About James Levine

Throughout the 2008–2009 season—his 38th at the Metropolitan Opera—James Levine led 27 performances of six operas, including a new production of Berlioz's La damnation de Faust, and revivals of Gluck's Orfeo ed Euridice and Wagner's Ring cycle, as well as the Opening Night and Met 125th anniversary galas. At Carnegie Hall, Levine and the MET Orchestra performed three times this past season, including works by Beethoven, Messiaen, Brahms, Mozart, Rossini, and Mendelssohn. The MET Chamber Ensemble also engaged in a three-concert series at Carnegie Hall in November and January, featuring works by Pierre Boulez, Dallapiccola, Elliott Carter, Wagner, Mozart, and Schoenberg.

The 2008–2009 season also marked Levine's fifth as Music Director of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, including 10 programs that featured concert performances of Verdi's Simon Boccanegra and three successive concerts of Mozart symphonies. The BSO appeared at Carnegie Hall under his direction in three programs this season, including the New York premieres of works by Leon Kirchner, Gunther Schuller, and Elliott Carter (in honor of his 100th birthday celebration on December 11).

About Warren Jones

Warren Jones continues to lead a varied and balanced musical life as a pianist, conductor, and teacher. He frequently performs with many of today's most acclaimed artists, including Stephanie Blythe, Denyce Graves, Samuel Ramey, Ruth Ann Swenson, Salvatore Licitra, Anthony Dean Griffey, Bo Skovhus, Frederica von Stade, Dame Kiri Te Kanawa, Richard Yongjae O'Neill, and Joseph Alessi. He has been a guest artist with the Juilliard, Borromeo, and Brentano string quartets, and is principal pianist with Camerata Pacifica. In 2007, Mr. Jones made his debut with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, and has since toured with CMS throughout the US. He has appeared in recital at Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center, as well as the festivals of Tanglewood, Ravinia, and Caramoor. His international appearances include the Salzburg Festival, Milan's Teatro alla Scala, Théâtre des Champs-Elysées and Opéra Bastille in Paris, Wigmore Hall and Queen Elizabeth Hall in London, the Cultural Centre in Hong Kong, Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires, and theaters throughout Scandinavia, Japan, and Korea. He was assistant conductor at the Metropolitan Opera for 10 years and at the San Francisco Opera for three seasons.

His 26 recordings for all the major labels include Grammy-nominated CDs with Samuel Ramey and Håkan Hagegård; repertoire staples such as Schubert, Brahms, and Ives; and rarities from Stenhammar, Clarke, and Grechaninov.

Mr. Jones has been a judge for the Walter W. Naumburg Foundation Awards, the Metropolitan Opera Auditions, the Artists' Association International Fine Arts Competition, the American Council for the Arts, and the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition.

Mr. Jones is a faculty member at Manhattan School of Music, where he teaches a graduate program in collaborative piano. He has been invited to the White House to perform at concerts honoring the president of Russia, and the prime ministers of Italy and Canada; and has appeared three times at the US Supreme Court as a specially invited performer for the justices and their guests.

About Uri Caine

Uri Caine was born in Philadelphia and began studying piano with Bernard Peiffer. He played in bands led by Philly Joe Jones, Hank Mobley, Johnny Coles, Mickey Roker, Odean Pope, Jymmie Merritt, Bootsie Barnes, and Grover Washington. He attended the University of Pennsylvania, and studied music composition with George Rochberg and George Crumb. Since moving to New York City, Caine has recorded 19 CDs.

Caine recently received commissions from the Vienna Volksoper, the Seattle Chamber Players, Relache, the Beaux Arts Trio, the Basel Chamber Orchestra, Concerto Koln, and the American Composers Orchestra. Caine was the director of the Venice Biennale for Music in September 2003, where he also premiered his new work The Othello Syndrome. He has performed his version of the Diabelli Variations with orchestras that have included The Cleveland Orchestra, the Moscow Chamber Orchestra, the CBC Orchestra in Canada, and the Swedish Chamber Orchestra. In 2006 he was named composer-in-residence for the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, and premiered his Concerto for Two Pianos and Chamber Orchestra with Jeffrey Kahane in May 2006.

During the past several years, Caine has worked in groups led by Don Byron, Dave Douglas, John Zorn, Terry Gibbs and Buddy DeFranco, Clark Terry, Rashid Ali, Arto Lindsay, Sam Rivers and Barry Altschul, the Woody Herman Band, Annie Ross, the Enja Band, Global Theory and the Master Musicians of Jajouka. He has received grants from the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Pew Foundation. He has performed at many jazz festivals, including the North Sea Jazz Festival, Montreal Jazz Festival, Monterey Jazz Festival, JVC Festival, San Sebastian Jazz Festival, Vittoria Jazz Festival, Newport Jazz Festival, as well as classical festivals that have included the Salzburg Festival, Munich Opera, Holland Festival, Israel Festival, IRCAM, and Great Performers at Lincoln Center.

About Dave Douglas

Two-time Grammy-nominated jazz musician Dave Douglas is arguably the most prolific and original trumpeter-composer of his generation. From his New York base where he's lived since the mid 1980s, Mr. Douglas has continued to earn lavish national and international acclaim including trumpeter, composer, and jazz Artist of the Year by such organizations as the New York Jazz Awards, Down Beat, JazzTimes, Jazziz, and the Italian Jazz Critics' Society. His solo recording career began in 1993 with Parallel Worlds (Soul Note) and he has since released over 28 recordings. In 2005, after seven critically acclaimed albums for Bluebird/RCA, Mr. Douglas launched his own record label, Greenleaf Music. The same year, he was honored with a Guggenheim Fellowship. On Greenleaf, Mr. Douglas has released albums with his longstanding Quintet, the electronic sextet Keystone, and the mixed chamber ensemble Nomad. His latest project, Brass Ecstasy, is a brass quintet that features trumpet, French horn, trombone, tuba, and drums.

Mr. Douglas is currently the Artistic Director of the Banff International Workshop in Jazz and Creative Music, and the Director and Co-Founder of the Festival of New Trumpet Music. In addition to leading his own groups, Mr. Douglas has an important ongoing musical relationship as a member of John Zorn's Masada, and with artists such as Anthony Braxton, Don Byron, Joe Lovano, Miguel Zenon, Uri Caine, Bill Frisell, Cibo Matto, Mark Dresser, Han Bennink, and Misha Mengelberg. As a composer, Mr. Douglas has been commissioned by the Trisha Brown Dance Company, Birmingham Contemporary Music Group, Norddeutscher Rundfunk, Essen Philharmonie, Library of Congress, and Stanford University. Recent large-scale works have included Blue Latitudes for chamber orchestra and three improvisers, and Delighted States for big band with soloists.

About Kronos Quartet

For more than 30 years, the Kronos Quartet—David Harrington (violin), John Sherba (violin), Hank Dutt (viola), and Jeffrey Zeigler (cello)—has pursued a singular artistic vision, combining a spirit of fearless exploration with a commitment to expanding the range and context of the string quartet. In the process, Kronos has become one of the most celebrated and influential groups of our time, performing thousands of concerts worldwide, releasing more than 40 recordings of extraordinary breadth and creativity, collaborating with many of the world's most eclectic composers and performers, and commissioning hundreds of works and arrangements for string quartet.

Kronos' adventurous approach dates back to the ensemble's origins. In 1973, David Harrington was inspired to form Kronos after hearing George Crumb's Black Angels—a highly unorthodox, Vietnam War-inspired work that features bowed water glasses, spoken word passages, and electronic effects. Kronos then began building a compellingly diverse repertoire for string quartet, performing and recording works by 20th-century masters (Bartók, Shostakovich, Webern), contemporary composers (Aleksandra Vrebalov, John Adams, Alfred Schnittke), jazz legends (Ornette Coleman, Charles Mingus, Thelonious Monk), and artists from even farther afield (rock guitar legend Jimi Hendrix, Azeri vocalist Alim Qasimov, avant-garde saxophonist John Zorn).

Integral to Kronos' work is a series of long-running, in-depth collaborations with many of the world's foremost composers. One of the quartet's most frequent composer-collaborators is "Father of Minimalism" Terry Riley. The quartet has also collaborated extensively with such composers as Philip Glass, Azerbaijan's Franghiz Ali-Zadeh, Steve Reich, Argentina's Osvaldo Golijov, and many more.

In addition to composers, Kronos counts numerous artists from around the world among its collaborators, including the Chinese pipa virtuoso Wu Man; legendary Bollywood "playback singer" Asha Bhosle, featured on Kronos' Grammy-nominated CD, You've Stolen My Heart: Songs from R.D. Burman's Bollywood; Inuit throat singer Tanya Tagaq; Mexican rockers Café Tacuba; genre-defying sound artist and instrument builder Walter Kitundu; the Romanian gypsy band Taraf de Haïdouks; renowned American soprano Dawn Upshaw; and the unbridled British cabaret trio, the Tiger Lillies. Kronos has performed live with the likes of icons Allen Ginsberg, Zakir Hussain, Modern Jazz Quartet, Tom Waits, David Barsamian, Howard Zinn, Betty Carter, and David Bowie, and has appeared on recordings by such diverse talents as Nine Inch Nails, Amon Tobin, Dan Zanes, DJ Spooky, Dave Matthews, Nelly Furtado, Rokia Traoré, Joan Armatrading, and Don Walser.

Since moving to the United States from China in 1990, pipa virtuoso Wu Man has not only introduced the traditional Chinese instrument and its repertoire to Western audiences, but has successfully given this ancient instrument a new role in today's music. These efforts were recognized when she was made a 2008 United States Artists Broad Fellow.

Wu Man continually collaborates with today's most distinguished musicians and conductors. She has performed as soloist with many of the world's major orchestras and her touring has taken her to the major music halls of the world. Wu Man is a principal member of Yo-Yo Ma's Silk Road Project, and often performs and records with the groundbreaking Kronos Quartet.

Highlights of Wu Man's 2008–2009 season included performances with the Silk Road Ensemble in Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, and India, as well as US and European tours. She also performed with collaborators the Kronos Quartet at the Barbican Centre in London and at Carnegie Hall.

Recent recordings include: Terry Riley's The Cusp of Magic with the Kronos Quartet (Nonesuch); Traditions and Transformations: Sounds of Silk Road Chicago, featuring Wu Man's performance of Lou Harrison's Pipa Concerto with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra (CSO Resound); and New Impossibilities with the Silk Road Ensemble (Sony/BMG).

Born in Hangzhou, China, Wu Man studied at the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing, where she became the first recipient of a master's degree in pipa performance. Wu Man was selected as a Bunting Fellow at the Radcliffe Institute of Advanced Study at Harvard University, and was selected by Yo-Yo Ma as the winner of the City of Toronto Glenn Gould Protégé Prize in music and communication. She is also the first artist from China to have performed at the White House. For more information on Wu Man, please visit wumanpipa.org.

Renowned pianist, conductor, and teacher Leon Fleisher, now in his sixth decade before the public, started piano lessons in his native San Francisco at age four, and gave his first recital at eight. A year later he began studying with the great German pianist Artur Schnabel, and by 16 made his debut with the New York Philharmonic. He was the first American to win the prestigious Queen Elisabeth of Belgium competition in 1952, which catapulted Mr. Fleisher's career for the next dozen years.

Mr. Fleisher was suddenly struck silent when two fingers of his right hand became immobile in 1965. In the nearly 40 years since Mr. Fleisher's keyboard career was so suddenly curtailed, he has followed two parallel careers—as a conductor and a teacher—while learning to play the extensive but limiting repertoire of compositions for piano left-hand. He began conducting in 1967, but never gave up the idea of playing with both hands again. Mr. Fleisher has recently been playing—infrequently—with both hands again, and made his first two-hand recording in 40 years: a sort of musical biography called Two Hands on Vanguard Classics, released in 2004. Its repertoire ranges from J. S. Bach and Domenico Scarlatti to Chopin and Debussy, and Franz Schubert's monumental final Piano Sonata in B-flat major.

American violinist Pamela Frank has established an outstanding international reputation across an unusually varied range of performing activity. In addition to her extensive schedule of engagements with prestigious orchestras throughout the world and her recitals on the leading concert stages, she is regularly sought after as a chamber music partner by today's most distinguished soloists and ensembles. The breadth of this accomplishment and her consistently high level of musicianship were recognized in 1999 with the Avery Fisher Prize, one of the highest honors given to American instrumentalists.

Ms. Frank has appeared with such orchestras as the Baltimore Symphony, the Berliner Philharmoniker, the Boston Symphony, the Chicago Symphony, The Cleveland Orchestra, the Dallas Symphony, the Orchestre National de France, the Houston Symphony, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, the Minnesota Orchestra, the National Symphony, the New York Philharmonic, the Orchestre de Paris, the San Francisco Symphony, and the Vienna Symphony. She has performed under many esteemed conductors, including Daniel Barenboim, Christoph von Dohnányi, Christoph Eschenbach, Bernard Haitink, Seiji Ozawa, André Previn, Leonard Slatkin, Yuri Temirkanov, and David Zinman.

Her passion for chamber music continues to find a variety of outlets. In addition to her partnership with her father, pianist Claude Frank, she works regularly with pianist Peter Serkin. Her other frequent collaborators, drawn from a large group of chamber music colleagues, include Yo-Yo Ma, Tabea Zimmermann, and Alexander Simionescu. For many years she took part in the Marlboro Festival in Vermont as well as the subsequent Music from Marlboro tours. Ms. Frank has also participated in several of the Isaac Stern chamber music seminars at Carnegie Hall and the Jerusalem Music Centre as part of a group of performer-colleagues assisting Mr. Stern.

In the recording studio, Ms. Frank has made two discs for London/Decca: the Dvořák Concerto with the Czech Philharmonic and the Brahms sonatas with Peter Serkin. She has also recorded the complete Mozart violin concertos with David Zinman and the Tonhalle Orchestra (Arte Nova); a Schubert album with Claude Frank (Arte Nova); and the Beethoven sonata cycle, also with Claude Frank (MusicMasters). For Sony Classical she has recorded the Chopin Piano Trio with Emanuel Ax and Yo-Yo Ma, the "Trout" Quintet, and is featured on the soundtrack to the film Immortal Beloved.

The many-faceted career of cellist Yo-Yo Ma is testament to both his continual search for new ways to communicate with audiences, and his personal desire for artistic growth and renewal. Whether performing a new concerto, revisiting a familiar work from the cello repertoire, coming together with colleagues for chamber music, or exploring musical forms outside of the Western classical tradition, Mr. Ma strives to find connections that stimulate the imagination.

Mr. Ma maintains a balance between his engagements as soloist with orchestras throughout the world, and his recital and chamber music activities. He draws inspiration from a wide circle of collaborators, each fueled by the artists' interactions. One of Mr. Ma's goals is the exploration of music as a means of communication, and as a vehicle for the migrations of ideas across a range of cultures throughout the world.

Expanding upon this interest, Mr. Ma established the Silk Road Project to promote the study of the cultural, artistic, and intellectual traditions along the ancient Silk Road trade route that stretched from the Mediterranean Sea to the Pacific Ocean. By examining the flow of ideas throughout this vast area, the project seeks to illuminate the heritages of the Silk Road countries and identify the voices that represent these traditions today.

Mr. Ma was born in 1955 to Chinese parents living in Paris. He began to study the cello with his father at age four, and soon came with his family to New York, where he spent most of his formative years. Later, his principal teacher was Leonard Rose at The Juilliard School. He sought out a traditional liberal arts education to expand upon his conservatory training, graduating from Harvard University in 1976. He has received numerous awards, including the Avery Fisher Prize (1978), the Glenn Gould Prize (1999), the National Medal of the Arts (2001), the Dan David Prize (2006), and the Sonning Prize (2006). Mr. Ma and his wife have two children. He plays two instruments, a 1733 Montagnana cello from Venice and the 1712 Davidoff Stradivarius.