Judges of the 2019 Plowman Chamber Music Competition
Dale Clevenger, hornIndiana University
Chicago Symphony Orchestra Dale Clevenger is professor of practice (horn) at the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music. He was previously professor of horn at Roosevelt University. Principal horn of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra from 1966 to 2013, Clevenger is a versatile musician in many areas, including chamber music, jazz, commercial recordings, and solos. His mentors were Arnold Jacobs and Adolph Herseth. Before joining the Chicago Symphony, Clevenger was a member of Leopold Stokowski's American Symphony Orchestra and the Symphony of the Air directed by Alfred Wallenstein; he also was principal horn of the Kansas City Philharmonic. He has appeared as soloist with orchestras worldwide, including the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra under Daniel Barenboim. He has participated in many music festivals, including the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival; the Florida Music Festival in Sarasota; the Marrowstone Music Festival in Bellingham, Wash.; and the Affinis Music Festival in Japan. He also participated in the Jerusalem International Chamber Music Festival. In addition, he has worked with the European Community Youth Orchestra under Claudio Abbado and participated in several International Horn Society workshops. Recently, he was in Karlskrona, Sweden, at the Blekinge International Brass Academy Brass Week. Every July he is a part of the Italian Brass Week in Florence. He has given recitals and master classes throughout the world, including in Italy, Spain, Germany, Belgium, Austria, Switzerland, Finland, Norway, Japan, China, Australia, Mexico, Canada, and Israel. Clevenger is the featured soloist on several Chicago Symphony recordings, including works by Martin, Schumann, Britten, and Mozart. He also played on the Grammy Award-winning recording The Antiphonal Music of Gabrieli with the brass ensembles of the Chicago, Philadelphia, and Cleveland orchestras. He has recorded the horn concertos by Joseph and Michael Haydn with the Franz Liszt Chamber Orchestra of Budapest, as well as all of Mozart's horn concertos. The Mozart recording was named Record of the Year in Hungary, and both recordings were nominated for Grammy Awards. Clevenger also performed with Barenboim and colleagues from the Chicago Symphony and the Berlin Philharmonic in Chicago and Berlin on the Grammy-winning CD of quintets for piano and winds by Mozart and Beethoven. With Barenboim and Itzhak Perlman, he recorded Brahms' Horn Trio for HD TV, laser disc, and Sony Classical CD. He performed on the Tribute to Ellington CD with Barenboim and other members of the Chicago Symphony, and he has recorded Strauss's First Horn Concerto with Barenboim and the Chicago Symphony. John Williams wrote a horn concerto for him, which he premiered in 2004. For 17 years, Clevenger played almost regularly with the group EARS, Jazz of All Eras. In 1985, he earned an honorary doctorate from Elmhurst College. As a conductor, Clevenger served as music director of the Elmhurst Symphony Orchestra for 14 years. His conducting career has included guest appearances with numerous other orchestras, including the New Japan Philharmonic, the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra, the Civic Orchestra of Chicago, the Roosevelt University Symphony Orchestra, the Toronto Conservatory Orchestra, the Northwestern University Summer Symphony, the Western Australia Symphony Orchestra, the Osaka Philharmonic, the National Philharmonic of Slovakia in Bratislava, the Sinfonia Crakovia and the Opole Philharmonic in Poland, and the Bartlesville (Oklahoma) Symphony Orchestra. Recently, he conducted the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra. He conducted the Valledolid (Spain) Symphony Orchestra with Daniel Barenboim as soloist. Clevenger and his wife, Giovanna, divide their time between Bloomington, Indiana, and their home in Italy, where they have, at present, six dogs and three cats
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Ida Kavafian, violinCurtis Institute
The Juilliard School Bard College 2018 marks the versatile Ida Kavafian’s 34th year as Artistic Director of the acclaimed festival, Music from Angel Fire in NM. Frequent artist of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center for over forty years and former Violinist of the renowned Beaux Arts Trio, she presently performs as a soloist, in recital, with her sister Ani, as guest with distinguished ensembles and as a faculty member at The Curtis Institute, The Juilliard School and Bard College. She has premiered many new works, has toured and recorded with jazz greats Chick Corea and Wynton Marsalis as well as Fiddler/Composer Mark O’Connor, and has had a solo feature on CBS Sunday Morning. She premiered and recorded the concerto “Fire and Blood” by Michael Daugherty with the Detroit Symphony. She has toured and recorded with the Guarneri Quartet and performed with the Orion, Shanghai and American Quartets, all as a violist. Founder of the Bravo! Colorado festival in Vail, which she ran for ten years, co-founder of the ground breaking group TASHI more than forty years ago, Ms. Kavafian also co-founded the groups OPUS ONE and Trio Valtorna. She holds the Nina von Maltzahn Chair in Violin Studies at the Curtis Institute, where she was awarded the Lindback Award for Distinguished Teaching. Born in Istanbul, Turkey of Armenian parentage, she began her studies with Ara Zerounian, continued with Mischa Mischakoff, then graduated from the Juilliard School as a student of Oscar Shumsky. She was presented in her debut by Young Concert Artists with pianist Peter Serkin. Married to violist Steven Tenenbom, Ms. Kavafian has found great success in another field, the breeding, training and showing of prize-winning Hungarian Vizsla dogs, including the #1 Vizsla in the US in 2003 and the National Champion of 2007. She has a current top ten Vizsla just starting her show career. (Photo credit: Bernard Mindich
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Wei-Yi Yang, pianoInternational Concert Pianist
The Yale School of Music Pianist Wei-Yi Yang has received worldwide acclaim for his captivating performances and imaginative programming. Winner of the gold medal in the San Antonio International Piano Competition, he has performed at Lincoln Center, the Kennedy Center, and across America, Asia, Europe and Australia. Most recently, he was praised by the New York Times as the soloist in a “sensational” performance of Messiaen’s Turangalîla-Symphonie at Carnegie Hall. In demand as a dedicated teacher, Wei-Yi Yang has presented master classes and performances in Scotland, Ireland, Austria, Germany, Italy, Spain, Thailand, Hong Kong, Taiwan, China, Mexico, Serbia, and Montenegro, among other countries around the world. Mr. Yang’s performances have been featured on NPR, PBS, ARTE (Association Relative à la Télévision Européenne), the ABC (Australian Broadcasting Company), and on recordings by Genuin, Ovation, Albany Records, Renegade Classics, and the Holland-America Music Society. Mr. Yang has curated inventive interdisciplinary projects, including a collaboration with English actress Miriam Margolyes as part of the “Dickens’ Women” world tour; lecture/recitals on the confluence of Czech music and literature; and multimedia performances of Granados’ monumental piano suite Goyescas with projections of Goya’s etchings. Mr. Yang has worked with several composers including Jonathan Cole, Ezra Laderman, Martin Bresnick and George Crumb, to prepare their works for premiere and recording. He is a founding member of the Soyulla Ensemble, which received the prestigious McKnight Fellowship, and recently made its debut at Alice Tully Hall and toured Korea. A dynamic chamber musician with a diverse repertoire, Mr. Yang is a frequent guest artist at the festivals of Novi Sad, Serbia; Monterrey, Mexico; Konstanz, Germany; Kotor, Montenegro; La Jolla and Napa, California; and Norfolk, Connecticut. Mr. Yang has collaborated with many distinguished musicians, including the Alexander, Brentano, Cassatt, Pacifica, and Tokyo string quartets; mezzo-soprano Frederica von Stade; soprano Dawn Upshaw; clarinetists Richard Stoltzman and David Shifrin; violists Roberto Díaz, and Roger Tapping; cellist Clive Greensmith, and violinist Axel Strauss, among numerous others. Born in Taiwan of Chinese and Japanese heritage, Mr. Yang studied first in the United Kingdom, and then in America with renowned Russian pianists Arkady Aronov at the Manhattan School of Music and Boris Berman at Yale. Mr. Yang has also worked with eminent pianists Claude Frank, Peter Frankl, Vera Gornostaeva, Hans Graf, Byron Janis, Lilian Kallir, and Murray Perahia. Mr. Yang has adjudicated the Isidor Bajic Piano Memorial Competition, the San Antonio International Piano Competition, and the Concert Artists Guild auditions. In 2004, he received his doctorate from Yale, where he joined the faculty in 2005, and serves as Associate Professor of Piano, Chair of the DMA committee, and Faculty Fellow of Jonathan Edwards College.
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