Richard Fredrickson, bass
Hailed as a “…virtuoso…” by Donal Henahan of The New York Times, “…an extraordinary musician…” by The Washington Post and “…stupefying…” by L’Est Vaudois (Switzerland), Richard Fredrickson made his Carnegie Recital Hall debut at the age of 24 after winning the Concert Artists Guild award. This marked the first time the award had ever been presented to a double bassist.
Mr. Fredrickson has been a guest artist with such orchestras as the Seattle, Omaha and Baton Rouge Symphonies, the Slovak Radio Orchestra, the New York Chamber Symphony and the Washington Chamber Symphony. He has toured twice in Italy as soloist with the Orchestra of the North Carolina School of the Arts, where he also taught in the summer program. He has toured in Europe and appeared several times at the Kennedy Center, to great critical acclaim, with the Handel Festival Orchestra (now known as the Washington Chamber Symphony). He has also toured in the United States with Mitch Miller and his orchestra performing the Paganini Moses Fantasy.
In recital, he has been heard in such venues and cities as the 92nd Street Y in New York, both the National Gallery of Art and the Corcoran Gallery in Washington, DC; Winston-Salem, North Carolina; Seattle, Washington; and in Italy. For several seasons he was a member of Newman and Friends with harpsichordist/organist Anthony Newman at Alice Tully Hall and with whom he also recorded the Bach Brandenburg Concerti. His festival engagements include the New Hampshire White Mountain Festival, Aspen, the Seattle Chamber Music Festival and the Fredericksburg Festival of the Arts.
Chamber music has always been a special passion for Mr. Fredrickson. He has appeared with such groups and artists as the Philadelphia String Quartet, “For the Love of Music”, the Copenhagen String Trio, the Muir String Quartet, the Lyric Piano Quartet, Bargemusic, Yo-Yo Ma, Carol Wincenc, Heidi Lehwalder, Christopher O’Riley, Anton Nel, Anne-Marie McDermott and Michelle Levin.
Ever seeking to expand the solo double bass repertoire, he has been the inspiration for such compositions as a Sonata and a Suite by Kenneth Benshoof, sonatas by Paul Tufts and Jan Bach and a Concerto by Alvin Brehm. Recently, he commissioned both John Carbon and William Thomas McKinley to write works for him. With the Slovak Radio Orchestra, Kirk Trevor conducting, Fredrickson recorded the Carbon Endangered Species, McKinley Passacaglia and the Vittorio Giannini Psalm 130. The CD was released in 2005 on the MMC (Master Musicians Collective) label. In May, 2005 Fredrickson also performed and recorded a new work written for him by McKinley for clarinet, double bass and orchestra, as well as the Bottesini Duetto with clarinetist Richard Stolzman and the Slovak Radio Orchestra. The Bottesini Duetto was released in October 2009 on the Navona Records label.
Michael Adelson, guest conductor
Michael Adelson is currently conductor of the Auros Group for New Music and a cover conductor for the New York Philharmonic. He made his first appearance with a major American orchestra in 1992, conducting the Los Angeles Philharmonic. His other conducting engagements have included The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, Norwegian Chamber Orchestra, Helsinki Philharmonic, Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra, and New Jersey Symphony Orchestra.
Equally at home in the opera house, Mr. Adelson has led Scandinavian productions of Puccini’s Turandot and La Bohème, Mozart’s Der Schauspieldirektor, and, in Stockholm, the world premiere of Qu Xiao-Song’s Oedipus. In addition to his position as conductor of the Auros Group for New Music, he frequently makes guest-conducting appearances with new music ensembles, including Speculum Musicae, Locrian Chamber Players, Dinosaur Annex, and the Fromm Players at Harvard. He has led world premieres at the Venice Biennale and the Ultima Contemporary Music Festival in Oslo, and has conducted new American music in Europe and Asia as well as in the United States.
Mr. Adelson, who is also an active composer, regularly leads workshops in conducting and orchestral technique for educators, as well as for college and pre-college musicians sponsored by the New York Philharmonic. As the principal conductor of the first annual Rencontres Musicales Europeenes in France, he led a festival orchestra that included students from France, Germany, Italy, and the Czech Republic. With the Orkester Norden, he conducted students from all the Nordic countries. He has written and conducted youth concerts with the Helsinki Philharmonic, Los Angeles Philharmonic, and New Jersey Symphony Orchestra. Mr. Adelson studied at the New England Conservatory and Mannes College of Music, and graduated summa cum laude from Jorma Panula’s conducting class at the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki.
Lance Friedel, guest conductor
American Conductor Lance Friedel is currently enjoying an active career in Europe and the United States.
He has served as Music Director of the Providence Chamber Orchestra in Rhode Island and Assistant Conductor of the Peabody Symphony Orchestra in Maryland, and has also directed numerous orchestras throughout the world.
He was awarded first prize at the 2001 Mario Gusella International Conductors ompetition in Pescara, Italy, and as a result of this prestigious prize, he has been engaged to conduct concerts with orchestras throughout Italy, as well as in Hungary.
In 1994 Lance Friedel was the first-prize winner at the Czech Music Workshop in Hradec Králové, and was invited to conduct the Hradec Králové Philharmonic Orchestra the following season. In 1995, and again in 1996, he was awarded first prize at the Marienbad Conducting Workshop in Mariánské Lázně, and was invited to conduct concerts with the West Bohemian Symphony Orchestra. Since then he has been invited to conduct orchestras throughout Eastern Europe, including the Wrocław Philharmonic Orchestra in Poland and the National Symphony Orchestra of Ukraine in Kiev. He has conducted new productions of Aida and Le nozze di Figaro in Slovakia, as well as world première performances of several new American symphonic works in Bulgaria.
Lance Friedel has attended master classes under such esteemed conductors as Leonard Slatkin, André Previn, and Lorin Maazel, and has attended numerous workshops and seminars, including the Mozarteum Summer Academy in Salzburg, t
he Aspen Music Festival, and Tanglewood. His conducting teachers have included Gustav Meier, Michael Charry, and Georg Tintner. A graduate of Boston University, he has also studied at Peabody Conservatory in Baltimore, the Hochschule für Musik in Vienna, and the Mannes College of Music in New York.
Jinyeong Jessica Lee, violin
Jessica, an American violinist of Korean descent, first captured national attention with a feature article in LIFE magazine at the age of 3. In 1989, at the age of 6, she performed at the White House in Manila, Philippines for then President Corazon Aquino. She has since been heard in four continents and at venues such as Alice Tully Hall, Carnegie Hall, and Avery Fisher Hall. Jessica recently appeared on the Concerti di Mezzogiorno Recital Series at the Spoleto Festival in Italy, the Festival de Musica de Camera in Lima, Peru, and the FOCUS! Festival in New York which was reviewed in Strad magazine. She has also performed as soloist with the Hampton Youth Symphony, Broadway/Bach Ensemble, Richmond Symphony, and Richmond Philharmonic, and as one of the soloists with the New York String Orchestra at Carnegie Hall.
Jessica began playing the violin at age three, and later studied with Weigang Li of the Shanghai Quartet. At age 14, she was accepted to the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia under the tutelage of Robert Mann and Ida Kavafian and graduated with a Bachelor’s Degree four years later. In May 2003, she completed her studies with Robert Mann for a Master of Music Degree at the Juilliard School in New York.
An active chamber musician, Jessica has been a participant at the Steans Institute for Young Artists at the Ravinia Festival as well as at the Marlboro Music Festival in Vermont and has been heard on the stages of Alice Tully Hall, the Spoleto Festival, the Caramoor Festival, the 92nd St. Y Tisch Concert Hall, as well as venues in the Netherlands and Korea. She is also a member of the DaGama Piano Quartet, which will be making its New York debut on the Trinity Church Concert Series this season, and the vibrant and exciting, newly formed East Coast Chamber Orchestra.
Future engagements include performances at Town Hall, the Kennedy Center, the Caramoor Festival, with the New Amsterdam Symphony Orchestra and the American Chamber Orchestra, and on tour with Musicians from Marlboro in 2006.
Eckart Preu, guest conductor
Eckart Preu is Music Director of both the Spokane Symphony (WA) and the Stamford Symphony (CT).
Previously, he held the positions of Associate Conductor of the Richmond Symphony and Resident Conductor of the American Symphony Orchestra and of the American Russian Young Artists Orchestra. Other former posts include Music Director of the Norwalk (CT) Youth Symphony and Principal Conductor of the New Amsterdam Symphony (NY). He was associated with the Bard Music Festival from 1997 to 2004 as both Assistant and Guest Conductor.
In Europe, Mr. Preu served as Music Director of the Orchestre International de Paris (1993-1995). As a guest conductor, he has appeared with the Jerusalem Symphony, Symphony Orchestra of Chile, Radio Philharmonic of Slovenia, Pecs Philharmonic (Hungary), Varna Philharmonic (Bulgaria), and in Germany with the Jenaer Philharmoniker, Hallesche Philharmonic, Thüringer Kammerorchester, and the Landessinfonieorchester Gotha.
Upcoming guest conducting engagements for the 2010-2011 season include concerts with the Memphis Symphony Orchestra, the Duluth Superior Symphony, the Fairfax Symphony, and the Portland (Maine) Symphony.
Career highlights include his second performance at Carnegie Hall (January 2008), a performance at the Sorbonne in Paris and a live broadcast with the Jerusalem Symphony in 2005. His concerts have been aired from coast to coast and on Jerusalem Radio. His tenure as Music Director saw the opening of the newly renovated Fox Theater in Spokane. The theater now serves as the new home for the Symphony as well as the regional performing arts center. He has collaborated with internationally renowned soloists including Sarah Chang, Anne Akiko Meyers, Jean-Phillipe Collard, Vladimir Feltsman, Horacio Gutierrez, Leila Josefowicz, Louis Lortie, and Richard Stoltzman.
A passionate performer of the core repertoire, Mr. Preu believes in presenting neglected works. His past seasons featured compositions by Bloch, Berio, Markevich and Schreker. and Zemlinsky among others. The 2010-11 seasons in Spokane and Stamford feature compositions by Ligeti, del Aguila, Janacek, Duparc, Martinu and Ben-Haim. Mr. Preu initiated the exploration of the extraordinary music collected in Spokane in the Archives of Hans Moldenhauer which includes compositions by Griffes, Hartmann, Honegger, Kabalevsky, Schoenberg, Wagner, Webern and Weinberger. Music from the Moldenhauer Archives has been performed over several seasons in the main series as well as at a special festival.
Promoting and furthering the performance of American music, Mr. Preu conducted the world and New York premieres of Clarinet Concerto no. 4 by William Thomas McKinley with soloist Richard Stoltzman, “Prayer for Peace” by Roger Davidson, the Connecticut premiere of “Made in America” by Joan Tower, and the world premiere of “Lewis and Clark” by Leigh Baxter with the Richmond Symphony, among others. In 2008 he conducted the world premiere of “Letters from Lincoln”, a work commissioned by the Spokane Symphony from Michael Daugherty featuring baritone soloist Thomas Hampson. This performance was released as commercial recording in January 2010 on the E1 music label (formerly Koch Records). Also on that CD: Anton Webern’s “Im Sommerwind” and “Langsamer Satz”.
A native of Germany, Mr. Preu came to the United States as winner of the National Conducting Competition of the German Academic Exchange Service (1996) for graduate studies with Harold Farberman at the Hartt School of Music where he also received the Karl Boehm Scholarship. In Germany he earned a masters degree in conducting from the Hochschule für Musik in Weimar studying under Gunter Kahlert and Nicolas Pasquet. He also studied under Jean-Sebastien Bereau at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique de Paris in France. Mr. Preu’s education was made possible by scholarships from the Herbert von Karajan Foundation, the Konrad Adenauer Foundation and the French Ministry of Culture. In November 1998, Mr. Preu took 3rd place at the International Competition for Young Conductors of the European Union in Spoleto, Italy.
Eckart Preu’s early musical training was in piano and voice. At the age of 10, he became a member of the Boys Choir Dresdner Kreuzchor and went on to work with them as soloist, rehearsal pianist, and Assistant Conductor. He subsequently served as a vocal coach with the Altenburg Opera and the Erfurt Opera House in Germany. Mr. Preu was a Visiting Assistant Professor at Bard College, NY (1999-2000) and in summers 2000 and 2001 he served on the guest faculty of the C.W. Post Chamber Music Festival.
Eckart Preu is also a frequent guest speaker for local businesses, community organizations and schools. He contributes a music column to the Stamford (CT) Advocate. In 2007 he received the Communicator of the Year Award of the Public Relations Society of America Spokane Chapter.
Recognizing music as tool for outreach, Eckart Preu conducted family concerts in a unique collaboration with the Spokane Tribe of Indians, Wellpinit.
Harvey Pittel, saxophone
Lynn Ledbetter, violin
Eliot Friedman, oboe
The Canby Singers
Founded in 1957 by eminent musicologist Edward Tatnall Canby, The Canby Singers has championed a vast range of lesser-known choral music, from medieval song through new commissions by contemporary composers. Now led by renowned soprano and music scholar Dr. Sheila Schonbrun, The Canby Singers perform several concerts a year at their Greenwich Village musical home,St. John’s in the Village, and at other concert venues in Brooklyn and the greater NYC area.