Tippet Rise Art Center Announces Third Concert Season Highlights

Tippet Rise Art Center, located against the backdrop of Montana's Beartooth Mountains, has announced the dates and highlights for its third concert season, July 6 through September 8, 2018.

The art center, which celebrates the union of land, art, architecture, and music, will present eight weeks of concerts featuring an impressive list of performers, some making their debuts at Tippet Rise and others returning as audience favorites. Complete details will be announced in early 2018.

Returning artists will include pianists Yevgeny Sudbin, Jenny Chen, Jeffrey Kahane, Anne-Marie McDermott, in solo works and concertos by Bach, and Pedja Muzijevic, performing solo pieces as well as chamber works by Brahms and Schumann. Violinist Caroline Goulding will perform an outdoor recital ranging from Georg Philipp Telemann to Philip Glass; and the Dover Quartet will also appear alongside other musicians.

Among the artists making their Tippet Rise debuts will be pianist Wu Han and cellist David Finckel, performing works by Beethoven, Mendelssohn and Grieg, joined by pianist Orion Weiss for additional performances. For his Tippet Rise debut, pianist, vocalist, and composer Gabriel Kahane will share the stage with his father, returning artist Jeffrey Kahane, and Timo Andres, performing at Tippet Rise for the first time. Violinist Vadim Gluzman and cellist Johannes Moser will present chamber music programs with returning pianist Yevgeny Sudbin. Pianist Ingrid Fliter will be performing the complete Chopin nocturnes in her debut. St. Luke's Chamber Ensemble, drawn from New York City-based Orchestra of St. Luke's, will also perform works by Brahms and Robert and Clara Schumann. The Calidore String Quartet will be joined by Tara Helen O'Connor to highlight gems of the chamber music repertoire that feature flute, and will also partner with violinists Daniel Phillips and Aaron Boyd and pianist Anne-Marie McDermott, in Bach concertos for piano and 7 strings. Pianist Julien Brocal will play works by Mompou, Bortkiewicz, and Ravel in his debut; and clarinetist Anton Dressler will perform the Brahms clarinet quartet with the Escher String Quartet.

The season will also include a new work by Aaron Jay Kernis-the second to be composed through a three-year commissioning program-performed by the Borromeo String Quartet. Kernis's first commission for Tippet Rise, "First CLUB Date," a work for piano and cello, was given its premiere in August 2017. In 2020, Kernis will premiere the third commissioned work, a piece for small chamber ensemble and voice. Two family concerts, designed to enlighten, entertain and educate Tippet Rise's younger audiences, will also be presented.

Performances will take place both indoors and out. The 150-seat Olivier Music Barn, inspired by the intimate performance spaces where Haydn's and Mozart's works were performed, is Tippet Rise's primary concert venue. Pre-concert lectures will continue to take place at the Tiara, a 100-seat outdoor acoustic shell. Weather permitting, select concerts will also take place at the open-air Domo, a 98-foot-long, 16-foot-tall, acoustically rich sculptural structure designed by Ensamble Studio.

While the art center's outdoor sculpture installations will be closed to the public over the winter, concert footage from several performances from this past summer can be viewed online. New videos include Yevgeny Sudbin playing Medtner's "Sonata Tragica" in C minor, Op. 39, No. 5, from "Forgotten Melodies"; Jenny Chen playing Chopin's Étude Op. 10, No. 3; and Jeffrey Kahane's deeply moving improvisation on Samuel A. Ward's "America the Beautiful."

Tippet Rise is home to state-of-the-art recording facilities and is hosting several artists this fall and winter for special studio sessions. Violinist Caroline Goulding recently recorded Ysaye's Sonata no. 5, Bartok Solo Sonata and Telemann Sonata in A major and pianist Alessandro Deljavan will be recording at Tippet Rise later this winter. Both albums will be released in 2018.

As a testament to the art center's growing reputation as a cultural oasis, Tippet Rise recently received a 2017 Leading Culture Destination Award from the UK's LCD Magazine and travel channel. The awards ceremony was held in London at the Trafalgar Saint James Hotel on Friday, September 29. Other winners include the British Museum, the Walker Art Center, and the Smithsonian's Hirshhorn Museum.

Tippet Rise will reopen to the public on Friday, June 29, 2018, one week before the start of the summer music series, for tours of its monumental outdoor sculptures on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays with prior registration. Visitors can explore the ranch and its sculptures via nine miles of hiking and biking trails, or by electric shuttle bus.

Tippet Rise Art Center is located in Fishtail, Montana against the backdrop of the Beartooth Mountains, roughly midway between Billings and Bozeman and just north of Yellowstone National Park. Set on 10,260-working sheep and cattle ranch, Tippet Rise hosts classical music performances and exhibits large-scale outdoor sculptures. 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.

The art center features musical performance spaces indoors and out, with programs that seek to create memorable experiences for performers and audience members alike. The 2017 summer concert season featured new and returning artists, established soloists, and rising stars, who presented works ranging in date from the early 18th century through today. The roster included pianists Michael Brown, Jenny Chen, Vicky Chow, David Fung, Adam Golka, Jeffrey Kahane, Anne-Marie McDermott, Pedja Muzijevic, Natasha Paremski and Yevgeny Sudbin; violinists Paul Huang and Caroline Goulding; cellists Zuill Bailey, Alexander Chaushian, Matt Haimovitz and Joshua Roman; the Ariel, Escher and St. Lawrence String quartets; and artists Xavier Foley (double bass), Jessica Sindell (flute), Alex Klein (oboe) and Mark Nuccio (clarinet), Daniel Hawkins (horn), Frank Morelli (bassoon), and Doug Perkins (percussion). The variety of repertoire and artists expressed Tippet Rise's mission to encourage new works and present fresh interpretations of masterpieces. Tippet Rise also collaborated in 2017 with the Architecture & Design Film Festival to screen a specially curated schedule of films.

Tippet Rise Art Center has a growing collection of large-scale sculptures and other works by some of the world's foremost artists and architects. Many are site-specific compositions, aiming to transcend the boundaries of art, nature, and architecture. Artworks set within the landscape include several sculptural structures by the innovative Ensamble Studio, including the 25-foot-tall Beartooth Portal, 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, and the 98-foot-long, 16-foot-tall Domo. Tippet Rise is also home to two monumental works by the internationally renowned sculptor Mark di Suvero: Beethoven's Quartet (2003, steel and stainless steel, 24 9/16 ft. x 30 ft. x 23 1/4 ft.) and Proverb (2002, painted Cor-ten steel, 60 ft x 17 11/16 ft. x 31 1/2 ft.); two site-specific works including Satellite # 5: Pioneer, by Stephen Talasnik and Daydreams 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 in which Tippet Rise Art Center is situated, and Montana's first Modernist painter, have been acquired by Tippet Rise and hang in the Olivier Music Barn.

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.

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.

Tippet Rise is open to visitors from mid-June to mid-September on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays from 10 am to 6pm with prior registration. Concerts and van tours are priced at $10. Tickets will be available in early 2018. For the latest information on ticketing, sign up for the Tippet Rise e-newsletter.

For more information about Tippet Rise, visit www.tippetrise.org.

Pictured: Ensamble Studio (Antón García-Abril and Débora Mesa), The Beartooth Portal, 2015. Image courtesy of Tippet Rise. Photo by Erik Petersen.

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