Bach Sonatas Reimagined

Program

John Bullard, banjo

Over the course of his performing and recording career, John Bullard has invited audiences to share in a transformative revelation: to experience the artistic marriage of banjo and classical music. “Absolutely enchanting,” writes critic Graham Rickson of the UK-based The Arts Desk. “A musical education and experience that broke genre barriers,” noted Morgan Morrison, program director for the performance space The Barns of Rose Hill.

As a classically trained musician and the first graduate of Virginia Commonwealth University’s Department of Music to earn a degree in performance with the banjo, John Bullard has established a critically praised performing and recording career dedicated to exploring the artistic marriage of banjo and classical music. Bullard understands that accepting the banjo—a “folk” instrument with a complex pedigree—into the classical fold is a challenging proposition for traditionalists; the guitar once had to navigate a similar journey to mainstream acceptance. But through three album-length recordings, live performance, and workshops, Bullard continues to introduce the classical banjo to a growing audience worldwide.

Bullard’s concert repertoire includes solo, duet, and quartet performances of works from Bach, Vivaldi, Handel and others of the Baroque Period, along with later-period pieces by Schumann and others. More recently, Bullard has begun featuring new work by contemporary American composers, including a Caprice in D minor in the Romantic style, from composer Frank Mullen, and a set of 24 Preludes for Solo Banjo, commissioned from Adam Larrabee. In addition, Bullard is now working on a new commission from the genre-fusing composer Joshua Stamper and a new work from rising composer Steve Snowden.

More information, including recent videos of Bullard in performance, can be found at JohnBullard.com

Schuyler Slack, cello

Cellist Schuyler Slack has performed in orchestral, chamber music, and recital settings across the United States, Canada, Europe, and Japan.  The Alexandria, VA native was appointed to the  Richmond Symphony’s Kenneth and Bettie Christopher Perry Foundation Cello Chair in 2016.  Previously he held the joint position of Artist in Residence at the University of Evansville and Principal Cellist of the Evansville Philharmonic Orchestra.  He is also a member of the Des Moines Metro Opera Orchestra, Williamsburg Symphony, and is on the music faculty at Randolph-Macon College.  He performs frequently in the cello sections of major orchestras such as the Cleveland Orchestra and National Symphony, and studied at the Cleveland Institute of Music, where his primary teachers were Cleveland Orchestra principal cellists Mark Kosower and Stephen General.

A devoted chamber musician and lover of string quartets, Schuyler has studied with and performed alongside members of the Tokyo, Orford, Cleveland, Brentano, Guarneri and Juilliard Quartets, and Donald and Vivian Weilerstein.  He has performed on some of the world’s biggest stages, including Carnegie Hall’s Stern Auditorium, Tokyo’s Suntory Hall, and the Kennedy Center Concert
Hall; as well as given recitals at some of the countries top music schools, such as the Eastman School of Music and the University of Michigan.

Equally committed to the music of living composers and crossover musical endeavors, Schuyler has commissioned and performed  new compositions for the cello by composers Douglas Boyce,  Steven Snowden, and Heather Stebbins, with projects funded by grants from the Virginia Commission for the Arts and the Allan and Margot Blank Foundation. Recent festival appearances include Scrag Mountain Music, Beethoven and Banjos, and the Appalachian Chamber Music Festival. He was praised by the Washington Post for his “excellent” contribution – noted for his “pluck and scrape effects!” – to a new music-theatre adaptation of Kafka’s Metamorphosis that was taken to the Prague Fringe Festival in 2015.

Sam Suggs, bass

Through “brilliant and compelling programming” (The Strad) and creative performances that “quite simply boggled the mind” (Oregon Arts Watch), performer-composer Sam Suggs was the first bassist in a generation to join the Concert Artists Guild. He was named “New Artist of the Month” by Musical America after winning the 2015 International Society of Bassists Solo Competition, and was recently named one of “five up-and-coming bass players” to watch by Strad Magazine.

Lauded by The Boston Globe, for his “precise technique, interpretive vision, and impeccable musicianship,” he has performed alongside the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, Alarm Will Sound, A Far Cry, Mostly Mozart Festival, at Chamber Music Northwest, Lincoln Center, Carnegie Hall, and the Kennedy Center. In small chamber settings he has worked with the Amernet, Argus, Borromeo, Rolston, and Ulysses Quartets and in crossover projects with PUBLIQuartet, Founders, Triplepoint, Now Ensemble, and Andy Akiho’s Foundry.

Only the third double bassist to receive the prestigious DMA from the Yale School of Music in the history of the program, Sam is Associate Professor of Classical and Jazz Bass at James Madison University and serves on the faculties of the Yellow Barn Chamber Music Festival, the Heifetz International Music Institute, the Sewanee Music Center, and Bass Works. A native of Buffalo, he spends his time between the Northeast and the Shenandoah Valley performing with various chamber, crossover, and contemporary projects, and giving recitals and masterclasses.

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