Orpheus Chamber Orchestra With Cellist Truls Mork present World Premiere By Shuying Li

Orpheus Chamber Orchestra continues its 2017-2018 season on Saturday, December 2, 2017 at 7:00 p.m. in Stern Auditorium / Perelman Stage at Carnegie Hall with a performance featuring Norwegian cellist Truls Mørk in Shostakovich's first Cello Concerto and the world premiere of Shuying Li's Out Came the Sun, inspired by the profound and transformative experience of postpartum motherhood. Also on the program is Handel's Water Music, which is featured on two of Orpheus' internationally acclaimed Deutsche Grammophon albums from 1992 and 2003, and Stravinsky's Pulcinella Suite.

Orpheus is pleased to announce the election of its newest Artistic Director, cellist James Wilson, effective fall 2017 through the end of summer 2020. Wilson joins Artistic Directors Laura Frautschi and Alan Kay, replacing Eric Wyrick in Orpheus' annual artistic director rotational process. Orpheus has also recently elected the newest permanent member of the orchestra, bassoonist Gina Cuffari.

Program Information
Saturday, December 2, 2017 at 7:00 p.m.
Stern Auditorium/Perelman Stage at Carnegie Hall
ORPHEUS CHAMBER ORCHESTRA
Truls Mørk, cello

HANDEL: Orchestral Suite No. 2, HWV 349 "Water Music"
SHOSTAKOVICH: Cello Concerto No. 1
SHUYING LI: Out Came the Sun (World Premiere)
STRAVINSKY: Pulcinella Suite

Ticket Information
Single tickets for the December 2 performance, priced from $12.50 to $115, are available for purchase at the Carnegie Hall box office at 57th and 7th, can be charged to major credit cards by calling CarnegieCharge at 212-247-7800, or by visiting the Carnegie Hall website at carnegiehall.org.

About Truls Mørk
During the 2017-18 season, Truls Mørk returns to Orchestre National de France and to the Czech Philharmonic. The season also includes the Grafenegg Festival and a tour of Switzerland. He will also appear in three performances in Salzburg as part of the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra's residency under Susanna Mälkki. He continues to give regular recitals at major venues and festivals throughout the world. He has recently developed a collaboration with pianist Behzod Abduraimov, and the duo will perform on tour in the US and Europe.

A great champion of contemporary music, Truls Mørk has given in excess of 30 premieres. These include Rautavaara's Towards the Horizon with the BBC Symphony Orchestra/John Storgårds, Pavel Haas' Cello Concerto with the Wiener Philharmoniker/Jonathan Nott, Krzysztof Penderecki's Concerto for Three Cellos with the NHK Symphony Orchestra/Charles Dutoit and Haflidi Hallgrimsson's Cello Concerto, co-commissioned by the Oslo Philharmonic, Iceland Symphony, and Scottish Chamber orchestras.

With an impressive recording output, Truls Mørk has recorded many of the great cello concertos many of which have won international accolades including Gramophone, Grammy, Midem and ECHO Klassik awards. His most recent recordings include both Shostakovich Concertos with the Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra/Vasily Petrenko, works for cello and orchestra by Massenet with the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande/Neeme Järvi, and both Saint-Saens Concertos with the Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra/Neeme Järvi.

About James Wilson
For the past thirty-five years, cellist James Wilson has sustained a multi-faceted career spanning the classical music world. As a former member of the Shanghai String Quartet and the Da Capo Chamber Players, he has recorded and toured extensively worldwide. Wilson is the Artistic Director of the Richmond-based Chamber Music Society of Central Virginia, and was recently named a musician Member and Artistic Coordinator of the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra. Having served on the faculties of the University of Richmond, Virginia Commonwealth University, he now teaches at Columbia University in New York City, Sarah Lawrence College. and the Bennington Chamber Music Conference in Vermont.

Championing musical works from all periods, Wilson performs on a Baroque as well as a modern cello with repertoire ranging from the late-17th century to new works especially written for him. He has appeared in America's Lincoln Center, Carnegie Hall and Kennedy Center, the Musikverein in Vienna, the Koelner Philharmonie, the National Concert Hall in Taipei, and the Sydney Opera House. He has performed at music festivals around the world such as the Hong Kong Arts Festival, the City of London Festival, the Deutsches Mozartfest in Bavaria, the Kuhmo Chamber Music Festival in Finland, the Mostly Mozart Festival in New York and the Aspen Music Festival in Colorado.

About Gina Cuffari
Bassoonist Gina Cuffari is a versatile musician who performs with many orchestras and chamber ensembles in the New York City area. Praised for her "sound that is by turns sensuous, lyric, and fast moving" (Palm Beach Daily News), Cuffari has performed with Orpheus frequently at Carnegie Hall and in tours throughout the US, Europe and Japan. She is also a member of the Lincoln Center-based Riverside Symphony, and is a regular performer with the Westchester Philharmonic, American Composers Orchestra, and Iris Orchestra in Germantown, TN. As a chamber musician, Cuffari is a member of the Jupiter Symphony Chamber Players, Sylvan Winds, and Quintet of the Americas.

Cuffari is a passionate educator, and is on faculty at both New York University and Western Connecticut State University. She teaches lessons, coaches chamber music, and teaches classes including Reed Making, Bassoon Pedagogy, and Music History and Appreciation. She spends her summers teaching at NYU's Summer Woodwind Institute. Cuffari is a graduate of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music and Manhattan School of Music, and recently completed her Doctorate of Musical Arts at Stony Brook University.

About Orpheus Chamber Orchestra
Orpheus Chamber Orchestra creates extraordinary musical experiences that enrich lives and empower individuals through collaboration, innovation, and a passion for artistic excellence. Orpheus strives to be the world's premier chamber orchestra by performing music at the highest level, challenging artistic boundaries, inspiring the public to think and work with new perspectives, and building a broad and active audience in New York City and around the world.

A standard-bearer of innovation and artistic excellence, Orpheus was founded in 1972 by a group of like-minded young musicians determined to combine the intimacy and warmth of a chamber ensemble with the richness of an orchestra. Orpheus performs without a conductor, rotating musical leadership roles for each work, and striving to perform diverse repertoire through collaboration and open dialogue. The ensemble has commissioned and premiered over 45 original works. Orpheus's recordings include the Grammy Award-winning Shadow Dances: Stravinsky Miniatures for Deutsche Grammophon, and over 70 other recordings for DG, Sony Classical, EMI Classics, BMG/RCA Red Seal, Decca, and others, including its own label, Orpheus Chamber Orchestra Records.

Orpheus presents an annual series at Carnegie Hall and tours extensively to major national and international venues. The 2017-18 Orpheus series in Stern Auditorium / Perelman Stage at Carnegie Hall features pianist André Watts; Norwegian cellist Truls Mørk in his first appearance with Orpheus; classical trumpet soloist Tine Thing Helseth in her Stern Auditorium / Perelman Stage debut; and violinist Lisa Batiashvili in her first appearance with Orpheus. As part of Orpheus' ongoing American Notes commissioning initiative, two new pieces-by Indian-American jazz pianist and composer Vijay Iyer, and award-winning Chinese composer Shuying Li-are additionally featured in the 2017-18 season.

About Orpheus Chamber Orchestra Educational Initiatives
Orpheus has trademarked its signature mode of operation, the Orpheus Process, an original method that places democracy at the center of artistic execution. It has been the focus of studies at Harvard University and of leadership seminars at IBM, Morgan Stanley, and Memorial Sloan-Kettering Hospital, among others. Orpheus aims to bring this unique approach to students of all ages through its worldwide education and engagement programs: Access Orpheus-NYC, Orpheus Music Academy, and Orpheus Leadership Institute.

Access Orpheus-NYC shares the orchestra's collaborative music-making process with K-12 public school students from all five boroughs in New York City. While New York is among the cultural capitals of the world, many schoolchildren are underserved in arts participation. Access Orpheus-NYC helps to bridge this gap with in-class visits, invitations to working rehearsals, instrument discovery days, and free tickets for performances at Carnegie Hall.

The Orpheus Music Academy encompasses Orpheus' programs for intermediate and advanced music students. Orpheus musicians share their artistry, expertise, and collaborative approach to music-making through masterclasses with Orpheus musicians and guest artists, side-by-side workshops, and residencies on tour.

The Orpheus Leadership Institute brings the Orpheus Process to the private and nonprofit sectors and educational institutions to empower the leaders of tomorrow through collaborative management training. Teams of all kinds participate in customizable programs to gain insight from Orpheus' democratic process and develop essential skills in communication, collective ownership, and creative problem solving.