Kaufman Music Center 2021 Gala Press Release
Info & Tickets
The online 2021 Gala will feature Kaufman Music Center students, with performances by singer-songwriter/actor Sara Bareilles, soprano Angel Blue, violinists Gil Shaham & Adele Anthony, Broadway stars Nikki Renée Daniels & Michael Winther and What Makes It Great? host Rob Kapilow.
Adele Anthony, violin
Since her triumph at Denmark’s 1996 Carl Nielsen International Violin Competition, Adele Anthony has enjoyed an acclaimed and expanding international career. Performing as a soloist with orchestra and in recital, as well as being active in chamber music, Ms. Anthony’s career spans the continents of North America, Europe, Australia, India and Asia.
In addition to appearances with all six symphonies of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, Ms. Anthony’s highlights from recent seasons have included performances with the symphony orchestras of Houston, San Diego, Seattle, Ft. Worth and Indianapolis, as well as the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra and the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France. An avid chamber music player, Ms. Anthony appears regularly at La Jolla SummerFest and Aspen Music Festival. Her wide-ranging repertoire extends from the Baroque of Bach and Vivaldi to contemporary works of Ross Edwards, Arvo Pärt and Philip Glass.
An active recording artist, Ms. Anthony’s work includes releases with Sejong Soloists “Vivaldi: The Four Seasons” (Naxos), a recording of the Philip Glass Violin Concerto with Takuo Yuasa and the Ulster Orchestra (Naxos), Arvo Pärt’s “Tabula Rasa” with Gil Shaham, Neeme Järvi and the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra (Deutsche Grammophon), and her latest recording of the Sibelius Violin Concerto and Ross Edwards’s “Maninyas” with the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra (Canary Classics/ABC Classics).
Adele Anthony performs on an Antonio Stradivarius violin, crafted in 1728.
Sara Bareilles
Grammy Award winner Sara Bareilles first achieved mainstream critical praise in 2007 with her widely successful hit “Love Song,” which reached No. 1 in 22 countries around the world from her debut album Little Voice. Since then, Sara has taken home a Grammy award for “Best American Roots Performance” for her performance of “Saint Honesty” and has received seven more Grammy nominations, two Tony nominations and three Emmy nominations. Her book, Sounds Like Me: My Life (So Far) in Song, was released in the fall of 2015 by Simon & Schuster and is a New York Times best seller. Making her Broadway debut, Sara composed the music and lyrics for Waitress, and made her Broadway acting debut in 2017 by stepping into the show’s lead role. In 2019, Sara released her fifth full-length album entitled Amidst The Chaos. For this body of work, she joined forces in the studio with legendary Academy Award-winning producer T Bone Burnett. The album spotlights her voice as a singer and storyteller like never before, making an enduring statement that reveals her as a true legacy artist. Always looking to try something new, Sara teamed up with her writing and producing partner, Jessie Nelson, J.J. Abrams and Apple, and executive produced Little Voice: a 10-episode musical drama series featuring her original music. In September, 2020, Sara released More Love – Songs From Little Voice Season One, which features her personally performed and recorded versions of the ten songs from the series. Most recently, Sara wrapped filming a brand-new Tina Fey scripted musical-comedy series for Peacock called Girls5Eva. Her brand-new record, Amidst the Chaos: Live from the Hollywood Bowl, is also releasing in 2021.
Angel Blue, soprano
Angel Blue has emerged in recent seasons as one of the most important sopranos before the public today. On September 23, 2019, she opened the Metropolitan Opera's 2019-20 season as Bess in a new production of George Gershwin's Porgy and Bess. These performances followed her internationally praised French Opera debut and role debut as Floria Tosca at the Aix-en-Provence Festival in July of 2019. She has also been praised for performances in many other theaters, such as the Vienna State Opera, Semperoper Dresden, San Francisco Opera, Seattle Opera, Theater an der Wien, Oper Frankfurt and San Diego Opera. In the current season, Ms. Blue will make her debut at the Staatsoper Berlin in the title role of Tosca. She will also appear in recital at Carnegie Hall, in concert in Malta and at the Carmel Bach Festival, and in galas in St. Petersburg and Santa Fe.
Puccini's La Boheme has played an especially prominent role in the development of Angel Blue's career. She made her United States operatic debut as Musetta at the Los Angeles Opera in 2007 while a member of the company's Young Artist Program and subsequently made her debut at the Teatro alla Scala in Milan in the same role. As Mimi, she has won special international acclaim. Ms. Blue first sang the role at the English National Opera in London in 2014 and has since sung Mimi for her debuts at the Palau de Les Arts in Valencia in 2015, at the Vienna State Opera in 2016, and with the Canadian Opera Company in 2019. Mimi was also the role of her Metropolitan Opera debut in 2017, and it is as Mimi that she will debut this season at the Hamburg State Opera. In Germany, she has already been heard as Mimi at the Semperoper Dresden. Other recent operatic engagements have included her debuts as Liu in Turandot at the San Diego Opera in 2018, as Marguerite in Faust at the Portland Opera in 2018 and as Bess in Porgy and Bess in Seattle in the same year. She debuted in Baden Baden as Elena in Mefistofele in 2016 and sang her first Violetta in La Traviata at the Seattle Opera in 2017, a role she also sang in the 2018-19 season for her debut at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden and her return to the Teatro alla Scala. In the 2019-20 season, Ms. Blue made her debut at the Hamburg State Opera as Mimi. She also became the first African American to receive the Beverly Sills Award from the Metropolitan Opera in 2020.
Also active on the concert platform, Ms. Blue has appeared in recital and in concert in over 35 countries. Important orchestral engagements have included Porgy and Bess at the Berliner Philharmoniker under Sir Simon Rattle and with the Philadelphia Orchestra under Marin Alsop, Mahler’s Symphony No. 2 with the Münchener Philharmoniker under the baton of Zubin Mehta, and Verdi’s Requiem in Sydney, Australia with Oleg Caetani. She has also sung Strauss’s Vier Letzte Lieder and Beethoven's Symphony No. 9 with the London Philharmonic Orchestra, Peri in Schumann's Das Paradis und die Peri with the Accademia Santa Cecilla in Rome, conducted by Daniele Gatti, and Beethoven's Symphony No. 9 with the Cincinnati Symphony under Music Director Louis Langree. Ms. Blue debuted in recital at the Ravinia Festival in August of 2019, after which she joined many of her international colleagues at the 2019 Richard Tucker Gala at Carnegie Hall in New York City.
Angel Blue was raised in California and completed her musical studies at UCLA. She was a member of the Young Artists Program at the Los Angeles Opera, after which she moved to Europe to begin her international career at the Palau de les Arts in Valencia, Spain in 2009 and at the Verbier Festival in 2010. She subsequently appeared at the Theater an der Wien in The Rape of Lucretia (female chorus) and as Giulietta in Les Contes d’Hoffmann in a production created by Oscar-award-winning director William Friedkin. Blue also debuted in Frankfurt as the 3rd Norn in Götterdämmerung and returned to the United States as Clara in Porgy and Bess at the Seattle Opera in 2011. She also appeared as Micaela in Carmen with the Israeli Philharmonic and in Verdi’s Requiem with the Cincinnati Symphony under the late Raphael Frubeck de Burgos.
Nikki Renée Daniels
Nikki Renée Daniels will be in the upcoming Broadway revival of Stephen Sondheim’s Company, playing Jenny. She recently completed the Chicago run of Hamilton as Angelica Schuyler. On Broadway Nikki has starred in The Book of Mormon and the 2012 Tony Award Winning Broadway Revival of The Gershwins’ Porgy and Bess. Other Broadway credits include Fantine in Les Misérables, Anything Goes, Aida, Nine, Little Shop of Horrors, Lestat and The Look of Love. Ms. Daniels made her New York City Opera debut as Clara in Porgy and Bess. Other New York credits include Martha Jefferson in 1776 at City Center Encores! and Rose Lennox in The Secret Garden at David Geffen Hall. On television Nikki has been featured on Chappelle’s Show, Madam Secretary and The Sound of Music: Live. She has performed as a soloist with numerous symphony orchestras across the country and Canada, and at Carnegie Hall. She holds a B.F.A. in Musical Theatre from the University of Cincinnati, College-Conservatory of Music. Her debut solo CD, Home, is available on iTunes and CDBaby.com. For more information, please visit nikkireneedaniels.com.
Rob Kapilow
For over 30 years, Rob Kapilow has brought the joy and wonder of classical music – and unraveled some of its mysteries – to audiences of all ages and backgrounds. Characterized by his unique ability to create an “Aha!” moment for his audiences and collaborators, whatever their level of musical sophistication or naiveté, Kapilow’s work brings music into people’s lives: opening new ears to musical experiences and helping people to listen actively rather than just hear.
Kapilow’s range of activities is astonishingly broad, including his What Makes It Great?® presentations (now for over 20 seasons in New York and Boston), his family compositions and Family Musik® events, his Citypieces, corporate programs and residencies with institutions as diverse as the National Gallery of Canada and Stanford University. The reach of his interactive events and activities is wide, from Native American tribal communities in Montana and inner-city high school students in Louisiana to audiences in Kyoto and Kuala Lumpur, and from tots barely out of diapers to musicologists in Ivy League programs.
As the music world largely shifted to the virtual arena this summer, Mr. Kapilow recorded a new, three-part, socially-distanced series of What Makes it Great? programs entitled “Beethoven, the Pandemic and the Power of Connection” filmed in New York City’s Merkin Hall with Kaufman Music Center. He created livestream programs for the Caramoor Festival as well as Stanford Live, and taught a seven-week online course, “Inside the Great American Songbook from Gershwin to Sondheim” for the Thurnauer School of Music at the Kaplan JCC of the Palisades, and worked with related themes in a unique, virtual corporate program on listening for CEOs in Istanbul and Dubai.
A summer highlight was a collaboration with the innovative dance group Pilobolus in which Mr. Kapilow helped curate and perform, as well as compose, a new choral work based on a Rumi text for their remarkable, live car-safari-experience-in-the-woods at their Five Senses Festival in Washington Connecticut. Mr. Kapilow also worked intensively on his new, large-scale choral/orchestral composition, We Came to America, based on immigrant stories, and previewed parts of the work on a special two-hour evening on WWFM radio combining demonstrations and discussions of the new work along with analyses of music ranging from Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony to Harold Arlen’s “Over the Rainbow.”
In June, Mr. Kapilow signed a new, two-book contract with Norton/Liveright, and he is currently hard at work doing research for both books, the first on the music of the Woodstock Generation. Kapilow has appeared on NBC’s “Today Show with Katie Couric”; he presented a special What Makes It Great? for broadcast on PBS’s “Live From Lincoln Center”; and he has written two books published by Wiley/Lincoln Center: All You Have To Do Is Listen, which won the PSP Prose Award for Best Book in Music and the Performing Arts, and What Makes It Great (2011), the first book of its kind to be especially designed for the iPad with embedded musical examples. His new book, Listening for America: Inside the Great American Songbook from Gershwin to Sondheim, published by Norton/Liveright, is now available.
Gil Shaham, violin
Gil Shaham is one of the foremost violinists of our time. His flawless technique combined with his inimitable warmth and generosity of spirit has solidified his renown as an American master. The Grammy Award-winner, also named Musical America’s “Instrumentalist of the Year,” is sought after throughout the world for concerto appearances with leading orchestras and conductors, and regularly gives recitals and appears with ensembles on the world’s greatest concert stages and at the most prestigious festivals.
Highlights of recent years include the acclaimed recording and performances of J.S. Bach’s complete sonatas and partitas for solo violin. In the coming seasons, in addition to championing these solo works he will join his long-time duo partner pianist, Akira Eguchi, in recitals throughout North America, Europe and Asia.
Appearances with orchestra regularly include the Berlin Philharmonic, Boston Symphony, Chicago Symphony, Israel Philharmonic, Los Angeles Philharmonic, New York Philharmonic, Orchestre de Paris and San Francisco Symphony, as well as multi-year residencies with the Orchestras of Montreal, Stuttgart and Singapore. With orchestra, Mr. Shaham continues his exploration of “Violin Concertos of the 1930’s,” including the works of Barber, Bartok, Berg, Korngold and Prokofiev among many others.
Mr. Shaham has more than two dozen concerto and solo CDs to his name, earning multiple Grammys, a Grand Prix du Disque, Diapason d’Or and Gramophone Editor’s Choice. Many of these recordings appear on Canary Classics, the label he founded in 2004. His CDs include 1930s Violin Concertos, Virtuoso Violin Works, Elgar’s Violin Concerto, Hebrew Melodies, The Butterfly Lovers and many more. His most recent recording in the series 1930s Violin Concertos Vol. 2, including Prokofiev’s Violin Concerto and Bartok’s Violin Concerto No. 2, was nominated for a Grammy Award.
Mr. Shaham was born in Champaign-Urbana, Illinois in 1971. He moved with his parents to Israel, where he began violin studies with Samuel Bernstein of the Rubin Academy of Music at the age of 7, receiving annual scholarships from the America-Israel Cultural Foundation. In 1981, he made debuts with the Jerusalem Symphony and the Israel Philharmonic, and the following year, took the first prize in Israel’s Claremont Competition. He then became a scholarship student at Juilliard, and also studied at Columbia University.
Gil Shaham was awarded an Avery Fisher Career Grant in 1991, and in 2008 he received the coveted Avery Fisher Prize. In 2012, he was named “Instrumentalist of the Year” by Musical America. He plays the 1699 “Countess Polignac” Stradivarius, and lives in New York City with his wife, violinist Adele Anthony, and their three children.
Michael Winther
Acclaimed by Stephen Holden of The New York Times as “a theater singer of unusual refinement” with “a voice that traverses genres,” Michael Winther’s Broadway credits include: Fun Home, 33 Variations, Mamma Mia, The Crucible, 1776, Artist Descending a Staircase and Damn Yankees. Most recently, he toured the country with the national tour of the Tony award-winning best musical Fun Home. Equally comfortable on the Broadway stage as the concert hall and recording studio, Michael collaborated with multiple Grammy-nominee and jazz composer Fred Hersch and poet Mary Jo Salter in the premiere of a new song cycle, Rooms of Light for Peak Performance at Montclair University. He portrayed Albert Einstein in author and theoretical physicist Brian Greene’s multimedia theater piece, Light Falls, in New York, Princeton, Australia and recently on PBS. He starred as Dan in the Pulitzer-winning musical, Next To Normal at Baltimore/Centerstage; Tectonic’s The Laramie Project Cycle at BAM/Harvey Theatre; Fred Hersch’s multimedia jazz-theatre piece My Coma Dreams in New York, Berlin and San Francisco; and Merrily We Roll Along at City Center Encores!. He regional credits include productions at Center Theatre Group/LA, Guthrie Theater, Yale Rep, McCarter Theater, Old Globe, Goodspeed Musicals, Theatreworks/Palo Alto, La Jolla Playhouse, George Street Playhouse, Perseverance Theater, O’Neill Theatre Center and Sundance Theatre Lab. His film credits include The Avengers, Jumper, The Break-Up and Mr. & Mrs. Smith. Recent television credits include “The Hunt,” “The Blacklist,” “Mysteries of Laura,” “Boardwalk Empire,” “Hostages,” “Leverage” and “Law & Order.”
Other concert credits include: four appearances as part of Lincoln Center’s American Songbook series, Town Hall, Symphony Space, New York Pops at Carnegie Hall and New York Philharmonic at Avery Fisher Hall. He has performed various solo evenings of music at Feinstein’s 54 Below, Joe’s Pub, Birdland, The Metropolitan Room and Ars Nova. Michael is a graduate of Williams College.
Michael Winther received nominations from the Drama Desk and Drama League for his critically-acclaimed solo performance in the theatrical song cycle Songs From An Unmade Bed at New York Theater Workshop.
