Judges of the 2023 Plowman Chamber Music Competition
Lucille Chung, pianoInternational Concert Pianist
Born in Montréal, Canadian pianist Lucille Chung has been acclaimed for her “stylish and refined” performances by Gramophone. She is the First Prize winner of the Stravinsky International Piano Competition and made her debut at the age of 10 with the Montreal Symphony Orchestra. Charles Dutoit subsequently invited her as soloist on the orchestra’s tour to Asia.
She has since performed with over 70 leading orchestras around the world including the Philadelphia Orchestra, Moscow Virtuosi, BBC National Orchestra of Wales, KBS Orchestra, Israel Chamber Orchestra, Seoul Philharmonic, Orquesta Sinfónica de Tenerífe, Staatskapelle Weimar, UNAM Philharmonic (Mexico), Flemish Radio Orchestra, Belgrade Philharmonic, Dallas Symphony, St. Louis Symphony, as well as all the major Canadian orchestras, including Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver among others. She has appeared with conductors such as Penderecki, Spivakov, Nézet-Séguin, Denève, Oundjian, Petrenko and Dutoit. Lucille has given solo recitals on the finest concert halls in over 35 countries including New York’s Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center, Washington’s Kennedy Center and Phillips Collection, the Myra Hess Series in Chicago, the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, the Wigmore Hall in London, and Madrid’s Auditorio Nacional. Festival appearances include the Verbier Festival, Incontri in Terra di Siena, Felicja Blumental Festival in Israel, International Keyboard Institute and Festival in NYC, MDR Festival in Dresden, Bard Festival in NY, Music@Menlo and the Santander International Festival, where she premiered the 6 Piano Etudes by I.D. Martínez. Lucille graduated from both the Curtis Institute and the Juilliard School before she turned 20. She then furthered her studies in Europe with Maria Curcio-Diamand, Arthur Schnabel’s protégée, at the “Mozarteum” in Salzburg, Hochschule für Musik “Franz Liszt” Weimar and Accademia Pianistica in Imola, Italy, where she worked with the late Lazar Berman. She also worked with Joaquín Achúcarro at SMU where she was the Johnson-Prothro an Artist-in-Residence from 2015-2019. She is the recipient of the prestigious Virginia Parker Prize by the Canada Council of the Arts and the Honors Diploma from the Accademia Chigiana in Siena, Italy. Lucille has been receiving excellent reviews worldwide for her discs of the complete works of Ligeti as well as Scriabin piano works on the Dynamic label, garnering the maximum 5 Stars from the BBC Music Magazine and Fono Forum in Germany, as well as R10 from Répertoire Classica in France. Her diverse discography also includes “Saint-Saëns Piano Transcriptions”, “Mozart & Me”, Mendelssohn Piano Concertos, and for Signum Records, Poulenc Piano Works, Liszt Piano Works, and a four hand recital which includes Stravinsky’s Pétrouchka with pianist Alessio Bax. Lucille is fluent in French, English, Korean, Italian, German and Russian. She and her husband, pianist Alessio Bax make their home in New York City with their daughter, Mila, and are artistic co-directors of the Joaquín Achúcarro Foundation. |
Amit Peled, violoncelloInternational Concert Cellist
Peabody Institute, Johns Hopkins University Praised by The Strad magazine and The New York Times, internationally renowned cellist Amit Peled is acclaimed as one of the most exciting and virtuosic instrumentalists on the concert stage today. Having performed in many of the world’s most prestigious venues, including Carnegie Hall and Alice Tully Hall at the Lincoln Center in New York, the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington D.C., Salle Gaveau in Paris, Wigmore Hall in London, and the Konzerthaus Berlin, Peled has released over a dozen recordings on the Naxos, Centaur, Delos, and CTM Classics labels. He is on the faculty of the Peabody Institute of the Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland, and has performed in and presented master classes around the world including at the Marlboro and Newport Music Festivals and the Heifetz International Music Summer Institute in the US, the Schleswig-Holstein Musik Festival in Germany, International Musicians Seminar Prussia Cove in England, and Keshet Eilon in Israel. Embracing the new era of the pandemic, Peled has established the Amit Peled Online Cello Academy reaching out to cellists all over the world. Moreover, his home studio in Baltimore has turned into a virtual art gallery promoting and supporting local artists while teaching and livestreaming to a worldwide audience.
Raised on a kibbutz in Israel, Amit Peled began playing the cello at age 10. He performs on a cello made by the Italian master Giovanni Grancino (c. 1695), on generous loan from the Roux Family Foundation. Amit Peled is represented worldwide by CTM Classics. For more information, visit www.amitpeled.com. |
Jeff Scott, hornOberlin College and Conservatory
Imani Winds A native of Queens, NY, Jeff started the French horn at age 14, receiving an anonymous gift scholarship to begin his private study and formal introduction to music theory with the Brooklyn College Preparatory Division. An even greater gift came from his first private teacher Carolyn Clark, who taught the young Mr. Scott for free during his high school years, giving him the opportunity to study music when resources were not available.
Since receiving degrees from Manhattan School of Music, ’90 and SUNY at Stony Brook, ’92, Mr. Scott has enjoyed a performance career as a studio, chamber and orchestral musician, performing in Broadway shows, Ballet companies, touring with various commercial artists as well as recording for film, classical music, pop music and jazz music. Mr. Scott's composing credits include original works for symphonic and chamber orchestra, chorus, chamber ensembles and solo works for winds, brass, strings and voice. In 2021 Mr. Scott, a founding member of the internationally acclaimed wind quintet “Imani Winds”, retired after 24 years groundbreaking years of touring and recording and pedagogy. The quintet was honored with a permanent installation at the Smithsonian Museum of African American History in 2017. Mr. Scott was recently appointed Associate Professor of Horn at Oberlin College and Conservatory. |
