Great Barrington — On October 15, Clarion Concerts is bringing a stellar lineup of Young Concert Artists (YCA) on Tour to Saint James Place for a program of classics, along with works from new compositional voices. The performers are tenor Daniel McGrew, violinist Lun Li, cellist Jonathan Swensen, and pianist Albert Cano Smit.
Young Concert Artists is the organization that in recent years connected Clarion Concert audiences with people like saxophonist Steven Banks and violinist Randall Goosby, both of whom made a lot of new friends when Clarion presented them in recital at Saint James Place in 2021.
When musicians join the YCA Artist Fellowship Program, they receive three years of coaching in all aspects of modern concertizing. The program aims to turn out highly polished cultural ambassadors, and it keeps hitting the mark. Alumni include Emanuel Ax, Pinchas Zukerman, Dawn Upshaw, Jeremy Denk, Jean-Yves Thibaudet, and a lot more.
Composers of vocal music dream of finding voices as supple and resonant as Daniel McGrew’s. But for all the likelihood of their finding one, they may as well dream of sugarplums. It is not often that you hear a tenor’s singing described as “viciously beautiful,” but that is what the Boston Globe wrote about the timbre of McGrew’s voice. You can’t blame their reviewer for feeling “jolted” by it, because McGrew’s sound, writes the San Francisco Classical Voice, is “supremely honest, a pure, straightforward use of an instrument that aspires to emulate no other singer.” You will need no special expertise to agree, because the seeming effortlessness of McGrew’s singing borders on the miraculous (and the simple proof is right here). Specializing in early music, McGrew has taught studio voice, lyric dictions, and music history at the University of Michigan, Oberlin Conservatory, Bowling Green State University, and Adrian College.
Violinist Lun Li wants to provoke thought and push boundaries with his music. That desire must have helped him win the 2021 Young Concert Artists Susan Wadsworth International Auditions, the Paul A. Fish Memorial Prize, the Buffalo Chamber Music Society Prize, and the John French Violin Chair at YCA. He was recently named a residency artist at the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center for its 2024–2027 seasons. Lun earned degrees from the Curtis Institute of Music in 2020 and The Juilliard School in 2022. But his playing tells the real story. Check out his amazing performance of Ernst’s “Grand Caprice” on Schubert’s “Der Erlkönig” here.
Jonathan Swensen is the recipient of the 2022 Avery Fisher Career Grant, having made his concerto debut performing the Elgar concerto with Portugal’s Orquestra Sinfónica do Porto Casa da Música. Swensen’s debut recording of solo cello works, “Fantasia,” on Champs Hill Records, earned high praise from Gramophone, BBC Music, and The Strad, and you will instantly understand why when you preview it here. A graduate of the Royal Danish Academy of Music, Jonathan studied with Torleif Thedéen at the Norwegian Academy of Music in Oslo and with Laurence Lesser at the New England Conservatory, where he received his Artist Diploma in 2023. Mr. Swensen will join the Bowers Program of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center in 2024.
Pianist Albert Cano Smit took First Prize in the 2019 Young Concert Artists International Auditions. He also won First Prize at the 2017 Walter W. Naumburg Piano Competition, which presented him in recital at Carnegie Hall’s Weill Recital Hall. Most recently, Mr. Smit was awarded the 2020 Arthur Rubinstein Piano Prize from The Juilliard School. What does all this mean? There is only one way to find out: Listen to his playing. If you do that here (scroll down to “Videos”), it could very well remind you of Leon Fleisher’s most nuanced playing of repertoire from the same period.
Here is the program for October 15:
- Beethoven — An die fern Geliebte, Op. 98
- Joseph Marx — Selections from
- Vier Lieder (nach Texten von Anton Wildgans)
- Salina Fisher (b. 1993) — Kintsugi
- Robert Schumann — Piano Trio in D minor, No. 1, Op. 63
Hear YCA musicians pianist Albert Cano Smit, tenor Daniel McGrew, violinist Lun Li, and cellist Jonathan Swensen at Saint James Place, October 15, at 3 p.m. Tickets are available here.
