Curtis on Tour in Athens, Greece

Praised for his “strikingly individual timbre” (Philadelphia Magazine), German-American baritone Dennis Chmelensky was a member of the Washington National Opera’s Cafritz Young Artist program at the Kennedy Center. He is an alum of the Curtis Institute of Music, where he studied with Marlena Malas and Mikael Eliasen. This season, he will debut as Marquis de Corcy in Le Postillon de Lonjumeau at the Tiroler Festspiele in Erl under the baton of Beomseok Yi and directed by Hans Walter Richter.

Recent highlights include his debut at the Verbier Festival as Peter in Humperdinck’s Hänsel und Gretel conducted by Stanislav Kochanovsky, as well as Tom in Un ballo in maschera under the baton of Gianandrea Noseda. He also performed Beethoven’s An die ferne Geliebte at the Philips Collection and workshopped Sensor in Jeanine Tesori’s new opera Grounded, which was commissioned by the Metropolitan Opera. Further highlights include appearances with Opera for Peace in Sochi, Russia, and his debut as Don Giovanni in a Curtis / Opera Philadelphia co-production under the baton of Karina Canellakis.

An avid recitalist, Dennis has toured extensively throughout the United States and Europe to perform works such as Hugo Wolf’s Italienisches Liederbuch. He made his Konzerthaus Berlin debut with Curtis on Tour, performing Ned Rorem’s Aftermath and works by Franz Schubert in 2019 on a tour through Greece, France, Spain, and Germany.

Dennis was a National Semifinalist of the Metropolitan Opera’s Laffont Competition. He is a 2018 Opera Awards career grant recipient and an alum of the Internationale Meistersinger Akademie in Neumarkt, the Chautauqua Music Festival, and the Franz Schubert Institute in Baden bei Wien. His debut album DENNIS was released by Sony Music.

Indian American pianist Pallavi Mahidhara made her orchestral debut at age 10, performing at the Ravinia Festival in Chicago. She is the Second Prize winner and Young Audience Award winner of the 69th Geneva International Piano Competition and the VI International Prokofiev Competition in Saint Petersburg, Russia.

She has appeared in solo and orchestral concerts across five continents and has performed at important festivals such as the Gstaad Menuhin Festival, Marlboro Music, and Verbier Festival. She regularly performs chamber music with renowned artists such as Gary Hoffman, Diemut Poppen, István Várdai, Pablo Ferrández, Josef Spacek, and Theo Fouchennert. Pallavi was selected by Sir András Schiff for his concert series, Building Bridges, a platform to support and promote young pianists. The Klavier-Festival Ruhr in Essen released a live performance recording of her recital from October 2021, available on Spotify.

She received her bachelor’s degree from the Curtis Institute of Music and her master’s degree From the Hochschule für Musik Hanns Eisler. She studied for several years with Dimitri Bashkirov at the Escuela Superior de Música Reina Sofía. Aside from her private studio, Pallavi is the Artistic Advisor and a Piano Professor for the Young Artists Program at the Reina Sofia School in Madrid, Spain. She is regularly invited to teach for Curtis’s Mentor Alumni Program. She is the Executive Producer, Writer, and Host of “The Conscious Artist,” a new podcast designed to promote Mental Health Awareness for musicians, artists, and all human beings.