2012 Sejong Music Competition Judges
Piano
Primary and Elementary divisions:
Soyeon Park |
Junichi Steven Sato
Junior and Senior divisions:
Julian Dawson |
Anthony Molinaro |
Susan Tang
Violin
Primary and Elementary divisions:
Jaime Gorgojo |
Rodolfo Vieira
Junior and Senior divisions:
Russell Hershow |
Sylvia Kim Kilcullen |
Susan Synnestvedt
Pianist Soyeon Park has performed in the United States, Canada and South Korea as a soloist and chamber musician. She has performed concertos with the Hope College Symphonette, Hope College Wind Symphony, Orchestra of St. Vincent and the Good Samaritan Symphony Orchestra. As a chamber musician, she has collaborated with many artists, such as violinist Charles Castleman, Er-Gene Kahang and members of Grand Rapids Symphony. She has also presented performances at Lincoln Center, Northwestern University, Bradley University, Hope College, Aspen Music Festival and Las Vegas Music Festival.
Soyeon Park received a Bachelors degree in Music from the Juilliard School under Herbert Stessin. She went on to receive a Master of Music in Piano Performance with Pedagogy emphasis and Graduate Performance Diploma from the Peabody Conservatory of Music under Ann Schein and Marian Hahn. At Northwestern, she received Doctor of Music degree in Piano Performance under Alan Chow, Marcia Bosits and Karen Kan-Walsh.
Dr. Park currently teaches private lessons in the Northwestern Music Academy and keyboard skills classes in the Bienen School of Music at Northwestern University. In addition, she is an active chamber musician in Chicago area and is a member of MTNA and piano faculty at the Blue Lake Fine Arts Camp.
Chicago native Junichi Steven Sato began his piano studies at the age of five. Although formal studies in theory, harmony, counterpoint, and composition were not begun until the age of 12, he had been writing music since the age of six. His teachers include Vladimir Leyetchkiss, Dmitry Paperno, and Edmund Battersby. He also participated by invitation in piano and chamber music masterclasses under full scholarships in the United States and abroad, studying with such artists as John Browning, Arthur Greene, and André Watts. Sato holds a Bachelor of Music degree (Honors) in Piano Performance from DePaul University and a Master of Music degree in Piano Performance with a Cognate in Composition from Indiana University, where, as an associate instructor of piano and the recipient of a doctoral teaching fellowship, he had also completed additional doctorate courses. In 1995 he was inducted into Pi Kappa Lambda, a professional music honor society, and in 1997 he was awarded Indiana University's coveted Performer's Certificate, the school's highest honor. Sato's biographical profile has been included in Marquis Who's Who in America since its 58th edition (2003).
Sato has made several appearances on television and radio programs as both performer and composer. In 1991, Miss America Marjorie Vincent presented him with a music scholarship from the Dolores Kohl Education Foundation and he appeared on WBBM-TV Chicago's Channel 2 News. That year he was also a finalist in the Illinois Young Performers Competition, concerto competition of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. He has won awards at numerous competitions such as the Young Keyboard Artists Association International Piano Competition and the Artist's Division of the Society of American Musicians Piano Competition, and was a semifinalist at the 48th Busoni International Piano Competition in Italy. A frequent adjudicator at piano and composition competitions, he served as Chairman of the Jury for the Fifth "Këngët e Tokës" International Music Competition in Albania, sponsored in part by the Albanian Ministry of Culture, and chaired Illinois State Music Teachers Association's Composition Competition from 2005 to 2007 and Chicago Area Music Teachers Association's Roberta Savler Piano Contest from 2003 to 2012.
In 1995, he founded J. S. Sato Music Editions, a music publishing business that has been gaining worldwide reputation as a publisher of unique and dependable editions. Shortly after he published his own transcription of Liszt's Psalm XIII in 1997, he was invited to give the première of this work for the American Liszt Society Festival. A review in a subsequent issue of Piano & Keyboard magazine declared "[Sato's] transcription of Liszt's Psalm XIII...makes an effective concert piece, at once pianistically idiomatic and dramatically coherent.... The result is a gripping 20 minutes of music...which you might have mistaken for one of Liszt's lost masterpieces for piano in this remarkable (and, happily, very playable) transcription...." His other publications have also been highly praised in Piano & Keyboard as well as in other journals and magazines such as Clavier and 20th-Century Music. Sato's works are performed internationally, some of which have been heard at Ravinia Festival and on National Public Radio. He now reviews new music publications for Clavier.
Sato is currently on the faculty at DePaul University and at Music Makers of Western Springs. His students have won honors in various piano and composition competitions, including the prestigious Music Teachers National Association Composition Contest. In addition to his heavy teaching schedule, he performs regularly, and his collaboration with other artists earned him the words "high level musicianship and ensemble playing" from world-renowned cellist Janos Starker. Sato's debut compact disc album of his solo piano transcriptions of Bach's Passacaglia and Fugue and Liszt's Psalm XIII, as well as a rare Cortot transcription of Franck's Sonata for Piano and Violin was noted as "thrilling…; up there with Katsaris and Wild for sheer pianistic derring-do and swirling multi-texturing" by International Piano.
Julian Dawson was Staff Accompanist for the British Broadcasting Corporation in Scotland, appearing often in broadcast solo recitals. He also played several concertos with the BBC Scottish Symphony. He has performed and recorded the complete piano sonatas of Beethoven three times since 1970 and has appeared frequently as recital and concerto soloist both in Europe and the USA. In his combined career as conductor he later became Associate Conductor of the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, Scottish Opera and Glyndebourne Festival Opera in England.
Julian Dawson spent 26 years on the faculty of Illinois State University as Director of Orchestras and Professor of piano. He appeared in numerous concerts and operas as conductor, recitalist and soloist in concerti.
He became Senior Lecturer in piano at Northwestern University in 1996, an appointment he continues to hold.
Continuing to combine the careers of pianist and conductor, in March 2013 Julian Dawson will play Beethoven's Emperor Concerto at Illinois State University, conducting it from the keyboard.
Since his victory at the 1997 Naumburg International Piano Competition in New York City, Anthony Molinaro's stunning performances and unique versatility have captivated audiences and critics alike. Acclaimed for his "edge-of-the-seat brilliance" and "musically imaginative mind," Mr. Molinaro's performances have taken him to major music centers throughout the country including Boston, Cleveland, Dallas, Indianapolis, Los Angeles, Miami, Philadelphia, and New York's Alice Tully Hall and Chicago's Symphony Center. He has been featured on Ravinia's Rising Stars Series, The Young Artist Series at the Kravis Center, The Irving S. Gilmore Festival, The Charles Vanda Master Series in Las Vegas, and at The Santa Fe Jazz Festival, The Toronto Jazz Festival, The Grand Teton Music Festival and Eastern Music Festival among many others. He has appeared as guest soloist with nearly fifty symphony orchestras including the Arkansas, Boise, Lake Forest, Louisville, Napa Valley, Naples, Richmond, and Syracuse Symphony Orchestras. He has also performed with the Canton, Cape Cod, Eugene, Flint, Savannah and Catskill Symphonies as well as with the Chicago Sinfonietta, Chicago Jazz Orchestra and Illinois Philharmonic Orchestra. Outside the U.S. Anthony has recently concertized in France, Germany, Luxembourg, The Netherlands, Italy, Switzerland, Austria and Canada.
In addition to his traditional concert repertoire, Mr. Molinaro is also a gifted composer, arranger and improvisor, giving him a musical dimension uncommon to artists of his generation. He often plays his own cadenzas in Mozart and Beethoven concerti, and his "free-wheeling" and "unconventional" rendition of Rhapsody in Blue features improvised cadenzas. In November 2005 he premiered his first Piano Concerto with the Catskill Symphony and later that year debuted his big band arrangement of Rhapsody in Blue with The Chicago Jazz Orchestra. As a jazz artist, he has headlined at leading clubs worldwide including Chicago's Green Mill, Toronto's The Rex Hotel and Jazz Bar, Vienna's Porgy and Bess, Amsterdam's Bimhuis, Munich's Unterfahrt, and Zurich's Moods to name a few.
Mr. Molinaro records exclusively for Nineteen-Eight Records, a label he founded in 2001 to support creative music of all genres. His debut CD, The Bach Sessions features The Goldberg Variations and the F Minor and A Major Concertos with the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields Chamber Orchestra conducted by Andrew Litton. His wildly popular follow-up recording, New Blue, is a Gershwin album featuring his own solo version of Rhapsody in Blue as well as arrangements and improvisations on the Gershwin classics "Summertime," "Someone To Watch Over Me," "Embraceable You," and "I Got Rhythm." His collaboration with the harmonica virtuoso Howard Levy was highlighted by a live recording from the famed Green Mill Jazz Club in Chicago and his 2010 recording, Canto Per Mio Padre, features music of Schubert / Liszt, Brahms, Rachmaninoff, and Debussy. His forthcoming album (January 2013), Here, There and Everywhere: Arrangements and Improvisations on Music of The Beatles will explore new and innovative piano techniques in a solo setting.
Mr. Molinaro has performed on PBS, WTTW's Chicago Tonight and on the popular Italian program Il Senso della Vita. He is also a frequent guest on Chicago's WFMT and has been featured in numerous publications including the Chicago Tribune, New York Times, Downbeat magazine, and the recently released book, The New Face of Jazz (2010).
Mr. Molinaro lives in his native Chicago where he is an Assistant Professor of Music at Loyola University. He studied at the University of North Texas and Northwestern University and has won several awards in addition to the Naumburg Prize, most notably the William C. Byrd International Piano Competition and the 1995 National Piano Fellowship from the American Pianist Association. He has presented clinics and masterclasses at The Juilliard School, The University of North Texas, Northwestern University, The University of Nevada at Las Vegas, Roosevelt University and many more. Additionally, for three summers he coordinated a music program for physically challenged children in South Hampton, New York. Mr. Molinaro is a Yamaha Artist and an avid runner and triathlete.
Dr. Susan Tang is Assistant Professor of Piano at Northeastern Illinois University. She enjoyed a successful New York solo piano debut at Carnegie-Weill Hall as a Winner of Artist International Management Special Presentation Winners Series. Reviews by the New York Concert Review, described her playing as having, "well-grounded technique…fluid, elegant readings…highly effective interpretations." She has also been called a pianist, "with technique to spare coupled with a lively intelligence…her tone is clear and conveyed with nimble agility" by David Gordon Duke, music critic for the Vancouver Sun and after a recital at the 2008 Ravinia summer festival in collaboration with soprano Nicole Cabell, a "fluent pianist" by the Chicago Tribune. She also is the Regional Associate for Carnegie Hall/Royal Conservatory The Achievement Program and the MTNA Young Artist / ISMTA Collegiate Competition chair.
Dr. Tang has performed in Mabou Mine's Dollhouse, a theater company based in New York City as a pianist/actor in many of their shows, including their run at St. Anne's Warehouse. She was featured live on New York City's classical music station WQXR, performing in the "The Gardens of Spain" special hosted by David Dubal, won first prize in the Eastman concerto competition and performed with the Eastman Symphony Orchestra along with receiving the coveted Performer's Certificate, a special award for excellence in performance. She was a top prizewinner at the Canadian Federation of Music Teacher's Association National Piano Competition in Montreal and received the special jury prize at the Thousand Island International Piano Competition. Dr. Tang has studied at the Banff International Keyboard Festival, Van Cliburn Piano Institute and the Leipzig Summer Academy of Music. She is also the co-editor with Marc Ponthus of Elliot Carter's Centennial Freschrift published in 2008 as part of the Mannes' Institute and Festival of Contemporary Performance.
Invitations to perform and teach masterclasses have taken Dr.Tang throughout Canada, United States, Germany, Japan, Taiwan, Korea and Colombia. Most recently, she has been invited to perform at the Ravinia Festival, Savannah Music Festival, University of Minnesota-Duluth, Dominican University Gala, Blue Ridge Concert Series, William Browning Foundation concert; present at the College Music Society National Conference in Portland, and was the guest artist/lecturer for the North Dakota Music Teacher's association state conference. As an adjudicator she has been invited to judge competitions for the various levels of the MTNA piano competitions, the National Guild of Music, University of North Dakota, Langley Community Music School, Northwestern University, and Roosevelt University. Passionate about teaching, Dr. Tang formally worked with students of all ages at Third Street Music School Settlement (NYC) and held the position of Assistant professor of Piano at the University of North Dakota.
Dr. Tang received her B.M. (piano performance, arts leadership certificate) from the Eastman School of Music; M.M. (piano performance, performer's certificate) Eastman School of Music and D.M.A. (piano performance) Manhattan School of Music. Her primary teachers include Nelita True, Nina Svetlanova, Robin Wood, Kenneth Cooper, Anthony De Mare and Susan Magnusson.
Recent highlights in Jaime Gorgojo's career are chamber music appearances with Yo-Yo Ma in the Chicago Symphony Center Presents series and the DePauw Discourse in Greencastle, IN. Born in Madrid, he has performed as a soloist, chamber and orchestra musician in Spain, the US, France, Mexico and Canada. In 2010 he became Concertmaster of the Civic Orchestra of Chicago and has performed under the baton of renowned conductors such as Ricardo Muti, Lorin Maazel, Essa-Pekka Salonen and Cliff Colnot. He has also acted as guest Concertmaster of the Green Bay Symphony and Assistant Concertmaster of the International Beethoven Festival in Chicago. He is also first violin and newest member of Corky Siegel's Chamber blues and will be appearing this season in Chicago, Canada and Florida.
Mr. Gorgojo combines his performing career with his pedagogic vocation. He is Violin and Viola Faculty at North Eastern Illinois University. He also worked for two seasons with the MusiCorps Program, a training and access program of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra that performs in Schools and City Parks around the Chicago metropolitan area, making music accessible to all audiences. He is also the face of the CSO Institute in their 2010-2011 edition of "A year in review".
Mr. Gorgojo is recipient of "La Caixa" Scholarship, Spanish Culture Minister Scholarship, Indiana University Merit Award, the Bloomington Camerata Scholarship for excellence in orchestra playing, and winner of the "Juventudes Musicales de Madrid Award". He is currently finishing his DMA thesis on Manuel Quiroga and Jesus de Monasterio Violin Caprices.
Besides music Mr. Gorgojo has a wide range of interests. He speaks Spanish and English fluently and he has intermediate levels in French and German. Before he came to the United States he started college studies in Physics. He plays a Dalphin Violin from 2005.
Rodolfo Vieira is a versatile violinist who is passionate about performing, new music and music technology. Rodolfo was selected as one of the 100 young creative talents of the European Union in 2009.
Rodolfo was a prizewinner at RDP2 Prémio Jovens Músicos, Julio Cardona International Competition, Philharmonic Society of Arlington, and the Meadowmount School of Music Chamber Music Competition. He was also awarded the Portuguese Revelation Prize "Búzio."
As a soloist, Mr. Vieira appeared with the ERA Symphony Orchestra in Chicago, the Metropolitan Academic Orchestra of Lisbon, and the Espinho Symphony Orchestra, among others. He presented recitals in North and Central America and Europe. Rodolfo was the featured musician for the European Union Open Days Gala at the BOZAR hall in Brussels.
As an orchestral musician, Rodolfo served as the concertmaster for the Conservatory Project Orchestra at the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C. He performed as assistant concertmaster of the Civic Orchestra of Chicago under direction of Pierre Boulez, Bernard Haitink, and Alan Gilbert. He also served as concertmaster of the Latin Chamber Orchestra and the TuW Chamber Orchestra. Rodolfo has appeared internationally at music festivals including the Ravinia Festival and the Lucerne Festival Academy. Mr. Vieira participated in the the premier of works by Latin composers at WFMT, Chicago's classical radio station.
Mr. Vieira is passionate about new music and music technology. He has collaborated with Chicago's Dal Niente Ensemble, the International Contemporary Ensemble, and the Lucerne Music Festival Academy. During the festival, Rodolfo was selected to perform Anthèmes II for violin and live electronics by Pierre Boulez, for the workshop led by IRCAM and the Ensemble InterContemporain. Rodolfo presented Anthèmes II at Northwestern University's Lutkin Hall in 2011.
Rodolfo served as teaching assistant to Prof. Gerardo Ribeiro at Northwestern University and at the Meadowmount School of Music, and also served as chamber music coach at the Music Institute of Chicago and Midwest Young Artists.
He has appeared in masterclasses with Ruggiero Ricci, Zakar Brohn, Sergey Kravchenko, Guarneri String Quartet, Meadowmount Piano Trio, and Patricia McCarty.
Mr. Vieira received his Certificate in String Performance and Master of Music in String Performance from Northwestern University, and his Bachelor of Music in Violin Performance from the Academia Nacional Superior de Orquestra under the guidance of prof. Aníbal Lima, Portugal. Mr. Vieira has been the grateful scholarship recipient from Northwestern University, Meadowmount School of Music, Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian and Governo Regional dos Açores.
Rodolfo is currently a Doctor of Music candidate at Northwestern University Bienen School of Music, with extensive coursework in Music Technology, and was invited to join Northwestern University's Academic and Research Technologies' Advanced Media Production Studio as a software developer as of 2011.
A native of New York City, Russell Hershow took his first music lessons from his father, an amateur violinist. He went on to attend the Juilliard School and the Indiana University School of Music, graduating with a Bachelor of Music degree. He received private instruction from Josef Gingold and Yuval Yaron at Indiana University and Joseph Fuchs at Juilliard.
Hershow participated in numerous music festivals and competitions before joining the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra in 1987. In 1989, he played with the Pittsburgh Symphony for a short time before joining the Chicago Symphony Orchestra later that year—just in time to participate in the Orchestra's exciting sixth tour to Europe with Sir Georg Solti.
In addition to his orchestral duties with the CSO, Hershow pursues an active chamber music career in Chicago.
Gold Medalist at the 2003 Henryk Szeryng International Violin Competition and special jury prize winner at the 2001 Sarasate International Violin Competition, violinist Sylvia Kim Kilcullen has been a winner in local, national, and international competitions.
She began her studies with Carol Cole at the age of 3 and continued at Lynn University with Artist Faculty, Sergiu Schwartz. After receiving her B.M. from Lynn, she attended the Curtis Institute of Music and received her Artist Diploma with Pam Frank and Ida Kavafian. An avid chamber musician, she has collaborated with artists such as Gary Graffman, William Preucil, and Peter Wiley.
For many years she attended Indiana University String Academy as well as serving as the youngest concertmaster at the Boston University Tanglewood Institute. She has also spent her summers at the Taos Music Festival and Music from Angel Fire.
Before joining the Chicago Symphony in 2012, she was a member of the Pittsburgh Symphony for 4 years.
Susan Synnestvedt joined the first violin section of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in 1986. Born in New York City, she grew up in Royal Oak, Michigan; her father plays jazz trombone and her mother is a classical pianist.
When Susan was four, she started her violin studies at the Detroit Community Music School. At twelve, she won first prize in a local violin competition—a solo performance with the Detroit Symphony. For this, her orchestral debut, she played the first movement of Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto under Richard Hayman. Her association with the Detroit Symphony continued with a tour of Michigan schools and concerts in the Ford Auditorium. That same year, she began studying with David Cerone of the Cleveland Institute of Music, flying between Detroit and Cleveland twice a month until she was eighteen.
In 1981, Susan entered the Curtis Institute of Music, where she continued studies with Cerone and coaching in chamber music with Felix Galimir, Karen Tuttle, and Mischa Schneider. She participated in the 1983 Taos Chamber Music Festival and, in 1983-84, she was concertmaster of the Curtis Orchestra under Max Rudolf, Leonard Bernstein, and Sergiu Celibidache. She received a bachelor's degree in 1985. Since then, she has participated in the Marlboro Chamber Music Festival, with the Concerto Soloists of Philadelphia, and on the CSO chamber music series. Susan has toured the East Coast with a Music From Marlboro quintet and she has performed in Florida with a Chicago Symphony chamber ensemble. Susan and her mother enjoy performing violin-piano recitals together.
In 1989, she married John V. Muntean, a research scientist, and they honeymooned in Japan on tour with the Chicago Symphony Chamber Players. They returned to Japan in 1991 when Susan taught and performed at the Affinis Arts Seminar. Susan has performed often at the Pick-Staiger Concert Hall in Evanston with the Chicago Chamber Musicians, and, most recently, in 2003 at the Northwestern University Winter Chamber Music Festival with cellist Lynn Harrell and members of the CSO.
Susan and John have lived in historic Riverside since 1993; they have two children, Madeline and Alex. Since 2008, the family has enjoyed the company of Nessie, their West Highland white terrier. They all enjoy the beauty of the changing seasons in their Frederick Olmsted–designed village.