Lee To Begin 25th Presidential Concert Series Season With Pianist Yakushev

Lee University will kick off the talent-packed, 25th season of its Presidential Concert Series with an audience favorite, pianist Ilya Yakushev. The performance will take place in Pangle Hall Thursday, Sept. 15, at 7:30 p.m. 

Review for Ilya Yakushev and the other performers:

A guest of the series in 2011, Mr. Yakushev is a Russian pianist with many awards and honors to his credit. Highlights from Mr. Yakushev’s 2014-2015 season include performances with Rhode Island Philharmonic, Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra, Edmonton Symphony, Fort Wayne Philharmonic, and Brevard Music Center Orchestra. He also performed with the La Crosse Symphony, Pensacola Symphony, and Saratov Philharmonic. 

In 2014, he became a member of the St. Petersburg Piano Quartet, as well as having some of his work published by British label Nimbus Records, being named “one of the very best young pianists before the public today” by American Record Guide. In 2007, Mr. Yakushev made his San Francisco Symphony debut with music director Michael Tilson Thomas, where his performances were included in the top 10 classical music events of the year by the San Francisco Chronicle, prompting a return performance to the Symphony in 2009. He was also the winner of the 2005 World Piano Competition that took place in Cincinnati, Ohio. 

Receiving his first award at age 12, Mr. Yakushev has been the recipient of several other awards between then and now, as well as performing in various prestigious venues worldwide in past seasons. 

Mr. Yakushev is one of the many world-class performers who will take the stage at Lee, as this year’s Presidential Concert Series will host a variety of talents, including pianists, vocalists, violinists, cellists, and more. 

On Monday, Sept. 26, ARRIVAL From Sweden, along with Lee’s own Bob Bernhardt and the Lee University Symphony Orchestra, will perform in the Conn Center. 

ARRIVAL From Sweden is one of the world’s most popular and bestselling ABBA show bands since its start in 1995. They have toured 48 nations and appeared in several television and radio shows all over the world. This Swedish Super Group claims ABBA as Sweden’s biggest music export ever and hopes to carry on the legacy from generation to generation. 

The Lee Symphony Orchestra is conducted by Maestro Bernhardt, who led the Chattanooga Symphony for 19 years and is a popular guest conductor for orchestras around the country. Maestro Bernhardt joined Lee's School of Music in the fall of 2011 as an artist-in-residence and conductor of the Lee Symphony Orchestra. He also serves as music director emeritus of the Chattanooga Symphony and Opera and principal pops conductor of the Chattanooga, Grand Rapids, and Louisville Symphonies. 

On Tuesday, Oct. 25, Lee will welcome the stunning choral music group, Chanticleer, to Pangle Hall. 

Chanticleer is known around the world as “an orchestra of voices” for the seamless blend of its 12 male voices ranging from countertenor to bass and its original interpretations of vocal literature, from Renaissance to jazz, and from gospel to venturesome new music. 

Chanticleer is in its 38th season, performing throughout the United States, Germany, Austria, Italy, Hong Kong, Singapore, Macao, the Republic of China, and the People’s Republic of China. Since the group began releasing recordings in 1981, it has sold well over a million albums and won two GRAMMY awards. It was named Ensemble of the Year by Musical America in 2008 and was installed in the American Classical Music Hall of Fame the same year. 

On Monday, Nov. 14, continuing the concert series is violinist Isabelle Faust with pianist Alexander Melnikov. 

At an early age, Ms. Faust won the prestigious Leopold Mozart and Paganini competitions and was soon invited to appear with the world’s leading orchestras, including the Berlin Philharmonic, the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, the Boston Symphony Orchestra and the NHK Symphony Orchestra Tokyo. She continues to be one of the most sought-after violinists in the world and regularly performs or records with world-renowned conductors. 

Mr. Melnikov, known for his creative musical and programmatic decisions, discovered a career-long interest in historically-informed performance practice at an early age. He regularly performs with several distinguished period ensembles and orchestras. 

In 2010, the duo won both a Gramophone Award and Germany’s ECHO Klassik Prize and was nominated for a GRAMMY for their recording of the Beethoven Sonatas. Mr. Melnikov’s recording of the Preludes and Fugues by Shostakovich was also awarded the BBC Music Magazine Award, and in 2011 it was named one of the “50 Greatest Recordings of All Time” by the BBC Music Magazine. 

On Jan. 24, 2017, the season will continue with Cleveland native, soprano Susannah Biller Kness.

Ms. Kness was recently seen as Daisy in the San Francisco premiere of John Harbison’s “The Great Gatsby” with Ensemble Paralléle. In recent seasons, she was a member of the prestigious Adler Fellowship Program with the San Francisco Opera. Along with the SFO, Ms. Kness has sung with the Gotham Chamber Opera, Opera Santa Barbara, Portland Opera, San Diego Opera and Opera Theatre of St. Louis. 

In a welcome return to the concert series, brilliant pianists and familiar faces Gloria Chien and Ning An will perform on Feb. 21, 2017. 

Dr. Chien, who has been a member of the Lee music faculty since 2004, began playing piano at the age of five in her native Taiwan.  She has been called “a coat-of-many-colors pianist,” and holds a doctor of musical arts, a master’s, and a bachelor’s degree from the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston. She is a Steinway artist and currently serves as an artist-in-residence at Lee. 

A prize winner of the World Piano Competition, Harvard Musical Association Award, and the San Antonio International Piano Competition, Dr. Chien has presented solo recitals at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Harvard Musical Association, Sanibel Musical Festival, Caramoor Musical Festival, Salle Cortot in Paris, and the National Concert Hall in Taiwan. 

Dr. Chien was appointed the director of the Chamber Music Institute at Music@Menlo, a chamber music festival and institute in the San Francisco Bay Area, and has participated there for 10 years. She has been a member of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center since 2012, and now frequently plays at Alice Tully Hall in New York as well as other venues around the country with CMS on Tour. Dr. Chien is the founding director of “String Theory,” a chamber music series in Chattanooga, now beginning its eighth season in partnership with Lee University and the Hunter Museum of American Art. 

Also an artist-in-residence in Lee’s School of Music, An is hailed by the New York Concert Review as a musician who “combines a flawless technique and mastery of the instrument with an expressive power that is fueled by profound and insightful understanding.” 

Mr. An’s top prizes from the Queen Elizabeth, Cleveland, and William Kapell Piano competitions have led to performances across the globe, from Carnegie’s Weill Recital Hall and Milan’s Salle Verdi to Beijing’s Great Hall of the People. He has performed with some of the world’s great ensembles, including the Ysaÿe, Daedalus, and Takács quartets, as well as with renowned instrumentalists such as Díaz and Paul Neubauer. 

ChamberFest is a three-concert celebration of chamber music. Beginning Monday, March 13, 2017, the Miró String Quartet with clarinetist Ricardo Morales will perform in Pangle Hall; the Tuesday evening concert will be part of String Theory at the Hunter Museum of American Art; and the third and final concert on Wednesday, March 15, will be back on the Lee campus in Squires Recital Hall. 

The Miró Quartet, formed in 1995, is consistently praised for its deeply musical interpretations, exciting performances, and thoughtful programming. They are returning to Lee University for this ChamberFest. 

Concert highlights of recent seasons include a highly anticipated and sold out return to Carnegie Hall to perform Beethoven’s complete Opus 59 Quartets and collaborations with award-winning actor Stephen Dillane as part of Lincoln Center’s White Lights Festival. Miró Quartet took first prize at several national and international competitions including the Banff International String Quartet Competition and the Naumburg Chamber Music Competition. In 2005, they became the first ensemble ever to be awarded the coveted Avery Fisher Career Grant.   

Mr. Morales is one of the most sought after clarinetists of today. He joined the Philadelphia Orchestra as principal clarinet in 2003. Prior to this, he was principal clarinet of the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra. His artistry as a soloist, chamber, and orchestral musician has been recognized in concert halls all around the world. Morales has been a featured soloist with many orchestras, including the Metropolitan Orchestra, the Chicago Symphony, the Cincinnati Symphony, the Indianapolis Symphony, the Seoul Philharmonic, and the Flemish Radio Symphony. He made his solo debut with The Philadelphia Orchestra in 2004 with Charles Dutoit and has since performed as soloist on numerous occasions. 

Tickets will be available at the Lee University Box Office in the Dixon Center, or by contacting 614-8343, in the week prior to each concert, between 3-6 p.m. 

For more information about the Presidential Concert Series, please visit http://www.leeuniversity.edu  or call Kristi Vanoy at the School of Music 614-8240.