Ravinia 2021 - Issue 1

MARK STEINBERG, violin The first violinist of the Brentano Quartet, Mark Steinberg holds degrees from Indiana University and The Juilliard School, follow- ing studies with Louise Behrend, Josef Gin- gold, and Robert Mann. He has earned such honors as the Naumburg Chamber Music Award, the inaugural Cleveland Quartet Award, and a Royal Philharmonic Society Award with the quartet, which he co-founded in 1992. Steinberg has recorded and toured extensively with the quartet, regularly across North America, Europe, Australia, and New Zealand, as well as to Japan, China, Korea, Israel and Colombia. He has also often ap- peared in trio and duo concerts with pianist Mitsuko Uchida, with whom he performed the complete Mozart sonatas in several ven- ues, including London’s Wigmore Hall in 2001, and recorded a selection of the works for the Philips label. On the orchestral stage, Steinberg has been a featured soloist with London’s Philharmonia Orchestra, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Kansas City Camera- ta, Auckland Philharmonia, and Philadelphia Concerto Soloists, among other ensembles, collaborating with such conductors as Kurt Sanderling, Esa-Pekka Salonen, and Miguel Harth-Bedoya. An advocate of contempo- rary music, he has worked closely with many composers and has performed with the Guild of Composers, Da Capo Chamber Players, Speculum Musicae, and Continuum. He is currently on the violin faculties of the Man- hattan School of Music and CUNY Gradu- ate Center, having previously taught at the Mannes School of Music, Juilliard’s Pre-Col- lege Division, Princeton University, and New York University, and appears regularly at the Yale School of Music with the Brentano Quartet, the school’s ensemble in residence. Steinberg has been on juries at the Banff In- ternational Quartet Competition, London Quartet Competition, and Mozart Interna- tional Quartet Competition in Salzburg, as well as the Naumburg Violin Competition. He also regularly works with musicians at the Banff Centre for the Arts, Aspen Music Fes- tival, Norfolk Chamber Music Festival, and Taos School of Music. Mark Steinberg joined the Ravinia Steans Music Institute faculty in 2019 and tonight gives his first Ravinia main- stage performance. ATAR ARAD, viola Israeli violist Atar Arad began his earliest mu- sical studies on the violin, and in 1968 he was one of the few young artists selected to study at Belgium’s Queen Elisabeth Music Chapel. He became drawn to the broad and unfamiliar repertoire and sound of the viola during this time, and in 1971 he devoted himself to the in- strument. The following year, in his first pub- lic appearance as a violist, Arad was awarded the City of London Prize at the Carl Flesch Competition, and a few months later he took first prize at the International Viola Compe- tition in Geneva by the unanimous decision of the jury. In 1980 he moved to the United States and became a member of the Cleveland Quartet. For the next seven years he toured the Americas, Europe, Israel, and Japan with the ensemble, collaborating with such artists as pianists Eugene Istomin, Clifford Curzon, and Emanuel Ax, violists Peter Schidloff and Jaime Laredo, cellists Yo-Yo Ma and Mstislav Rostropovich, flutist James Galway, and clar- inetist Eric Stolzmann. A devoted chamber musician, Arad has appeared both with the Cleveland Quartet and as a guest artist with the Guarneri, Emerson, Tokyo, Mendelssohn, American, and Orion String Quartets, among others, at such music festivals as Aspen, Chautauqua, Edinburgh, Flanders, Norfolk, Paris, Ravinia, Salzburg, and Seattle, as well as New York’s Mostly Mozart Festival and Carn- egie Hall. He began composing in the 1990s, first completing a solo sonata for viola before adding two string quartets and other cham- ber works, as well as multiple viola concertos. In 2018 Arad received the American Viola Society’s Career Achievement Award and the International Viola Society’s Silver Alto Clef. He is currently professor of viola at Indiana University’s Jacobs School of Music and a fac- ulty member of the Domaine Forget academy, Israel’s Keshet Eilon Music Center, and, since 1994, the Ravinia Steans Music Institute. Atar Arad first appeared at Ravinia in 1984 with the Cleveland Quartet, and tonight marks his 17th season performing at the festival. PAUL BISS, viola Violist and violinist Paul Biss is an alumnus of Indiana University, where he received a bachelor’s degree and studied with Josef Gingold, and The Juilliard School, complet- ing a master’s degree under the tutelage of Ivan Galamian. He has also studied chamber music with such artists as Walter Trampler, Claus Adam, Janos Starker, and William Primrose. For many years Biss was a mem- ber of the Berkshire String Quartet, which was in residence at Indiana University, and has appeared at many music festivals, includ- ing Ravinia, Marlboro, La Jolla, Lockenhaus, Naantali, Casals, and the Ysaye at London’s Wigmore Hall. As both a violinist and violist, he has collaborated with Christoph Eschen- bach, Menahem Pressler, Gidon Kremer, Pin- chas Zukerman, Miriam Fried, Michael Tree, Janos Starker, Ralph Kirshbaum, and Gary Hoffman, as well as the Mendelssohn, Fine Arts, and Alexander String Quartets. Biss has also regularly appeared in recital and as a so- loist with orchestras in North America, Eu- rope and Israel, with recent concerts taking him to Brazil and Korea. He became a pro- fessor at Indiana University’s Jacobs School of Music in 1979 and has conducted approx- imately 100 performances of symphonic mu- sic as well as 13 operas for the school’s opera program before retiring from the position in 2008. Biss has also led orchestras in Mexico, Finland, Brazil, Korea, and Israel, where he was awarded a prize by the Ministry of Cul- ture for the performance of contemporary work. Previously the assistant conductor of the Akron Symphony, he is also a former faculty member of MIT and the universities of Tel Aviv and Akron, and has held a pro- fessorship of violin and chamber music at the New England Conservatory since 2006. Paul Biss joined the Ravinia Steans Music Institute faculty in 1994, and tonight marks his 24th season as a performer at the festival. PETER STUMPF, cello A professional cellist from the age of 16, as a member of the Hartford Symphony Or- chestra, Peter Stumpf further developed his artistry at the Curtis Institute of Music and New England Conservatory, where he earned a bachelor’s degree and an Artist Diploma re- spectively. He was associate principal cellist of the Philadelphia Orchestra for 12 years before earning an appointment as principal cellist of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, from 2002 until his departure in 2011 to join the faculty of Indiana University’s Jacobs School of Mu- sic. A dedicated chamber musician, Stumpf is a member of the Johannes String Quartet and has appeared on concert series at Carn- egie Hall, the Kennedy Center, Walt Disney Concert Hall, Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw, and Casals Hall in Tokyo. Additionally, he has performed at such festivals as Marlboro, Santa Fe, Great Lakes, Ojai, Spoleto, and As- pen, and he recently performed Bach’s solo suites on the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society series. Stumpf ’s touring highlights have included programs with Musicians from Marlboro and the Casals Hall Ensemble, as well as performances of Mozart’s complete piano trio with Mitsuko Uchida. He has also collaborated with such pianists as Leif Ove Andsnes, Emanuel Ax, Jorge Bolet, Yefim Bronfman, Radu Lupu, Wolfgang Sawallisch, András Schiff, and Jean-Yves Thibaudet, and he has performed alongside the Emerson and Guarneri String Quartets, recently touring with the Guarneri playing commissioned works from William Bolcom and Esa-Pekka Salonen. Offstage, Stumpf has been on the cello faculties of the University of Southern California, Hartt School of Music, and New England Conservatory, as well as the guest faculties of the Curtis Institute of Music, Yellow Barn Music Festival, and Musicorda Summer String Program. Peter Stumpf first performed at Ravinia in 2003 with Musicians from Marlboro and is making his first return this season joining the Ravinia Steans Music Institute faculty. RAVINIA MAGAZINE • JULY 1 – JULY 23, 2021 38