Illia Ovcharenko, Piano

In 2022, Ukrainian pianist Illia Ovcharenko won the Honens International Piano Competition – known for honoring the complete musician – as well as the New York International Piano Competition. He will perform a challenging program including a rarely heard work by Robert Schumann. Ovcharenko is pursuing a master’s degree at the Hannover Hochschule für Musik und Theater Medien.

Richard Goode, Piano
Sarah Shafer, Soprano

Accomplished artists of two generations will perform a dynamic program of music by Fauré, Wolf, and Schubert. Venerable virtuoso Richard Goode is known for performances of tremendous emotional power, depth, and expressiveness. A leading interpreter of works by Mozart and Beethoven, he is an exclusive Nonesuch recording artist who won a Grammy® Award for the Brahms Sonatas recorded with clarinetist Richard Stoltzman. He is on the Distinguished Artist Faculty of the Peabody Institute.

Star soprano Sarah Shafer has distinguished herself as equally comfortable with lieder and opera. Praised for her leading roles with the Metropolitan Opera and San Francisco Opera, she has sung with the Philadelphia Orchestra, and Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, and at the Spoleto Festival USA and the Oregon Bach Festival.

Brad Mehldau, Piano
Christian Mcbride, Bass
Marcus Gilmore, Drums

Join us for a special collaboration by three Grammy®-winning jazz artists who rarely tour together. One of the most lyrical voices of contemporary jazz piano, Brad Mehldau’s unique path embodies the essence of jazz exploration, classical romanticism and pop allure. He has worked with artists including Pat Metheny, Renée Fleming, and Joshua Redman, and garnered awards and admiration for his own compositions and re-workings of songs by The Beatles, Cole Porter, Radiohead, Paul Simon, and George Gershwin.

Bassist, composer, and bandleader Christian McBride heads ensembles including Inside Straight and The Christian McBride Big Band. His skills encompass straight-ahead, experimental, and free-leaning jazz; funk, soul, Latin, hip hop, and rhythm and blues. He is Artistic Director of the Newport Jazz Festival, Creative Chair for Jazz with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and hosts National Public Radio’s Jazz Night in America.

Drummer Marcus Gilmore – grandson of iconic drummer Roy Haynes – can be heard on the soundtrack for the film “Soul.” He premiered his first orchestral composition with members of the Cape Town Philharmonic in 2020. He has worked with Pharoah Sanders, Ravi Coltrane, Robert Glasper, Vijay Iyer, Derrick Hodge, Jill Scott, Norah Jones, Terrence Blanchard, Roy Hargrove, and Terrace Martin.

Elisabeth Brauss, Piano

Part of a new generation of classical artists, German pianist Elisabeth Brauss won first prize at the International Steinway Competition as a teen, and has since appeared in concerto engagements with Bournemouth Symphony, Staatsorchester Darmstadt, Göttinger Symphonieorchester, Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra and the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen. Recent solo recitals include Beethovenhaus Bonn and Wigmore Hall, and throughout North America at Salle Bourgie Montreal, Phillips Collection Washington, and La Jolla Music Society.