The Bellingham Festival Orchestra is comprised of principal players from major American and European orchestras and exceptional musicians from other local, regional and national ensembles. We are fortunate to have this assemblage of talent as our resident Festival orchestra. These talented artists will also present chamber music and perform as soloists with the orchestra during the Festival.
| Horacio Gutiérrez, Piano | Stefan Jackiw, Violin |
| Heidi Grant Murphy, Soprano | Joshua Roman, Cello |
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Photo: © Christian Steiner |
Considered one of the great pianists of our time, Horacio Gutiérrez is consistently praised by critics and audiences alike for the poetic insight and technical mastery he brings to a diverse repertoire. Since his professional debut in 1970 with Zubin Mehta and the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Mr. Gutiérrez has appeared regularly with the world’s greatest orchestras and on its major recital series.
In past seasons, Mr. Gutiérrez has given recitals at Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw, Berlin’s Philharmonie, the Schleswig-Holstein Festival and New York’s Carnegie Hall and Avery Fisher Hall, as well as in Los Angeles, Boston, Chicago, San Francisco and Cleveland. He recently performed on subscription and on tour with the Cleveland Orchestra. During the 08-09 season, he opened the season of the Dallas Symphony and performed
| “Pianist Horacio Gutiérrez has grace, ease and warmth” The Boston Globe |
with the Milwaukee Symphony, the Detroit Symphony, the Atlanta Symphony, the Oregon Symphony, the Calgary Philharmonic, and the Nashville and Colorado Symphony Orche stras among many others. He also performed and conducts master classes in Leon, Spain, which he will again do in 2009. In 2009-2010 he tours in Europe with the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic; returns to the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Pittsburgh Symphony, the Saint Louis Symphony, the Seattle Symphony and the Fort Worth Symphony, performs in recital in Mexico City, and tours in Holland with the Netherlands Chamber Orchestra.
A favorite of New York concertgoers, Mr. Gutiérrez has performed on numerous occasions at Lincoln Center’s Avery Fisher Hall and Carnegie Hall in recital and with orchestra. He has been a frequent soloist at the Mostly Mozart Festival and has appeared on its season-opening Live from Lincoln Center telecast. As a chamber musician, he has collaborated with the Guarnieri, Tokyo and Cleveland quartets as well as the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. In 1982, he was the recipient of the prestigious Avery Fisher Prize.
Mr. Gutiérrez’s Telarc recordings include Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concertos Nos. 2 and 3 with Lorin Maazel and the Pittsburgh Symphony, nominated for a Grammy Award. Also available on that label are separate discs of the two Brahms Concertos, both with Andre Previn and Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No. 1 and Rachmaninoff’s Rhapsody on a Theme by Paganini with
| “Prodigiously gifted… Renowned for splendid technique and intelligent phrasing” Michigan Live |
David Zinman and the Baltimore Symphony. For the Chandos label he has recorded Prokofiev’s Concertos No. 2 and 3 with Neeme Jarvi and the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra. His most recent recording, “George Perle: A Retrospective”, was named one of the ten best recordings of 2006 by The New Yorker. His television performances in Great Britain, the United States and France have been widely acclaimed, and won him an Emmy Award for his fourth appearance with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. He has also been welcomed three times by Johnny Carson on The Tonight Show.
“Prodigiously gifted… Renowned for splendid technique and intelligent phrasing”
Michigan Live
Born in Havana, Cuba, Horacio Gutiérrez appeared at the age of 11 as guest soloist with the Havana Symphony. He became an American citizen in 1967. A graduate of the Juilliard School, he is married to pianist Patricia Asher and resides in New York City.
Listen to Horacio Gutiérrez on YouTube:
Rachmaninoff - Piano Concerto No. 3 - 1st Movement
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photo by Lisa-Marie Mazzucco Stefan Jackiw, Violin |
Violinist Stefan Jackiw is recognized as one of the most significant artists of his generation, capturing audiences with his poetry and purity, combined with an impeccable technique. In the U.S. Mr. Jackiw has performed with the Boston Symphony, the Chicago Symphony, the Cleveland Orchestra, the New York Philharmonic, and the orchestras of Baltimore, Indianapolis, Milwaukee, Minnesota, Nashville, Oregon, Rochester, San Francisco, Seattle, St. Luke’s, and Utah, among many other ensembles.
In 2000 Mr. Jackiw made his European debut in London to great critical acclaim, playing the Mendelssohn Violin Concerto with the Philharmonia Orchestra under Benjamin Zander. Abroad, Mr. Jackiw has also performed with the Orchestre Philharmonique de Strasbourg, the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, l’Orchestra del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, the Ulster Orchestra of Ireland, the Seoul Philharmonic, and the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin. Invited by Yuri Temirkanov, Mr. Jackiw performed the Barber Violin Concerto as part of the Winter Arts Festival in St. Petersburg, Russia.
In 2002 Mr. Jackiw made his debut with the Baltimore Symphony under Temirkanov, followed by a tour of Japan with the orchestra that featured his Tokyo debut at Suntory Hall. Later that season, he made debuts with the Boston Symphony and the Chicago Symphony, both conducted by Roberto Abbado. His performance with the Boston Symphony was selected by the Boston Globe as one of the top two solo appearances of the year. In the 2004-2005 season, Mr. Jackiw made his debut with the Seattle Symphony, conducted by Gerard Schwarz. Both the Seattle Times and the Seattle Post-Intelligencer selected this performance as the best debut of the year.
In July 2007, Mr. Jackiw made his debut with the New York Philharmonic under the direction of Ludovic Morlot in the Concerts in the Parks series. The following month, he appeared with the Boston Symphony and Morlot at Tanglewood and was immediately reengaged for the following summer under Hans Graf. In 2008, Mr. Jackiw made his debut with the Cleveland Orchestra under Sir Andrew Davis and the San Francisco Symphony under James Gaffigan.
| “One of the miracles and mysteries of music is how the exceptionally gifted young performer can renew the art by making you hear unexpected things in music you've known longer than they've been alive, by making you feel the music as freshly and intensely as you did when you were first discovering it. Violinist Stefan Jackiw can do this.” Boston Globe |
Mr. Jackiw is also an active recitalist and chamber musician. He has appeared on numerous important series, including at the Ravinia Festival and the Caramoor Festival, the Boston Celebrity Series, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Louvre Recital Series in Paris, and at the Mostly Mozart Festival. He is also a regular participant at the Seattle Chamber Music Festival. At the opening night of Zankel Hall in New York, Mr. Jackiw was the only young artist invited to perform, alongside Emanuel Ax, Renée Fleming, Evgeny Kissin, and James Levine.
Born to physicist parents in 1985, Mr. Jackiw began playing the violin at the age of 4. His teachers have included Zinaida Gilels, Michèle Auclair, and Donald Weilerstein. Mr. Jackiw holds a Bachelor of Arts from Harvard University, as well as an Artist Diploma from the New England Conservatory. In 2002, he was awarded the prestigious Avery Fisher Career Grant. Mr. Jackiw makes his home in New York City.
Listen to Stefan Jackiw on YouTube
Mendelssohn Violin Concerto in E minor Op.64 I. Allegro molto appassionato part 1
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| photo by Lisa-Marie Mazzucco Heidi Grant Murphy, Soprano |
A shimmering soprano with enchanting stage presence, Heidi Grant Murphy is one of the outstanding vocal talents of her generation. A native of Bellingham, Washington, she began vocal studies while attending Western Washington and Indiana Universities. Her graduate studies were interrupted when she was named a winner of the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions and engaged by Maestro James Levine to participate in the Metropolitan Opera's Lindemann Young Artist Development Program.
Today, Ms. Murphy has established a reputation not only for her radiant musicianship and impeccable vocal technique, but also for her warm personality and generosity of spirit. Heidi Grant Murphy has appeared with many of the world's finest opera companies and symphony orchestras, notably the Metropolitan Opera, Salzburg Festival, Frankfurt Opera, Netherlands Opera, Théâtre Royal de la Monnaie, Opera National de Paris and Santa Fe Opera. She has been engaged as soloist with the Vienna, New York and Los Angeles Philharmonics; Cleveland, Philadelphia and Minnesota Orchestras; and Chicago, Boston, Pittsburgh, San Francisco, Atlanta, Saint Louis, Cincinnati, Houston, Montreal, National and Dallas Symphonies.
| “Heidi Grant Murphy has one of those immaculate silvery, youthful voices that make the listener start with pleasure and scan the program to find her name.” New York Newsday |
Ms. Murphy has worked with such esteemed conductors as Roberto Abbado, Herbert Blomstedt, Christoph Eschenbach, James Levine, Reinbert de Leeuw, Lorin Maazel, Kurt Masur, Kent Nagano, Seiji Ozawa, Sir Simon Rattle, Leonard Slatkin, Robert Spano, Jeffery Tate, Michael Tilson Thomas, Edo de Waart, Christoph Von Dohnányi, David Zinman, Bernard Haitink, Pinchas Zukerman and the late Robert Shaw.
Ms. Murphy's Metropolitan Opera debut in the 1989 production of Die Frau Ohne Schatten has led to numerous roles in that prestigious opera house, notably Susanna in Le Nozze di Figaro, Sophie in Der Rosenkavalier, Pamina in Die Zauberflöte, Sister Constance in Dialogues of the Carmelites, Servilia in Clemenza di Tito and Nanetta in Falstaff. European highlights have included the roles of Anne Truelove in the Netherlands' Opera production of The Rake's Progress and Celia in Lucio Silla at both the Salzburg Festival and Frankfurt Opera; and Susanna in Le Nozze di Figaro, Adina in L'Elisir d'Amor and Sophie in Der Rosenkavalier at the Opera Nationale de Paris.
Heidi Grant Murphy lives in New York City with her husband Kevin Murphy and their four children. She has been a featured guest on NPR's Morning Edition and All Things Considered, A&E's Breakfast with the Arts and BBC Radio 3. In October 2005, Ms. Murphy received the Distinguished Alumni Award from Western Washington University, where she pursued a bachelor's degree in music performance.
Listen to Heidi Grant Murphy on YouTube
Heidi Grant Murphy sings L'Elisir d'amore
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photo by Tina Su Joshua Roman, Cello |
Dubbed a “Classical Rock Star” by the press, cellist Joshua Roman has earned a national reputation for performing a wide range of repertoire with an absolute commitment to communicating the essence of the music at its most organic level. Before embarking on a solo career, he was principal cellist of the Seattle Symphony for two seasons, a position he won in 2006 at the age of 22.
| “heart-stopping beauty… big, succulent tone and impassioned style. ” Seattle Times |
Roman’s 2009-10 season engagements include debuts as concerto soloist with the Albany, Arkansas, and Santa Barbara Symphonies, the New Philharmonic Orchestra in Illinois, Oklahoma’s Signature Symphony, and Kentucky’s Lexington Philharmonic. In recent seasons he has performed with the Seattle Symphony, where he gave the world premiere of David Stock’s Cello Concerto, as well as with the Symphonies of Edmonton, Quad City, Spokane, and Stamford, and the Oklahoma City Philharmonic, among others. In 2008, Roman performed Britten’s third Cello Suite during New York’s Mostly Mozart Festival in a pre-concert recital at Avery Fisher Hall. In April 2009, he was the only guest artist invited to play an unaccompanied solo during the YouTube Symphony Orchestra’s debut concert at Carnegie Hall.
In addition to his solo work, Roman is an avid chamber music performer. He has enjoyed collaborations with veterans like Earl Carlyss and Christian Zacharias, as well as the Seattle Chamber Music Society and the International Festival of Chamber Music in Lima, Peru. He often joins forces with other dynamic young soloists and performers from New York’s contemporary music scene, including Alarm Will Sound, So Percussion, and artists from the Chamber Music
Society of Lincoln Center’s CMS Two. In spring 2007, he was named Artistic Director of TownMusic, an experimental chamber music series at Town Hall in Seattle, where he creates programs that feature new works and reflect the eclectic range of his musical influences and inspirations.
| “He is a musician of imagination and expressive breadth… Just as Roman's appearance and demeanor are striking, so are his skills.” Seattle Post-Intelligencer |
Committed to making music accessible to a wider audience, Roman may be found anywhere from a club to a classroom, whether performing jazz, rock, chamber music, or a solo sonata by Bach or Kodály. Roman’s outreach endeavors have taken him to Uganda with his violin-playing siblings, where they played chamber music in schools, HIV/AIDS centers, and displacement camps, communicating a message of hope through music.
| “He has a rare combination of natural talent, enthusiasm and strength.” Christophe Chagnard, founder and conductor of Northwest Sinfonietta |
The Oklahoma City native began playing the cello at the age of three on a quarter-size instrument, and played his first public recital at age ten. Home-schooled until he was 16, Roman then pursued his musical studies at the
Cleveland Institute of Music with Richard Aaron. Roman received his Bachelor’s Degree in Cello Performance in 2004, and his Master’s in 2005, as a student of Desmond Hoebig, principal cellist of the Cleveland Orchestra.
Joshua Roman was named “Musical America’s New Artist of the Month” in August 2009. He is grateful for the loan of an 1899 cello by Giulio Degani of Venice.