Talents of Oberlin Conservatory of Music Students Showcased at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts on February 25

OBERLIN, OHIO (February 14, 2008) — For the past several years, students from the Oberlin Conservatory of Music have been invited to showcase their talents at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C., as part of the Kennedy Center’s Conservatory Project Series. On Monday, February 25, at 6 p.m., nine students from Oberlin — three pianists, a flutist, a soprano, and members of the Dorian String Quartet — will present a free concert at the Center’s Theater Lab.

Oberlin will be represented in performances by soprano Sophie Wingland ’08 and pianist Yu-Chien Shih ’09 in selections from Richard Strauss’ Brentano Lieder, Op. 68, songs for voice and piano; flutist Brandon Patrick George ’08 and pianist Thomas Fosnocht ’09 in Robert Muczynski’s Sonata for Flute and Piano, Op. 14; pianist Da Wang ’09 in Chopin’s Mazurka in C Sharp Minor, Op. 30, No. 4, and Waltz, Op.18,and Arcardi Volodos’ concert paraphrase of Mozart’s Turkish March.The Dorian Quartet — violinists David Bogorad ’08 and Xi Hu ’08, violist Di Lu ’08, and cellist April Dannelly ’08 will perform two movements from Bedrich Smetana’s String Quartet No. 1 in E Minor, “From My Life.” Different departments in the Conservatory selected which students would represent Oberlin at the Kennedy Center.

“I am grateful to the leadership and the staff of the Kennedy Center for sponsoring such an important performance opportunity for young musicians,” says Dean of the Oberlin Conservatory of Music David H. Stull. “The experience young musicians gain by performing in alternative venues is invaluable to their professional training. Serious music serves a critical role in advancing the culture of our country, in addition to connecting ourselves with the many cultures comprising our world.  It is through these events that we remind ourselves of the value and necessity of great art.”

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/programs/millennium. The Kennedy Center provides a web site to download software to enable listeners to watch the concerts at www.kennedy-center.org/tools/.

The Kennedy Center’s Conservatory Project Series is an initiative of the Performing Arts for Everyone outreach program that offers hundreds of free performances to the public every year. The Project is a semi-annual program, occurring in February and May, which is designed to showcase “today’s best students” in classical music, jazz, musical theater, and opera who are destined to become “tomorrow’s brightest stars.”

Biographical Information About the Musicians

Dorian Quartet
Founded in 2004, the Oberlin Conservatory of Music’s Dorian Quartet has participated in master classes and studied with the Emerson String Quartet, Kenneth Slowik, Roger Chase, Ole Bohn, and the school’s Professor of Violin Milan Vitek. In addition, quartet members have collaborated with pianist Tian Lu, clarinetist Boris Allakhverdyan, and guitarist Michelle Younger in recitals. 

David Bogorad began playing the violin at the age of five at the local music school in his hometown of Allerød, Denmark. He has performed as a soloist with various youth orchestras, and in 2005 he performed with the National Danish Radio Orchestra. David has won numerous prizes including the Øresunds Soloist Competition, the Jacob Gade Violin Competition, and, most recently,in  the Danish National String Competition 2007. He has also participated in master classes with Gil Shaham, Nikolaj Znaider, Aaron Rosand, Gyorgy Pauk, Eszter Haffner, Anker Buch, Lars Bjørnkær, and Christina Aastrand. David is a senior at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music, where he studies with Professor of Violin Milan Vitek. 

April Dannelly was raised in Raleigh, North Carolina. She began to play the cello at the age of four and studied with Elizabeth Beilman before entering the Oberlin Conservatory of Music, where she currently studies with Assistant Professor of Cello Amir Eldan. She won the 2004 Triangle Youth Philharmonic Concerto Competition in North Carolina, and consequently performed with the North Carolina Symphony Orchestra. She also won both the junior and senior divisions of the Raleigh Music Club Scholarship Competition. April has played in master classes for Wendy Warner, Richard Aaron, Paul Katz, and Thomas Landschoot.

Born in Chengdu City, China, Xi Hu began violin studies with his father at the age of three. He performed in many concerts and won numerous competitions, including the Children’s Violin Competition of the Third Arts Festival of Chengdu City, the third National Violin Competition, the 96th Sichuan Province Violin Performance Competition, and the first Chengdu Philharmonic Violin Competition. At the age of 11, Xi entered the primary school of the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing, where he won third prize in the Conservatory’s Violin Competition. Xi has studied with Oberlin’s Professor of Violin Milan Vitek since 2004.

Di Lu, a native of Shanghai, China, won the National Violin Competition in Nanjing at the age of seven. Subsequently, she attended the primary and middle schools of Shanghai Conservatory, where she studied with Zhang Shixiang, Zhao Jiyang, and Wu Feifei. In 2001, she began her formal training in viola performance with Sheng Li and Shen Xidi. Soon after, she won prizes at the China National Unaccompanied Viola Competition and the Morningside Music Bridge’s Quartet Competition. Currently Di studies with Peter Slowik, the Conservatory’s Director of the Division of Strings and Professor of Viola.

Thomas Fosnocht, piano
Thomas Fosnocht is a piano and composition major at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music. He currently studies composition with Professor of Composition and Music Theory Randolph Coleman, and piano with Professor of Piano Sanford Margolis. He has composed and performed with many ensembles, including the Oberlin Contemporary Music Ensemble under the direction of Timothy Weiss, Director of the Division of Conducting and Ensembles and Associate Professor of Conducting. Thomas’ other achievements include playing concertos with the Warminster Symphony Orchestra and the Ambler Symphony Orchestra, as well as recitals in his hometown of Phoenixville, Pennsylvania. Thomas also performs with rock bands around Chicago, Oberlin, and the Philadelphia area.

Brandon Patrick George, flute
Winner of the 2007 Tuesday Music Club Competition, flutist Brandon Patrick George has been the recipient of top awards from the Gemeinhardt Flute Company, the Lorenz Music Publishing Company, and the Dayton Philharmonic Orchestra, all while attending the Oberlin Conservatory of Music.  In 2004 at the age of 17, he performed as principal flutist with the National Festival Orchestra at Carnegie Hall under the direction of Lukas Foss. Currently principal flute in the Oberlin Orchestra, Brandon has also performed with the Oberlin Chamber Orchestra and the Oberlin Wind Ensemble. Brandon is a member of the Conservatory’s Black Musicians Guild (OCBMG). He has transcribed and performed the music of the African French, 18th-century violinist and composer Joseph Boulogne.  Internationally, he attended the Symphony Orchestra Academy of the Pacific in Canada and the Festival de Música de Santa Catarina in Brazil, and he has performed in Italy and France. He is currently a student of Kathleen Chastain, Clinical Assistant Professor of Flute and Chamber Music. He has also studied with Professor of Flute and Performance Michel Debost. Recently, Brandon studied with Sophie Cherrier at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique et de Danse de Paris.

Yu-Chien Shih, piano
Pianist Yu-Chien Shih, a native of Tainan, Taiwan, gave her first recital at the age of six. Since that time, she has accumulated more than 250 solo, ensemble, and orchestral public performances. At age nine, Yu-Chien obtained a full scholarship to attend the Bowdoin International Music Festival. In the summers from 1998 to 2003, she received a full scholarship to the Aspen Music Festival and School, where she studied with Rita Sloan and Herbert Stessin; she continued her studies with Herbert Stessin at the Pre-College Division of the Juilliard School from 2000 to 2004. Yu-Chien has won many national Taiwanese competitions, as well as the Juilliard Concerto Competition and, in 2007, Oberlin’s Arthur Dann Competition. She is a junior at the Conservatory, where she studies with Director of the Division of Keyboard Studies and Professor of Piano Robert Shannon.

Da Wang, piano
Born in Shenyang, China, pianist Da Wang began his musical studies at age four. At 13, he enrolled in the Shenyang Conservatory and studied with Danwen Wei and Quming Zhan. Da has won numerous prizes, including the Yamaha Competition, the Tianchen Cup Piano Competition, and, most recently, the Toyama Asian Competition. In 2004, he won first prize in the Oberlin International Piano Competition and subsequently enrolled in the Oberlin Conservatory of Music, where he is earning his bachelor of music degree under the tutelage of Director of the Division of Keyboard Studies and Professor of Piano Robert Shannon.

Sophie Wingland, soprano
Soprano Sophie Wingland, originally from Ventura, California, is a senior vocal performance major studying with Professor of Singing Daune Mahy. Her Oberlin opera credits include the roles of Anna in Die Lustigen Weiber von Windsor, Lisa in La Sonnambula at Oberlin-in-Italy, Isabelle/Madeline in Face on the Barroom Floor, Helena in A Midsummer Night's Dream, and Singer 2 in Transformations. In the summer of 2007, Sophie was a Gerdine Young Artist at the Opera Theatre of St. Louis and studied with Marlena Malas at the Chautauqua Institute of Music.

The Oberlin Conservatory of Music, founded in 1865 and situated amid the intellectual vitality of Oberlin College since 1867, is the oldest continuously operating conservatory in the United States. The Conservatory is internationally renowned as a professional music school of the highest caliber and has been pronounced a “national treasure” by the Washington Post. Oberlin alumni have gone on to achieve illustrious careers in all aspects of the serious music world. Many of them have attained stature as solo performers, composers, and conductors, among them Jennifer Koh, Steven Isserlis, Denyce Graves, Franco Farina, Christopher Robertson, Lisa Saffer, George Walker, Christopher Rouse, David Zinman, and Robert Spano. All of the members of the contemporary sextet eighth blackbird, which recently won a Grammy Award for Best Chamber Music Performance; most of the members of the International Contemporary Ensemble; and many of the members of Apollo’s Fire are Oberlin alumni. The Miró, Pacifica, Juilliard, and Fry Street quartets, among other chamber ensembles, include Oberlin-trained musicians, as do major orchestras and opera companies throughout the world.

For more information about Oberlin, visit www.oberlin.edu/con.

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