May 2023
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
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GRANT COMMUNICATIONS
Massachusetts - New York
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Eight Artists grace the Chicago Classical Music Stage
in May 2023
Dame Myra Hess Concerts
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Chicago, IL – Classical Music Chicago's May 2023 Dame Myra Hess Memorial Concerts energize mid-day audiences with diverse music of various styles. The free to the public concerts with performances by internationally acclaimed young artists from around the world include Sirena Huang, violin and Chih-Yi Chen, piano; Eleni Katz, bassoon and Maxwell Foster, piano; Xiting Yang, piano; Ariel Horowitz, violin and Alexa Stier, piano; and André Golbert, piano. Featured works like Eddie South’s violin piece, Black Gypsy, with its soulful, jazzy twist, and Cindy Hsu’s Spring Fever for bassoon, inspired by the beautiful wildflowers blooming in her yard, offer a counterpoint to such offerings as Beethoven’s brilliant Piano Sonata No. 3, Op. 2 No. 3, and Claude Debussy’s L’isle Joyeuse (The Joyful Island).
Classical Music Chicago
Dame Myra Hess Memorial Concerts
Wednesdays, 12:15 PM
Seventeenth Church of Christ, Scientist, Chicago - 55 E. Wacker Drive
(Artists’ biographies and more can be found in each “Details here” link below.)
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MAY 3, 2023
Sirena Huang, violin and Chih-Yi Chen, piano
Eddie SOUTH
Black Gypsy
Sergei PROKOFIEV
Sonata No. 1 in F minor, Op. 80
Henri VIEUXTEMPS
Souvenir d’Amérique, Variations burlesques sur “Yankee Doodle
Hot off CMC's Spring Fundraiser performance, violinist Sirena Huang and pianist Chih-Yi Chen offer a variety of musical tales, from Eddie South's Black Gypsy with its dazzling combination of styles, including jazz, gypsy jazz, and old time, Sergei Prokofiev's dark Sonata No. 1 in F Minor and Henri Vieuxtemps' Souvenir d'Amerique.
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MAY 10, 2023
Eleni Katz, bassoon and Maxwell Foster, piano
(Katz is a Concert Artists Guild artist, one of CMC’s collaborative colleagues)
Carl Maria von WEBER
Andante e rondo ongarese, Op. 35
Cindy HSU
Spring Fever
Camille SAINT-SAËNS
Bassoon Sonata in G Major, Op. 168
Jeff SCOTT
Elegy for Innocence
Eleni Katz a bassoon fellow with the New World Symphony in Miami Beach and a
winner of the 2022 Concert Artist Guild Victor Elmaleh Competition, and Australian pianist Maxwell Foster, who has performed with major orchestras in Australia,and at venues such as Carnegie Hall, and London's Wigmore Hall, present a challenging program of tuneful, colorful and creative works.
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MAY 17, 2023
Xiting Yang, piano
Fredrick CHOPIN
Nocturne, Op. 62 No. 1 in B Major
Ludwig van BEETHOVEN
Piano Sonata No. 3, Op. 2 No. 3
Claude DEBUSSY
L’isle Joyeuse, L. 106
Communication and expressivity, two traits pianist Xiting Yang is known for, are on display in her solo recital of works by three beloved European composers.
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MAY 24, 2023
Ariel Horowitz, violin and Alexa Stier, piano
(Horowitz is a Concert Artists Guild artist, one of CMC’s collaborative colleagues)
Franghiz ALI-ZADEH
Impulse
Jessie MONTGOMERY
Peace
Germaine TAILLEFERRE
Sonata No. 1 for Violin and Piano
William GRANT STILL
Summerland
Béla BARTÓK
Romanian Folk Dances
Emotions, determination, and brilliant colors come alive in aural expressivity in this concert by violinist Ariel Horowitz, 2020 Concert Artists Guild Ambassador Prize winner, and Romanian-Hungarian pianist Alexa Stier, who while a doctoral candidate at Yale School of Music, has still found time to expand her international career.
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MAY 31, 2023
André Golbert, piano
Mozart Camargo GUARNIERI
Sonatina No. 4
Oscar Lorenzo FERNANDEZ
Três Estudos em Forma de Sonatina ("Three Etudes in Sonatina Form”)
Claude DEBUSSY
from Préludes, Livre 2
VII. ...La terrasse des audiences du clair de lune
VIII. ...Ondine
X. ...Canope
XI. ...Les tierces alternées
XII. ...Feux d'artifice
Emerging Brazilian pianist André Golbert introduces concert goers to two wonderful works by two of his country's composers, juxtaposed against selections from Claude Debussy's well-known Préludes, Livre 2.
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The Dame Myra Hess Memorial concerts are generously sponsored by the Paul M. Angell Family Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Illinois Arts Council and by individual donors.
About Classical Music Chicago
Since 1976, Classical Music Chicago (CMC) has offered a variety of unforgettable classical music performances by up and coming and established artists throughout the Chicago community. A celebrated innovator from the very beginning and one of the first to focus on the importance of accessibility, presenting engaging concerts in various formats and venues free of charge, CMC is the 2016 union of two distinguished Chicago music institutions: the International Music Foundation (IMF), founded by Chicagoan Al Booth, and Rush Hour Concerts (RHC) founded by pianist and civic leader Deborah Sobol in 2000. Over the next few seasons, CMC will celebrate landmark anniversaries of each of its acclaimed series, beginning with the year-long 25th anniversary of the Rush Hour Concerts in 2024-2025, the 50th Anniversary of the Do-It-Yourself Messiah concert in 2025, and the 50th anniversary of the Dame Myra Hess Memorial Concerts in fall 2026.
IMF comprised the Do-It-Yourself Messiah at Orchestra Hall begun in 1976, and the Dame Myra Hess Memorial Concerts, modeled on the series launched by Dame Myra Hess during World War II, to provide young artists with a performance outlet and present top caliber concerts free to the public. Begun in 1977, such acclaimed musicians as sopranos Elizabeth Frutal, June Anderson and Jo Ann Pickens; baritone Richard Cowan; oboist Alex Klein; guitarists Eliot Fisk and Paul Henry; violinists Rachel Barton Pine, Jennifer Frautschi, Jennifer Koh, Robyn Bollinger, and Tessa Lark; cellists Steven Isserlis, Nathanel Rosen, Jeffrey Solow and Bion Tsang; pianists David Shrader, Jeffrey Kahane, Angela Hewitt, Barry Douglas, Daniel Trifonov, and Max Levinson; and ensembles including the Vermeer Quartet, the Chicago Bassoon Quartet, His Majesties Clerkes, the Enzo String Quartet, and Orchestra Sinfonica Haydn di Bolzano e Trentoto, to name a few, have graced the Hess stage. In 1982, Live Music Now! - currently Young People’s Concerts - was founded by Booth with the assistance of his friend Yehudi Menuhin to bring professional musicians into the Chicago Public Schools. Students in grades K – 8 experience live performances, which have grown to reach more than 90 Chicago Public Schools annually.
Rush Hour Concerts, begun in 2000 as a welcoming summer concert format that removed accessibility barriers, in 2011 introduced Make Music Chicago, a citywide, daylong celebration of music making held on the summer solstice. It was followed by the addition of a professional ensemble residency program in Chicago’s neighborhoods in 2012. The 2023 Rush Hour Concerts at the beautiful St. James Cathedral begin in June.
The latest addition to Classical Music Chicago’s roster of offerings is The Concerts for Well-being and Rejuvenation, bringing the healing power of music to people and places who do not have access to live performances. CMC partners onsite with health care facilities, community centers, meals programs and other organizations where music can make a vital difference. promoting community, creative interaction and therapeutic benefits through 45-minute interactive performances followed by a Q & A with the artists.
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Press Contact:
Laura Grant
Grant Communications
917.359.7319
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