Join OPUS Chamber Music for an exclusive evening of intimate conversations & vibrant storytelling featuring violinist STEFAN JACKIW, clarinetist YOONAH KIM, soprano REILLY NELSON, and OPUS Artistic Director KEVIN AHFAT.
*LIMITED AVAILABILITY / few seats remain!
Musicians from the global stage come together to share an intimate evening of music & storytelling among friends, curating a personal setlist of Mozart, Schumann, Khachaturian, Piazzolla, and more. Witness world-class artists at the height of their craft, up-close-and-personal. Join the Q&A panel & drinks with the artists following the music, moderated by author & speaker Loredana Cunti.
Mozart Duo in G major | The Schumanns Romance & Abendlied | Khachaturian Trio | Piazzolla Oblivion & Libertango | and more…
VISITING & RESIDENT ARTISTS
Stefan Jackiw, violin
Stefan Jackiw is one of America’s foremost violinists, captivating audiences with playing that combines poetry and purity with impeccable technique. Hailed for playing of “uncommon musical substance” that is “striking for its intelligence and sensitivity” (Boston Globe), Jackiw has appeared as a soloist with the Boston, Chicago, Cleveland, New York, Philadelphia, and San Francisco symphony orchestras, among others.
Following his summer performance with the New York Philharmonic, Jackiw opens the 2023-24 season returning to the orchestra to perform the Barber Concerto with Jaap van Zweden. His season also includes a quadruple World Premiere of new works at Roulette, and his return to Asia with the Taiwan Philharmonic and the China National Symphony. In the spring, the Junction Trio will make their Carnegie Hall debut with the New York premiere of John Zorn’s Philosophical Investigations. He was also recently invited to perform and curate a series of programs at the Edinburgh Festival (‘Stefan Jackiw and Friends’).
During the 2022-23 season, Jackiw returned to the Cleveland Orchestra to perform Britten’s Violin Concerto with Thomas Søndergård, and to the Vancouver Symphony to perform Brahms with Otto Tausk. He also appeared at the 92NY with cellist Alisa Weilerstein and pianist Daniil Trifonov, and he embarked on a multi-city Junction Trio tour that included the group’s Celebrity Series of Boston debut, alongside performances in New York City, San Francisco, Washington DC, and more. His European dates included his return to the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam with the Residentie Orkest, as well as appearances with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, the Bournemouth Symphony, and the Sinfónica de Galicia. Other recent highlights include his performance of Mozart’s violin Concerto no. 5 with Alan Gilbert and the Boston Symphony, his return to Carnegie Hall to perform Bach with the Orchestra of St. Luke’s, and performances with the NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra and Alan Gilbert, and with Orchestre National de Lyon under Nikolaj Znaider.
Yoonah Kim, clarinet
Hailed by The New York Times for her “inexhaustible virtuosity”, clarinetist Yoonah Kim is rapidly earning recognition as a young artist of uncommon musical depth and versatility. Yoonah is a winner of the 2016 Concert Artists Guild International Competition. The first solo clarinetist to win CAG in nearly 30 years, this Korean-Canadian artist joins the ranks of prominent solo clarinetists discovered by CAG, including David Shifrin, Michael Collins, and David Krakauer.
Recent performance highlights include Mozart’s Clarinet Concerto with the Maui Chamber Orchestra, George Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue in a new arrangement for solo clarinet and string orchestra by Texu Kim, and the World Premiere of a new concerto by Eric Nathan for Violin and Clarinet, with violinist Stefan Jackiw and the New York Classical Players. Her recent chamber music appearances include performances of Messiaen’s Quartet for the End of Time with Stefan Jackiw, cellist Jay Campbell and pianist Orion Weiss at Princeton University and the Crypt in New York City and also with the Junction Trio (Stefan Jackiw, Jay Campbell, and pianist Conrad Tao) at Rockefeller University.
Yoonah recently made her New York recital debut at Carnegie Hall’s Weill Recital Hall, and has also given debut recitals for Chicago’s Dame Myra Hess Memorial Concerts series, Washington Performing Arts’ Music in the Country series, Chamber Music Society of Little Rock and Union County Performing Arts Center. She also appeared as concerto soloist with the Arkansas Symphony Youth Orchestra, the Chesapeake Youth Symphony, and the DuPage Symphony Orchestra.
She currently holds a faculty position at New York University’s Steinhardt School.
Reilly Nelson, soprano
Canadian soprano Reilly Nelson brings her “distinctly warm and burnished” sound to stages of all sizes in North America and Europe. In the 2020⁄21 season, Ms. Nelson was a Young Artist with the Glimmerglass Opera Festival, a virtual iteration of the distinguished program that featured working sessions with Isabel Leonard, Francesca Zambello, Eric Owens, and Renée Fleming. In 2021, Ms. Nelson sang Caterina in Mascagni’s L’amico Fritz at the Tiroler Festspiele Erl, and Mercédès in Cincinnati Opera’s production of Carmen, before joining Barbara Hannigan’s Equilibrium Young Artists Programme at the Lunenberg Academy of Music Performance in Nova Scotia.
Additional recent highlights include the Mother in Amahl and the Night Visitors and Leah in Enemies, A Love Story, both with Kentucky Opera, and Trouble in Tahiti with Lexington Philharmonic. Her continued relationship with Cincinnati Opera mirrors Ms. Reilly’s consistent balance of traditional and new operatic repertoire, including Flora in La traviata, Lupe Marin in Frida, a workshop performance of Ricky Ian Gordon’s Intimate Apparel, and the U.S. premiere of Julien Bilodeau’s Another Brick in the Wall: The Opera.
In addition to her theatrical work, Ms. Nelson is a seasoned concert artist. Recent credits include Mozart’s Requiem with the Reno Philharmonic, a staged performance of Argento’s From the Diary of Virginia Woolf with Cincinnati Chamber Opera and Cincinnati Song Initiative. With Cincinnati College Conservatory of Music, Ms. Nelson has performed Bach’s St. Matthew Passion and B minor Mass, Mahler’s Rückert-Lieder, and cabaret songs of William Bolcom and Kurt Weill.
Kevin Ahfat, piano
An artist that “leaves no question about his riveting presentation and technical finesse” (Seattle Times), Canadian pianist KEVIN AHFAT is acclaimed to be “poised to become one of the young heirs of the classical piano realm, with a bold, boundary-pushing, millennial style matched by refined execution” (Vanguard Seattle). Possessing “a balanced mix of expressiveness and virtuosity” (Musical America), he “summons plenty of thunderpower in the big moments, but clearly values musicianship over mere showmanship” (American Record Guide).
Ahfat continues performances and recordings as the newest core member of the three-time Grammy-nominated ARC Ensemble, one of Canada’s preeminent chamber ensembles and foremost cultural forces. Their latest releases on Chandos Records have been nominated for a 2022 Juno Award, 2022 OPUS Klassik Award, as well as being named one of the “Top 10 classical musical albums of 2020” by The Boston Globe and one of WQXR’s “Best Classical Albums of 2020”.
Ahfat was named one of CBC Music’s 30 hot Canadian classical musicians under 30 in 2018 and subsequently released a live recording of Brahms from CBC’s Studio 211. Highlights of recent seasons include engagements as soloist throughout North America and abroad, including at the Maison symphonique in Montreal, at the Toronto Centre for the Arts and Harbourfront Centre in Toronto, Alice Tully Hall in New York, and with the Kaleidoscope Chamber Orchestra in Los Angeles. Further highlights include a return to the Seattle Symphony at Benaroya Hall for its first-ever Shostakovich Concerto Festival, as well as a partnership with Richard Alston & Juilliard Dance in their recreation of Alston’s Sheer Bravado (2006) in New York.
Ahfat has had the privilege of sharing the stage with renowned artists across many genres, including Jean-Yves Thibaudet, SO Percussion, David Finckel, Derek Bermel, and Sonia Rodriguez. Festival appearances include the Bowdoin, Music@Menlo, Rockport, Fall for Dance North, Zhuhai, and Kyoto International Music Festivals. He has been broadcast locally and abroad several times on CBC Music’s In Concert program and WFMT’s Dame Myra Hess Series, and contributed his playing to Yamaha Canada’s recent Dear Glenn AI Project.