Go to livestream

Julian Rhee, violin (AFSF’20)

Winner of the prestigious 2024 Avery Fisher Career Grant, Korean American violinist Julian
Rhee came to international prominence following his prize winning performances at the 2024
Queen Elisabeth International Violin Competition and the Silver Medal at the 11th Quadrennial
International Violin Competition of Indianapolis.

Rhee has appeared with the Milwaukee Symphony, Belgian National Orchestra, Antwerp
Symphony, Württemberg Chamber Orchestra of Heilbronn, Indianapolis Symphony, Pittsburgh
Symphony, Richmond Symphony, and San Diego Symphony alongside Francesco
Lecce-Chong, Valentina Peleggi, Rune Bergmann, Antony Hermus and Leonard Slatkin, among
others.

Equally passionate about chamber music, Rhee is the newest member of Chamber Music
Society of Lincoln Center’s prestigious Bowers Program. He has performed at and attended
festivals including the Ravinia Steans Institute, Marlboro Music, and NorthShore Chamber Music
Festival, performing alongside esteemed musicians such as Vadim Gluzman, Jonathan Biss,
and Mitsuko Uchida.

Rhee received his Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees as teaching assistant of Miriam Fried at the
New England Conservatory, and currently studies with Christian Tetzlaff at the Kronberg
Academy.

Rhee is the recipient of the outstanding 1699 “Lady Tennant” Antonio Stradivari violin and Jean
Pierre Marie Persoit bow on extended loan through the generosity of the Mary B. Galvin
Foundation and the Stradivari Society.

Angela Yoffe,
Executive Director, piano

Pianist, producer, and educator, Angela Yoffe, is widely admired for her dazzling musicianship and passion for music education. Yoffe is the founder and executive director of The Music Makers, an international organization that produces Chicago’s annual North Shore Chamber Music Festival, the Music Makers Israel, and the Arkady Fomin Scholarship Fund, which has provided early career support, guidance and inspiration to more than 25 gifted young artists from around the world interested in pursuing a career as a performer.

Yoffe is also founder of the Collaborative Piano Class at the Chicago College of Performing Arts at Roosevelt University. Her Creative Learning Program has led collaborative projects with the International Center on Deafness and the Arts and the Lurie Children’s hospital.

Angela Yoffe has performed as a chamber musician and recitalist in New York, Washington, Chicago, San Francisco, Dallas, London, Berlin, Paris, Tel Aviv, Geneva, Rome and Tokyo among others. She has appeared as soloist with the Seattle Symphony, the Omaha Symphony, SWR Stuttgart Radio Orchestra, the Hamburg Symphony and with New York’s Jupiter Symphony under the batons of Andrey Boreyko, Gerard Schwarz, Jens Nygaard, and other leading conductors. Yoffe has been invited to perform at the Verbier Festival in Switzerland, Lockenhaus Festival in Austria, Festival de Radio France, Schleswig-Holstein Festival, Colmar Festival in France, MIDEM Festival, Ravinia Festival, Pablo Casals Festival in Puerto Rico, the Schwetzingen Festspiele, and the Bantry Festival in West Cork.

Angela Yoffe records exclusively for BIS Records and her discography includes a recent album of Sergey Prokofiev’s Violin and Piano Sonatas with violinist Vadim Gluzman. Her world premiere recording of Lera Auerbach’s “24 Preludes for Violin and Piano” (composed for Ms. Yoffe and Mr. Gluzman) was released on BIS Records to rave reviews, as well as their other albums: “Time and Again,” “Ballet for a Lonely Violinist,” and “Fireworks”.

Ms. Yoffe was born in Riga, Latvia into a family of respected musicians. After studying piano performance in the Soviet Union and Israel, she continued with Joaquín Achúcarro and Jonathan Feldman in the United States and became an assistant to Dorothy DeLay at the Juilliard School of Music. Angela resides between Chicago and Tel Aviv with her husband, violinist Vadim Gluzman, and their daughter Orli.

Lera Auerbach,
an Artist Without Borders

“Passion Creates Passion”

“Music can overcome the limitations of words. I can draw from all the sources I love. Passion creates passion.” — Lera Auerbach

“Music is my life. It is impossible to separate my life from music because they are so intensely intertwined.”

Lera Auerbach’s journey into the world of art began as a poet, with several published works before she turned 18. Born in 1973 in Chelyabinsk, in the Ural Mountains, she was a virtuoso pianist from early childhood and composed her first opera at the age of twelve. In 1991, during a concert tour in the United States, she made the spontaneous decision at just 17 years old to remain in New York—without a safety net and without speaking English—while the Soviet Union was on the brink of collapse. She seized her freedom and started a new life in the U.S., where she was later granted American citizenship in recognition of her extraordinary talent. In 2021, the Austrian government also awarded her citizenship for her significant contributions to music and the arts, underscoring her international influence. She studied piano and composition at the Juilliard School and comparative literature at Columbia University. In 2002, she completed her concert diploma at the Hochschule für Musik in Hanover. That same year, she debuted at Carnegie Hall with her Suite for Violin, Piano, and Orchestra, performed by Gidon Kremer and the Kremerata Baltica. Her extensive catalog now encompasses nearly every musical genre, from chamber music and orchestral works to opera and ballet, performed worldwide by leading soloists, orchestras, and theaters.

Today, conducting is at the center of her artistic focus. It defines her current artistic expression: “Standing on the podium, creating vast musical landscapes, sharing a vision of expression with the orchestra, drawing from my experience in various art forms, and integrating these currents into the ocean of the orchestra and the stage—that is my greatest joy.”This role enriches her artistic voice and expands her legacy as she brings her unique vision to symphonic stages worldwide.

As a poet of both words and music, her literary work includes poetry and prose collections, novellas, and numerous contributions to newspapers and magazines. Auerbach was named Poet of the Year by the International Pushkin Society, and her first English-language book, Excess of Being, explores the art of aphorisms. In 2022, her children’s book A is for Oboe (Random House) won the AudioFile Best Audiobook Award, and she received the Robert Creeley Memorial Award, leading to the publication of her poetry manuscript Forever Music. She remains active as a visual artist, with her works being collected and exhibited. A career that would suffice for multiple lifetimes—yet she continues her journey: “There is no reason to keep something locked in its cage and not connect it,” says Lera Auerbach. “For me, art must feel larger than life. Whether it is music, visual art, or literature, art is what remains of our time.”