Concert Program
BACEWICZ | Overture
IBERT | Flute Concerto
SCHUBERT | Symphony No. 8, “Unfinished”
HINDEMITH | Symphonic Metamorphosis
Lidiya Yankovskaya, conductor
Brandon Patrick George, flute
Ticket Information
Prices: Gold $65 / Red $40 / Green $20
Student tickets $10
Youth 17 and under free with an accompanying adult
Biographies
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Lidiya Yankovskaya is a fiercely committed advocate for Slavic masterpieces, operatic rarities, and contemporary works on the leading edge of classical music. She has conducted more than 40 world premieres, including 17 operas, and her strength as a visionary collaborator has guided new perspectives on staged and symphonic repertoire from Carmen and Queen of Spades to Price and Prokofiev. As Music Director of Chicago Opera Theater, her daring performances before and amid the pandemic earned recognition from the Chicago Tribune, which praised her as “the very model of how to survive adversity, and also how to thrive in it,” while naming her Chicagoan of the Year.
Following her debut at Santa Fe Opera in a new production of Dvořák’s Rusalka in summer 2023, Ms. Yankovskaya will conduct orchestras across the United States. She debuts at Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra, Utah Symphony, North Carolina Symphony, Phoenix Symphony, Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra, and Symphony San Jose. Ms. Yankovskaya deepens her ongoing relationship with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, leading MusicNOW world premieres by Jessie Montgomery and Curtis Stewart, and designing a series of educational concerts. At Chicago Opera Theater, she leads a new Francesca Zambello production of The Nose and David T. Little’s Soldier Songs in the company’s 50th anniversary season.
Ms. Yankovskaya has recently conducted Eugene Onegin at Staatsoper Hamburg, Symphony of Sorrowful Songs at English National Opera, Carmen at Houston Grand Opera, and Don Giovanni at Seattle Opera. Elsewhere she has led Der Freischütz at Wolf Trap Opera, Edward Tulane at Minnesota Opera, and Taking Up Serpents at Washington National Opera and the Glimmerglass Festival. On the concert stage, recent engagements include Los Angeles Philharmonic, New York Philharmonic, National Symphony Orchestra, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Dallas Symphony Orchestra, Houston Symphony, and Julia Wolfe’s Anthracite Fields with Bang on a Can All-Stars and The Choir of Trinity Wall Street at Carnegie Hall.
In the six years since her appointment as Elizabeth Morse and Genius Music Director of COT, Ms. Yankovskaya has spearheaded the commissioning of 11 new operas, advancing the work of seven female composers and seven creators of color. She has led the Chicago premieres of Heggie’s Moby-Dick, Talbot’s Everest, Tchaikovsky’s Iolanta, Rachmaninoff’s Aleko, and Szymanowski’s King Roger. Under her leadership, COT has also established the Vanguard Initiative, an immersive two-year residency for emerging opera composers that culminates with the development of a full-length opera, enriching the repertory with new voices and experiences that resonate with today’s audiences.
This adroit combination of musical skill and cultural advocacy is a hallmark of Ms. Yankovskaya’s career. She was born in St. Petersburg, Russia, and immigrated to the United States as a refugee when she was nine years old. Her experiences inspired her to found the Refugee Orchestra Project, which proclaims the societal relevance of refugees through music. ROP has brought that message to hundreds of thousands of listeners around the world, with performances in London, Boston, Washington, D.C., and the United Nations. This important work has been featured on CNN, The Today Show, NowThis, Newsweek, and BBC World Newsday, bringing classical music and artists’ compelling stories to audiences well beyond the concert hall and opera house.
Ms. Yankovskaya has served as Artistic Director of the Boston New Music Festival and Juventas New Music Ensemble, which was the recipient of multiple NEA grants and National Opera Association Awards under her leadership. As Music Director of Harvard’s Lowell House Opera, she conducted sold-out performances of repertoire rarely heard in Boston, including Tchaikovsky’s The Queen of Spades, Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and the U.S. Russian-language premiere of Rimsky-Korsakov’s The Snow Maiden. Her commitment to exploring the breadth of symphonic and operatic repertoire has also been demonstrated with the American premieres of Donizetti’s Pia de’ Tolomei, Rubinshteyn’s The Demon, and Rimsky-Korsakov’s Kashchej The Immortal and Symphony No. 1.
An alumna of the Dallas Opera’s Hart Institute for Women Conductors and the Taki Alsop Conducting Fellowship, Ms. Yankovskaya has also served as assistant conductor to Lorin Maazel, chorus master of Boston Symphony Orchestra, and conductor of Boston Youth Symphony Orchestra. She has been featured in the League of American Orchestras Bruno Walter National Conductor Preview and Cabrillo Festival for Contemporary Music, and assisted Vladimir Jurowski via a London Philharmonic fellowship.
Ms. Yankovskaya holds a B.A. in Music and Philosophy from Vassar College, with a focus on piano, voice, and conducting, and earned an M.M. in Conducting from Boston University. Her conducting teachers and mentors have included Lorin Maazel, Marin Alsop, Kenneth Kiesler, and Ann Howard Jones. Committed to developing the next generation of artistic leaders, she also volunteers with Turn The Spotlight, a foundation dedicated to identifying, nurturing, and empowering leaders – and in turn, illuminating the path to a more equitable future in the arts.
Ms. Yankovskaya is the proud two-time recipient of Solti Foundation U.S. Career Assistance Awards. She has been a featured speaker at the League of American Orchestras and Opera America conferences and served as U.S. Representative to the World Opera Forum in Madrid. She was delighted to deliver the commencement address for graduates of the Bienen School of Music at Northwestern University. -
Brandon Patrick George is a leading flute soloist and GRAMMY-nominated chamber musician whose repertoire extends from the Baroque era to today. He is the flutist of Imani Winds and has appeared as a soloist with the Atlanta, Baltimore, and Albany symphonies, American Composers Orchestra, and the Orchestra of St. Luke’s, among others. He has been praised as “elegant” by The New York Times, as a “virtuoso” by The Washington Post, and as a “knockout musician with a gorgeous sound” by The Philadelphia Inquirer.
Brandon has performed at the Elbphilharmonie, the Kennedy Center, the Dresden Music Festival, and the Prague Spring Festival. In addition to his work with Imani Winds, Brandon’s solo performances include appearances at Lincoln Center, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, 92nd Street Y, Tippet Rise, and Maverick Concerts. In 2021, Brandon was part of the inaugural class of WQXR’s Artist Propulsion Lab, a program designed to advance the careers of early and mid-career artists and support the future of classical music. During his yearlong residency at WQXR, Brandon guest hosted Evening Music, interviewed Ford Foundation president Darren Walker about diversity and equity in the performing arts, and recorded with pianist Aaron Diehl and harpist June Han.
Prior to his solo career, Brandon performed as a guest with many of the world’s leading ensembles including the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, and the International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE). With the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Brandon performed at Walt Disney Concert Hall and at the Hollywood Bowl with music Director Gustavo Dudamel. His ensemble work allowed him to work closely with some of the foremost composers of our time including John Adams, Louis Andriessen, Tania León, Steve Reich, and George Lewis.
In September 2023, Brandon's latest album, Twofold, will be released on In a Circle Records. Twofold, Brandon's second solo album, explores musical dialogues that transcend space, time, and identity by pairing canonical works for solo flute with new compositions. The recording features music by C.P.E. Bach, Claude Debussy, Reena Esmail, Saad Haddad, Shawn E. Okpebholo, Ruth Crawford Seeger, and Toru Takemitsu. Twofold follows the success of Brandon Patrick George’s debut solo album, which includes music by Kalevi Aho, J.S. Bach, Pierre Boulez, and Sergei Prokofiev, and was released in 2020 on Haenssler Classics. George was featured in The New York Times around the album’s release, in an article titled “A Flutist Steps into the Spotlight,” which described the album as “a program that showcases the flute in all its wit, warmth and brilliance."
Since late May 2020, Brandon Patrick George has received frequent invitations to serve on panels about diversity in classical music, being repeatedly asked what institutions can do to support and reflect the communities they serve. The many conversations, and desire to use his platform for change, inspired him to create his latest commissioning initiative, BPG: The Community Concerto Project. Brandon proposes a new concerto which features students that he will mentor during his collaboration in the community. Having a new commission which tells the story of that community, while also representing the community on stage, encompasses Brandon’s vision of helping orchestras deepen their connections with their audiences, inspire young musicians of color, and expand the repertoire with programming that reflects the community in which they serve. In June 2024, the Albany Symphony will present BPG: The Community Concerto Project in a new concerto performed by Brandon and the Albany High School Choir composed by Michael Gilbertson. Additional recent and upcoming performance highlights include concerts presented by the Dayton Philharmonic, Chamber Music Pittsburgh, Hancher Auditorium, Bard Music Festival, and Shriver Hall.
Raised by a single mother in Dayton, OH, Brandon is the proud product of public arts education. He draws on his personal experiences in his commitment to educating the next generation, performing countless outreach concerts for schoolchildren every year, and mentoring young conservatory musicians of color embarking on performance careers. Brandon trained at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music, the Conservatoire de Paris, and the Manhattan School of Music. He serves on the faculty of the Curtis Institute and the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity.