The Chicago Youth Symphony Orchestra will perform a free concert at Jay Pritzker Pavilion as part of Millennium Park's Rising Stars series on Sunday, June 15, 2008 at 3:00 p.m. This special performance features Igor Stravinsky's thunderous The Rite of Spring and Spring from Vivaldi's The Four Seasons, showcasing the virtuosic playing of violinist and Baroque Band founder Garry Clarke.
The orchestra will also be joined by renowned harpsichordist David Schrader. The program concludes with the celebrated Pictures at an Exhibition by Mussorgsky/Ravel.
Under the direction of Maestro Allen Tinkham, Chicago Youth Symphony Orchestra is an internationally acclaimed ensemble consisting of the most advanced high school-age musicians from the greater Chicago area. The orchestra performs annually at Symphony Center's Orchestra Hall, is featured at top performance venues such as Ravinia and Leipzig's Gewandhaus and participates in educational programs and collaborations with the region's top cultural institutions and ensembles.
GARRY CLARKE: British violinist and conductor Garry Clarke has recently come to notice as one of the finest of the new generation of interpreters of baroque music. Time-Out Chicago music critic calls him "an outstanding violinist, (Clarke) plays with real style and panache," while the Washington Post praises his playing as "a riveting, cut-to-the-bone performance, every note crackling with purpose and electricity." As director of Baroque Band, Chicago's period-instrument orchestra, Clarke has assembled a "stylish and exciting period-instrument group" (Chicago Tribune) which gave "a tremendous debut" in May 2007 with "an abundance of style, a crisp esprit de corps, and a palpable affection for its repertoire." (Chicago Tribune)
Since moving to the United States in 2004, Mr. Clarke has concentrated on conducting, chamber music, and solo engagements, working in a duo with American harpsichordist Michelle Roy and serving as principal conductor of the Garth Newel Music Festival in Virginia in 2005 and 2006. Other American ensembles with which Clarke has performed include the Washington Bach Consort, Opera Lafayette, The National Cathedral Baroque Orchestra, and The Orchestra of the 17th Century in Washington, D.C.; Ars Antigua and the Callipygian Players in Chicago, and New Trinty Baroque in Atlanta. He is also a member of the early music faculty of the Music Institute of Chicago.
Clarke graduated from the Royal College of Music in London, where he studied with Catherine Mackintosh, concertmaster and soloist of the Academy of Ancient Music and the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, and founding member of the Purcell Quartet. He also studied with Michela Comberti of the English Concert and the Salomon Quartet, and he has performed in masterclasses with Monica Hugett, Marie Leonhardt, Lucy Van Daal, and Sigiswald Kuijken.
DAVID SCHRADER: Equally at home in front of a harpsichord, organ, piano, or fortepiano, David Schrader is "truly an extraordinary musician ... (who) brings not only the unfailing right technical approach to each of these different instruments, but always an imaginative, fascinating musicality to all of them" (Norman Pelligrini, WFMT, Chicago). Mr. Schrader has been invited to perform as a featured artist at the American Guild of Organists' national convention on three occasions and has appeared as a soloist on organ and on harpsichord with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Sir Georg Solti, Daniel Barenboim, and Pierre Boulez. He has also appeared with the Grant Park Symphony under Carlos Kalmar, as a soloist at the Ravinia Festival under the direction of Nicholas Mc Geghan, and with many other orchestras throughout the United States and Canada.
ALLEN TINKHAM: Allen Tinkham was appointed Music Director of the Chicago Youth Symphony Orchestras (CYSO) in 2001. As Music Director, Tinkham oversees all artistic programming and faculty of the CYSO, and serves as conductor of the Symphony Orchestra and the Encore Chamber Orchestra. He has led the CYSO regularly in performances at Chicago's Orchestra Hall, Millennium Park, and Ravinia, as well as touring domestically to Carnegie Hall, and internationally to Prague, Budapest, Eisenstadt, Leipzig, Vienna, Warsaw, and Wroclaw. During his tenure, the CYSO has won four ASCAP National Awards for Adventurous Programming of Contemporary Music, the Illinois Council of Orchestras Programming Award, and secured the institution's first live broadcast performance from the studios of WFMT Chicago.
Prior to his appointment in Chicago, Tinkham served as Apprentice Conductor of the Oregon Symphony Orchestra, where he conducted annually on classical subscription (sharing concerts with Music Director James DePreist). Recent engagements include the orchestras of Amarillo (TX), Dubuque (IA), Racine (WI), Elmhurst (IL), and Kansas City (MO), as well as All-State Festival Orchestras in Florida, Kentucky, Maryland, New Hampshire, Rhode Island and New York. He is also a regular cover conductor for the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. He was featured in the League of American Orchestra's Conductor Preview and was one of only three Americans selected to participate in the 14th International Nicolai Malko Competition for Young Conductors in Copenhagen, Denmark. He has also been a seminar faculty member for the League of American Orchestra's Orchestra Leadership Academy. -- www.cyso.org
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