Saturday, June 25
Chautauqua Amphitheater
Texts and Translations:
Mendelssohn (Italian)
1. Aria
Ah ritorna, età dell'oro
alla terra abbandonata,
se non fosti immaginata
nel sognar felicità.
Fu il mondo allor felice
che un tenero arboscello,
un limpido ruscello
le genti alimentó.
ah ritorna, bell'età.
Mendelssohn (English)
1. Aria
Ah come back, golden age
to the abandoned land,
if you weren't imagined
in dreaming of happiness.
The world was happy then
than a tender sapling,
a clear stream
the people fed.
ah come back, good age.
Giménez (Spanish)
La tarántula é un bicho mú malo;
No se mata con piera ni palo;
Que juye y se mete por tós los rincones
Y son mú malinas sus picazones.
¡Ay mare!, no zé que tengo
Que ayé pazé por la era
Y ha principiaito a entrarme
Er má de la temblaera.
Zerá q'a mí me ha picáo
La tarántula dañina
Y estoy toitico enfermáo.
Por su sangre tan endina.
¡Te coman los mengues
Mardita la araña
Que tié en la barriga
Pintá una guitarra!
Bailando se cura tan jondo doló.
¡Ay! ¡Mal haya la araña que a mí me picó!
No le temo á los rayos ni balas
Ni le temo á otra cosa más mala
Que me hizo mi pare;
Más guapo que er gayo
Pero á ese bichito lo parta un rayo.
¡Ay mare! yo estoy malito.
Me está entrando unos suores
Que me han dejaito seco
Y comío de picores.
Zerá que á mí me ha picáo
La tarántula dañina,
Por eso me he quedao
Más dergao que una sardina.
¡Te coman los mengues,
Mardita la araña
Que tié la barriga
Pintá una guitarra!
Bailando se cura tan jondo doló.
¡Ay! ¡Mal haya la araña que a mí me picó!
Giménez (English)
The tarantula's an evil little critter
You can't kill it with sticks or with stones
For it runs off and hides in corners
And its sting is wicked
Ay mother! I don't know what's up with me
Only yesterday
I went into the threshing barn
And now I'm shaking all over.
I must have been stung
By the nasty tarantula
And now I'm really ill.
Their blood is so bad
May the devils eat one another!
To hell with the spider
That on its stomach
Has a painted guitar!
Dancing is the only cure for this terrible pain.
Ay! Curse the spider that stung me!
I'm not afraid of thunderbolts or bullets
I'm not afraid of the worse things
My dad’s made me tougher;
More courageous than a cockerel
But may that critter be struck by a bolt.
Ay mother, I've got it bad.
I'm getting into one of those sweats
That dries you up
And gets you all scabby
I must have been stung
By the nasty tarantula
And that's why I'm getting
Thinner than a sardine.
May the devils eat one another!
To hell with the spider
That on its stomach
Has a painted guitar!
Dancing is the only cure for this terrible pain.
Ay! Curse the spider that stung me!
Hérold (French)
Jours de mon enfance,
Ô jours d’innocence!
Votre souvenance
Est pour moi le bonheur.
Malgré la cour et malgré le roi,
Mergy, je veux n’être qu’à toi.
Oui, Marguerite en qui j’espère
Protège une pauvre étrangère
Elle m’a dit en souriant
Rassurez vous ma pauvre enfant
Oui, malgré la cour
Malgré le Roi
Mergy, je veux n’être qu’à toi.
Ô Dieu du jeune âge
Par un doux presage
Soutiens mon courage inspire moi j’espère en toi
Par un doux presage
Soutiens mon courage protège moi
J’espère en toi
Rassure toi pauvre Isabelle
L’amitié te sera fidèle.
Hérold (English)
Days of my childhood,
O days of innocence!
Your memory
Is for me happiness.
Despite the court and despite the king,
Mergy, I want to be only yours.
Yes, Marguerite in whom I hope
Protect a poor stranger
She told me smiling
Don't worry my poor child
Yes, despite the court
Despite the King
Mergy, I want to be only yours.
O God of youth
By a sweet omen
Support my courage, inspire me, I hope in you
By a sweet omen
Support my courage, protect me.
I hope in you
Don't worry poor Isabelle
Friendship will be faithful to you.
Puccini: “Quando m’en vo” (Italian)
Quando men vo soletta per la via,
La gente sosta e mira
E la bellezza mia tutta ricerca in me
Da capo a pie'...
Ed assaporo allor la bramosia
Sottil, che da gli occhi traspira
E dai palesi vezzi intender sa
Alle occulte beltà.
Così l'effluvio del desìo tutta m'aggira,
Felice mi fa!
E tu che sai, che memori e ti struggi
Da me tanto rifuggi?
So ben:
le angoscie tue non le vuoi dir,
Ma ti senti morir!
Puccini: “Quando m’en vo” (English)
When walking alone on the streets,
People stop and stare
And examine my beauty
From head to toe
And then I savor the cravings
which from their eyes transpires
And from the obvious charms they perceive
The hidden beauties.
So the scent of desire is all around me,
It makes me happy!
And you who know, who remembers and yearns,
You shrink from me?
I know why this is:
You do not want to tell me of your anguish,
But you feel like dying!
Figueroa (Spanish)
En el cafetal mi rancho
Nido de pajaros parece,
Que a viento y lluvia se mece
Cual colgara de un gancho.
Con la hija del viejo
Pancho las lluvias son placenteras.
Porque al caer las goteras
ella se acuesta conmigo,
y me echa encima el abrigo
de su seno y sus caderas.
Figueroa (English)
From the coffee plantation my ranch
Seems like a birds nest,
That rocks with the wind and rain
Like hanging from a hook.
With old Pancho’s daughter
the rains are pleasant.
Because when the rain starts
she lays with me,
and covers me with the coat
of her breasts and her hips.
About the Artists
With a career spanning almost four decades, GRAMMY® Award-winning violinist Joshua Bell is one of the most celebrated artists of his era. Having performed with virtually every major orchestra in the world, Bell continues to maintain engagements as soloist, recitalist, chamber musician, conductor and Music Director of the Academy of St Martin in the Fields.
Bell's highlights in the 2021-22 season include leading the Academy of St Martin in the Fields at the 2021 BBC Proms and the U.S. on tour; returning with the Philadelphia Orchestra for a play/conduct program, and appearances with the Minnesota Orchestra, the New York Philharmonic, and Boston Symphony Orchestra. Highlights in Europe include a tour with pianist Shai Wosner, performances with the Tonhalle Orchestra Zurich, Russian National Orchestra, Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra, and Orchestre de Paris, as well as touring as soloist with the Israel Philharmonic and NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra.
In summer 2020, PBS presented Joshua Bell: At Home With Music, a nationwide broadcast directed by Tony and Emmy award winner, Dori Berinstein, produced entirely in lockdown. The program included core classical repertoire as well as new arrangements of beloved works, including a West Side Story medley. The special featured guest artists Larisa Martínez, Jeremy Denk, Peter Dugan, and Kamal Khan. In August 2020, Sony Classical released the companion album to the special, “Joshua Bell: At Home With Music.
In 2011, Bell was named Music Director of the Academy of St Martin in the Fields, succeeding Sir Neville Marriner, who formed the orchestra in 1959. Bell's history with the Academy dates back to 1986 when he first recorded the Bruch and Mendelsohn concertos with Mariner and the orchestra. Bell has since directed the orchestra on several albums including Vivaldi’s Four Seasons, Voice of the Violin, For the Love of Brahms, and most recently, Bruch: Scottish Fantasy, which was nominated for a 2019 GRAMMY® Award.
Bell has been active in commissioning new works from living composers and has premiered concertos of John Corigliano, (double concerto) Edgar Meyer, Behzad Ranjbaran and the Nicholas Maw’s Violin Concerto, for which his recording received a GRAMMY® award.
Bell has also collaborated with artists across a multitude of genres. He has partnered with peers including Renée Fleming, Chick Corea, Regina Spektor, Wynton Marsalis, Chris Botti, Anoushka Shankar, Frankie Moreno, Josh Groban, and Sting, among others. In Spring 2019, Bell joined his longtime friends and musical partners, cellist Steven Isserlis and pianist Jeremy Denk, for a ten-city American trio tour; the trio recorded Mendelssohn’s piano trios at Capitol Studios in Hollywood, slated for release next season. Following Bell’s second collaboration with the Singapore Chinese Orchestra and Maestro Tsung Yeh in 2018, an upcoming album release features Bell as soloist alongside traditional Chinese instruments performing Western repertoire and the Butterfly Lovers’ Violin Concerto, one of the most renowned violin works in Chinese cultural heritage.
In 1998 Bell partnered with composer John Corigliano and recorded the soundtrack for the film the Red Violin, which helped Joshua Bell become a household name and garnered an Academy award for the composer. Since then, he has appeared on several other film contracts including Ladies in Lavender (2004) to Defiance (2008).
Bell has also appeared three times as a guest star on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson and made numerous appearances on the Amazon series Mozart in the Jungle. Bell is featured on six Live From Lincoln Center specials, as well as a PBS Great Performances episode, “Joshua Bell: West Side Story in Central Park.” In 2018-19, Bell commemorated the 20th anniversary of The Red Violin (1998), bringing the film with live orchestra to various festivals and the New York Philharmonic.
Bells interest in technology led him to partner with Embertone, the leading virtual instrument sampling company, on the Joshua Bell Virtual Violin, a sampler created for producers, engineers, artists, and composers. Bell also collaborated with Sony on the Joshua Bell VR experience. Featuring Bell performing with pianist Sam Haywood in full 360-degrees VR, the software is available on Sony PlayStation 4 VR.
As an exclusive Sony Classical artist, Bell has recorded more than 40 albums garnering GRAMMY®, Mercury®, Gramophone and OPUS KLASSIK awards. Bell’s Fall 2019 Amazon Music Originals new Chopin Nocturne arrangement was the first classical release of its kind on the platform. Bell’s 2016 release, For the Love of Brahms, includes 19th-century repertoire with the Academy, Steven Isserlis, and Jeremy Denk. Bell’s 2013 album with the Academy of St Martin in the Fields, featuring Bell directing Beethoven’s Fourth and Seventh symphonies, debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard charts.
In 2007, a Pulitzer Prize-winning Washington Post story, centered on Bell performing incognito in a Washington, D.C. metro station, sparked an ongoing conversation regarding artistic reception and context. The feature inspired Kathy Stinson’s 2013 children’s book, The Man With The Violin, and a newly-commissioned animated film, with music by Academy Award-winning composer Anne Dudley. Stinson’s subsequent 2017 book, Dance With The Violin, illustrated by Dušan Petričić, offers a glimpse into one of Bell’s competition experiences at age 12. Bell debuted The Man With The Violin festival at the Kennedy Center in 2017, and, in March 2019, presented a Man With The Violin family concert with the Seattle Symphony.
In August 2021, Bell announced his new partnership with Trala, the tech-powered violin learning app, which Bell will work with to develop a unique music education curriculum. Bell maintains active involvement with Education Through Music and Turnaround Arts, which provide instruments and arts education to children who may not otherwise experience classical music firsthand. In 2014, Bell mentored and performed alongside National YoungArts Foundation string musicians in an HBO Family Documentary special, “Joshua Bell: A YoungArts Masterclass.” Bell received the 2019 Glashütte Original MusicFestivalAward, presented in conjunction with the Dresden Music Festival, for his commitment to arts education.
Born in Bloomington, Indiana, Bell began the violin at age four, and at age twelve, began studies with his mentor, Josef Gingold. At age 14, Bell debuted with Riccardo Muti and the Philadelphia Orchestra, and made his Carnegie Hall debut at age 17 with the St. Louis Symphony. At age 18, Bell signed with his first label, London Decca, and received the Avery Fisher Career Grant. In the years following, Bell has been named 2010 “Instrumentalist of the Year” by Musical America, a 2007 “Young Global Leader” by the World Economic Forum, nominated for six GRAMMY® awards, and received the 2007 Avery Fisher Prize. He has also received the 2003 Indiana Governor’s Arts Award and a Distinguished Alumni Service Award in 1991 from the Jacobs School of Music. In 2000, he was named an “Indiana Living Legend.”
Bell has performed for three American presidents and the sitting justices of the Supreme Court of the United States. He participated in former president Barack Obama’s Committee on the Arts and Humanities’ first cultural mission to Cuba, joining Cuban and American musicians on a 2017 Live from Lincoln Center Emmy nominated PBS special, Joshua Bell: Seasons of Cuba, celebrating renewed cultural diplomacy between Cuba and the United States.
Bell performs on the 1713 Huberman Stradivarius violin.
Internationally acclaimed soprano Larisa Martínez is widely regarded as one of the most exciting talents of her generation. Born and raised in Puerto Rico, she has been highly praised for her warm lyric coloratura voice and captivating stage presence. After performing Rossini’s Corinna from Il Viaggio a Reims, Fred Kohn (Opera News) wrote, ‘’Ms. Martínez cut an elegant figure, her deportment on stage matching that of her singing.” She recently made her Chicago Symphony debut at the 2021 Ravinia Festival, and has been recently seen as Violetta in La Traviata, conducted by Eugene Kohn (Wichita Grand Opera), as Sophie alongside superstar tenor Piotr Beczala in Werther (Culturarte), and as Maria in West Side Story conducted by Lawrence Foster with Metropolitan Opera tenor Michael Fabiano (Festival Napa Valley).
In 2019, Ms. Martínez made her Kennedy Center debut in recital and Carnegie Hall Stern Auditorium/Perelman Stage debut, singing Mahler’s Symphony No. 2 with the Athens Philharmonic under the baton of Yiannis Hadjiloizou. In 2020, she appeared with the Grand Rapids Symphony, performing Heitor Villa-Lobos’ Floresta do Amazonas. Other concert appearances include Mahler’s Symphony No.4 and Mozart’s Requiem in D minor and Voci di Domani, presented by Renata Scotto and recorded by Euroclassics in Rome. In 2016, she created the role of Isaura in the world premiere of Mercadante’s Francesca da Rimini in Italy, conducted by Maestro Fabio Luisi and directed by Pier Luigi Pizzi. That same year, Ms. Martínez was invited as part of President Barack Obama’s artistic delegation to Cuba, in an effort to expand cultural collaboration and friendships between the two countries, culminating in the Emmy®-nominated PBS special, Live from Lincoln Center: Seasons of Cuba where she was showcased.
For the last three years, Ms. Martínez has toured with tenor Andrea Bocelli, debuting at Madison Square Garden, Hollywood Bowl and throughout North America, South America, and Europe. She also has a long history of collaborations with violinist Joshua Bell, including two PBS specials and an upcoming “Voice and the Violin” concert tour.
In 2016, she won the Metropolitan Opera’s National Council Audition in Puerto Rico, as well as the Angel Ramos Foundation Award and the Audience Prize. Soon after, she was invited by the Metropolitan Opera Guild 2018 Annual Gala as a guest artist to honor Anna Netrebko. In 2018, EastWest Sounds Studios chose and sampled her voice for its new virtual instrument software, “Voices of Opera,” used by composers and engineers worldwide.
In addition to studying Vocal Performance at the Music Conservatory in San Juan, Larisa simultaneously received her Bachelor’s degree in Environmental Sciences with high honors from the University of Puerto Rico. She went on to receive a Master's degree from Mannes the New School of Music in New York City. Larisa is a board member at the Silk Road Ensemble, and a proud artistic resident of Turnaround Arts, led by the Presidential Committee on the Arts and the Humanities, an organization that strives to transform schools in need through the arts. www.larisamartinez.com
During his auspicious career before winning the 2021 American Pianist Awards and Christel DeHaan Classical Fellowship, Kenny Broberg captured the silver medal at the 2017 Van Cliburn International Piano Competition and a bronze medal at the 2019 International Tchaikovsky Competition as well as prizes at the Hastings, Sydney, Seattle and New Orleans International Piano Competitions, becoming one of the most decorated and internationally renowned pianists of his generation. Broberg is lauded for his inventive, intelligent and intense performances.
“Broberg mastered everything he performed over the weekend, pulling a palette of moods from every register,” The Indianapolis Star writes of Broberg’s performance during the Finals for American Pianists Awards. “In the ‘Dante Sonata’ from Liszt's Years of Pilgrimage, the pianist easily captured the drama in the journey, marrying all of the energy of those emotions in the epic ending.”
Crediting his first exposure to classical music to his Italian grandfather’s love of the Three Tenors, Broberg began piano lessons on his family’s upright piano at age 6. During his childhood in Minneapolis, he began studying piano with Dr. Joseph Zins at Crocus Hill Studios in Saint Paul. Throughout high school, he balanced his musical lessons with playing baseball and hockey. He remains an avid fan for both the Minnesota Twins and Wild and checks their scores while on breaks during his practice.
Broberg earned a Bachelor of Music degree in 2016 at the University of Houston’s Moores School of Music, studying under Nancy Weems. He continued his studies at Park University in Parkville, Missouri, under he direction of with Stanislav Ioudenitch, the gold medalist at the 2001 Van Cliburn International Piano Competition. Starting in the 2022-2023 academic year, Broberg will join the Reina Sofía School of Music in Madrid as Deputy Professor of the Fundación Banco Santander Piano Chair led by Ioudenitch.
Performing on stages and in concert halls across Europe, Asia, Australia, and North America, Broberg has worked with some of the world’s most respected conductors, including Ludovic Morlot, Kent Nagano, Leonard Slatkin, Vasily Petrenko, Nicholas Milton, John Storgårds, Carlos Miguel Prieto, and Stilian Kirov. He has collaborated with the Royal Philharmonic and the Minnesota, Indianapolis, Kansas City, Sydney, Seattle and Fort Worth Symphonies, among others. He has been featured on WQXR, Performance Today, Minnesota Public Radio and ABC (Australia) radio, and presented his original composition “Barcarolle” on NPR in March 2021.
As part of the American Pianist Awards, he will release his first studio album with the Steinway & Sons label in late 2022.
The Christel DeHaan Classical Fellowship also provides Broberg with a prize valued at $200,000 designed to assist him as he builds his musical career. It includes $50,000 in cash, two years of professional development and assistance and performance opportunities worldwide. Broberg will also work with students and host performances during his time on campus as the Artist-in-Residence at the University of Indianapolis. Before embarking on his international concerts, Broberg performed in his adopted home of Kansas City, Missouri, for the concert “KC Celebrates Kenny Broberg” in September 2021.