Diapason d’Or, and Gramophone Editor’s Choice. Many of these recordings appear on Canary Classics, the label he founded in 2004. His CDs include 1930s Violin Concertos, Virtuoso Violin Works, Elgar’s Violin Concerto, Hebrew Melodies, The Butterfly Lovers and many more. His most recent recording in the series 1930s Violin Concertos Vol. 2, including Prokofiev’s Violin Concerto and Bartok’s Violin Concerto No. 2, was nominated for a Grammy Award. His latest recording of Beethoven and Brahms Concertos with The Knights was released in 2021.
Mr. Shaham was born in Champaign-Urbana, Illinois, in 1971. He moved with his parents to Israel, where he began violin studies with Samuel Bernstein of the Rubin Academy of Music at the age of 7, receiving annual scholarships from the America-Israel Cultural Foundation. In 1981, he made debuts with the Jerusalem Symphony and the Israel Philharmonic, and the following year, took the first prize in Israel’s Claremont Competition. He then became a scholarship student at Juilliard, and also studied at Columbia University.
Gil Shaham was awarded an Avery Fisher Career Grant in 1990, and in 2008 he received the coveted Avery Fisher Prize. In 2012, he was named “Instrumentalist of the Year” by Musical America. He plays the 1699 “Countess Polignac” Stradivarius, and lives in New York City with his wife, violinist Adele Anthony, and their three children.
Adele Anthony, violin
Since her triumph at Denmark’s 1996 Carl Nielsen International Violin Competition, Adele Anthony has enjoyed an acclaimed and expanding international career. Performing as a soloist with orchestra and in recital, as well as being active in chamber music, Ms. Anthony’s career spans the continents of North America, Europe, Australia, India and Asia.
In addition to appearances with all six symphonies of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, Ms. Anthony’s highlights from recent seasons have included performances with the symphony orchestras of Houston, San Diego, Seattle, Ft. Worth, and Indianapolis, as well as the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra and the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France. Being an avid chamber music player, Ms. Anthony appears regularly at La Jolla SummerFest and Aspen Music Festival. Her wide-ranging repertoire extends from the Baroque of Bach and Vivaldi to contemporary works of Ross Edwards, Arvo Pärt and Phillip Glass.
An active recording artist, Ms. Anthony’s work includes releases with Sejong Soloists “Vivaldi: The Four Seasons” (Naxos), a recording of the Philip Glass Violin Concerto with Takuo Yuasa and the Ulster Orchestra (Naxos), Arvo Pärt’s ‘Tabula rasa’ with Gil Shaham, Neeme Järvi and the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra (Deutsche Grammophon), and her latest recording of the Sibelius Violin Concerto and Ross Edwards “Maninyas” with the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra (Canary Classics/ABC Classics).
Adele Anthony performs on an Antonio Stradivarius violin, crafted in 1728.
Chelsea Guo, piano
Twenty-year-old Chelsea Guo has already attracted international attention as a pianist and soprano of remarkable gifts. Her dual artistry is featured in her 2021 debut recording on the Orchid Classics label, “Chelsea Guo: Chopin in My Voice”, which includes beloved Chopin solo repertoire, along with two Chopin songs and one Rossini aria in which the artist accompanies herself. The inclusion of the Rossini aria is typical of many of the concert programs Chelsea offers, which include both piano and vocal works, enriching the opportunity for her audience to experience music in a broader context and displaying the influence that singers had on composers of their time. Gramophone Magazine included the recording in their Essential New Albums and Classical FM featured Chelsea for an entire week as a “Young Classical Star.” The album reached #7 on the Billboard Traditional Classical Chart and received five stars from BBC Music Magazine, which wrote: “Here is a rare talent.” In China, all of the major digital music platforms prominently displayed the recording on their home pages and Naxos China highlighted it among “The Best Albums of the Month”.
Chelsea’s 2021-22 season includes her German debut at the Moritzburg Festival as both pianist and soprano, and appearances in both capacities with the Stamford Symphony and Michael Stern in their season opening gala, as well as an hour long return visit to radio station WQXR’s Young Artist Showcase. She also performs with the New Jersey Symphony, and the Oregon Mozart Players and Kelly Kuo in the closing concert of their 40th anniversary season. After having won a top prize in the 2020 National Chopin Piano Competition in Miami, she performs recitals in Florida for the Chopin Foundation of the United States, the Miami International Piano Festival, and the Grand Piano Series in Naples.
Chelsea’s solo piano performances have taken her to Carnegie Hall and London’s Wigmore Hall, as well as prominent venues throughout the United States, England, Austria, France, Poland, Italy, China, Japan and Canada. A guest artist of the Leeds Inaugural Piano Festival, she was also featured in Europe in solo recitals presented by the Mozarteum Summer Series in Salzburg, and in China, in a six-concert tour under the auspices of the Shenzhen Piano Music Festival. Her orchestral appearances have included the Ft. Worth Symphony, under the baton of Maestro Barry Douglas, and the Torun Symphony Orchestra in Poland. Chelsea was honored to be a Young Scholar of the Lang Lang Foundation, a young artist of the Artemisia Akademie at Yale, and a recipient of the US Chopin Foundation scholarships for four consecutive years.
Chelsea’s passion for piano was mirrored by her love of singing from an early age. Having debuted as a pianist with the Tianjin Symphony Orchestra at age nine, she returned in 2018 as vocal soloist under the baton of Maestro Muhai Tang. She has been recognized for her vocal gifts as a 2019 National YoungArts winner, the first prize winner in the 2019 Schmidt Voice Competition, and recipient of scholarships from the George London and Gerda Lissner foundations.
Chelsea graduated with honors from the Juilliard School’s Pre-College as a double major in piano and classical voice. She is currently pursuing a Bachelor of Music in piano at Juilliard College under the tutelage of Hung-Kuan Chen and continuing her vocal studies with Lorraine Nubar and Jason Ferrante.
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