Vonsattel A "wanderer between worlds" (Lucerne Festival), "immensely talented" and "quietly powerful pianist" (New York Times), Swiss-born American Gilles Vonsattel is an artist of extraordinary versatility and originality. Comfortable with and seeking out an enormous range of repertoire, Vonsattel displays a musical curiosity and sense of adventure that has gained him many admirers. Recipient of an Avery Fisher Career Grant and winner of the Naumburg and Geneva competitions as well as the 2016 Andrew Wolf Chamber Music Award, he has in recent years made his Boston Symphony, Tanglewood, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Munich Philharmonic, Gothenburg Symphony, and San Francisco Symphony debuts, while performing recitals and chamber music at Ravinia, Tokyo’s Musashino Hall, Wigmore Hall, Bravo! Vail, Music@Menlo, the Gilmore festival, the Lucerne festival, and the Munich Gasteig. His 2014 New York solo recital was hailed as “tightly conceived and passionately performed…a study in intensity” by The New York Times.

Times. Reengaged by the San Francisco Symphony, he has also appeared with the Warsaw Philharmonic, Calgary Philharmonic, Edmonton Symphony, l’Orchestre Symphonique du Québec, Boston Pops, Nashville Symphony, Musikkollegium Winterthur, Staatskapelle Halle, and L’orchestre de chambre de Genève. Chamber partners include musicians such as James Ehnes, Frank Huang, Ilya Gringolts, Nicolas Altstaedt, David Shifrin, David Finckel, Stefan Jackiw, Jörg Widmann, Gary Hoffman, Carter Brey, David Requiro, Paul Huang, Anthony Marwood, Paul Neubauer, Paul Watkins, Philip Setzer, Emmanuel Pahud, Karen Gomyo, David Jolley, Ida Kavafian, and the Swiss Chamber Soloists. He has appeared in concert with the Emerson, Pacifica, Orion, Ebène, Danish, Miró, Daedalus, Escher, and Borromeo Quartets. Deeply committed to the performance of contemporary works, he has premiered numerous works both in the United States and Europe and worked closely with notable composers such as Jörg Widmann, Heinz Holliger, and George Benjamin. His 2011 recording for the Honens/ Naxos label of music by Debussy, Honegger, Holliger, and Ravel was named one of Time Out New York’s classical albums of the year, while a 2014 release on GENUIN/Artist Consort received a 5/5 from FonoForum and international critical praise. His latest solo release (2015) for Honens of Scarlatti, Webern, Messiaen, Debussy, and George Benjamin’s Shadowlines received rave reviews in Gramophone, The New York Times, and the American Record Guide.

Guide. Recent projects include Berg’s Kammerkonzert with the Orchestra della Svizzera Italiana, a tour with Jörg Widmann and the Irish Chamber Orchestra, Mozart concerti with the Vancouver Symphony and Florida Orchestra, performances at Seoul’s LG Arts Centre and at the Beijing Modern Music Festival, collaborations with Kent Nagano with L’Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal and the Munich Philharmonic (Bernstein’s Symphony No. 2, The Age of Anxiety) as well as numerous appearances internationally and throughout the United States with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. Mr. Vonsattel received his bachelor’s degree in political science and economics from Columbia University and his master’s degree from The Juilliard School, where he studied with Jerome Lowenthal. He is on the faculty of the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, and makes his home in New York City. Gilles Vonsattel is a Steinway Artist.

Benjamin Beilman has won praise both for his passionate performances and deep rich tone which the Washington Post called “mightily impressive,” and The New York Times described as “muscular with a glint of violence.” The Times has also praised his “handsome technique, burnished sound, and quiet confidence,” and the Strad described his playing as “pure poetry.” In a 2018 feature in The Boston Globe, David Weininger remarked that Beilman’s “playing already has its own sure balance of technical command, intensity, and interpretive finesse.”

In the spring of 2018, Benjamin Beilman and pianist Orion Weiss premiered Demons, a new sonata written for the pair by Frederic Rzewski, and commissioned by Music Accord. Beilman and Weiss performed the work, which is dedicated to the political activist Angela Davis on recital programs presented by the Boston Celebrity Series, Shriver Hall Concert Series, Parlance Chamber Music, Gilmore Festival and Grand Teton Music Festival. Beilman and Weiss will continue to present the work in recital during the 2018-19 season at Lincoln Center, Kennedy Center and Spivey Hall. Beilman will also perform the European premiere of Demons at the Heidelberg Spring Festival and on his return to Wigmore Hall. Beilman will also appear in recital at Philadelphia’s Perelman Theater and at Carnegie Hall with pianist Jeremy Denk and in New York and on tour with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center’s Bowers Program (formerly CMS Two).

Also in 2018-19, Beilman will play-direct the Vancouver Symphony, make his debut at the Philharmonie in Cologne with Ensemble Resonanz, perform Four Seasons with the Cincinnati Symphony and Richard Egarr, return to the City of Birmingham Symphony, and debut with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra. European recital and chamber music engagements include the Moritzburg Festival in Dresden, Concertgebouw in Amsterdam and Wigmore Hall for a BBC Radio 3 live broadcast. Beilman will perform concertos by Brahms, Bernstein, Prokofiev and Higdon, among others in orchestral engagements with the Berkeley, Greenville and Portland Symphonies; Rhode Island and Colorado Springs Philharmonic; along with the Munich Chamber Orchestra, Bruckner Orchestra Linz, Iceland Symphony and Nagoya Philharmonic in Japan..

In the 2017-18 season, Beilman appeared as a soloist with the Detroit, Houston, Oregon, North Carolina and Indianapolis Symphonies and Orchestra St. Luke’s. He also did a multi-city tour of California with the New Century Chamber Orchestra in a program which he both programmed and play-directed. Abroad, Beilman made his Australian concerto debut with the Sydney Symphony, and debuted with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra and Trondheim Symphony.

In past seasons, Beilman has performed with the Rotterdam Philharmonic, London Philharmonic, London Chamber, Scottish Chamber, Frankfurt Radio Symphony, Zurich Tonhalle and Orchestre National du Capitole de Toulouse. In the US Beilman has performed with San Francisco Symphony, and several times with the Philadelphia Orchestra, including a performance at Carnegie Hall. Beilman garnered worldwide attention following his First Prize wins in the 2010 Young Concert Artists International Auditions and the 2010 Montréal International Musical Competition. He went on to receive prestigious accolades including a Borletti-Buitoni Trust Fellowship, an Avery Fisher Career Grant, a London Music Masters Award and an exclusive recording contract with Warner Classics. Beilman released his first disc for the label in 2016, titled Spectrum and featuring works by Stravinsky, Janáček and Schubert. In its review of the album, All Music Guide wrote, “This is a young violinist to watch, one who has already mastered many styles and is working toward breakthroughs of his own.”

Born in 1989, Beilman began playing violin at the age of five and went on to study with Almita and Roland Vamos at the Music Institute of Chicago, Ida Kavafian and Pamela Frank at the Curtis Institute of Music, and Christian Tetzlaff at the Kronberg Academy.

He plays the "Engleman" Stradivarius from 1709 generously on loan from the Nippon Music Foundation.

2018-19 Season. 630 Words. Please do not alter without permission.

Winner of a 2009 Avery Fisher Career Grant, Arnaud Sussmann has distinguished himself with his unique sound, bravura and profound musicianship. Minnesota’s Pioneer Press writes, “Sussmann has an old-school sound reminiscent of what you'll hear on vintage recordings by Jascha Heifetz or Fritz Kreisler, a rare combination of sweet and smooth that can hypnotize a listener. His clear tone [is] a thing of awe-inspiring beauty, his phrasing spellbinding.”

A thrilling young musician capturing the attention of classical critics and audiences around the world, Arnaud Sussmann has appeared with the American Symphony Orchestra, Buffalo Philharmonic, New World Symphony, Pacific Symphony, Paris Chamber Orchestra, Jerusalem Symphony and the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra. Further solo appearances have included a tour of Israel and concerts at Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall, Dresden Music Festival in Germany and at the Phillips Collection in Washington, D.C. Mr. Sussmann has been presented in recital in Omaha on the Tuesday Musical Club series, New Orleans by the Friends of Music, Tel Aviv at the Museum of Art and at the Louvre Museum in Paris. He has also given concerts at the OK Mozart, Chamber Music Northwest and Moritzburg festivals and appears regularly at the Caramoor, Music@Menlo, La Jolla SummerFest, Seattle Chamber Music, Moab Music and Saratoga Springs Chamber Music festivals.

Recent concerto appearances include performances with Maestro Valery Gergiev and the Mariinsky Orchestra at the White Nights Festival in St Petersburg, the Santa Rosa Symphony, the Albany Symphony, the Jacksonville Symphony and the Grand Rapids Symphony. This past season, chamber music performances included tours with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center to Korea’s LG Arts Center, Shanghai’s Oriental Center and Hong Kong’s Music Academy.

Arnaud Sussmann has performed with many of today’s leading artists including Itzhak Perlman, Menahem Pressler, Gary Hoffman, Shmuel Ashkenazi, Wu Han, David Finckel, Jan Vogler and members of the Emerson String Quartet. He has worked with conductors such as Cristian Macelaru, Marcelo Lehninger, Rune Bergmann and Leon Botstein. A dedicated chamber musician, he has been a member of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center since 2006 and has regularly appeared with them i New York and on tour, including a recent concert at London’s Wigmore Hall.

A frequent recording artist, Arnaud Sussmann has released albums on Deutsche Grammophon’s DG Concert Series, Naxos, Albany Records and CMS Studio Recordings labels. His solo debut disc, featuring three Brahms Violin Sonatas with pianist Orion Weiss, was released in December 2014 on the Telos Music Label. He has been featured on multiple PBS’ Live from Lincoln Center broadcasts alongside Itzhak Perlman and the Perlman Music Program and with musicians of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center.

Born in Strasbourg, France and based now in New York City, Arnaud Sussmann trained at the Conservatoire de Paris and the Juilliard School with Boris Garlitsky and Itzhak Perlman. Winner of several international competitions, including the Andrea Postacchini of Italy and Vatelot/Rampal of France, he was named a Starling Fellow in 2006, an honor which allowed him to be Mr. Perlman’s teaching assistant for two years. Mr. Sussmann now teaches at Stony Brook University on Long Island and was recently named Co-Artistic Director of Music@Menlo’s International Chamber Music Program. He is also the new Artistic Director of the Chamber Music Society of Palm Beach in Florida.

One of the most exciting and versatile British cellists of his generation, Johnston was born into a musical family and joined his brothers in the world-renowned choir of King’s College, Cambridge, where he recorded the famous carol, “Once in Royal David’s City” under Stephen Cleobury. He went on to achieve important early successes through the BBC Young Musician of the Year title, the GuilheminaSuggia Gift, the Shell London Symphony Orchestra Gerald MacDonald Award, and receiving a Classical Brit Award at the Royal Albert Hall. His mentors have included Steven Doane, Ralph Kirshbaum, Bernard Greenhouse, Steven Isserlis and David Waterman.

He has made many important debuts including the First Night of the BBC Proms playing the Elgar Concerto with the BBC Symphony Orchestra under Leonard Slatkin, the Brahms Double Concerto in the Philharmonie with the DSO Berlin under Juraj Valchua, Tchaikovsky Rococo Variations with the St. Petersburg State Capella Orchestraunder Dmitriev in St. Petersburg, the Elgar Concerto with the Osaka Philharmonic under Tadaaki Otaka in Tokyo, and the Schumann Concerto with the English Chamber Orchestra under Tilbrook. Among past highlights with leading orchestras in the UK are Strauss’s Don Quixote with the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain under Yan Pascal Tortelier, the Walton Concerto with the BBC Philharmonic under Tortelier, the Dvorak Concerto with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra under Seal, Britten’s Cello Symphony with the Royal Northern Sinfonia under Robin Ticciati, and Shostakovich Concerto No. 2 with the RTE National Orchestra under Vladimir Altschuler in Dublin.