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P . O . B o x 7 1 1 2 K a n s a s C i t y , M O 6 4 1 1 3 
8 1 6 . 8 2 0 . 1 4 7 3  B a c h A r i a S o l o i s t s . c o m
Saturday nightʼs concert by the Bach Aria Soloists with bandoneónist Héctor del Curto, pianist Alon Yavnai, and local bassist
2 Bach Aria Soloists Table of Contents
BAS Mission Statement/Highlights …………………………………….………… Executive-­‐Artistic Director/Founder, Elizabeth Suh Lane ……………… Musician Biographies ……….……………………...………………………………….. BachReach ………………………………………………………….....……………………. 3
4 5-­‐6 7 Donors …………………………………………………………...........……………………. 8-­‐9 Reviews …………………………………………………………...........…………….……. 10-­‐11 Bach Aria Soloists 3
Mission Statement
Bach Aria Soloists is the adventurous chamber music ensemble dedicated to presenting the genius and relevance of Johann Sebastian Bach, his contemporaries and those he inspired–
through performances, collaborations and educational outreach. Highlights
2000 Bach Aria Soloists launched the first Hauskonzert series. Each Hauskonzert in a benefactor’s residence recreates the original setting for chamber music that Bach originally offered in his own home and in his cafe series. Through Hauskonzerts, we offer the most magnificent music to intimate audiences in the most exquisite settings. 2003 Bach Aria Soloists commissioned New York-­‐based composer Susan Kander to write her six-­‐
movement, neo-­‐Baroque suite which showcases each soloist with texts derived from famous African American spirituals. The world premiere of Partite Américaine took place in the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art and Design in 2004. 2005 Bach Aria Soloists was invited to perform on the Nantucket Arts Council Series in a filled-­‐to-­‐
capacity concert at the Coffin School in Nantucket, MA. 2006 Bach Aria Soloists commissioned Elizabeth Koeppen, Associate-­‐Artistic Director of Parsons Dance to choreograph and perform our world premiere, Accompagnata… a ViolinDance, combining iconic Bach solo violin masterpieces with modern dance. The concert was performed to a full house in UMKC’s White Recital Hall. 2007 Dr. Christoph Wolff, preeminent Bach scholar, made his first visit to Kansas City to narrate BAS’ Bach Unlocked performance for what turned out to be a record-­‐breaking crowd at Kansas City Public Library. Professor Wolff remains the Adams University Professor of Music at Harvard University. 2009 BAS and modern dance ensemble Owen-­‐Cox Dance Group partnered in Baroque in Motion with the mesmerizing chamber music of Ravel, Bach and Purcell to a capacity crowd in UMKC’s White Recital Hall. 2010 Our 10th anniversary headliner brought composer-­‐conductor Bill McGlaughlin to Kansas City to join the BAS in Inspired by Bach. With his signature style of humor and intellect, Bill introduced the stories behind the music of Bach and Bartok in two concerts at Village Presbyterian Church and a live Kansas Public Radio broadcast from the Lerner home. 2011 Our popular Night of Tango featuring Tango legends Héctor Del Curto, bandonéon and Gustavo Casenave, piano; Jeff Harshbarger completed the Piazzola quintet. Bach & Jazz Inventions with KC’s favorite jazzmaster Bobby Watson was another innovative partnership at UMKC’s White Recital Hall. 2012 Bach Aria Soloists performed for more than 2500 listeners at the Kauffman Center for both days of opening weekend. Our Ferdinand the Bull and Musical Tales held a capacity crowd at Central Library, and our finale of the season was a marvelous visual and aural Extravaganza! featuring BAS and Wylliams Henry Contemporary Dance Company. 2013 Avery Fisher Career prize cellist Matt Haimovitz headlined a sold-­‐out opening concert with the Bach Aria Soloists. Night of Tango at the Kauffman Center was a "concert of the ages" for a near-­‐
capacity, "overwhelmingly enthusiastic" audience. 4 Bach Aria Soloists Executive-Artistic Director/Founder,
Elizabeth Suh Lane
Elizabeth Suh Lane has been acclaimed, “…among the finest chamber musicians in America today” by San Francisco Symphony’s Music Director Michael Tilson Thomas. She has performed across the globe as a chamber, solo and orchestral musician in the finest concert halls. Elizabeth was a first violinist with the London Symphony Orchestra and concertized throughout the world under directors Sir Colin Davis, Michael Tilson Thomas, André Previn, Mstislav Rostropovich, Pierre Boulez; she has toured with the Chamber Orchestra of Europe under Claudio Abbado, Nikolaus Harnoncourt, Gidon Kremer, and with the Academy of St. Martin-­‐in the-­‐Fields under Sir Neville Marriner. She has performed with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, and has been invited to numerous international festivals, Tanglewood, Britten-­‐Pears in England, Germany’s Schleswig–Holstein, Japan’s Pacific Music, and the Carmel Bach Festival. She served on the LSO Education team training teachers and students in schools across Great Britain, and continues her love of teaching today, mentoring a studio of young violinists. Elizabeth is founder-­‐Executive-­‐Artistic Director and violinist of the Bach Aria Soloists. Her leadership has brought world-­‐class collaborations to Kansas City to partner with the ensemble, including: the world’s preeminent scholar of Bach, Harvard University’s Dr. Christoph Wolff; a reprise with the legendary bandonéonist Hector del Curto in a tribute to Piazzola at the Kauffman Center; Associate Director of New York’s Parsons Dance Elizabeth Koeppen, who with Suh Lane gave the world premiere of Accompagnata…a ViolinDance to great acclaim; radio giant/composer/conductor Bill McGlaughlin presented the BAS’ live radio show-­‐Inspired by Bach, broadcast on Kansas Public Radio. McGlaughlin remarked, “Elizabeth is a real virtuoso musician, and what the Bach Aria Soloists are doing is of the highest quality in the most artful manner, the way it should be done.” This season, Elizabeth invited Avery Fisher Career prize-­‐winner Matt Haimovitz to Kansas City to appear with the Bach Aria Soloists for their opening weekend concerts. In 2010, they performed string quartet concerts with the Raphael Trio’s Andy Simionescu, and Concert Artists Guild winner Nokuthula Ngwenyama. Elizabeth continues to be in demand as a chamber musician. She was invited to perform with the Maia Quartet in a series of concerts in their final year; she and multi-­‐faceted guitarist Beau Bledsoe perform as the Bach Aria Soloists Duo, and have played numerous live studio broadcasts on Kansas Public Radio, and recently at Emory University. Elizabeth has been invited to perform a series of concerts with the Satterlee piano trio in 2013 in Ann Arbor, Michigan and at Bowling Green State University. As Artistic Director and head of faculty of the Kansas City String Quartet Program, she assembled a nationally renowned team of teaching artists, instructed over 1000 students and works with several thousand youths through the numerous orchestral and chamber music clinics she coaches in metropolitan Kansas City. The Asian American Chamber of Commerce honored her with the 2010 Professional Leader of the Year Award for her success and significant contribution of music and education to the community in her field. Elizabeth was a Chancellor’s Scholar at the University of Missouri-­‐Kansas City, a Phi Kappa Phi Graduate Fellow and the Broadus Erle Memorial Scholar at Yale University, and a protégé of Max Rostal in Switzerland. Bach Aria Soloists 5
2013-2014 Musician Biographies
Elisa Bickers, Harpsichord Elisa Bickers is active across the country as a solo organist, continuo harpsichordist, and piano accompanist. She is the Principal Organist at Village Presbyterian Church, as well as instructor of organ and harpsichord at the UMKC Conservatory. She has a background in raptor training and organ building. Dr. Bickers won first prize in the William Hall Competition in organ performance in 2006, as well as the hymn playing prize. In 2009 she traveled to Lubeck, Germany to compete in the International Buxtehude Competition, and was a semifinalist in the 2010 National Young Artists Competition in Organ Performance, sponsored by the American Guild of Organists. Dr. Bickers is a native of Clinton, Maryland. She has earned a Bachelor’s degree in church music and a Master’s degree in organ performance from Texas Christian University in Fort Worth, studying with H. Joseph Butler. She holds a doctorate in church music (with emphasis on organ performance) from the University of Kansas, where her primary teacher was Michael Bauer. Beau Bledsoe, Guitar Beau Bledsoe comes from a large musical family in Little Rock, Arkansas where he spent much of his youth playing socially and professionally in small clubs, blues revues, and church settings. While in high school, he obtained a handful of old records from the Spanish guitar masters Andres Segovia and Sabicas. Inspired, he began his formal studies at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock under classical guitarist Michael Carenbaur. He finished his course work at UALR in ‘93, graduating with honors and receiving top prizes from regional music competitions. Beau relocated to the graduate guitar program at the University of Missouri-­‐KC Conservatory of Music under Douglas Niedt where he received a Master of Music degree. There he continued his professional career in the fertile ground of the Kansas City music scene playing with jazz musicians, classical chamber musicians, and also participating in the burgeoning latin music scene. It was at this time that Beau met the musicians and founded the groups that he still performs with today such as tenor, Nathan Granner, composer/pianist Brad Cox, flamenco guitarist Hector Aguirre, and Fado Novato. His interest in exploring new repertoire, cultures and programming ideas has led to the creation of a large body of arrangements, 6 Bach Aria Soloists transcriptions and compositions for the solo guitar and guitar chamber music. In 2010, he founded his latest ensemble, Alaturka which fuses Turkish music with jazz. This ensemble has appeared on concert series in New York and Seattle. Beau has worked extensively with the Guthrie Theater of Minneapolis, Kansas City’s Bach Aria Soloists, and the Kansas City Ballet, with whom he was the feature guitarist in Carmen. Most recently he has co-­‐founded the flamenco music and dance school Manos Rojas, the flamenco dance company Esencias Flamencas and the independent record label Tzigane, which is home to four of Beau’s own recorded projects and many other fine artists. He has served as music faculty at both Baker University in Baldwin City, Kansas and Rockhurst College in Kansas City, Missouri and has continued his own musical studies with such masters as Antonio Andrade, Miguel Rodriguez, Santiago Aguilar, Pedro Cortez and Luis Heredia of La Repompa de Málaga. His studies in southern Spain and involvement with the tango scene of Buenos Aires have cultivated a deep interest in the study of stylistic and cultural context. Through diverse projects and ensembles, Beau has had the great fortune of performing in almost every state in the U.S. as well as touring to Russia, Mexico, Argentina, Spain, Germany, France and Switzerland. His music is regularly programmed on radio1 BBC, “Segovia a Yupanki” Radio Nacional Argentina, and “All Songs Considered” on NPR. Rebecca Lloyd, Soprano Rebecca Lloyd is known for her versatility as an oratorio and concert soloist, and for the interpretive expressiveness that she brings to her work. Lloyd has been a frequent performer with the Kansas City Symphony, the Kansas City Chamber Orchestra and Summerfest Chamber Music Festival. Since 1993, Ms. Lloyd has sung with the critically acclaimed and Grammy Award winning Kansas City Chorale (Charles Bruffy, conductor), with which she premiered Jean Belmont’s Electa in Dallas, and performed on the Library of Congress Concert Series. In 2009, Lloyd and the Chorale concertized at Alice Tully Hall and the International Choral Festival in Incheon, South Korea. Recent appearances include the Carnegie Hall National High School Choral Festival, Berkshire Choral Festival, Canterbury Choral Society of Oklahoma City, Missoula Symphony, State Ballet of Missouri, Nantucket Artist Concert Series and Robert Shaw Festival Singers at Carnegie Hall, under the direction of the late Robert Shaw, Sir Neville Marriner, James Conlon and Charles Dutoit. She is the soprano soloist and co-­‐director of children’s choir at Rolling Hills Presbyterian Church.
Bach Aria Soloists 7
BachReach
BachReach is Bach Aria Soloists’ uniquely interactive, dynamic educational outreach for schools and members of the community. Led by Artistic Director-­‐violinist Elizabeth Suh Lane, the Bach Aria Soloists introduces Bach, Baroque and contemporary music in a fun, exciting, highly informative presentation tailored to the student/teacher audience. The exposure to BAS’ BachReach is an experience that unleashes the imagination of students who may otherwise not have a chance to hear live, high quality chamber music with engaging dialogue, inspiring their own interest in classical music. BAS takes themes from our concert programs with our excellent collaborators to demonstrate the multi-­‐
genre, imaginative programming that BAS presents to inspire youths by interacting with them during the session, encouraging them to ask questions and see and hear these masterpieces brought to new, exciting life. During the Bach Aria Soloists’ 2012-­‐2013 season, BachReach served more than 600 students with four educational events in the Kansas City area. BAS partnered with schools and the library to serve non-­‐traditional audiences and disadvantaged youth by offering: dance and music improvisation with Elizabeth Suh Lane and Winston Dynamite Brown at Paseo Academy; Shakespeare and Bach with Shakespeare Festival actors at Sumner Academy; Ferdinand the Bull with Elizabeth Suh Lane and Shane Evans to St. Paul’s Episcopal students; and our Piazzola Tango trio at Cristo Rey High School. 8 Bach Aria Soloists Donors (2012-2013)
MAESTRO Courtney S. Turner Charitable Trust, Daniel C. Weary and Bank of America, Trustees Estelle S. and Robert A. Long Ellis Foundation Missouri Arts Council Muriel McBrien Kauffman Foundation William T. Kemper Foundation VIRTUOSO Curry Family Foundation David Woods Kemper Memorial Foundation Richard J. Stern Foundation for the Arts ARTIST The Arts Council of Metropolitan Kansas City James Kemper, David Woods Kemper Foundation H&R Block Foundation George W. and Ada Heath Ultch Memorial Fund Louis and Frances Swinken Supporting Foundation of the Jewish Community Foundation of Greater KC Neighborhood Tourist Development Fund Dr. Timothy and Virginia Olsen Sprint Foundation CCS Fund-­‐Topeka Community Foundation The Kansas City Public Library SOLOIST Russell and Susan Baker Virginia Guzman Jill and Don Hall, Jr. Mike and Karen Herman William and Regina Kort James and Patricia Miller-­‐Miller Mellor Associates David Oliver -­‐ Francis Family Foundation -­‐ in recognition of BAS board member Heidi Nast Paul and Katy Schofer Dana M. Seeley PRINCIPAL American Century Investments Dollars for Donors Fund Clay and Kasia Bradley Beverly and Bucky Brooks Sally and John Cashion Leanne DeShong Bach Aria Soloists 9
Jim and Patricia Fitzpatrick Ann Horton Robert and Donna Goodwin Nancy Kaiser-­‐Caplan Crosby Kemper III Henry and Elizabeth Lane George Langworthy Christina Lenon Mary Ann and Brett Lewis Jared MacIntyre James Malouff III Elaine and Benjamin Mann Mary Lucille Mantz Janet and Dean Nash Heidi and Nelson Nast Margaret and Barry Nickell Robin Onikul Sarah and Jim Weitzel Bruce Williams Sarah Ye LEADER Linda Bosilevac Alice Carroll Ed and Ann Kander Keiko Kira Rick and Rena Shanks Suzie and Louie Swyden Paul Vesce Lois Winter 10 Bach Aria Soloists Reviews
Classical
Passion for Piazzolla
By Lee Hartman Wed, May 01, 2013
Saturday night’s concert by the Bach Aria Soloists with bandoneónist Héctor del Curto, pianist Alon Yavnai, and local bassist Jeff Harshbarger was one of the ages. Even BAS Executive-­‐Artistic Director Elizabeth Suh Lane seemed taken aback by the sold-­‐out Helzberg Hall audience’s overwhelmingly enthusiastic reception to the evening’s tribute to Astor Piazzolla. All too often overlooked and glossed over as “light music composer,” Piazzolla’s music is anything but. Sure, he drew from a rich tango heritage, but his compositions are as deep, engaging, and well-­‐crafted as his more-­‐lauded contemporaries. My notes for this review were few and far between because I was simply relishing in the delectable sounds the gifted quintet offered. With fourteen selections (only one of which was by a composer other than Piazzolla), each was a highlight with so many commendable individual and ensemble performance aspects, one could write a dissertation on this evening’s performance. Suh Lane was transformative. In watching and listening to her perform, we were privileged to witness a cosmic shift in an artist’s life. Already an adroit chamber musician, tonight, her violin sung. It wailed, it danced, becoming an extension of so much more than the music on the page. This was True Performance. This revelation was evident on her face. She was physically taken aback by what was happening on the stage. Her agog astonishment at what she and her collaborators ushered forth was endearing. Her partners equally enjoyed themselves and sounded divine. Bach Aria Soloists 11
Beau Beldsoe on acoustic and hollow-­‐body electric guitar was rock solid all evening, laying down harmonies and comping within the texture. Bassist Jeff Harshbarger performed so much more than just the bass line. He colored his playing by playing many passages with the bow which jazz players often seem loathe to do. This technique allowed for Piazzolla’s surprising darkness and complexity to ring in the hall. Alon Yavnai rarely traveled above middle C on the piano, but his low range work was ultra crisp and the best the piano in Helzberg Hall has sounded. His improvised solo the opened Adiós Nonino was astoundingly florid and adventuresome without ever losing Piazzolla’s lovely theme. Bandoneónist Héctor del Curto showcased why he is one of the world’s best players of the instrument. While he could have acted the diva and drowned out the others with his timbre, his playing was sensitive to the music and the ensemble. He is an artist that knows when to show off, and when time came on Quique Sinesi’s Para Hermeto his fingers flew across the awkward arrangement of buttons with aplomb. He even joked about the instrument’s construction being designed by drunken Germans. While all the numbers were special, Soledad was on another plane of synergistic musical magic, La Muerte del Angel was delightfully playful in its fugal treatment, and Invierno Porteño was placid and a wonderful contrast to the fiery pieces surrounding it. REVIEW: Bach Aria Soloists and Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts A Night of Tango Saturday, April 27, 2013 Helzberg Hall, Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts 1601 Broadway Blvd., Kansas City, MO For more information, visit http://www.bachariasoloists.com and http://www.kauffmencenter.org Top Photo: Bach Aria Soloists with Héctor del Curto, Alon Yavnai, and Jeff Harshbarger (Photo by Hang Chen)