Mercury Announces Mercury-Juilliard Fellowship

Mercury is proud to announce a new collaboration with The Juilliard School's Historical Performance Program. The Mercury-Juilliard Fellowship initiative encourages the development of talented young instrumentalists and fosters a strong relationship between two major players in America's period instrument performance scene.

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THE INITIATIVE

Each spring, Mercury will select up to four post-graduate students from The Juilliard School to participate in a one-year fellowship with the ensemble. Fellows will perform with Mercury during the season, gaining valuable performance experience while introducing Houston to the next generation of great period performance musicians. The 2016-2017 Juilliard Fellows are Edson Scheid (violin), Nayeon Kim (violin), and Toma Iliev (viola). They will appear for the first time with Mercury on October 8 performing in its season opening concert featuring Brahms' First Symphony and Beethoven's Violin Concerto.

THE FELLOWS

Violinist player Edson Scheid has been praised for his "polished playing" (The Strad), and for being "both musically and technically one of the most assured and accomplished of today's younger period violinists" (The Boston Musical Intelligencer). A native of Brazil, Edson has performed with such ensembles as Les Arts Florissants, Il Pomo d'Oro, the Trinity Baroque Orchestra, Juilliard415, the Orchestra of St. Luke's, the Aston Magna Music Festival, Orchester Wiener Akademie, and the Aspen Festival Orchestra. He is the two-time winner of the Historical Performance Concerto Competition at The Juilliard School, and recipient of the Broadus Erle Prize at the Yale School of Music. Edson's many performances of Paganini's 24 Caprices, on both period and modern violins, have been received with enthusiasm around the world. He has performed the Caprices in cities in Europe, North and South America, and Asia, and has been featured live in-studio on In Tune from BBC Radio 3. He has recorded the Caprices on baroque violin under the Naxos label. Edson holds degrees from the Universität Mozarteum Salzburg, the Yale School of Music and The Juilliard School, where he was the proud recipient of a Kovner Fellowship.

Violinist Nayeon Kim is focusing her career on music from the Renaissance through the early Romantic era with period instruments. She pursued her second Master of Music degree in the Historical Performance program at The Juilliard School studying under Monica Huggett and Cynthia Robert and graduated recently. Originally from South Korea, Nayeon has received an Artist Diploma as well as a Master of Music degree from the Yale School of Music under the tutelage of Hyo Kang. While there, she was a graduate fellow for the Yale Baroque Ensemble, performing a wide variety of repertoire from early 17th century Baroque opera to contemporary chamber music in collaboration with New Music New Haven series. Shortly after graduating with her bachelor's degree with honors from Seoul National University in South Korea, Nayeon won a position with the Bucheon Philharmonic Orchestra in Korea, where she remained for five years before coming to the United States. Nayeon has participated in many festivals including Dans les Jardins de William Christie, the Berkeley and Boston Early Music Festivals, the Oregon Bach Festival, Leipzig Bachfest, and the Norfork Chamber Music Festival. She has performed alongside such distinguished musicians as William Christie, Jordi Savall, Masaaki Suzuki, Robert Levin, Nicholas McGegan, Richard Egarr, Monica Huggett, Rachel Podger, and Robert Mealy.

Violist Toma Iliev is a well-rounded musician focused on historical performance practice. He has performed at prominent concert venues in New York, including Carnegie Hall, Alice Tully Hall, the Peter J. Sharp Theater, Merkin Hall, the Kosciuszko Foundation, and in venues across North America and Europe. Recent appearances include performances at the Oregon Bach Festival 2016, the Berkeley Festival and Exhibition 2016, the Valley of the Moon Music Festival, American Bach Soloists Festival and Academy 2016, Dans les Jardins de William Christie 2016, as well as broadcasts on Medici.tv, BBC3 radio, KLCC and the CBC "Rush Hour" series. Toma holds the Christa Bach-Marschall Foundation Prize from the International Bach Competition in Leipzig 2014, and was a competition winner at the Indianapolis Baroque Orchestra Concerto Competition. Between 2014 and 2016 he appeared regularly with Juilliard's period ensemble, Juilliard415 at venues in North America and Europe, including Alice Tully Hall, Jordan Hall, St. John's Smith Square, and others. A native of Sofia, Bulgaria, Toma holds a Master of Music degree from Indiana University and a Graduate Diploma in Historical Performance from The Juilliard School. In the 2016-2017 season he will be performing regularly with the Portland Baroque Orchestra.

MERCURY

Founded in 2000, Mercury has a mission to serve the community by celebrating the power of music, Baroque and beyond, teaching, sharing and performing with passion, intimacy and excellence. The orchestra offers performances of a broad repertoire of music on period instruments and has garnered critical acclaim around the world through innovative and accessible performances, domestic and international tours, and groundbreaking music education programs. Visit www.mercuryhouston.org for more information.

JUILLIARD

Established in 2009 through the generous support of Bruce and Suzie Kovner, Juilliard Historical Performance is a full-tuition scholarship program open to candidates for Master of Music, Graduate Diploma, and the Doctor of Musical Arts degrees and offers comprehensive study focusing on music from the 17th and 18th centuries. A high-profile concert season of opera, orchestral, and chamber music concerts is augmented by a performance-oriented curriculum that fosters an informed, vital understanding of the many issues unique to period instrument performance with the level of technical excellence and musical integrity for which Juilliard is renowned. The faculty comprises many of the leading performers and scholars in the field. Frequent collaborations with Juilliard's Ellen and James S. Marcus Institute for Vocal Arts and the integration of modern-instrument majors outside of the Historical Performance program have introduced new repertories and increased awareness of historical performance practice at Juilliard.

The program maintains close relationships with professional ensembles and presenting organizations, and has helped establish the English Concert American Fellowship, the summer festival Dans les Jardins de William Christie, and the Mercury-Juilliard Fellowship. Residencies and master classes with the leading figures in early music are an integral part of the student experience. Recent guests have included Harry Bicket, Fabio Biondi, William Christie and members of Les Arts Florissants, the late Christopher Hogwood, Dame Emma Kirkby, the London Haydn Quartet, Nicholas McGegan, Lars Ulrik Mortensen, and Jordi Savall, among many others. Graduates of Juilliard Historical Performance perform many of the leading ensembles around the world, including the English Concert, Les Arts Florissants, the Portland Baroque Orchestra, and the Trinity Baroque Orchestra, and with emerging ensembles they have created themselves, such as the Diderot String Quartet, the Sebastians, New York Baroque Incorporated, and House of Time. Visit juilliard.edu/historicalperformance for more information.