Sheldon Best Among 2015 Martin E. Segal Award Winners; Audra McDonald Hosts Tonight's Gala

The recipients of the 2015 Martin E. Segal Awards, this year, expanded to encompass nominees from all of Lincoln Center's resident organizations, were announced today by Lincoln Center President Jed Bernstein. The awards will be presented at a special gala evening on the Adrienne Arsht Stage of Alice Tully Hall tonight, March 2. The Martin E. Segal Awards were established in 1986 when the late philanthropist and arts leader retired as Lincoln Center Chairman.

The evening will be hosted by Audra McDonald. The presenters are composer Jason Robert Brown (a former Segal Award winner), Mostly Mozart Festival Renée and Robert Belfer Music Director Louis Langrée, and dancers Tiler Peck and Robert Fairchild.

Each honoree will receive $7,500 to be used for career advancement and future study.

The eleven 2015 Martin E. Segal winners are: Pianist Inon Barnatan, (nominated by The New York Philharmonic); actor Sheldon Best (Lincoln Center Theater); soprano Julia Bullock (The Juilliard School); Escher String Quartet (Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center); soprano Ying Fang (The Metropolitan Opera); dancer Silas Farley (New York Public Library for the Performing Arts); dancer Alec Knight (School of American Ballet); dancer Claire Kretzschmar (New York City Ballet); filmmaker Matías Piñeiro (Film Society of Lincoln Center); musician Camille Thurman (Jazz at Lincoln Center); and pianist Shai Wosner (Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts).

Lincoln Center's President Jed Bernstein commented, "Marty Segal would be so pleased to recognize these highly deserving artists with this distinguished, namesake award. His record of support for the arts and the extraordinary work he did for Lincoln Center will never be duplicated. For many years we were blessed by his energy, guidance, generosity, and leadership. With the expanded Martin E. Segal Awards this year, we are building on his desire to recognize and encourage artistic excellence."

Since the first prize in 1987, the endowment that funds the Martin E. Segal Award has given nearly a quarter of a million dollars to 58 remarkable emerging artists associated with Lincoln Center. Mr. Segal passed away in August of 2012. Mr. Segal's son and daughter, Paul Segal and Susan Rai, will be in attendance.

Past Segal Award winners include pianist Jonathan Biss, the Brentano and Borromeo String Quartets, mezzo-soprano Michelle DeYoung, director Thomas Kail, dancer Daniel Ulbricht, cellist Alisa Weilerstein, choreographer Christopher Wheeldon, jazz saxophonist Melissa Aldana, and conductor Xian Zhang, among many others.

The awards will be presented by musical theater composer and multiple Tony Award-winner Jason Robert Brown (Honeymoon in Vegas, The Bridges of Madison County, Parade), who received a Martin E. Segal Award in 2000; Louis Langrée, Music Director of the Cincinnati Symphony and Renée and Robert Belfer Music Director of Lincoln Center's Mostly Mozart Festival; ballet and musical theater dancer Tiler Peck, a principal dancer with New York City Ballet who recently starred in the Kennedy Center's production of The Little Dancer, a musical based on Degas' famous sculpture of a ballerina; and Peck's husband, Robert Fairchild, principal dancer with New York City Ballet and current star of the Broadway-bound Gershwin classic, An American In Paris.

Tickets start at $50 (award show only). $150 tickets include a one-hour pre-show champagne reception. $2500 tickets include pre-show champagne reception and an intimate post-show dinner. For award show only tickets, visit LincolnCenter.org/SegalAwards. For the gala evening tickets, call the special events office at 212-875-5462.

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More about the 2015 honorees:

Inon Barnatan

Pianist Inon Barnatan was awarded the Avery Fisher Career Grant in 2009, and was recently named the New York Philharmonic's first Artist-in-Association, a three season appointment that promises multiple concerto and chamber collaborations with the orchestra. Barnatan has performed with many of the world's most esteemed orchestras, including the Cleveland, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, and San Francisco. His album Darknesse Visible was named one of the "Best of 2012" byThe New York Times. Barnatan's upcoming season includes several appearances with the New York Philharmonic, his LA Philharmonic subscription debut with Gustavo Dudamel, and a U.S. tour with the San Francisco Symphony and Michael Tilson Thomas that will culminate at Carnegie Hall.

Sheldon Best

Actor Sheldon Best's career has been on the fast track since graduating from Brandeis University in 2008. He has performed in a dozen plays off-Broadway, including The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner at Atlantic Theater Company, The Foundry Theater Company's The Box: A Black Comedy, and Paradox of the Urban Cliché at LAByrinth. Regional theaters that have included him in their casting include Baltimore Center Stage for Dance of the Holy Ghosts, North Carolina Shakespeare Festival for Romeo and Juliet, and The Studio Theater of DC for Sucker Punch. Best also has acted on a number of popular television shows, including The Good Wife on CBS and Person of Interest on NBC. He most recently wrapped up an acclaimed six-week run as the lead in brownsville song (b-side for tray) at the Claire Tow at Lincoln Center Theater.

Julia Bullock

Soprano Julia Bullock won first prizes in the 2012 Young Concert Artists International Auditions and the 2014 Naumburg Vocal Competition. Currently pursuing an Artist Diploma in Opera Studies from The Juilliard School, this season she will appear in the New York Festival of Song's Harlem Renaissance program. She will also perform as a soloist with the New York Philharmonic and New World Symphony. Bullock made her San Francisco Symphony debut in West Side Story in concert under Michael Tilson Thomas, and she toured South Africa as Pamina in Peter Brook's A Magic Flute. She is the recipient of a Madeline Elsemiller Scholarship, Frieda Levin Lorber Scholarship, Irene Diamond Graduate Fellowship, and the Hardesty and Beverly Peck Johnson Fund.

Escher String Quartet

Formed in 2005, the Escher String Quartet has received acclaim for its profound musical insight and tonal beauty. Shortly after it was formed, both Pinchas Zuckerman and Itzhak Perlman invited the quartet to be Quartet in Residence at each of their summer music festivals. The group was on the BBC New Generation Artists scheme from 2010-2012, and made debuts at both Wigmore Hall and at the BBC Proms. In its home city of New York, the ensemble serves as Artists of The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. In 2013 they became one of the very few chamber ensembles to be awarded the prestigious Avery Fisher Career Grant.

Ying Fang

Soprano Ying Fang, a native of Ningbo, China, is in the second year of both the Lindemann Young Artists Development Program at The Metropolitan Opera and the Advanced Diploma in Opera Studies Program at The Juilliard School. In 2009 Fang received one of China's most prestigious awards, the Seventh Chinese Golden Bell Award for Music. She has also won the 2013 Opera Index Competition as well as First Prize at the 2013 Gerda Lissner Competition. She has a Bachelor of Music degree from Shanghai Conservatory and a Master of Music from Juilliard. This season she appeared as Barbarina in the Metropolitan Opera's new production of Le Nozze di Figaro and as the Dew Fairy in Hansel and Gretel.

Silas Farley

A member of the New York City Ballet (NYCB), Silas Farley began his dance training at age 7. Two years later he was accepted into the North Carolina Dance Theater School of Dance (now Charlotte Ballet) where his teachers included NYCB alumna Patricia McBride. At 14, Farley attended the School of American Ballet's (SAB) summer course and was then invited to become a full-time student at SAB. Farley has choreographed for SAB Choreography Workshops, the SAB Winter Ball, and the New York Choreographic Institute. In 2012 Peter Martins selected Farley for a student teaching pilot program at SAB. He joined NYCB as a member of the corps de ballet in 2013.

Alec Knight

Ballet dancer Alec Knight had his early dance training in his hometown of Brisbane, Australia. At 13 he enrolled at the Australian Ballet School in Melbourne. He discovered the work of George Balanchine by watching YouTube videos and decided to move to the U.S.to pursue a more dynamic approach to classical ballet. He has been a member of the School of American Ballet's Men's class for the past two years, and he takes daily class with Peter Martins, Jock Soto, and others. In 2014, Knight danced a principal role in Balanchine's Western Symphony at SAB's Workshop Performances.

Claire Kretzschmar

Claire Kretzschmar is a member of the New York City Ballet's corps de ballet. Born in Arizona, Kretzschmar began her dance training at the Academy of Dance Arts in Winston-Salem, NC, and later studied at the University of North Carolina School of the Arts. She began studying at the School of American Ballet (SAB) during the summers of 2006 through 2009, and enrolled full-time in SAB in 2009. She joined NYCB as a member of the corps de ballet in 2011. She has performed featured roles in Balanchine's Chaconne and The Nutcracker (Coffee) and has originated featured roles in Peter Martins' Mes Oseaux and Troy Schumacher's Clearing Dawn.

Matías Piñeiro

A native of Buenos Aires, Argentina, filmmaker Matías Piñeiro studied at Universidad del Cine, where he later taught filmmaking and film history. In 2011 he moved to the U.S. to undertake the Radcliffe Institute Fellowship at Harvard. In 2012, he moved to New York to continue his studies at New York University. Piñeiro has written and directed five films - most recently, The Princess of France, released in 2014. He is currently shooting the fourth installment of his Shakespearean project, Hermia & Helena, his first English language film.

Camille Thurman

Saxophonist, flutist, vocalist, composer and educator, Camille Thurman leads her own jazz quartet. It has toured Russia, and performed at the International Women in Jazz Festival, the Super Jazz Ashdod Israel Jazz Festival, and the Tomsk International Jazz Festival, as well as many others. As a solo performer, Thurman has performed at The Kennedy Center, Jazz at Lincoln Center, The Jazz Standard, and The Blue Note, and has shared the stage with Dr. Billy Taylor, George Coleman, Chaka Khan, and Alicia Keys. In 2013 Thurman was a runner-up in the Sarah Vaughan International Vocal Competition, and in 2014 she released the album Origins, one of two on the Hot Tone music label.

Shai Wosner

Pianist Shai Wosner has been widely praised for his interpretations of Schubert's solo works, both in concert and recording. He has appeared with many of the major orchestras, in this country and abroad, including the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Cleveland Orchestra, the Frankfurt Radio Symphony, the Barcelona Symphony, and the Staatskapelle Berlin. Wosner studied with Emmanuel Ax at The Juilliard School. His most recent release on the Onyx label was of pieces by Schubert, and he curated and performed in The Schubert Effect at the 92nd Street Y.

About Lincoln Center - Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts (LCPA) serves three primary roles: presenter of artistic programming, national leader in arts and education and community relations, and manager of the Lincoln Center campus. A presenter of more than 3,000 free and ticketed events, performances, tours, and educational activities annually, LCPA offers 15 series, festivals, and programs including Avery Fisher Artist Program, Great Performers, Lincoln Center Festival, Lincoln Center Out of Doors, Lincoln Center Vera List Art Project, Midsummer Night Swing, Martin E. Segal Awards, Meet the Artist, Mostly Mozart Festival, Free Thursdays,White Light Festival, and the Emmy Award-winning Live From Lincoln Center, which airs nationally on PBS. As manager of the Lincoln Center campus, LCPA provides support and services for the Lincoln Center complex and the 11 resident organizations. In addition, LCPA led a $1.2 billion campus renovation, completed in October 2012.

Photo Credit: Walter McBride