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Trios
MONDAY, JUNE 11, 2007
7:00 PM – 9:00 PM
Patrice Rushen
GRAMMY-NOMINATED JAZZ PIANIST
Robert Thies
CLASSICAL PIANIST
Ed Baguiarena
MODERATOR
ARTIST BIOS
 Patrice
Rushen
A pianist of “unerring, warm-toned refinement, revealing judicious
glimmers of power”
—Los Angeles Times
Multi-Grammy-nominated artist, PATRICE
RUSHEN, is fashioning her career after her long-time friend and mentor,
Quincy Jones. Composer... Producer... International Recording Artist
--Rushen has definitely earned the respect awarded her by her peers in the
music industry.
Admired by many for her ground-breaking
achievements, Rushen has amassed an impressive list of "firsts". She was
the first woman in 43 years to serve as head composer/musical director for
television's highest honor, the EMMY AWARDS, the first woman to serve as
musical director for the NAACP IMAGE AWARDS broadcast, an honor she has
held for twelve consecutive years. Rushen has been the only woman musical
director/composer for the PEOPLE'S CHOICE AWARDS, HBO's COMIC RELIEF and
the only woman musical director/conductor/arranger for a late-night
television talk show, THE MIDNIGHT HOUR which aired on CBS. In addition,
Rushen was named musical director/composer for Newsweek's first AMERICAN
ACHIEVEMENT AWARDS, broadcast on CBS from the Kennedy Center and she
served as the musical director for Janet Jackson's World Tour, "janet." As
the musical director for these top award shows, Rushen composed and
performed special musical tributes to Michael Landon, Ted Turner, Lucille
Ball and Desi Arnaz, The Temptations, James Garner and Leonard Bernstein
to name a few.
A classically trained pianist, Rushen has
spent a lifetime honing the skills which make her one of the music
industry's most versatile and sought after artists. In 1998, Rushen was
again honored by the music industry when her current adult-contemporary
CD, SIGNATURE, received a Grammy nomination, as well as, an NAACP Image
Award nomination, and landed in the top ten of the adult-contemporary jazz
charts. The critically-lauded, chart-topping style she championed in the
'70's and '80's -- a jazz R&B/pop fusion that combined melodic
accessibility with instrumental prowess not only became her signature
style but continues to be a mainstay of popular radio.
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 Robert
Edward Thies
Robert Edward Thies is an artist renowned for
his consummate musicianship and poetic temperament. He first captured
worldwide attention in 1995 when he won the Gold Medal at the Second
International Prokofiev Competition in St. Petersburg, Russia. With this
victory, Thies became the only American pianist to win first prize in a
Russian piano competition since Van Cliburn’s famed triumph in Moscow in
1958.
Praised for his “thoughtful and intensely
moving interpretations” Thies enjoys a diverse career as an orchestral
soloist, recitalist, and chamber musician. His concerto repertoire
includes over thirty-five works, spanning 200 years. He demonstrated
exceptional versatility when in one season alone he performed thirteen
different concertos, garnering consistent critical acclaim. He has
appeared with such orchestras as the Saint Petersburg Philharmonic, Liepāja
Symphony (Latvia), Mexico City Philharmonic, the National Symphony of
Mexico, Auckland Philharmonia (New Zealand), Fort Worth Symphony, Pasadena
Symphony, and the Naples Philharmonic. His concerts have been broadcast
throughout the United States, Russia, Estonia, Latvia, Bolivia, Hungary,
Mexico, and New Zealand.
Mr. Thies is a frequent recitalist in the
United States and abroad, and he is known for his genuine interpretations
of intriguing and delicately balanced programs. He made his South American
debut in Cochabamba, Bolivia in 2002, and followed this with a European
tour. Under the sponsorship of Community Concerts, he completed a
forty-city tour of the United States in 2001. In May 1999, he was honored
with a special invitation to perform in the Hermitage Theater in St.
Petersburg, Russia, built for Empress Catherine the Great.
A dedicated chamber musician, Thies continues
to expand his already impressive repertoire and collaborates with many
esteemed musicians. He has appeared with established ensembles such as the
Angeles, Calder, and New Hollywood String Quartets, and has also performed
on the chamber series of Camerata Pacifica, Mladi, Dilijan and Jacaranda.
He is founder and artistic director of The Thies Consort which performs a
wide range of works of varying instrumentation and size, thus allowing for
innovative and unique programming with musical continuity based on a
style, composer, or other concept.
Thies’ “grace and unsurpassed lyricism” are
in high demand at festivals and special celebrations. In 2002, in
conjunction with the Hollywood premiere of Roman Polanski’s film The
Pianist, he performed Wladislaw Szpilman’s Concertino for Piano and
Orchestra with the Los Angeles Jewish Symphony. That same year Thies
earned national recognition for his collaboration with noted cultural
historian and author, Joseph Horowitz, in the Pacific Symphony’s Dvořák
in America festival. To commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of Arnold
Schoenberg’s death, Thies was invited to Mexico City’s Palacio de Bellas
Artes in 2001 to perform the composer’s seldom-heard Piano Concerto with
the National Symphony of Mexico. During the fall of 1997 Mr. Thies worked
alongside distinguished Polish composer Henryk Górecki in the United
States premiere of his Sonata for Piano. Thies has performed at the music
festivals of Ravinia, Aspen, Sedona, Cape May, Music Academy of the West,
as well as the San Luis Obispo Mozart Festival.
In Los Angeles, Thies has worked and recorded
with many of the top studio musicians, and has also worked with film
composers James Newton Howard, James Horner, Danny Elfman, and Lalo
Schifrin. Thies’s recordings can be found on the Centaur, Albany, and
Golden Tone labels. Recently, a chamber music recording Common Ground, was
released, which features works by LA composer, Gernot Wolfgang. In
February 2006 Robert released his debut solo recording Live in Recital.In
June 2006, he recorded a collaborative CD Difference with the Croatian
flutist, Damjan Krajacic. This CD is a compilation of original
compositions that Robert had a strong hand in arranging. Full of
improvisation, jazz, and world influences, one can hear another side of
this amazingly versatile musician.
Mr. Thies is also sought after as a master
class teacher, chamber music coach, lecturer, and adjudicator across the
globe. In 2003, he joined the faculty of the American Institute of Musical
Studies in Graz, Austria, to work beside his former teacher, Harold
Heiberg, an authority on German art song. There Thies has been coaching
singers and pianists, preparing them for a Liederabend—the culminating
event of the six-week festival.
Born in New Jersey in 1971, Thies now resides
in Los Angeles. His teachers have included Robert Turner and Daniel
Pollack, both protégés of the legendary Russian pedagogue Madame Rosina
Lhevinne, and the great pianist Josef Lhevinne. Mr. Thies is a Steinway
artist. For more information, visit Robert Edward Thies at:
www.robertthies.org.
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