SCP GROUP STATEMENT and BRIEF HISTORY
"…superbly performed…exquisitely played…"
Richard Taruskin, The New York Times
"One of the most talented, ambitious and innovative instrumental groups around..."
R.M. Campbell, Seattle Post-Intelligencer
"…organic cohesiveness with limitless sound possibilities…"
Fyodor Sofronov, The Russian Musical Newspaper
Hailed for its daring and intelligent programming with uncompromising artistic and spirited performances, the Seattle Chamber Players enjoys a growing international reputation. For fifteen years, SCP’s four core members—Laura DeLuca, clarinet, David Sabee, cello, Mikhail Shmidt, violin, and Paul Taub, flute—have been passionately dedicated to introducing a wide range of composers whose styles and influences broaden the language of contemporary chamber music. In January 2004 the ensemble’s work was recognized with the ASCAP/Chamber Music America Award for Adventurous Programming.
DeLuca, Sabee and Shmidt are key members of the Seattle Symphony, and Taub is a Professor of Music at Cornish College of the Arts. Dr. Elena Dubinets, currently Music Research Coordinator for the Seattle Symphony, is the ensemble’s Artistic Advisor leading its research and programming.
SCP’s history is marked by its commitment to the music of our time. From its commissioning of works by the world leading composers to collaborations with the most prominent American and international creative artists, the ensemble has established itself in the vanguard of the contemporary music world. The SCP has introduced many prominent composers to the Pacific Northwest, including Fraghiz Ali-Zadeh, Aaron Jay Kernis, Valentin Silvestrov, Peteris Vasks and John Zorn. SCP’s two international festivals—Icebreaker I and Icebreaker II: Baltic Voices (2004)—brought dozens of international guests to Seattle and received multiple favorable reviews. Icebreaker III—music from the countries of the Caucasus Mountains (Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Turkey and Iran)—is planned for 2006.
The ensemble has twice traveled to Eastern Europe, appearing at Cold Alternativa and Moscow Autumn Festivals in Moscow, Russia, the St. Petersburg Sound Waves Festival, and at the Estonian Concert Hall in Tallinn. In May 2005 the SCP will be in residence at University of San José, Costa Rica. In September 2005 the SCP will be participating at the Warsaw Autumn Festival—the largest, oldest and most important contemporary music festival in the world—with a program of commissioned works.
In January 2005 the Seattle Chamber Players was featured in the award-winning radio program Saint Paul Sunday with Bill McLaughlin having hosted a concert recorded in Seattle that was broadcast internationally on April 10, 2005. SCP was ensemble-in-residence at Cornish College of the Arts in 2002 and 2003. The ensemble’s first CD, Otis Spann: Music of Wayne Horvitz, is available on the Periplum label and its latest recording, Reza Vali’s Folksongs (Set No. 15), is soon to be released.
For more information about the ensemble, visit www.seattlechamberplayers.org
JOHN DUYKERS BIO
John Duykers
(Tenor - The Tyrant) Internationally acclaimed tenor, John Duykers, made his professional operatic debut with Seattle Opera. Since then he has appeared with many of the leading opera companies of the world including The Lyric Opera of Chicago, San Francisco Opera, Houston Grand Opera, Royal Opera Covent Garden, Netherlands Opera, the Grand Theatre of Geneva, Frankfurt Opera, Opera de Marseille, the Canadian Opera Company, Santa Fe Opera, Los Angeles Opera, San Diego Opera and the Opera Company of
Philadelphia.
John Duykers is particularly known for his performances of contemporary music, having sung in more than 70 contemporary operas including 41 world premieres. Among these, he created the role of Mao Tse Tung in John Adams’ Nixon in China which he performed throughout the world. He has been a frequent performer at the Lyric Opera of Chicago and has appeared regularly with San Francisco Opera where he performed this past season in Britten’s Billy Budd, Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin and Ligeti’s Grand Macabre and Los Angeles Opera where he sang in Strauss’ Die Frau Ohne Schatten last season. John Duykers has had a close association with a number of contemporary composers, notably John Adams and Philip Glass. He sang the premiere of Glass’ In The Penal Colony and 2001 and Galileo Galilei in 2002 as well as the Americam premiere of White Raven.
John Duykers is likewise a frequent performer with symphony orchestras throughout the United States. He has sung with the National Symphony Orchestra, American Composers Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Kansas City Symphony, Tri-Cities Symphony, Sacramento Symphony, Santa Rosa Symphony and the San Jose Symphony. He made his Disney Hall debut this spring with the Los Angeles Master Chorale in Orff’s Carmina Burana. His appearances at major festivals have included Aspen, the American Music Theater
Festival, the Gaudeamus Music Week, Kaitheater Festival, the Brooklyn Academy of Music’s ‘Next Wave’ Festival, Spoleto Festival USA, the London International Festival of Theatre, Internationale Teaterfestival in Copenhagen, Edinburgh Festival, the Festival Internacional de Teatro of Granada and Juneau Jazz and Classics.
His upcoming performances will include premieres of Paul Dresher’s Tyrant with the Seattle Chamber Players, then playing at the Prince Music Theater in Phildadlephia, Bitter Harvest by Kurt Rohde for Kent Nagano and the Berkeley Symphony and a new version of the opera KALI by Tony Prabowo, Jarrad Powell and Goenawan Mohamed.
John Duykers has received critical acclaim in numerous productions of the Paul Dresher Ensemble, George Coates Performance Works, and the A.Ga.Pe Performance Group which have been seen on the world’s most important contemporary music and theater stages. He is currently developing an opera program for the School of Music at the California Institute of the Arts.
