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Watch Cedille’s 2021 Emerging Artist Competition
In celebration of over 30 years serving Chicago’s classical music community by recording and promoting its finest artists, Cedille Records looked to discover the next generation of great Chicago musicians with its first recording competition. Six semifinalists, selected from among three dozen original applicants, performed live for a panel of judges on November 20, 2021. The finals, held on November 21, 2021, featured performances by three finalists competing for the competition prize: to have their debut recording produced and released by Cedille Records.
Saxophonist Julian Velasco won the competition and will record and release his debut album with Cedille this year. Friends of Cedille, Aphorism Studios, livestreamed the two day event and we’re pleased to offer you the recordings of each day’s proceedings below.
Semifinals | November 20, 2021
Finals | November 21, 2021
The Finalists
Including their performed works for the final competition
Clare Longendyke, piano
Florence Price: Fantaisie negre No. 4 in B minor
Debussy: Bruyeres
Shawn Okpebholo: mi sueno: afro-flamenco
Debussy: La puerta del vino
Amy Williams: Olga
Debussy: Les collines d’Anacapri
Augusta Read Thomas: Love Twitters
Julian Velasco, saxophone
Andre Waignein: Rhapsody for Alto Saxophone and Orchestra
Amanda Harberg: Court Dances
II. Air deCour
Steven Banks: Come As You Are
I. Lift My Eyes
II. Times of the Storm
III. Strength of My Life
Karisa Chiu, violin
Mark O’Connor: Menuhin Caprice
Jean Sibelius, Five Pieces for Violin and Piano: Op. 81, III. Valse
Henryk Wieniawski, Fantasia on Themes from “Faust”: Op. 20
THE JUDGES
James Ginsburg
Cedille Records founder and President
Rachel Barton Pine
Violinist, Cedille recording artist and Cedille Board member
Henry Fogel
Cedille Board member
Former President, Chicago Symphony Orchestra
Josephine Lee
Artistic Director, Chicago Children’s Choir
George Preston
Vice President and General Manager, WFMT
Vladimir Kulenovic
Conductor and former Artistic Director, Lake Forest Symphony
David McGill
Former Principal Bassoon, Chicago Symphony Orchestra
THE SEMIFINALISTS
Recommended
Haymarket Opera Company presents early-18th-century master Leonardo Vinci’s rare operatic gem, Artaserse (1730). A prominent figure of the Neapolitan School of opera, whose work influenced composers such as Johann Adolph Hasse and Giovanni Battista Pergolesi, Vinci’s three-act opera seria centers on the Persian prince, Artaserse, who must bring his father’s murderer to justice amidst betrayal, deceit, and mistaken identity.
Cedille Records augments its 2018 release, Notorious RBG in Song, critically proclaimed “an engrossing, episodic portrait” (WQXR) and “vivid and beautiful” (Classics Today) — with a digital single, “On the Joys of Recorded Music,” being released on March 6, in anticipation of what would have been Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s 93rd birthday (March 15).
To celebrate our new opera album (3/13 release) Leonardo Vinci: Artaserse (Haymarket Opera Company) we’ve revised/expanded our RBG 90th birthday playlist of her favorite vocal music on Cedille — now starting with albums supported by the Ruth Bader Ginsburg Fund for Vocal Recordings, created in 2022.
Enjoy 25% off Cedille’s Weekly Featured Release.