Music@Menlo’s Chamber Music Institute offers students daily interaction with world-renowned musicians, multiple performance opportunities, and an engaging series of classes and lectures. This immersive, personal, and rigorous approach to teaching is paying off, and we are pleased to share with you some recent accomplishments of our talented alumni. We will add new updates to the Web site quarterly, so please check back often. If you have alumni notes you’d like to share, please email them to info@musicatmenlo.org.
Violinist Yujin Ariza (Young Performers Program ’05, ’06, ’07, and ’08) recently performed the Bach Partita No. 3 at Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall. In October 2008, he made his concerto debut by performing Dvo?ák’s Violin Concerto with the El Camino Youth Symphony to a full house at the Flint Center for the Performing Arts in Cupertino. Ariza is now a freshman at Menlo School and plays in the first violin section of both the San Francisco Symphony Youth Orchestra and the El Camino Youth Symphony.
Cellist Yotam Baruch (International Program ’07, Chamber Music Institute Faculty ’08) and his group, the Kolot Ensemble, performed at Carnegie Hall in spring 2008 as part of the David Krakauer Workshop: Exploring Klezmer. The ensemble is currently working on various programs of music, including works written during the Holocaust and works by composers who were influenced by the tragedy.
Violinist Jennifer Caine (International Program ’07) and her piano trio, Icicle Creek Piano Trio, released their debut album of the Ravel and Schubert piano trios under the Con Brio Recordings label. Caine is resident violinist at the Icicle Creek Music Center in Leavenworth, Washington.
Violinist Jen Chang (Young Performers Program ’03) graduated from Northwestern University and is currently a first-year fellow at the New World Symphony in Miami, Florida.
Pianist Maya Hartman (International Program ’06) was named a winner of the Pro Musicis International Award and has been added to its artist roster. In April 2009, she will give her Carnegie Hall debut recital at Weill Recital Hall. Hartman performed in September for the third time at the Dame Myra Hess Memorial Concert series in Chicago, which was broadcast live on WQXR. Hartman and her husband became proud parents of a baby boy, Maor Sivan, in March 2008.
Violinist Bella Hristova (International Program ’06) toured New Zealand this past summer with Chamber Music New Zealand. This past fall, she and cellist Nicholas Canellakis (International Program ’06) were selected to join the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center’s CMS Two residency program.
Shortly after the completion of Music@Menlo 2008, pianist Hilda Huang (Young Performers Program ’06, ’07, and ’08) was named a Davidson Fellow by the Davidson Institute for Talent Development; she received her award at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. In October 2008, Huang made her concerto debut with the Cincinnati Pops under Erich Kunzel. This event also marked her international recording debut with Telarc, with the recording to be released next year. In December, she participated in a documentary film about Bach with violinists Joshua Bell and Hilary Hahn and the Emerson String Quartet.
Cellist Ani Kalayjian (International Program ’03) is now the co-artistic director for the Armenian General Benevolent Union’s Performing Artists, at Carnegie Hall’s Weill Recital Hall. She was a 2008 fellowship artist at the La Jolla Chamber Music Festival and has toured with Camerata Nordica and her two trios, the Bayside Trio and Trio Nareg.
Benjamin Larsen (Young Performers Program ’04) studies cello at Manhattan School of Music, where he is the recipient of the Hans and Klara Bauer scholarship. He continues to play with the City Chamber Orchestra of Hong Kong, and has been accepted to study with Robert Cohen at the Conservatorio della Svizzera Italiana toward a master’s degree in cello performance.
Pianist Kevin Kwan Loucks (International Program ’03) recently performed chamber music recitals at Carnegie Hall’s Weill Recital Hall, the Moulin d’Andé in France, Columbia University, Town Hall Seattle, and the Polish Consulate in New York. Loucks is currently in his second year of doctoral studies at SUNY Stony Brook, where he is a graduate assistant in chamber music and is on the faculty of the Pre-College division.
The Möet Trio (International Program ’06) performed recently in the Carnegie Hall Neighborhood Concert Series at Flushing Town Hall, Cape Cod’s historic Highfield Hall, and the New School Schneider Concerts series. As part of a busy 2009 season, they will perform at the Music on MacDougal concert series in Greenwich Village, New England Conservatory, the Rhinebeck Chamber Music Society, and the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum.
Cellist David Requiro (International Program ’05) won first prize at the Walter W. Naumburg International Violincello Competition in June 2008. He will be returning to the Bay Area for a solo recital presented by San Francisco Performances on January 11, 2009, at the Herbst Theater, and will perform Tchaikovsky’s Rococo Variations with the Marin Symphony on January 18 and 20, 2009. Requiro also recently performed the Elgar Concerto with the National Symphony Orchestra at the Kennedy Center.
Pallas Riedler (Young Performers Program ’07) is studying piano at the Franz Liszt Academy of Music with Balázs Szokolay and Balázs Réti, and she has started chamber music studies with Márta Gulyás. She placed second at the Carl Filtsch International Piano Competition in summer 2008, and received the Heinrich Gattermeyer prize in Vienna (with the composer in attendance!). She also studied with Tatiana Pikayzen in Sion, Switzerland.
Cellist Ila Shon (Young Performers Program ’07 and ’08) won the grand prize in the 2008 Korea Times Youth Music Competition in the Strings Junior High Division in October 2008.
Pianist Liza Stepanova (International Program ’08) won the Juilliard Mozart Concerto Competition in September 2008 and subsequently performed as a soloist in the Juilliard Orchestra’s season opening concert under the baton of Nicholas McGegan. Stepanova will perform the New York premiere of Gabriela Lena Frank’s new piano quintet at the Focus! Festival the piano solo movement from Frank’s first quintet (which she performed at Music@Menlo in 2008), which will also be broadcast on WFMT Chicago as part of the station’s PianoForte Series. She reunited with two other Chamber Music Institute alumni, Youming Chen (International Program ’08) and Dmitri Atapine (International Program ’08), as part of the New York City House Concerts project in November 2008.
In the fall of 2008, pianist Young-Ah Tak (International Program ’03) gave solo recitals at the South Nyack Recital Series in Nyack, New York, and at the Dame Myra Hess Memorial Concert Series in Chicago. In November 2008, she gave a recital at Ceramic Palace Hall in Seoul, Korea. Upcoming performances include solo and chamber music concerts in New York, Baltimore, and at the Busan International Music Festival in Busan, Korea.
Violinist Tee Khoon Tang (International Program ’04) has been invited by Midori to be part of her International Community Engagement Program. In December 2008, Tang, Midori, and two other musicians began their tour of Indonesia performing string quartets at universities, schools, hospitals, and concert halls. In May 2009, they will return to Japan to perform and present their experiences at music conferences.
In November 2008, violinist Stephen Waarts (Young Performers Program ’06, ’07, and ’08) won first place in the international competition for the American Fine Arts Festival’s fifth anniversary celebration concert. He also performed Waxman’s Carmen Fantasie at Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall. In fall 2008, he performed Tchaikovsky’s Concerto in D Major with Silicon Valley Symphony and will perform Mendelssohn’s Concerto in d minor with the San Francisco Chamber Orchestra in March 2009.
Violinist Jennifer Wey (Young Performers Program ’03, ’04, and ’05) has begun her first year at New England Conservatory, where her quartet won the Honors Ensemble Competition.
In October 2008, Teresa Yu (International Program ’05, Chamber Music Institute Faculty ’06, ’07, and ’08) opened Amabile School of Music in San Francisco, for which she is the director and founder. Her mission is to create a musical environment where children and adults can explore freely all aspects of their curiosity toward music, and as a result, more deeply appreciate the importance of music as an art.
Read past updates from Institute alumni: Summer 2008