Name: Music of Joy and Peace
Start: 2026-05-08T19:30:00
Location: Northwestern University

Jeffrey Siegel

Northwestern Bienen School of Music

The Financial Times remarked that soprano Amanda Majeski’s (‘06) “well-rounded soprano... is so warm and glorious, the singing so outstanding, that she leaves no emotions unstirred.” A celebrated interpreter of Mozart, Strauss, Wagner, and Handel, Majeski is acclaimed for her portrayal of the title role in Janáček’s Káťa Kabanová, which she debuted at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden in 2019. Prior to that performance, she made her Metropolitan Opera debut as Countess Almaviva in a 2014 production of Le nozze di Figaro and reprised the role for her mainstage debut at the Lyric Opera of Chicago on just a few hours’ notice. Her 2025-26 season began with her debut in the title role of Shostakovich’s Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk at the BBC Proms and includes a return to Oper Frankfurt as Marta in The Passenger, as well as appearances as the Marschallin in Der Rosenkavalier with New Orleans Opera and engagements with the Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin for Szymanowski’s Stabat Mater and Mahler’s Fourth Symphony. In this master class, she coaches accomplished Bienen School voice and opera students.

Amanda Majeski Vocal Master Class

Mary B. Galvin Recital Hall

Since triumphing as the first and only American winner of the 1970 Chopin International Piano Competition, Garrick Ohlsson has established himself worldwide as a musician of magisterial interpretive and technical prowess. While he is an authority on Chopin’s works, Ohlsson performs a vast repertoire often including the music of Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, and the Romanticists. As an avid chamber musician, Ohlsson has collaborated with the Cleveland, Emerson, Tokyo, and Takacs string quartets as well as legendary vocalists such as Magda Olivero and Jessye Norman. Ohlsson’s recordings are highly awarded, including Beethoven Sonatas, Vol. 3, which won the 2008 Grammy for Best Solo Recording. Ohlsson has been featured on live performance recordings with the Melbourne and Sydney Symphonies and the Czech Philharmonic. Throughout his career, Ohlsson has been awarded such prizes as the Avery Fisher Prize, the University Musical Society Distinguished Artist Award, Northwestern University’s Jean Gimbel Lane Prize in Piano Performance, and the Gloria Artis Gold Medal for cultural merit from the Polish Deputy Culture Minister.

Garrick Ohlsson, piano

A renowned guitarist and pedagogue, Raphaella Smits plays worldwide on eight-string guitars and historical instruments. Alongside her international touring career, she has recorded more than 25 albums to great acclaim. Smits is recognized as a gifted teacher of both guitar and chamber music, frequently serving on the juries of prestigious international music competitions. She taught at the Lemmens Institute in Belgium for 36 years and continues to give master classes across Europe, the Americas, and Japan. In 1986, Smits was the first woman to win the first prize of the Francisco Tárrega International Guitar Competition in Spain, earning praise from chairmen Andrés Segovia and Narciso Yepes. Smits was recently awarded at the Festival Guitarras del Mundo in Argentina for her unique contributions to guitar music and culture.

Raphaella Smits, guitar

Trumpeter and composer Marquis Hill has made it his mission to break down the barriers between contemporary and classic jazz, hip-hop, R&B, Chicago house, and neo-soul. The Chicago native and 2014 winner of the Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz Competition has performed as a member of the Chicago Jazz Orchestra, an in-demand sideman, and a bandleader, earning accolades with his working band, the Blacktet. His collaborations have included such artists as Marcus Miller, Dee Dee Bridgewater, Boney James, Kurt Elling, Joe Lovano, and Makaya McCraven. Hill’s latest album, Composers Collective: Beyond the Jukebox was released in August 2024.

Marquis Hill

Northwestern University

Winner of the Gold Medal at the 2025 Van Cliburn International Piano Competition, Aristo Sham is a laureate of international competitions, with first-prize wins at Ettlingen, Gina Bachauer, and the Monte Carlo Music Masters, Sham has played across Asia, Europe, and the United States with the likes of the London Symphony Orchestra, Hong Kong Philharmonic, and the Orchestre de Chambre de Lausanne. The son of a piano teacher, Sham began lessons at age 3 and was competing and concertizing by age 10. Soon after, he was featured in the UK Channel 4 documentary The World’s Greatest Musical Prodigies. Balancing piano with other interests, Sham earned his Bachelor of Arts degree in Economics from Harvard University and a Master of Music degree from the New England Conservatory. He proceeded to study at the Ingesund School of Music in Sweden and earn an artist diploma from the Juilliard School. While pursuing a career as a pianist, Sham continues to enjoy other interests such as travel, aviation, gastronomy, oenology, and language.

Aristo Sham, piano

Siegel closes the 2025-26 season of Keyboard Conversations with uplifting, buoyant works of Bach, Mozart, Mendelssohn, Schumann, Rossini, and Gershwin.

Music of Joy and Peace

Xuefei Yang is acclaimed as one of the world’s finest classical guitarists. Hailed as a musical pioneer, Yang was the first guitarist in China to enter a music conservatory and become internationally recognized for the instrument. Yang has played in over fifty countries at major venues and festivals, both in recital and with the world’s leading orchestras. Gramophone praised Yang as one of the leading innovators of her generation for continuing to build the guitar canon; she frequently commissions new works, makes her own arrangements, and adds Chinese music and chamber music to her repertoire. Yang has played on over 30 recordings, with her second album earning “Editor’s Choice” from Gramophone. Her collaborations have included musicians such as Ian Bostridge, the Heath Quartet, and David Garrett. The UK’s Classic FM named Yang one of the top 100 classical musicians of our time, and she was awarded a Fellowship of the Royal Academy of Music in 2012. Since 2015, Yang has served as artistic director of the Changsha International Guitar Festival.