2011 guest artists
Audrey andrist
Hailed as a “stunning pianist with incredible dexterity”, Canadian pianist Audrey Andrist has thrilled audiences from North America to Japan and Germany. Ms. Andrist grew up in Saskatchewan, and while in high school traveled three hours one-way for piano lessons with William Moore, himself a former student of famed musicians Cécile Genhart and Rosinna Lhévinne. She later studied at the Juilliard School with Herbert Stessin, winning first prizes at the Mozart International, San Antonio International, and Juilliard Concerto Competitions. She is a member of the Stern/Andrist Duo with her husband, violinist James Stern, and Strata, a trio with Stern and clarinetist Nathan Williams. An avid performer of new music, Ms. Andrist can be heard on over a dozen recordings of both standard and modern repertoire, including a recently released solo Schumann CD for Centaur Records. She currently resides in the Washington, DC area, where she has performed at the Kennedy Center and the Library of Congress.
Aaron Berofsky
Violinist Aaron Berofsky has toured extensively throughout the United States and abroad, gaining wide recognition as a soloist and chamber musician. As soloist, he has performed with orchestras in the United States, Germany, Italy, Spain and Canada. He has performed the complete cycle of Mozart violin sonatas at the International Festival Deia in Spain and has appeared in such renowned venues as Carnegie Hall, Alice Tully Hall, the 92nd Street Y, the Corocoran Gallery, Het Doelen, L'Octogone, the Teatro San Jose and the Museo de Bellas Artes. His acclaimed recordings can be found on the Sony, Naxos, New Albion, ECM, Audio Ideas, Blue Griffin and Chesky labels.
Recent recital tours have taken him to Germany and Italy, and he was featured soloist on the 2009 NAXOS recording of music by Paul Fetler, performed by the Ann Arbor Symphony, including the debut recording of his Concerto No. 2. His recording of the complete Beethoven Sonatas with pianist Phillip Bush was just released as well.
Mr. Berofsky has been the first violinist of the Chester String Quartet since 1992. The quartet has been acclaimed as "one of the country's best young string quartets" by the Boston Globe. Mr. Berofsky is Professor of Violin at the University of Michigan and he taught at the Meadowmount School of Music for many summers, as well as the Chautauqua Institution. His interest in early music led him to perform with the acclaimed chamber orchestra Tafelmusik on period instruments, and he has recorded with them for the Sony label. With a strong dedication to new music as well, he has worked extensively with many leading composers of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, performing, commissioning and recording music by John Cage, William Bolcom, Zhou Long, Michael Daugherty, Aaron Jay Kernis, Susan Botti, Morton Subotnick, Paul Fetler and Bright Sheng.
Richard Faria
Clarinetist Richard Faria pursues an active career as soloist, chamber musician, and educator. He has been a participant in such festivals as the Bard Music Festival of the Hamptons, Skaneateles Festival, and has collaborated with the Zephyros and Sylvan Wind Quintets, Atlantic and Arianna String Quartets. He has performed in Weill Hall, Carnegie Hall, Spivey Hall, the Smithsonian Institution, as well as at the American Academies in Rome and Berlin, and Glinka Hall in St. Petersburg, Russia.
A fervent advocate of new music, Richard premiered the Clarinet Sonata by Roberto Sierra at the International ClarinetFest 2007 in Vancouver, BC, as well as the premiere of Pyrrhic Suite by Kevin Gray at the ClarinetFest 2010 in Austin, Texas. His first solo CD, Roberto Sierra: Clarinet Works, was described as “a superb recording that belongs on every clarinetist’s shelf” by the American Record Guide. His newest recording of Stephen Hartke's The Horse with the Lavender Eye is out on the Chandos label.
Richard is a contributing author to The Clarinet magazine, and studied at Ithaca College, Michigan State University, and SUNY Stony Brook, as well as the Aspen Music Festival, National Repertory Orchestra and the Stockhausen Courses Kürten. His teachers have included Joaquin Valdepeñas, Dr. Elsa Ludewig-Verdehr and Charles Neidich.
genevieve feiwen lee
A versatile performer of music spanning five centuries, Genevieve Feiwen Lee, has dazzled audiences on the piano, harpsichord, toy piano, keyboard, and electronics. She recently premiered a work by Kurt Rohde for speaking pianist, adding another dimension to her performing persona. She has given solo piano recitals at Merkin Concert Hall in New York and the Salle Gaveau in Paris. Her performances in Changsha, China, were broadcast by Hunan State Television. She has performed in Amsterdam on a live radio broadcast (AVRO) from the Spiegelzaal at the Concertgebouw. She has been a soloist with the São Paulo State Symphony Orchestra in Brazil, the Vrazta State Philharmonic in Bulgaria, and The Orchestra of Northern New York. Her first solo performance with orchestra was at the age of twelve. A champion of new music, Ms. Lee has premiered and commissioned numerous works. Her solo piano CD Elements, on Albany Records, features the premiere recording of works by Tom Flaherty and Philippe Bodin. She is heard with mezzo-soprano D’Anna Fortunato on another Albany Records CD, An American Collage. She has been a guest performer with XTET, one of Los Angeles’s leading new music groups. She is a founding member of the Mojave Trio, which plays regularly on the “Sundays Live” concerts from the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. She has appeared regularly in chamber music festivals at the Garth Newel Music Center, Virginia, and Incontri di Canna, Italy, and was a resident artist at The Banff Centre for the Arts in Alberta, Canada. Ms. Lee received her degrees from the Peabody Conservatory of Music, Ecole Normale de Musique de Paris, and the Yale School of Music, where she studied with Boris Berman. Before joining the faculty of Pomona College in 1994, Ms. Lee taught at Yale, Bucknell University, and The Crane School of Music at the State University of New York-Potsdam.
joel fuller
Joel Fuller received his Bachelor of Music in Violin Performance from the University of Wisconsin, and a Master of Music in Violin Performance and Chamber Music from the University of Michigan. His teachers include the late Vartan Manoogian and Paul Kantor. He has performed in master classes with some of the world’s leading teachers and musicians, such as Donald Weilerstein, Mark Steinberg, William Preucil, and Pamela Frank, among others. Mr. Fuller has won numerous awards and competitions, including the American String Teachers Association Competition and both the University of Wisconsin and the University of Michigan Concerto Competitions. As a student, he was awarded a three-year orchestral fellowship to attend the Aspen Music Festival; he was one of only two musicians to receive that honor in 2001. Before his appointment with the National Symphony, Joel held the position of Assistant Principal Second Violin of the Washington National Opera Orchestra and previous to that appointment he spent three seasons as the Assistant Concertmaster of the Naples (FL) Philharmonic. As a chamber musician, Mr. Fuller was the first violinist of the University of Michigan Graduate String Quartet and a founding member of the Sonare and Vanderbilt String Quartets; he is currently a member of the IBIS Chamber Music Society.
Adam Golka
With “supreme technique” and “a savvy sense of drama and pacing” (Ft. Worth Star-Telegram), pianist
Adam Golka has won international prizes including the 2008 Gilmore Young Artist Award; first prize in the 2nd China Shanghai International Piano Competition in 2003; and most recently, the 2009 Max I. Allen Classical Fellowship Award of the American Pianists Association.
Concerto appearances have included engagements with the Atlanta, Houston, Dallas, Milwaukee, Indianapolis, Phoenix, San Diego, Fort Worth, Syracuse, Lansing, Knoxville, Albany, South Dakota, and Grand Rapids symphonies, the Grand Teton and Colorado music festival orchestras, and internationally with the BBC Scottish Symphony, the National Arts Centre Orchestra, Sinfonia Varsovia, the Shanghai Philharmonic, Orchestre Poitou-Charentes, and Orquesta Filarmonica de Jalisco (Guadalajara). In March 2010, Adam made his Isaac Stern Auditorium Debut at Carnegie Hall, playing Rachmaninoff’s Third Concerto with the New York Youth Symphony. 2010-2011 season highlights include appearances with the Warsaw Philharmonic and the Indianapolis, West Virginia, Wichita, Ann Arbor, Silicon Valley, and Pensacola symphonies. Solo appearances have taken him to venues such as the Concertgebouw’s Kleine Zaal, Carnegie Hall’s Weill Recital Hall in New York, and Musashino Civic Cultural Hall in Tokyo, among others.
A 1st-generation American, Adam comes from an immigrant family of Polish musicians. Born and raised in Houston, Texas, he moved to Fort Worth at age 15 to pursue studies with Jose Feghali at Texas Christian University. He currently resides in Baltimore, Maryland, where he studies with Leon Fleisher at the Peabody Institute. Adam’s earlier teachers were Dariusz Pawlas in Houston, and his mother, Anna Golka.
Kelly Hall-Tompkins
One of New York City’s most in-demand violinists, Kelly Hall-Tompkins’ dynamic career spans solo, chamber, and orchestral performance. In 2010 Ms. Hall-Tompkins signed with Columbia Artists Management and is a collaborator with violinist/composer and fellow roster artist Mark O’Connor in his Double Violin Concerto and first violinist of the O’Connor String Quartet. Ms. Hall-Tompkins was winner of a 2003 Naumburg International Violin Competition Honorarium Prize and a Concert Artists Guild Career Grant. Kelly Hall-Tompkins is a concertmaster of the Black Pearl Chamber Orchestra, Chamber Orchestra of New York and was soloist for the debut concert in Zankel Hall in ‘07. She has also been soloist with Dallas Symphony, Evansville Philharmonic, Greenville Symphony, Philharmonic of Uruguay, W. Piedmont Symphony among others. As recitalist she was featured at the National Academy of Sciences and Phillips Collection in Washington DC, Dame Myra Hess in Chicago, WFMT radio, and New York’s WQXR. In 2008 Ms. Hall-Tompkins released her second CD, “In My Own Voice” which has been critically acclaimed in BBC Music Magazine, Fanfare Magazine and the American Record Guide. Ms. Hall-Tompkins is a member of the Ritz Chamber Players, featured internationally on BBC/WNYC and Ravinia Chicago. Ms. Hall-Tompkins’ distinguished orchestral career has included extensive touring in the US and internationally with the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, over 150 performances with the New York Philharmonic and as first violinist with NJ Symphony. Ms. Hall-Tompkins is founder of charity series ‘Music Kitchen-Food for the Soul’, bringing over 50 concerts to NYC homeless, including Emanuel Ax and 100 other artists since 2005.
wanchi huang
Wanchi Huang began violin lessons with her mother in her native country Taiwan at the age of six. Before the age of 13, she had won numerous Taiwan-wide competitions in both violin and piano including the Taiwan National Violin Competition. At 13, she came to the US to study with Daniel Heifetz and Shirley Givens at the Peabody Conservatory Preparatory Division, and attend the Baltimore School for the Arts. At 15, she made her solo debut with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Catherine Comet.
Wanchi received her Bachelor from the Curtis Institute of Music, her Masters from The Julliard School, and her Doctor of Music from the Indiana University School of Music. She has given recitals and collaborated with internationally renowned artists in performances throughout the US including Baltimore, Philadelphia, New York City, Minnesota, California, Virginia, and the Kennedy Center Terrace Theater in Washington D.C. She taught at Tunghai University in Taichung, Taiwan before coming to JMU in 1998. Wanchi recently contracted with Centaur Records to record all six of Eugene Ysaÿe’s Violin Sonatas.
robert merfeld
Pianist Robert Merfeld began piano studies at an early age in New York City with Leonid Hambro. He graduated from the Oberlin Conservatory as a student of Emil Danenberg and received a Master’s degree from The Juilliard School as a scholarship student of Beveridge Webster. While at Juilliard, he pursued art song accompaniment with Viennese tenor Hanz Heinz and also worked in the studios of Jennie Tourel, Oscar Shumsky, and Leonard Rose. Mr. Merfeld was a founding member of the Apple Hill Chamber Players, with whom he toured nationally and internationally for over twenty years. He is a frequent participant on the Emmanuel Music Chamber Music series and has been a guest artist with many chamber ensembles such as the Mendelssohn, Philadelphia and Muir Quartets. Mr. Merfeld has recorded on the Centaur and Sine Qua Non record labels and is currently on the piano and chamber music faculties of Boston University, Dartmouth College and the Longy School of Music. Cellist Jan Müller-Szeraws’ musical journey has taken him over three continents as a soloist, chamber musician and teacher. Recent performances have included solo engagements with the New England Philharmonic, the Concord Orchestra, the Boston Landmarks Orchestra and the Moscow Symphony Orchestra. His recording of the Allende cello concerto with the Orquesta Sinfónica de Chile has been recently released. Müller-Szeraws has been a guest artist at many festivals, such as the Cape & Islands, Rockport, El Paso Pro-Musica, Music at Gretna and Kingston Chamber Music Festivals. He is a member of Mistral, the resident and touring ensemble of the Andover Chamber Music Series, and QX String Quartet. He regularly performs with contemporary music ensemble Boston Musica Viva. A guest lecturer at the Universidad Católica de Chile for the last two years, he is currently on the faculty at the Phillips Academy Andover, College of the Holy Cross and Clark University. He is a grant recipient of the Saul and Naomi Cohen Foundation
Jan Müller-Szeraws
Cellist Jan Müller-Szeraws’ musical journey has taken him over three continents as a soloist, chamber musician and teacher. Recent performances have included solo-engagements with the New England Philharmonic, the Concord Orchestra, the Boston Landmarks Orchestra and the Moscow Symphony Orchestra. His recording of the Allende cello concerto with the Orquesta Sinfónica de Chile has been released by the Chilean Academy of Fine Arts. Müller-Szeraws has been a guest artist at many festivals such as the Cape & Islands, Rockport, El Paso Pro-Musica, Music at Gretna and Kingston Chamber Music Festivals. He is member of contemporary music ensemble Boston Musica Viva and Mistral, the resident and touring ensemble of the Andover Chamber Music Series as well as founding member of QX String Quartet. A former guest lecturer at the Universidad Católica de Chile, he is currently on the faculty at the Phillips Academy Andover and the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, MA. He is a grant recipient of the Saul and Naomi Cohen Foundation.
daniel stepner
Daniel Stepner has performed and recorded a wide range of music on period and contemporary instruments. He has been first violinist of the Lydian String Quartet, in residence at Brandeis University, since 1987; he is also a founding member of the Boston Museum Trio, resident at the Museum of Fine Arts; for twenty-four years, he served as concertmaster of the Handel and Haydn Society. He is the Artistic Director of the Aston Magna Festival, which performs a regular summer series at Simon’s Rock College, at Bard College, and now at Brandeis University. He is also a Preceptor in Music at Harvard University, where he team-teaches a course in chamber music with Professor Robert Levin.
Mr. Stepner’s recorded repertoire includes violin sonatas of Bach, Vivaldi, Buxtehude and Telemann, and Marais; chamber music of Rameau, Bach, Mozart, Schubert, Brahms, William Schuman, Vincent Persichetti, Lee Hyla, Peter Child, Martin Boykan, Yehudi Wyner, and John Harbison; and the complete violin sonatas of Charles Ives, with pianist John Kirkpatrick. He has also conducted recordings of Handel’s The Triumph of Time and Truth and Monteverdi’s Orfeo (on Centaur). Mr. Stepner hails from Wisconsin, and studied with Steven Staryk in Chicago, Nadia Boulanger at Fontainebleau, France; and Broadus Erle at Yale, where he earned a Doctor of Musical Arts degree.
misuzu tanaka
Misuzu Tanaka studied at the Juilliard School in New York under the tutelage of Martin Canin. Her postgraduate studies took place at the University of Michigan with a full scholarship where she studied with Logan Skelton and chamber music with Christopher Harding. In the course of her studies, Ms. Tanaka has received first prize in the Poland Music Festival Competition. She has most recently received honorable mention in the International Janacek Competition. In February 2009, Ms. Tanaka presented a recital in Plzeň, Czech Republic, as part of the Steinway Recital Series in theMěšťanská Beseda as well as in Gdańsk, Poland. Most recently she was nominated as a Presser Music Award candidate and just received her doctorate degree in piano performance at the University of Michigan as a student of Logan Skelton.
Third Coast Percussion Quartet
Praised by Time Out Chicago for “chops, polish, and youthful joy in performing,”
Third Coast Percussion uses an impressive array of percussion instruments to create a performance experience like no other. With exceptional talent and dedicated artistry, this “sonically spectacular” (Chicago Tribune) quartet combines the driving intensity of drums, the beautiful warmth of marimbas and vibraphones, and the surprisingly exotic sounds of everyday objects to make music that is playful, memorable and profound. In performances around the country, the Chicago-based ensemble has swiftly gained national attention for effortlessly combining the energy of a rock concert with the precision and sophistication of classical chamber music.
Third Coast Percussion has established a reputation for its commitment to expanding percussion repertoire and setting the highest standard in new music performance. Passionately dedicated to modern music, Third Coast has commissioned, premiered, and performed pieces by many of today’s preeminent up-and-coming composers, programming them alongside 20th-century masterpieces for percussion. The group maintains an active touring schedule throughout the country, presenting concerts and master classes for an extraordinarily wide range of audiences. In the 2008-09 season, Third Coast was the featured ensemble at the 2nd Annual Round Top Percussion Festival, in addition to presenting concerts and master classes in Illinois, Wisconsin, Kentucky, Missouri, Tennessee, and Texas. In past seasons, the ensemble has brought concerts to the Kennedy Center Millennium Stage, the Frank Lloyd Wright Preservation Society, the Chicago Cultural Center, and the Rush Hour Concert Series.
Third Coast Percussion also has the distinction of being the only professional percussion ensemble in the country, to present a full season of concert percussion music. In their hometown of Chicago, the group performs 4 to 5 concerts each season. The ensemble is dedicated to performing the greatest concert percussion music alongside lesser-known and rarely performed masterpieces. The group has programmed pieces by many of the great composers of the 20th and 21st centuries, including Luciano Berio, Steve Reich, Frederic Rzewski, Louis Andriessen, Wolfgang Rihm, and George Crumb. Third Coast is also active in developing new works, having commissioned and premiered pieces by Ted Hearne, Kirsten Broberg, Marcos Balter, Andrew McKenna Lee, Mark Berger, and Aaron Travers, among others. Future premieres include commissioned works by Matthew Barnson, David T. Little and Sarah Kirkland Snider. The members of Third Coast Percussion—Owen Clayton Condon, Robert Dillon, Peter Martin, and David Skidmore—hold degrees in music performance from Northwestern University, the Yale School of Music, the New England Conservatory, and Rutgers University.
kristopher tong
Praised for his exceptional gift of insight, virtuosity and true creative flair, violinist Kristopher Tong has performed in hundreds of concerts across the world as the second violinist of the critically acclaimed Borromeo String Quartet. He has performed on such radio programs as NPR’s ‘Performance Today,’ WGBH’s ‘Classical Performance’, and was recently featured on WGBH’s ‘Classical Connections’ in a new series entitled ‘Why Mass?’
Mr. Tong serves on the faculty of the New England Conservatory of Music with the Borromeo, NEC’s Quartet-in-Residence, and is a guest member of East Coast Chamber Orchestra. He has taught and performed at numerous festivals, including the Taos School of Music, Music @ Menlo, and at the Yellow Barn Young Artists Program. From 2002-2004, Mr. Tong was Principal Second Violin with the highly acclaimed Verbier Festival Orchestra, with whom he toured throughout Europe, Asia, and the Americas. He has also appeared as a guest soloist with the Verbier Chamber Orchestra under Dmitri Sitkovetsky and Yuri Bashmet, and was a member of the original cast of ‘Classical Savion’ at the Joyce Theater in New York City, a collaborative project with tap dancer Savion Glover.
B.M., Indiana University, M.M. The New England Conservatory of Music. Studies with Miriam Fried, Franco Gulli, and Yuval Yaron.
linda wang
Linda Wang made her debut with Zubin Mehta and the New York Philharmonic at the age of nine, Linda Wang has performed concerti throughout the United States collaborating with such conductors as Sir Georg Solti, Jorge Mester, JoAnn Falletta, Grant Cooper, Chistian Tiemeyer, Peter Jaffe, Daryll One, Allen Scott, Steve Lipsett, Stephen Gunzenhauser. In recital she has performed in over 40 states and abroad her concerto performances include the Schleswig-Holstein Musik Festival Orchestra, Salzburg Chamber Orchestra, Paris Sinfonietta, Germany's Sächsische Kammerphilharmonie Dresden and Philharmonisches Orchester des Vogtland and The Czech Republic's Southern Bohemian Chamber Philharmonic Orchestra, with whom she toured. In Asia, her appearances have included a concerto debut in Taipei, performances in Beijing, Shanghai and the Phillipines Philharmonic Orchestra.
Linda Wang's solo engagements have taken her to Carnegie Hall, Amsterdam's Beurs van Berlage and the Berlin Schauspielhaus. Audiences have seen her televised performances on PBS, Arts and Entertainment, Germany's ZDF and Japan's NHK, while radio broadcasts include NPR's "Performance Today, WQXR (New York City), WFMT (Chicago), KMozart and KKGO (Los Angeles), MDR (Germany), Leipzig Rundfunk and Deutschland Radio, Berlin.
A native of New York City, Linda Wang has studied at The Juilliard School the Colburn School and the University of Southern California. Awarded a Fulbright Scholarship, she pursued advanced studies at the famed Salzburg Mozarteum. A dedicated teacher herself, Linda Wang is Associate Professor of Violin at University of Denver’s Lamont School of Music and is currently on the Fulbright Specialists Roster, teaching at overseas institutions. She has recorded for Albany Records, MGS Productions and Beauport Classical and performs on a 1767 J.B. Guadagnini. Additional information can be found on her website, www.lindawang.com