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Joshua Bell with Larisa Martínez
Grammy®-winning violinist Joshua Bell and vocalist Larisa Martínez present Voice and the Violin, exploring repertoire from classical art song and opera to musical theatre and selections by Puerto Rican and Spanish composers.
Saturday, May 11, 2024, 8 p.m.
tickets
- A: $155
- B: $125
- C: $95
- D: $65
About the Event
Violinist Joshua Bell and vocalist Larisa Martínez present Voice and the Violin, exploring repertoire from classical art song and opera to musical theatre and selections by Puerto Rican and Spanish composers. They will be joined by Peter Dugan, pianist.
Joshua Bell
With a career spanning almost four decades, Grammy®-winning violinist Joshua Bell is one of the most celebrated artists of his era. Having performed with virtually every major orchestra in the world, Bell continues to maintain engagements as soloist, recitalist, chamber musician, conductor, and music director of the Academy of St Martin in the Fields.
Bell’s highlights in the 2022–23 season included leading the Academy of St Martin in the Fields on tour in South America to Sao Paulo, Bogotá, and Montevideo, as well as in Europe, including Germany, Italy, Luxembourg, Denmark, and the United Kingdom. Bell appeared in guest performances with the Berliner Philharmoniker, Orchestre National de France, Sofia Philharmonic, and Franz Schubert Filharmonia, as well as a European tour with pianist Peter Dugan. In the United States, Bell performed alongside the New York Philharmonic and the San Francisco, Pittsburgh, Houston, Baltimore, and New Jersey Symphony Orchestras.
Bell was named 2010 Instrumentalist of the Year by Musical America and a 2007 Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum. He has been nominated for six Grammys® and received the 2007 Avery Fisher Prize. He has also received the 2003 Indiana Governor’s Arts Award and a Distinguished Alumni Service Award in 1991 from the Jacobs School of Music. In 2000, he was named an “Indiana Living Legend.” He has performed for three U.S. presidents and the sitting justices of the Supreme Court of the United States. Bell also participated in former President Barack Obama’s Committee on the Arts and Humanities’ first cultural mission to Cuba, joining Cuban and U.S. musicians on a 2017 Live from Lincoln Center Emmy®-nominated PBS special, Joshua Bell: Seasons of Cuba, celebrating renewed cultural diplomacy between Cuba and the United States.
Larisa Martínez
Puerto Rican opera singer Larisa Martínez has been praised and sought after for her “smoky soprano” (Opera News), gracing many of the world’s top opera and concert stages, including recent debuts as a soloist at the Kennedy Center, Carnegie Hall, Madison Square Garden, and the Hollywood Bowl.
Martínez’s recent roles include Musetta in La Bohème (CulturArte); Violetta in La Traviata, conducted by Eugene Kohn (Wichita Grand Opera); Sophie alongside tenor Piotr Beczala in Werther (CulturArte); and Maria in West Side Story, conducted by Lawrence Foster with tenor Michael Fabiano (Festival Napa Valley). In 2019, Martínez made her Kennedy Center debut in recital and Carnegie Hall Stern Auditorium/Perelman Stage debut, singing Mahler’s Symphony no. 2 with the Athens Philharmonic under the baton of Yiannis Hadjiloizou. In 2016, she created the role of Isaura in the world premiere of Mercadante’s Francesca da Rimini in Italy, conducted by Maestro Fabio Luisi and directed by Pier Luigi Pizzi. That same year, Martínez was invited as part of President Barack Obama’s artistic delegation to Cuba in an effort to expand cultural collaboration and friendships between the two countries, culminating in the Emmy®-nominated PBS special, Live from Lincoln Center: Seasons of Cuba, where she was showcased. In recent years, Martínez has toured with tenor Andrea Bocelli, debuting at Madison Square Garden, Hollywood Bowl, and throughout North America, South America, and Europe.
In 2016, she won the Metropolitan Opera’s National Council Audition in Puerto Rico, as well as the Angel Ramos Foundation Award and the Audience Prize. Soon after, she was invited by the Metropolitan Opera Guild 2018 Annual Gala as a guest artist to honor Anna Netrebko. In 2018, EastWest Sounds Studios chose and sampled her voice for its new virtual instrument software, “Voices of Opera,” used by composers and engineers worldwide.
Peter Dugan, pianist
Pianist Peter Dugan’s debut performances with Michael Tilson Thomas and the San Francisco Symphony were described by the Los Angeles Times as “stunning” and by the San Francisco Chronicle as “fearlessly athletic.” He is heard nationwide as the host of NPR’s beloved program From the Top. He has appeared as a soloist, recitalist, and chamber musician across North America and abroad. This year he makes his debuts at Wigmore Hall and the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center and can be heard as the piano soloist on a new release of Ives’ Fourth Symphony from Tilson Thomas and the San Francisco Symphony, a recording which The New York Times named one of the top classical albums of 2019. Prizing versatility as the key to the future of classical music, Dugan is equally at home in classical, jazz, and pop idioms.
A sought-after multi-genre artist, Dugan has performed in duos and trios with artists ranging from Itzhak Perlman and Renee Fleming to Jesse Colin Young and Glenn Close. The Wall Street Journal described Dugan’s collaboration with violinist Charles Yang as a “classical-meets-rockstar duo.” Dugan has been presented in chamber music recitals by Carnegie Hall, Chamber Music Society of Palm Beach, Music at Menlo, and Moab Music Festival and, recently, in recital with Joshua Bell at the Minnesota Beethoven Festival. He was the 2019 featured recitalist for the California Association of Professional Music Teachers and has soloed with the San Francisco Symphony, Houston Symphony, Kansas City Symphony, New World Symphony, and Mid-Texas Symphony.
His debut album with baritone John Brancy—A Silent Night: A WWI Memorial in Song—pays homage to composers who lived through, fought in, and died in the Great War. Brancy and Dugan toured this program across North America in commemoration of the centennial of World War I, including performances at The Kennedy Center, Alice Tully Hall, Stanford University, the United States Naval Academy, and the Smithsonian Institute. Together, Brancy and Dugan won first prize at the 2018 Montreal International Music Competition and second prize at the 2017 Wigmore Hall International Song Competition.
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