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| The American violinist WILLIAM HARVEY recently made his Carnegie hall debut with the New York Youth Symphony, playing with “fire and assurance,” as noted by The New York Times. William Harvey has established an eclectic career, built on and embracing a wide variety of repertoire and artistic experiences. He has been guest soloist with the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra and the Music Academy of the West Festival Orchestra, and played Milton Babbitt’s Melismata in The Juilliard School’s official concert honoring the composer’s 90th birthday. In 2002, he gave the first performance west of New York City of the Sonata for Solo Violin (1919) by Artur Schnabel. He taught at the Las Vegas Music Festival and has conducted master classes at the Escuela Superior de Musica (México City), St. Scholastica’s College (Manila) and Whitworth College (Spokane). As a conductor, Mr. Harvey has led concerts of the Youth Orchestra of México City and the PREDIS program in Manila. In 2007, he toured Qatar with the Juilliard Jazz Ensemble and presented the Filipino premiere of Sir Edward Elgar's Violin Concerto with the Manila Symphony Orchestra. A profound believer in outreach concerts and the power of music to heal, William Harvey famously performed for members of the Fighting Sixty-Ninth regiment on September 16, 2001, as they recuperated from the rigors of a long day of rescue and reclamation work at New York City’s Ground Zero, the site of the World Trade Center catastrophe. His account of that performance was published in Chicken Soup for the American Soul, Reader’s Digest and over forty publications world-wide, in addition to having been featured nationally on NPR’s Performance Today and Fox News’ The Judith Regan Show. William Harvey founded and directs Cultures in Harmony, an organization that forges connections across cultural and national barriers through the medium if music. In Konya, Turkey, the birthplace of the whirling dervish rite, he successfully negotiated the first inclusion of women in the ensemble of accompanying musicians in the 700-year history of the ceremony. Cultures in Harmony has also assisted AIDS orphans in Zimbabwe write music about water to call attention to water-access issues at their school, and helped The Philippines’ Tala-Andig tribe create compositions in celebration of its indigenous heritage. Workshops for young classical musicians in The Philippines, Tunisia, Zimbabwe and México have benefitted hundreds of students. William Harvey is also a noted composer, whose works have received hundreds of performances. In 2005, When I Have Fears, for soprano and piano, premiered at the Wolf Trap Festival, with a repeat performance at the New York Festival of Song, while, in 2006, Cuerpo Garrido won Columbia University’s Bearns Prize. The Indiana University String Academy commissions him frequently, playing his string works throughout the American mid-west, France and Japan. His compositions have been performed on national radio (From the Top, NPR) and television (Musical Encounters, PBS). His principal composition teachers were Samuel Adler and Sven-David Sandstrom. In 2004, William Harvey became one of two students to earn the Bachelor’s of Music With Highest Distinction from Indiana University, where he studied with Ilya Kaler and Mimi Zweig. He received his master’s degree from The Juilliard School, having studied with Ronald Copes. While there, he won the school’s concerto competition, presenting the New York City premiere of Behzad Ranjbaran’s Violin Concerto in an Alice Tully Hall performance with Gerard Schwarz and The Juilliard Orchestra, a concert that was broadcast nationally on NPR’s Performance Today. |
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"Last night at Alice Tully Hall, the violinist and composer William Harvey gave an intense and persuasive performance of Behzad Ranjbaran’s Violin Concerto, with the Juilliard Orchestra under Gerard Schwarz. Harvey is remarkable not only for his considerable technical gifts, but also for his ambitious projects and international music education. This summer he is teaching composition to AIDS orphans in Zimbabwe." |
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1/11-25/2009 CULTURES IN HARMONY |
