

Kalb Conducts Beethoven & Brahms
June 21 @ 8:00 pm
TICKETS: $49 Premium Reserved | $39 Standard Reserved | $34 Adult Lawn | $15 Child (1-12) & Student Lawn (with valid ID)
GATES OPEN: @ 5:45 PM Early Entry | 6:00 PM General Public | 7:00 PM Pre-Concert Talks
ALCOHOL: A selection of beer and wine will be available for purchase. Customers will also be permitted to bring in outside alcohol for this performance.
Experience high drama and heart-racing energy in a pair of showstopping works — Ludwig van Beethoven’s dance-inspired Seventh Symphony and Johannes Brahms’s Double Concerto for Violin and Cello — and hear Gabriela Lena Frank reimagine Peruvian folk songs to summon a mischievous Andean spirit.
PROGRAM
Gabriela Lena Frank
Apu: Tone Poem for Orchestra (2017)
Johannes Brahms
Double Concerto for Violin & Violoncello in A minor, Op. 102
Tessa Lark and Wei Yu, violin & cello
Ludwig van Beethoven
Symphony No. 7 in A Major, Op. 92
Learn more about the music and the artists by coming early for our 30-minute Pre-Concert Talk (excludes concerts with film and/or non-classical events).
Note: Schedule, programs, and artists subject to change. Visit Brittfest.org for the most current information. Standard BFO programs run 90 minutes with intermission.
Sponsors & Grantors:
Sponsors: Cutler Investment Group, LLC, Rogue Valley Manor, Diamond Medical Maintenance, Inc, and Kubli Haus
Grantor: The Carpenter Foundation
Mexican-born conductor Roberto Kalb is currently the Music Director of Detroit Opera. In 2024-2025, he will lead performances of West Side Story for his house debut with the Houston Grand Opera, Siegfried with the Atlanta Opera, and La Traviata and Rinaldo with the Detroit Opera. He will conduct the Orquesta Sinfónica de Minería in concerts alongside Sir Bryn Terfel in Mexico City. He will also debut with the Orquesta Sinfónica del Estado de México conducting Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 5.
Recent highlights include debuts with the Santa Fe Opera where he conducted L’elisir d’amore, Atlanta Opera conducting Rigoletto, as well as with the Civic Orchestra of Chicago. Kalb made his inaugural debut as Music
Director of Detroit Opera conducting Yuval Sharon’s production of The Cunning Little Vixen. In Detroit, he also conducted an Arias and Overtures Gala, as well as launching the “Beyond the Pit” series featuring the Detroit Opera Orchestra. Kalb returned to Lyric Opera of Kansas City to conduct a double bill of Cavalleria Rusticana/Pagliacci. Kalb’s 2022-2023 season included performances at the Lyric Opera of Chicago, Lyric Opera of Kansas City, San Diego Opera, and San Francisco Opera. In 2019, Kalb concluded his five-season tenure as resident conductor and head of music at Opera Theatre of Saint Louis with a critically acclaimed run of Rigoletto in collaboration with the Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra.
He has an impressive repertoire of performances with various renowned opera companies and symphonies. These include the Opéra Orchestre National Montpellier, Florida Grand Opera, Kentucky Opera, Opera Theatre of Saint Louis, Michigan Opera Theatre, Wolf Trap Opera, Opera Maine, and Tulsa Opera. Additionally, he has conducted performances with the Orquesta Carlos Chavez in Mexico City and the Orquestra Sinfonica da USP in São Paulo. He has collaborated with some of the lead orchestras in the United States, including the National Symphony Orchestra, St. Louis Symphony, San Diego Symphony, and Louisville Orchestra.
In 2021, Roberto was awarded the prestigious Solti Foundation U.S. Career Assistance Award. He holds degrees from the University of Michigan and the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. He is married to soprano, Mane Galoyan.
About Tessa Lark
Violinist Tessa Lark is one of the most captivating artistic voices of our time, consistently praised by critics
and audiences for her astounding range of sounds, technical agility, and musical elegance. Increasingly in
demand in the classical realm, in 2020 she was nominated for a Grammy in the Best Classical Instrumental
Solo category. She is also a highly acclaimed fiddler in the tradition of her native Kentucky, delighting
audiences with programming that includes Appalachian and bluegrass music and inspiring composers to
write for her.
Following a busy summer that saw her perform with the Sarasota Festival, Seattle Chamber Music
Festival, La Jolla Music Society SummerFest, Classical Tahoe, Tippet Rise, and Moab Music Festival, among
others, highlights of Lark’s 2024-25 season include returns to the BBC Symphony Orchestra in London,
and the Rochester Philharmonic, and a debut with Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra. In recital she will
debut with San Francisco Symphony, University of California at Santa Barbara and the Artist Series of
Sarasota. She reprises Michael Torke’s violin concerto, Sky – written for her, and the 2020 recording of
which earned her a Grammy nomination – with the Boulder and Colorado Springs Philharmonic
Orchestras, as well as the West Michigan, Williamsburg, Shreveport, and Tallahassee Symphony
Orchestras. As a chamber musician, she will tour with her string trio project with composer-bassist Edgar
Meyer and cellist Joshua Roman through the Fall to venues including Meany Hall, Seattle, Cal
Performances Berkeley, WPAS in Washington D.C., and the Boston Celebrity Series.
The violinist has performed with orchestras, recital venues and festivals around the world. She has
appeared with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra; the Louisville Orchestra; the Stuttgart Philharmonic
and the Indianapolis, Knoxville and Seattle Symphonies; as well as being presented by Carnegie Hall, New
York’s Lincoln Center, London’s Wigmore Hall, Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw, the Isabella Stewart Gardner
Museum in Boston, Cal Performances, San Francisco Performances, the Seattle Chamber Music Society,
Australia’s Musica Viva Festival, and the Marlboro, Mostly Mozart, and Bridgehampton summer festivals.
Lark’s most recent album, The Stradgrass Sessions, released in spring 2023, features an all-star roster of
collaborators and composers including Meyer, pianist Jon Batiste, mandolinist Sierra Hull and fiddler
Michael Cleveland. Album selections mix original compositions by Lark and her collaborators with a
sonata by Eugène Ysaÿe, a selection of Bartók’s violin duets arranged for violin and mandolin and the
world premiere recording of John Corigliano’s STOMP.
Lark’s debut commercial recording was the Grammy-nominated SKY, a bluegrass-inspired violin concerto
written for her by Michael Torke and performed with the Albany Symphony Orchestra. Besides The
Stradgrass Sessions, her discography also includes Fantasy on First Hand Records: fantasias by Schubert,
Telemann and Fritz Kreisler; Ravel’s Tzigane; and Lark’s own composition Appalachian Fantasy. Invention,
marking the debut album for the violin-bass duo made up of Lark and bassist Michael Thurber, comprises
arrangements of Two-Part Inventions by J. S. Bach along with original compositions by both duo partners.
Finally, a live performance recording of Astor Piazzolla’s Four Seasons of Buenos Aires was released in
2021 by the Buffalo Philharmonic in honour of Piazzolla’s centenary.
Lark is a recipient of the Hunt Family Award, one of Lincoln Center’s prestigious Emerging Artist Awards,
as well as a 2018 Borletti-Buitoni Trust Fellowship and a 2016 Avery Fisher Career Grant. She was Silver
Medalist in the 9th Quadrennial International Violin Competition of Indianapolis and winner of the 2012
Naumburg International Violin Competition
In addition to her performance schedule, Lark is Artistic Director of Musical Masterworks, a chamber
music presenter in Old Lyme, Connecticut. She champions young aspiring artists and supports the next
generation of musicians through her work as Co-host/Creative of NPR’s From the Top, the premier radio
showcase for the nation’s most talented young musicians. She also serves as Mentor and board member of
the Irving M. Klein International Strings Competition.
Lark is a graduate of New England Conservatory and completed her Artist Diploma at The Juilliard School,
where she studied with Sylvia Rosenberg, Ida Kavafian, and Daniel Phillips. Her primary mentors include
Cathy McGlasson, Kurt Sassmannshaus, Miriam Fried, and Lucy Chapman. She plays a ca. 1600 G.P.
Maggini violin on loan from an anonymous donor through the Stradivari Society of Chicago.
About Wei Yu
Wei Yu was appointed Principal Cello of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra in 2014 by then Music Director Leonard Slatkin. He made his subscription debut performing Dvorak’s Cello Concerto in November 2015 and has since appeared as soloist almost every season. Before joining the DSO, Wei Yu was a member of the New York Philharmonic for seven seasons.
Yu was a prizewinner at the Hudson Valley Philharmonic String, Holland American Music Society Cello, Music Teacher National Association (MTNA National Collegiate Strings), Canada’s National Music Festival, Calgary’s Kiwanis Festival and China’s National Cello competitions.
An avid chamber musician, Wei Yu has been invited to the Marlboro, Ravinia, Great Lakes and Mainly Mozart music festivals, and has recently collaborated with musicians such as cellist Carter Brey, David Soyer, pianists Richard Goode and Menahem Pressler, violinists Augustin Hadelich, Midori and Pinchas Zukerman, members of the Guarneri, Emerson and Juilliard Quartets. As a member of the New York Philharmonic Ensembles, he made regular appearances at Merkin Concert Hall.
Yu currently serves on faculty of Northwestern University Bienen School Of Music and the Cleveland Institute of Music. He has given cello masterclasses at universities and festivals in the United States, Canada and China. During the summer Yu teaches at the Meadowmount School of Music and the Morningside Music Bridge International Music Festival at the New England Conservatory. He also regularly serves on faculty of the National Youth Orchestra of the United States of America (NYO-USA).
Born in Shanghai, China, Wei Yu began studying the cello at age 4 and made his concerto debut at age 11, performing Elgar’s Cello Concerto with the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra. He received his B.M. from North Park University in Chicago and M.M. from the Juilliard School. His principal teachers include Mei-Juan Liu, John Kadz, Hans Jørgen Jensen, and David Soyer. He performs on the 1720 “Bedetti” David Tecchler cello, on generous loan from the Detroit Symphony Orchestra.