Special Guests

Special Guests
Saturday, July 1, 2000

Emanual Ax

EMANUEL AX was born in Lvov, Poland, and began studying piano in Warsaw at the age of 6. After his family moved to Winnipeg in 1961, he continued his studies at The Juilliard School under Mieczyslaw Munz. He first won the attention of the classical world in 1974, when he took the top prize in the first Arthur Rubinstein International Piano Competition in Tel Aviv at the age of 25. He won the Michaels Award of Young Concert Artists the following year, and the Avery Fisher Prize in 1979. He has been busy performing ever since, in recital and in orchestral concerts. He performs regularly in Boston, Chicago, Cleveland, Philadelphia, and Saint Louis, and makes regular festival appearances at Aspen, Blossom, the Hollywood Bowl, Mostly Mozart, Ravinia, and Tanglewood. Among Ax’s most recent performance highlights are a complete cycle of Beethoven’s Piano Concertos at the Lincoln Center Festival with the New York Philharmonic, and a week of concerts at Tanglewood devoted primarily to the music of Richard Strauss. He tours extensively as part of the Ax-Stern-Laredo-Ma Quartet, with whom he has recorded piano quartets by Beethoven, Brahms, Dvorák, and Mozart. An exclusive Sony Classical recording artist, his Grammy Award-winning recordings include the first volume in his ongoing cycle of Haydn piano sonatas. A recording of Rachmaninoff’s Suite for Two Pianos and Symphonic Dances with Yefim Bronfman is due for future release. Ax lives in New York with his wife, pianist Yoko Nozaki, and their two children.

NORUMBEGA HARMONY began in the fall of 1976 as an undergraduate singing organization at Wellesley College. Meeting every Monday night to sing, their mission has always been to promote early American sacred song, especially the folk tradition of songs and hymns from The Sacred Harp, a 150-year-old songbook that uses shaped noteheads to indicate position in the scale. They soon attracted singers from outside the college, and in the early 1980s, they moved to Cambridge. The group is now one of the largest and most active groups of Sacred Harp and shape-note singers in New England. Their membership has grown to include more than 50 singers, the majority of whom live in the greater Boston area. The members come from a variety of backgrounds, and are drawn to the music by reasons as varied as their experience. Norumbega Harmony performs throughout New England, and is a principal sponsor of the annual New England singing of The Sacred Harp. They have also convened monthly open singings in Greater Boston since 1982. They released their first recording, Sing and Joyful Be: Early American Hymns, Fuging Tunes and Anthems, in 1989. Three years later, their journey into Shaker music began with a collaboration with the Hancock Shaker Village, resulting in the release of the recording Come to Zion: Shaker Songs. The group recently made connections with their British counterparts, who sing a similar style of music called “West Gallery.” Stephen Marini, founder and singing-master of Norumbega Harmony is a professor of religion at Wellesley College, with a focus on early American hymnody. He learned to sing Sacred Harp at traditional singings held at primitive Baptists churches in Virginia, North Carolina, and Georgia. Members of Norumbega Harmony are: Judy Brewer, Sarah Brownsberger, Martin Broekhuysen, Greta Eckhardt, Ginnie Ely, Henry Goodhue, Liza Goodhue, Jessica Holland, Bill Holt, Susan Jaster, Howard Katz, Anne Kazlauskas, Karen MacArthur, Susan Mampre, June Matthews, Dennis O'Brien, Lyra O'Brien, Bruce Randall, Richard Schmeidler, Mary Sears, Ishmael Stefanov-Wagner, Sue Turbak, Bruce Wenger, Glen Wright, and Jane Zanichkowski. For more information about Norumbega Harmony, visit their website.

THE BERKSHIRE HIGHLANDERS PIPE & DRUM BAND has been a crowd-pleasing part of hundreds of events throughout New England and New York for more than twenty-five years, performing in classical music festivals, Scottish Games and Highland Gatherings in Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, and Vermont, parades, civic celebrations, athletic events, firemen's musters, graduation ceremonies, corporate-sponsored concerts, downtown and shopping center promotional events, weddings, birthday parties, and other events. From St. Patrick's Day to Columbus Day, colorful kilts swing as the pipers and drummers march to stirring martial tunes that have roused Celtic clansmen to war for centuries. The Berkshire Highlanders is a not-for-profit corporation whose members contribute their time without compensation. The group's musical director is Nancy Crutcher Tunnicliffe, who has appeared nationally on television with the Boston Pops Orchestra. Allen Forsythe is Pipe Major; Mary Shea Knight is Drum Major. The band's signature tune, "The Berkshire Highlanders March," was written by piper John Lloyd, and its distinctive Greylock tartan and cap badge were designed by Bill Powers, a former band piper.