Andrés Fest 1: Carnival of the Animals + Symphony Soloists (SUNDAY)

Born in modern day Lvov, Poland, Emanuel Ax moved to Winnipeg, Canada, with his family when he was a young boy. His studies at the Juilliard School were supported by the sponsorship of the Epstein Scholarship Program of the Boys Clubs of America, and he subsequently won the Young Concert Artists Award. Additionally, he attended Columbia University where he majored in French. Mr. Ax made his New York debut in the Young Concert Artists Series, and captured public attention in 1974 when he won the first Arthur Rubinstein International Piano Competition in Tel Aviv. In 1975 he won the Michaels Award of Young Concert Artists followed four years later by the coveted Avery Fisher Prize.

In partnership with colleagues Leonidas Kavakos and Yo-Yo Ma, he begins the current season with concerts in Vienna, Paris and London with the trios of Brahms recently released by SONY Classical. In the US he returns to the orchestras in Cleveland, Chicago, New York, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Minneapolis, Washington, Detroit, Pittsburgh, Nashville and Portland, OR, and to Carnegie Hall for a recital to conclude the season. In Europe he can be heard in Munich, Amsterdam, Berlin, Rome, Vienna, London, and on tour with the Budapest Festival Orchestra in Italy.

Always a committed exponent of contemporary composers, with works written for him by John Adams, Christopher Rouse, Krzysztof  Penderecki, Bright Sheng, and Melinda Wagner already in his repertoire, most recently he has added HK Gruber’s Piano Concerto and Samuel Adams’ “Impromptus”.

A Sony Classical exclusive recording artist since 1987, recent releases include Mendelssohn Trios with Yo-Yo Ma and Itzhak Perlman, Strauss’ Enoch Arden narrated by Patrick Stewart, and discs of two-piano music by Brahms and Rachmaninoff with Yefim Bronfman. In 2015 Deutche Grammophon released a duo recording with Mr. Perlman of Sonatas by Faure and Strauss, which the two artists presented on tour during the 2015/2016 season.  Mr. Ax has received GRAMMY® Awards for the second and third volumes of his cycle of Haydn’s piano sonatas. He has also made a series of Grammy-winning recordings with cellist Yo-Yo Ma of the Beethoven and Brahms sonatas for cello and piano. His other recordings include the concertos of Liszt and Schoenberg, three solo Brahms albums, an album of tangos by Astor Piazzolla, and the premiere recording of John Adams’s Century Rolls with the Cleveland Orchestra for Nonesuch. In the 2004/05 season Mr. Ax also contributed to an International EMMY® Award-Winning BBC documentary commemorating the Holocaust that aired on the 60th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz. In 2013, Mr. Ax’s recording Variations received the Echo Klassik Award for Solo Recording of the Year (19th century music/Piano).

A frequent and committed partner for chamber music, he has worked regularly with such artists as Young Uck Kim, Cho-Liang Lin, Mr. Ma, Edgar Meyer, Peter Serkin, Jaime Laredo, and the late Isaac Stern.

Mr. Ax resides in New York City with his wife, pianist Yoko Nozaki. They have two children together, Joseph and Sarah. He is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and holds honorary doctorates of music from Skidmore College, Yale University, and Columbia University. For more information about Mr. Ax’s career, please visit www.EmanuelAx.com.

Scott Holshouser, principal keyboardist with the Houston Symphony, has been a member of the orchestra since 1980. He began his musical training in Athens, GA and attended Florida State University before moving to Houston to continue his studies at the University of Houston. He is now a member of the faculty at the University of Houston’s Moores School of Music.

He is a former staff pianist with the Houston Ballet and the Houston Grand Opera and presently is the accompanist for the Houston Symphony Chorus, the Ima Hogg National Young Artist Competition and the Corpus Christi Young Artist Competition.

Critics have praised clarinetist Mark Nuccio for both his solo and chamber appearances,  describing him as “the evening’s highlight”, full of “mystery and insight” and “shaping his phrases beautifully with a rich, expressive tone.” (New York Times)

Mr. Nuccio is currently the Principal Clarinetist of the Houston Symphony since 2016.  Prior to that, he was a member of the New York Philharmonic having joined in 1999 as Associate Principal and Solo  E-flat Clarinetist. During Nuccio’s 17 years in the NYP, he served as Acting Principal Clarinet for four years from 2009-2013. Prior to his service with the Philharmonic, he has held positions with orchestras in Pittsburgh, Denver, Savannah, and Florida working with distinguished conductors such as Lorin Maazel, Kurt Masur, Mariss Jansons, Riccardo Muti, Zubin Mehta, Erich Leinsdorf, Alan Gilbert, Claudio Abbado, Riccardo Chailly, André Previn, Christoph von Dohnányi, Valero Gergiev, Charles Dutoit, Gustavo Dudamel, Esa Pekka Salonen, Andres Orozco Estrada, and Juraj Valcuha. Additionally, Mr. Nuccio has toured extensively with the Houston Symphony, the New York Philharmonic and the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra and in numerous countries, recorded with all three orchestras, and performed regularly with the Philharmonic on the award-winning series, Live from Lincoln Center, broadcast on PBS. Recent highlights include the Philharmonic’s historic and newsworthy visits to North Korea and Vietnam.

An active solo and chamber musician, Mr. Nuccio has been featured with various orchestras in the United States and made multiple appearances as a featured performer at the International Clarinet Association conventions. He made his subscription solo debut with the Houston Symphony in 2018 with several other appearances since then, with the subscription solo debut with the New York Philharmonic on Feb. 10, 2010 and returned to perform the Copland Concerto with the NY Philharmonic under the baton of Alan Gilbert on May 31 and June 1 of 2013. Other highlights include a New York recital debut at Carnegie Hall in 2001, his Japanese recital debut in 2002. He continues to regularly perform recitals in  Asia and Europe as well as across the United States and in New York, he can often be heard at Merkin Concert Hall, 92nd Street Y, Carnegie Hall, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Mr. Nuccio also participates in the chamber music series at the Strings Music Festival in Steamboat Springs, Colorado, performs/teaches at Festival Napa Valley, and teaches at ARIA Music Festival, among others.

As a studio musician, Mr. Nuccio is featured on numerous movie soundtracks, including Failure To Launch, The Last Holiday, The Rookie, The Score, Intolerable Cruelty, Alamo, Pooh’s Heffalump, Hitch, The Manchurian Candidate, as well as various television commercials, Super Bowl music and the Master’s Golf Tournament. Additionally he has performed on the Late Show with David Letterman and on the 2003 Grammy Awards. His own debut album featuring the clarinet quintets of Mozart and Brahms, Opening Night, was released in November 2006.

A Colorado native, Mr. Nuccio was recently awarded the “Distinguished Alumni Award” from his alma mater, the University of Northern Colorado. He also holds a master’s degree from Northwestern University where he studied with renowned pedagogue Robert Marcellus. Beyond his active performing schedule, Mr. Nuccio is committed to training the next generation of musicians and currently serves as music faculty for Northwestern University’s Bienen School of Music in Evanston, IL.  He also teaches masterclasses in the U.S. and abroad. Mark Nuccio is a D’Addario Advising Artist & Clinician and a performing artist/clinician for Buffet Music Group.

MuChen (Jessica) Hsieh, from Taiwan, joined the Houston Symphony as principal second violin in 2017. Prior to her appointment in Houston, she worked with conductors including Thomas Adès, Charles Dutoit, Larry Rachleff, David Robertson, Joshua Weilerstein, and Hugh Wolff. She studied with Kathleen Winkler at the Shepherd School of Music at Rice University, and Malcolm Lowe and Masuko Ushioda at the New England Conservatory.

Hsieh regularly performs recitals, chamber music concerts, and in orchestras in the United States and Taiwan. Her festival performances include New York String Orchestra, Sarasota Festival Orchestra, and Music Academy of the West Festival Orchestra. Hsieh has served as concertmaster of the Shepherd School Symphony Orchestra on numerous occasions, including for the orchestra’s 2016 tour to Carnegie Hall. She has also performed with the New York Philharmonic as a Zarin Mehta Global Academy Fellow.

An avid chamber musician, she has collaborated with James Dunham, Jon Kimura Parker, Kathleen Winkler, and Larry Wheeler. When Hsieh is home in Taiwan, she enjoys organizing chamber music concerts with friends. She also has a passion for coaching and leading local orchestra concerts during the summer in Taiwan with the concertmaster of the National Taiwan Symphony Orchestra, Ray-Chou Chang.

Aside from playing violin, Hsieh enjoys cooking and baking with friends, jogging, or dreaming about getting a dog.

Joan DerHovsepian holds the position of Acting Principal Viola of the Houston Symphony Orchestra. She joined the viola section of the Houston Symphony in 1999, hired by Christoph Eschenbach, and began serving as Associate Principal in the fall of 2010. Ms. DerHovsepian was Principal Viola of the Charleston Symphony Orchestra for two seasons and played in the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra. She has appeared as guest principal viola with the Cincinnati Symphony.

Ms. DerHovsepian is an Artist Teacher of Viola at Rice University’s Shepherd School of Music, instructing students in viola orchestral repertoire and chamber music. Students who have come through her orchestral repertoire course have gone on to win positions in the Cincinnati Symphony, Colorado Symphony, Dallas Symphony, Fort Worth Symphony, Houston Symphony, Metropolitan Opera, North Carolina Symphony, Pittsburgh Symphony, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, San Diego Symphony and Washington National Opera, among others. She is regular guest faculty for the New World Symphony and has given master classes in the study of orchestral excerpts at the New England Conservatory and for the viola students of the Juilliard School.

Ms. DerHovsepian participates annually at the Mimir Chamber Music Festival, the Grand Teton Music Festival, the National Orchestral Institute, and as Principal Viola of the Peninsula Music Festival.

She was the violist of the award winning Everest Quartet, top prize winners at the Banff International String Quartet Competition and the Fischoff Chamber Music Competition. Ms. DerHovsepian was the second prize recipient of the Primrose International Viola Competition.

Ms. DerHovsepian holds a Bachelor and Master of Music degrees and the Performer’s Certificate from the Eastman School of Music, studying with James Dunham of the Cleveland Quartet. She attended the Hochschule fur Musik in Freiburg, Germany, where she studied with violist Kim Kashkashian.