Readers may recall that the American Bach Soloists (ABS) announced the recipient of the 2020 Jeffrey Thomas Award on February 21 of that year, only a few weeks prior to the imposition of lockdown conditions in order to prevent the spread of the COVID-19 virus (coronavirus). Now that concert venues are beginning to open their doors for full-capacity audience seating, the Award announcement for this year has just been released. Named to honor the inspired leadership of ABS Artistic & Music Director Thomas, the award is granted to honor, recognize, and encourage exceptionally gifted emerging professionals in the field of Early Music who show extraordinary promise and accomplishment.
Extraordinary times call for extraordinary measures. Where the Thomas Award is concerned, those measures mean that this year it will be shared by three recipients. All three of them will be featured performers in ABS Festival programs, which will be performed between Sunday, August 1, and Sunday, August 8. All three of the awardees are violinists, and their participation in Festival performances will be as follows:
Tomà Iliev will be one of the contributors to the concertos for three violins in the program for the opening concert, Triples Alley, on Sunday, August 1. Those concertos are by Johann Sebastian Bach (BWV 1064R in D major), Georg Philipp Telemann (TWV 53:F1 in F major), and Antonio Vivaldi (RV 551 in F major). Most likely, he will also contribute to the “grand finale” of Vivaldi’s RV 580 concerto for four violins in B minor, the tenth of concertos in his Opus 3 (L’estro Armonico) collection. In addition, he will perform works by Bach and his son, Carl Philipp Emanuel, included in the concert on Thursday, August 5, entitled The Devil’s Trill.
YuEun Gemma Kim will also be featured in the Triples Alley concert. She will contribute to both of the Vivaldi concertos on the program. She will also perform the selection by George Frideric Handel included in the Devil’s Trill program. She will be part of the Telemann trio sonata, which has been added to the Bach & His World program (replacing music by Johann Pachelbel) on Friday, August 6. Finally, as part of the Garden of Harmony program, which will conclude the Festival on Sunday, August 8, she will perform a solo sonata by the Spanish violinist and composer José Herrando.
Rachell Ellen Wong will open the Transformation program on Tuesday, August 3, with a performance of Bach’s BWV 1006.1 solo violin partita in E major. She will contribute to the Devil’s Trill program playing music by Emanuel Bach. Finally, she will close out the Garden of Harmony program with a performance of “The Nightingale,” Vivaldi’s concerto in A major for violin and harpsichord.
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