Joshua Bell, violin & Larisa Martínez, soprano, with pianist Peter Dugan
Wednesday, April 2, 2025
7:30pm
Crowder Hall
In-person concert tickets are sold out and are no longer available for online purchase. To inquire about being placed on a wait list, please contact Cathy Anderson at 520-577-3769 or email office@arizonachambermusic.org. Streaming tickets are still available for purchase.
Joshua Bell, violin & Larisa Martínez, soprano, with pianist Peter Dugan featuring the world premiere of a new song cycle by John Corigliano
This recital program will feature the world premiere of a new song cycle by celebrated American composer John Corigliano, commissioned by the Tucson Desert Song Festival, Arizona Friends of Chamber Music sponsored by Max McCauslin and John Smith, and Jeannette Segel, for the husband-wife duo of famed violinist Joshua Bell and soprano Larisa Martínez with pianist Peter Dugan. The piece reunites Corigliano and Bell, who became a household name after he performed Corigliano’s soundtrack for the 1998 film The Red Violin. Five years later, Corigliano, who won an Academy Award for the film, reworked the music into a concerto for Bell.
Please note, this concert will take place in Crowder Hall at the University of Arizona campus.
Joshua Bell
With a career spanning almost four decades, GRAMMY® Award-winning violinist Joshua Bell is one of the most celebrated artists of his era. Bell has performed with virtually every major orchestra in the world, and continues to maintain engagements as a soloist, recitalist, chamber musician, conductor and as the Music Director of the Academy of St Martin in the Fields.
Bell’s highlights for the 2024-25 season include the August release of two new albums: Thomas De Hartmann Rediscovered (featuring conductor Dalia Stasevska), released on Pentatone, and an album of Mendelssohn piano trios with Jeremy Denk and Steven Isserlis, released on Sony Masterworks. Bell will rejoin Denk and Isserlis in November 2024 for a series of concerts at Wigmore Hall. He appears as guest soloist with the New York Philharmonic, conducts and plays with DSO Berlin, and tours in recital throughout North America, South America, Australia, and mainland China.
Bell has been nominated for six GRAMMY® awards, was named “Instrumentalist of the Year” by Musical America, deemed a “Young Global Leader” by the World Economic Forum, received the Avery Fisher Prize, and was named an “Indiana Living Legend” in 2000. He has collaborated with peers including Renée Fleming, Daniil Trifonov, Emanuel Ax, Lang Lang, Chick Corea, Regina Spektor, Chris Botti, Anoushka Shankar, Dave Matthews, Josh Groban, and Sting, among others. He has performed for three American presidents and the justices of the Supreme Court of the United States. Bell participated in President Barack Obama’s Committee on the Arts and Humanities’ mission to Cuba, resulting in an Emmy-nominated PBS Live from Lincoln Center special.
Bell performs on the 1713 Huberman Stradivarius violin.
Larisa Martínez
Puerto Rican opera singer Larisa Martínez is praised and sought after for her “smoky soprano” (Opera News), gracing top stages and collaborating with household names of today.
Larisa has made orchestra appearances with Philadelphia Orchestra, Chicago Symphony, New Jersey Symphony, and Indianapolis Symphony. In 2019, she made both her Kennedy Center recital debut and Carnegie Hall debut, singing Mahler’s Symphony No. 2 with the Athens Philharmonic. This season, Larisa performs as soloist with the Sao Paulo Symphony Orchestra and conductor Marcelo Lehinger. and premieres a new work written for her and Joshua Bell by Academy Award-winning composer John Corigliano.
For several years, Larisa has toured with tenor Andrea Bocelli, performing for packed houses, including Hollywood Bowl and Madison Square Garden. Her “Voice and the Violin” program, created with violinist Joshua Bell, has visited the Ravinia Festival, SPAC, 92nd Street Y, Verbier Festival, Colorado Symphony and Hawaii Symphony.
Larisa was invited as part of President Barack Obama’s artistic delegation to Cuba in 2016. The visit culminated in the Emmy®-nominated PBS special, Live from Lincoln Center: Seasons of Cuba.
Larisa’s operatic roles include Violetta in La Traviata (Wichita Grand Opera), Sophie in Werther alongside tenor Piotr Beczala (Culturarte), and Maria in West Side Story with tenor Michael Fabiano (Festival Napa Valley). She originated the role of Isaura in the World Premiere of Mercadante’s Francesca da Rimini in Italy, conducted by Maestro Fabio Luisi.That same year, Larisa won the 2016 Metropolitan Opera’s National Council Audition in Puerto Rico.
An advocate for accessible music education, Larisa is a board member of Silkroad (founded by cellist Yo-Yo Ma) and a proud artistic resident of Turnaround Arts, led by the Presidential Committee on the Arts and the Humanities. Larisa is additionally passionate about representing her Boricua cultural heritage through projects and performances.
Peter Dugan
Pianist Peter Dugan’s debut performances with Michael Tilson Thomas and the San Francisco Symphony were described by the Los Angeles Times as “stunning” and by the SF Chronicle as “fearlessly athletic.” He is heard nationwide as the host of NPR’s beloved program From the Top. He has appeared as a soloist, recitalist, and chamber musician across North America and abroad. This year he makes his debuts at Wigmore Hall and the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center and can be heard as the piano soloist on a new release of Ives’ Fourth Symphony from Tilson Thomas and the San Francisco Symphony, a recording which the New York Times named one of the top classical albums of 2019 . Prizing versatility as the key to the future of classical music, Mr. Dugan is equally at home in classical, jazz, and pop idioms. A sought-after multi-genre artist, Mr. Dugan has performed in duos and trios with artists ranging from Itzhak Perlman and Renee Fleming to Jesse Colin Young and Glenn Close. The Wall Street Journal described Mr. Dugan’s collaboration with violinist Charles Yang as a “classical-meets-rockstar duo.” Mr. Dugan has been presented in chamber music recitals by Carnegie Hall, Chamber Music Society of Palm Beach, Music at Menlo, Moab Music Festival, and recently in recital with Joshua Bell at the Minnesota Beethoven Festival. He was the 2019 featured recitalist for the California Association of Professional Music Teachers, and has soloed with the San Francisco Symphony, Houston Symphony, Kansas City Symphony, New World Symphony, and Mid-Texas Symphony. His debut album with baritone John Brancy – A Silent Night: A WWI Memorial in Song – pays homage to composers who lived through, fought in, and died in the Great War. Brancy and Dugan toured this program across North America in commemoration of the centennial of WWI, including performances at The Kennedy Center, Alice Tully Hall, Stanford University, the United States Naval Academy, and the Smithsonian Institute. Together Brancy and Dugan won first prize at the 2018 Montreal International Music Competition and second prize at the 2017 Wigmore Hall International Song Competition. Mr. Dugan advocates the importance of music in the community and at all levels of society. As a founding creator of Operation Superpower, a superhero opera for children, he has travelled to dozens of schools in the greater New York area, performing for students and encouraging them to use their talents – their superpowers – for good. Mr. Dugan holds Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees from The Juilliard School, where he studied under Matti Raekallio. He resides in New York City with his wife, mezzo-soprano Kara Dugan, and serves on the piano faculty at the Juilliard School Evening Division. Mr. Dugan is a Yamaha Artist.
View Ticket FAQs
2024–2025 Season
Special Concerts