Delaware County Symphony
Sebastian Grand, Music Director
SOLOISTS
Jeffrey Solow
“His intonation is irreproachable, his tone uncommonly pure, and he communicates directly with a musical sensitivity that demands and holds the attention,” said The Los Angeles Times about cellist Jeffrey Solow whose impassioned and compelling playing has enthralled audiences throughout the United States, Europe, Latin America and Asia. His multi-faceted career embraces performances as recitalist, soloist with orchestra and chamber musician, as well as teaching, recording, writing and lecturing on a variety of cellistic topics, and arranging and editing music for the cello. A Los Angeles native, Jeffrey Solow studied with the distinguished cellist Gabor Rejto and the legendary Gregor Piatigorsky and was assistant to Piatigorsky at USC. He went on to win the Young Musicians Foundation's first Gregor Piatigorsky Award and New York's Young Concert Artists Award and made his NY debut on the YCA series.
Mr. Solow's orchestral solo repertoire encompasses performances of more than 40 concertos as well as many shorter works for cello and orchestra. His numerous and varied concerto appearances extend from the National Defense Orchestra of Taiwan and the Vietnam Opera & Ballet Orchestra in Hanoi to a tour with Alaska's Arctic Chamber Orchestra, as well as less exotic appearances including the Los Angeles Philharmonic (including the Hollywood Bowl), Japan Philharmonic, American Symphony Orchestra (also recording with them), Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia, the symphonies of Seattle, Alabama and Milwaukee, and many other orchestras in the United States and abroad.
Mr. Solow’s numerous recordings, two of which have garnered Grammy Award nominations, can be found on the Delos, Kleos, Centaur, New World, ABC, Columbia, Laurel, Everest, Capstone, Telefunken and Music Masters labels, and include first recordings of works by distinguished composers with whom he collaborated: Paul Chihara, David Bennett Thomas, Miklós Rózsa, and Henri Lazarof. Terry Sanders’ award-winning Churchill Films documentary about Jeffrey Solow, "To Be a Performer," and the Sitka Festival's "Music from the Forest to the Sea" have been broadcast on PBS, and he also can be seen in Peter Rosen’s film about Jascha Heifetz, "God’s Fiddler." Outside the US, his performance of the Lalo Cello Concerto with the Prime Symphony Orchestra in Seoul was broadcast throughout Southeast Asia on the Korean Classical Music Cable Channel and he was featured on Korea's top-rated musical variety show "Open Concert" on KBS. In July of 2022, he completed his 11th cycle of Bach’s Suites for solo cello at Bargemusic in NYC.
Recognized worldwide as an outstanding teacher, Jeffrey Solow has presented master classes throughout the United States as well as in Switzerland, Austria, Korea, Guatemala, Norway, France, Argentina, Canada, at the Beijing, Shanghai, Sichuan, Nanning and WuHan conservatories in the Peoples Republic of China, and at the Chiang Kai-Shek National Library in Taiwan. He has been a faculty member at UCLA, California State University at Northridge, the University of Michigan, and the Peabody Institute in Baltimore, taught cello and chamber music at the renowned Chautauqua Institution in New York for eight summers, and has been artist/teacher at the Gregor Piatigorsky International Festival for Cellists at USC. Jeffrey Solow has been professor of cello at Temple University since 1989 and was presented with the Lindback Award for Distinguished Teaching in 2020. His wide-ranging interests include scuba diving and underwater photography, protozoology and paleontology. He graduated with a degree in Philosophy magna cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa from UCLA.
GRAMMY® Award nominated pianist Mark Livshits is one of the most highly sought after soloists and chamber musicians in Philadelphia. He appears frequently in concert with members of the Philadelphia Orchestra, as well as with the orchestra as a substitute in the keyboard section.
In addition to performances at the Salzburg Festival, Lincoln Center and Carnegie Hall as well as solo recitals at the Shanghai Oriental Arts Center, and Bilbao Philharmonic Society, Mr. Livshits has also worked closely with musicians such as Yannick Nezet Seguin, Stephane Denève, Michael Tilson Thomas, Nikolaj Znaider, Leonidas Kovakos, Lynn Harrell, Christoph Eschenbach, Alisa Weilerstein, Measha Brueggergosman, Dave Brubeck, Robert McDuffie and Deutsche Grammophon recording artist, Ye-Eun Choi under the auspices of IMG Artists and the Anne-Sophie Mutter Foundation.
In 2015, he was called to replace Yannick Nezet-Seguin in a chamber music performance of Johanness Brahms’s third piano quartet with members from the Philadelphia Orchestra, and has been invited to perform in chamber programs with members of the orchestra since then. He is often called to play orchestral piano in the orchestra as well. Mr. Livshits has received invitations to perform for dignitaries such as Secretary of State Colin Powell and President Joe Biden.
Mark Livshits
Kathryn Leemhuis
American mezzo-soprano Kathryn Leemhuis has performed with international opera
companies such as the Lyric Opera of Chicago, Dallas Opera, Cincinnati Opera, Teatro Colón, Fort
Worth Opera, Opera Theatre of St. Louis, Florentine Opera, Chicago Opera Theater, Ash Lawn Opera, and Annapolis Opera, among others. One of her most notable roles is Dorabella in Mozart’s Così fan tutte, for which Kathryn has been hailed as “ravishing,” adding that “her sheer vocal beauty allied to nimbleness and an astonishing range of dynamic and coloristic nuance,” (Dallas Morning News). Her other prominent roles include Suzuki in Puccini’s Madama Butterfly, Dido in Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas, Zerlina in Mozart’s Don Giovanni, the Mother in Menotti’s Amahl and the Night Visitors, Paquette in Bernstein’s Candide, Hänsel in Humperdinck’s Hänsel und Gretel, Giulietta in Offenbach’s Les contes d’Hoffmann, Amaltea in Rossini’s Mosè in Egitto, and Florence Pike in Britten’s Albert Herring.
As a mezzo-soprano soloist on the concert stage, Kathryn has performed at Carnegie Hall, the
Ravinia Festival, the Grant Park Music Festival, the Boise Philharmonic, with the Los Angeles
Philharmonic at the Hollywood Bowl, and the Boston Symphony Orchestra at the Tanglewood Music Festival. She performed with Chicago’s Music of the Baroque in both Haydn’s Missa in Angustiis and Paukenmesse, with the Apollo Chorus of Chicago in Händel’s Messiah, and with Gloriae Dei Cantores in Mozart’s Requiem and Vaughan Williams’ The Pilgrim’s Progress. She has also performed multiple times with the Richmond Symphony, presenting Berlioz’s Les nuits d'été, Berlioz’s Roméo et Juliette, and Mendelssohn’s Die erste Walpurgisnacht.
During her years as a young artist, Kathryn performed multiple roles in the Lyric Opera of
Chicago’s Ryan Opera Center, including Giovanna in Verdi’s Ernani, Glasa in Janácek's Kát'a Kabanová, Javotte in Massenet’s Manon, and the Kunstgewerblerin in Berg’s Lulu. She understudied Marguerite in Berlioz's La damnation de Faust, Siebel in Gounod's Faust, Varvara in Janácek's Kát'a Kabanová, Kate Pinkerton in Puccini’s Madama Butterfly, and Lola in Mascagni’s Cavalleria Rusticana. Kathryn was also a young artist with Opera Theatre St. Louis’ Gerdine Young Artist Program, the Carmel Bach Festival, Ravinia’s Steans Institute, and the Tanglewood Music Center, where she performed Dorabella under the baton of Maestro James Levine.
As a singer in the competition arena, Kathryn has won several prizes, most notably with the
Shreveport Opera, the New York Lyric Opera, the Opera at Florham, the Bel Canto Competition, the
Heida Hermanns Competition, the National Opera Association, the Opera Birmingham, the Florida
Grand Opera, the Gerda Lissner Foundation, the Fort Worth McCammon Foundation, the Licia
Albanese-Puccini Foundation, the Sullivan Foundation, the George London Foundation, the Giulio Gari Foundation, the Orpheus Vocal Competition, and the Opera Columbus Vocal Competition. She was a National Semi-Finalist in the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions.
Leemhuis holds a Bachelor of Music degree from the Oberlin College Conservatory of Music, a
Master of Music degree from the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music, and a Doctor of Musical Arts degree from the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music. In addition to performing internationally, she is an Assistant Professor of Voice and Opera at Temple University’s Boyer College of Music and Dance in Philadelphia. Leemhuis is a native of Columbus, Ohio.
Sophia Nam is a 16-year old violist from Fort Lee, NJ. She is currently studying with Mrs. Sophie Arbuckle and attending Juilliard Pre-College as a viola major and Bergen County Academies. She started playing the violin at the age of 4 and later started the viola at 12. The three most recent titles she received were the 2023 Finalist of the Juilliard Pre-College Concerto Competition, 2023 Merit Winner of the National YoungArts Competition, and 2022 Grand Prize Winner of the New York Laureate International Music Competition. She spent last summer at the Perlman Music Program and this past winter with their winter residency in Sarasota, Florida, and plans on returning again this summer. She has also worked with world-renowned musicians such as Itzhak Perlman, Carol Rodland, Kirsten Docter, Aaron Rosand, Masao Kawasaki, and Toby Appel. She has been invited to perform in the Bruno Walter Lincoln Center, Stern Auditorium/Perelman Stage of Carnegie Hall, Symphony Space, Alice Tully Hall, Merkin Hall, and the Sarasota Opera House.
Sophia also enjoys chamber music. She was an original member of the Moa String Quartet, performing at benefit concerts with the Show Me Your Hearts Foundation, and was a part of the Iris Quintet through the New York Youth Symphony Chamber Music Program. Sophia has recently performed at the Wilson Theater in a string quartet, Weill Recital Hall of Carnegie Hall, and at the DiMenna Center with her quintet.
Aside from music, she is one of the founding members and vice president of the non-profit organization, My Two Cents, which advocates an end to period poverty for women by improving access to menstruation products for low-income and underprivileged communities and breaking the stigma surrounding menstruation.
Sophia Nam