Ravinia 2024 Issue 1

A Texas native, Robert Switala is the co-princi- pal violist of the Sphinx Virtuosi Chamber Or- chestra, having won the Sphinx Competition’s Ju- nior Division in 2007 and regularly collaborated with the Sphinx Organi- zation on producing virtual content. Currently on the string faculty at the Des Plaines School of Music in Chicago, he is also the concertmaster of the Thompson Street Opera Company. Swi- tala previously held positions in the El Paso, Las Cruces, San Angelo, and Grant Park Symphony Orchestras. Since his teens, Robert has regularly collaborated with his younger sister, Alexan- dra, as a string duo, appearing on From the Top among many other broadcasts. As a chamber musician, Switala has been a guest of numerous masterclasses and music festivals around the world, including Perlman, Chautauqua, Keshet Eilon, Mimir, Sarasota, Kneisel Hall, and Arto- sphere, and he has collaborated with members of the Guarneri, Juilliard, Cavani, Cleveland, Takács, and Dover String Quartets. Cellist Alexander Hersh made his Carnegie Hall recital debut in 2022, having previously been honored with a 2020 Sa- lon de Virtuosi Career Grant and as a 2019 As- tral Artists National Auditions winner. He also received critical acclaim at the inaugural Queen Elisabeth Cello Competition in 2017 and has won the New York International Artists Asso- ciation Competition (2017) and Schadt String Competition (2016). 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 festivals as Marlboro, Caramoor, Music@ Menlo, Amsterdam Cello Biennial, and the Ra- vinia Steans Music Institute, where he was a Pi- ano & Strings Program fellow in 2015 and 2016. Last year, Hersh released his debut solo album, Absinthe . A fourth-generation string player, he began playing the cello at age 5 and attended the Academy at the Music Institute of Chicago. Af- ter completing bachelor’s and master’s degrees at the New England Conservatory, he contin- ued studies in Berlin with Nicolas Altstaedt at the Hanns Eisler University of Music. In 2018 Hersh co-founded NEXUS Chamber Music, the resident ensemble of Guarneri Hall in Chicago, which has also appeared at Ravinia in 2021 and 2022. Saxophonist and com- poser Greg Ward was born in Peoria, IL, and is currently based in Chi- cago, where he created his critically acclaimed debut album as a band- leader, Fitted Shards’ South Side Story , in 2010. The 2001 RSMI fellow has also produced Phonic Juggernaut (2011), Touch My Beloved’s Thought (2016), and Rogue Parade’s Stomping Off from Greenwood (2019) and Dion’s Quest (2023), as well as appeared on recordings on concerts with such artists as Prefuse 73, Lupe Fiasco, Tortoise, William Parker, Makaya McCraven, Linda May Han Oh, and Mike Reed. As a composer, Ward has received commissions from the Jazz Gallery in NYC, the Chicago Jazz Institute, the City of Chicago’s Made In Chicago: World Class Jazz Series, the Peoria Ballet Company, and the Bra- zos Valley Symphony Orchestra. He has also been awarded the New Music USA Van Lier Fel- lowship (2012) and a DCASE IAP grant (2017). Ward maintains an active international touring schedule with various ensembles, and he was recently appointed to the faculty of the Jacobs School of Music at Indiana University as Assis- tant Professor of Jazz Saxophone. Glenn Zaleski is an in-demand pianist on New York’s jazz scene, having played with the likes of Ravi Coltrane, Lage Lund, and Ari Hoe- nig. His latest albums range from solo ( Vol. 1 in 2017 and Vol. 2 in 2022) to quintet ( The Question , 2020) to trio ( Live at Jazz Standard , 2019), the latter with his long-standing combo Stranahan/Zaleski/Rosa- to, which also features on Limitless (2013) and Anticipation (2011). Zaleski earned wide critical acclaim with his 2015 Sunnyside Records debut My Ideal , and he also appears with his brother, saxophonist Mark Zaleski, on Duet Suite (2010). Originally from Boylston, MA, Zaleski was an RSMI fellow in 2005 and attended the Brubeck Institute Fellowship program in California from 2005 to 2007 before finishing undergraduate studies at The New School in New York in 2009. He then joined the NYU faculty while working toward a graduate degree through 2011, when he became both a semifinalist in the Thelonious Monk International Jazz Piano Competition and a finalist for the American Pianists Associa- tion’s Cole Porter Fellowship. Dan Chmielinski is a critically acclaimed bassist and composer currently based in Los Angeles who maintains a bi-coastal schedule of live performances, music production, and film scoring. Recently a Gram- my winner as a member of the Generation Gap Jazz Orchestra, he has also earned praise for his original music in The Exiles , a 2022 Sundance winning documentary, and his duo project ChimyTina with vocalist Martina DaSilva, most recently releasing the album Constellations . In addition to leading Four by Four, a combo of jazz and classical quartets, and Circuit Kisser, an ensemble of synthesizers, electric bass, and drums, Chmielinski has traveled the world as a regular member of Chris Botti’s band s well as collaborating with the likes of Wynton Marsalis, Joey Alexander, Billy Childs, Marc Cary, Dianne Reeves, Veronica Swift, and Jon Batiste. A 2012 fellow at RSMI, he earned bachelor’s and mas- ter’s degrees fromThe Juilliard School under the guidance of Marsalis and Ron Carter. He has also participated in BMI’s “Composing for the Screen” mentorship and studied with compos- ers Philip Lasser, Kendall Briggs, and Edward Bilous. Drummer, composer, and bandleader Kenneth Salters recently released his debut album as a leader, Enter to Exit , on Destiny Records. He has become a fixture onMan- hattan’s West Village independent jazz scene and around the world as an in-demand sideman. Salters’s band comprises a coterie of musicians with whom Salters has surrounded himself for the better part of a decade, performing originals and emotionally significant covers that serve as a memoir of his time in New York City. Born in New Haven, CT, and raised in Columbia, SC, Salters began his musical career on trom- bone before pursuing his studies as a percussion major at the University of South Carolina. In 2015 he was a fellow in the RSMI Program for Jazz. Since moving to New York in 2006, he has worked with numerous luminary artists across jazz, R&B, and many more genres, including Rufus Reid, Tivon Pennicott, Andy Akiho, Arc- oiris Sandoval, Don Byron, Chris Potter, Aretha Franklin, the Phoenix and Toledo Symphonies, Boston Pops, Philadelphia Orchestra, the New York and Cincinnati Philharmonics, and with Broadway stars Leslie Odom Jr. and Renée Elise Goldsberry. RAVINIA.ORG  • RAVINIAMAGAZINE 63