ORPHEUS FOR ALL Free Concert | Orpheus Chamber Orchestra & violinist James Ehnes

Alongside his concerto work, Ehnes maintains a busy recital schedule. He performs regularly at the Wigmore Hall (including the complete cycle of Beethoven Sonatas in 2019/20, and the complete violin/viola works of Brahms and Schumann in 2021/22), Carnegie Hall, Symphony Center Chicago, Amsterdam Concertgebouw, Ravinia, Montreux, Verbier Festival, Dresden Music Festival and Festival de Pâques in Aix. A devoted chamber musician, he is the leader of the Ehnes Quartet and the Artistic Director of the Seattle Chamber Music Society.

Ehnes has an extensive discography and has won many awards for his recordings, including two Grammy’s, three Gramophone Awards and twelve Juno Awards. In2021, Ehnes was announced as the recipient of the coveted Artist of the Year title in the 2021 Gramophone Awards which celebrated his recent contributions to the recording industry, including the launch of a new online recital series entitled ‘Recitals from Home’ which was released in June 2020 in response to the COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent closure of concert halls. Ehnes recorded the six Bach Sonatas and Partitas and six Sonatas of Ysaÿe from his home with state-of-the-art recording equipment and released six episodes over the period of two months. These recordings have been met with great critical acclaim by audiences worldwide and Ehnes wasdescribed by Le Devoir as being "at the absolute forefront of the streaming evolution".

Ehnes began violin studies at the age of five, became a protégé of the noted Canadian violinist Francis Chaplin aged nine, and made his orchestra debut with L’Orchestre symphonique de Montréal aged 13. He continued his studies with Sally Thomas at the Meadowmount School of Music and The Juilliard School, winning the Peter Mennin Prize for Outstanding Achievement and Leadership in Music upon his graduation in 1997. He is a Member of the Order of Canada and the Order of Manitoba, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, and an honorary fellow of the Royal Academy of Music, where he is a Visiting Professor. As of summer 2024, he is appointed as Professor of Violin at the Indiana University’s Jacobs School of Music.

Ehnes plays the “Marsick” Stradivarius of 1715.

Since the start of her composition career in 2014, at age 40, Meyer’s compositions have viscerally explored the wide palette of colors available to each instrument while combining techniques inspired by her experiences as a contemporary and period instrumentalist. Her works have been performed in venues from the Kennedy Center to Carnegie Hall, by musicians of the Minnesota Orchestra and the New York Philharmonic, and by orchestras around the country. Her first Symphonic Band piece was commissioned and toured by “The President’s Own” United States Marine Band and was a finalist for the William D. Revelli Composition Contest. She has also received multiple commissioning awards from both Chamber Music America and the New York State Council on the Arts.

Premieres have included performances by acclaimed vocal ensembles Roomful of Teeth and Vox Clamantis, the St. Lawrence String Quartet as the composer in residence at Spoleto Festival USA, the American Brass Quintet, PUBLIQuartet, Sybarite 5, NOVUS NY of Trinity Wall Street, a work for A Far Cry commissioned by the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston, the Juilliard School for a project with the Historical Performance Program, and by the Lorelei Ensemble for a song cycle that received the Dale Warland Singers Commission Award from Chorus America. Recent premieres included works for the Dorian Wind Quintet, Hausmann Quartet, Hub New Music, the Portland Youth Philharmonic in collaboration with the female vocal ensemble In Mulieribus, and her viola concerto GAEA that she premiered alongside the Orchestra of the League of Composers at Miller Theatre in NYC.

Upcoming premieres include a work for MET Opera tenor Paul Appleby and the Claremont Trio, a viola and piano work commissioned by Juilliard Pre-college, and a new orchestral piece “Turbulent Flames” to be performed by a consortium of orchestras across the United States.