Eastern Festival Orchestra with Gil Shaham, violin

ABOUT GERARD SCHWARZ

Internationally recognized for his moving performances, innovative programming and extensive catalogue of recordings, American conductor Gerard Schwarz serves as Music Director of the All-Star Orchestra, Eastern Music Festival, Palm Beach Symphony and Mozart Orchestra of New York, and is Conductor Laureate of the Seattle Symphony Orchestra and Conductor Emeritus of the Mostly Mozart Festival. He is Distinguished Professor of Music; Conducting and Orchestral Studies of the Frost School of Music at the University of Miami and Music Director of the Frost Symphony Orchestra.

His considerable discography of over 350 albums showcases his collaborations with some of the world’s greatest orchestras including The Philadelphia Orchestra, London Symphony Orchestra, Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra, Orchestre National de France, Tokyo Philharmonic, Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, New York Chamber Symphony and Seattle Symphony Orchestra among others. In 2017 The Gerard Schwarz Collection, a 30-CD box set of previously unreleased or limited release works spanning his entire recording career was released by Naxos.

Schwarz began his professional career as co-principal trumpet of the New York Philharmonic and has held Music Director positions with the Mostly Mozart Festival, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra and New York Chamber Symphony. As a guest conductor, he has worked with many of the world’s finest orchestras and has led the San Francisco, Washington National and Seattle Opera companies on many occasions. He is also a gifted composer and arranger with an extensive catalogue of works that have been premiered by ensembles across the United States, Europe and Korea.

Schwarz is a renowned interpreter of 19th century German, Austrian and Russian repertoire in addition to his noted work with contemporary American composers. He completed his final season as Music Director of the Seattle Symphony in 2011 after an acclaimed 26 years — a period of dramatic artistic growth for the ensemble.

In his nearly five decades as a respected classical musician and conductor, Schwarz has received hundreds of honors and accolades including 9 Emmy Awards, 14 Grammy Award nominations, 8 ASCAP Awards and the Ditson Conductor’s Award. He was the first American named Conductor of the Year by Musical America and has received numerous honorary doctorates. The City of Seattle named the street alongside the Benaroya Hall “Gerard Schwarz Place” in his honor. His book, Behind the Baton, was released by Amadeus Press in March 2017. He has been married to his wife Jody for 37 years, has four children and lives in Florida.

ABOUT GIL SHAHAM

Gil Shaham is one of the foremost violinists of our time; his flawless technique combined with his inimitable warmth and generosity of spirit has solidified his renown as an American master. The Grammy Award winner, also named Musical America’s “Instrumentalist of the Year,” is sought after throughout the world for concerto appearances with leading orchestras and conductors, and regularly gives recitals and appears with ensembles on the world’s great concert stages and at the most prestigious festivals.

Highlights of recent years include the acclaimed recording and performances of J.S. Bach’s complete sonatas and partitas for solo violin. In the coming seasons, in addition to championing these solo works, he will join his longtime duo partner pianist Akira Eguchi in recitals throughout North America, Europe, and Asia.

Appearances with orchestra regularly include the Berlin Philharmonic, Boston Symphony, Chicago Symphony, Israel Philharmonic, Los Angeles Philharmonic, New York Philharmonic, Orchestre de Paris, and San Francisco Symphony as well as multi-year residencies with the Orchestras of Montreal, Stuttgart and Singapore. With orchestra, Mr. Shaham continues his exploration of “Violin Concertos of the 1930s,” including the works of Barber, Bartok, Berg, Korngold, Prokofiev, among many others.

Mr. Shaham has more than two dozen concerto and solo CDs to his name, earning multiple Grammys, a Grand Prix du Disque, Diapason d’Or, and Gramophone Editor’s Choice. Many of these recordings appear on Canary Classics, the label he founded in 2004. His CDs include 1930s Violin Concertos, Virtuoso Violin Works, Elgar’s Violin Concerto, Hebrew Melodies, The Butterfly Lovers and many more. His most recent recording in the series 1930s Violin Concertos Vol. 2, including Prokofiev’s Violin Concerto and Bartok’s Violin Concerto No. 2, was nominated for a Grammy Award. He released a recording of Beethoven and Brahms Concertos with The Knights in 2020.

Mr. Shaham was born in Champaign-Urbana, Illinois, in 1971. He moved with his parents to Israel, where he began violin studies with Samuel Bernstein of the Rubin Academy of Music at the age of 7, receiving annual scholarships from the America-Israel Cultural Foundation. In 1981, he made debuts with the Jerusalem Symphony and the Israel Philharmonic, and the following year, took the first prize in Israel’s Claremont Competition. He then became a scholarship student at Juilliard, and also studied at Columbia University.

Gil Shaham was awarded an Avery Fisher Career Grant in 1990, and in 2008 he received the coveted Avery Fisher Prize. In 2012, he was named “Instrumentalist of the Year” by Musical America. He plays the 1699 “Countess Polignac” Stradivarius and performs on an Antonio Stradivari violin, Cremona c1719, with the assistance of Rare Violins in Consortium, Artists and Benefactors Collaborative. He lives in New York City with his wife, violinist Adele Anthony, and their three children.

ABOUT WINFRED FELTON

Winfred Felton is a first-year graduate music major at the Yale School of Music. He is currently in the studio of Frank Morelli, studying bassoon performance. He is a former student of Saxton Rose, Martin Kuuskmann, and Christopher Ulffers. His love for music came from growing up surrounded by church music and being fascinated by the many colors that can be found within music. Winfred’s principal engagements include performances with the Yale Philharmonia, Norwalk Symphony, Princeton Symphony, and the Winston Salem Symphony. He has attended and been admitted to music festivals such as Boston University Tanglewood Institute, Miami Music Festival, Eastern Music Festival, and Aspen Music Festival. This summer, Winfred will be making his concerto debut with the Eastern Festival Orchestra, under the baton of Gerard Schwarz. In his free time, Winfred is a voracious reader, poet, and consumer of all musical genres.