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The Cantus performance, originally scheduled for February 21, was postponed due to extreme weather conditions. Recognized as the “premier men’s vocal ensemble in the United States” by Fanfare, Cantus will perform at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, May 16 at the Folly Theater (300 W. 12th St.), in downtown Kansas City, Mo. Tickets to the postponed concert will be good for the rescheduled date; however, updated tickets will also be mailed to ticket holders.

Cantus has a rich history of collaborations with other performing arts organizations, including the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, the Boston Pops, James Sewell Ballet and the Minnesota Orchestra. Cantus is the recipient of numerous awards, including Chorus America’s highest honor, the Margaret Hillis Award for Choral Excellence (2009), as well as Chorus America’s Education Outreach Award (2011). Cantus was also the 2010-2011 Artist in Residence on Minnesota Public Radio and American Public Media’s Performance Today.

Fifteen albums have been released by Cantus on its own self-titled label, each to considerable acclaim. Of That Eternal Day (2010) the New York Times said, “the Cantus recording offers many satisfactions, none greater than a touching, ineffably simple performance of The 23rd Psalm (dedicated to my mother) by Bobby McFerrin.” The newest recording from Cantus, On the Shoulders of Giants, celebrates the influence and inspiration of composers who have come before us and includes repertoire that spans nearly a thousand years.

This Discovery Concert is free to the public. "Print at home" online tickets are available now (limit four per household). Use the "tickets" button above to order.

Pianist Jan Lisiecki will perform a free Discovery Concert at 7 p.m. Friday, May 10, at the Folly Theater (300 W. 12th St.), in downtown Kansas City, Mo. The planned program includes works by Messiaen, Bach, Mozart, and Chopin.

Born in Calgary in 1995, Lisiecki had his orchestral debut at the age of 9. He has since performed as a soloist more than 100 times with orchestras in Canada and internationally. The New York Times has called Lisiecki “a pianist who makes every note count.”

Already recognized around the world for his poetic and mature playing, 18-year-old Lisiecki has received several awards, including the 2010 Révélations Radio-Canada Musique and the 2011 Jeune Soliste des Radios Francophones. In 2010, the Fryderyk Chopin Institute released Lisiecki's live recordings of both Chopin concertos with Sinfonia Varsovia and Howard Shelley, which received the prestigious Diapason Découverte award in May 2010. Diapason describes Lisiecki as “an unmannered virtuoso already with virile and, above all, irresistibly natural playing.” The BBC Music Magazine commended “Lisiecki’s mature musicality,” and his “sensitively distilled” interpretation of the contrasting concerti, played “with sparkling technique as well as idiomatic pathos.”

Lisiecki has played at Carnegie Hall, the Warsaw Philharmonic Concert Hall, Seoul Arts Centre, and Salle Cortot, and has shared the stage with Emanuel Ax, Yo-Yo Ma, and Pinchas Zukerman. He has performed throughout Canada, in China, England, France, Germany, Guatemala, Italy, Japan, Korea, Poland, and Scotland. In 2010, Jan was asked to substitute for Nelson Freire in four concerts in France. Lisiecki opened the Seoul International Music Festival in Korea and performed for Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth and an audience of 100,000 on Parliament Hill in Ottawa.

Lisieki’s performances have been broadcast on CBC Canada, BBC Radio, Austrian Radio, French Radio, German Radio, Luxembourg Radio, and Polish Radio, as well as on French Television 3 and on TV 1 and 2 in Poland. He was featured in the CBC Next! series as one of the most promising young artists in Canada, and in the Joe Schlesinger 2009 CBC National News documentary about his life: The Reluctant Prodigy.

Charity organizations are important to Lisiecki and he performs frequently for various organizations, including the David Foster Foundation, the Polish Humanitarian Organization, and the Wish Upon a Star Foundation. In June 2008 he was appointed a National Youth Representative by UNICEF Canada.
Having graduated from high school at the age of 15 in January 2011, Lisiecki is studying for a Bachelor’s degree in music at The Glenn Gould School of Music in Toronto, where he is the recipient of the prestigious Ihnatowycz Prize in Piano.

This event has sold out; however, newly released tickets may be available for purchase online (use the "Tickets" button above) or by phone at 816-415-5025.

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McFerrin will always be the guy who sang Don’t Worry, Be Happy, but his “greatest gift to audiences may be transforming a concert hall into a playground, a village center, a joyous space,” reported The LA Times. With his new project, spirityouall, McFerrin pays homage to his father (the opera singer Robert McFerrin, Sr.) and the generations of Americans who sang of our shared joy and pain through the songs commonly known as the Negro Spirituals.

The program spirityouall features beloved familiar tunes like He's Got the Whole World In His Hands and Every Time I Feel The Spirit alongside original songs which explore McFerrin’s everyday search for grace, wisdom, and freedom. The new material ranges from a celebratory hoedown (Rest) to a polemic anthem (Woe), to a down and dirty blues setting of Psalm 25:15. This project embraces McFerrin’s folk, rock, and blues influences without abandoning his fearless improvisational approach or his never-ending exploration of the human voice. He moves seamlessly between lyrics and wordless lines, trading phrases with his band of five instrumentalists, inviting the audience to sing along. The spirityouall album will be released May 14, 2013, on Sony Masterworks, and is now available for pre-order on Amazon.com.

Never a conventional artist, Bobby McFerrin was exposed to a multitude of musical genres during his youth--classical, R&B, jazz, pop and world musics--and all of them have since been absorbed and assimilated into his own unpremeditated art. “When you grow up with that hodgepodge of music, it just comes out. It was like growing up in a multilingual house,” he says. McFerrin spent his earliest days as a professional musician in jazz and cabaret bands, and it wasn’t until age 27 that he experienced what he calls his “light bulb moment” and realized that his true calling was singing.

McFerrin refuses to fit neatly into any musical category and continues to explore the musical universe. “There is something almost superhuman about the range and technique of Bobby McFerrin,” says Newsweek. “He sounds, by turns, like a blackbird, a Martian, an operatic soprano, a small child, and a bebop trumpet.” Despite the undeniable uniqueness of his gift, McFerrin’s music is always accessible and inviting.

This event is sold out. If seats become available, they will be listed online. Use the "Tickets" button above to check.

The iconic violinist was first presented by the Harriman-Jewell Series in 1971; the event will mark Itzhak Perlman’s 10th recital for the Series. Undeniably the reigning virtuoso of the violin, Perlman enjoys superstar status rarely afforded a classical musician. Beloved for his charm and humanity as well as his talent, he is treasured by audiences throughout the world who respond not only to his remarkable artistry, but also to the irrepressible joy of his music-making. For his previous Series recital in 2008, the Kansas City Star reviewer wrote, “Perlman comes from a line of violin virtuosos like Jascha Heifetz and Fritz Kreisler, technically astute performers that engage their audiences and their music with a rich, warm tone and an incredibly sweet sound.”

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Few emerging artists have captured the attention of the international opera public as the Irish-born mezzo-soprano Tara Erraught, who will perform her American recital debut at 8 p.m. Friday, April 12, at the Folly Theater (300 W. 12th St.), in downtown Kansas City, Mo. Pianist Henning Ruhe will join Erraught for a program of songs and arias by Brahms, Respighi, Dvorak, Wolf, Handel, and Rossini.

Several prominent opera singers have sung American recital debuts for the Harriman-Jewell Series, most notably tenors Luciano Pavarotti, Ben Heppner, and Juan Diego Florez. Tara Erraught will be the 23rd artist to perform an American recital debut for the Series and the first mezzo-soprano to do so.

In May 2008, Tara Erraught won First Prize in the Jackub Pustine International Singing Competition along with the Zdar nad Sazavou Audience Prize in the Czech Republic. That same year she was awarded both the Houston Grand Opera Prize and Washington National Opera Prize at the International Hans Gabor Belvedere Singing Competition in Vienna.

The mezzo was a member of the opera studio at the Bavarian State Opera in Munich from 2008 to 2010. In 2010, Erraught was named Dublin’s National Concert Hall’s Rising Star Prize. “Erraught is one of those singers who take a real delight in negotiating the obstacle courses of virtuosic arias,” praised the Irish Times.

The current season reaffirms Tara Erraught’s growing stature internationally. In her debut season at the Vienna State Opera, the 26-year-old mezzo will sing Barbiere as well as the premiere performances of a new production of La Cenerentola. In Munich, there will be a new production of Hansel und Gretel as well as her first performances of Die Fledermaus (Orlovsky) and Les Contes d’Hoffman (Nicklausse). This year, Erraught is scheduled to make her debut at the Theater an der Wien with a world premiere at the Glyndebourne Opera Festival.

The Richard J. Stern Foundation for the Arts (Commerce Bank Trustee) sponsors this performance.

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China National Symphony Orchestra will perform at 8 p.m. Friday, March 1 at Helzberg Hall, Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts (1601 Broadway St.), in downtown Kansas City, Mo. Founded as the Central Philharmonic Orchestra of China in 1956, the orchestra was restructured and renamed in 1996. China’s national orchestra performed under its previous name on the Harriman-Jewell Series in 1987. The Orchestra will perform Xia Guan’s First Movement of Earth Requiem; Beethoven’s Symphony No. 7; and Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No. 1 featuring Peng Peng Gong, an exceptional pianist who played a Harriman-Jewell Series Discovery Concert in 2006 when he was 14.

For more than half a century, the China National Symphony Orchestra (CNSO) has introduced Chinese audiences to a vast repertoire of classical, romantic, modern and contemporary orchestral works by both Western and Asian composers. The CNSO’s concerts are frequently broadcast on radio and television throughout China and the world. Many recordings of the CNSO’s performances have been published worldwide with the cooperation from the China Record Company, the French Record Company, Philips Record Company, and the Channel Classics Records of Netherlands.

Principal Guest Conductor, En Shao, will lead the orchestra. En Shao is also the music director and principal conductor of the Taipei Chinese Orchestra. He began playing the piano and violin at an early age. After graduating from Central Conservatory of Music, he became the second Principal Conductor of the Chinese Broadcasting Symphony Orchestra, a post he held for five years. As a winner of the 6th Hungarian Television International Conductors’ Competition in 1989, he conducted several performances with the Hungarian Radio Orchestra and the State Symphony Orchestra.

Chinese pianist, Peng Peng Gong, will perform as a soloist. At the age of five, he began studying piano performance. Accepted by the Shanghai Music Conservatory Primary School at the age of nine, he went on to win several major piano competitions. He was later accepted by the Juilliard School’s pre-college division and currently enrolls as an undergrad student at Juilliard.

The Chinese National Symphony Orchestra has toured throughout the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, Austria, Spain, Portugal, the Netherlands, Australia, Mexico, Japan, DPR of Korea, Rep. of Korea, Malaysia, and Thailand, giving successful performances to critical acclaim by the international press. In London, a music critic for The Times praised the CNSO as “a mature group with a vital sound.”

Some seats have been returned to sell for this previously sold-out event. Please order tickets online or call 816-415-5025. Our box office at the Kauffman Center will open at 5:30 p.m.

The Pipes and Drums of the Black Watch 3rd Battalion, the Royal Regiments of Scotland and Band of the Scots Guards will take the stage at 7:30 p.m. Saturday, February 16, at the Muriel Kauffman Theatre, Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts (1601 Broadway St.), in downtown Kansas City, Mo. The legendary pipes, drums and highland dancers of Scotland’s Black Watch will join forces with the Band of the Scots Guards for a celebration of four nations: England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland. This performance will feature bagpipes, traditional military marches, drum solos, Celtic dancing and beloved songs. The colors will be presented by the Honor Guard from Whiteman Air Force Base, Mo. The event promises a spectacular evening of pageantry and excitement for the entire family.

First formed in the 18th century, The Black Watch continues to serve as a fully operational battalion in the modern British Army. The Black Watch saw service in Iraq in 2003, when the battalion played a key role in the liberation of the city of Basra, and again when The Black Watch formed a battle group that was sent to help the United States Marine Corps during the November 2004 assault on Fallujah.

The Black Watch shares the stage with the Band of the Scots Guards, has a current establishment of 43 musicians and their principal duty today remains the same as it was in 1716: to play the men who are to form the Queen’s Guard to Buckingham Palace, to provide music while the sentries are changed, and to march the Old Guard back to their barracks.

In 2011 the band was accorded a unique honor for a military band when its fanfare trumpeters were invited to join forces with the BBC Symphony Orchestra at the prestigious "Last Night of the Proms" concert at London’s Royal Albert Hall, playing “Musica Benevolens,” which was especially composed for the event by Sir Peter Maxwell Davies, the Master of the Queen’s Musick. The Band of the Scots Guards has toured extensively, representing the United Kingdom on countless occasions throughout the world, promoting the very best of Britain. Its sight and sound is one of the great iconic images of the nation.

FREE EDUCATION EVENT
Danielle de Niese will lead a free master class on Friday, February 1, at 2 p.m. The master class will be held on the William Jewell College campus in Forbis Recital Hall, Pillsbury Music Center (500 College Hill, Liberty, Mo.) and will include two students from William Jewell College and two high school students from the Lyric Opera of Kansas City’s “Ginger Frost Honors Artists” program. This free event is open to the public and is designed to be educational for all who attend.


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Soprano Danielle de Niese, who sang her 2009 American recital debut for the Harriman-Jewell Series, will return on Saturday, February 2, at 8 p.m. in the Folly Theater (300 W. 12th St.), in downtown Kansas City, Mo. The soprano will be joined by pianist Cameron Stowe for a program of arias and songs by Dowland, Mozart, Handel, Bizet, Delibes, Rossini and Donizetti.

Danielle de Niese has become the darling of critics, dubbed “opera’s coolest soprano” by the New York Times Magazine and called “not just a superb performer, but a phenomenal one” by Opera News. Marie Claire magazine named de Niese to their influential 2011 list of “Women on Top.”

De Niese has been captivating audiences since childhood, when she was a fixture of Los Angeles local television as host of a weekly arts showcase for teenagers and won an Emmy Award at the age of 16. The soprano’s career got off to a prodigious start when, at age 18, she became the youngest singer to enter the Metropolitan Opera's Lindemann Young Artist Development Program. A year later she made her Met debut as Barbarina in Le nozze di Figaro in Jonathan Miller's acclaimed new production with James Levine. Soon after came important operatic debuts with the Netherlands Opera, the Saito Kinen Festival, and the Paris Opera, but it was her portrayal of Cleopatra in a David McVicar production of Handel's Giulio Cesare for her 2005 Glyndebourne Festival debut that brought her true international acclaim.

The Australian-born American singer who “looks like a pop diva but sings like a real one” according to the St. Louis Post Dispatch, regularly appears on the world’s revered opera and concert stages and has an extensive selection of recordings on the Decca label.

Noted for his spirited and sensitive playing, Cameron Stowe will accompany de Niese on the piano. Stowe's distiguished honors include prizes from the Wigmore Hall International Song Competition, Tanglewood Music Center, and Juilliard. Stowe holds a doctorate from Juilliard with a specialized focus in song and vocal chamber music.

The beloved story ballet, Swan Lake, will be danced by the Russian National Ballet Theatre at 7:30 p.m. Friday, January 25, at Muriel Kauffman Theatre, Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts (1601 Broadway St.), in downtown Kansas City, Mo.

The Russian National Ballet Theatre has become a mainstay ensemble for the Harriman-Jewell Series in recent years: Swan Lake in 1999, La Bayadère in 2006, “Great Moments from Russian Ballets” in 2009, and Romeo and Juliet in 2011. “Russia may have lost the Cold War, but it’s still the unquestioned superpower of the ballet world,” the Kansas City Star’s Lisa Jo Sagolla wrote in praise of the company. The 50-member ensemble is led by Elena Radchenko, a former principal dancer with Russia’s Bolshoi Ballet.

The Russian National Ballet Theatre was founded in Moscow during the transitional period of Perestroika in the late 1980s, when many of the great dancers and choreographers of the Soviet Union's ballet institutions were exercising their new-found creative freedom by starting new, vibrant companies dedicated not only to the timeless tradition of classical Russian ballet but also to invigorate this tradition as the Russians began to accept new developments in dance from around the world.

Original choreography for Swan Lake was created by dance legend Marius Petipa in 1877. The lush score was composed by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky and was fashioned from Russian folk tales. The ballet tells the story of Odette, a princess turned into a swan by an evil sorcerer’s curse. Swan Lake is considered by many to be one of the greatest classical ballets of all time; its romance and beauty has mesmerized audiences for 135 years.

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Considered one of the most important young talents in the world today, A Wall Street Journal critic wrote that “tenor Michael Fabiano...shows why he is in such demand in the big opera houses.” A Grand Prize winner of the 2007 Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions, Fabiano is prominently featured in “The Audition,” the internationally released film documentary about the competition. In October 2012, Fabiano returned to the Metropolitan Opera as Cassio in Otello and captured the attention of critics. “Michael Fabiano poured his gleaming tenor into the minor role of Cassio. A handsome star in the making, he’s a magnetic presence that draws the eye whatever the visual distraction,” praised a New York Post critic.

In addition to being a Grand Prize winner of the 2007 Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions, Fabiano was the First Place winner in the 2007 Loren Zachary Competition, the recipient of a 2007 George London Foundation Encouragement Award to a Tenor in Memory of James McCracken, a 2007 Sarah Tucker Study Grant; First Prize winner of the 2006 Licia Albanese Puccini Foundation Competition, the Jose Carreras Prize for the Best Tenor in the 2006 Julian Gayarre Competition in Pomplona, Spain, and the Grand Prize recipient of the 2005 Florida Grand Opera Competition Junior Division. He is a graduate of the prestigious Academy of Vocal Arts in Philadelphia.

Tenors who have sung American recital debuts presented by the Harriman-Jewell Series are Luciano Pavarotti (1973), Francisco Araiza (1982), Ben Heppner (1997), Marcelo Álvarez (2001), Juan Diego Flórez (2002), Daniil Shtoda (2002), Salvatore Licitra (2005), Clifton Forbis (2006), Stephen Costello (2011) and Giuseppe Filianoti (2012).

Two free educational events are associated this performance. Members of Il Complesso Barocco chamber orchestra will host a free master class in Founders' Hall at Grace and Holy Trinity Cathedral (415 W. 13th St.), at 7 p.m. on Thursday, November 15. This event is free to the public and reservations aren’t needed; admittance to the Hall will be allowed until its capacity is reached.

The Harriman-Jewell Series is also offering a free daytime performance by Il Complesso Barocco orchestra. The 60-minute performance/demonstration at 10 a.m., Friday, November 16 at the Folly Theater. The educational event is appropriate for all school-aged students. Please contact Melissa Carter for more information at carterme@hjseries.org or by calling 816-415-7682.

All seats for this concert are currently sold out. A wait list has begun. Please call 816-415-5025 to be added to the wait list.

Mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato winner of the 2012 Grammy Award for Best Classical Vocal Solo, will return to sing her fifth performance for the Harriman-Jewell Series in her hometown at 8 p.m. Friday, November 16, at the Folly Theater (300 W. 12th St.), in Kansas City, Mo.

The concert's program titled Drama Queens will feature arias from Baroque operas sung by royal characters and will be exclusively performed for Harriman-Jewell Series and Carnegie Hall audiences. DiDonato's collaborators for the concert are violinist and director Dmitry Sinkovsky and the renowned period ensemble Il Complesso Barocco.

The Drama Queens album, a complement to the concerts, will be released by Virgin Classics on November 6. The highly antipated recording will also feature arias from the 17th and 18th centuries, composed by figures as famous as Handel and Vivaldi and as little known as Orlandini and Porta, and will see DiDonato portraying a parade of royal personages in a variety of challenging situations and extreme states of mind. Alan Curtis and Il Complesso Barocco accompanied her on the recording. “For me, this is my most exciting recording project to date,” says DiDonato, “because it is everything I deeply adore about the world of opera: high drama, profound emotion, fearless vocal writing, time-stopping passages, historical significance and real discovery. What more could I ask for?”

DiDonato's most recent appearance for the Series was on her birthday (February 13) in 2011. Kansas City Star reviewer Timothy McDonald wrote that the recital “surpassed the hopes and expectations of even the most ardent fans of one of the world’s most successful and popular singers.”

This Discovery Concert is free to the public. "Print at home" online tickets are available now by clicking the "Tickets" button above. Ticket orders are limited to four per household.

Making a fourth appearance for the Harriman-Jewell Series, pianist Conrad Tao will perform a free Discovery Concert at 3 p.m. Sunday, November 4 in Folly Theater (300 W. 12th St.), in downtown Kansas City, Mo. The planned program includes works by Dvorak, Chopin, Rachmaninoff, Prokofiev, and an original composition by the pianist.

Tao played his first Discovery Concert for the Series in 2008 at the age of 14 and is the first Discovery artist to play a return recital. In addition to Tao’s 2008 recital, he has performed twice for the Series: first for founder Richard Harriman’s 75th birthday celebration in 2007 and then in 2010 for Harriman’s memorial service.

Tao is the only classical musician on Forbes' 2011 "30 Under 30" list of people changing the world. The 18-year-old Chinese American first displayed his prodigious talent by playing children's songs on the piano at 18 months of age. Born in Urbana, Illinois, he gave his first piano recital at age 4; four years later, he made his concerto debut performing Mozart's Piano Concerto in A Major, K. 414. In June 2011, the White House Commission on Presidential Scholars and the Department of Education named Conrad a Presidential Scholar in the Arts, while the National Foundation for Advancement in the Arts awarded him a YoungArts gold medal in music. Later that year, Conrad was named a Gilmore Young Artist, an honor awarded every two years highlighting the most promising American pianists of the new generation. In May of 2012, he was awarded the prestigious Avery Fisher Career Grant. He was hailed by Harris Goldsmith for Musical America as “the most exciting prodigy to ever come my way.”

As an accomplished composer, Tao has won eight consecutive ASCAP Morton Gould Young Composer Awards since 2004; he also received BMI's Carlos Surinach prize in 2005. For the 2012-2013 season, he has been commissioned by the Hong Kong Philharmonic to write a concert overture ringing in their new season--frequent colleague Jaap von Zweden's inagural season there as music director--as well as celebrating the region's annual China Day. He was also asked by the Dallas Symphony to compose a work observing the 50th anniversary of President John F. Kennedy's assassination, which will be performed in November 2013. Conrad Tao’s first album, released as an iTunes exclusive in February 2012 as part of the "Juilliard Sessions" series, included works by Debussy, Stravinsky, and Tao himself. His second recording will also prominently feature Tao’s own compositions, and is expected for release in 2013. Tao, also an award-winning violinist, attends the Columbia University/Juilliard School joint degree program.

All advance tickets to this free Discovery Concert have been distributed. You are welcome to come to the Folly Theater the evening of the performance to take any open seats at 6:45 p.m.

Advance tickets are still available for our next free Discovery Concert: pianist Conrad Tao, at 3 p.m. Sunday, November 4, at the Folly Theater. Please click on "Events" in the main menu above and scroll down to the Conrad Tao event.

Piano duo and identical twin sisters Christina and Michelle Naughton will perform at 7 p.m. Saturday, October 27 in Folly Theater (300 W. 12th St.), in downtown Kansas City, Mo. presented by the Harriman Jewell Series. The planned program includes duo piano works by Mendelssohn, Nancarrow, Schubert, Milhaud, Mozart, Brahms, and Lutoslawski.

The Naughtons, both graduates of the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, have been performing as a duo since 2008. In the last four years they have played at prestigious venues in the United States and throughout the world, and have been recognized for their “stellar musicianship, technical mastery... awe-inspiring artistry... [and] pristine synchronicity” (San Francisco Examiner). As identical twins, they believe that the closeness of their relationship allows them to speak the same musical language.

The Naughtons made their European debut at Herkulesaal in Munich, where the Sueddeutsche Zeitung proclaimed them “an outstanding piano duo.” They made their Asian debut with the Hong Kong Philharmonic, where the Sing Tao Daily said of their performance “Joining two hearts and four hands at two grand pianos, the Naughton sisters created an electrifying and moving musical performance.” An appearance with the Philadelphia Orchestra led the Philadelphia Inquirer to characterize their playing as “paired to perfection.”

Christina and Michelle Naughton recently recorded their first album at the Sendesaal in Bremen, Germany, which will be released worldwide this December. They were each awarded the Festorazzi Prize by the Curtis Institute of Music. They are Steinway Artists and currently reside in New York City.

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The National Symphony Orchestra of Cuba’s upcoming performance is history in the making. The Harriman-Jewell Series will present the National Symphony Orchestra of Cuba’s debut concert of its first American tour at 7 p.m. Tuesday, October 16, in Helzberg Hall, Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts (1601 Broadway St.), in downtown Kansas City, Mo. Since its creation in 1959, the Orchestra has played an important role in the broadening the awareness of Cuban and Latin American music, in addition to developing a vast symphonic and chamber repertoire that ranges from baroque to contemporary. The planned program includes Gershwin’s Cuban Overture and Rhapsody in Blue, Lecuona’s La Comparsa, and Mendelssohn’s Symphony No. 4 in A major, Op. 90 “Italian.”

The National Symphony Orchestra of Cuba will be led by Enrique Perez Mesa and Guido Lopez-Gavilan. Enrique Perez Mesa, music director, is one of Cuba’s most recognized conductors internationally. His career as orchestral conductor began in 1991 working with the Symphony Orchestra of Matanzas, where he developed his conducting craft with Maestra Elena Herrera, participating in both national and international tours. Guido Lopez-Gavilan, guest conductor, has made an outstanding contribution in the development of the Cuban Youth Orchestra Movement by founding and conducting various symphony and chamber orchestras, many of which have performed with resounding success both in Cuba and abroad.

Cuban pianist Ignacio “Nachito” Herrera will perform as a soloist. Herrera stunned Cuban audiences at the age of 12, performing Rachmaninov's Concerto No. 2 with the Havana Symphony Orchestra. Now living in Minnesota, Herrera performs regularly with his quintet, Puro Cubano, throughout the Twin Cities area. The Minneapolis Star-Tribune has described the pianist's musicianship as "Explosive. Crowd-pleasing. Rhythmically intense. Romantic. Dynamic. Jaw-droppingly good" and jazz critic and Playboy Guide to Jazz author Neil Tesser places Herrera in "the upper echelon--a trinity comprising Chucho Valdes, Gonzalo Rubalcaba and now Nachito Herrera.”

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Ballet Folklorico de Mexico will celebrate its 60th anniversary of sharing its rich Mexican culture through music, dance, and pageantry at 8 p.m. Friday, October 12, in Helzberg Hall, Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts (1601 Broadway St.), in downtown Kansas City, Mo. This premier folk company, first presented in 1997 to Kansas City by the Harriman-Jewell Series, is loved by audiences and praised by critics for its music, technical perfection, sophisticated wardrobe and original choreographies. The company will make its second appearance for the Series and a first performance in the new Kauffman Center.

In 1952, Amalia Hernandez, dancer and choreographer, founded the Ballet Folklorico de Mexico, having embarked at a very early age on a quest to rescue the dancing traditions of Mexico. The vital search became a basic need to reflect, not only in Mexico but the rest of the world, the beauty of the Universe in motion which started with the pre-Colombian civilizations and grew with the Hispanic influences of the Vice royal era up to the popular strength of the Revolutionary years. The New York Times wrote that "...Amalia Hernandez is an expert at putting together fast-paced entertaining shows that can make viewers want to rush right off to Mexico."

Hernandez and Ballet Folklorico de Mexico have created 40 ballets, composed of 76 folk dances. International success was achieved during the first tours and has been maintained through 60 years of continuous artistic endeavors. The Los Angeles Times praised a Ballet Folklorico de Mexico performance as “an unequaled point of entry to the riches of a fabulous culture.”

Remaining tickets are available at the Kauffman Center box office starting at 5:30 p.m. the day of the performance.

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The internationally renowned contemporary dance company led by the acclaimed American choreographer Mark Morris will make a third appearance for the Harriman-Jewell Series and a first performance in the new Kauffman Center. Previous Series appearances were in 1993 and 2005.

The mixed repertory program of work by Morris includes Canonic 3/4 Studies, Silhouettes, Rock of Ages, and Festival Dance. All works to be performed will feature live music played by the Mark Morris Dance Group Music Ensemble.

Mark Morris was recently heralded as “the leading choreographer of the age” by The Washington Post critic Sarah Kaufman. Mark Morris Dance Group (MMDG) was formed in 1980 and gave its first concert that year in New York City. The company’s touring schedule steadily expanded to include cities both in the United States and in Europe, and in 1986 it made its first national television program for the PBS series Dance in America. Based in Brooklyn, N.Y., the company is noted for its commitment to live music, a feature of every performance on its international touring schedule since 1996.

Two free educational events accompany the Mark Morris Dance Group performance. Sam Black and Lesley Garrison, members of MMDG, led Dance for PD: a free movement class for persons with Parkinson’s disease and their families, friends and care partners. This class was held at the Kansas City Ballet’s Todd Bolender Center for Dance and Creativity (500 West Pershing, Kansas City, Mo.)this is in association with the Parkinson Foundation of the Heartland. Registration is available online at www.danceforpd.org.

On Saturday, September 29, at 10 a.m., the Harriman-Jewell Series will present a modern dance master class for students of the Kansas City Ballet School also to be held at the Todd Bolender Center for Dance and Creativity. The class will be led by Michelle Yard of the Mark Morris Dance Group.

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Emanuel Ax is a beloved giant among performing artists of our day. The pianist has played for the Harriman-Jewell Series 11 times, most recently in October 2010, for a benefit recital in memory of the Series’ late founder, Richard Harriman. As artist in residence with the New York Philharmonic for the 2012-2013 season, Ax will make appearances at New York City's Lincoln Center in addition to a spring tour with the orchestra to Europe. Ax lives in New York City with his wife, pianist Yoko Nozaki. Born in Lvov, Poland, Emanuel Ax moved to Winnipeg, Canada, with his family when he was a young boy. His studies at the Juilliard School were supported by the sponsorship of the Epstein Scholarship Program of the Boys Clubs of America, and he subsequently won the Young Concert Artists Award. Ax captured public attention in 1974 when he won the first Arthur Rubinstein International Piano Competition in Tel Aviv. In 1975, he won the Michaels Award of Young Concert Artists followed four years later by the coveted Avery Fisher Prize.

Ax has been an exclusive Sony Classical recording artist since 1987. Due for release later this year is a new recital disc of works from Haydn to Schumann to Copland reflecting their different uses of the “variation” concept. Recent releases include Mendelssohn Trios with cellist Yo-Yo Ma and violinist Itzhak Perlman, Strauss's Enoch Arden narrated by Patrick Stewart, and discs of two-piano music by Brahms and Rachmaninov with Yefim Bronfman. Ax has received Grammy Awards for the second and third volumes of his cycle of Haydn’s piano sonatas. He has also made a series of Grammy-winning recordings with Yo-Yo Ma of the Beethoven and Brahms sonatas for cello and piano. Ax also contributed to an international Emmy Award-winning BBC documentary commemorating the Holocaust that aired on the 60th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz.

His planned program Includes Beethoven’s Piano Sonatas No. 2 in A Major and No. 8 in C Minor “Pathétique,” and Schubert’s Sonata in B-flat Major.

The Harriman-Jewell Series is well known for world-class tenors making American recital debuts. The tradition continues with Filianoti: the 10th prominent tenor to sing his first American recital for the Series. American pianist Craig Terry will join Filianoti for a program of arias and songs by Puccini, Respighi, Pizzetti, Tosti, Cilèa, Pietri, and Strauss. This performance is the final event of the Series' 47th season.

The beauty of Filianoti's voice, his passionate lyricism, and his dramatic fervor on stage have won widespread critical acclaim and recognition. “Audience members applauded and stomped their feet... Remember his name: he’s going to be a major tenor,” wrote The Associated Press critic Ronald Blum.

Tenors who have sung American recital debuts presented by the Harriman-Jewell Series are Luciano Pavarotti (1973), Francisco Araiza (1982), Ben Heppner (1997), Marcelo Álvarez (2001), Juan Diego Flórez (2002), Daniil Shtoda (2002), Salvatore Licitra (2005), Clifton Forbis (2006), and Stephen Costello (2011).

In 2005, Filianoti made his widely celebrated American operatic debut at the Metropolitan Opera in New York as Edgardo in Lucia di Lammermoor. Signature roles at the Met include Nemorino (in Donizetti’s L’Elisir d’amore), the Duke of Mantua (in Verdi’s Rigoletto), and Ruggero (in Puccini’s La Rondine) and the title role of Offenbach’s Les Contes d’Hoffmann. In addition to the Met, in the United States he has also appeared to great accolades at the San Francisco Opera as Edgardo in Lucia, at Carnegie Hall in New York as Federico in L’Arlesiana, as Nemorino at the Los Angeles Opera and as Edgardo and Nemorino at the Lyric Opera of Chicago.

Born in Reggio Calabria in 1974, the tenor earned his first degree in Literature, a background he considers essential to his operatic foundation and discipline. In 1997, he graduated from the “F. Cilea” Conservatory, studying under Anna Vandi. Filianoti won a prestigious two-year scholarship to the Accademia del Teatro alla Scala in Milan. During this period of intensive fine-tuning of his artistry, he met Alfred Kraus, who became his mentor and a decisive influence in artistic style, nuance, technique, and virtuosity. In 2004, Filianoti was awarded the Franco Abbiati Italian Critics´ Prize as Best Singer of the Year.

A native of Tullahoma, Tennessee, pianist Craig Terry has launched an international career performing with some of the world’s leading singers and instrumentalists. Currently, Terry is in his seventh season as Assistant Conductor at the Lyric Opera of Chicago. Previously, he served as Assistant Conductor at the Metropolitan Opera after joining its Lindemann Young Artist Development Program. He has collaborated as a chamber musician with members of the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, the Lyric Opera of Chicago Orchestra, the Gewandhaus Orchester, the Berlin Philharmonic, the Vienna Philharmonic, and the Pro Arte String Quartet.

In addition to the evening performance, Aspen Santa Fe Ballet Executive Director Jean-Philippe Malaty will lead a master class at the Bolender Center for Dance & Creativity (500 West Pershing, Kansas City, Mo.) from 12:30 to 2 p.m., on Saturday, March 31. To participate in the free class, call the Kansas City Ballet School at 816-931-2299 to register (space is limited.) The public is invited to observe the class.

When the Series introduced Aspen Santa Fe Ballet to Kansas City in 2009, it was clear that this brilliant 12-dancer company’s reputation preceded its debut. Savvy patrons were abuzz about this ensemble that the New York Times called “A breath of fresh air!” Aspen Santa Fe Ballet (ASFB) was founded in 1996 by Bebe Schweppe, who invited Artistic Director Tom Mossbrucker and Executive Director Jean-Philippe Malaty to create a ballet company that Aspen could call its own. Initially known as Aspen Ballet Company, a partnership in 2000 led to the creation of Aspen Santa Fe Ballet. The company has called both Aspen and Santa Fe home ever since. In sync with the world-class artistic offerings in each of these communities, Aspen Santa Fe Ballet has strengthened the cultural fabric of both cities with its abundant and diverse dance offerings.

With its sophisticated repertoire and broad appeal, combined with a successful blend of entertaining and engrossing contemporary ballet, ASFB is one of the great success stories in American dance today. Audiences have embraced this vibrant company on famed stages that include The Joyce Theater in New York City; Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival; The Kennedy Center; Wolf Trap; The Harris Theater in Chicago; and international venues in Canada, France, Greece, Guatemala, Israel and Italy.