“The 2017 season, celebrating more than four decades of presenting compelling chamber music, is part of a landmark year in which we’re continuing our visionary spirit, artistic excellence, and innovations,” said Marc Neikrug, now in his 20th season as the Festival’s artistic director. “As is our tradition, we continue to contribute to the body of music through commissions of new works. It also gives us special pleasure to present countertenor David Daniels as our 2017 Artist-in-Residence.” 

American mezzo-soprano Jennifer Johnson Cano makes her Festival debut in the same program, performing Three Songs by Bridge; Massenet’s Élégie: “Ô doux printemps d’autrefois”; and Rachmaninoff’s “Spring Waters” — all with violist Paul Neubauer and pianist Jon Kimura Parker. Cano has been praised by The Des Moines Register for singing with “heartrending emotion,” and The New York Times, in a recent review, noted that “dramatic intelligence and imagination suffused every note of Ms. Johnson Cano’s performance.”

Luo, who was born in Shenzhen, China, in 1998, and won numerous international competitions, is currently studying with Gary Graffman and Robert McDonald at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia. Philly.com has praised her for taking listeners “so far inside the music that your ears [leave] behind previous points of reference,” and The Kansas City Star recently raved that Luo “gave a powerful performance” of Prokofiev’s Piano Concerto No. 3 with the Kansas City Symphony, noting that “the audience was immediately roused to a standing ovation.” For her recital on July 18, Luo performs Haydn’s Piano Sonata in E-flat Major, Ravel’s La Valse, Schubert/Liszt Ständchen from “Schwanengesang,” D.957, and Prokofiev’s Piano Sonata No. 7 in B-flat Major.

Throughout the season, the Festival presents four fun, free, family-friendly Youth Concerts, featuring Festival artists engaging in musical storytelling and performing excerpts of repertoire drawn directly from the Festival’s regular programming. The first Youth Concert of the season, with Łukasz Kuropaczewski, guitar; Jennifer Frautschi, violin; CarlaMaria Rodrigues, viola; and Clive Greensmith, cello is at 10 a.m. Monday, July 17, at St. Francis Auditorium.