News from Primo Artists | Summer 2023
Randall Goosby kicks off his summer with an Asia debut tour featuring recital appearances with pianist Zhu Wang in Seoul at Lotte Concert Hall and Gwangju at Asia Culture Center followed by concerto performances in Japan with the Orchestra Ensemble Kanazawa in Kanazawa City on July 1 and Toki City on July 2. He makes his Lincoln Center debut in NYC at the Mostly Mozart Festival on August 8 and 9 playing Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto with Music Director Louis Langrée.
Joshua Bell led the Academy of St Martin in the Fields in their fourth residency at the Bravo! Vail Music Festival and the Minnesota Beethoven Festival last weekend. He appears as Artist-in-Residence at the Colorado Music Festival from June 29 to 30 and August 3 to 6 performing Bruch Violin Concerto No. 1 and his newly commissioned “Elements” concerto in preview performances ahead of its World Premiere with the Hong Kong Philharmonic. From July 18 to 24, Bell performs three programs at the Verbier Festival including the 30th Anniversary Gala Concert, on a program with soprano Larisa Martínez and pianist Julien Quentin, and a chamber concert with cellist Steven Isserlis and pianist Kirill Gerstein. He returns to Tanglewood to perform Paganini Violin Concerto with the Boston Symphony Orchestra and Anna Rakitina on July 29 and 30.
Seong-Jin Cho performs at the Verbier Festival on July 24 in the 30th Anniversary Gala Concert and July 25 on a recital program of Handel, Gubaidulina, Brahms and Schumann. On August 6, he returns to North America to perform with Yannick Nézet-Séguin and the Orchestre Métropolitain at the Festival de Lanaudière and returns to Tanglewood on August 12 to perform with the Boston Symphony Orchestra and Susanna Mälkki.
The National Youth Orchestra embarks on a coast-to-coast tour across the United States from July 13 to 28 featuring the World Premiere of Valerie Coleman's Giants of Light conducted by Sir Andrew Davis and commissioned by Carnegie Hall in celebration of NYO-USA’s 10th anniversary. Coleman returns to Tanglewood’s Boston University Tanglewood Institute from June 18 to July 1 to lead the second year of the Woodwind Workshop which she inaugurated last summer. On July 5, Valerie Coleman performs her piece Maombi Asante for flute, violin and cello at the Chamber Music Northwest Summer Festival. The program also features a performance of Han Lash’s Three Shades Without Angles in the West Coast debut of umama womama, Coleman’s dynamic flute/cello/harp trio.
Christian Reif has a busy U.S. summer festival season that kicks off with the Sewanee Summer Music Festival on June 25. He makes his Korea debut with the KBS Symphony and pianist Alice Sara Ott on July 14 on a program of Beethoven and Strauss before heading to the Grand Teton Festival on July 21 and 22. Reif leads 7 programs in his second season as Music Director of Minnesota's Lakes Area Music Festival from July 28 to August 20, including a fully-staged production of Donizetti’s Don Pasquale and 6 symphonic programs featuring Brahms Symphony No. 2, selections from William Tell Overture and Tristan und Isolde, works by Caroline Shaw and Anna Clyne, and ending with Shostakovich Symphony No. 15. All Sunday performances will be streamed live on the Lakes Area Music Festival Facebook and YouTube pages.
James Gaffigan leads three programs at the Verbier Festival in Switzerland from July 9 to 31 in his second season as Music Director of the Verbier Festival Junior Orchestra. He conducts Nicola Benedetti on Wynton Marsalis’s Violin Concerto, Mikhaïl Pletnev on Rachmaninoff Piano Concerto No. 1 with the Verbier Festival Chamber Orchestra and Verbier's only opera performance of their 30th Anniversary Season in a production of Stravinsky’s The Rake's Progress.
Gemma New returns to Chicago’s Grant Park Music Festival on July 12 leading Barber Symphony No. 1. She then conducts Vaughan Williams Symphony No. 1 and Ravel Piano Concerto in G with pianist Angela Hewitt on July 16 at the Oregon Bach Festival and leads the World Youth Symphony Orchestra at Interlochen Center for the Arts on July 30. On August 1 and 2, Gemma makes her Mostly Mozart Festival debut at Lincoln Center conducting Mozart’s “Prague” Symphony, and on August 18, she makes her BBC Proms debut in London on a program of Samy Moussa, Shostakovich and Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring. She closes the summer on August 27 leading the Orchestre National de Lyon at La Chaise-Dieu Festival on Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet.
Wynton Marsalis makes his debut at the Verbier Festival as Composer-in-Residence. On July 22, he performs with his jazz septet as bandleader and is featured as composer in the Verbier Festival Junior Orchestra's performance of his Violin Concerto with Nicola Benedetti led by James Gaffigan on July 23 and in the European Premiere of his Trumpet Concerto by the Verbier Festival Orchestra and trumpeter Håkan Harderberger in the festival’s closing concert on July 30.
Nicola Benedetti performs Wynton Marsalis’s Violin Concerto conducted by James Gaffigan at the Verbier Festival on July 23 and in the 30th Anniversary Gala Concert on July 25. She then heads to the Edinburgh International Festival August 4-27 in her first year as Festival Director. Programming spans genres from classical and contemporary music, to opera, theater and dance. Benedetti’s tenure is promised to demonstrate an infectious commitment to musical excellence and accessibility, harnessing the deepest storytelling power to make the festival as relatable as possible to attendees from all walks of life.
Cristian Măcelaru conducts Interlochen's World Youth Symphony Orchestra as Artistic Director and Principal Conductor on July 9. He leads his seventh season as Music Director and Conductor of California’s Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music from August 4 to 13. He leads 2 World Premieres, 1 U.S. Premiere and 9 West Coast Premieres by several contemporary composers including Carlos Simon, Jennifer Higdon, Gabriella Smith, Tan Dun, Kevin Puts, Anna Clyne, Andrew Norman, James MacMillan and Xavier Foley. Additionally, he leads Cabrillo’s Conductors/Composers Workshop from July 29 to August 2 providing intensive training to 23 selected young conductors and composers.
