Ravinia 2022, Issue 3

XAN PADRON (PATO); DARIO ACOSTA (BRUGGER) KAYHAN KALHOR, kamancheh Three-time Grammy nominee Kayhan Kalhor is an internationally acclaimed virtuoso on the kamancheh who, through his many mu- sical collaborations, has been instrumental in globally popularizing Persian music. He has studied the music of Iran’s many regions, in particular Khorason and Kordestan, and co-founded the renowned ensembles Dastan, Ghazal, and Masters of Persian Music. Kalhor has also toured the world as a soloist with such ensembles as the New York Philharmonic and Lyon National Orchestra. As a composer, Kalhor has collaborated with celbrated Irani- an vocalists Mohammad Reza Shajarian and Shahram Nazeri, and he has created music for television and film, most recently for the soundtrack to Francis Ford Coppola’s Youth Without Youth in collaboration with Osvaldo Golijov. In 2004, Kalhor was invited by com- poser John Adams to give a solo recital at Car- negie Hall as part of his Perspectives Series. That same year, he appeared on a double bill at Lincoln Center’s Mostly Mozart Festival, sharing the program with a performance of Mozart’s Requiem. Kalhor is an original mem- ber of the Silkroad Ensemble with Yo-Yo Ma, and his compositions appear on many of its albums. He won a Grammy Award with the ensemble in 2017, and his discography also includes collaborations with Brooklyn Rider and the Kronos Quartet. DAVID KRAKAUER, klezmer clarinet David Krakauer is widely considered a key in- novator in modern klezmer and one of the top classical clarinetists working today. He began connectingwith themusic of his Eastern Euro- pean Jewish cultural heritage in the late 1980s and quickly became a creator: as a member of The Klezmatics, in John Zorn’s Radical Jewish Culture movement, and ultimately as a com- poser, soloist, and bandleader in the klezmer genre. Krakauer has brought his passion to a wide array of projects, solo performances, and cross-genre collaborations, including with such artists as the WDR Big Band, Abra- ham Inc., Emerson String Quartet, Quatuor Debussy, Anakronic Electro Orkestra, vio- linist Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg, composers Wlad Marhulets and George Tsontakis, and conductors Marin Alsop, JoAnn Falletta, and Leonard Slatkin. His discography includes The Dreams and Prayers of Isaac the Blind with the Kronos Quartet; The Twelve Tribes , which earned Album of the Year honors in Germa- ny; and Paul Moravec’s Pulitzer Prize-winning Tempest Fantasy , as well as albums with Itzhak Perlman, Dawn Upshaw. He can also be heard the soundtracks to Taking Woodstock and The Tango Lesson . Most recently, Krakauer has been co-composing with Kathleen Tagg, in- cluding a clarinet concerto for the Santa Rosa and Eugene Symphonies and the score for Eric Steel’s Minyan . He also co-created Mazel Tov Cocktail Party! , a genre-crossing project re- leased in February. CRISTINA PATO, gaita (Galician bagpipes) Galician bagpiper, classical pianist, writer, and educator Cristina Pato has devoted her professional life to exploring the role of the arts and sciences in society. She is the lead- er of the US-based Pato Quartet and the Europe-based Pato Galician Trio, and the co-creator of the Invisible(s) Project along- side composer and violinist Mazz Swift. Pato has collaborated on more than 40 recordings as a guest artist, including the Grammy-win- ning Songs of Joy and Peace (2008) and Miles Español: New Sketches of Spain (2011). In 1999, she became the first the first female gaita play- er to release a solo album, and her discogra- phy now includes six gaita recordings and two as a pianist. In addition to her work as a performing and recording musician, Pato has been a resident artist and instructor at such universities as Harvard and the University of California–Santa Barbara, where she co-cre- ated a groundbreaking class on memory with neuroscientist Kenneth S. Kosik and artist Kim Yasuda. Pato has also been a Learning Advisor for Yo-Yo Ma’s Silkroad and was the 2019–20 Chair of Spanish Culture and Civilization at the King Juan Carlos I Center at New York University. She is the founder of the multidisciplinary Galician Connection Festival and writes a weekly column for La Voz de Galicia . MICHAEL WARD-BERGEMAN, hyper-accordion Michael Ward-Bergeman is a passionate per- former, songwriter, and composer. His sensi- tive and creative approach to music-making has led to performances and collaborations across a wide range of genres. Ward-Berge- man has enjoyed a close friendship and working relationship with composer Osval- do Golijov for over a decade. His work with the hyper-accordion—an acoustic accordion of his own design with extended range and expressive capabilities—has been featured in many of Golijov’s compositions. Ward-Berge- man’s electro-acoustic compositions have won international awards. He has premiered works written for vocalists Dawn Upshaw and Christina Courtin at Carnegie Hall, and in 2011 he was commissioned to compose for Yo-Yo Ma’s Silk Road Project. Ward-Berge- man is a founding member of the North American roots music trio Groanbox, which has released five recordings and toured exten- sively throughout the UK. SHOFAR ENSEMBLE Asher Berghoff Eli Fisher Lev Friedman Miriam Friedman Carol Goldbaum Dianne Lehmann Goldman Steve Goldman Cantor David Goldstein Ari Jacobson Mason Jacobson Julian Kolthammer Gabriel Natenshon Leah Perlman Jeremy Septon Jim Shivak Douglas Smith Elizabeth Smith Sam Sollinger Rodrigo Soto Niko Timmons Adam Whiteman Mateusz Zubrzycki JANAI BRUGGER, soprano A native of Chicago, Janai Brugger completed a master’s degree at the University of Mich- igan, where she studied with the late Shirley Verrett, and a bachelor’s degree at DePaul University, subsequently joining the Mero- la Opera Program at San Francisco Opera and becoming a Domingo-Thornton Young Artist at Los Angeles Opera for two seasons. In 2012, she not only won the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions but also took all three top prizes in the Operalia com- petition: Opera Prize, Song Prize, and Audi- ence Prize. Since debuting at the Met as Liù in Puccini’s Turandot , Brugger has appeared with the company as Jemmy in Rossini’s Guil- laume Tell , Micaëla in Bizet’s Carmen , Hele- na in the pastiche The Enchanted Island , and Pamina in Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte , as well as Clara in Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess for several recent productions. She previously essayed the role at Dutch National Opera, where she has also sung Servilia in Mozart’s La clemenza di Tito and Haydn’s Missa in tempore Belli . In recent seasons, Brugger has reprised Pamina for her Royal Opera at Covent Garden debut and Palm Beach Opera’s first Outdoor Opera Festival; Servilia at Los Angeles Opera; Liù at Lyric Opera of Chicago, where she also appeared at Ilia in Mozart’s Idomeneo ; and Micaëla at Cincinnati Opera, where she also sang Susanna in Mozart’s Le nozze di Figaro . Next season she will reprise Susanna in Los Angeles and also return to the Met for her first Glauce in Cherubini’s Médée . Future en- gagements also include Haydn’s Creation at the Grant Park Music Festival and her Vienna debut at the Musikverein singing Brahms’s Requiem with the City of Birmingham Sym- phony Orchestra, which she will rejoin to perform Mahler’s Second Symphony in the UK. Earlier this month, she sang Zerlina in Mozart’s Don Giovanni at Tanglewood with the Boston Symphony Orchestra. Janai Brug- ger was a fellow at Ravinia Steans Music Insti- tute in 2011 and returned twice in 2012, for the US premiere of Weill’s Zaubernacht and in Die Zauberflöte . She will appear in the Martin Theatre in August as Servilia in La clemenza di Tito . RAVINIA.ORG • RAVINIA MAGAZINE 49 XAN PADRON (PATO); DARIO ACOSTA (BRUGGER)