Edward Klorman
Author, Bach: The Cello Suites

ABOUT THE EVENT

Although Bach’s six Cello Suites are firmly established as the cornerstone of the cello repertoire, many aspects of their history have long remained murky. Violist and musicologist Edward Klorman will share new perspectives on when, how, and why Bach composed the suites and what kind(s) of instruments he may have had in mind. He will share the latest discoveries about the earliest known performances of the Cello Suites and perspectives about new directions in performing and programming them.

You are also invited to bring your questions about the Cello Suites for discussion. For more information, visit https://www.Bach-Cello-Suites.com. Please bring your Cello Suites score!

ABOUT EDWARD KLORMAN

Edward Klorman is an award-winning author, violist, and scholar active at the intersection of music analysis, historical musicology, and music performance. He is Professor of Music at the University of Wisconsin – Madison. His first book, Mozart’s Music of Friends, explores metaphors of sociability and “conversation” in chamber music. It received major awards from ASCAP, the Mozart Society of America, and the Society for Music Theory. His new book, Bach: The Cello Suites, explores how the composer’s six suites—once dismissed as historical curiosities—have come to occupy such a prominent place in both concert life and popular culture. He has performed as guest artist with the Borromeo, Orion, and Ying Quartets and as baroque violist with Arion Orchestre Baroque and Les Boréades de Montréal.

ABOUT GUEST ARTIST JESÚS CASTRO-BALBI

Cellist Jesús Castro-Balbi has developed a distinguished record of artistic and educational leadership nationally and internationally. He has performed extensively across the Americas, Europe, and Asia, including at Carnegie Hall, Mexico City’s Sala Nezahualcóyotl, Seoul Arts Center, Shanghai’s Oriental Arts Center, and at Tokyo’s Suntory Hall, and is featured in 11 albums.

As a soloist, he has collaborated with the China Philharmonic Orchestra, Leipzig MDR Radio Orchestra (Germany), Mexico City Philharmonic Orchestra, and the National Symphony Orchestra (Peru), and with conductors Arild Remmereit, Emmanuel Plasson, Fernando Valcárcel, Gregory Vajda, Linus Lerner, Philippe Bender, Ramón Tebar, and Yang Yang. Of note are performances of the Lutoslawski cello concerto with Carlos Miguel Prieto leading the UNAM Philharmonic Orchestra (Mexico); Tchaikovsky’s Rococo Variations with Germán Gutiérrez and the Dallas Symphony Orchestra; Osvaldo Golijov’s Azul with Miguel Harth-Bedoya, Michael Ward-Bergeman, Jamey Haddad, Cyro Baptista, and the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra; and Brahms’ Double Concerto with Henning Kraggerud and the Aarhus Symphony Orchestra (Denmark) led by Giancarlo Andretta.

A passionate champion of music of our time, he is the dedicatee of 29 compositions and has presented 71 premiere performances and the world premiere recording of 20 works, including the first recording of Samuel Zyman’s Suite for Two Cellos with Carlos Prieto. With pianist Gloria Lin, he recorded the complete music for cello and piano by Robert Rodriguez and Rapsodia Latina, an album featuring seven world premiere recordings, including Esteban Benzecry’s Rapsodia Andina and Gabriela Lena Frank’s Manhattan Serenades. Additionally, he gave the premiere of Lera Auerbach’s Postscriptum, with Arkady Fomin and David Korevaar, in the Clavier Trio; and the New York premiere of Mark-Anthony Turnage’s Cello Concerto, Kai, with the New Juilliard Ensemble led by Joel Sachs. With Germán Gutiérrez and the Texas Christian University Symphony Orchestra, he premiered Edgar Valcárcel’s Concierto Indio and Jimmy López’ Cello Concerto, Lord of the Air, subsequently recording the latter with Miguel Harth-Bedoya and the Norwegian Radio Orchestra for Harmonia Mundi to international critical acclaim. 

In 2024-25, he leads Stories of Tango, a partnership with legendary tango figure Daniel Binelli, award-winning filmmaker Sangsun Choi, and organizations nationwide to preserve and disseminate the cultural legacy embedded in a new collection of concert tango music for cello and bandoneon. He also collaborates with pianist David Korevaar, explores music for violin and cello with Gabriel Richard and repertoire for flute, cello and piano with Jill Dreeben and Carmen Peralta; unveils a new cello concerto by Ludsen Martinus; and performs at Carnegie Hall and in South Korea with Sejong Soloists.

A renowned educator, he developed an internationally sought-after cello program at Texas Christian University, where he taught for 18 years. At TCU, he founded and served as artistic director of the TCU Cello Ensemble, the TCU Cellofest, and of the Faculty & Friends Chamber Music Series. Previously, he was a cello faculty at the Juilliard School’s Pre-College Division. His students are now performers, college professors, professional orchestra members, K-12 teachers, conductors, composers, arts administrators, entrepreneurs, and altogether productive and engaged citizens in the U.S. and abroad. 

He has given masterclasses at Beijing’s Central Conservatory, Paris Conservatoire, the Leipzig and Stuttgart Hochschule, the Yale School of Music, and for the Japan Cello Society, the Youth Orchestra of the Americas, and the Colombia Youth Philharmonic Orchestra.  Additionally, he has adjudicated at the Lynn Harrell Competition (Dallas), the Sphinx Competition (Michigan), and at the Aiqin Bei (China), Lutoslawski (Poland) and Carlos Prieto (Mexico) international cello competitions.

As an American Council on Education Fellow, he developed perspective on higher education with leaders at the University of Miami and at campuses across the nation. Additionally, he completed the Management Development Program at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. He has served in a variety of leadership roles in and outside of academia ranging from faculty senate chair and school director to associate dean and alumni club president. These experiences strengthened his appreciation for the transformational impact of communities of learners.

Of Peruvian heritage and raised in France, Dr. Castro-Balbi graduated from the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique at Lyon (France), Indiana University Bloomington, and the Yale School of Music, and holds a Doctor of Musical Arts degree from The Juilliard School. He had the privilege to learn from Aldo Parisot, Janos Starker, Iseut Chuat, Marc Coppey, Jean Deplace, and members of the Amadeus, Borodine, Juilliard, Ravel and Tokyo String Quartets. 

Dr. Castro-Balbi is a professor of music at Kennesaw State University, a large public research university in metro Atlanta. Please visit www.jcbcello.com.

ABOUT JAMES KIM

James Kim has appeared as soloist with orchestras such as Boston Symphony and Royal Philharmonic, working with conductors David Zinman, Michael Sanderling, Alexander Shelley, Keith Lockhart, onstage at Carnegie Stern Auditorium, Zankel Hall, Boston Symphony Hall, Jordan Hall, and Metropolitan Museum of Art. He has given solo recitals at Carnegie Weill Hall, Greene Space, Seoul Arts Center IBK Hall, and Kumho Art Hall. His performances have been broadcasted on radio stations NPR and WQXR.

He has also collaborated with numerous orchestras in his native Korea, concertizing at Lotte Concert Hall—where he is the first soloist in its history—Tongyeong Concert Hall, Daegu Concert House, Seoul Arts Center, and DITTO Festival. In 2021, Sony Classical released his album Death and Offering presenting works dedicated to him by Korean composer Shinuh Lee. 

He is a recipient of Salon de Virtuosi’s Sony Career Grant and a top prizewinner of Isang Yun and David Popper International Cello Competitions. From 2016 to 2021, he performed on a Matteo Goffriller cello from Venice ca. 1715, generously loaned by Samsung Cultural Foundation and Stradivari Society® of Chicago, Illinois. 

ABOUT EMELY PHELPS

Praised by the Boston Globe for her “fleet, energetic, and bright-toned” playing, pianist Emely Phelps enjoys a versatile career as a chamber musician, soloist, and teacher. Second prize winner of the 2023 Ernst Bacon Prize for American Music, Emely has given more than 50 performances over the past two years, with recent highlights including an all-American solo recital and educational residency in Ruth Crawford Seeger’s birthplace of East Liverpool, OH, chamber music performances with A Far Cry and the Cassatt Quartet, Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue with the Ohio University Wind Symphony, and duo recitals with violinist Christine Harada Li, flutist Jeiran Hasan, and trombonist Lucas Borges.

Emely made her solo orchestral debut at the age of 16 with the National Symphony Orchestra, and has since been a featured concerto soloist with orchestras such as the Bismarck-Mandan Symphony Orchestra, Las Colinas Symphony Orchestra and Washington Metropolitan Philharmonic. She has presented solo recitals throughout North America and Europe with a diverse repertoire ranging from Bach to Carter, and is a particularly passionate advocate for new music, having given world premieres of more than a dozen compositions and worked closely with Jörg Widmann, Shulamit Ran, Lei Liang, Robert McClure, and Richard Wernick in performances of their works. She will finish recording her first solo album in March through an Artist Residency at Yellow Barn, featuring a survey of American piano music, including works by Ruth Crawford Seeger, Elliott Carter, Robert McClure and a new co-commission from Tyson Gholston Davis.

An in-demand collaborator, Emely has been on the faculty of the T-Town Chamber Music Festival, Icicle Creek Chamber Music Festival, Anchorage Chamber Music Festival and Yellow Barn Young Artists Program, performs regularly with Electric Earth Concerts, and has attended numerous other chamber music festivals, including five summers at Yellow Barn and three summers at Kneisel Hall. She has appeared as a guest artist with the Borromeo String Quartet, and maintains active duo partnerships with violist Jonathan Bagg and flutist Hannah Porter Occeña. Emely recently recorded her third CD with Hannah, with previous releases including Discovering Her Voice and Confluence, and also appears on the Delos label with violinist Dawn Wohn (Unbounded, 2023), all highlighting duos by female composers.

As a founding member of Trio Cleonice, Emely spent eight years with the ensemble, performing across the United States, touring Europe - including a recital at the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam - and winning second prize at the Schoenfeld International String Competition in Harbin, China. The group also served as the Graduate Piano Trio-in- Residence at New England Conservatory for three years, and from 2014-2016 curated a monthly chamber music series, Trio Cleonice and Friends, in Brookline, Massachusetts, with the aim of making chamber music an accessible and integral part of the community. 

Emely is thrilled to be joining the University of Georgia as Limited-Term Assistant Professor this fall, having most recently served as Associate Professor of Instruction at Ohio University, where from 2019-2025 she co-chaired the keyboard division, taught applied piano, chamber music, and keyboard repertoire, and directed the graduate collaborative piano degree program. Prior to her appointment at OU, she was the head piano TA at Stony Brook University, teaching for and managing their undergraduate piano program. Emely has givenmaster classes at numerous universities, and been a featured presenter at Ohio University’s Piano Pedagogy Seminar and the Ohio Music Teachers Association State Conference.

Born in Frederick, Maryland, Emely began her piano studies with Carole Kriewaldt and Marjorie Lee before receiving her B.M. and M.M. from the Juilliard School as a student of Julian Martin. She holds a Doctorate of Musical Arts from Stony Brook University, where she studied with Christina Dahl, and a Graduate Diploma in chamber music from NEC, where she had the privilege of being mentored by Vivian Weilerstein during Trio Cleonice’s residency at the institution.