FSMA 2024
Public Master Clinicians
Jeremy Denk, piano
Jeremy Denk is one of America’s foremost pianists, proclaimed by the New York Times ‘a pianist you want to hear no matter what he performs.’ Denk is also a New York Times bestselling author, winner of both the MacArthur “Genius” Fellowship and the Avery Fisher Prize, and is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
In the 2023-24 season, Denk premieres a new concerto written for him by Anna Clyne, co-commissioned and performed by the Dallas Symphony Orchestra led by Fabio Luisi, the City of Birmingham Symphony led by Kazuki Yamada, and the New Jersey Symphony led by Markus Stenz. He also returns to London’s Wigmore Hall for a three-concert residency, performing Bach’s Solo Partitas, as well as collaborating with the Danish String Quartet, and performing works by Charles Ives with violinist Maria Włoszczowska. He further reunites with Krzysztof Urbański to perform with the Antwerp Symphony and again with the Danish String Quartet in Copenhagen at their festival Series of Four.
In the US, he performs a program focusing on female composers, and continues his exploration of Bach with multiple performances of the Partitas. His collaborations include performances with violinist Maria Włoszczowska in Philadelphia and New York, and, in the Summer, returning to perform with his longtime collaborators Steven Isserlis and Joshua Bell. He closes the season with the San Diego Symphony and Rafael Payare with Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 4.
Denk is also known for his original and insightful writing on music, which Alex Ross praises for its “arresting sensitivity and wit.” His New York Times Bestselling memoir Every Good Boy Does Fine was published to universal acclaim by Random House in 2022, with features on CBS Sunday Morning, NPR’s Fresh Air, The New York Times, and The Guardian. Denk also wrote the libretto for a comic opera presented by Carnegie Hall, Cal Performances, and the Aspen Festival, and his writing has appeared in the New Yorker, the New Republic, The Guardian, Süddeutsche Zeitung and on the front page of The New York Times Book Review.
Denk has performed multiple times at Carnegie Hall and in recent years has worked with such orchestras as Chicago Symphony, Philadelphia Orchestra, New York Philharmonic, Los Angeles Philharmonic, San Francisco Symphony, and Cleveland Orchestra. Further afield, he has performed multiple times at the BBC Proms and Klavierfestival Ruhr, and appeared in such halls as the Köln Philharmonie, Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, and Boulez Saal in Berlin. He has also performed extensively across the UK, including recently with the London Philharmonic, Bournemouth Symphony, City of Birmingham Symphony, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, BBC Symphony, Scottish Chamber Orchestra, and play-directing the Britten Sinfonia. Last season’s highlights include his performance of the Well-Tempered Klavier Book 1 at the Barbican in London, and performances of John Adams’ Must the Devil Have All The Great Tunes? with the Cleveland Orchestra, St. Louis Symphony, and Seattle Symphony, as well as a return to the San Francisco Symphony to perform Messiaen under Esa Pekka Salonen.
Denk’s latest album of Mozart piano concertos was released in 2021 on Nonesuch Records. The album, deemed “urgent and essential” by BBC Radio 3. His recording of the Goldberg Variations for Nonesuch Records reached No. 1 on the Billboard Classical Charts, and his recording of Beethoven’s Piano Sonata Op. 111 paired with Ligeti’s Études was named one of the best discs of the year by the New Yorker, NPR, and the Washington Post, while his account of the Beethoven sonata was selected by BBC Radio 3’s Building a Library as the best available version recorded on modern piano.
James Ehnes has established himself as one of the most sought-after violinists on the international stage. Gifted with a rare combination of stunning virtuosity, serene lyricism and an unfaltering musicality, Ehnes is a favourite guest of many of the world’s most respected conductors including Ashkenazy, Alsop, Sir Andrew Davis, Denève, Elder, Ivan Fischer, Gardner, Paavo Järvi, Mena, Noseda, Robertson and Runnicles. Ehnes’s long list of orchestras includes, amongst others, the Boston, Chicago, London, NHK and Vienna Symphony Orchestras, the Los Angeles, New York, Munich and Czech Philharmonic Orchestras, and the Cleveland, Philadelphia, Philharmonia and DSO Berlin orchestras.
Recent orchestral highlights include the MET Orchestra at Carnegie Hall with Noseda, Gewandhausorchester Leipzig with Shelley, San Francisco Symphony with Janowski, Frankfurt Radio Symphony with Orozco-Estrada, London Symphony with Harding, and Munich Philharmonic with van Zweden, as well as his debut with the London Philharmonic Orchestra at the Lincoln Center in spring 2019. In 2019/20, Ehnes is Artist in Residence with the Dallas Symphony Orchestra, which includes performances of the Elgar Concerto with Luisi, a play/direct programme leg by Ehnes, and a chamber music programme. In 2017, Ehnes premiered the Aaron-Jay Kernis Violin Concerto with the Toronto, Seattle and Dallas Symphony Orchestras, and gave further performances of the piece with the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester and Melbourne Symphony Orchestra.
Alongside his concerto work, James Ehnes maintains a busy recital schedule. He performs regularly at the Wigmore Hall, Carnegie Hall, Symphony Center Chicago, Amsterdam Concertgebouw, Ravinia, Montreux, Chaise-Dieu, the White Nights Festival in St Petersburg, Verbier Festival, Festival de Pâques in Aix, and in 2018 he undertook a recital tour to the Far East, including performances in Hong Kong, Shanghai, Singapore and Kuala Lumpur. As part of the Beethoven celebrations, Ehnes has been invited to perform the complete cycle of Beethoven Sonatas at the Wigmore Hall throughout 2019/20. Elsewhere Ehnes performs the Beethoven Sonatas at Dresden Music Festival, Prague Spring Festival, the Concertgebouw Amsterdam, at Aspen Music Festival (as part of a multi-year residency) and at Bravo Vail Festival during his residency week also including the Violin Concerto and Triple Concerto with the Dallas Symphony Orchestra and Runnicles. In 2016, Ehnes undertook a cross-Canada recital tour, performing in each of the country’s provinces and territories, to celebrate his 40th birthday.
As a chamber musician, he has collaborated with leading artists such as Andsnes, Capucon, Lortie, Lugansky, Yo-Yo Ma, Tamestit, Vogler and Yuja Wang. In 2010, he formally established the Ehnes Quartet, with whom he has performed in Europe at venues including the Wigmore Hall, Auditorium du Louvre in Paris and Théâtre du Jeu de Paume in Aix, amongst others. Ehnes is the Artistic Director of the Seattle Chamber Music Society.
Ehnes has an extensive discography and has won many awards for his recordings, including a Grammy Award (2019) for his live recording of Aaron Jay Kernis’ Violin Concerto with the Seattle Symphony and Ludovic Morlot, and a Gramophone Award for his live recording of the Elgar Concerto with the Philharmonia Orchestra and Sir Andrew Davis. His recording of the Korngold, Barber and Walton violin concertos won a Grammy Award for ‘Best Instrumental Soloist Performance’ and a JUNO award for ‘Best Classical Album of the Year’. His recording of the Paganini Caprices earned him universal praise, with Diapason writing of the disc, “Ehnes confirms the predictions of Erick Friedman, eminent student of Heifetz: ‘there is only one like him born every hundred years’.” Recent releases include sonatas by Beethoven, Debussy, Elgar and Respighi, and concertos by Walton, Britten, Shostakovich, Prokofiev and Strauss, as well as the Beethoven Violin Concerto with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra and Andrew Manze, which was released in October 2017 (Onyx Classics).
Ehnes began violin studies at the age of five, became a protégé of the noted Canadian violinist Francis Chaplin aged nine, and made his orchestra debut with L’Orchestre symphonique de Montréal aged 13. He continued his studies with Sally Thomas at the Meadowmount School of Music and The Juilliard School, winning the Peter Mennin Prize for Outstanding Achievement and Leadership in Music upon his graduation in 1997. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and in 2010 was appointed a Member of the Order of Canada. Ehnes was awarded the 2017 Royal Philharmonic Society Award in the Instrumentalist category.
James Ehnes plays the “Marsick” Stradivarius of 1715.
James Ehnes, violin
Kim Kashkashian,
viola
Hailed as “an artist who combines a probing, restless intellect with enormous beauty of tone,” Ms. Kashkashians’ work as performing and recording artist and pedagogue has been recognized worldwide.
She won the coveted Grammy Award for her recording of Ligeti and Kurtag solo viola works in 2013, and received the George Peabody Medal and Switzerland’s Golden Bow Award for her contributions to music. In 2016, she was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and in 2020, was named an Honorary member of the Royal Academy of Music.
As soloist Kashkashian has appeared with the orchestras of Berlin, London, Vienna, Milan, New York and Cleveland in collaboration with Eschenbach, Mehta, Welser-Moest, Kocsis, Dennis Russel Davies, Blomstedt, and Holliger.
Recital appearances include the great halls of Vienna, Rome, Paris, Berlin, Munich, Tokyo, Athens, London, New York, Boston, Chicago, San Francisco and Philadelphia where Ms. Kashkashian appears with the Trio Tre Voce, and in duo partnerships with pianist Robert Levin and percussionist Robyn Schulkowsky. She is also a regular participant at the Verbier, Salzburg, Lockenhaus, Marlboro, and Ravinia festivals.
Pursuing her lifelong search for new directions in music making, Ms. Kashkashian has forged creative relationships with the world’s leading composers—including György Kurtág, Krzysztof Penderecki, Alfred Schnittke, Giya Kancheli, and Arvo Pärt and commissioned compositions from Eötvös, Ken Ueno, Betty Olivero, Thomas Larcher, Lera Auerbach, Tigran Mansurian, and Toshio Hosokawa.
Ms. Kashkashian’s long association with the ECM label has yielded a discography that has garnered an abundance of praise and international awards—including a Grammy in 2013 for her solo recording of works by György Ligeti and György Kurtág, a Cannes Classical Award in 2001 for her recording of the viola concertos of Kurtág, Béla Bartók, and Péter Eötvös, and an Edison Prize in 1999 for her recording with pianist Robert Levin of the sonatas of Johannes Brahms. Ms. Kashkashian’s most recent recording of the six unaccompanied suites of J.S. Bach, was released to critical acclaim in October 2018 and garnered the Opus Klassik Prize.
Ms. Kashkashian, who studied with Karen Tuttle and Walter Trampler at Baltimore’s Peabody Conservatory and Felix Galimir at Vermont’s Marlboro Festival has held teaching positions at Indiana University, the Freiburg Hochschule für Musik, and the Hans Eisler Hochschule of Berlin. Currently, Ms. Kashkashian makes her home in Boston where she coaches chamber music and viola at New England Conservatory of Music.
Ms. Kashkashian is Founder and Artistic Director of “Music for Food” a musician-led hunger relief initiative that to date has presented hundreds of artists in concert which have created more than one and a half million free meals for people in need. To learn more, visit www.musicforfood.net.
As cellist in the Juilliard String Quartet from 1974 to 2016, Joel Krosnick has performed the great quartet literature throughout North America, Europe, Asia, and Australia, and recorded it for the Sony Classical, Wergo, and CRI labels. He has also performed as a soloist and recitalist around the world. With his sonata partner of more than 40 years, pianist Gilbert Kalish, Krosnick has performed recitals throughout the U.S. and Europe. The duo has recorded the complete sonatas and variations of Beethoven and the sonatas of Brahms as well as works by Poulenc, Prokofiev, Carter, Hindemith, Debussy, Janáček, Ralph Shapey, and Henry Cowell for the Arabesque label. His recording on Arabesque, entitled Forgotten Americans, includes music by Hall Overton, Ben Weber, Ernst Bacon, and Otto Luening. Krosnick’s recording of the Sonata for Solo Cello by Arthur Schnabel appears on the CP2 label and his recording of Roger Sessions’ Six Pieces for Solo Cello is available on Koch Classics.
Krosnick is the recipient of the Chevalier du Violoncelle Award from the Eva Janzer Memorial Cello Center at the Jacobs School of Music at Indiana University. In 2011, as a member of the Juilliard String Quartet, he received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences.
In 2015, Joel Krosnick received the Juilliard School President’s Medal for Service to the Arts.
Born in New Haven, Conn., Krosnick completed his bachelor of arts degree at Columbia University and holds honorary doctoral degrees from Michigan State University, Jacksonville University, and the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. He has been a member of the Juilliard faculty since 1974 and chair of the cello department since 1994. He is also on the faculty of the Kneisel Hall Chamber Music Festival.
Joel Krosnick, cello
Stanley Ritchie, violin
Stanley Ritchie is distinguished professor of music in violin and early music at the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music, where he joined the faculty in 1982.
A pioneer in the early music field in America, he was born and educated in Australia, graduating from the Sydney Conservatorium of Music in 1956. He left Australia in 1958 to pursue his studies in Paris with Jean Fournier, continuing in 1959 in the United States, where he studied with Joseph Fuchs, Oscar Shumsky, and Samuel Kissel.
In 1963, Ritchie was appointed concertmaster of New York City Opera and served as associate concertmaster of the Metropolitan Opera from 1965 to 1970. From 1970 to 1973, he performed as a member of the New York Chamber Soloists and served as assistant concertmaster of the Vancouver Symphony from 1973 until 1975, when he joined the Philadelphia String Quartet—in residence at the University of Washington in Seattle—as first violinist.
His interest in baroque and classical violin dates from 1970, when he embarked on a collaboration with harpsichordist Albert Fuller, which led to the founding, in 1973, of the Aston Magna summer workshop and festival. In 1974, Ritchie joined harpsichordist Elisabeth Wright in forming Duo Geminiani. The duo’s 1983 recording of the Bach Sonatas for Violin and Obbligato Harpsichord earned immediate critical acclaim.
He has performed with many prominent musicians in the early music field, including Hogwood, Gardiner, Bruegghen, Norrington, Bilson, and Bylsma, and was a member of the Mozartean Players for 20 years, with fortepianist Steven Lubin and cellist Myron Lutzke. Ritchie has appeared as soloist or conductor with a number of major early music orchestras, among them the Academy of Ancient Music, Tafelmusik, Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra, and the Handel and Haydn Society Orchestra.
Recognized as a leading exponent of baroque and classical violin playing, Ritchie performs, teaches, and lectures worldwide, most recently in Australia, Germany, Italy, Colombia, China, and Greece. He has served on the jury at the Leipzig International Bach Competition and is a frequent guest at Kloster Michaelstein, in Blankenburg, Germany, where he gives master classes in baroque and classical technique and interpretation. He has been a faculty member of the Accademia di Musica Antica in Bruneck (Südtirol) since 2000 and served for 10 years as artistic director of the Bloomington Early Music Festival. His ex-students are prominent members of the early music profession, some of them also occupying important teaching positions in the United States.
In June 2009, he received Early Music America’s highest honor, the Howard Mayer Brown Award for Lifetime Achievement in Early Music. In April 2016, he was promoted by the Indiana University Board of Trustees to the rank of distinguished professor.
Ritchie’s recordings include Vivaldi’s Op.11 Violin Concertos with Christopher Hogwood and the Academy of Ancient Music (Oiseau Lyre); the Mozart piano quartets and the complete piano trios of Mozart and Schubert as a member of the Mozartean Players, and a CD of seventeenth-century music for three violins and continuo, Three Parts upon a Ground, with John Holloway, Andrew Manze, Nigel North, and John Toll, all for Harmonia Mundi USA. His recordings also include selected Concerti and Serenate of Francesco Antonio Bonporti, with Bloomington Baroque (Dorian Discovery) and two CDs of chamber music of Anton Wranitzky with Ensemble Cordia (Brilliant). His recording of Bach’s Sonatas and Partitas for Solo Violin (Musica Omnia mo0503), released in January 2014, has received high critical praise.
Ritchie’s book Before the Chinrest—a Violinist’s Guide to the Mysteries of Pre-Chinrest Technique and Style, published by Indiana University Press, was released in June 2012. His second book, The Accompaniment in “Unaccompanied” Bach—Interpreting the Sonatas and Partitas for Solo Violin, also on IU Press, was published in 2016.
Each summer's master clinicians are subject to change.
