Rachel Lee Priday and David Kaplan

March 21, 2018, 12:15 pm

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Violinist Rachel Lee Priday along with pianist David Kaplan perform under the Tiffany Glass Dome of Preston Bradley Hall at the Chicago Cultural Center for the Dame Myra Hess Memorial Concert.

Violinist Rachel Lee Priday, acclaimed for her beauty of tone, riveting stage presence, and “irresistible panache” (Chicago Tribune), has appeared as soloist with major international orchestras, including the Chicago, St. Louis, Houston, Seattle, and National Symphony Orchestras, the Boston Pops, and the Berlin Staatskapelle. Her frequent recital appearances have brought her to such distinguished venues as the Mostly Mozart Festival at Avery Fisher Hall, the Kansas City Harriman-Jewell Series, Verbier Festival, the Louvre, Ravinia’s “Rising Stars” Series, and a debut UK recital tour. Combining a fierce intelligence with an imaginative curiosity, her wide-ranging repertoire and eclectic programming reflect a deep fascination with literary and cultural narratives, as an artist who seeks contemporary resonances with the masterworks of the past.

Rachel takes a multidisciplinary approach to music that often lends itself to collaborative, interdisciplinary performances and new music commissions. Notably, recent seasons have seen a new Violin Sonata commissioned from Pulitzer Prize Finalist Christopher Cerrone together with pianist David Kaplan, and the premiere of Matthew Aucoin’s The Orphic Moment in an innovative staging that mixed poetry, drama, visuals, and music. This season, Rachel is commissioning a new work for solo violin alone from Timothy Andres, which will premiere in 2018-2019. In addition, as Resident Artist with Metropolis Ensemble in NYC, she is collaborating with composer Scott Wollschleger on a forthcoming Double Concerto for Solo Violin, Mixed Professional and Amateur Orchestra, It is only for those without hope that hope is given, which will build partnerships between professional and community groups across the country.

Rachel’s distinguished mentors include the late pedagogue Dorothy DeLay and Itzhak Perlman. She earned her B.A. in English from Harvard University as well as a masters from the New England Conservatory. She performs on a Nicolo Gagliano violin (Naples, 1760), double-purfed with feurs-de-lis, named Alejandro.

Pianist David Kaplan has been called “excellent and adventurous” (NYTimes), and praised for “grace and fre” at the keyboard (Boston Globe). He has appeared as soloist with numerous orchestras, including the Britten Sinfonia at London’s Barbican Centre, and this season, makes his concerto debut in Berlin’s Philharmonie. A creative recitalist, he has appeared at the Ravinia Festival, Washington’s National Gallery, Strathmore in Baltimore, and Bargemusic. Kaplan’s New Dances of the League of David, mixing Schumann with 16 new works, was cited in the “Best Classical Music of 2015” by The New York Times.

Kaplan has collaborated with the Attacca, Ariel, Enso, Hausman, and Tesla String Quartets, and is a core member of Decoda, the Affliate Ensemble of Carnegie Hall. He has appeared the Bard, Seattle Chamber Music, Mostly Mozart, and Chamber Music Northwest festivals, and is an alumnus of Tanglewood, Ravinia-Steans Institute, and the Perlman Music Program. Kaplan has recorded for Naxos, as well as with Timo Andres in the acclaimed disc, Shy and Mighty (2010), for Nonesuch.

Kaplan has served as a visiting Lecturer at UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music from 2016-18, and at Lawrence University in Wisconsin for the winter of 2018. His distinguished mentors include the late Claude Frank, Walter Ponce, Alfred Brendel, Richard Goode, and Emanuel Ax. With a Fulbright Fellowship, he studied conducting at the Universität der Künste Berlin with Lutz Köhler, and received his DMA from Yale University in 2014. David is proud to be a Yamaha Artist.

Biographies Provided by the International Music Foundation

Playlist

Z Domoviny (From the Homeland), by Bedřich Smetana
Moderato
Andantino—Moderato

Violin Sonata No. 1 in F minor, Op. 80, by Sergei Prokofiev
Andante assai
Allegro brusco
Andante
Allegrissimo – Andante assai, come prima