Souvenir Music from the World's Columbian Exposition of 1893

Brad Jungwirth has been described by critics as “a muscular baritone with an evocatively dark instrument” and has been praised for his “dulcet and lyrical” voice and “no-holds-barred intensity.”  He recently made his subscription concert debut with the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, under the baton of Louis Langrée, performing Schönberg's A Survivor from Warsaw. These concerts were broadcast throughout the Ohio area, and recorded for digital release. He returned to the Cincinnati Symphony as soloist for concerts of music from Hollywood musicals for their summer Pops series in 2015. Recent operatic performances include the Prophet in the Chicago-area premiere of Nico Muhly’s opera  Dark Sisters with the Third Eye Theatre Ensemble, his role debut as Don Pizarro in Beethoven’s Fidelio with the 2014 Shippensburg Music Festival conducted by Robert Trevino, Escamillo in Bizet’s Carmen with Michigan’s Soo Opera Theater and in the Peter Brooks’ adaptation, La tragédie de Carmen, for Chicago’s CUBE Ensemble. He returned to the 2016 Shippensburg Music Festival, singing the Marquis D’Obigny in Verdi’s La Traviata. Mr. Jungwirth is an avid performer of contemporary music. He is on the faculty at Lake Forest College.

Violinist Kate Carter enjoys a varied performing career as an active chamber musician, recitalist, and orchestral player. Her violin-piano duo has performed live on Chicago radio and in recital venues throughout Chicago and in New York. She toured internationally as an ensemble member of Camerata Chicago, with whom she recorded for Cedille Records. Other recording credits include string quartets for Chicago Jazz Philharmonic and with contemporary Ensemble Nouvelle Epoque. As a soloist, she has appeared with numerous orchestras in the Chicagoland area. Passionate about teaching, Kate is an instructor of violin on the faculty of Lake Forest College in Illinois. Originally hailing from California, she has embraced Chicago as her adopted hometown, and enjoys its rich musical and cultural history, including that encompassed in this recording.

Pianist Chris White hails from Toronto, Canada. After obtaining a B.A. in English from the University of Toronto, Chris decided to focus his studies entirely on music. In 1997 he attended Indiana University’s prestigious Jacobs School of Music and pursued his Master’s degree in Jazz Studies, graduating with a Phi Kappa Lambda award (National Music Honors Society). Gaining valuable experience in Indianapolis, he performed with The Bloomington Symphony Orchestra, David Baker, Jamey Aebersold and Oliver Nelson, Jr. Currently he is an instructor of jazz piano at Lake Forest College, North Park University and North Central College.  Chris is a busy freelance musician in the Chicago area, and has performed at The Green Mill, The Jazz Showcase, Andy’s, The House of Blues, Navy Pier, The Peninsula Hotel, the Coq D’or at the Drake Hotel and many more venues.

Composer and musicologist Don Meyer (producer), Professor of Music at Lake Forest College, has written original scores for a number of independent films and rescored several movies from the Silent Era, including Max Wants a Divorce as a Fellow for Digital Chicago in 2015. In addition, he has composed incidental music and sound collages for theater productions, dance troupes, online literary journals, and television commercials. Along with his colleague Davis Schneiderman, he leads the experimental creative collective The Muttering Sickness. He has also written articles about film music and music in American life. He is the program note annotator for the Mid-Columbia Symphony Orchestra in Washington State. He was a participant in the Digital Chicago Grant from the Mellon Foundation in 2015 and 2016, and this album is an outgrowth this participation.