Oberlin Conservatory Students Showcased at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts on May 23

*Editors please note: biographical information is included.

May 17 , 2007 -- For the third time in two years, students from the Oberlin Conservatory of Music will showcase their talents at the prestigious John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C. The free concert, on Wednesday, May 23, at 6 p.m., features a tenor, two string instrumentalists, a pianist, and a contemporary-music sextet performing in the Terrace Theatre as part of the center’s Conservatory Project series.

Live audio and video of the performances will be streamed (and later archived) on the Kennedy Center's web site at www.kennedy-center.org.

Oberlin’s Wednesday night performance is one in a series of seven nights of concerts presented by different schools. Four sets of musicians, each selected by different departments in the Conservatory, will represent Oberlin:

• Echoi, a contemporary-music sextet, will perform Franco Donatoni’s Arpège. The members of Echoi are flutist Alice Teyssier ’06, MM ’07; clarinetist Curt Miller ’09; violinist Yuncong Zhang ‘07; cellist Gabrielle Athayde ‘08; pianist Solon Gordon ‘07; and Jon Hepfer ‘08, vibraphone.

• Cellist Steuart Pincombe ‘09 will perform Ignatius, an original composition by Marcelle Pierson ’07.

• Violinist Luisa Barroso ‘09 and pianist Tian Lu ‘07 will perform Claude Debussy’s Violin Sonata in G Minor.

• Tenor Alek Shrader ’07 will sing the arias “Vedrò qual sommo incanto”from Gioacchino Rossini’s La Scala di Seta and“Ah! mes amis” from Gaetano Donizetti’s La Fille du Règiment. His musical collaborator is pianist Howard Lubin ’75.

The Conservatory Project is an initiative of Performing Arts for Everyone. The semi-annual event, which takes place in February and May, presents Washington audiences with a chance to hear the best young musical artists in classical music, jazz, musical theater, and opera from the leading undergraduate and graduate conservatories, colleges, and universities in the United States.

Biographical Information About the Musicians

Echoi
Named after a quartet by Lukas Foss, Echoi represents a fusion of the American experimentalist and European avant-garde movements. The ensemble was founded as a chamber music extension of the Oberlin Contemporary Music Ensemble, directed by Strickland Gardner Professor of Music Timothy Weiss, and is dedicated to performing works by composers considered underrepresented in the United States. The sextet delves deeply into demanding scores and performs primarily without a director.

Flutist Alice Teyssier strives to further contemporary chamber music in the United States by finding unique ways to program and present little-known works. She earned a Bachelor of Music degree in flute and vocal performance at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music in 2006, where she studied with Professor of Flute Michel Debost, Associate Professor of Singing Lorraine Manz, and Strickland Gardner Professor of Music Timothy Weiss.  Ms. Teyssier will earn a Master of Music degree in opera theater at Oberlin in May; her thesis focuses on the history of video techniques in opera. One of Echoi’s cofounders, she has performed throughout the United States as a member of the prestigious Oberlin Contemporary Music Ensemble. Her interest in contemporary music has led her abroad to the Ensemble Akademie Freiburg in Germany, and Centre Acanthesin Metz, France, where she worked with notable contemporary flutists Martin Fahlenbock and Mario Caroli. Under Caroli’s guidance, she will pursue a specialization diploma at the Conservatoire National de Région in Strasbourg, France, this fall. As a soprano, Ms. Teyssier has performed with the Oberlin Contemporary Music Ensemble and the Oberlin Opera Theater, and in February 2007 she interpreted the role of Alice/Renee in Oberlin’s American premiere of Olga Neuwirth’s Lost Highway.

Cellist Gabrielle Athayde studies with Assistant Professor of Cello Darrett Adkins at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music, where she is pursuing a Bachelor of Music degree in cello performance. She is the recipient of the Loretta M. Kearns ‘43 Endowed Scholarship for Music. A cellist since the age of 4, Ms. Athayde has studied chamber music with many of today’s great performers, including cellists Mistlav Rostropovich and Joel Krosnick. She performed with the Oberlin Contemporary Music Ensemble in Oberlin’s American premiere of Olga Neuwirth’s music theater work Lost Highway. Other recent performances include an all-Ligeti program with violinist Jennifer Koh ’97, a world premiere with internationally acclaimed percussionist Steven Schick, and a concert of Sir Harrison Birtwistle’s music, coached by the composer. Ms. Athayde is featured in the PBS documentary Soundmix: The Story of Five Young Musicians, which profiles her work both as a classical cellist and a rock bassist.  

Hailing from Buffalo, New York, percussionist Jon Hepfer specializes in contemporary chamber and solo repertoire. He will graduate in May with a Bachelor of Music degree from the Oberlin Conservatory of Music, where he has studied with Professor of Percussion Michael Rosen and Strickland Gardner Professor of Music Timothy Weiss. A founding member of Echoi, Mr. Hepfer regularly performs with Oberlin’s Contemporary Music Ensemble and Oberlin Percussion Group. During his time at Oberlin, Mr. Hepfer has worked with many renowned figures in contemporary music, including Jean-Pierre Drouet, Michael Finnissy, Phillippe Manoury, Professor of Composition Lewis Nielson, Olga Neuwirth, Steve Reich, David Robertson, the Slee Sinfonietta, Ensemble SurPlus, and the Bang on a Can All-Stars. Mr. Hepfer has attended the Aspen Music Festival, the Bang on a Can Summer Institute, Centre Acanthes, New England Conservatory’s Summer Institute for Contemporary Performance Practice, June in Buffalo, and Carnegie Hall’s Professional Training Workshops. This summer, he will participate in the Lucerne Festival, where he will work with Pierre Boulez and the members of Ensemble Intercontemporain. This fall he plans to attend the University of California at San Diego, where he will play in the red fish blue fish percussion group and study with Steven Schick.

Currently in his second year at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music, Curt Miller studies clarinet performance with Associate Professor of Clarinet Richard Hawkins. In addition to his work with Echoi, Mr. Miller performs a wide range of chamber music, and was invited to participate in the 2007 Festival of Music in Santa Catarina, Brazil, as part of a woodwind quintet from Oberlin. He has participated in master classes with Larry Combs, J. Lawrie Bloom, and Anthony McGill. He studied clarinet with Steve Cohen at the Brevard Music Center in 2006. Before coming to Oberlin, Curt performed as principal clarinet of both the Chicago Youth Symphony Orchestra and the Encore Chamber Orchestra, which toured central Europe in 2005.

Solon Gordon is a fourth-year student at Oberlin. A participant in the school’s double-degree program, he is pursuing undergraduate degrees in piano performance in the Conservatory of Music , where he studies with Professor of Piano Monique Duphil, and mathematics in the College of Arts and Sciences. In high school, Mr. Gordon’s love of chamber music flourished under the guidance of Sandra Dennis at the Community Music School of Springfield, Massachusetts, and Deborah Sherr at Greenwood Music Camp. Since then, he has developed his collaborative skills through his participation at the Kneisel Hall and Musicorda Chamber Music festivals, as well as through extensive accompanying and chamber music performance at the Oberlin Conservatory.

Violinist Yuncong Zhang was born in Changchun in the People’s Republic of China, and grew up in an active musical family. She studies at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music with Professor of Violin Marilyn McDonald. Ms. Zhang has been invited to many music festivals, among them the New York String Seminar in Carnegie Hall, Taos School of Music in New Mexico, the Music Academy of the West in Santa Barbara, and the Aspen Music Festival. She was a prizewinner at the 2004 Kingsville International Competition in Texas. As a member of the Oberlin Contemporary Music Ensemble, she has performed works by such composers as Oliver Knussen, Sir Harrison Birtwistle, and György Ligeti. This is Ms. Zhang’s second performance at the Kennedy Center; she was selected by members of the Oberlin faculty to perform as soloist in 2005.

Composer Marcelle Pierson hails from Houston, Texas. She is pursuing a double major in composition and theory at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music, where she studies with Professor of Composition Lewis Nielson and Associate Professor of Music Theory Rebecca Leydon. Ms. Pierson has attended the Darmstadt Festival and the Midwest Composers’ Symposium. Her works have been performed throughout the country by a variety of notable performers and ensembles, including Jason Calloway and the Cleveland Chamber Symphony.

Steuart Pincombe is a second-year performance major at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music, where he studies cello with Assistant Professor of Cello Darrett Adkins and viola da gamba with Associate Professor of Viola da Gamba and Cello Catharina Meints. Prior to his studies at Oberlin, Steuart was a member of the Springfield Symphony of Missouri, electric cellist of the Humours (an experimental-music ensemble), and cellist of the Ozarka Piano Trio. As soloist, Steuart has performed with the Springfield Symphony, the Springfield Youth Symphony, the Ozark Festival Orchestra, and the Missouri State University Chamber Orchestra. He has collaborated in chamber concerts with several renowned artists, including violinist Mark Peskanov, pianist Jeffrey Beigel, organist Matti Pesonen, and guitarist Dusan Bogdanovich. Steuart has appeared in solo and chamber music performances in such venues as the Sheldon Concert Hall in St. Louis, BargeMusic, Riverside Cathedral, and Avery Fischer Hall. He has been the featured artist on the KSMU 91.1 “Studio Live!” radio concert series, has performed for several radio stations in Bloomington, Indiana, and has been interviewed by Brian Newhouse from Minnesota Public Radio. For the past two summers Steuart has attended the Kneisel Hall Chamber Music Festival in Blue Hill, Maine, where he was a student of Joel Krosnick and Barbara Stein Mallow. This summer he will be a counselor at the Credo music festival in Oberlin and will attend the second session of the Aspen Music School and Festival.

Born in Caracas, Venezuela, Luisa Barroso took her first violin lesson when she was 9 years old. Just seven months later, she won an audition to participate in a world tour with a Venezuelan orchestra. She was invited to join the violin studio of Venezuelan teacher Jose Francisco del Castillo, and made her debut at the age of 16, performing Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto at Teresa Carreño under the baton of Gustavo Medina. In 2000, Ms. Barroso won the position of assistant concertmaster for the Youth Orchestra of the Americas (TOA), with which she toured the United States, Chile, Costa Rica, Brazil, and Argentina. She has served as concertmaster of the Simon Bolivar Orchestra of Venezuela, and has performed under many renowned conductors, including Sir Simon Rattle, Claudio Abbado, and Giussepe Sinnopoly. An active soloist and recitalist, Ms. Barroso has performed in master classes given by Daniel Stabrawa, Christian Stadelmann, Felicitas Hofmeister, Olivier Charlier, Habib Kayaleh, Jennifer Koh ’97, Ivry Guitlys, David Russell, and Donald Wellerstein. She currently studies with Professor of Violin Milan Vitek at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music.

A native of China, pianist Tian Lu is a celebrated soloist and an active chamber musician. She won China’s national piano competition in 2001, when she was a student at the Shanghai Conservatory. She is a recipient of numerous awards and prizes, most notably second prize as the youngest competitor at the 2005 Iowa International Piano Competition, hosted by the Sioux City Symphony Orchestra. She was a recipient of the prestigious Liberace Scholarship; won first prize in the 2005 International Piano Competition in Maracaibo, Venezuela; and second prize at the 2007 Kingsville Piano Concerto Competition. Ms. Lu has performed in China, the United States, and Venezuela, and has appeared as soloist with the Sioux City Symphony Orchestra and the Maracaibo National Symphony Orchestra. She has performed as a chamber musician with the Maia String Quartet in Sioux City, with Oberlin’s Dorian String Quartet, and with numerous other small ensembles. She is a student of Professor of Piano Monique Duphil at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music.

Tenor Alek Shrader recently won the Grand Finals of the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions and was awarded a Sara Tucker Study Grant from the Richard Tucker Foundation. He made his professional debut in summer 2006 with Opera Theatre of St. Louis as Almaviva in Rossini’s Barber of Seville, and in January 2007 he made his New York debut with Gotham Chamber Opera as Florville in Rossini’s Il signor Bruschino. His other recent roles include Nemorino in L’elisir d’amore, Fenton in Die lustigen Weiber von Windsor, Le chevalier in Dialogues des Carmélites, and Tony in West Side Story at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music. Mr. Shrader was a Gerdine Young Artist with Opera Theatre of Saint Louis for two seasons. He has attended the Music Academy of the West under the tutelage of Oberlin’s Visiting Distinguished Professor of Voice Marilyn Horne, and he recently returned from Rome, where he studied with Renata Scotto at the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia Opera Studio. He earned a Bachelor of Music degree in vocal performance at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music in 2006, and currently he is a graduate student in the Conservatory’s Master of Music in Opera Theater degree program, where he studies with Associate Professor of Singing Salvatore Champagne. In June Mr. Shrader will attend the Merola Opera Program in San Francisco, singing the role of Ramiro in Rossini’s La Cenerentola. Next fall, he will attend the Juilliard Opera Center in New York, where he will perform Comte Ory in Rossini’s Le Comte Ory, and George in Ned Rorem’s Our Town.  

- ### -

Media Contacts:

Marci Janas
Director of Conservatory Media Relations
O: 440-775-8328
C: 440-667-2724
Marci.Janas@oberlin.edu

< back to current press releases