About the Artists

David Amram

David Amram is one of the greatest living proponents of the Art of Music, symbolizing excellence and creativity in Jazz, Classical, Folk, Latin, and film scores, opera and musical theater. In his words: “Music that is built to last”.

He has known and collaborated with Woody Guthrie, Dizzy Gillespie, Lionel Hampton, Leonard Bernstein, Willie Nelson, Charles Mingus, Oscar Pettiford, Pepper Adams, Levon Helm, James Gallway, Betty Carter, poets Alan Ginsburg, Langston Hughes, Lawrence Ferlinghetti and Jack Kerouac to name a few.

He is the recipient of six honorary doctorate degrees and numerous other prestigious awards and recognition. He recently was honored with an International Living lifetime achievement award from Folk Alliance, who created a great tribute video. 

In the early 1950s David was encouraged to pursue his unique path by mentors Charlie Parker, Thelonious Monk and performed on many important Jazz recordings as sideman and under his name. He also collaborated with Aaron Copland, Gunther Schuller, and visual artists Jackson Pollock, Joan Mitchell, Willem de Kooning and Franz Kline. Today, as he has for over 60 years, Amram continues to compose music while traveling the world as a conductor, soloist, bandleader, author, visiting scholar, social activist and narrator in five languages.

Yumi Hwang-Williams 

Yumi Hwang-Williams made her debut at the age of fifteen as a soloist with the Philadelphia Orchestra, six years after emigrating from South Korea. A graduate of the Curtis Institute of Music, she is known today both for her stylish performances of the classics and her commitment to the works of present-day composers.

STRINGS magazine calls her ‘a modern Prometheus’ who has ‘emerged as a fiery champion of contemporary classical music.’ Her interpretations of concertos by Thomas Adès, Aaron Jay Kernis, Michael Daugherty, and Christopher Rouse have earned critical acclaim as well as enthusiastic approval from the composers.

Yumi is a frequent soloist with the Colorado Symphony and has soloed with other major orchestras both in the U.S. and abroad, including the Cincinnati Symphony, the Indianapolis Symphony, Sinfonieorchester Basel (Switzerland), and the Bruckner Orchester Linz (Austria), in collaboration with conductors Marin Alsop, Dennis Russell Davies, Hans Graf, Paavo Järvi, and Peter Oundjian. An avid chamber musician, she has performed with Gary Graffman, Ida Kavafian, Jeffrey Kahane, Christopher O’Riley, Jon Kimura Parker, and Andrew Litton.

Since 2000 Yumi has been Concertmaster of the Colorado Symphony. She was Concertmaster of the Cabrillo Festival Orchestra for twelve years and Guest Concertmaster for the National Arts Centre Orchestra, Ottawa, at the invitation of Music Director Pinchas Zukerman. She’s a frequent guest first violinist with the Philadelphia Orchestra and a faculty member at Denver University’s Lamont School of Music.

Joshua Sawicki

Joshua Sawicki is a pianist based in Denver, Colorado. He appears regularly as orchestral pianist for the Colorado Symphony (highlights have included Bernstein’s Fancy Free, Stravinsky’s Petrushka, Firebird, Symphony in Three Movements, and Shostakovich’s Symphonies #1 and #5, and Lutoslawski’s Concerto for Orchestra), as a member of the new-music group The Playground Ensemble, recently ranked one of the top five chamber groups in the state, and as Principal Pianist of the Greeley Philharmonic Orchestra.  He has appeared as a soloist with the Denver Philharmonic, Grand Junction Symphony, Greeley Philharmonic, Lakewood Symphony, Farmington Valley Symphony Orchestra, and the Lamont Symphony Orchestras; solo appearances and competitions have taken him to Paris, Manhattan, Utrecht, Novi Sad, Granada, Cambridge, Tampa, and Aspen.  He has received prizes from various international competitions and can often be seen around Denver in chamber music performances alongside principal members of the CSO. Aside from teaching privately, he teaches piano as an adjunct faculty at the Community College of Denver and is the owner and director of a music school in Aurora, Colorado Music Quest.  He has studied in Boston, New York, London, Tampa, and Denver; his principal teachers include Steven Mayer, Rebecca Penneys, John O’Conor, Anthony di Bonaventura, and Svetozar Ivanov.

Brook Ellen Ferguson 

Hailed by the Washington Post as “brilliantly virtuosic,” flutist Brook Ferguson is a versatile solo and orchestral artist. The Miami Herald praised Ferguson’s performance of Carl Nielsen’s Concerto for Flute with the New World Symphony as “soaring, fraught with emotion, possessing sterling technique with pure tone, showing herself fully in synch with Nielsen’s enigmatic world, putting across the playfulness, passing shadows and sheer strangeness of this music with strong impact.” First prize winner of the 2009 National Flute Association Young Artist Competition, Ferguson has performed as a concerto soloist with the Colorado Symphony, the New World Symphony, ROCO, and the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra. She has appeared at the prestigious Marlboro Music Festival, and has performed at the Tanglewood Music Center, both as an orchestral fellow and a New Fromm Player.

Ferguson was appointed principal flutist of the Colorado Symphony Orchestra in 2010, and has been principal flutist of the innovative chamber orchestra, ROCO, since 2012. Previously, she completed a three-year fellowship with the New World Symphony, where she had the privilege of working with Michael Tilson Thomas and many other outstanding instrumentalists and conductors. She has made principal appearances with the Grand Teton Festival Orchestra, the Seattle Symphony, the Baltimore Symphony, and the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra. Prior to her appointment with the New World Symphony, Ferguson was the acting principal flutist of the Knoxville Symphony and the principal flutist of the Delaware Symphony Orchestra.

Sara Parkinson

Dr. Sara Parkinson enjoys a varied career as pianist, vocal coach and conductor. She has served on the staff and faculties at CU-Boulder, Cornell College, Rocky Ridge Music Center and Metropolitan State University of Denver. She has performed with the Colorado Music Festival Orchestra, Phoenix Symphony Chorus, Boulder Chamber Orchestra, Boulder Bach Festival, Cheyenne Symphony and Colorado Ballet Orchestra. Most recently, she served as Music Director and Conductor for Boulder Opera’s productions of Massenet’s Cendrillon and Mozart’s Così fan tutte. Sara has been a member of Central City Opera Ensemble since 2012. She is currently the Music Director at St. Aidan’s Episcopal Church in Boulder, Director of Operations at MAS Eclectic Concerts Denver and founding member of the tango/classical chamber music group Grande Orquesta Navarre, named Denver’s best chamber orchestra by Westword in 2016.  Sara holds degrees from the University of Iowa (BM-Piano), the New England Conservatory of Music (MM-Piano) and CU Boulder (DMA-Collaborative Piano) where she held a full assistantship in the opera and instrumental departments. Festival appearances include Aspen, Musicorda Chamber Music and Music Academy of the West. Principal teachers include Victor Rosenbaum, Nicholas Carthy and Anne Epperson.

David Amram Chamber Music

An Intimate House Concert  

Tuesday, September 25, 2018 | 7:00 PM

Tickets

Location to be disclosed upon RSVP
Historic Cheesman Park Home

*SEATING IS LIMITED.

Videos

An Interview with David Amram – Milken Archive of Jewish Music

David’s Amram’s Blog

THIS LAND with the Colorado Symphony Orchestra

AllMusic Discography

David Amram’s Wikipedia Article