The Philadelphia Orchestra announces the appointment of first associate concertmaster

Juliette Kang joined Orchestra at the opening of the 2005-06 season

(Philadelphia, October 7, 2005)

The Philadelphia Orchestra Association announces the appointment of violinist Juliette Kang as first associate concertmaster. Ms. Kang joined the Orchestra at the opening of the 2005-06 season.

Ms. Kang, a native of Edmonton, Canada, comes to Philadelphia from the Boston Symphony Orchestra where she served as assistant concertmaster from 2003 to 2005. Prior to that, she was a member of the first violin section of the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra from 2001 to 2003. During the 1999-2000 season, she was principal second violin with the Kennedy Center Opera Orchestra.

Ms. Kang was the gold medalist in the 1994 International Violin Competition of Indianapolis. In 1989, at age 13, she was a Young Concert Artists Audition winner, leading to recitals at New York City’s 92nd Street Y and at the Kennedy Center’s Terrace Theater in Washington, D.C. She won the Grand Prize at the Menuhin Violin Competition in Paris in 1992. She has been awarded numerous Canadian prizes and grants, including the Sylva Gelber Award of the Canada Council for the Arts, given annually to the most talented Canadian artist under age 30. In 1994 she was profiled in the New York Times Sunday Magazine as one of 30 people under 30 “most likely to change the culture over the next 30 years.”

Ms. Kang holds a Master of Music degree from the Juilliard School, where she studied with Dorothy DeLay and Robert Mann. Ms. Kang began violin studies at the age of four, and six years later she entered the Curtis Institute of Music as a student of Jascha Brodsky.

Ms. Kang has performed chamber music at summer festivals including Marlboro, SpoletoUSA, Skaneateles, Great Lakes Chamber Music, and Mostly Mozart at Lincoln Center, where she performed the Ravel Duo with her husband, cellist Thomas Kraines. She is a frequent visitor with Mr. Kraines to the Moab Music Festival, the Next Generation Festival with Awadagin Pratt, and the Portland Chamber Music Festival.

Ms. Kang’s solo engagements have included appearances with the orchestras of San Francisco, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Detroit, and Indianapolis, as well as with the Boston Pops, Hong Kong Philharmonic, the Singapore Symphony, the Vienna Chamber Orchestra, the Czech Philharmonic, and the Orchestre National de France. In her native Canada, she has soloed with the orchestras of Toronto, Winnipeg, Montreal, Quebec City, Calgary, Edmonton, and the National Arts Centre Orchestra of Ottawa.

An accomplished recitalist, Ms. Kang has performed in Paris at the Théâtre du Châtelet, in Tokyo at Suntory Hall, in Boston at the Gardner Museum, and in New York at the Frick Museum. In 1996 her recital at Carnegie Hall was recorded and released on the Samsung/Nices label. She has also recorded on the CBC label.

Founded in 1900, The Philadelphia Orchestra has distinguished itself as one of the leading orch­estras in the world through a century of acclaimed performances, historic international tours, best-selling recordings, and its unprecedented record of innovation in recording technologies and outreach. With only six music directors piloting The Philadelphia Orch­estra through its first century, the ensemble has maintained an unparalleled cohesiveness and unity in artistic leadership.

This rich tradition is carried on by Christoph Eschenbach, who became the Orchestra’s seventh music director in September 2003. His acclaimed first season in Philadelphia saw the launch of the Orchestra’s first-ever multi-year cycle of Mahler’s complete symphonies and ended with a tour of the music capitals of Europe. The 2004-05 season celebrated the works of the great masters, and included a four-week festival entitled Late Great Works featuring late works by Mozart, Strauss, Mahler, Tchaikovsky, Wagner, and Berio. In October 2004, Mr. Eschenbach and the Orchestra opened Carnegie Hall’s season with an all-Strauss program, featuring Renée Fleming and Yo-Yo Ma and broadcast on PBS’ Great Performances. The season closed with a three-week tour of Asia.

In May 2005, Mr. Eschenbach and the Orchestra announced a three-year recording partnership with Ondine Records, the Orchestra’s first recording contract in 10 years. Taken from live concerts, the first recording under the agreement is scheduled to be released in fall 2005. Other recent highlights include the launch of the public phase of a five-year, $125 million endowment campaign, entitled A Sound, A City, A Civilization, in 2003. The Orchestra’s 2002-03 season celebrated Wolfgang Sawallisch’s 10 highly acclaimed years at the Orchestra’s helm and paid tribute to his artistic achievements with the release of a Grammy-nominated three-disc set of Schumann recordings, the first recordings made in Verizon Hall at The Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts. In 2000, the Orchestra celebrated its 100th Anniversary, and in the following year, moved to its new home in the Kimmel Center.

The Philadelphia Orchestra annually touches the lives of more than one million music lovers worldwide through its performances (more than 300 concerts and other pre­sentations each year), publications, recordings, and broadcasts. A major winter subscription season is presented in Phila­delphia each year from September to May, in addition to education and community part­ner­ship programs. The Orchestra presents a series of concerts each year at New York’s Carnegie Hall, performing encores of some of its acclaimed concerts from Philadelphia. Its summer schedule includes a month-long outdoor season in Phila­del­phia at The Mann Center for the Performing Arts, free concerts in local neighborhoods, and a three-week residency each August at the Saratoga Performing Arts Center in upstate New York.

The Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts hosts the Orchestra’s home subscription concerts.
The Center includes two performance spaces, the 2500-seat Verizon Hall, designed and built especially for the Orchestra, and the 650-seat Perelman Theater for chamber music concerts. Designed by architect Rafael Viñoly along with acoustician Russell Johnson of Artec Consultants Inc., the Kimmel Center provides the Orchestra with a state-of-the-art facility for concerts, recordings, and education activities. The landmark building is named in honor of Philadelphia businessman and philanthropist Sidney Kimmel, who gave the largest individual gift toward its construction. Kimmel has served on the Board of Directors of The Philadelphia Orchestra since 1995.

The Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts (KCPA) and the historic Academy of Music (where the Orchestra performed for 101 seasons) are operated to­gether as a single cultural facility by Kimmel Center, Inc. (KCI). A variety of Philadelphia’s other performing arts groups serve as resident companies for the two buildings. KCI owns, manages, supports, and maintains the KCPA. Kimmel Center, Inc., also manages the Academy of Music, owned by The Philadelphia Orchestra Association since 1957, and where the Orchestra continues to present the highly anticipated annual Academy Anniversary Concert and Ball.