Tippet Rise Art Center today announced the full details of its fifth annual concert season, expanded this year to encompass two dozen wide-ranging programs from July 10 through August 29, 2020. Located on a 12,000-acre working ranch nestled at the foot of Montana's Beartooth Mountains, the art center celebrates the union of music, land, art, and architecture with large-scale sculptures and innovative architectural structures sited across its hills and rolling meadows and seven weeks of concerts performed in the acoustically enveloping Olivier Music Barn and outdoors under the big sky.
This season will feature almost thirty artists and ensembles-many of them making their Tippet Rise debuts-performing more than four centuries of repertoire. A highlight will be the world premiere of a Tippet Rise and Pnea Foundation co-commission by composer Bora Yoon-the fifth Tippet Rise commission in as many years. The new work for flute and electronics, The Haunted Orchard, will be performed by flutist, MacArthur Fellow, and experimental cultural activist Claire Chase.
Due to overwhelming demand, concert tickets will be available through a randomized drawing. Registration for the drawing opens on the Tippet Rise website today, February 18, at Noon MST/2 PM EST and remains open until 5 PM MST/7 PM EST on March 9, 2020. Winners will then have the opportunity to buy tickets starting on March 11.
Founders Peter and Cathy Halstead said, "We find it hard to believe that we are already celebrating our fifth concert season at Tippet Rise. The years have flown by happily and busily as we've met thousands of visitors, welcomed new and returning artists, commissioned new art works, improved the health of the land, and added hiking trails so our visitors can experience more of this beautiful place. We eagerly await the start of our fifth season and cannot wait to share another magical summer with our community."
Two notable concentrations of repertoire run through this season's eclectic programs. Marking the 250th anniversary of the birth of Ludwig van Beethoven, Tippet Rise's guest artists will perform seven of his piano sonatas, the Fantasia for Piano (Opus 77), the "Eroica" Variations, and five chamber works that span the majority of his career. The season will also include a wealth of Russian music by composers including Prokofiev, Rachmaninoff, Scriabin, and by a close colleague and protégé of Shostakovich, Mieczyslaw Weinberg (1919-96), whose long-neglected work has recently been enjoying a revival.
In addition to the premiere by Bora Yoon, the season will include a wide range of contemporary music by composers Anna Clyne, Paul Desenne, P?"teris Vasks, Rolf Wallin, Paul Wiancko and Jörg Widmann. As always at Tippet Rise, audiences will have multiple opportunities to enjoy core repertoire by Mozart, Haydn, Schubert, Schumann and Chopin, but also to encounter imaginative programs, such as a pairing of American songs by Stephen Foster and Charles Ives, performed by baritone Tyler Duncan with Tippet Rise Artistic Advisor, pianist Pedja Mužijević, concluding with Schubert's glorious Piano Trio.
The fifth anniversary season will begin July 10-11 with an exciting weekend showcasing Canadian virtuoso pianist Marc-André Hamelin, recipient of seven JUNO Awards and 11 GRAMMY nominations, as well as flutist Claire Chase and Russian pianist Yulianna Avdeeva, who will be making their Tippet Rise debuts. On Friday, Hamelin will perform works by Scriabin, Prokofiev, Chopin and Schubert. On Saturday, Chase will perform Bora Yoon's new work for flute and electronics as part of a program of music from Density 2036, her 23-year commitment to co-commission a new body of work for solo flute. The new piece punctuates a program featuring works by Felipe Lara, Suzanne Farrin, Phyllis Chen and Marcos Balter. Avdeeva will follow with a program showcasing Chopin and Beethoven.
Making his Tippet Rise debut on Friday, July 17, Moscow-born Israeli pianist Boris Giltburg will offer a recital including works by Beethoven, Schumann and Liszt. The Rolston String Quartet will return to Tippet Rise to perform pieces by Haydn and Czech composer Erwin Schulhoff on Saturday, July 18, and later that day will be joined by Israeli pianist Roman Rabinovich in a concert featuring Norwegian composer Rolf Wallin's "Cabinet of Curiosities," Mendelssohn, and Schumann.
The third weekend (July 24-26) will begin with the Tippet Rise debuts of Hungarian pianist Zoltán Fejérvári, who recently won first prize at the 2017 Concours musical international de Montréal, and GRAMMY-nominated violinist Tessa Lark. They will be joined by violist Dimitri Murrath (Tippet Rise debut) and cellist Arlen Hlusko, and will perform works by Schubert, Beethoven, and Fauré. Lark, Murrath and Hlusko will then play Mozart's Divertimento for String Trio in E-flat Major, K. 563. Fejérvári will close the weekend with a recital of works by Beethoven, Bartók, German composer Jörg Widmann, and Schumann.
One of the greatest keyboard artists of our time and a Tippet Rise audience favorite, Russian-born British pianist Yevgeny Sudbin, will offer concertgoers a recital featuring the works of Scarlatti, Chopin, Scriabin and Prokofiev on Friday, August 7. Israeli-born cellist Inbal Segev will make her Tippet Rise debut on Saturday, August 8, playing two of J.S. Bach's Cello Suites and "Rest These Hands" by GRAMMY-nominated composer Anna Clyne. A concert by cellist Edward Arron, violinist Chad Hoopes and pianist Anne-Marie McDermott offering chamber works by Beethoven, Ravel and Mendelssohn will conclude the weekend.Richard Goode, one of today's most revered American recitalists, will make his Tippet Rise debut on Friday, August 14, performing works by Mozart, Brahms, Debussy, and Chopin. For its Tippet Rise debut on Saturday, August 15, the Tesla Quartet will play selections from Dvoa??ák's Cypresses, B. 15 and Janáček's String Quartet No. 2, "Intimate Letters." On the evening of August 15, Ukrainian-American pianist Valentina Lisitsa, one of the rare classical artists to have converted Internet success into a concert career, will showcase works by Beethoven, Rachmaninoff and Ravel in her Tippet Rise debut.
The weekend of August 21 and 22 will feature pianist Dasol Kim, a rising star from South Korea, acclaimed violinist Benjamin Beilman, GRAMMY Award-winning violist Masumi Per Rostad, and sought-after cellist Gabriel Cabezas. In their Tippet Rise debut, Kim and Per Rostad will join their colleagues in Beethoven's Piano Trio in B-flat Major, Op. 97, "Archduke," and Brahms's Piano Quartet in G Minor, No. 1, Op. 25. Beilman will then perform Bach's Violin Partita in B Minor, BWV 1002, and will be joined by Per Rostad and Cabezas for Beethoven's String Trio in C Minor, Op. 9 No. 3. Later that day, Kim will pair Beethoven's final piano sonata, Op. 111, with Schubert's monumental final piano sonata in B-flat Major, D. 960.
The last weekend of the season (August 28-29) will feature four concerts. Beginning with a special afternoon performance by Mužijević on Friday, August 28. He will perform Haydn Dialogues, a piano recital interspersing Haydn sonatas with John Cage Sonatas and Interludes for prepared piano. That evening Mužijević will be joined by two young and sought-after Californians-violinist Alexi Kenney, who received the 2016 Avery Fisher Career Grant, and cellist Oliver Herbert who recently made his San Francisco Symphony and Chicago Symphony Orchestra debuts-to perform works by Mozart, Weinberg, and Desenne. Rounding out the program, Canadian baritone Tyler Duncan will perform Schumann's Dichterliebe song cycle. On Saturday, Kenney and Herbert will perform a program including American composer Paul Wiancko's X Suite for Solo Violin and works by Bach, Morley and Vasks. The four artists will then bring Tippet Rise's 2020 concert season to an end in a program featuring songs by Ives and Foster, and Schubert's Piano Trio in E-Flat Major, D. 929.
In addition to regularly scheduled programs, two family concerts especially designed for younger audiences will be presented during the summer concert season. This summer Tippet Rise will host three Artists-In-Residence: violinists Alice Ivy-Pemberton and Katie Hyun and pianist Jenny Chen. The three artists will spend unstructured time at Tippet Rise, seeking inspiration from the synergy provided by the intersection of art, nature and music.
Concerts at Tippet Rise take place indoors and out, with each performance space offering breathtaking views of the Absaroka-Beartooth Wilderness. Venues include the 150-seat Olivier Music Barn-inspired by the resonant concert chamber room for which Haydn composed his chamber music repertoire-which offers stunning views of Montana's highest mountain peaks; and, weather permitting, the open-air Domo, a 98-foot-long, 16-foot-tall, acoustically rich sculptural structure designed by Ensamble Studio. Pre-concert lectures and occasional concerts will continue to take place at Tiara, a 100-seat outdoor acoustic shell. Pop-up concerts-to be announced at a later date-will be held in the 2,100-square-foot scenic pavilion, Xylem, designed by internationally acclaimed architect Francis Kéré of Berlin and Burkina Faso and inaugurated in July 2019.
Performances showcase Tippet Rise's growing collection of outstanding Steinway pianos. Visiting artists are offered the opportunity to select their pianos from among some of the finest and most historic instruments in the world, including CD-18, the concert piano of Vladimir Horowitz and Eugene Istomin.
For those who are unable to attend concerts in person, concert footage from several past seasons is now available online. New videos include Three Sisters: Ahn Trio performing Pat Metheny's Yuryung; Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 20 in D minor performed by Anne-Marie McDermott, Emma Resmini, Xavier Foley, Aaron Boyd, and the Calidore String Quartet; and Debussy's String Quartet Op. 10 in G minor performed by the Rolston String Quartet. In addition, Tippet Rise releases a new podcast episode on the first Thursday of every month, each detailing different facets of the art center. Recent episodes have included an exploration of the art center's legendary Steinway pianos and a conversation about the music of landscape with composer John Luther Adams and the JACK Quartet.
Tippet Rise is anchored in the belief that art, music, architecture, and nature are inextricably linked in the human experience, each making the others more powerful.
Tippet Rise Art Center has a growing collection of large-scale sculptures and other site-specific works by some of the world's foremost artists and architects. The newest addition to the art center is Xylem, which is constructed of locally and sustainably sourced ponderosa and lodgepole pine and features a canopy of vertical logs, which filter shafts of light onto the seating areas.
Artworks set within the landscape include several site-specific sculptural structures by the innovative Ensamble Studio, including the 25-foot-tall Beartooth Portal (2015), composed of two vertical rocklike forms that stand approximately 25 feet apart at ground level and lean together at the top; the similarly designed 26-foot-tall Inverted Portal (2016), and the 98-foot-long, 16-foot-tall Domo (2016). Tippet Rise is also home to two monumental works by the internationally renowned sculptor Mark di Suvero: Beethoven's Quartet (2003) and Proverb (2002); two site-specific works: Satellite # 5: Pioneer (2016) by Stephen Talasnik and Daydreams (2015) by Patrick Dougherty; and two works by Alexander Calder on loan from the Smithsonian's Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden: Two Discs (1965) and Stainless Stealer (1966). Two paintings by Isabelle Johnson, an original owner of part of the land on which Tippet Rise Art Center is situated, and one of Montana's first Modernist painters, hang in the Olivier Music Barn.
As a testament to the art center's growing reputation as a cultural oasis, Tippet Rise has received several awards, including the 2017 Leading Culture Destination Award from the UK's LCD Magazine and travel channel; a 2018 General Design Honor Award from the American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA); and a designation as one of TIME Magazine's "World's Greatest Places of 2018."The Tippet Rise Fund of the Sidney E. Frank Foundation was named "Foundation Philanthropist of the Year" by the Yellowstone Art Museum in 2019. Additionally, in 2019, the Olivier Music Barn was awarded LEED Gold certification from the U.S. Green Building Council for its environmentally sustainable design and systems. Content from the art center is featured on Google Cultural Institute, which partners with cultural institutions around the world to make them more widely accessible online.
As an institution founded to serve its neighbors in Montana as much as visiting musicians, artists, and audiences, Tippet Rise develops and supports year-round education programs in schools at the K-12 level, local colleges and universities, and other organizations.
Tippet Rise will reopen to the public on June 26, 2020, two weeks before the start of the summer music series, for Friday, Saturday, and Sunday tours of its monumental outdoor sculptures. Concerts and van tours are priced at $10; free to those 21 and under. Hiking and biking at the art center are free for everyone. Prior registration via the website is required for all visitors, available beginning on Wednesday, March 11 at 8:00 AM Mountain Time.
Tickets for the season's performances will be available through a randomized drawing, for which registration via the Tippet Rise website is required. The registration period opens at Noon MST/2 PM EST today, February 18 and closes on Monday, March 9 at 5:00 PM MST/7PM EST. Winners will be selected at random on Tuesday, March 10 at Noon MST/2 PM EST, and notified by email. Winners may purchase up to four tickets to one performance or divide their tickets among multiple performances. For additional details and to enter the drawing for Season Five, please visit www.tippetrise.org. Registration for the drawing is limited to one entry per person.
Dinner will be available for purchase before each evening's performance, provided by Prerogative Kitchen, and served in Will's Shed, a pavilion adjacent to the Olivier Music Barn. Sandwiches, snacks, desserts, and drinks are also available for purchase during regular opening hours.
Located in Stillwater County, Tippet Rise is approximately one hour southwest of Billings, two hours southeast of Bozeman, and two-and-a-half hours north of Yellowstone National Park. It is served by two major airports-Billings Logan International Airport and Bozeman Yellowstone International Airport.
Are you an avid theatergoer? We're looking for people like you to share your thoughts and insights with our readers. Team BroadwayWorld members get access to shows to review, conduct interviews with artists, and the opportunity to meet and network with fellow theatre lovers and arts workers.
