We are excited to announce that we will again have a side-by-side performance opportunity with our Zenith musicians. Selected students will sit on a stand with one of our Zenith performers for a rehearsal and performance during our grand finale on Saturday, June 6th. The selected Zenith Young Artists will also be featured on our website.
Learn more about the application process here.
In January, Kelly Kuo, Anna Reider, and Ashley Sidon performed in Butler’s Duckwald Artist Series as the Kasarah Trio. In the 2019-20 season, the Kasarah Trio performs in cities including Indianapolis and Des Moines.
Formed in 2016, the Kasarah Trio is a collaboration originating from relationships forged between colleagues at the Zenith Chamber Music Festival. The Kasarah Trio gave their debut performance at a benefit concert for Chamber Music Raleigh and have continued making music together ever since. Meaning a personality-type that is outspoken, passionate, kind-hearted, strong-willed, adventurous and lovable, Kasarah is a name that befits each member of the trio, some more strong-willed than others.
Trio members include violinist Anna Reider, cellist Ashley Sandor Sidon, and pianist Kelly Kuo.
Zenith Chamber Music Festival returns for the 6th Annual Season. Mark your calendars for June 2nd-6th, 2020 for a fantastic week of chamber music around Greater Des Moines, Iowa. We look forward to seeing you there!
All of our concerts are free and that is because Zenith Chamber Music Festival is completely donor funded. We couldn’t do this without your support.
If you are able to donate, you can do so electronically or through the mail.
If you would like to donate online please visit this link: https://alumni.drake.edu/zenith
If you would like to donate through the mail, please send a check to the following address.
Drake University
C/O Doug Lampe
Zenith Chamber Music Festival
2507 University Ave
Des Moines, Iowa
50311
Please make the check out to Drake University and in the memo, please write Zenith Chamber Music Festival. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact us through the contact form on this website.
Thank you so much for your generous support!
Violin students of Cheryl Kutcher will be performing a preconcert in Sheslow Auditorium at 7:00 p.m..
Artistic Director, Dr. Ashley Sidon was interviewed for Iowa Public Radio’s Iowa Arts Showcase by radio host Jacqueline Halbloom. Check out this link for the full story and stay tuned on IPR Classical for snippets of the story.
https://www.iowapublicradio.org/post/extraordinary-zenith-chamber-music-festival-des-moines
Thursday, June 6th from 4:00-6:00 p.m: Join Zenith musicians and select high school players for an open masterclass rehearsal. Shelsow Auditorium, Drake University.
The students will play alongside Zenith musicians on the Bartok Rumanian Folk Dances as an 8-person chamber ensemble for the Zenith Chamber Music Festival season finale on June 8th, 2019 at Sheslow Auditorium.
We can’t wait for our opening night concert with Amit Peled! Who else is excited?
“Israeli cellist Amit Peled, a musician of profound artistry and charismatic stage presence, is acclaimed worldwide as one of the most exciting and virtuosic instrumentalists on the concert stage today. At 6’5” tall, Peled started life as a basketball player and was called “larger than life” and “Jacqueline du Pré in a farmer’s body” when he enveloped his cello. Peled strives to break down the barriers of the concert hall, about which The Baltimore Sun wrote, “His amiable and inviting personality is exactly the type everyone says we’ll need more of if classical music is to survive.” From 2012 through 2018, Peled performed on the Pablo Casals 1733 Goffriller cello, which was loaned to him personally by Casals’ widow, Marta Casals Istomin.”
Meet our 2019 Zenith Artist, Sheldon Pearson!
Originally from Edmonton, Alberta, violist Sheldon Person has been a member of the Houston Symphony since 2011. He was previously a member of the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra and has performed with the London Symphony Orchestra, the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, the Mainly Mozart Festival Orchestra, and as soloist and guest principal with the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra. Sheldon serves as a faculty artist at the Sewanee Summer Music Festival and an artist at the Zenith Chamber Music Festival.
For more information on Sheldon, check out his full bio on our website: http://zenith.wp.drake.edu/sheldon-person/
Meet our 2019 Zenith Artist and incredible Zenith Chamber Music Festival Artistic Director, Ashley Sandor Sidon!
Ashley Sandor Sidon has performed solo and chamber recitals throughout the United States, Europe, South America, Canada, and Asia. She holds a D.M.A. from the University of Cincinnati Conservatory of Music, where her primary teacher was Yehuda Hanani, and is an alumna of the Aspen Music Festival. Dr. Sidon is the Briggs Endowed Professor of Cello at Drake University and prior to this appointment, taught at the Shanghai Conservatory of Music in Shanghai, China. Dr. Sidon has been an invited performer and clinician internationally, including solo performances in China, Hong Kong, Singapore, British Columbia, Taiwan, Italy, Germany, France, Poland, and Brazil. Nationally, her performances as a chamber musician and as an orchestral soloist have taken her to the leading universities and concert stages from Maine to California. An advocate for new music, Ashley Sidon has commissioned new works by Phillip Koplow, Matthew Quayle, Roger Vogel, Miguel del Aguila, and William Dougherty and has given the Poland premiere of Ned Rorem’s cello concerto. She has premiered new chamber music and unaccompanied works nationally, including New York City, Cincinnati, Chicago, and Des Moines, and internationally, including Beijing, Shanghai, Paris, and Vancouver.
For more on Dr. Sidon, check out her full bio on our website: http://zenith.wp.drake.edu/ashley-sandor-sidon/