Violin News & Gossip, Op. 3, No. 85

October 25, 2007 at 9:06 PM

Musician News

Violinist Yi-Ting Kuo has been promoted to assistant concertmaster of the Ann Arbor Symphony Orchestra. The orchestra has also made a number of section violin hires: Jeannette Jang, Karen Jenks, Igor Kalnin, Xiaojing Pu, Barton Rotberg, Dan Stachyra and Trina Ann Stoneham.

The Harrington String Quartet has a new first violinist and violist this season. Tomas Cotik, who accepted the position with the quartet last summer, came from the New World Symphony in Miami. Tomas is a native of Argentina, is also the new concertmaster of the Amarillo Symphony. Jennifer Snyder Kozoroz is the quartet’s new violist and has also been named principal violist in the Amarillo Symphony. A Milwaukee native, Kozoroz recently spent seven years as assistant principal violist at the Virginia Symphony, and is a graduate of Ohio State University and The Juilliard School. The quartet is in residency at West Texas A&M University, where all of the members teach.

11/3/07 - The Colorado Quartet, quartet in residence at Bard College since fall 2000, offers free all-Beethoven concert at the college. Quartet members are Julie Rosenfeld and Lydia Redding, violins; Marka Gustavsson, viola; and Diane Chaplin, cello. The quartet has won both the Banff International String Quartet Competition and the Naumburg Chamber Music Award.

10/28/07 – Violinists Albert Wang and Olga Kaler will be guest artists at Music at Trinity at Trinity Episcopal Church in Highland Park, Ill., playing Bach’s Double Concerto and Sarasate’s Navarro. The concert will also feature three winners of Music at Trinity’s 2007 Young Artist Auditions, including violinist Scot Moore. Kaler, the wife of violinist Ilya Kaler, teaches at DePaul University in Chicago. Wang (full disclosure: my brother-in-law) has been a member of the Lyric Opera of Chicago orchestra since 1982 and has taught at many Chicago-area music schools.

10/26/07 – Violinist Philippe Quint will make his French debut with Orchestra de Bayonne with the Sibelius Violin Concerto. He will then launch a month-long tour of South Africa appearing with all the major South African Orchestras in the Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto, as well as in recitals throughout the country.

10/24/07 - The Brodsky Quartet has been appointed as ensemble in residence at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama, reports the Glasgow Herald. "The cult string quartet are not only a group with a stellar international reputation. They are one of a handful of string quartets that have come to represent an elite in redefining the nature and function of a string quartet ensemble."

10/20/07 - The first concert in memory of the late violinist Dr. Jaropolk Lassowsky was held at Clarion University in Pennsylvania. Lassowsky had been a faculty member there for 30 years. Among the performers was Ukrainian violinist Anton Smirnov.

10/19/07 – According to Donga.com, violinist Kim Su-yeon soloed with the Orchestra Philharmonique de Monte-Carlo at the Opera House of the Seongnam Art Center in Korea in Mozart’s Violin Concerto No. 4. Though Korean by blood, Kim was born in Germany and lives there still.

10/11/07 - Three violists have joined the Portland (Maine) Symphony Orchestra: Stefanie Fong, Willine Thoe and Rose Wollman.

Orchestra News

10/24/07 – In a surprise move, Pyongyang has given permission for North Korea's state orchestra to mount a tour of the UK in early 2008. The orchestra's connection to Britain is the opera singer Suzannah Clarke, who has performed in North Korea to great acclaim, reports The Times of London.

10/17/07 - The Glasgow Herald recently profiled the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, pondering why they’re not more widely known. "Let's be brutally frank: when was the last time you had to queue at the box office, far less round the block, to get a ticket for an SCO concert? Indeed, when was the last time you overheard or participated in one of those animated pub or street conversations where folk raved about the world-class orchestra that played weekly on their doorstep?"

From Frank-Michael Fischer
Posted on October 26, 2007 at 1:51 AM

Adding to the orchestra and musician news:

The Russian-born US conductor Yakov Kreizberg, currently music director of the Netherlands Philharmonic, has been appointed as music director of the Orchestre Philharmonique de Monte-Carlo (OPMC). He will start as the orchestra's artistic advisor in January 2008 and take up his full responsibilities for an initial five year period in September 2009.

At their October 22 Paris press conference the OPMC board president, Princess Caroline of Monaco, and Kreizberg jointly announced the appointment of violinist Julia Fischer as the orchestra's Artist in Residence from the 2010-2011 season on.

FMF

From Bill Busen
Posted on October 26, 2007 at 2:51 AM

Go, Rose! All you Portland people, welcome Rose Wollman back to Maine. We miss her in Illinois.

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