Ravinia 2021 - Issue 4

.A832 .I..A= (BA.ER) DARI2 AC2S7A (BA.) NEXUS CHAMBER MUSIC NEXUS Chamber Music is a collective of international artists committed to stimulating interest in chamber music through both its annual two-week summer music festival in Chicago and touring programs across the US and abroad. NEXUS was co-founded in 2018 by Alexander Hersh and Brian Hong, longtime friends and musicians who yearned for ways to meet the technological and social demands of the 21st-century listener and foster a new generation of chamber music supporters and advocates by presenting first-rate concerts and utilizing social media to deliver high-produc- tion-value content. With the support of Guarneri Hall, the first NEXUS season comprised three concerts in the brand-new acoustically engineered concert hall and two in unconventional venues: the Whiner Beer Taproom and Buzz Coffee Roaster and Baker. Since winning first prize at the 2016 Young Concert Artists International Audi- tions and third prize at the 2017 Michael Hill Competition, violinist Benjamin Baker has cultivated an international career with tours of the US, Columbia, China, and Argentina as well as regular appearances at Wigmore Hall and on BBC Radio 3. Recent highlights have also included debuts with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra and Christchurch Symphony, plus recordings with the BBC Concert and Royal Philharmonic Orchestras. Earlier this year Delphian Records released his album of Cop- land, Poulenc, and Prokofiev sonatas with pi- anist Daniel Lebhardt. Born in New Zealand, Baker studied at the Yehudi Menuhin School and the Royal College of Music, and in 2016 and 2017 he was a fellow at the Ravinia Ste- ans Music Institute. A sought after chamber musician, he has also appeared at the Pärnu, East Neuk, Cheltenham, Bridgehampton, and Caramoor festivals. Korean-American vi- olinist Brian Hong has recently been an Ensemble Connect fellow at Carnegie Hall following his studies at the New England Conservatory (bachelor’s degree) and The Juilliard School (master’s degree), where he held a Kovner Fellowship, as well as top prizes from several competitions in the US. As a soloist, he has performed with such ensembles as the Fairfax Symphony Orchestra, Chesapeake Orchestra, US Army Orchestra, and National Philharmonic, with recent highlights including performances of Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto with Kyle Wiley Pickett and the Springfield Symphony Orchestra and Schoenberg’s Violin Concerto with Edward Gardner and the Juilliard Or- chestra. Hong also has extensive experience as a chamber musician, having performed at such festivals as the Bowdoin International Music Festival, Music Academy of the West, Taos School of Music, Perlman Music Pro- gram, Kneisel Hall, and Yellow Barn. Jamaican-American violist Jordan Bak is a Sphinx MPower Artist Grant Recipient and a top laureate of the 2020 Sphinx Competition, having also earned the top and audience prizes of the 2019 Concert Artists Guild Victor Elmaleh Competition, the 2019 Samuel Sanders Tel Aviv Museum Prize, and the 2019 John White Special Prize from the Tertis International Viola Competi- tion. A featured artist for WQXR’s inaugural Artist Propulsion Lab, he is also a member of the New York Classical Players. Bak has been heard as a recitalist and chamber musician at such venues as Alice Tully Hall, Bruno Walter Auditorium, and Boston’s Jordan Hall, among other American venues, as well as at the Ver- bier Festival, Hindemith Music Center, and the Helsinki Musiikkitalo overseas. The third violist to earn an Artist Diploma from The Juilliard School, he also holds degrees from Juilliard and the New England Conservatory. Cellist Alexander Hersh is a winner of the 2020 Salon de Virtuosi Career Grant and 2019 Astral Artists National Auditions as well as several compe- titions, including the New York International Artists Association Competition (2017) and Schadt String Competition (2016). He also received critical acclaim at the inaugural Queen Elisabeth Cello Competition in 2017. A passionate chamber musician, Hersh has performed the complete string quartets of Béla Bartok and Alban Berg among many more masterworks of the canon at such fes- tivals as Marlboro, Caramoor, Music@Menlo, Amsterdam Cello Biennial, and the Ravinia Steans Music Institute, where he was a fellow in 2015 and 2016. A fourth-generation string player, he began playing the cello at age 5 and attended the Academy at the Music Institute of Chicago. After completing bachelor’s and master’s degrees at the New England Conser- vatory, he continued studies in Berlin with Nicolas Altstaedt at the Hanns Eisler Univer- sity of Music. Recently featured by the Dame Myra Hess Series and Artist Pre- sentation Society of Saint Louis, soprano Kristina Bachrach has been an artist-in-resi- dence at the Marlboro Music Festival (2017– 19), Yellow Barn Music Festival (2016), and SongFest (2016), as well as a fellow at Tangle- wood. An award winner of the Ziering-Con- lon Art Song Competition, she has given multiple performances with the Brooklyn Art Song Society, including Britten folk songs ar- rangements, a variety of French mélodie, and Grieg, Schubert, and Eisler lieder, as well as a touring program of Brahms lieder. Equally adventurous as an operatic artist, Bachrach recently covered the role of Mae in the world premiere of Freedom Ride with Chicago Opera Theater and has appeared with New York’s Center for Contemporary Opera and Bare Opera, Gotham Chamber Opera, Opera Philadelphia, and MetroWest Opera Compa- ny, with whom she portrayed Musetta in an all-female take on Puccini’s La bohème . A native of Iceland, S t e f á n R a g n a r Höskuldsson is the principal flutist of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, as well as a distinguished interna- tional soloist and chamber musician. Before his appointment to the CSO in 2015, he held the same chair in the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra from 2008 to 2016. His extensive solo performances include engagements with the Pacific Music Festival in Sapporo, con- certos with the Iceland Symphony Orchestra, recitals at the Sir James Galway Internation- al Flute Festival in Lucerne, and a live radio broadcast with the BBC Radio 3 program In Tune in London. In addition to being a fac- ulty member with the Pacific Music Festival in Japan since 2010, Höskuldsson has given master classes at The Juilliard School, Man- hattan School of Music, Mannes College of Music, Guildhall School of Music and Drama, and the Royal Academy of Music. In 2015 he released his debut solo album Solitude on the Delos label. writing show greater influence of her teacher/ lover Zemlinsky than of her husband. Despite their mutual devotion, the marriage between Gustav and Alma suffered long emotionless stretches, in large part a result of Gustav’s neglect and obsessive devotion to conducting and composition. Feeling deep neglect and despondency, Alma began an affair with the young architect Walter Gropi- us in 1910. She finally felt free to express her inner anguish to Gustav: “I told him I had longed for his love year-after-year and that he, in his fanatical concentration on his own life, had simply overlooked me. As I spoke, he felt for the first time that something is owed to the person with whom one’s life has once been linked. He suddenly felt a sense of guilt.” Mahler’s guilt translated into a secret project to restore the gift he had taken from Alma— her compositions—which he began editing for publication. While walking home one day in August 1910, Alma stumbled upon his scheme, which produced a different response than an- ticipated: “I heard my songs being played and sung. I stopped—I was petrified. My poor for- gotten songs. I had dragged them to and fro for 10 years, a weary load I could never get rid of. I was overwhelmed with shame.” For his part, Gustav heaped praise on Alma and encouraged her to revise the music. She had not felt this degree of acceptance from her husband for years. This long-awaited at- tention and approval did not last long. While in the United States conducting performanc- es by the New York Philharmonic, Mahler fell ill with bacterial endocarditis on February 20, 1911. The ailing musician was rushed back to Vienna for treatment but hope quickly disap- peared. He cried out “My Almschi!” [his term of endearment for Alma] repeatedly in his final hallucinatory state. At the stroke of mid- night on May 18, 1911, Gustav Mahler died. Conductor and arranger Cliff Colnot has ar- ranged Alma Mahler’s Five Lieder for sopra- no and string quartet specifically for NEXUS Chamber Music. Colnot has been a fixture in the Chicago classical, contemporary, and commercial musical scenes for decades. After completing a bachelor’s and master’s degrees in music education in Florida, Colnot moved to Chicago and earned a PhD at Northwest- ern University. His conducting credentials include principal conductor of the Civic Or- chestra of Chicago, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s MusicNOW contemporary mu- sic ensemble, and the University of Chica- go’s Contempo Ensemble, as well as assistant conductor at the Lucerne Festival Academy (working with Pierre Boulez) and West-East- ern Divan Workshop (working with Daniel Barenboim). Currently, Colnot serves as Di- rector of Orchestral Activities and Wind En- semble Conductor at DePaul University. –Program notes © 2021 Todd E. Sullivan RAVINIA MAGAZINE • SEPTEMBER 7 – SEPTEMBER 24, 2021 50