Renowned music festival comes to Northwestern with Tony Award-winning actress Phylicia Rashad

• Link to: Northwestern Now Story

Evanston, Ill. --- Northwestern University’s Henry and Leigh Bienen School of Music partners with the Gateways Music Festival to present two special concerts on the Evanston campus.  

The Gateways Music Festival connects and supports classical musicians of African descent. A series of Chicago area performances launches April 15 at Northwestern’s Pick-Staiger Concert Hall. Narrator Phylicia Rashad and violinist Tai Murray join the Gateways Chamber Players for Igor Stravinsky’s “The Soldier’s Tale” Suite and Wynton Marsalis’s “A Fiddler’s Tale.” That program is followed by accomplished pianist and composer Stewart Goodyear for a recital in Galvin Recital Hall on April 17.

The two concerts at Northwestern are part of a 30th anniversary celebration for the Gateways Music Festival. Additional concerts are planned during its Chicago residency, April 15 to 19, culminating with the Gateways Festival Orchestra’s Chicago debut at Symphony Center on April 19. Other residencies during the 2023-24 season include Rochester, New York City and Washington, DC.  

Events at the Bienen School of Music are now on sale. Tickets may be purchased from the Bienen School Ticket Office at the southeast entrance of Pick-Staiger Concert Hall, 50 Arts Circle Drive; by visiting concertsatbienen.org; or by calling 847-467-4000. Ticket Office hours are 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., Monday through Friday and noon to 3 p.m., Saturday.  Note: The box office will be closed for spring break from March 16 through 24.  Online orders will still be processed.

Event details are as follows: 

Gateways Chamber Players with Tai Murray and Phylicia Rashad 
Monday, April 15, 7:30 p.m. 
Pick-Staiger Concert Hall, 50 Arts Circle Drive 

In the opening performance of the Gateways Festival’s 2023-24 Chicago residency, the Gateways Chamber Players are joined by violinist Tai Murray and narrator Phylicia Rashad for Igor Stravinsky’s “The Soldier’s Tale” Suite and Wynton Marsalis’s “A Fiddler’s Tale.” Stravinsky’s 1918 musical-theatrical work about a soldier who strikes a deal with the Devil is paired with Marsalis’s 20th-century retelling of the tale, in which a talented fiddler named Beatrice trades her musical soul for the promise of superstardom. 

Tickets are $35 for the general public and $10 for full-time students with valid ID. 

Stewart Goodyear, piano 
Wednesday, April 17, 7:30 p.m. 
Galvin Recital Hall, 70 Arts Circle Drive 

 Stewart Goodyear is an accomplished pianist, improviser and composer who has appeared with many of the world’s major orchestras and chamber ensembles, and was a featured guest on the Bienen School’s 2022-23 Skyline Piano Artist Series. His 2023-24 season highlights include performances at Lincoln Center’s Summer for the City in New York, Germany’s Schleswig-Holstein Festival and his recital debut at London’s Wigmore Hall. His latest recording, featuring Adolphus Hailstork’s Piano Concerto with the Buffalo Philharmonic, was released in March 2023 on the Naxos label. 

Tickets are $35 for the general public and $10 for full-time students with valid ID. 

Artist Bios: 

The Gateways Chamber Players, an ensemble created specifically for the Gateways Music Festival, features violinist and Avery Fisher Career Grant winner Tai Murray and includes bassoonist Monica Ellis of Imani Winds; trombonist Weston Sprott and trumpeter Billy Hunter of the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra; percussionist Wesley Sumpter, formerly a Los Angeles Philharmonic fellow; double bassist Patricia Weitzel of Georgia’s Columbus Symphony; and clarinetist Alexander Laing, a former member of the Phoenix Symphony. 

Winner of a 2004 Avery Fisher Career Grant and a 2012 Sphinx Medal of Excellence, violinist Tai Murray has appeared around the world in recital and with major ensembles including the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, Chicago Symphony Orchestra and Los Angeles Philharmonic. She was named a BBC Radio 3 New Generation Artist and has been a member of Chamber Music Society II at Lincoln Center. Murray has toured with Musicians from Marlboro and performed at the BBC Proms, the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, the Great Lakes Chamber Music Festival, IMS Prussia Cove, the Kennedy Center, the Schleswig-Holstein Musik Festival and the West Cork Chamber Music Festival. She is an assistant professor of violin at the Yale School of Music, where she teaches applied violin and coaches chamber music. 

An accomplished actor and director, Phylicia Rashad is a Tony Award winner and has received acclaim for her stage performances in “A Raisin in the Sun,” “August: Osage County,” “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof” and “Gem of the Ocean,” as well as for her television roles in “The Cosby Show,” “This Is Us,” “Empire” and “David Makes Man” among many others. She was inducted into the Theater Hall of Fame in 2016 and received the 2016 Lucille Lortel Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Play for her performance as Shelah in Tarell Alvin McCraney’s “Head of Passes” at the Public Theater. Her directorial credits include “Gem of the Ocean,” “Our Lady of 121st Street,” “The Roommate,” “Joe Turner’s Come and Gone,” “Fences” and “Four Little Girls.” In 2021, Rashad was appointed dean of the Chadwick A. Boseman College of Fine Arts at Howard University. Additional honors and awards include the BET Honors Theatrical Arts Award, Chicago Shakespeare Theater’s Spirit of Shakespeare Award and the inaugural Legacy Award of the Ruben Santiago-Hudson Fine Arts Learning Center. 

Stewart Goodyear is an accomplished concert pianist, improviser and composer who has performed with, and been commissioned by, many of the world’s major orchestras and chamber music organizations. His recent commissions include a Piano Quintet for the Penderecki String Quartet and a work for the Honens Piano Competition. Goodyear’s discography includes the complete sonatas and piano concertos of Beethoven; concertos by Tchaikovsky, Grieg and Rachmaninov; an album of Ravel piano works; and “For Glenn Gould,” which combines repertoire from Gould’s US and Montreal debuts. His Rachmaninov recording received a Juno Award nomination for Best Classical Album for Soloist and Large Ensemble Accompaniment, and his recording of his own transcription of Tchaikovsky’s “The Nutcracker” was selected by the New York Times as one of the best classical recordings of 2015.