NJSO welcomes new musicians and artistic staff

• David Southorn joins as Assistant Concertmaster; violinist Adriana Rosin also named Assistant Concertmaster
• New musicians since 2015 include violinists JoAnna Farrer, Minji Kwon and Bryan Hernandez-Luch, and cellist Hyewon Kim
• Na-Young Baek assumes role of Acting Assistant Principal Cello
• Patrick Chamberlain joins NJSO as Director of Artistic Planning

Newark, NJ (October 4, 2016)—The New Jersey Symphony Orchestra has welcomed new musicians and artistic staff to the Orchestra. In the 2016–17 season, David Southorn joins the Orchestra as Assistant Concertmaster; NJSO first violinist Adriana Rosin has also been named Assistant Concertmaster. Since 2015, the Orchestra has welcomed violinists JoAnna Farrer, Minji Kwon and Bryan Hernandez-Luch, as well as cellist Hyewon Kim. This season, longtime NJSO cellist Na-Young Baek assumes the role of Acting Assistant Principal Cello. NJSO Director of Artistic Planning Patrick Chamberlain assumed his new position in July.

Assistant Concertmaster David Southorn currently enjoys a versatile career as a concertmaster, soloist and chamber musician. Recent solo highlights include a performance of Beethoven’s Violin Concerto with the Fremont Symphony in California and works of Vivaldi and Piazzolla with Le Train Bleu in New York City during the 2015–16 season. As a chamber musician, he has performed recently with his award-winning Amphion String Quartet at Alice Tully Hall as members of The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center’s CMS Two. He has collaborated with such esteemed musicians as Anne-Marie McDermott, Carter Brey, Ani Kavafian, David Shifrin and Edgar Meyer, as well as the Tokyo String Quartet. The 2016–17 season marks his fifth year as concertmaster of the Delaware Symphony, where he will also perform as soloist in a performance of Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons this season.

Assistant Concertmaster Adriana Rosin was a winner of the Romanian Republican Competition and a laureate at the Carl Nielsen International Violin Competition in Denmark, where she was also awarded the prize for the best performance of the Carl Nielsen Sonata for violin and piano. She made her American debut at the International Violin Competition in Indianapolis, where she was awarded the Certificate of Merit with full fellowship in Josef Gingold’s program at Indiana University. Rosin has concertized as a recitalist, chamber musician and soloist with orchestras worldwide. She has participated in numerous summer festivals and performed as concertmaster under the baton of Leonard Bernstein in the Tanglewood live broadcast concert celebrating Aaron Copland’s 85th birthday. Rosin joined the NJSO in the 1986–87 season; she remains actively involved in chamber music with the NJSO Chamber Players.

Violinist JoAnna Farrer is a chamber musician, solo performer and orchestral musician in the United States and abroad. She has performed as a soloist in the Berlin Philharmonie with the Goteborgs Symfoniker and has premiered new solo works by contemporary composers at Jazz at Lincoln Center and the Chelsea Art Gallery. With Itzhak Perlman, Farrer has performed Vivaldi’s Concerto for Four Violins at Carnegie Hall, as well as in a “Live from Lincoln Center” broadcast. She has performed as a soloist with numerous orchestras, including the Philadelphia Orchestra, Orpheus Chamber Orchestra and Israel Philharmonic. As a concertmaster, she has worked with conductors such as James Conlon, James DePreist and Lorin Maazel, including performances of Britten’s The Turn of the Screw at the Kennedy Center with Maazel.

The Espoir Prize winner of the 2012 OSAKA International Music Competition, violinist Minji Kwon also captured top prizes at the George Gershwin International Competition, Forte International Music Competition, National Symphony Orchestra Competition and Seoul Symphony Orchestra Competition. She has appeared as soloist with State Philharmonic Orchestra Rzeszow in Poland, Seoul Symphony Orchestra, Seoul National Symphony Orchestra, Degu Philharmonic Orchestra, Suwon Philharmonic Orchestra, Hyup Strings Ensemble and Seoul National University String Ensemble. Also, she has performed in solo recitals at Kumho Art Hall and Ewon Culture Center. Kwon has participated in numerous festivals, including the Aspen Music Festival as a full scholarship recipient, Music Academy of the West, Juilliard Chamber Fest, Salzburg International Music Academy, Lake George Music Festival, Music Alp Festival, Lindenbaum Orchestra Festival and Tong Young International Music Festival.

The Deseret News has described violinist Bryan Hernandez-Luch as “strikingly imaginative … he is an artist to be reckoned with.” Hernandez-Luch made his solo debut with the Utah Symphony Orchestra at age 15; he has since made solo appearances with the symphony orchestras of Detroit, Cleveland, Atlanta and New Jersey, among others. Of Peruvian descent, he has toured extensively across Columbia, the United States, Russia, Japan, Korea and South Africa as an avid chamber musician. He was a founding member of the Catalyst Quartet, which has held residencies at the University of South Africa, Grand Canyon Music Festival and Sphinx Performance Academy at Northwestern University, among others; he has appeared with the Guarneri Quartet at Carnegie Hall and frequently collaborates with the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra. This season, he assumes the position of music director/conductor and on-stage musician for Broadway’s The Cherry Orchard and will perform in Miss Saigon beginning in the spring. He was a member of the Radio City Music Hall Orchestra, concertmaster of Broadway’s Doctor Zhivago and assistant concertmaster in Broadway’s revival of Fiddler on the Roof.

Na-Young Baek, an NJSO cellist since the 2006–07 season, has been appointed Acting Assistant Principal Cello this season. Winner of the Philadelphia Orchestra Greenfield Competition, she made her American debut with the Philadelphia Orchestra in 2000. She has appeared as soloist with the Hudson Valley Philharmonic, DuPage Symphony Orchestra, Seoul Philharmonic and Korean Chamber Ensemble, among others, at major venues, such as the Academy House in Philadelphia and the Rheingau Musik Festival in Frankfurt, Germany. At age 15, Baek became the youngest winner in the history of the prestigious Choong Ang Times competition in Korea and also garnered the Virtuoso Prize at the first Tchaikovsky Competition for Young Musicians in Moscow. She has been featured at Carnegie Hall, the Kennedy Center, Salle Gaveau in Paris and Cadogan Hall in London, and on NPR’s “Performance Today.”

Cellist Hyewon Kim has made appearances in various concert venues including Alice Tully Hall, Carnegie Hall, David Geffen Hall, the Korea Society and Merkin Concert Hall. She has recorded with Gil Shaham and Sejong Soloists as part of Shaham’s 1930s Violin Concertos, Vol. 1 project released on Canary Classics. She has been invited to perform as a guest artist with Ars Antiqua de Paris and at New Year’s Eve concerts hosted by Korea’s Munhwa Broadcasting Corporation, and she was featured in the Japan-America Institute for New Music concert and the Young Musicians Concert of The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. She performed in the New Juilliard Ensemble, as well as the New York String Seminar Orchestra under the direction of Jaime Laredo. She has served as principal and associate principal cello of the Juilliard Orchestra under the batons of Alan Gilbert, James Levine and Itzhak Perlman.

Director of Artistic Planning Patrick Chamberlain comes to the NJSO from the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, where he served as Artistic Planning Manager and, previously, as Artistic Coordinator. At the BSO, Chamberlain was responsible for the planning and programming of all guest-conductor, summer, holiday, pops and special concerts. In his role with the NJSO, Chamberlain works with Music Director Xian Zhang, musicians and staff to plan and program the Orchestra’s classical series and realize Zhang’s artistic vision. A graduate of Cornell University with a B.A. in government, Chamberlain was also on the seasonal artistic staff of the Aspen Music Festival and School. He is an avid choral musician and was most recently a member of the Choral Arts Society of Washington.

For full bios of members of the Orchestra, visit www.njsymphony.org/musicians-music/musicians.

 

MUSIC DIRECTOR XIAN ZHANG

Conductor Xian Zhang begins her critically anticipated tenure as NJSO Music Director in the 2016–17 season. Zhang is internationally renowned for “dynamic performances [that prove] hers is a name worth memorizing” (The New York Times) and “dynamism, agility and precision” (The Telegraph). WQXR placed her arrival in New Jersey in the top two of 2016’s classical stories to watch, and The Star-Ledger calls the conductor “a thrilling leader who has already established a strong rapport with the orchestra.”

Zhang has served as Music Director of Orchestra Sinfonica di Milano Giuseppe Verdi since September 2009, with highlights including their televised debut at the BBC Proms in 2013 with Joseph Calleja. This season, Zhang takes on the position of Principal Guest Conductor of the BBC National Orchestra and Chorus of Wales (BBC NOW), thereby becoming the first female conductor to hold a titled role with a BBC orchestra.

A regular conductor with the London Symphony and Royal Concertgebouw orchestras, Zhang’s recent highlights include debuts with the Orchestre Philharmonique de Strasbourg and Orquesta y Coro Nacionales de España, as well as performances with the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic, BBC NOW at the BBC Proms and Orchestre National de Belgique, where she will appear again this season.

Recent operatic performances include a return to English National Opera conducting La Bohème and her debut with Den Norske Opera conducting La Traviata. Following Zhang’s hugely successful production of Nabucco with Welsh National Opera in 2014, which subsequently transferred to the Savonlinna Festival, she returned to the festival in summer 2016 to conduct Otello—marking her debut with the opera company itself.

Zhang frequently returns to her native China, where she is a regular conductor with the China Philharmonic and the Beijing and Guangzhou symphony orchestras. A champion for Chinese composers, she conducted Qigang Chen’s Iris Devoilee with the BBC NOW and National Centre for the Performing Arts, where she will return in 2017. She led the world premiere of Qigang Chen’s Luan Tan with the Hong Kong Philharmonic—a work commissioned by the orchestra—and the West Coast premiere of Tan Dun’s The Triple Resurrection with the Los Angeles Philharmonic.

Working with young talented musicians continues to play a major part in Zhang’s life. She has been Artistic Director of the NJO Dutch Orchestra and Ensemble Academy since 2011, and last summer she made her hugely successful debut with the European Union Youth Orchestra, conducting them in Grafenegg, Amsterdam, Berlin, Rheingau and Bolzano.

Born in Dandong, China, Zhang made her professional debut conducting The Marriage of Figaro at the Central Opera House in Beijing at the age of 20. She trained at Beijing’s Central Conservatory, earning both Bachelor and Master of Music degrees, and she served one year on its conducting faculty before moving to the United States in 1998. She was appointed the New York Philharmonic’s Assistant Conductor in 2002, subsequently becoming their Associate Conductor and the first holder of the Arturo Toscanini Chair.

Learn more about Zhang at www.njsymphony.org/zhang.

 

NEW JERSEY SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA

Named “a vital, artistically significant musical organization” by The Wall Street Journal, the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra embodies that vitality through its statewide presence and critically acclaimed performances, education partnerships and unparalleled access to music and the Orchestra’s superb musicians.

The NJSO welcomes new Music Director Xian Zhang in the 2016–17 season. The Orchestra presents classical, pops and family programs, as well as outdoor summer concerts and special events. Embracing its legacy as a statewide orchestra, the NJSO is the resident orchestra of the New Jersey Performing Arts Center in Newark and regularly performs at the State Theatre in New Brunswick, Count Basie Theatre in Red Bank, Richardson Auditorium in Princeton, Mayo Performing Arts Center in Morristown and bergenPAC in Englewood. Partnerships with New Jersey arts organizations, universities and civic organizations remain a key element of the Orchestra’s statewide identity.

In addition to its lauded artistic programming, the NJSO presents a suite of education and community engagement programs that promote meaningful, lifelong engagement with live music. Programs include school-time Concerts for Young People performances, NJSO Youth Orchestras family of student ensembles and El Sistema-inspired NJSO CHAMPS (Character, Achievement and Music Project). The NJSO’s REACH (Resources for Education and Community Harmony) chamber music program annually brings original programs—designed and performed by NJSO musicians—to a variety of settings. In the 2015–16 season, Orchestra musicians performed at nearly 200 events, reaching more than 34,000 people in nearly all of New Jersey’s 21 counties.

For more information about the NJSO, visit www.njsymphony.org or email information@njsymphony.org. Tickets are available for purchase by phone at 1.800.ALLEGRO (255.3476) or on the Orchestra’s website.

The New Jersey Symphony Orchestra’s programs are made possible in part by the New Jersey State Council on the Arts, along with many other foundations, corporations and individual donors.

 

PRESS CONTACT

Victoria McCabe, NJSO Senior Manager of Public Relations & Communications | 973.735.1715 | vmccabe@njsymphony.org

 

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