Ravinia 2023 Issue 1

MARK STEINBERG e rst violinist of the Brentano Quartet, Mark Steinberg holds degrees from Indiana University and e Juilliard School, following studies with Louise Behrend, Josef Gingold, and Robert Mann. He has earned such hon- ors as the Naumburg Chamber Music Award, the inaugural Cleveland Quartet Award, and a Royal Philharmonic Society Award with Brentano, which he co-founded in . Stein- berg has recorded and toured extensively with the quartet, regularly across North America, Europe, Australia, and New Zealand, as well as to Japan, China, Korea, Israel and Colom- bia. He has also o en appeared in trio and duo concerts with pianist Mitsuko Uchida, with whom he performed the complete Mozart sonatas in several venues, including London’s Wigmore Hall in , and recorded a selec- tion of the works for the Philips label. On the orchestral stage, Steinberg has been a featured soloist with London’s Philharmonia Orches- tra, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Kansas City Camerata, Auckland Philharmonia, and Philadelphia Concerto Soloists, among other ensembles, collaborating with such conduc- tors as Kurt Sanderling, Esa-Pekka Salonen, and Miguel Harth-Bedoya. An advocate of contemporary music, he has worked close- ly with many composers and has performed with the Guild of Composers, Da Capo Chamber Players, Speculum Musicae, and Continuum. He is currently on the violin fac- ulties of the Manhattan School of Music and CUNY Graduate Center, having previously taught at the Mannes School of Music, Juil- liard’s Pre-College Division, Princeton Uni- versity, and New York University, and appears regularly at the Yale School of Music with the Brentano Quartet, the school’s ensemble in residence. Steinberg has been on juries at the Ban International Quartet Competition, London Quartet Competition, andMozart In- ternational Quartet Competition in Salzburg, as well as the Naumburg Violin Competition. He also regularly works with musicians at the Ban Centre for the Arts, Aspen Music Fes- tival, Norfolk Chamber Music Festival, and Taos School of Music. Mark Steinberg joined the Ravinia Steans Music Institute faculty in and gave his rst performance at the fes- tival in . PAUL BISS Violinist and violist Paul Biss is an alumnus of Indiana University, where he received a bachelor’s degree and studied with Josef Gingold, and e Juilliard School, complet- ing a master’s degree under the tutelage of Ivan Galamian. He has also studied chamber music with such artists as Walter Trampler, Claus Adam, Janos Starker, and William Primrose. For many years Biss was a mem- ber of the Berkshire String Quartet, which was in residence at Indiana University, and has appeared at many music festivals, includ- ing Ravinia, Marlboro, La Jolla, Lockenhaus, Naantali, Casals, and the Ysaye at London’s Wigmore Hall. As both a violinist and violist, he has collaborated with Christoph Eschen- bach, Menahem Pressler, Gidon Kremer, Pin- chas Zukerman, Miriam Fried, Michael Tree, Janos Starker, Ralph Kirshbaum, and Gary Ho man, as well as the Mendelssohn, Fine Arts, and Alexander String Quartets. Biss has also regularly appeared in recital and as a so- loist with orchestras in North America, Eu- rope and Israel, with recent concerts taking him to Brazil and Korea. He became a pro- fessor at Indiana University’s Jacobs School of Music in and has conducted approx- imately performances of symphonic mu- sic as well as operas for the school’s opera program before retiring from the position in . Biss has also led orchestras in Mexico, Finland, Brazil, Korea, and Israel, where he was awarded a prize by the Ministry of Cul- ture for the performance of contemporary work. Previously the assistant conductor of the Akron Symphony, he is also a former faculty member of MIT and the universities of Tel Aviv and Akron, and has held a pro- fessorship of violin and chamber music at the New England Conservatory since . Paul Biss joined the Ravinia Steans Music Institute faculty in , and tonight marks his th season as a performer at the festival. KIM KASHKASHIAN Born in Michigan, Kim Kashkashian stud- ied viola at the Peabody Conservatory un- der Karen Tuttle and Walter Trampler, later earning a master’s degree at the New School of Music in Philadelphia. Since , she has taught viola and chamber music at the New England Conservatory; she was elected a fel- low of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in , and in an honorary member of the Royal Academy of Music. She was a prizewinner of the ARD Interna- tional Music Competition in Munich and the inaugural Lionel Tertis International Viola Competition the same year. Kashkashian is also an award-winning recording artist, re- ceiving the Edison Prize in for an album of sonatas by Brahms; the Cannes Clas- sical Award for a disc of concertos by Bartók, Eötvös, and Kurtág; a Grammy Award in for Kurtág and Ligeti: Music for Viola ; and the Opus Klassik in with Bach’s solo cello suites transcribed for viola. She has worked with Eötvös, Kurtág, and other composers— including Lera Auerbach, Giya Kancheli, Thomas Larcher, Tigran Mansurian, Arvo Pärt, Krzysztof Penderecki, Alfred Schnittke, and Ken Ueno—to help enrich the repertoire for viola. Kashkashian also has long-standing duo performance partnerships with pianist Robert Levin and percussionist Robyn Schul- kowsky, and she has performed in a quartet with violinists Gidon Kremer and Daniel Phillips and cellist Yo-Yo Ma. She has also collaborated with the Tokyo, Guarneri, and Orion String Quartets and many other artists through regular appearances at such festivals as Verbier, Salzburg, Lockenhaus, Marlboro, and Ravinia, as well as recitals in New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Frankfurt, Berlin, Paris, Athens, and Tokyo. As a soloist, Kashkashian has performed with the orchestras of Berlin, London, Vienna, Milan, New York, Cleveland, and many oth- ers. She is the founder and artistic director of Music for Food, an initiative by musicians to ght hunger in their home communities. Kim Kashkashian has been on the Ravinia Steans Music Institute faculty nearly every year since , the same year she made her Ravinia de- but. Tonight marks her th season perform- ing at the festival. MARCY ROSEN A native of Phoenix, AZ, cellist Marcy Rosen is a graduate of the Curtis Institute of Music and counts such gures as Gordon Epper- son, Orlando Cole, Marcus Adeney, Felix Galimir, Karen Tuttle, and Sandor Vegh as mentors. Today she is on the faculties of the Aaron Copland School of Music at Queens College and the Mannes College of Music in New York to pass on her expertise, and she has also been part of the sta s of the Eastman School of Music, New England Conservatory, University of Delaware, and Marlboro Music Festival. With the Mendelssohn String Quar- tet, which she was a part of for years, from its founding through its nal performance in , Rosen was also a resident artist at the North Carolina School for the Arts and Har- vard University. e quartet won the Young Concert Artists International Auditions in , and Rosen won the same competition as a solo artist in , the same year that she became artistic director of the Chesapeake Chamber Music Festival. Rosen made her concerto debut at age with the Philadel- phia Orchestra and has since been featured with such ensembles as the Dallas, Phoenix, Jupiter, and Tokyo Symphony Orchestras and Orpheus and Concordia Chamber Orches- tras. Her concert credits also include Carne- gie Hall, the nd Street Y, the Kennedy Cen- ter, Dumbarton Oaks, the Phillips Collection, and the Corcoran Gallery, and she has recent- ly toured to China, Korea, and Columbia to give both concerts and master classes. Rosen’s solo work is enhanced by her chamber mu- sic activities, which have featured collabo- rations with Leon Fleisher, Richard Goode, Andras Schi , Peter Serkin, Mitsuko Uchida, Isaac Stern, Robert Mann, Kim Kashkashian, Jessye Norman, and the Juilliard, Emerson, and Orion String Quartets, among many other artists. Marcy Rosen rst joined the Ravinia Steans Music Institute faculty in and appeared on the festival’s stage for sea- sons with the Mendelssohn String Quartet between and , as well as twice with Musicians from Marlboro. is is her second Ravinia performance with the RSMI faculty. RAVINIA.ORG • RAVINIA MAGAZINE