Ellington: From Stride to Strings
"Music is my mistress, and she plays second fiddle to no one." ~ Duke Ellington
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"Music is my mistress, and she plays second fiddle to no one." ~ Duke Ellington
Join the Grange Festival community and stay connected to a world of enchanting performances and exclusive events.
Trumpeter and bandleader Dominick Farinacci graduated from The Juilliard School and launched his career in Japan with a prolific run of eight albums. He has served as Ambassador to Jazz at Lincoln Center in Doha, Qatar, performed around the world and been recognised by The New York Times as “a trumpeter of abundant poise.” He has been a featured guest on ABC’s Good Morning America and been profiled in Vanity Fair. Music icon Quincy Jones has said of Dominick’s accomplishments in performance, recording, education and advocacy: “This kid is 360 degrees!”. In 2022 he was awarded the Cleveland Arts Prize.
The Tokyo-based Grammy-nominated saxophonist and composer Patrick Bartley, Jr. performed on the Late Show with Stephen Colbert and was featured in the Emmy-nominated HBO special Wynton Marsalis: A YoungArts Masterclass, which premiered at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. After graduating from the Manhattan School of Music, he became a sideman in high demand, performing and recording with musicians such as Louis Hayes, Jonathan Batiste, Mulgrew Miller, Jeff Coffin and Wynton Marsalis. He has performed at world-renowned venues such as the Staples Center, Madison Square Garden and the Black Sea Jazz Festival.
Christian Tamburr is a vibraphonist, pianist, composer and arranger who has performed in over 67 countries around the world. Downbeat Magazine recognised him with the “Outstanding Solo Jazz Performance” award and he has received the “Critics Choice Top Rising Star” for his work on the vibraphone five times. He leads the critically-acclaimed Christian Tamburr Quintet, which performs regularly in venues such as The Lincoln Center, The Kennedy Center, The Newport Jazz Festival and venues throughout Asia, Europe and the UAE. His music can be heard on TV, in full-length motion pictures and at stage productions around the world.
French-Malagasy pianist and composer Mathis Picard, who has been dubbed a “rising star” by The Scotsman, is an ASCAP Next Generation of Songwriters Recipient, a member of the Montreux Jazz Foundation and an alumnus of The Juilliard School where he was mentored by Kenny Barron. He has been described as a “knockout, as dynamic a personality as he is virtuosic on the keys” (Whatsonstage.com) and “one to watch” (Jazzwize). In 2022 Mathis released his debut solo piano album Live at the Museum, which was recorded with a live audience at the National Jazz Museum of Harlem in New York City.
A graduate of the Berklee School of Music and The Juilliard School, Yasushi Nakamura’s career as a bass player has flourished, with consistent engagements at the world’s best jazz festivals including Tokyo, North Sea, Monterey, Ravinia, as well as top venues such as Birdland, Village Vanguard, the Blue Note, The Kennedy Center, Jazz at Lincoln Center, and Carnegie Hall. He is praised for imaginative, quicksilver bass lines that deepen the groove. Yasushi’s album ‘Hometown’ from Atelier Sawano, featuring Lawrence Fields, Bigyuki and Clarence Penn, received JazzLife Magazine’s Album of the Year Award in 2017.
Jerome Jennings is a drummer, sideman and Emmy award-winning composer. His debut recording ‘The Beast’ is a reflection of the everyday joys and traumas of black life in the USA. It was named one of the top three Jazz releases by NPR, received a four-star rating in Downbeat Magazine, and was nominated in France for the prestigious Grand Prix du Disque award for Album of the Year in 2016. Jerome’s second recording, ‘Solidarity’, released in 2019 was recognised by NPR as best music that spoke truth to power that year. A graduate of The Juilliard School, Jerome is Professor of Jazz History at Montclair State University.
Selected by The Times as “The Face to Watch in Opera 2020” and by Der Theaterverlag as one of the outstanding artists of 2020, British-Armenian soprano Anush Hovhannisyan began her career as a member of the Jette Parker Young Artists Programme at The Royal Opera House, Covent Garden. She is the winner of First and Public Prizes, Deutsche Grammophon and Royal Danish Opera Special Prizes at the 2016 Stella Maris Competition, the winner of the 2014 Ernst Haefliger International Swiss Competition and represented Armenia at BBC Cardiff Singer of the World 2017.
Nominated for the International Opera Awards, she made a highly acclaimed debut with Scottish Opera as Violetta La traviata, which saw Opera Magazine writing, “(she) has the coloratura, the musical intelligence, the rock-solid technique, the evenness throughout an ample vocal range, the dramatic versatility, the imposing but graceful physique - and indeed the pathos” and The Sunday Times acclaiming “a ‘star is born’ moment.”
Recent engagements have included a return to The Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, as Musetta La bohème, her debut with L’Orchestre de Chambre de Genève singing Shostakovich Symphony No. 14 and Copland's American Songs and Opera in Song: Violetta and Tatyana for Opera Holland Park. Engagements during 2021 / 2022 include Emma Khovanschina for her debut at the Opéra national de Paris, Parasha Mavra for Scottish Opera, Tatyana Eugene Onegin for Opera Holland Park, Leonora Oberto for Chelsea Opera Group, Violetta La traviata for both The Royal Opera and The Israeli Opera and A Night at the Opera with Nevill Holt Opera for Proms at St Jude’s.
Engagements in 2022 / 2023 currently include Mimì La bohème for Welsh National Opera, Violetta La traviata at the Royal Danish Opera and Rachmaninov The Bells with the Philharmonia Orchestra.
Her repertoire further includes Adina L’elisir d‘amore, the title role in Maria Stuarda, Donna Anna and Donna Elvira Don Giovanni, Sylvia de Linadès L’Ange de Nisida, Mirra Sardanapolo, Sita Le Roi de Lahore, Tamara The Demon and Hélène Les vêpres siciliennes. Her concert repertoire includes Beethoven Symphony No. 9, Berg Seven Early Songs, Poulenc Gloria, Rossini Petite Messe Solennelle and Stabat Mater, Shostakovich Symphony No. 14, Richard Strauss Four Last Songs and Verdi Requiem.
Now based in London, Anush Hovhannisyan began studying violin aged six at the A. Spendiaryan Music School and went on to study singing at the Yerevan State Conservatory and at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland. She is a Samling Artist, and her many awards and scholarships further include the Clonter Opera Prize, the Bayreuth Prize from the Wagner Society of Scotland, Karaviotis Prize at the Les Azuriales International Singing Competition and the Ian Smith of Stornoway Award for Opera, awarded by the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland.
Anush Hovhannisyan has performed with renowned conductors such as Semyon Bychkov, Sir Mark Elder, Gianluigi Gelmetti, Koen Kessels, Nicola Luisotti, Daniel Oren, Carlo Rizzi, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Jonathan Santagada, Sir Antonio Pappano, and Mark Wigglesworth, and worked with companies such as the Opera Holland Park, Opera Rara, Stadttheater Klagenfurt, Teatro Verdi Trieste, the BBC Symphony Orchestra (at the BBC Proms) and the Philharmonia Orchestra.
Her recordings and broadcasts include Shostakovich Symphony No. 14 with the Southbank Sinfonia and Emma Khovanschina with the BBC Symphony Orchestra (BBC Radio 3), Decades - A Century of Song, Vols 2 and 4 for Vivat CD, Rimsky-Korsakov Romances for Stone Records (a Sunday Times ‘Album of the Week’), Songs by Scriabin for Decca’s complete piano anthology of his music, BBC Radio 3’s Big Chamber Day and The Royal Ballet’s Woolf Works, now available on Opus Arte DVD.
A keen advocate and mentor of young musicians, Anush Hovhannisyan is a member of the Board of the Mascarade Opera Foundation and the National Student Opera Society with a strong belief in supporting the industry by guiding young musicians.
This is her debut at The Grange Festival.
Piers Playfair is the Artistic Director of the 23Arts Initiative, which he founded with his wife Lucy in 2011. The 23Arts Initiative is a US-based non-profit organisation dedicated to supporting world-class performing artists and programmes. 23Arts has a history of presenting year-round artist residencies, community outreach, educational visits and both pop-up style as well as traditional concert hall performances spanning across countless unique locations and venues. Featuring internationally recognised artists across all genres with a focus on classical, jazz, gospel, and blues, the mission of 23Arts is to provide a platform for the creation of new forward-thinking and ground-breaking independent productions.
Piers' work at 23Arts has included the curation of programmes and major productions for multiple venues and festivals, including the Fisher Center at Bard; the Kings Theatre, Brooklyn; the New York Botanical Garden, the Bronx; and, The New Generation Festival, Florence.
Pianist, composer, and writer Ethan Iverson was a founding member of The Bad Plus, a game-changing collective with Reid Anderson and David King. Quickly heralded as “better than anyone at melding the sensibilities of post-60’s jazz and indie rock.”, TBP performed across the world and in venues as diverse as the Village Vanguard, Carnegie Hall, and Bonnaroo and collaborated with Joshua Redman, Bill Frisell, and the Mark Morris Dance Group. In addition to their tuneful and provocative original music, TBP was known for their covers. Geezer Butler called The Bad Plus’s version of “Iron Man” “the best Black Sabbath cover, ever!”. The band created a faithful arrangement of Igor Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring and a radical reinvention of Ornette Coleman’s Science Fiction. During the TBP era, Ethan balanced work with the cutting-edge collective alongside performances and recordings with jazz masters like Billy Hart, Paul Motian, Tootie Heath, Ron Carter, and Charlie Haden. After a 17-year tenure, Ethan left TBP to pursue diverse interests and aesthetics. His discography now includes two recordings for ECM (a duo album of original compositions with Mark Turner and a volume of standards tracked live at the Village Vanguard with Tom Harrell), Bud Powell in the 21st Century (a vigorous reconsideration of the bebop master which landed Ethan on the March 2021 cover of DownBeat), and a current release Every Note Is True - his first for the Blue Note Label - which features Larry Grenadier and Jack DeJohnette, released to critical acclaim in early 2022 and cementing Ethan’s place as “a master of melody” (DownBeat). Working also consistently outside the jazz sphere, Ethan created the score to Pepperland, an evening-length exploration/explosion of The Beatles with the Mark Morris Dance Group, premiered an original piano concerto with the American Composers Orchestra, and has accompanied noted classical musicians Miranda Cuckson and Mark Padmore in recital. His concurrent writing career includes the now 20-year old website Do The Math, a repository of musician-to-musician interviews and varied essays. As “NYC’s most thoughtful and passionate student of jazz tradition – the most admirable sort of artist-scholar,” Time Out New York selected Ethan as one of 25 essential New York jazz icons. Ethan has also published articles about music in the New Yorker, NPR, The Nation, and JazzTimes.
Gavin Sutherland born in Chester-le-Street, is a conductor, composer/arranger and pianist. He studied conducting, piano and orchestration at Huddersfield University and graduated with first-class honours being awarded the Kruczynski prize for piano and the Davidson prize for distinction brought to the Institution. He was staff conductor for Northern Ballet Theatre, Principal Guest Conductor of the Royal New Zealand Ballet, and has also conducted for New National Ballet of Japan, Norwegian National Ballet, Atlanta Ballet, New Adventures and South African Ballet Theatre. In June 2008 he was appointed Music Director of English National Ballet, becoming Principal Conductor in 2010. He has also orchestrated many of their productions, most recently the hugely successful Akram Khan Giselle. He made his BBC Proms debut in 2016 conducting the BBC Concert Orchestra in the Strictly Prom at London’s Royal Albert Hall. In 2017 he conducted the BBC National Orchestra of Wales as part of the Last Night of the Proms celebrations, from Swansea’s Singleton Park. In 2017 he made his debut at the Royal Opera House, conducting Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde as part of the celebration of the life and work of Sir Kenneth Macmillan. He is much in demand as composer/arranger and has supplied arrangements and orchestrations to all of the major BBC orchestras and leading orchestras throughout the world. Recent compositions include a musical, Little Women, and received two West End revivals, a clarinet concerto, several chamber works and a one-act ballet, Revolting Rhymes. 2007 also saw him contribute a ten-minute medley of Carry On film themes for the BBC/BAFTA Film Music Prom at the Royal Albert Hall. He was awarded the Critics’ Circle National Dance Award for Outstanding Creative Contribution (2020)
Gavin Sutherland has made over a hundred recordings in the UK and abroad, with among others, the Royal Ballet Sinfonia, the BBC Concert Orchestra and the City of Prague Philharmonic Orchestra, for labels including Decca, Universal, Sony, Warner Classics, Naxos Records’ Marco Polo imprint, Hyperion Records and Dutton-Vocalion. He has recorded works as wide-ranging as Elgar’s Dream of Gerontius, two chart-topping albums featuring scores from the Carry On films, and the single release of the Radio 4 UK Theme. From 2009 to 2018 he was Chairman of the Light Music Society, taking over from the President, the late Ernest Tomlinson. His concert appearances include Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, BBC Concert Orchestra (particularly on BBC Radio 2’s Friday Night is Music Night), BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, BBC National Orchestra of Wales, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. the London Symphony Orchestra, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, the Münchener Rundfunksorchester, Tokyo Philharmonic and Symphony Orchestras, Auckland Philharmonia, the National Orchestra of Colombia, Macao Symphony Orchestra, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Hong Kong Sinfonietta, New Zealand Symphony Orchestra, RTÉ Concert Orchestra, Australian Philharmonic Orchestra, Aalborg SO and Johannesburg Festival Orchestra
As a pianist he performs regularly as a concerto soloist, often directing from the keyboard, and appears as a recitalist, accompanist and chamber musician. He has released live recordings of improvisations and compositions, Piano Pastimes, and has made reconstructions of works whose materials have been lost or destroyed, including TV and film scores, classical ballet and symphonic orchestral works. As a speaker and broadcaster he has frequently spoken on BBC Radio and Television, and is renowned as an expert on ballet music, British Light Music and the music of British Television.
Together with Max Fane and Roger Granville, Frankie Parham co-founded The New Generation Festival, a music, theatre and opera festival that showcased emerging talent, in Florence, Italy and partnered with the 23Arts Initiative. They also established Andermatt Music and co-founded Mascarade Opera, an Italian charitable foundation which runs a performance and training programme in collaboration with Teatro La Fenice in Venice designed for the career development of the world’s most promising young singers and répétiteurs. Frankie read Classics and Russian at the University of Oxford after which he studied Law at both SOAS and BPP University in London and qualified as a solicitor with White & Case LLP