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Chamber Music Institute

Chamber Music Institute Alumni Updates
(April 2012)

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 website quarterly, so please check back often. If you have alumni notes you’d like to share, please submit them online here.

Congratulations to the following Music@Menlo students, who competed in the 2012 Yehudi Menuhin International Violin Competition in Beijing, China (April 2012). Music@Menlo was well represented at the competition, with six students among forty-two total competitors:

• Kevin Zhu (Young Performers Program ’11) – First Prize winner, Junior Division(Pictured above, far right)
• Kenneth Renshaw (Young Performers Program ’07 and ’08) – First Prize winner, Senior Division
• Alexi Kenney (Young Performers Program ’03, ’04, ’06, ’07, ’08, and ’10) – Third Prize winner, Senior Division
• Zenas Hsu (Young Performers Program ’05) – semifinal round
• Eunice Kim (Young Performers Program ’05 and ’06) – semifinal round
• Jennifer Liu – (International Program ’12), first round

Highlights of the 2011–2012 season for the Amphion String Quartet (Katie Hyun, Andy Lin, Mihai Marica, and David Southorn; International Program ’10) include performances in the Schneider Concert series at the New School and at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. The quartet will appear in summer 2012 at Chamber Music Northwest, the OK Mozart Festival, and the La Jolla Music Society’s SummerFest.

In January 2012, violinist Nigel Armstrong (Young Performers Program ’04 and ’05) made his debut with the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, performing Mozart’s Violin Concerto in G Major.

Pianist Anna Boonyanit (Young Performers Program ’10 and ’11) made her orchestral debut last year with the Palo Alto Philharmonic as the youngest winner ever of its 2011 concerto competition. She also won first place in the MTAC Northern California competition in March 2012. She will compete in San Diego against the winner of the MTAC Southern California competition at the end of June 2012.

In November 2011, pianist Michael Brown (International Program ’10) participated in a performance entitled “Beethoven Endurance Test: The Thirty-Two-Sonata Marathon” at the Greene Space in New York City. In January 2012, he won Juilliard’s thirty-first annual Petschek Recital Award. Michael made his solo recital debut in Alice Tully Hall on April 23, 2012.

Cellist Gabriel Cabezas (International Program ’10) won first place and the Audience Choice Award in the fifteenth annual Sphinx Competition in Ann Arbor, Michigan (February 2012).

In February 2012, violinist Alexander Goldberg (Young Performers Program ’10 and ’11) received news that he won First Prize at the 2012 American Protégé International Concerto Competition; he performed at Carnegie Hall on March 31, 2012.

Cellist Eric Han (International Program ’09) was part of “Curtis on Tour” in February 2012 with fellow Music@Menlo artists Jason Vieaux (guitar) and Roberto Díaz (viola).

In November 2011, pianist Maya Hartman (International Program ’06) performed her Paris debut recital under the sponsorship of Pro Musicis with a world premiere and works by Liszt, Debussy, and Schumann. In 2012, she began teaching at William Paterson University in New Jersey.

Cellist Coleman Itzkoff (Young Performers Program ’08) took the Entergy Grand Prize at the twenty-eighth annual Young Texas Artists Music Competition in March 2012. He was the youngest entrant in the entire competition. Coleman is currently a sophomore at Rice University’s Shepherd School of Music, studying under Desmond Hoebig.

Michael Kaufman (cello, International Program ’11) was a prizewinner in the 2012 Bach Competition sponsored by the San Francisco–based early music group Voices of Music. Michael performed Baroque cello in a performance at St. Mark’s Lutheran Church in San Francisco in February 2012.

As part of the New England Conservatory (NEC) Honors Ensemble Program, violinist Alexi Kenney (Young Performers Program ’03, ’04, ’06, ’07, ’08, and ’10) and his quartet, the Seuss Quartet, performed a varied program at NEC’s Jordan Hall with repertoire covering the entire span of the quartet literature. Alexi is currently in his first year at NEC.

Violinists Da Eun Kim (Young Performers Program ’10 and ’11) and Alyssa Wang (Young Performers Program ’11) and violist Hayaka Komatsu (Young Performers Program ’11) are part of the Échappé Quartet and won the Ensemble Award and the Bouchaine Young Artists Award in the annual Young Artists Competition of the Napa Valley Festival del Sole (April 2012).

Violinist Hye-Jin Kim (International Program ’10) performed a recital on the Young Artists Series at the Kravis Center in Palm Beach, Florida, in early January 2012. Hye-Jin returned to Music@Menlo in March for the 2012 Winter Residency and will be a faculty member in the Young Performers Program in summer 2012.

In May 2011, cellist Ben Larsen (Young Performers Program ’04) graduated from Manhattan School of Music with his master’s degree and was awarded the Pablo Casals Award at graduation. He is now teaching and freelancing in New York City and recently performed the Beethoven Triple Concerto with the Lorelei Piano Trio and the Farmington Valley Symphony Orchestra. He will be touring the northeast with the band the Left Banke in April and May of 2012.

Kristin Lee (violin, International Program ’09 and Institute faculty member) appears on the new Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center recording Zelenka/Webern/Mozart performing Webern’s Four Pieces for Violin and Piano with pianist and International Program Director Gilbert Kalish.

Violinist Sean Lee (International Program ’09 and Institute faculty member) released his debut album, The Juilliard Sessions: Sean Lee Plays Richard Strauss, in February 2012. The album reached the top twenty of the iTunes Top Classical Albums list during the week of its release. http://itunes.apple.com/us/album/juilliard-sessions-sean-lee/id501360842

In the fall of 2011, Fan-Ya Lin (International Program ’09) won first place in the Young Music Makers Competition of Taiwan. She will perform a solo recital at the National Concert Hall of Taiwan in June 2012. Fan-Ya is currently in her senior year at Weber State University in Utah.

Violist Jesús Rodríguez (International Program ’11) gave an all-Brahms recital at Teatro Jovellanos in Gijón, Spain, in January 2012.

In January 2012, cellist Julia Rosenbaum (Young Performers Program ’07–’11) was declared the winner of the Harrisburg Symphony Orchestra’s Rising Stars Concerto Competition in Pennsylvania. The competition is open to all instrumentalists, grades 9–12, residing in the United States. Julia will perform Tchaikovsky’s Variations on a Rococo Theme with the Harrisburg Symphony Orchestra in the 2012–13 Masterworks Series, among other performances.

Pianist Young-Ah Tak (International Program ’03) performed a solo recital at Carnegie Hall’s Weill Hall in March 2012. The concert was presented by the Korea Music Foundation. In spring 2012, she performed Beethoven’s Piano Concerto no. 5 with the Venice Symphony Orchestra (Florida) and Rachmaninov’s Piano Concerto no. 2 with the Roanoke Symphony Orchestra (Virginia). Young-Ah recently became a Steinway Artist and joined the roster of Parker Artists.

Violinist Arianna Warsaw-Fan (International Program ’07) finished her master’s degree at the Juilliard School in May of 2011 and is now living in Montréal, where she will assume the Concertmaster position of the McGill Chamber Orchestra in the fall of 2012.

In December 2011, violinist Areta Zhulla (International Program ’08 and ’09) was named Best New Artist by the National Critics Association in her native Greece. This award comes in recognition of her concerts throughout Greece in 2011.

Read past alumni updates:
November 2011
December 2010
January 2010
Summer 2009
December 2008
Summer 2008