NEC-trained Jupiter String Quartet ’06 M.M., Violinist Karen Gomyo ’07 AD Awarded 2008 Avery Fisher Career Grants
Jupiter Quartet (Susan Wilson photo)
For Immediate Release:
April 25, 2008
The Jupiter String Quartet ’06 M.M. and violinist Karen Gomyo ’07 A.D. are among four recipients of this year’s Avery Fisher Career Grants. The honors were bestowed April 22 by Nathan Leventhal, Chairman of the Avery Fisher Artist Program, at a celebratory dinner and concert at New York’s Lincoln Center Rose Studio. This marks the second year in a row that an NEC string quartet and violin soloist won the awards; last year the Borromeo Quartet and Yura Lee were recipients. Others honored this year were clarinetist José Franch-Ballester and pianist Gilles Vonsattel.
The festivities, which were also attended by Charles Avery Fisher and Nancy Fisher (children of the late Avery Fisher), featured performances by the four recipients that were taped for broadcast by WQXR-96.3 FM. Those selections will be aired on Monday, April 28th, from 7-8 pm, with Robert Sherman hosting the broadcast.
The Avery Fisher Artist Program, established by the late Avery Fisher as part of a major gift to Lincoln Center in 1974, serves as a monument to the founder’s philanthropy and love of music, with the $25,000 Career Grants in particular exemplifying his devotion to helping young artists. Since the first Career Grants were given in 1976, 109 have been awarded (including this year’s grants), and all recipients are currently working musicians. NEC-trained musicians or faculty have received an impressive number of the awards including Christopher O’Riley ‘81 A.D., Alisa Weilerstein (of NEC’s Weilerstein Trio), Andres Diaz ’85 A.D., Stefan Jackiw ’06 A.D., Max Levinson ‘95 A.D., Alison Eldredge, and Richard Stoltzman.
Biographies
Formed in 2001 at the Cleveland Institute of Music, the Jupiter String Quartet (Nelson Lee, violinist; Meg Freivogel, violinist; Liz Freivogel, violist; and Daniel McDonough, cellist) completed their undergraduate work at NEC before being selected as the third ensemble in the Conservatory’s elite Professional String Quartet Training Program, directed by cellist Paul Katz. The players graduated from that program in May 2006 following two years of intensive coaching by Katz, Martha Strongin Katz, Laurence Lesser, Donald Weilerstein, the resident Borromeo Quartet, and the Conservatory’s other top chamber music faculty.
In January 2007, the Jupiter received the Cleveland Quartet Award from Chamber Music America. In 2004, the ensemble took top honors in two major competitions: First Prize at the 8th Banff International String Quartet Competition and Grand Prize at the Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition. The Quartet went on to win First Prize in the 2005 Young Concert Artists International Auditions. Currently, the Jupiter is currently participating in a three-year residency with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center’s CMS Two program.
Violinist Karen Gomyo, received the Artist Diploma, NEC’s most prestigious degree, in May 2007. Even while still a student, she was under professional management and concertized extensively throughout the United States and abroad. She studied with Donald Weilerstein while at NEC.
Gomyo won the Young Concert Artists International Auditions in 1997, just one week after her fifteenth birthday. The following year she became the youngest artist ever to be presented in the Young Concert Artists Series in New York, in a critically acclaimed debut as recipient of the Summis Auspiciis Prize.
Born in Tokyo in 1982, Ms. Gomyo moved to Montreal in 1984. She began to play in public soon after her first violin lessons at the age of five. In addition to her work at NEC, she studied at The Juilliard School and the University of Indiana/Bloomington.
Gomyo has appeared with the Philadelphia Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic at Hollywood Bowl, San Francisco Symphony, St. Louis Symphony, the Houston Symphony, the Toronto Symphony, the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, and the New Jersey Symphony as well as the orchestras of Utah, Winnipeg, Edmonton, Phoenix and more. Her first professional recording,Swedish composer Bo Linde’s Violin Concerto, can be found on the Naxos Label. She plays the rare Ex Foulis Stradivarius of 1714 that is on permanent loan to her from a private sponsor.
ABOUT NEW ENGLAND CONSERVATORY
Recognized nationally and internationally as a leader among music schools, New England Conservatory offers rigorous training in an intimate, nurturing community to 750 undergraduate, graduate, and doctoral music students from around the world. Its faculty of 225 boasts internationally esteemed artist-teachers and scholars. Its alumni go on to fill orchestra chairs, concert hall stages, jazz clubs, recording studios, and arts management positions worldwide. Nearly half of the Boston Symphony Orchestra is composed of NEC trained musicians and faculty.
The oldest independent school of music in the United States, NEC was founded in 1867 by Eben Tourjee. Its curriculum is remarkable for its wide range of styles and traditions. On the college level, it features training in classical, jazz, Contemporary Improvisation, world and early music. Through its Preparatory School, School of Continuing Education, and Community Collaboration Programs, it provides training and performance opportunities for children, pre-college students, adults, and seniors. Through its outreach projects, it allows young musicians to engage with non-traditional audiences in schools, hospitals, and nursing homes—thereby bringing pleasure to new listeners and enlarging the universe for classical music and jazz.
NEC presents more than 600 free concerts each year, many of them in Jordan Hall, its world- renowned, 100-year old, beautifully restored concert hall. These programs range from solo recitals to chamber music to orchestral programs to jazz and opera scenes. Every year, NEC’s opera studies department also presents two fully staged opera productions at the Cutler Majestic Theatre in Boston.
NEC is co-founder and educational partner of “From the Top,” a weekly radio program that celebrates outstanding young classical musicians from the entire country. With its broadcast home in Jordan Hall, the show is now carried by National Public Radio and is heard on 250 stations throughout the United States.
Contact: Ellen Pfeifer
Public Relations Manager
New England Conservatory
617-585-1143
epfeifer@newenglandconservatory.edu