Brevard Music Center Orchestra
Keith Lockhart, conductor
Gil Shaham, violin
Emma Marhefka, soprano
GUSTAV MAHLER Symphony No. 4
JOHANNES BRAHMS Violin Concerto
Keith Lockhart leads the Brevard Music Center Orchestra in a program of symphonic brilliance.
Mahler’s luminous Symphony No. 4 opens the evening, featuring BMC alum Emma Marhefka in the radiant final movement that envisions a child’s view of heaven. The concert concludes with the return of celebrated violinist Gil Shaham, who performs Brahms’s majestic Violin Concerto in D major, one of the repertoire’s most beloved works.
Keith Lockhart
Artistic Director
In 2007, Keith Lockhart succeeded David Effron as Artistic Director of the Brevard Music Center Summer Institute and Festival. Lockhart’s appointment solidified an already special...
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In 2007, Keith Lockhart succeeded David Effron as Artistic Director of the Brevard Music Center Summer Institute and Festival. Lockhart’s appointment solidified an already special relationship with BMC; having attended as a teenager for two summers (1974, 1975), Lockhart was first featured as a guest conductor in 1996 and had since returned numerous times. He continues to serve as the Conductor of The Boston Pops Orchestra, and is Chief Guest Conductor of the BBC Concert Orchestra in London, having served for eight years as its Principal Conductor.
Keith Lockhart has conducted nearly every major orchestra in North America, as well as the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, the NHK Symphony in Tokyo, and the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra. In October 2012, he made his London Philharmonic debut in Royal Albert Hall. In the opera pit, Maestro Lockhart has conducted productions with the Atlanta Opera, Washington Opera, Boston Lyric Opera, and Utah Opera. Recent highlights included debut appearances with the Czech Philharmonic, the Orchestra dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia in Rome, the Vienna Radio Symphony, and the Hong Kong Philharmonic. The 2017-2018 season saw Lockhart make his French debut with the Orchestre Nationale de Lille, and his Norwegian debut with the Stavanger Symphony Orchestra. Upcoming engagements include an ongoing relationship with the Czech Philharmonic, and returns to orchestras in Japan, Hong Kong, and Taiwan, as well as a debut with the Tonkuenstler Orchestra of Vienna. He also recently completed a recording of the Bernstein Serenade with violinist Anne Akiko Meyers and the London Symphony Orchestra.
In February 1995, Lockhart was named the 20th conductor of the Boston Pops Orchestra since its founding in 1885, succeeding John Williams and Arthur Fiedler. Now in his 24th season, he has conducted over 2000 concerts and made 80 television shows, including 38 new programs for PBS’s Evening at Pops, and the annual July Fourth spectacular, broadcast nationally for many years. The Boston Pops’ 2002 July Fourth broadcast was Emmy-nominated, and the Evening at Pops telecast of “Fiddlers Three” won the 2002 ASCAP-Deems Taylor Award. He has led the orchestra on four overseas tours of Japan and Korea, and 45 national tours in the US, reaching more than 150 cities in 38 states (including performances at Carnegie Hall, Radio City Music Hall, and sports arenas across the country) and extending to the pre-game show of Super Bowl XXXVI at the Louisiana Superdome in New Orleans. Since November 2004, he and the Boston Pops have released six self-produced recordings: 2017’s Lights, Camera…Music! Six Decades of John Williams, A Boston Pops Christmas – Live from Symphony Hall, Sleigh Ride, America, Oscar & Tony, and The Red Sox Album. Keith Lockhart and the Boston Pops Orchestra have also recorded eight albums with RCA Victor – Runnin’ Wild: Keith Lockhart and The Boston Pops Orchestra Play Glenn Miller, American Visions, the Grammy-nominated The Celtic Album, Holiday Pops, A Splash of Pops, Encore!, the Latin Grammy-nominated The Latin Album, and My Favorite Things: A Richard Rodgers Celebration.
Highlights of his tenure as the seventh Principal Conductor of the BBC Concert Orchestra (2010-2017) include critically acclaimed North American tours (2010/2011 and 2012/2013, and 2014/2015), conducting annual performances at The Proms, and celebrating the orchestra’s 60th year in 2012. In June of that same year, Keith Lockhart conducted the orchestra during Queen Elizabeth II’s gala Diamond Jubilee Concert, which was broadcast around the world.
In 2009, Keith Lockhart concluded eleven seasons as Music Director of the Utah Symphony. He led that orchestra through the complete symphonic works of Gustav Mahler, brought them to Europe on tour for the first time in two decades, and directed multiple appearances at the 2002 Olympic Winter Games. He stood at the front of that organization’s historic merger with the Utah Opera to create the first-ever joint administrative arts entity of the Utah Symphony and Opera. Under his baton, the Utah Symphony released its first recording in two decades, Symphonic Dances, in April 2006, garnered an Emmy award for a “Salute to Symphony” regional broadcast, and performed in a national PBS broadcast of Vaughn Williams’ oratorio Hodie.
Keith Lockhart served as Music Director of the Cincinnati Chamber Orchestra for seven years, completing his tenure in 1999. During his leadership, the orchestra doubled its number of performances, released recordings, and developed a reputation for innovative and accessible programming. Maestro Lockhart also served as Associate Conductor of both the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra and the Cincinnati Pops Orchestra from 1990 to 1995.
Born in Poughkeepsie, NY, Maestro Lockhart began his musical studies on piano at the age of 7, and holds degrees from Furman University and Carnegie Mellon University, and also holds honorary doctorates from the Boston Conservatory, Boston University, Northeastern University, Furman University, and Carnegie Mellon University, among others. He was the 2006 recipient of the Bob Hope Patriot Award from the Congressional Medal of Honor Society, and was a recipient of the 2017 Commonwealth Award, Massachusetts highest cultural honor.
More information is available at: https://www.bso.org/keith-lockhart
Gil Shaham
Violin
Gil Shaham is one of the foremost violinists of our time; his flawless technique, combined with inimitable warmth and generosity of spirit, has solidified his renown as an American master.
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Gil Shaham is one of the foremost violinists of our time; his flawless technique, combined with inimitable warmth and generosity of spirit, has solidified his renown as an American master. The GRAMMY Award-winner and Musical America’s “Instrumentalist of the Year” is sought after worldwide for concerto appearances with leading orchestras and conductors and regularly gives recitals and appears with ensembles on the world’s great concert stages and at its most prestigious festivals. Recent and upcoming highlights include acclaimed recordings and performances of J.S. Bach’s complete sonatas and partitas for solo violin, as well as recitals with his longtime duo partner, pianist Akira Eguchi, throughout North America, Europe, and Asia.
Shaham regularly appears with the Boston, San Francisco, and Chicago Symphony Orchestras; the New York, Israel, Berlin, and Los Angeles Philharmonics; Orchestre de Paris; and has engaged in multi-year residencies with the Orchestras of Montreal, Stuttgart, and Singapore.
For his more than two dozen concerto and solo recordings, Shaham has earned multiple GRAMMY Awards, a Grand Prix du Disque, Diapason d’Or, and Gramophone Editor’s Choice. Many of these recordings appear on Canary Classics, the label he founded in 2004. Highlights include Virtuoso Violin Works, Elgar’s Violin Concerto, Hebrew Melodies, and The Butterfly Lovers. His 2016 recording 1930s Violin Concertos Vol. 2 as well as his recording of the Beethoven and Brahms concertos were GRAMMY nominated.
Born in Champaign-Urbana, Illinois, in 1971, Shaham was awarded an Avery Fisher Career Grant in 1990 and received the Avery Fisher Prize in 2008. In 2012, he was named Musical America’s “Instrumentalist of the Year.” He plays the 1699 “Countess Polignac” Stradivarius and performs on an Antonio Stradivari violin, Cremona c1719, with the assistance of Rare Violins In Consortium, Artists and Benefactors Collaborative. He lives in New York City with his wife, violinist Adele Anthony, and their three children.
Emma Marhefka
Voice
Emma Marhefka, soprano, is a 2025 Grand Finals Winner of the Metropolitan Opera Eric and Dominique Laffont Competition. Currently in her first year in the Lindemann Young Artist Development Program, she made her Met Opera debut this season singing Papagena in The Magic Flute.
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Emma Marhefka, soprano, is a 2025 Grand Finals Winner of the Metropolitan Opera Eric and Dominique Laffont Competition. Currently in her first year in the Lindemann Young Artist Development Program, she made her Met Opera debut this season singing Papagena in The Magic Flute. This summer, she makes her role and company debut with Opera Theatre of Saint Louis singing Juliet in Romeo and Juliet. Next season, she will return to the Met to sing Pamina in The Magic Flute and be featured in the company’s premiere of Kevin Puts’s Silent Night. Additionally in 2027, she will debut with Seattle Opera.
Other career highlights include Musetta La bohème (Arizona Opera), Gretel Hansel and Gretel (Opera Montana), Sandrina La finta giardiniera (Arizona Opera), Younger Alyce Glory Denied (Knoxville Opera, Opera Roanoke), Frasquita Carmen (Des Moines Metro Opera), as well as Susanna Le nozze di Figaro, Mary Johnson Fellow Travelers, and The Vixen The Cunning Little Vixen. On the concert stage, Emma has appeared as the soprano soloist in Vivaldi’s Gloria with The New Choral Society and Arthur Honegger’s King David with The New York Choral Society at Alice Tully Hall.
She is an alumna of Arizona Opera’s Marion Roose Pullin Studio Artist Program, the Santa Fe Opera Apprentice Artist Program, the Wolf Trap Opera Studio, the Des Moines Metro Opera Apprentice Artist Program, and the Janiec Opera Company of the Brevard Music Center. She holds degrees in voice from the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music and the Crane School of Music at SUNY Potsdam. Emma is thrilled to be back in Brevard after her two seasons with the Janiec Opera Company in 2019 and 2021.