14th Miyazaki International Music Festival

Recently appointed Chief Conductor and Music Advisor of the Philadelphia Orchestra as well as Artistic Director and Principal Conductor of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Charles Dutoit regularly collaborates with the world's pre-eminent orchestras and soloists.

Renowned for polished and idiomatic interpretations of an eclectic array of musical styles and since his debut with the Philadelphia Orchestra in 1980, Charles Dutoit has been invited each season to conduct the other major orchestras of the United States. He has also performed regularly with the Philharmonia Orchestra and many other great orchestras of Europe, including the Berlin Philharmonic and Amsterdam's Concertgebouw Orchestra, as well as the major orchestras of Japan, South America and Australia.

For 25 years (1977 to 2002) Charles Dutoit was Artistic Director of the Montreal Symphony Orchestra, a dynamic musical partnership recognised the world over. He has also been closely associated with the Philadelphia Orchestra since 1990 as Artistic Director and Principal Conductor of the Orchestra's summer festival at the Saratoga Performing Arts Center in upstate New York and he led the Orchestra in a series of distinctive recordings. From 1991 to 2001, he was Music Director of the Orchestre National de France with which he made a number of critically lauded recordings, and toured extensively. In 1998, he was appointed Music Director of the NHK Symphony Orchestra (Tokyo) with which he has toured Europe, the United States, China and Southeast Asia and is today Music Director Emeritus of the Orchestra.

Artistic Director for three seasons of the Sapporo Pacific Music Festival, Charles Dutoit is presently Artistic Director of the Miyazaki International Music Festival in Japan as well as Artistic Director of the Canton International Summer Music Academy (CISMA) in Guangzhou (Canton), China which he founded in 2005. As of July 2009, he will take over as Music Director of the Verbier Festival Orchestra in his native Switzerland.

When still in his early 20s, Charles Dutoit was invited by Herbert Von Karajan to lead the Vienna State Opera. He has since conducted regularly at London's Royal Opera House, the Metropolitan Opera, New York and the Deutsche Oper, Berlin. He also led a highly acclaimed new production of Berlioz's masterpiece Les Troyens at the Los Angeles Music Center Opera. In 2003, he began a series of Wagner operas at the Teatro Colon, Buenos Aires.

Charles Dutoit has recorded extensively for Decca, Deutsche Grammophon, EMI, Philips, CBS and Erato, among others. His more than 170 recordings, half with the Montreal Symphony Orchestra, have garnered over 40 awards and distinctions around the world.

Charles Dutoit was born in Lausanne, Switzerland and his extensive musical training included history of music, composition, violin, viola, piano and percussion at the conservatoires of Geneva, Siena, Venice and Boston. A globetrotter motivated by his passion for history and archaeology, political science, art and architecture, Charles Dutoit has traveled in all 196 nations of the world. He maintains residences in Switzerland, Paris, Montreal and Buenos Aires.

Born into a family of musicians, Tsugio Tokunaga began studying the violin with his father, Shigeru Tokunaga, at the age of five.In 1966, he became the youngest-ever concertmaster in Japan when he joined the Tokyo Symphony Orchestra. Two years later, Tokunaga received a government scholarship to study overseas and left Japan to learn with Michel Schwalbe in Berlin.

In 1976, he was appointed concertmaster of the NHK Symphony Orchestra. He subsequently took on the position of principle concertmaster and later the important role of solo concertmaster of the orchestra. During his appearance as the concertmaster in the orchestra, his outstanding celebrity and huge popularity had lasted for many years, which was exceptional among all the past concertmasters of NHK Symphony Orchestra.

Since leaving the orchestra in 1994, Tokunaga has established a solid reputation in chamber music circles, which has included working as the musical director of the JT Arts Hall Chamber Music Series since 1995 and the general producer of Miyazaki International Music Festival since 1996. In addition, he has given numerous solo recitals and earned plaudits from many fields.

Tokunaga is one of today's representative violinists in Japan.

Tokunaga teaches a violin at Kunitachi College of Music and also at Toho Gakuen School of Music, as a guest professor.

Montreal-born violinist Chantal Juillet first came to international attention when she received First Prize at the Young Concert Artists Competition (NY), making successful debuts in Los Angeles, New York and Washington DC. Recognised as one of Canada's most brilliant musicians, she appears frequently with the world's most renowned orchestras, including the Amsterdam Concertgebouw, the Leipzig Gewandhaus, the New York Philharmonic, the Boston Symphony, the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Orchestre de Paris, the Filarmonica della Scala, and the BBC Symphony Orchestra. She has toured worldwide with the orchestras, such as Montreal Symphony, The Philharmonia, Orchestre National de France, and NHK Symphony.

Her first recording for Decca of Stravinsky's Violin Concerto and the two Szymanowski concerti was released to outstanding critical acclaim. Subsequent recordings include an all-Ravel disc, which won the Gramophone Award for the Best Chamber Music Recording of 1997, the Goldschmidt Rondeau and Violin Concerto conducted by the composer, the Korngold, Krenek and Weill violin concerti with the Berlin Rundfunk Symphony Orchestra, and Reverie et Caprice, a collection of French pieces with the Montreal Symphony Orchestra. Chantal Juillet also recorded the chamber music with Martha Argerich for EMI.

Fervent ambassador of new music, Chantal Juillet is an active proponent of premiere performances, associated with today's foremost composers. In 1994 she gave the first public performance of Berthold Goldschmidt's Violin Concerto. After the performance, the composer dedicated the concerto to her, and subsequently wrote Rondeau as a gesture of their musical friendship. Miss Juillet also collaborated with Krzysztof Penderecki on his 2nd Violin Concerto, Metamorphoses, premiering in North America and several European countries in 1996.

World premieres include the violin concertos of Andre Prevost (1998), Richard Danielpour (2000), and Lowell Liebermann (2001), and also Denys Bouliane's Triple Concerto, Tetrapharmakos (2004), as well as numerous chamber music works. In addition, she gave the North American premiere (2003) of James MacMillan's A Deep but Dazzling Darkness and will shortly record this work for Chandos.

Since 1991, Chantal Juillet is Music Director of the Saratoga International Chamber Music Festival. From 2001 to 2003, she held the same title at the Pacific Music Festival in Japan, and since 2005 she combines the positions of Artistic Associate and Director of Chamber Music at the Canton International Summer Music Academy (CISMA).

Chantal Juillet is a graduate of Indiana University, where she studied with the eminent violinist Josef Gingold.

In 2000, she was made a Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres de France, and received, in 2005, the Opus Prize for << Personality of the Year >> from the Conseil Quebecois de la Musique and was appointed Chevalier de l'Ordre National du Quebec.

As of August 2006, she was named "Officer of the Order of Canada".

Long recognized as the quintessential American string quartet, the Juilliard String Quartet is internationally renowned and admired for performances characterized by a clarity of structure, beauty of sound, purity of line and an extraordinary unanimity of purpose.

Annual guests at Tanglewood, and frequent guests at the Miyazaki, Lucerne and the Schubertiade Festivals, the Juilliard String Quartet is Quartet-in-Residence at the Juilliard School. It is widely admired for its seminal influence on aspiring string players around the world, and was instrumental in the formation of the Alexander, American, Concord, Emerson, La Salle, New World, Mendelssohn, Tokyo, Brentano, Lark, St. Lawrence, and Colorado string quartets, among others.

This season sees the Quartet in performances throughout the US and abroad, including a tour of Australia and Europe.

As ardent advocates of Elliott Carter's complex and visionary string quartets, the Quartet offered special programming in recognition of his 100th birthday in 2008, partaking in celebrations of his work at the Ravinia Festival and at the Juilliard School, and performing the world premiere of his new Clarinet Quintet with Charles Neidich.

Other recent highlights include the performance of seven complete Bartok cycles throughout the U.S. and Japan, in celebration of the Quartet's 60th anniversary; performances of Mozart quartets K. 421, K. 428 and K. 465, newly informed by first-edition parts recently donated to the Juilliard School; a pair of concerts presented by the Los Angeles Philharmonic in Disney Hall; the world premiere of Ezequiel Vinao's Quartet II, "The Loss and the Silence," commissioned for them by the Juilliard School in honor of its 2006 centennial; and international performances of their own arrangement of Bach's "Art of the Fugue". In January 2008 Chamber Music America honored the Juilliard String Quartet with its highest honor, the Richard J. Bogomolny National Service award, in recognition of the Quartet's artistry, dedication and exemplary influence in chamber music.

In its history, the Juilliard String Quartet has performed a comprehensive repertoire of some 500 works and has premiered more than 60 compositions of American composers. The ensemble has been associated with Sony Classical, in its various incarnations, since 1949. With more than 100 releases to its credit, the ensemble is one of the most widely recorded string quartets of our time. Its recordings of the complete Beethoven and Schoenberg quartets, and the Debussy and Ravel string quartets have all received Grammy Awards. Inducted into the Hall of Fame of the National Academy for Recording Arts and Sciences for its recording of the complete Bartok string quartets, the Quartet was awarded the Deutsche Schallplattenkritik Prize for Lifetime Achievement in the recording industry. Its recording of quartets by Ravel, Debussy, and Dutilleux was chosen by the London Times as one of the 100 best classical CDs ever recorded.

Jian Wang began to study the cello with his father when he was four. While a student at the Shanghai Conservatoire, he was featured in the celebrated documentary film From Mao to Mozart: Isaac Stern in China. Mr Stern's encouragement and support paved the way for him to go to the United States and in 1985 he entered the Yale School of Music under a special programme where he studied with the renowned cellist Aldo Parisot.

During the 2008/9 season Jian Wang's engagements include the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra and Louis Langree, Orchestre de Paris and the Dresden Philharmonic Orchestra. He will also undertake an extensive tour to Australia including concerts with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra and Vladimir Ashkenazy. Last season, his performances included the Camerata Salzburg, Swedish Chamber Orchestra, Hong Kong Philharmonic and Singapore Symphony Orchestras. He also made his debut at the BBC Proms performing three of Bach's solo Cello Suites.

Jian Wang's first professional engagement was in 1986, at New York's Carnegie Hall. Since then he has embarked on an international career, early highlights including concerts with the Mahler Youth Orchestra/Claudio Abbado and with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra/Riccardo Chailly (in Amsterdam and on tour in China). He has also performed with many of the world's other leading orchestras including Philadelphia, Boston, Detroit Cleveland and Chicago Symphony; NHK Symphony, Zurich Tonhalle, Stockholm Philharmonic, Santa Cecilia, Halle (UK), Scottish Chamber, Mahler Chamber and the National Orchestra of France. These concerts have been with many of the greatest conductors, such as Dudamel, Dutoit, Chung, Gilbert, Krivine, Sawallisch, Neeme Jarvi, Eschenbach, Dausgaard, Wigglesworth and Harding.

Jian Wang has also performed at many festivals throughout the world, as both soloist and chamber musician. These have included Verbier in Switzerland, Miyazaki in Japan, Aldeburgh in the UK and Tanglewood and Mostly Mozart in the USA.

Jian Wang has made many recordings with DGG, Reverie (arrangements for cello and guitar) and the Bach Cello Suites being his most recent releases. He has also recorded a Baroque Album with the Camerata Salzburg, the Brahms Double Concerto with the Berliner Philharmoniker, Claudio Abbado and Gil Shaham; the Haydn Concerti with the Gulbenkian Orchestra under Muhai Tang; Messiaen's Quartet for the End of Time (with Chung, Shaham and Meyer) and Brahms, Mozart and Schumann chamber music with Pires and Dumay. His instrument is graciously loaned to him by the family of the late Mr. Sau-Wing Lam.

Though the six-man ensemble Hudson Shad (five singers and a pianist) debuted officially in 1992, their nucleus formed in 1977 when three of them made their Carnegie Hall debuts in Penderecki's Magnificat. Throughout the late '70s and '80s, their members were in demand as early music specialists, oratorio soloists and opera singers. In 1989, the Arts at St. Ann's in Brooklyn asked bass Wilbur Pauley to contract a quartet to perform as The Family in Kurt Weill's "Seven Deadly Sins" with Marianne Faithfull. After this initial success came another request to assemble a group similar to the legendary German group, the Comedian Harmonists, for a tribute to their music. Just before the first performance in 1992 the group decided to call itself Hudson Shad.

Since then, Hudson Shad have performed the Seven Deadly Sins in over 20 different productions, numbering over 100 performances worldwide, with (partial listing): NY Philharmonic, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, LA Philharmonic, Orchestre Symphonique de Montreal, Radio Symphonie Orchester Wien, Toronto Symphony, and Orchestra Regionale di Toscana. They have twice recorded the work, once with Kurt Masur and the NY Philharmonic and once with Marianne Faithfull, Dennis Russell Davies and the RSO-Wien. Other orchestra appearances by Hudson Shad have featured more Weill: "Kleine Mahagonny" with the St.Paul Chamber Orchestra, and "Aufstieg und Fall der Stadt Mahagonny" at the Salzburg Festival.

Hudson Shad has specialized in the repertoire and sonic style of The Comedian Harmonists and, since their German debut in 1995, they have performed throughout Europe in cabarets, prestigious concert halls such as Theatre des Westens, Gewandhaus in Leipzig and opera houses such as Semper Oper Dresden, Deutche Oper, Komische Oper, Frankfurt Alte Oper, Printzregenten Theatre, as well as in Germany's largest revue theatre, the Friedrichstadtpalast, for the hundredth anniversary of Marlene Dietrich's birth. Since being involved with the interpretation of so many Kurt Weill works, they found an ideal niche with their "Weill American Style" show that they debuted in Berlin and performed in Chicago, New York and at the Weill Festival in the composer's birthplace of Dessau. In 1999 Hudson Shad was featured on Broadway in a musical tribute to the Comedian Harmonists: Band in Berlin. They have also been guests in numerous TV and Radio appearances in the United States and Germany.

Their most recent performances have included a guest appearance with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra as the "Wild Things" in Oliver Knussen/Maurice Sendak's Where the Wild Things Are and again as 'The Family' in The Seven Deadly Sins with the Nashville Symphony and the Toronto Symphony at Carnegie Hall. In August they made their debut in Stravinsky's Renard with Charles Dutoit and Saratoga Chamber Music Festival. Upcoming engagements include more Kurt Weill in Rome, Linz and Paris with Ute Lemper and Marianne Faithfull as well as guest artists at the Ravinia and Macau Festivals.