Printer Friendly Version - A Landmark Essex Winter Series for Mihae Lee

Mihae Lee said she’s a true believer in planting seeds, “especially since some schools have less music now. I love the fact the kids go home and tell their moms they want to play the bassoon.” Photo by Rita Christopher

Ten years ago, Mihae Lee thought she was just going to assist Gregory Shook, then the president of the Essex Winter Series Board of Trustees, through a transition period after the founder of the series, the late Fenton Brown, stepped down.

“I wasn’t really thinking about anything but helping Greg out and seeing where that went,” Lee said.

Here’s where it went: Lee is now marking her 10th season as artistic director of the Essex Winter Series. The first concert on Sunday, Jan. 12, 2020, will celebrate her tenure by bringing back young performers who originally appeared as a part of the Fenton Brown Emerging Artists series.

Lee had started the emerging artists program as a way to highlight artists of great promise in the early days of their professional career and, at the same time to honor Brown’s commitment to the series. Eleven emerging artist alumni will appear with Lee and violinist Ani Kavafian in a program featuring two concert favorites: Copeland’s Appalachian Spring and Shubert’s Trout Quintet.

Lee feels a special relationship and also considerable pride with the young artists.

“They are like children to me,” she said, “but they are no longer emerging. They have emerged; they are playing all over.”

She noted Yoobin Soon is now a flutist with the New York Philharmonic and clarinetist Romy de Guise-Langlois has played with orchestras and chamber music groups throughout the country, including the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. Cellist Joann Whang is a member of the Argus Quartet, which, since its local appearance, has won the University of Michigan’s prestigious M-Prize Chamber Arts Competition as well as the 2017 Concert Artists Guild Victor Elmaleh Competition.

This year’s Fenton Brown Emerging Artists, performing on March 8th, are two young guitarists, JiJi and Gulli Bjornsson who together make up the duo Linü. Bjornsson is from Iceland and Jiji, whose given name is Jiyeon Kim, from South Korea. Both have Masters Degrees from the Yale School of Music.

“I have had my eye on JiJi for a while,” Lee said. “She is a rising star in the guitar world. I talked with her teacher and he told me, ‘You have to have her.’”

The series includes not only rising stars but also one of the ever-present stars of the classical music world, Ludwig van Beethoven. The year 2020 marks the 250th anniversary of his birth.

On Sunday, March 29, the concert series will feature Beethoven’s Serenade and his Septet.

“The Septet is a virtuoso piece and I have put together a virtuoso group to do it,” Lee said.

The performers, all of whom have had distinguished solo as well as chamber music careers, include Ida Kafavian, violin, sister of Ani who will play in the first concert; Steve Tenenbom, viola; David Shffrin, clarinet; Peter Wiley, cello; Timothy Cobb, bass; Marc Goldberg, bassoon; and William Purvis, horn.

This year’s Stu Ingersoll jazz concert, on Sunday, Feb. 16, features the Jeff Barnhart/Jim Freyer International All-Star Jazz band, a group of seven musicians, with Barnhart on piano and vocals and Fryer on trombone and trumpet.

When she began, Lee introduced a new element to the concert series and outreach program that community locations, often among them local schools. Outreach started as a one day program but is now three full days.

“I’m a true believer in planting seeds, especially since some schools have less music now. I love the fact the kids go home and tell their moms they want to play the bassoon,” she said. “I think the outreach program builds good audiences, but music also helps build good human beings.”

Over her decade of leadership, Lee said her worst moment was a heavy snowstorm several years ago that forced cancellation of the scheduled concert. Still, it wasn’t total disaster. She was able to reschedule the program for two weeks later.

Asked what she thought she had learned in a decade as artistic director, Lee had a ready answer: “How to say no, but I’m still learning that one,” she admitted.

Lee is very proud of the distinguished list of artists she has brought to the series, many friends from her own long career.

“Sometimes people don’t know the artist but audiences have learned to trust me. They know that I will always put on the best,” she said.