 |
Rilling receives national, local awards
On Tuesday, May 7, the national service organization Chorus America named Rilling as the recipient of its Distinguished Service Award, given to a member whose long-term service to the choral field has furthered the organization’s mission “to build a dynamic and inclusive choral community so that more people are transformed by the beauty and power of choral singing.” “Helmuth Rilling has made an indelible impact on the choral arts,” remarked Ann Meier Baker, Chorus America’s executive director. “He combines a remarkable, international career as a choral/orchestral conductor with a strong commitment to the nurture of emerging choral conductors.” Given only when the organization recognizes a worthy recipient, the Distinguished Service Award was first presented in 2010 to Rilling’s OBF cofounder Royce Saltzman. Since then it has been awarded to composer/conductor Andre Thomas and John Hoyt Stookey, an advisor to venture capital firm Arcadia Partners and founder of the Berkshire Choral Festival. The award will be presented June 13, during Chorus America’s Annual Conference in Seattle. On Wednesday, May 8, the Oregon Community Foundation announced Rilling as the winner of the 2013 Eugene Arts & Letters Award. Eugene Mayor Kitty Piercy will present the award at the Arts and Business Alliance of Eugene’s BRAVA Breakfast on Friday, June 7 at The Hult Center. Each year, the Eugene Arts & Letters Award honors an individual who has made an exceptional contribution to the arts and culture of Eugene. Recipients are publicly nominated by the Eugene community, and selected by a committee of local artists and community leaders. Lee and Hester Bishop established the award in 1982, and past recipients include Ken Kesey and Marin Alsop. The prize, which includes a designated charitable contribution on behalf of the recipient, is made possible by the Oregon Community Foundation’s Bishop Endowment. The Rilling celebration reaches full steam June 28 as the maestro conducts Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis in the Hult Center to open the 44th Oregon Bach Festival, Rilling’s last as Artistic Director. During the 2013 Festival he also conducts four lecture-demonstrations and a complete performance of Bach’s St. John Passion, a “Passing of the Baton” concert with successor Matthew Halls on July 6, and two performances of Bach’s B Minor Mass in Portland’s Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall on July 12, and, as the Festival finale in Eugene on July 14, in the Hult Center’s Silva Concert Hall. Midori withdraws from July 8, Chee-Yun steps in Midori will perform July 7, but withdraw from the OBF July 8 concert for medical reasons. Photo: Timothy Greenfield-Sanders With deep regret, violinist Midori will withdraw from her July 8 Oregon Bach Festival orchestra concert for medical reasons. In place of Bach’s violin concerto BWV 1042, Chee-Yun, the Korean-born violinist whose honors include winning the 1989 Young Concert Artists competition, will step in and perform the Mozart “Turkish” violin concerto with the OBF orchestra and conductor Jeffrey Kahane. Midori will still take part in this year’s Festival, leading a master class July 6, which is open to the public, and performing a solo Bach concert Sunday, July 7 in Beall Concert Hall. She will withdraw from the “Let’s Talk” free public Q & A. “I am delighted to be able to join the Oregon Bach Festival on the 6th and 7th of July,” Midori said. “However, it is a great disappointment to me to have to withdraw from the concert with Jeffrey Kahane and the Festival orchestra on July 8th, in order to take care of a long-delayed medical procedure that is necessary at that time. “I am grateful to the entire Oregon Bach Festival organization for their kind understanding of this situation, and look forward to joining the Festival orchestra as soon as possible in a future season. I so much appreciate the patience of my listeners, supporters and colleagues in the interim.” Tickets are still available for Midori’s July 7 solo recital. The program is part of the violinist’s year-long mission to perform all of Bach’s solo partitas and sonatas, celebrating the 30th anniversary of her New York Philharmonic debut—at age 11.  Chee-Yun Chee-Yun’s first public performance at age 8 took place in her native Seoul, South Korea after she won the Grand Prize of the Korean Times Competition. She made her OBF debut in 2011 as concertmaster in a Mahler program conducted by Miguel Harth-Bedoya. Winner of the prestigious Avery Fisher Career Grant in 1990, she has performed with the Philadelphia Orchestra, London Philharmonic, and the San Francisco, Toronto, Houston, Seattle, Pittsburgh, Atlanta, and National symphony orchestras. She was featured in the Kennedy Center’s “Salute to Slava” gala honoring Mstislav Rostropovich, the Mostly Mozart Festival’s tour to Japan, and a performance with conductor Michael Tilson Thomas in the inaugural season of Carnegie Hall’s Zankel Hall. Away from her concert tours, Chee-Yun is an Artist-in-Residence and Professor of Violin at Southern Methodist University in Dallas. Two other works on the July 8 orchestra program remain as programmed: Haydn’s Symphony No. 99 and Beethoven’s fourth piano concerto with Kahane as soloist. Midori at the Oregon Bach FestivalViolin Master Class
|
SEARCH THE SITE:
|
With his 80th birthday approaching on May 29, Oregon Bach Festival maestro Helmuth Rilling has two more reasons to celebrate.
Tickets for 2013 Oregon Bach Festival concerts are now on sale for all cities through all box office outlets.
“We really are in the tradition,” says violist Nicholas Cords (left) of the genre-bending quartet Brooklyn Rider, “but a lot of our energy and attention are paid toward music of our time.” Cords talks about the group’s approach to current projects and