Orpheus & Angela Hewitt

Orpheus Chamber Orchestra and Angela Hewitt embark on three-city tour

For immediate release

Orpheus Chamber Orchestra’s 50th season continues with the inimitable Bach keyboard expert, Angela Hewitt

• Bach keyboard authority Angela Hewitt and Orpheus come together for three engagements, at the Morris Museum in Morristown, NJ (November 16), New York’s 92nd Street Y (November 17) and the Shalin Liu Performance Center in Rockport, MA (November 19)

• The pianist’s Bach interpretations have been praised by The New York Times as “an instant link from head and heart to fingertips.” With a program of keyboard concertos over three dates, Hewitt and Orpheus bring uncanny nuance, depth, and precision to these performances

• Orpheus Chamber Orchestra is nothing short of a cultural icon in New York City’s vibrant classical music scene. Famously conductor-less since its inception, Orpheus is built upon a democratic model of operations in which all musicians are equal, all decisions are shared, and all artistic leadership is appointed from within. This season marks a major milestone in the Orchestra’s history, as it reaches its 50th anniversary in 2022/23

• For Orpheus, whose credo was and continues to be based on a uniquely-egalitarian operations model, this achievement is one that is especially meaningful to the musicians, staff, and board, as its original mission in the 1970s to become a truly democratic space for music-making has only strengthened over the decades.

Orpheus & Angela Hewitt

Morris Museum (Morristown, NJ) - November 16, 2022 at 8PM
92nd Street Y (New York City) - November 17, 2022 at 7:30PM
Shalin Liu Performance Center (Rockport, MA) - November 19, 2022 at 3PM

Bach: Keyboard Concerto No. 4 in A major, BWV 1055
Bach: Keyboard Concerto, No. 2 in E Major, BWV 1053
Bach: Keyboard Concerto No. 5 in F minor, BWV 1056
Bach: Concerto for Flute, Violin, Keyboard in A minor (“Triple”), BWV 1044 
     Anthony Trionfo, flute
     Abi Fayette, violin
Bach: Keyboard Concerto No. 7 in G minor, BWV 1058

ABOUT ORPHEUS:
Orpheus Chamber Orchestra is a radical experiment in musical democracy, proving for fifty years what happens when exceptional artists gather with total trust in each other and faith in the creative process. Orpheus began in 1972 when cellist Julian Fifer assembled a group of New York freelancers in their early twenties to play orchestral repertoire as if it were chamber music. In that age of co-ops and communes, the idealistic Orpheans snubbed the “corporate” path of symphony orchestras and learned how to play, plan and promote concerts as a true collective, with leadership roles rotating from the very first performance.

It’s one thing for the four players of a string quartet to lean into the group sound and react spontaneously, but with 20 or 30 musicians together, the complexities and payoffs get magnified exponentially. Within its first decade, Orpheus made Carnegie Hall its home and became a global sensation through its tours Europe and Asia. Its catalogue of recordings for Deutsche Grammophon, Nonesuch and other labels grew to include more than 70 albums that still stand as benchmarks of the chamber orchestra repertoire, including Haydn symphonies, Mozart concertos, and twentieth-century gems by Stravinsky, Schoenberg, Ravel, and Bartók.

The sound of Orpheus is defined by its relationships, and guest artists have always been crucial partners in the process. Orpheus brings the best out of its collaborators, and those bonds deepen over time, as heard in the long arc of music-making with soloists such as Richard Goode and Branford Marsalis, and in the commitment to welcoming next-generation artists including Nobyuki Tsujii and Tine Thing Helseth. Breaking down the barriers of classical repertoire, partnerships with Brad Mehldau, Wayne Shorter, Ravi Shankar and many others from the sphere of jazz and beyond have redefined what a chamber orchestra can do. Relationships with composers and dozens of commissions have been another crucial way that Orpheus stretches itself, including a role for Jessie Montgomery as the orchestra’s first ever Artistic Partner. Having proven the power of direct communication and open-mindedness within the ensemble, the only relationship Orpheus has never had any use for is one with a conductor.

At home in New York and in the many concert halls it visits in the U.S. and beyond, Orpheus begins its next fifty years with a renewed commitment to enriching and reflecting the surrounding community. It will continue its groundbreaking work with those living with Alzheimer’s Disease through Orpheus Reflections, and the Orpheus Academy as well as the Orpheus Leadership Institute spread the positive lessons of trust and democracy to young musicians and those in positions of power. Each year, Access Orpheus reaches nearly 2000 public school students in all five boroughs of New York City, bringing music into their communities and welcoming them to Carnegie Hall. Always evolving as artists and leaders, the Orpheus musicians carry their legacy forward, counting on their shared artistry and mutual respect to make music and effect change.

ABOUT ANGELA HEWITT:
Angela Hewitt occupies a unique position among today’s leading pianists. With a wide-ranging repertoire and frequent appearances in recital and with major orchestras throughout Europe, the Americas and Asia, she is also an award-winning recording artist whose performances of Bach have established her as one of the composer’s foremost interpreters. In 2020 she received the City of Leipzig Bach Medal: a huge honour that for the first time in its 17-year history was awarded to a woman.

In September 2016, Hewitt began her Bach Odyssey, performing the complete keyboard works of Bach in a series of 12 recitals. The cycle was presented in London’s Wigmore Hall, New York’s 92nd Street Y, and in Ottawa, Tokyo and Florence, concluding in 2022. After her performances of the complete Well-Tempered Clavier at the 2019 Edinburgh Festival, the critic of the London Times wrote, “…the freshness of Hewitt’s playing made it sound as though no one had played this music before.”

Hewitt’s award-winning cycle for Hyperion Records of all the major keyboard works of Bach has been described as ​“one of the record glories of our age” (The Sunday Times). Her discography also includes albums of Couperin, Rameau, Scarlatti, Mozart, Chopin, Schumann, Liszt, Fauré, Debussy, Chabrier, Ravel, Messiaen and Granados. The final CD in her complete cycle of Beethoven Sonatas (Op.106 and Op.111) was released in February 2022, and the first of three Mozart albums, dedicated to the composer’s complete sonatas, is released in November 2022. A regular in the USA Billboard chart, her album Love Songs hit the top of the specialist classical chart in the UK and stayed there for months after its release. In 2015 she was inducted into Gramophone Magazine’s Hall of Fame thanks to her popularity with music lovers around the world.

ABOUT ANTHONY TRIONFO:
Praised as a “breezily virtuosic flutist” by The New York Times and a First Prize Winner of the 2016 Young Concert Artists Susan Wadsworth International Auditions, Anthony “Toney” Trionfo loves sharing music in all forms.

A frequent concerto soloist, he has worked with ensembles including the Grant Park Festival Orchestra and Orchestra of St. Luke’s. In recital, recent highlights include engagements with the Kennedy Center and the Morgan Library & Museum. Anthony is second flutist with ProMusica Chamber Orchestra in Columbus, OH, and appears with the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, Kaleidoscope Chamber Orchestra, and Jupiter Chamber Players.

Anthony is a founder of the Umoja Flute Institute, a non-profit dedicated to providing flutists of African descent with the tools needed to succeed and thrive at all levels of music-making. He serves on the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Committee for Aspen Music Festival and has collaborated with organizations including the DC Youth Orchestra Program and Harmony Program.

Anthony graduated from the Colburn School Conservatory of Music and Interlochen Arts Academy. You can learn more about Anthony by visiting him at his website, trionfoflute.com, or on Instagram @toneyflute.

ABOUT ABI FAYETTE:
​​Violinist Abi Fayette is the youngest of four children in a musical family and began her violin studies at age three with her mother. She holds degrees from The Curtis Institute of Music and New England Conservatory where she studied with Ida Kavafian and Soovin Kim respectively. Other principal teachers include Ann Setzer, Kyung-Wha Chung, and Joseph Silverstein. Fayette’s passionate love for chamber music has led to performances with Jonathan Biss, Brett Dean, Kim Kashkashian, Ida Kavafian, Joseph Silverstein, Jörg Widmann, and Peter Wiley. Her performances as a soloist, chamber and orchestral musician have taken her all over the world with appearances spanning across the United States, Europe, and Asia. Currently she is a violinist in the Catalyst Quartet and a member of Orpheus Chamber Orchestra. Abi performs on a violin made in 1860 by Jean-Baptiste Vuillaume generously on loan from Marlboro Music.

Hannah Goldshlack-Wolf
hannah@wildkatpr.com
+1 917 330 2046