Date: 8/27/07
Contact: Marc Lebovitz
A rising young star in the concert piano world, Chu-Fang Huang , will open the School of Music Guest Artist Series on Thursday, Sept. 6, with a 7 p.m. performance in the Center for the Performing Arts Concert Hall.
Advance tickets for Huang’s concert are $23. Tickets at the door will be $25 for the general public, $15 for ISU faculty and staff and $10 for students.
The 23-year-old captured the attention of the musical world when she became the first Chinese pianist to win first prize at the prestigious Cleveland International Piano Competition in August 2005, only two months after being named a finalist in the renowned Van Cliburn International Piano Competition. With an award-winning performance of Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 2 with the renowned Cleveland Orchestra, her Cleveland prize package included the Mixon First Prize, best performances of compositions by Chopin and Beethoven, a recital debut at Alice Tully Hall in New York's Lincoln Center and numerous professional concert engagements.
Most recently, Ms. Huang signed with Young Concert Artists after winning their 2006 International Auditions in January.
The Lincolnland Brass Quintet, part of the United States Air Force band of Mid-America, will present a concert at 8 p.m. Monday, Sept. 10, in Kemp Recital Hall. Admission is free and open to the public.
Three concerts are scheduled for the Faculty Chamber Ensemble of Christ Church College of Canterbury in Kemp Recital Hall. All are free. The concerts will be at 11 a.m. and 8 p.m. on Thursday, Sept. 11, and at 8 p.m. on Sept. 13.
Duo Terlano features the husband-wife team of violinist Johannes Dietrich and cellist Marie-Aline Cadieux. They will perform in a free concert at 7:30 p.m. Friday, Sept. 21, in Kemp Recital Hall. Cadieux is a Normal Community High School and former principal cello of the Illinois Symphony and Chamber Orchestra. Cadieux, whose parents still live in Normal, is a faculty member at Kutztown University. Dietrich, her husband, teaches at Lebanon Valley College.
Guitarist Cain Budds, who earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees at Illinois State studying with Angelo Favis, will perform at 7:30 p.m. Monday, Oct. 15, in Kemp Recital Hall. Admission will be $5. Budds will present a masterclass in Kemp at 1 p.m., which is open to everyone free of charge.
Three music faculty members at Arizona State University – oboist Martin Schuring, clarinetist Robert Spring and bassoonist Albie Micklich – comprise Ocotillo Winds, which will perform in a free concert at 8 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 24, in Kemp Recital Hall.
A free horn masterclass will be presented by Eric Ruske at 10:30 a.m. Thursday, Oct. 25, in the CPA Concert Hall. A prize-winning performer from a very young age, Ruske was named associate principal horn of the Cleveland Orchestra when he was only 20. He is an associate professor at Boston University.
The U.S. Army Field Band Jazz Ambassadors, the Army’s premier touring jazz orchestra, will give a free performance at 8 p.m. Friday, Oct. 26, in the Center for the Performing Arts Concert Hall. The 19-member big band has received great acclaim at home and abroad.
Jazz vocalist Cherilee Wadsworth Walker, a former world-touring musician with the U.S. Navy, will perform at 7:30 p.m. Sunday, Nov. 4, in the CPA Concert Hall. Currently Walker is on the music faculty at Illinois Central College and is a doctoral candidate in music education at the University of Oklahoma. Admission to her concert is $6, $5 and $4.
Composers David Maslanka and Daron Hagen will be on campus for premieres of their newest works in November by the Wind Symphony on Thursday, Nov. 15, concert in the Center for the Performing Arts Concert Hall. Maslanka’s “Trombone Concerto” will feature Stephen Parsons and Hagen’s work, “The Banner of My Purpose” will feature baritone John Koch. Admission is $6, $5 and $4.
After the new year, the Trombones of the Saint Louis Symphony, who are becoming one of the nation’s leading brass chamber ensembles, will perform at 8 p.m. Thursday, Jan. 17, in Kemp Recital Hall. Admission is free.
Award-winning guitarist Valerie Hartzell, a professional teacher at Moores School of Music at the University of Houston, will perform at 7:30 p.m. Monday, March 3, in Kemp Recital Hall. Admission is $5. She will conduct a free master class at 1 p.m. in Kemp. Hartzell is the creator and director of the “Classical Minds” Guitar Festival at Moores School of Music.
Two concerts in the Guest Artist Series will be part of the School of Music’s New Music Festival in March. Cellist David Russell, a faculty member at Wellesley College, will perform works by Boston-based and California-based composers at 8 p.m. Monday, March 17, in Kemp. Two days later, Chicago-based pianist Amy Dissanayake will perform etudes and tangos for solo piano at 8 p.m. in Kemp. Both are free and open to the public. Dissanayake is considered one of the nation’s foremost interpreters of contemporary piano repetoire.
As always, the annual ISU Jazz Festival Friday and Saturday, April 4 and 5, will have a special guest, this year’s being trombonist John Fedchock, former member of Woody Herman’s “Thundering Herd.” Two 8 p.m. concerts will take place in the Center for the Performing Arts Concert Hall. Tickets each evening are $10, $8 and $7.
Fedchock was Herman’s musical director and a featured soloist, and he was musical coordinator and chief arranger in the production of Herman's last two Grammy Award nominated albums. Currently Fedchock is jazz trombone instructor at Purchase College in Purchase, N.Y., and a visiting jazz faculty member at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia, Pa.
Closing the guest artist series will be guest conductor, Karen Lynn Deale, music director of the Illinois Symphony, who will conduct the ISU Symphony Orchestra and the Chamber Orchestra at 8 p.m. Wednesday, April 23, in the CPA Concert Hall. Tickets are $10, $8 and $7.
