DATE: November 6 2005, 3 PM

SITE: The Progress Energy (formerly BTI) Center for the Performing Arts   Map 

PROGRAM

ABOUT THE ARTISTS

The nation's first chamber music ensemble series comprised solely of accomplished musicians spanning the African diaspora brings a fresh, new energy to the classical music genre. As the Vision of founder and artistic director Terrance Patterson, the Ritz Chamber Players include some of the most notable and accomplished musicians of our time.

To hear the Ritz Chamber Players perform is to hear history come to life. From Bach, Beethoven, Mendelssohn and Tchaikovsky to today's leading black composers Singleton, Walker, Perkinson and Bonds, the Players are creating a revolution in the classical music scene. With their international charm and masterful interpretation, the Ritz Chamber Players will make classical music lovers of us all.

When it comes to classical music, violist Amadi Hummings has just about done it all. A world-class musician, Hummings performed at the U.S. Supreme Court and has toured around the world, including in Israel, Canada, South America, Central America, India, Japan and throughout the Caribbean. He has been a guest of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center in New York and of the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. His performances have been broadcast on National Public Radio's Performance Today, St. Paul Sunday and on WNYC in New York, to name a few. Hummings is also Director of Program Development for the Gateways Music Festival.

Tai Murray, winner of the 2004 Avery Fisher Career Grant. Upcoming 2004-05 engagements include solo appearances with the symphonies of St. Louis, Annapolis, and Jacksonville. She will tour with Musicians from Marlboro and in September will begin a two year residency with the Chamber Music Society II program of Lincoln Center. Since making her debut with the Chicago Symphony at age eight, violinist Tai Murray has performed extensively as a soloist with orchestras across the United States and Europe. Born in 1982, she has performed at the Los Angeles Hollywood Bowl, Salt Lake City's Abravanel Hall and Chicago's Mandel Hall. Concerto performances include appearances with the Baltimore, Kansas City, Los Angeles, Utah and Washington D.C. Symphonies. Murray was the only solo artist invited by the Chicago Symphony to perform a recital in the Rotunda of Chicago's Symphony Center during its Inaugural Festival. She holds an Artist Diploma in music performance from Indiana University and is currently studying with a full scholarship at the Juilliard School under Joel Smirnoff.

A Jacksonville, Florida, native, Terrance Patterson has performed in Paris, London, Milan, Brussels, Belgrade, Munich, Amsterdam, Moscow, Washington D.C., Baltimore, Miami, Philadelphia, Los Angeles and New York. He has performed with the Symphony Orchestras of Jacksonville, Nashville, Florida West Coast, Hollywood Festival and the Sphinx Symphony of Detroit. He attended the Peabody Conservatory of the Johns Hopkins University where he studied with world-renowned clarinetist Lorin Kitt, principal clarinetist of the National Symphony Orchestra.

Cellist Troy Kenneth Stuart is a graduate of the Baltimore School for the Arts, Oberlin Conservatory of Music and the Peabody Conservatory of the Johns Hopkins University. Mr. Stuart has performed solo and chamber music concerts with such noted artists as Sir Isaac Stern, Jamie Laredo, Pamela Frank and Paul Badura-Skoda. He is a founding member of the Gateways Chamber Players and serves as principal cellist for the Gateways Music Festival. In addition, he is co-founder and artistic director for the Phoenix Chamber Orchestra. Stuart was invited to participate in the internationally televised (CBS) "Kennedy Center Honors" honoring the great Alexander Schneider. An award winning cellist, actor/musician Dudley Moore presented Stuart with the Martell Cordon Bleu Award.

In the short time since his professional debut with the Philadelphia Orchestra, American pianist Terrence Wilson has established a reputation as one of today's most gifted young instrumentalists. He has already appeared with many other prestigious ensembles, including the Atlanta Symphony led by Yoel Levi, the Cleveland Orchestra at the Blossom Festival, the Cincinnati Symphony under Jesus Lopez-Cobos, the Dallas Symphony under Andrew Litton, the Detroit Symphony under Neeme Jarvi, the St. Louis and Colorado symphonies under Marin Alsop, the Houston Symphony under Christoph Eschenbach, the Baltimore Symphony, the Indianapolis Symphony, the Minnesota Orchestra and the San Francisco Symphony. He also made highly acclaimed recital debuts during the 1995-96 season in New York, at the 92nd Street Y, and in Washington at the Kennedy Center.

Highlights of Mr. Wilson's season included appearances with the Baltimore Symphony, the Cincinnati Symphony, the Rochester Philharmonic, the Colorado Symphony, the Charlotte Symphony, the Syracuse Symphony and the Winnipeg Symphony. In past seasons he has appeared with the Cleveland Orchestra, the Dallas Symphony and the National Symphony, as well as with the Fresno Philharmonic and the symphony orchestras of Nashville, Spokane and Springfield, (IL).

In connection with many of his engagements, Mr. Wilson appears before student audiences as part of music education and outreach programs. In 1998, he gave several concerts in New York City public schools with the American Composers Orchestra as part of Carnegie Hall's LinkUp program.

His auspicious debut in Philadelphia, performing the Liszt Piano Concerto No. 1, came in January 1992. Previously, he had appeared with the Philadelphia Orchestra as winner of the orchestra's student competition, playing a movement of the Khachaturian Piano Concerto in one of the orchestra's youth concerts.

Mr. Wilson's many recital appearances have taken him to some of the leading series across the country, including those of Ravinia in Chicago, the La Jolla Chamber Music Society in San Diego, the Herbst Theatre in San Francisco, the University of Massachusetts, and Caramoor in Katonah, New York. During the summer of 1995, he gave a pre-concert recital at the Mostly Mozart Festival in Avery Fisher Hall. He has also been a featured performer on several television and radio broadcasts, including programs on Bravo, the Arts & Entertainment Network, public television and WQXR radio in New York.

Terrence Wilson was born on November 6, 1975, in the Bronx. His interest in classical music was sparked at age 8 when he discovered, by chance, a New York classical radio station. Subsequently, whenever Mr. Wilson had a piano available to him, he seized the opportunity to perform, astonishing his teachers and family with the ease with which he could play pieces he heard on the radio or on recordings.

At age 9, Mr. Wilson began lessons at a neighborhood community school, where he acquired his first formal piano teacher. At 11, he won a Brooklyn Arts and Culture Appreciation Competition. In 1989, he began to study with his present teacher, Ms. Yoheved Kaplinsky. That same year, he entered the Preparatory Division of the Manhattan School of Music and the Professional Children's School. He is currently a scholarship student at the Juilliard School, where he received the prestigious Sony ES Award for Musical Excellence.

Mr. Wilson has been a regular participant in major music festivals and summer programs, including the Institut International D'Etudes Musicales, in Aix-en-Provence; the Interlochen Center for the Arts, the Adamant Music School in Vermont, Boston University's Tanglewood Institute, the Bowdoin Festival and the Verbier Festival in Switzerland.

Artist Website: www.ritzchamberplayers.org