Sharon Bezaly & Wild Beautiful Orchestra
Biography Sharon Bezaly & Wild Beautiful Orchestra
Sharon Bezaly
Described by The Times (UK) as ‘God’s gift to the flute’, Sharon Bezaly was chosen as best flautist in the world (BBC Music Magazine 2019) A first prize graduate of the Paris Conservatoire, pupil of Alain Marion and Raymond Guiot and solo flute with Camerata Salzburg under Sándor Vegh, she is one of the very rare full time flute soloists, making her début with the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra and Zubin Mehta at the age of 14.
An alumna of BBC Radio 3’s New Generation Artists Scheme, Sharon Bezaly has been artist in residence with the Residentie Orkest The Hague and won prestigious prizes at Cannes Classical Awards and Echo Klassik.
Her playing has inspired many renowned composers to enrich the flute literature with more than 20 concertos. She performs these worldwide, alongside the standard repertoire, collaborating with top orchestras and conductors in high profile settings such as the BBC Proms, Sydney Opera House, Vienna Musikverein, Suntory Hall and Carnegie Hall.
Sharon Bezaly’s numerous albums on BIS have won her the highest accolades and distinctions from the world’s top magazines, with her versions of Mozart’s G major concerto and Poulenc’s Sonata (with Ronald Brautigam) being named the best recordings by BBC Music Magazine (in 2020 and 2019, respectively). Her perfect control of circular breathing (taught by Aurèle Nicolet) enables her to reach new peaks of musical interpretation, as testified by the comparison to David Oistrakh and Vladimir Horowitz made in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. In 2018 she was elected to the Royal Swedish Academy of Music.
Taylor Gonzales
was named the Music Director of the Wild Beautiful Orchestra in December 2022, having previously served as the conductor for various concerts during the orchestra’s 2021-2022 season. Originally from Bend, Oregon, Taylor earned a degree from the University of Puget Sound before studying orchestral conducting at the University of Denver under the mentorship of Lawrence Golan.
Prior to his appointment as the Music Director of the WBO, Taylor served as the Associate Conductor of the Denver Philharmonic Orchestra and co-founded and directed the Puget Sound Concerto Orchestra. As a pianist, Taylor has performed as a soloist with numerous orchestras including the University of Puget Sound Symphony Orchestra and the Sunriver Music Festival. Taylor is an active piano teacher in the Denver area and maintains a large studio. When not performing, Taylor enjoys exploring the Denver community and playing with the housecat, Pippin.
Chappell Kingsland
is an Adjunct Professor at the University of Denver’s Lamont School of Music. He has over twenty years of experience in producing concerts and recordings, ranging from solo performances (on piano and organ) to chamber music to full orchestra. His Bachelors Degree is from the Eastman School of Music at the University of Rochester, where he served on the board of Ossia, a new music ensemble run by students. Dr. Kingsland holds Masters and Doctoral Degrees from the Jacobs School of Music at Indiana University, where he founded New Voices Opera, recruited a working board of students, and raised money to produce a fully-staged performance and recording of his 90-minute opera for thirty performers. He founded Mile High Opera in Denver as a one-year project which gave concert and outreach performances of his 30-minute opera for nine performers. He ran the Wild Beautiful Concert Series at Salem United Church of Christ in 2021, producing six concerts which featured local musicians of many genres. He has worked closely with the Boulder Opera, Lamont Opera Theatre, and Thompson Street Opera (Louisville, KY) when they have given productions of his operas, serving as pianist, conductor, percussionist, and sometimes assisting with grant writing, fundraising, and promotion. He and wife Jennifer Kingsland run Strings of Brigid, a band featuring Chappell’s arrangements of Celtic music, with recordings available on streaming platforms. Chappell has organized other bands in the past, most notably Electric Athena, a quartet which performed rock, pop and classical music in the Denver area between 2017-19. As a composer, he regularly collaborates with musicians across the country.
