The National YoungArts Foundation (YoungArts), the non-profit organization that contributes to the cultural vitality of the nation by supporting the artistic development of talented young artists, today announces that the next edition of their three-time Emmy-nominated HBO Family Documentary Special will be Joshua Bell: A YoungArts MasterClass. Filmed in New York City and London, the program features internationally acclaimed, Grammy Award-winning violinist Joshua Bell as he mentors, travels, and performs alongside nine talented young string musicians. Joshua Bell: A YOUNGARTS MASTERCLASS will debut TONIGHT, OCTOBER 14, 2014 (7:30-8:00 p.m. ET/PT) on HBO. It was produced and directed by Karen Goodman and Kirk Simon, and is a production of Simon & Goodman Picture Company.
Since 2010, the inspiring YoungArts MasterClass program has chronicled the work of renowned artists sharing their craft, expertise and life experiences with YoungArts alumni. This all-new episode follows renowned violinist and conductor,
Joshua Bell and the students, all YoungArts alumni-violinists Mariella Haubs (2014 YoungArts Winner), Kevin Hu (2011 YoungArts Winner and U.S. Presidential Scholar in the Arts), Sirena Huang (2012 YoungArts Winner), and Kelly Talim (2013 YoungArts Winner); violists Leah Ferguson (2011 YoungArts Winner) and Bradley Parrimore (2013 YoungArts Winner); cellists Brannon Cho (2013 YoungArts Winner) and Anna Litvinenko (2012 YoungArts Winner in); and bassist Zachary Ostroff (2011 YoungArts Winner in Jazz and U.S. Presidential Scholar in the Arts)-throughout an intensive nine day experience including rehearsals at
Joshua Bell's
MANHATTAN home; performing a sold out concert at London's
Limelight rock club; and observing Bell's recording session of the Bach Violin Concertos with the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields which will be released by
Sony Classical on
September 30th.
"I love working with young musicians, and was delighted when YoungArts approached me for their MasterClass series. YoungArts provided nine remarkable musicians for this little musical 'adventure' which took place in my two favorite cities - New York and London - and featured the celebration of two of my favorite composers - Bach and Mendelssohn. This project left me not only with a recharged passion for the art of classical music but also with reconfirmed optimism for its future," says Bell.
Bell and his YoungArts colleagues will also perform a special concert live from The Greene Space at WQXR, New York City's classical music station, on Monday, September 29 at 5:00 pm ET. A live video webcast will be available at http://www.thegreenespace.org/events/thegreenespace/2014/sep/29/wqxr-presents-joshua-bell/.
ABOUT YOUNGARTS MASTERCLASS
YoungArts MasterClass, produced by Executive Producer Lin Arison and documentary filmmakers Karen Goodman and Kirk Simon, highlights the work of YoungArts, which nurtures the nation's most talented young artists and encourages them to pursue careers in the arts. Previous YoungArts MasterClassspecials have showcased young talents under the tutelage of singer and YoungArts alumnus Josh Groban; vocalist Bobby McFerrin; jazz master Wynton Marsalis; playwrights John Guare and Edward Albee, actors Patti LuPone, Kathleen Turner, and Alan Alda; photographer Bruce Weber; architect Frank Gehry; opera singers Placido Domingo and Renée Fleming; dancer/choreographer Bill T. Jones; artist/filmmaker Julian Schnabel; and others.
In conjunction with Columbia University's Teachers College, YoungArts developed a Study Guide based on YoungArts MasterClass which is distributed free to schools nationwide to help teachers increase arts education and awareness. For more on the show, visit
http://www.youngarts.org/youngarts-masterclass.
ABOUT THE ARTISTS
Joshua Bell is one of the most celebrated violinists of his era with a career spanning over 30 years as a soloist, chamber musician, recording artist, and conductor. Bell received his first violin at the age of four and at 12 began studying with
Josef Gingold at
Indiana University. Two years later Bell came to national attention in his debut with Riccardo Muti and The
Philadelphia Orchestra and at 17 debuted at
Carnegie Hall. Bell has recorded more than 40 CDs garnering Mercury, Grammy, Gramophone and Echo Klassik awards. In June 2013, Bell received the New York Recording Academy Honors. Appointed
Music Director of the Academy of St Martin in the Fields in 2011, their first recording under Bell's leadership of Beethoven's 4th and 7th Symphonies from
Sony Classical debuted in 2014 at #1 on the Billboard Classical chart. Their recording of the Bach Violin concertos will be releasedSeptember 30. Bell serves on the artist committee of
THE KENNEDY CENTER HONORS and the Board of Directors of the
New York Philharmonic. He is an outspoken advocate for classical music and keeping music education in schools.
Brannon Cho (2013 YoungArts Winner in Cello) began playing cello at the age of seven, and developed his passion for the instrument during his first summer at the Meadowmount School of Music at age 10. He continued his studies at Meadowmount for five summers on a Merit scholarship with Professor Hans Jørgen Jensen. Brannon made his solo debut in 2006, and has since performed with the Richardson
Symphony Orchestra, Western Michigan University
Symphony Orchestra, Massapequa Philharmonic, and the Capital City Symphony. In 2010, he was a Runner-up in From the Top's "Big Break"
CONTEST on NPR, and subsequently performed in
Carnegie Hall and on From the Top. He was the first prize winner of the 2011 Lennox International String Competition, Grand Prize winner of the 2011 ASTA National Solo Competition, the first Prize winner at the 2012 Johansen International String Competition and Second Prize winner at Stulberg International String Competition.
Mariella Haubs (2014 YoungArts Winner, Violin) According to the Jury of the Leonhard and Ida Wolf Memorial Prize Munich, Mariella "performs with great musicality, a very advanced violin technique, a wonderful clear and full sound and extraordinary stage presence." Mariella has performed across Europe and the U.S. in venues including the Philharmonic Halls of Munich and Essen, the Herkulessaal der Residenz and Prinzregenten theater in Munich, the Wiener Musikverein in Vienna, and the
United Nations in New York City. Within a period of several years, she performed in the children's concert series of the Munich Philharmonic, where she played more than 150 concerts. Mariella has performed at various festivals internationally, including the
Festival du Paques in Aix-un-Provence, France; the Chamber Music Week at Schloss Elmau, Germany; and the
Chelsea Music
Festival in New York. Mariella is the recipient of the
Fima Fidelman Scholarship, the Dorothy Starling Scholarship and the Dorothy DeLay Scholarship of the Juilliard School. Since 2009, Mariella has been studying with
Itzhak Perlman and Catherine Cho at The Juilliard School, where she is currently enrolled in
THE BACHELOR of Music program.
Kevin Hu (2011 YoungArts Winner, Violin and U.S. Presidential Scholar in the Arts) was a student of Cyrus Forough at the Music Institute of
Chicago and concertmaster of the
Chicago Youth
Symphony Orchestra. In addition to his YoungArts achievement, Kevin was a 2010 Davidson Fellow in Music. Previously, he competed as a semifinalist in the Stulberg International String Competition, won first prize in the junior division of the 2009 Schmidbauer International Young Artists String Competition, and was awarded the Silver Medal at the Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition. Kevin has been featured on NPR's From the Top, has played at the Ravinia Music Festival, and performed with
Yo-Yo Ma and the Silk-Road Ensemble. In 2008, Kevin founded acoustics, a team of volunteer high school students that perform in hospital lobbies, privately for patients and staff, and at fundraisers for local charities. Kevin attended the 2010 Research
Science Institute at MIT and the 2008 U.S. Mathematical Olympiad Summer Program.
Sirena Huang (2012 YoungArts Winner, Violin) is a Taiwanese American concert violinist. In 2011, Huang was appointed as the first Artist-in-Residence of the Hartford
Symphony Orchestra. Huang began her violin lessons at four years old with Linda Fiore at the Hartt School of Music. She is currently a scholarship student studying with Stephen Clapp and Sylvia Rosenberg at the Juilliard School Pre-College division. At the age of nine, Huang made her solo debut with the National Taiwan
Symphony Orchestra. Three weeks later, she played with the Staatskapelle Weimar in Germany. Other solo performances include
New York Philharmonic, The Cleveland Orchestra, Baltimore
Symphony Orchestra, Juilliard Pre-College Orchestra, Ensemble Blaeu Amsterdam, and Modus Chamber Ensemble.
Leah Ferguson (2011 YoungArts Winner, Viola) performs across the U.S. and Europe as a soloist, chamber and orchestral musician. Her numerous honors at competitions include First Prize at the MTNA National Competition and at the International Viola Congress Young Artist Competition. Leah's performances have been featured on NPR's From the Top and on Chicago's WFMT Radio. In 2012, she performed as principal viola of the New York String Orchestra Seminar. A devoted chamber musician, Leah was awarded the Gold Medal at the 2010 Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition as a member of Quartet Danaë. Her enthusiasm for performing and collaboration has taken her to festivals including Music@Menlo, the Sarasota Music Festival, the Perlman Music Program, the Heifetz Institute and Norway's Valdres Festival. Leah has collaborated with renowned artists including
Itzhak Perlman, Sergey Babayan,
Rachel Barton Pine and members of the Cleveland, Orion and Tokyo quartets. She currently studies with
Robert Vernon on a full merit scholarship at the Cleveland Institute of Music, where she is pursuing her undergraduate degree.
Anna Litvinenko (2012 YoungArts Winner, Cello) is of Cuban-Ukrainian descent and has been described by The Miami Herald as a "gifted performer" who displays a "golden tone" and "sensitive phrasing." Since her solo debut at the age of 10, she has appeared as a soloist with South Florida's leading orchestras, including the Miami
Symphony and New World Symphony. Internationally, she has performed with orchestras in Venezuela and Ukraine, and has given recitals in Ukraine, Latvia, and Norway. Her primary teacher through high school was her father Konstantin Litvinenko. Anna is a graduate of Miami's New World School of the Arts High School and is currently enrolled at The Juilliard School where she studies with Joel Krosnick. She is the recipient of the E. & W. Naumburg and C. & H. Lewine Scholarships at Juilliard, and is a Jack Kent Cooke
Foundation College Scholar. She has also participated in numerous master classes with distinguished artists such as
Alisa Weilerstein,
Pamela Frank,
Paul Katz, Andrés Díaz, and Johannes Moser. Anna has won First Prize in several competitions in South Florida, and was the third place laureate in the 2010 Sphinx Competition. She also received the Jack Kent Cooke Young Artist Award after appearing on NPR's From the Top.
Zachary Ostroff (2011 YoungArts Winner, Jazz and U.S. Presidential Scholar in the Arts) is a double bass player, composer, and singer. Most well known as an upright bassist, Ostroff also performs and records on guitar, drums, piano, and ukulele, straddling the jazz, classical, and rock genres as a leader, sideman, and soloist, performing wherever music takes him. In 2014, Zachary made his debut performance as a leader at the
Kennedy Center in
Washington D.C. In 2013, he was the youngest faculty member of the Stanford Jazz Institute. In 2012, he was invited to participate as a member of the Americans for the Arts' National Policy Roundtable hosted by
Robert Redford along with
Stanley Tucci, Robert Gupta, Bill Ivey, and other notable artists, actors, musicians and policy makers. Zachary appeared on the
GRAMMY AWARDS telecast in 2011, alongside Best New Artist Winner
Esperanza Spalding. In 2011, Zachary was also the only named U.S. Presidential Scholar in the Arts for jazz. He is a Stanford University undergraduate student studying Earth Systems with the aim of carving a path towards helping others in every facet of his life.
Bradley Parrimore (2013 YoungArts Winner, Viola) began playing violin at the age of eight and went on to become a member of the Houston Youth Symphony's Philharmonia Orchestra as a violinist at the age of 10. At 13, Bradley joined the Houston Youth Symphony's
Symphony Orchestra and in 2010 he appointed associate principal first violin. He has also played viola for three seasons with the Virtuosi of Houston Chamber Orchestra. In addition, he has won No. 1 ratings in the University Interscholastic League competitions for violin and viola. Bradley attended the American
Festival of the Arts summer institute, Eastern Music Festival, and Bowdoin International Music
Festival where he studied with Itzhak Rashkovsky of the Royal Conservatory of Music. In 2012 Bradley attended the Heifetz International Music
Festival where he studied viola. Bradley has also studied with violin with Eric Halen of the
Houston Symphony and viola with Ivo-Jan van der Werff at Rice University's Shepherd School of Music.
Kelly Talim (2013 YoungArts Winner in Violin) is a senior at New Trier High School in Wilmette,
Illinois and was born in Osaka, Japan and started playing the violin at the age of seven. Kelly has performed with the Seattle Symphony, Montgomery Symphony, and Oregon Symphony, among others, and studies privately with Cyrus Forough. She has participated in several master classes including those with James Ehnes, Mayuko Kamio, Nam Yun Kim, Koichiro Harada, Joel Smirnoff, and
Vadim Gluzman at the Stradivarius Society in Chicago. Kelly previously studied with Carol Sindell and Hae-Jin Kim in Portland, Oregon before moving to the
Chicago area in 2010. Most recently, she won the Elaine and Jerome Nerenberg Scholarship and in 2011 she won the Farwell-Trust Scholarship. Other achievements include the First Prize of the 2011 Blount-Slawson Competition, a laureate award at the 2011 Thomas and Evon Cooper International competition, and the 2011 Schmidbauer Competition, as well as being a finalist for the 2012 Stulberg and 2012 Johansen International Competitions. Kelly and her brother founded an organization named Walk With Children to help orphans from the 2011 Japan Disaster and recently completed the second annual benefit concert in Chicago.
ABOUT THE NATIONAL YOUNGARTS FOUNDATION
The National YoungArts
Foundation was established in 1981 by Lin and Ted Arison to identify and support the next generation of artists and tocontribute to the cultural vitality of the nation by investing in the artistic development of talented young artists in the visual, literary, design and performing arts. Each year, there are approximately 11,000 applications to YoungArts from 15-18 year old (or grades 10-12) artists, and from these, approximately 700 winners are selected.
YoungArts provides these emerging artists with life-changing experiences and validation by renowned mentors, access to significant scholarships, national recognition and other opportunities throughout their careers to help ensure that the nation's most outstanding emerging artists are encouraged to pursuecareers in the arts. To date, YoungArts has honored more than 20,000 alumni, including Doug Aitken,
Josh Groban,
Desmond Richardson and
Kerry Washington, with over $6 million in monetary awards; facilitated in excess of $150 million in college scholarship opportunities; and enabled itsparticipants to work with master teachers who are among the most distinguished artists in the world, such as Marina Abramovi?,
Mikhail Baryshnikov,Plácido Domingo, Zaha Hadid,
Robert Redford and Bruce Weber.
In addition, YoungArts is working with world-renowned architect and YoungArts Artistic Advisor
Frank Gehry to transform the recently acquired formerBacardi Tower and Museum buildings and three-and-a-half acre campus into its national headquarters, which will support expanded local activities inMiami and across the country.
For more information, visit
youngarts.org, facebook.com/YoungArtsFoundation or
twitter.com/YoungArts. To watch a brief video about YoungArts,
clickhere.
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