Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto in D Major, Op. 35 Symphony No. 4
Felipe Tristán
Award-winning Mexican conductor and educator Felipe Tristán is known for bringing lively musical prowess to the podium. He has worked with orchestras around the world and currently serves as conductor with the Brooklyn Symphony Orchestra, Teatro Grattacielo, and at the Manhattan School of Music Precollege division, in New York. He also serves as the Creative Partnerships Manager of the Grammy Award-winning Afro Latin Jazz Alliance.
He is the founding Music Director of the Monterrey Summer Opera Academy, a successful program that gathers talented voice students from around the world. Among the faculty members of this program is the iconic American mezzo-soprano Dolora Zajick. Felipe is committed to promoting an inclusive performing arts industry and has collaborated with artists and producers on initiatives such as Carnegie Hall Citywide, NY Phil Bandwagon, Met Opera, Lincoln Center, and the Grammy Award-winning Afro Latin Jazz Orchestra (HBO’s “Fandango at the Wall”), among others, to create engaging programs for diverse audiences.
He is the First Prize Winner of the Klangkraft Dirigierwettbewerbs Conducting Competition (Germany 2019), First Prize Winner of the International Conductors Workshop & Competition (Atlanta 2018), and First Prize Winner of the Shining Stars Concerto Competition of New York. He also received an Excellence Award from the Mexican Music Awards in 2017.
In 2017, Felipe toured China as a guest conductor and presented a TEDx Talk in Beijing and Zhengzhou, and later that same year, he was honored to conduct at the Palacio de Bellas Artes— Mexico’s foremost stage—at the 40th Anniversary Gala of the Escuela Superior de Música y Danza de Monterrey.
Among the orchestras he has conducted are the Südwestdeutsche Philharmonie Konstanz, Janáček Philharmonic Orchestra, New Amsterdam Symphony Orchestra, Gwinnett Symphony Chamber Orchestra, North Shore Symphony Orchestra, and Zhengzhou Symphony. In Mexico, he has conducted the Aguascalientes, Querétaro, Chihuahua, Oaxaca, Monterrey, Baja California, and Michoacán symphony orchestras. Some of the operatic titles conducted are Falstaff and Il Trovatore (Verdi), La Bohème (Puccini), Carmen (Bizet), L’Amico Fritz (Mascagni), L’Elisir d’Amore (Donizetti). Recording credits include an album as a producer with flutist Krzysztof Kaczka and members of the Met Orchestra with works by Schubert (Hänssler Classics) and the album Flute Concertos by Reinecke & Penderecki with flutist Krzysztof Kaczka and the Janáček Philharmonic Orchestra (Hänssler Classics).
Kinga Augustyn
Polish-American Kinga Augustyn is a versatile New York City-based virtuoso concert violinist and recording artist. “Stylish and vibrant” (The Strad Magazine), and “beyond amazing, one hell of a violinist!” (The Fanfare Magazine), Ms. Augustyn has performed as a soloist with orchestras in North and South America, Europe and Asia, and they include the Roanoke Symphony Orchestra, Queens Symphony Orchestra, Catskill Symphony Orchestra, Riverside Sinfonia, Deutsches Kammerorchester Berlin, Magdeburg Philharmonic Orchestra, the Chamber Orchestra Leopoldinum, the Wrocław Philharmonic Orchestra, and Orquesta Sinfónica Universidad Mayor. She has toured China and performed at China’s most prestigious venues such as Beijing Poly Theater and Shanghai Oriental Art Center. As a recitalist and chamber musician Kinga has appeared at the Stern Auditorium and the Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall, Alice Tully Hall, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Aspen Music Festival, the Chicago Cultural Center, Teatro Ristori (Verona, Italy), Gran Teatro La Fenice (Venice, Italy), and Teatro Municipal de Las Condes (Santiago, Chile). In addition to concerti with orchestras and recitals with piano, Ms. Augustyn frequently performs unaccompanied solo violin recitals and is also a member of the Baroque Virtuosity trio with lutist Christopher Morrongiello and harpsichordist Rebecca Pechefsky.
Kinga Augustyn is often praised for her musical interpretations, profundity, deft phrasing, beautiful tone, mastery of the bow, perfect intonation, and for unique programming ideas. “With completely secure technical control, she couples a tapestry of tone color to her innate musicality” (The Fanfare Magazine). Music Web International describes her playing in the Bruch Violin Concerto with Janacek Philharmonic as “extremely moving and expressive,” characterized by “beauty, richness and smoothness of her tone,” and as “music she responds to on a deeply personal and emotional level.”
Ms. Augustyn’s repertoire includes music both standard and lesser–known, stylistically varied and ranging from early baroque to contemporary. Kinga is an advocate of new music and has performed and recorded multiple world premieres of works written especially for her. She also researches and brings awareness to lesser-known composers, including those of her native Poland. “A mature, unconventional performing artist, undoubtedly deserving the title of ambassador of Polish culture” (Ruch Muzyczny), up to date Augustyn has recorded three albums of Polish music. Grażyna Bacewicz: A Portrait was released in 2022 on Centaur Records. The other two albums, released on Naxos, are world premieres by the contemporary Polish composer Romuald Twardowski (b. 1930), recorded with the Torun Symphony Orchestra and Mariusz Smolij, and the Polish Violin Music, a highly praised, “fascinating” (The Strad) album of lesser-known Polish works.
