Judges of Past Performances

GRAMMY award-winning conductor Lucas Richman has served as Music Director for the Bangor Symphony Orchestra since 2010 and held the position as Music Director for the Knoxville Symphony Orchestra from 2003-2015. Over the course of nearly four decades on the podium, he has garnered an international reputation for his graceful musical leadership in a diverse field of media. In concert halls, orchestral pits and recording studios around the world, Richman earns rave reviews for his artful collaborations with artists in both the classical and commercial music arenas.

He has appeared as guest conductor with numerous orchestras including the New York Philharmonic, Philadelphia Orchestra, Boston Pops, Cleveland Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Baltimore Symphony, Indianapolis Symphony, New Jersey Symphony, Canada’s National Arts Centre Orchestra and Toronto Symphony Orchestra, the Russian National Orchestra, the Oslo Philharmonic, the SWR Radio Orchestra of Kaiserslautern, the Iceland Symphony Orchestra, the Zhejiang Symphony Orchestra, the Orquesta Sinfónica Nacional and the Zagreb Philharmonic.

In recent years, he has led performances with notable soloists such as Mstislav Rostropovich, Garrick Ohlsson, Lang Lang, Midori, Gil Shaham, Emanuel Ax, Yefim Bronfman, Frank Peter Zimmerman, Mark O’Connor, Andre Watts, Frederica von Stade and Radu Lupu.  Mr. Richman has also conducted for a panoply of commercial artists that includes James Taylor, Michael Jackson, Pat Boone, Michael Feinstein, Gloria Estefan, Megan Hilty, Matthew Morrison, George Benson, Robert Goulet, Anne Murray, the Smothers Brothers, Martin Short, Tony Randall, Victor Borge and Brian Wilson. Mr. Richman’s numerous collaborations with film composers as their conductor has yielded recorded scores for such films as the Academy Award-nominated The Village (with violinist, Hilary Hahn) and As Good As It Gets; in 2010, John Williams invited him to lead the three-month national summer tour of Star Wars in Concert. 

Also an accomplished composer, Mr. Richman has had his music performed by over two hundred orchestras across the United States including the New York Philharmonic, the Boston Pops and the symphonies of Detroit, Atlanta, New Jersey and Houston. He has fulfilled commissions for numerous organizations including the Pittsburgh Symphony, Knoxville Symphony, Bangor Symphony, Johnstown Symphony, the Debussy Trio, the Seattle Chamber Music Society and the Organ Artists Series of Pittsburgh. His “Symphony: This Will Be Our Reply” was premiered to critical acclaim by a consortium of orchestras in 2019, including the Oak Ridge Symphony Orchestra (TN), the Bemidji Symphony Orchestra (MN) and the Los Angeles Jewish Symphony (CA). March, 2022 saw the premiere of The Warming Sea for the Maine Science Festival/Bangor Symphony Orchestra and Concerto for Violin and Cello: Un Pasto con Luciana e Mario was premiered by the Atlanta Musicians Orchestra in June, 2022. Upcoming commissions include Concerto for Violin: Paths to Dignity written for performances with violinist Mitchell Newman in 2023 and 2024.

September, 2015, brought the vaunted Albany Records release of a new CD, IN TRUTH Lucas Richman, which features the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra performing his Concerto for Piano and Orchestra: In Truth (Jeffrey Biegel, piano), in addition to his Concerto for Oboe and Orchestra: The Clearing (Cynthia Koledo DeAlmeida, oboe) and Three Pieces for Cello and Orchestra (Inbal Segev, cello). In November, 2009, as the result of an NEA commission, the San Diego Symphony Orchestra premiered his Behold the Bold Umbrellaphant, a setting of poetry by Children’s Poet Laureate, Jack Prelutsky, which Jahja Ling and the SDSO recorded for release in December, 2011.

For more information, visit www.ledorgroup.com.

An exclusive Universal Music China Artist, Li-Wei Qin has appeared all over the world as a soloist and as a chamber musician.  After achieving great success at the 11th Tchaikovsky International Competition where he was awarded the Silver Medal, Li-Wei has since won the First Prize in the prestigious 2001 Naumburg Competition in New York. “A superbly stylish, raptly intuitive performer” Gramophone Magazine, January 2015) was the description of the cellist’s Elgar and Walton concerti recording with the London Philharmonic.

Highlights in the 2017/18 season includes debut with the London Symphony, Russian Philharmonic, Czech Chamber and Brussels Chamber Orchestras. Return visits to the China Philharmonic, Guangzhou Symphony and Melbourne Symphony Orchestras.

Two times soloist at the BBC Proms in London’s Royal Albert Hall, Li-Wei has enjoyed successful artistic collaborations with many of the world’s great orchestras including all the BBC symphony orchestras, the Los Angeles philharmonic, London Philharmonic, the Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin, the NDR-Sinfonierorchester Hamburg, the Konzerthausorchester Berlin, the Basel Symphony, the Prague symphony, the Osaka Philharmonic, Hong Kong Philharmonic, China Philharmonic, the Sydney Symphony and Melbourne Symphony among many others. Leading conductors with whom he has worked include Vladimir Ashkenazy, Sir Andrew Davis, Marek Janowski, Jaap Van Zweden, Jiri Belohlavek, Jan Pascal Totelier, Hans Graf, Yu Long, the late Machello Viotti and the late Lord Menuhin. Li-Wei has also appeared with chamber orchestras such as the Kremerata Baltika, Sinfonia Vasovia, the Munich, the Zurich, the Australian Chamber Orchestras.

In recital and chamber music, Li-Wei is a regular guest at the Wigmore Hall and for the Lincoln Center Chamber Music Society, New York. He has appeared at the BBC Proms, the Rheinghau, the City of London, the Schlewigs-Holstein and the Mecklenburg Festivals. Li-Wei has collaborated with musicians such as Daniel Hope, Nabuko Imai, Misha Maisky, David Finckel, Wu Han, Vladimir Mendelssohn and Peter Frankel, among many others.

Li-Wei’s recordings on Universal Music/Decca include the complete Beethoven Sonatas, Works of Rachmaninov with pianist Albert Tiu, Dvořàk Concerto with Singapore Symphony Orchestra and conductor Lan Shui and Elgar/Walton Concerti with the London Philharmonic. Most recently, courtesy of Universal Music, Li-Wei’s 2013 live concert with the Shanghai Symphony and Maestro Yu Long has been released on Sony Classical.

Born in Shanghai Li-Wei moved to Australia at the age of 13, before accepting scholarships to study with Ralph Kirshbaum at the Royal Northern College of Music, Manchester and with David Takeno at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, London. He was invited to join the BBC ‘New Generations’ scheme in 2001 and in 2002, Li-Wei received the Young Australian of the Year Award. Other major invitations included appearances at both the 2008 Beijing Olympics (New Zealand Symphony), 2012 London Olympics and the Davos World Economics Forum (Basel Symphony Orchestra).

Prior to teaching at the YST Conservatory, Li-Wei was a professor of cello at the Royal Northern College of Music, Manchester. He is also a guest professor at Shanghai and Central Conservatory of Music in China. Li-Wei plays a 1780 Joseph Guadagnini cello, generously loaned by Dr and Mrs Wilson Goh.

www.liweiqin.com

Heralded as a leading interpreter of the great classical masterworks, violinist Rachel Barton Pine thrills audiences with her dazzling technique, lustrous tone, and emotional honesty. With an infectious joy in music-making and a passion for connecting historical research to performance, Pine transforms audiences’ experiences of classical music.

Pine performs with the world’s leading orchestras including the Philadelphia Orchestra, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Camerata Salzburg, and the Chicago, Vienna, and Detroit Symphony Orchestras. She has worked with renowned conductors, including Teddy Abrams, Marin Alsop, Daniel Barenboim, Semyon Bychkov, Neeme Järvi, Christoph Eschenbach, Erich Leinsdorf, Nicholas McGegan, Zubin Mehta, Tito Muñoz, and John Nelson, and has performed chamber music with Jonathan Gilad, Clive Greensmith, Paul Neubauer, Jory Vinikour, William Warfield,
Orion Weiss, and the Pacifica and Parker Quartets.

This summer and 2023/24 season, Pine joins the Los Angeles Philharmonic and Stéphane Denève at the Hollywood Bowl, in addition to highlight performances with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra and recital appearances at the Kennedy Center and Festival Internacional de Música de Guadalajara, among many others performances of repertoire ranging from Early
Music to romantic and contemporary.

She has recorded over 40 acclaimed albums, many of which have hit the top of the charts. In August 2023, Cedille Records released Dependent Arising, featuring concertos by Shostakovich and Earl Maneein performed with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra (RSNO) and Tito Muñoz. Other recent records include Violin Concertos by Black Composers Through the Centuries: 25th Anniversary Edition (September 2022) with the RSNO and Jonathon Heyward, and Malek Jandali: Concertos (March 2023) with the Vienna Symphony Orchestra and Marin
Alsop.

She frequently performs music by contemporary composers, including major works written for her by Billy Childs, Mohammed Fairouz, Marcus Goddard, Earl Maneein, Shawn Okpebholo, Daniel Bernard Roumain, José Serebrier, and Augusta Read Thomas. In addition to her career as a soloist, she is an avid performer of baroque, renaissance, and medieval music on baroque violin, viola d’amore, renaissance violin, and rebec.

She has appeared on The Today Show, CBS Sunday Morning, CNN, PBS NewsHour, A Prairie Home Companion, and NPR’s Tiny Desk. She holds prizes from several of the world’s leading competitions, including a gold medal at the 1992 J.S. Bach International Violin Competition in Leipzig, Germany. Her RBP Foundation assists young artists through its Instrument Loan Program and Grants for Education and Career, and since 2001, has run the groundbreaking Music by Black Composers
project.

She performs on the “ex-Bazzini, ex-Soldat” Joseph Guarnerius “del Gesù” (Cremona 1742), on lifetime loan from her anonymous patron.

rachelbartonpine.com