Category Archives: keyboard-alumni

Competitions in Music Results

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Congratulations for a fantastic Competitions in Music this year! We would like to say a special thank you to Mark Bunce and recording services for video recording the final round today, as well as to Keith Hofacker for his assistance with competition operations.
Here are the winners of this year’s competition:

Undergraduate Division
Winners:
Xuan He, piano
Xiao Han, saxophone

Honorable Mention:
Claire Werling, clarinet

Graduate Division
Winners:
Sheldon Johnson, saxophone
Tatiana Gorbunova, piano

Composition Division:
Patrick Chan: Five Songs of the Von Seggerns for soprano, clarinet and piano (2010)

Virginia Marks Collaborative piano award:
Winner:
Karl Larson

Honorable Mention:
Vitaly Serebriakov
Emily Chapman

Thanks to everyone for their participation and support.

Pianist Lisa Moore to perform in Bowling Green Dec. 1, 2

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Acclaimed avant-garde pianist Lisa Moore will appear at both Bowling Green State University’s College of Musical Arts and at the Clazel Theatre in downtown Bowling Green as part of the Music at the Forefront concert series sponsored by BGSU’s MidAmerican Center for Contemporary Music (MACCM).

Moore’s first concert will begin at 10:15 p.m. Dec. 1 at the Clazel, 127 N. Main St. A $2-$5 donation is suggested. The program will feature an eclectic mix of music by Don Byron, Brian Eno, Rufus Wainwright and Randy Newman, followed by a performance of Terry Riley’s seminal minimalist work “In C” by BGSU’s Combustible Arts Ensemble.

The Dec. 2 concert begins at 8 p.m. in Bryan Recital Hall at the Moore Musical Arts Center. The program will feature Frederic Rzewski’s “De Profundis” for speaking pianist, based on the letters of Oscar Wilde, and Martin Bresnick’s “For the Sexes: The Gates of Paradise,” inspired by the works of William Blake.

The Australian-American Moore lives in New York City where she collaborates with a large and diverse range of musicians and artists. The New York Times says “her energy is illuminating,” and the New Yorker magazine called her “visionary” and “New York’s queen of avant-garde piano.” Moore has released five solo discs and 30 collaborative discs. Her latest solo recording, “Seven,” has just been released on Cantaloupe.

Her performances combine musical and emotional power, whether in the delivery of the simplest song, the most challenging chamber work or complex solo score. She is passionately dedicated to the music of our time as well as the great musical canon. Moore has collaborated with composers from many musical genres, including Elliott Carter, Meredith Monk, Philip Glass and Ornette Coleman. Her repertoire spans works by Robert Schumann, Leos Janacek and Modeste Mussorgsky to music and text settings by Randy Newman. She has given concerts around the world.

Moore won the silver medal in the Carnegie Hall International American Music Competition. From 1992-2008 she was the pianist and founding member for the Bang On A Can All-Stars, the New York based electro-acoustic sextet and winner of Musical America’s 2005 “Ensemble of the Year” Award. As an artistic curator she most recently produced Australia’s Canberra International Music Festival “Sounds Alive ‘08” series, importing musicians from around the world for 10 days of music making at the Street Theatre.

Moore’s Clazel performance is the second time the college has partnered with the theater. In October, saxophonist Branford Marsalis, in town for the BGSU Festival Series, also gave a late-night show at the Clazel, which was attended by about 300 people, said Kurt Doles, MACCM coordinator.

“We are equally excited about having the opportunity to use the Clazel not only to highlight the talents of the BGSU College of Musical Arts but also to help them showcase a greater musical experience to the region,” said Dan Gallerno, Clazel marketing manager. “The Cla-zel has a long history in the Bowling Green community not only as a movie theater but also as a cultural and arts center; we see this as an opportunity to further honor that heritage.”

Music at the Forefront is an annual concert series featuring performances by accomplished and innovative performers of contemporary music. For more information contact the center at 419-372-2685 or email kdoles@bgsu.edu.

BGSU music faculty to visit SiChuan Conservatory

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The ties between Bowling Green State University’s College of Musical Arts and the SiChuan Conservatory of Music in Chengdu, China, will be strengthened this month when 10 BGSU faculty members visit for “American Music Week.” The group will spend May 17-21 in Chengdu, performing at the school and with the Chengdu City Orchestra.

Faculty members performing at the SiChuan Conservatory of Music will be Drs. Thomas Rosenkranz and Solungga Fang-Tzu Liu, both assistant professors of piano; Dr. Robert Satterlee, associate professor of piano; Dr. Charles Saenz, associate professor of trumpet; Dr. William Mathis, associate professor of trombone; Dr. John Sampen, Distinguished Artist Professor and professor of saxophone; Dr. Marilyn Shrude, Distinguished Artist Professor and professor of musicology; Dr. Alan Smith, professor of cello; Vasile Beluska, professor of violin, and Dr. Emily Freeman Brown, director of orchestral activities.

In addition to the American Music Week offerings, Smith and Rosencranz will present a recital of Chopin music for cello and piano, and Brown will conduct a concert with the city orchestra. Besides giving master classes at the conservatory, the group will present five evening performances running the gamut of musical groupings. Brown will conclude the week by conducting the SiChuan Conservatory of Music’s orchestra.

The partnership between the conservatory and BGSU began 10 years ago when Smith visited Chengdu, which resulted in the recruitment of the first student from the school. Subsequently, other faculty have visited and several SiChuan students have come to BGSU.

Mathis and current student Li Kuang began discussing a joint trip to the SiChuan Conservatory back in 2007. While making his plans, Mathis discovered that numerous faculty members were also planning to travel to Chengdu around the same time and contacted the conservatory about coordinating the effort. Thus, “American Music Week” was inspired.

The SiChuan Conservatory was founded in 1939 and has since developed into an interdisciplinary higher education institution.

Annual Peatee art song competition coming up at BGSU

all, events, keyboard, student news, voice

Forty duos will participate in the 11th annual Marjorie Conrad Peatee Art Song Competition at Bowling Green State University’s College of Musical Arts on March 27.

The first round of the competition will begin at noon and end around 5 p.m. in Kobacker Hall of the Moore Musical Arts Center. Finalists will be announced at 6 p.m., and the final round, in the form of a formal evening concert, will begin at 8 p.m. in Bryan Recital Hall.

The Dr. Marjorie Conrad Peatee Art Song Fund provides monetary prizes for the singers and their collaborative pianists in two divisions, undergraduate and graduate.

The students will compete for two first prizes of $1,500, two second prizes of $1,000 and two third prizes of $750. The first-prize winning duos will present a recital on the “Music from Bowling Green at the Manor House” series, an outreach program of the college, on March 30 at Toledo’s Wildwood Metropark.

The goal of the competition is to encourage students enrolled at BGSU to approach the art song in a serious and intense manner and enhance their learning experience.

All rounds of the competition are free and open to the public.

Gilmore Award-winning pianist Kirill Gerstein to give BGSU master class

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Four piano students in Bowling Green State University’s College of Musical Arts will have an opportunity to perform in a master class with leading pianist Kirill Gerstein when he comes to campus March 19.

Gerstein will be in the area to perform with the Toledo Symphony March 20. At Bowling Green, he will give the master class from 2:30-4:30 p.m. that Friday in Bryan Recital Hall of the Moore Musical Arts Center.

In the world of music, his is an unusual story. He is the sixth winner of the Gilmore Artists Award—a $300,000 surprise grant given every four years to an artist to use to enhance their careers or their professional development. Equated to the MacArthur “genius” awards, the funds come with few strings attached.

The award is given to “a superb pianist and profound musician,” according to the Gilmore Foundation. It is administered by the Irving S. Gilmore International Keyboard Festival in Kalamazoo, Mich. In fact, one of the places the award judges observed Gerstein’s playing was in a previous Toledo Symphony performance.

Born in Russia, Gerstein began playing piano while very young. He studied jazz at Boston’s Berklee School of Music as a teenager before taking up classical piano at the Manhattan School of Music.

Now he plays around the world but, somewhat unusually for a performer of his stature, also has a teaching position at the conservatory in Stuttgart, Germany.

BGSU piano students had another rewarding master class recently with award-winning Irish pianist Barry Douglas, who was in Bowling Green to perform in the University’s Festival Series.

“He was vey impressed with the preparation of the students,” said Susan Knapp, director of public events in the music college. “He said he was also impressed with the creative safety the students demonstrated. I think that’s a great testament to what our faculty are  building here.”

Renowned pianist to offer free master class

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Pianist Margo Garrett returns to Bowling Green State University for a residency at the College of Musical Arts Feb. 1 and 2 as one of this year’s Helen McMaster Endowed Professors in Vocal and Choral Studies.

During her stay at the University, Garrett will coach student singers and pianists, as well as present a public master class at 7 p.m. Feb. 1 in Bryan Recital Hall that is free and open to the public.

Garrett has established a number of long-standing performing relationships with artists such as sopranos Kathleen Battle, Barbara Bonney, Dawn Upshaw and Benita Valente. Active in the world of contemporary music, Garrett has performed the premiers of more than 30 works.

She is a member of the Julliard School Collaborative Piano Faculty and was the first holder of the Ethel Alice Hitchcock Chair in Accompanying and Coaching at the University of Minnesota’s School of Music—the first privately endowed collaborative chair in the U.S.

Garrett is sharing this year’s McMaster professorship with renowned Swedish vocal conductor Erik Westberg, who completed his residency last October.

Helen McMaster and her late husband, Harold, established this endowed professorship in spring 2000. Helen McMaster, a longtime Perrysburg resident, has supported the arts at BGSU for many years. The McMasters previously donated to BGSU programs in music, business, science and the Center for Photochemical Sciences.