Contact:
Anna Hoffmann
Program Administrator
Phone: (440) 775-8044
Fax: (440) 775-8942
E-Mail: Anna.Hoffmann@oberlin.edu

Guests

Stanislav Ioudenitch Ioudenitch is currently serving as Associate Professor of Music and the Artistic Director of the Youth Conservatory of Music and the International Center for Music at Park University. In 2001, Ioudenitch won the Gold Medal at the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition and has spent the last three years on a worldwide concert tour.

Born in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, Ioudenitch has grown into one of the music world’s most promising young artists, exhibiting a strong individuality and musical conviction that sets him apart from other artists of his generation. He has netted top prizes at the Busoni, Kapell, and Maria Callas Competitions and took first prize at both the 1998 Palm Beach Invitational and the 2000 New Orleans International Piano Competitions.

A former student of Dmitri Bashkirov, he also studied with Leon Fleisher, Murray Perahia, Karl Ulrich Schnabel, and Rosalyn Tureck at the prestigious International Piano Foundation Theo Lieven in Cadenabbia, Italy and is the youngest teacher ever invited to give master classes at the Foundation and Academy Theo Lieven.

Back to top

Pianist Jason Hardink holds the position of Principal Symphony Keyboard/Opera Rehearsal Accompanist at the Utah Symphony and Opera. A native of North Smithfield, Rhode Island, Jason graduated from Oberlin Conservatory of Music, studying piano with Sanford Margolis. His other principal teachers have included Robert Boberg and Maria Clodes-Jaguaribe. He went on to receive his Master of Music in piano performance from Rice University, where he was awarded the Sallie Shepherd Perkins Prize for Best Achievement in Music. He has recently completed a Doctor of Musical Arts degree as a student of Brian Connelly, also at Rice. He has been awarded fellowships at Aspen Music Festival, the National Orchestral Institute, as well as from the Brown Foundation in Houston. He has performed several concerti with the Utah Symphony, including Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 2 in B-flat, Opus 19, and Liszt’s Concerto No. 1 in E-flat.

Jason is much sought after as a chamber musician. In addition to his work with local series such as NOVA and Intermezzo, he has appeared at the Grand Teton Music Festival, Music on the Hill, and the Cascade Head Chamber Music Festival. Recently, he performed recitals in Norway with Norwegian violinist Tor Johan Bøen featuring the music of Grieg performed on an 1865 Blüthner piano and Hardanger fiddle. A strong advocate for new music, he served as the pianist for the Pittsburgh New Music Ensemble for three seasons. During this time hepremiered over 15 works by composers such as Thomas Osborne, Daniel Kellogg, Vache Sharafyan, Pierre Jalbert, and Stefan Freund, and was featured in Curtis Curtis-Smith’s Rhapsodies for bowed piano, as well as Jason Eckardt’s wildly virtuosic concerto A Glimpse Retraced. In Salt Lake City he performs with the Canyonlands New Music Ensemble. Upcoming performances include Olivier Messiaen’s Des canyons aux étoiles… with the Utah Symphony in April.

Back to top

Since Nelita True made her debut at age seventeen with the Chicago Symphony in Orchestra Hall and her New York debut with the Juilliard Orchestra in Avery Fisher Hall, her career has taken her to the major cities of Western and Eastern Europe, Indonesia, Korea, Japan, Mexico, Iceland, New Zealand, Brazil, Australia, Canada, and to Hong Kong and Singapore, as well as to forty-nine states in America. She was a visiting professor at the St. Petersburg Conservatory in Russia, performing and conducting master classes and has been in the People's Republic of China twelve times for recitals and master classes. She has played recitals on French national television and on Australian national radio. Her most recent recital in Boston was cited as one of the "Ten Best Classical Performances of the Year."

Ms. True has been a jury member for the China International Piano Competition (Beijing), the Queen Sonja International Piano Competition (Oslo), the National piano Competition in Brazil, the Horowitz Competition (Kiev), the Concours de Musique in Canada, the PTNA (Tokyo), the Lev Vlassenko Competition in Australia, and the Gina Bachauer, New Orleans, Hilton Head, and William Kapell International Piano Competitions in the U.S.
A Phi Beta Kappa graduate of the University of Michigan with Helen Titus, Ms. True went on to Juilliard to study with Sascha Gorodnitzki, and then earned the DMA with Leon Fleisher at the Peabody Conservatory, In Paris, she studied with Nadia Boulanger on a Fulbright grant. Formerly Distinguished Professor at the University of Maryland, Ms. True is currently Professor of Piano at the Eastman School of Music. Many of her students have won top prizes at national and international competitions, including an unprecedented five First Prizes in national MTNA competitions. Ms. True was awarded the Certificate of Merit by the Alumni Association of the University of Michigan, the Eisenhart Award for Excellence in Teaching at Eastman, the 2002 Achievement Award from MTNA, and a Lifetime Achievement Award from National Keyboard Pedagogy Conference (USA).

SH Productions of Kansas City produced a series of four videotapes, "Nelita True at Eastman," featuring her performances, lectures, and teaching. These videos are currently being seen on five continents. She has been the subject of feature articles in Clavier, Piano Today, The European Piano Teachers' Journal, and was the subject of the cover story of Keyboard Companion. An interview with Ms. True appears in the latest edition of James Bastien's "How to Teach Piano Successfully," along with interviews with the legendary Rosina Lhevinne and Adele Marcus. Ms. True has been invited to record over 100 works for Advance, Mark, Educo, and Academy Records.
" Nelita True's recital...was an artistic and popular triumph."
--The Washington Post
" True is an extraordinary pianist and exemplary musician...many a lyric soprano would covet the way (she) can turn a phrase."
--The Boston Globe
" Listening to Miss True was a memorable experience. Rarely have I heard anything so sublimely poetic."
--Kansas City Times

Back to top

Oberlin Faculty

John Cavanaugh, Director of Piano Technology, Oberlin Conservatory. B.A., Kalamazoo College, 1982, with study at Cambridgeshire College of Arts and Technology and Universitat Bonn. North Bennett Street School graduate of String Keyboard Technology, 1986. Registered Piano Technician of PTG, 1986. Certified Tuning Examiner of PTG, 1990. Steinway and Sons factory training in regulation, voiceing, forefinishing and damper departments, 1990, 1997. Director of Service, Hammell Music, Inc., Bloomfield Hills, MI, 1988-2000. Teaches Piano Technology at Oberlin Conservatory and lectures at PTG meetings.

Back to top

Back to top

Back to top

Charles McGuire, Associate Professor of Musicology Education: B.A. and B.Mus. degrees, Oberlin College and Oberlin Conservatory of Music, 1992; M.A. 1995, Ph.D. 1998, Harvard University. Professional Affiliations:Assistant Professor, James Madison University, 2000-2001; Lecturer, University of Maryland at College Park, 1999-2000; Visiting Assistant Professor of Music, Ball State University, 1999. Visiting Lecturer, Harvard University, 1998. Grants and Awards:Recipient of the James Madison University Faculty Summer Research Grant (2001), Ralph Vaughan Williams Fellowship (1999), Graduate Society Dissertation Completion Fellowship (1997-1998), Pirotta Research Fellowship (1997), Harvard University Certificate of Distinction in Teaching (1994, 1995 and 1996), Oscar Schafer Fellowship (1996-1997). Areas of Specialty:Edward Elgar, the Oratorio, Victorian Music. Presentations:American Musicological Society (1998, 2000, 2003, 2005); Midwest Victorian Studies Association (2000); Music in Nineteenth Century Britain Biannual Conference (1999, 2001, 2003, 2005); North American British Music Studies Association Biannual Conference (2004, 2006); Yale-Edinburgh Group Conference (2004); Richard Murphy Musicology Colloquium at Oberlin Conservatory (1999).

Jan Miyake is an Assistant Professor of Music Theory at Oberlin College Conservatory. Dr. Miyake's pedagogical and research philosophy is that an analytical understanding of a piece of music can lead to nuanced performance decisions and deeper engagement with the work. These values can also be seen in her seven-year relationship with the violinist Midori, for whom she has prepared analyses of a dozen 20th-century works. Her research explores the viola works of Paul Hindemith and issues of sonata form in the late 18th- and early 19th-century symphonies of Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven. She has presented her work at regional, national, and international conferences, and has articles forthcoming in the journal Theory and Practice (2008 or 2009) and Essays from the Fourth International Schenker Symposium (Olms, 2008).

Back to top

Sedmara Zakarian Rutstein, Professor, Oberlin College Conservatory of Music. Competitions winner. Former Faculty, Leningrad, USSR, State Conservatory.

Solo recitals, performances with the chamber groups and orchestras in USA, Europe, and Asia.
Master classes throughout USA, China, Hong Kong, Europe and Russia. 12 solo record albums made with a number of the US and Russian record companies. Critical acclaims include The New York Times, Washington Post, Fanfare and Ovation Magazines, among many others.
Extensive repertoire includes works of all major European, American, and Russian composers.

Ms. Rutstein's numerous national and international competitions prize winning students are successfully pursuing their careers as performers and Piano Faculty members at various Universities and Conservatories.

Back to top

Back to top

Back to top