Program for HS/HSV Symphony Guild piano concert early next week

The concert is January 29, 7:30 p.m. at the Woodlands Auditorium in the Village. Tickets are just $10.

PROGRAM

from Sonatina for Two Pianos, Op. 129      Theodore Lack
I. Allegro con spirito                                   (1846-1921)
II. Andante cantabile

Jennifer Cordell and Yeseul Hong 

from Fantasiestücke, Op. 12                       Robert Schumann
Warum                                                       (1810-1856)

Carly Fehlberg

Nocturne in E-flat major, Op. 9 No. 2        Frederic Chopin
                                                                  (1810-1849)

Al McGilvery

Prelude in C-sharp minor, Op. 3 No. 2       Sergei Rachmaninov
                                                                  (1873-1943)

Samuel Schalchlin 

from Etudes d'execution transcendante        Franz Liszt
10. Allegretto agitato molto in f minor          (1811-1886)

Masaru Sakuma

Après une Lecture de Dante: Fantasia quasi Sonata      Franz Liszt
                                                                  (1811-1886)

Jack Dou

INTERMISSION  

Sonatine                                                     Maurice Ravel

I. Modéré                                                  (1875-1937)

 Yeseul Hong

from Children's Corner                               Claude Debussy
2. Jimbo's Lullaby                                      (1862-1918)
6. Golliwog's Cakewalk

Jennifer Cordell

Besaid Island                                             Masashi Hamauzu

                                                                 (1971-)

Wes Copeland

Ballade                                                      Edvard Grieg

                                                                 (1843-1907)

Neil Rutman

Concertino for Two Pianos, Op. 94           Dmitri Shostakovich

                                                                 (1906-1075)

Jaeyeon Park and Naoki Hakutani

Jennifer Cordell, originally from Corpus Christi, Texas, was first introduced to the piano by her mother and continued her studies with Marietta Hunt in Little Rock, Arkansas. Currently she is a senior at UALR studying solo piano with Dr. Linda Holzer.

Yeseul Hong is from South Korea. Currently she is a junior at UALR studying solo piano with Dr. Linda Holzer. She participates in many musical activities, including accompanying UALR students and playing with the UALR String Ensemble.

Carly Fehlberg, originally from San Diego, California, moved to Little Rock Arkansas in 2010.  Currently she is a Freshman Piano major at UALR studying with Dr. Naoki Hakutani. She is in the Donaghey Scholars Program, the campus-wide honors program at UALR.

Al McGilvery is originally from Ft. Worth, Texas area.  He is currently a senior piano major at UALR set to graduate this coming May.  He studies piano with Dr. Naoki Hakutani and jazz piano with Tom Cox.  He is also the organist/pianist at St. Mark Baptist Church in Little Rock. 

Samuel Schalchlin, 18, is from Carlisle, Arkansas. He began his pianist's journey eleven years ago and is currently guided by Dr. Naoki Hakutani. His favorite composers are Sergei Rachmaninoff, Fredric Chopin, and Ludwig van Beethoven. He also enjoys playing football and basketball and is an ardent reader.

Masaru Sakuma was born in La Paz, Bolivia and began his musical studies in the Andean town of Oruro, subsequently earning his diploma in music from the Bolivian National Conservatory in La Paz while studying piano under the Russian pianist Irina Efanova. A winner of many music prizes, including the First Honorable Mention in the Claudio Arrau Piano Competition in 2003 and the UCA Piano Competition in 2010. He is currently pursuing his Master’s degree as a student of Dr. Neil Rutman at UCA.

(Jack) Yuezhi Dou was born in 1989 in Xuzhou City, Jiangsu Province,China.

At present he is in the Piano Performance Degree at the University of Central Arkansas where he studies with Dr. Neil Rutman, Artist in Residence. Dr. Rutman is a top prize winner in several international competitions including the Busoni, Kapell, Casadesus, Joanna Hodges, Concert Artist Guild, and International Johann Sebastian Bach Competition. Under Dr. Rutman’s teaching, Yuezhi has received professional training. Such training resulted in drastic growth for Yuezhi’s musicality, technique and future career goals. Mr. Dou has performed in concert throughout the state of Arkansas, and in 2011 and 2012 was awarded 2^nd Prize in the University of Central Arkansas Piano Competition.

Wes Copeland grew up in Bismarck, AR. He graduated from UALR in December 2012 with a double major in Computer Science and Applied Music (Piano) with many honors and scholarships, including receiving the Donaghey Engineering and Information Technology CyberScholarship, the Joan R. Taylor Scholarship, the Hathaway Endowed Scholarship, the Arkansas Academy of Computing Scholarship, two Student Undergraduate Research Fellowship Grants, and graduating Cum Laude while serving as a student marshal. During his music studies at UALR, Wes received piano instruction from Dr. Naoki Hakutani. While these lessons initially started with a focus on baroque and classical music, they quickly moved towards Wes's musical interests, which lie in modern game and film compositions. Wes currently works as a software engineer for FIS, a Fortune 500 company headquartered in Jacksonville, FL.

The Washington Post has written of Neil Rutman that his playing "met the highest standards and his spotless articulation gave the whole program unusual polish and virtuoso marks," and the New York Times stated that "he won the audience over for himself with exquisite performances- both commanding and full of character."

Neil Rutman has distinguished himself as a top prize winner in several international competitions including the Busoni, Kapell, Casadesus, Joanna Hodges, Concert Artist Guild, and International Johann Sebastian Bach Competition.  In 2005 Mr. Rutman received two First Prizes at the French Piano Institute International Competition at the Scholar Cantorum in Paris.   He has received awards from the National Endowment for the Arts and for Artistic Excellence from the Astral Foundation.  He has appeared in Carnegie Hall, Alice Tully Hall, Queen Elizabeth Hall, Tokyo's Bunka Kaikan and the Schola Cantorum in Paris with concert tours within the last five years of the United Kingdom, Europe, New Zealand, Japan, and the Persian Gulf.   Recordings include two Mozart Piano Concerti, an all Poulenc CD with Emmy Award winning actor Tony Randall providing the narration in ‘The Story of Babar the Little Elephant’, and his 2008 all Chopin release on the Pro Musica label.  Mr. Rutman has recently authored articles for the Piano Quarterly, The Piano Teacher, an interview with Aiko Onishi in Clavier, and is a contributing author to the book Piano Masterpieces published by Oxford University Press.  He is currently writing a book compiling hundreds of interpretative anecdotes and imageries on the piano repertoire entitled Drawing on the Imagination: Interpretative Images by the Composer and their Contemporaries.   

A native of San Francisco, Mr. Rutman graduated from the Eastman School of Music and Peabody Conservatory, where he worked with Cecile Genhart, Leon Fleisher, and Ellen Mack.  Mr. Rutman is Artist-in-Residence at the University of Central Arkansas.  Since 2008 his students have won top prizes in the Kappell International Competition, the East West Artist Auditions in New York City, and the Clara Wells Competition.

A fine amateur boxer by avocation, Dr. Rutman also coaches the University of Central Arkansas Boxing Team and is a volunteer Probation Officer and mentor for juvenile offenders in Faulkner County.  In 2012 Mr. Rutman was one of 30 Americans to be awarded the Martin Luther King -President Barack Obama Service Award for his work with troubled youth in his county.  For more information about Mr. Rutman, view his DVD’s on You Tube or visit www.neilrutman.net.

Naoki Hakutani  is currently an Assistant Professor of Piano at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock.  Dr. Hakutani is very active as a solo pianist having performed at Weil Recital Hall, Youngsan Art Hall (with Korean Sinfonietta), Seoul National University of Education and Ouachita Baptist University among others. As a collaborative pianist, he has performed with Arianna String Quartet and Quartet X as well as with such artists as violinist David Gillham and flutist Christina Smith.  He also makes frequent joint appearances with his wife, pianist Jaeyeon Park and with Collage Piano where they recently performed in Mozart Hall in Seoul in a concert supported by the Japanese Embassy in Seoul. 

Originally from Kent, Ohio, Dr. Hakutani holds degrees in piano performance from Northwestern University, Indiana University at Bloomington and the University of Texas at Austin studying with Donald Isaak, Shigeo Neriki and Betty Mallard.  He has also studied chamber music extensively with Timothy Lovelace, Gregory Allen and Daniel Ching. He taught as a Teaching Assistant at University of Texas at Austin and at St. Charles Community College in Missouri before coming to UALR. 

Dr. Hakutani is also the Director of UALR Artspree, and the Director of the UALR Piano Festival. He is very active nationally and internationally as an educator, having conducted master classes throughout the United States, Mexico and Asia. Most recently, he presented master classes at University of Wisconsin at River Falls, Sejong University, Sunchon National University and Kaywon School for the Arts. He has also presented seminars and workshops for Arkansas State Music Teachers Association and Music Teachers Association of Central Arkansas. He is also in demand as an adjudicator throughout the U.S. Most recently he judged the Final Round of the Trinity Presents! Collegiate Showcase. 

Pianist Jaeyeon Park has had an extensive solo performing career throughout the United States and Korea including recent concerts at the University of Wisconsin at River Falls, University of Arkansas at Little Rock, Seoul Arts Center, Kumho Art Hall, Youngsan Art Hall, Kyunggi Art Center and Kwangju City Art Center. She has also performed lecture recitals on the piano works of Brahms, Bach and Debussy in addition to appearing as a soloist with the Kiev Radio Orchestra (broadcast on KBS FM) and Kangnam Symphony.

Dr. Park is very active as a chamber musician and completed a project to perform the entire Mozart Sonatas for Piano and Violin in Mozart Hall, Kumho Art Hall in Seoul and Henderson State University.  She also frequently appears as a collaborative pianist in piano ensemble concerts with her husband, Naoki Hakutani. Recent recitals include Guest Artist Piano Duo Concert at St.Charles Community College and Piano Ensemble Concert at Mozart Hall supported by Japanese Embassy in Seoul.

Currently, Dr. Park is an Assistant Professor of Piano at Chosun University in Korea, where she teaches studio piano, piano accompanying and piano literature. She has earned MM and DMA degrees from the University of Texas at Austin where she was the recipient of the Mary D. Bold Scholarship and Marturite Fairchild Endowed Presidential Scholarship. She was also the recipient of the School of Music Scholarship at Seoul National University where she received a BM degree and graduated with highest honors. She has won awards at various competitions such as the Wideman International Piano Competition, Sidney M.Wright Piano Accompanying Competition and Osaka International Music Competition.