Ravinia 2019, Issue 7, Week 15

B a s s - b a r i t o n e Nicholas New- ton was at RSMI in 2019 and is a member of the Houston Grand Opera Studio this season, having re- cently completed a master’s degree at Rice University. Having also pursued singing gospel, jazz, and musical theater, Newton has expanded his repertoire with operatic roles such as Monterone in Verdi’s Rigoletto with Opera Theatre of Saint Louis, Olin Blitch in Carlisle Floyd’s Susannah and Achilla in Handel’s Giulio Cesare at Rice University, and Un Arbre/La Fau- teuil in Ravel’s L’enfant et les sortilèges at Aspen Music Festival. In concert, he has been a soloist in Mozart’s, Fauré’s, and Duruflé’s Requiems, Haydn’s “Lord Nelson” Mass, Stephen Paulus’s To Be Certain of the Dawn , and Gershwin’s Cat- fish Row . WINDSYNC A winner of the National Fischoff Chamber Mu- sic Competition and the Concert Artists Guild Victor Elmaleh International Competition, WindSync also won CAG’s Sylvia Ann Hewlett Adventurous Artist Prize in recognition of its dramatic and engaging interpretations of classical music. The wind quintet plays exclusively from memory, including elements of staging and cho- reography, and focuses on building a connection with audiences through dynamic concert pro- gramming and charismatic stage presence. Since winning the CAG competition, Texas-based WindSync has made its New York debut at Carn- egie’s Weill Recital Hall and has performed at the Chautauqua Institution, Washington Performing Arts Society’s Music in the Country series, and the Music in the Park Series of The Schubert Club in Saint Paul, MN. Recent engagements have also included appearances at the Library of Congress in Washington, DC, the Shanghai Oriental Arts Center, and the Met Museum’s Grace Rainey Rogers Auditorium, as well as on broadcasts of New York Public Radio’s Young Artists Showcase and American Public Media’s Performance Today . WindSync is also dedicated to showcasing con- temporary music and expanding wind quintet repertoire, in 2015 giving the premiere of Paul Lansky’s The long and the short of it , commis- sioned by the Library of Congress and Lincoln Center, and the following year itself commis- sioning Michael Gilbertson for the concerto The Cosmos , which it premiered with the Lafayette Symphony Orchestra. The quintet is strongly committed to educational enrichment and com- munity engagement, collaborating with such or- ganizations as the Seattle Symphony Orchestra, Midland Symphony Orchestra, and Rockport Chamber Music Festival on programs at concert halls, museums, outdoor venues, libraries, hospi- tals, and schools, additionally serving as Music for Autism’s 2013 Spotlight Artist on a multi-city tour. In addition to being a resident ensemble of the Da Camera of Houston Young Artist Pro- gram, Grand Teton Music Festival, and Chamber Music Festival on Lexington, WindSync has also given recitals and workshops at Stanford Uni- versity, University of Nebraska–Lincoln, and the University of Minnesota, among many other col- leges. WindSync is making its third consecutive appearance on Ravinia’s BGH Classics series. ANTHONY DE MARE, piano Anthony de Mare is one of the world’s foremost champions of contemporary music, having in- spired the creation of over 60 new works by some of today’s most distinguished artists, including Steve Reich, Wynton Marsalis, Nico Muhly, An- nie Gosfield, Fred Hersch, Ethan Iverson, Mer- edith Monk, Mason Bates and Andy Akiho. He continues to expand the boundaries of the reper- toire, which includes the speaking-singing pianist genre that he pioneered over 25 years ago with the premiere of Frederic Rzewski’s De Profundis . As creator, performer, and co-producer of the land- mark commissioning and concert project Liai- sons: Reimagining Sondheim from the Piano , de Mare has brought together composers, spanning multiple genres, to bring the work of Stephen Sondheim into the concert hall. In preparation for Sondheim’s 90th birthday in 2020, he com- missioned a select number of new composers to contribute to Liaisons , which will bring the total compendium to 50, accompanied by a national tour in celebration of this milestone. The adapt- ability of his programming to traditional classi- cal, jazz, and theater spaces speaks to the range of de Mare’s versatility—he has performed across five continents, and his discography of over 20 recordings includes works by Ives, Cowell, Har- rison, Cage, Piazzolla, Rzewski, and many others. In recent years, de Mare has performed in Aus- tralia (Melbourne Recital Centre and Sydney), the London Jazz Festival at the Barbican, the Bari Piano Festival in Italy, the 21C Festival in Toronto, Jazz at Lincoln Center, Virginia Tech Center for the Arts, SF Jazz, Ravinia Festival, the Gilmore Keyboard Festival, Monadnock Music Festival, Virginia Arts Festival, Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center, the Schubert Club in Minneapolis, Rockport Music Festival, and the Cliburn Series in Fort Worth, and he launched a new two-pia- no project entitled The American Explorer with Italian pianist Emanuele Arciuli in 2019. Since his debut with Young Concert Artists, de Mare has earned top honors from the Gaudeamus Inter- preters Competition (The Netherlands) and the Contemporary Piano Competition of Saint-Ger- main-en-Laye (France), and he made his Carne- gie Hall debut in Zankel Hall in 2005. Anthony de Mare previously brought music from his Liaisons project to Ravinia in 2013 and 2014. OCTOBER 5, 2019 – MAY 9, 2020 | RAVINIA MAGAZINE 93 FEBRUARY 15, 2020 MARCH 14, 2020