UE Piano Series 2001-2002
All recitals take place in Wheeler Concert Hall except where noted.
Corey Hamm
Thursday, October 11, 7:30 p.m.
"Pianist Hamm's Gift Unlocks Mysteries of Music," the Halifax Chronicle Herald wrote of Corey Hamm's solo concert tour promoted by the Debut Atlantic organization. Other tours of Canada have been sponsored by the Debut Incorporated series in Montréal and the Debut series at the National Arts Centre in Ottawa. Mr. Hamm's new solo piano CD, Dita Correnti, was released in the spring of 2001 and consists of works by Brahms, Scriabin, Dutilleux, and Howard Bashaw. Mr. Hamm is also at work on a new CD of Brahms' Clarinet Sonatas, Op. 120 with clarinetist John Mahon. Mr. Hamm is regularly broadcast on CBC Radio as soloist and chamber musician, and is actively involved in the promotion and performance of contemporary music. Bashaw's Preludes for Piano Book One were composed for Mr. Hamm with a commission from CBC Radio, and new works written for Mr. Hamm by Canadian composers Michael Mathews and David Scott will be premiered next season. Mr. Hamm has performed with the Lethbridge Symphony and the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra, and was the second prize winner at the 1995 Eckhardt-Gramatté Competition for Contemporary Piano Music.
Mr. Hamm is a founding member of Hammerhead Consort - a two-piano, two-percussion ensemble. Hammerhead Consort toured Poland in June 2000 under the auspices of both The Canada Council and Polish Radio, and drew rave reviews at the Feb. 2000 Winnipeg New Music Festival. Hammerhead released its second CD, Traffic, in 1999, and their first CD won Best Classical Recording at the 1993 ARIA Awards. They will release a third recording of music by Bartók, Lutoslawski, and Helweg in 2002, and plan to record Carl Orff's Carmina Burana with Pro Coro Canada under Grzegorz Nowak. The Consort has commissioned over thirty new works, including Howard Bashaw's Concerto for Two Pianos and Two Percussion, a work they premiered with the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra and commissioned through the Alberta Foundation for the Arts and CBC Radio. They have won such important national awards as the Sir Ernest MacMillan Memorial Foundation Chamber Music Award (1992) and the CIBC National Music Competition (1991).
Mr. Hamm has studied with pianists Stéphane Lemelin, Ernesto Lejano and Marek Jablonski. Two consecutive scholarships from the Johann Strauss Foundation have taken Mr. Hamm to the Mozarteum in Salzburg, Austria for summer study with Claude Helffer, Sergio Perticaroli and Karl-Heinz Kämmerling. During the summers of 1993 and 1994, Mr. Hamm studied in the French Piano Institute at the École Normale in Paris. There, he had the opportunity to perform the complete piano works of Henri Dutilleux for the composer himself and his wife, pianist Geneviève Joy. During his 1994 stay, Mr. Hamm was awarded the Prize for Excellence in Performance. He has been on the piano faculty of the Alberta College Conservatory of Music in Edmonton since 1994, and is a frequent adjudicator in Western Canada.
Tuesday, November 27, 7:30 p.m.
Mayron Tsong was one of the youngest musicians to complete a Performer's Diploma at the Royal Conservatory of Toronto at age 16. Since that time, she has played in New York, Houston, Aspen, Fort Worth, California, across the Southern United States, Montreal, Ottawa, Switzerland, Sweden and China as a solo recitalist, chamber musician, accompanist and soloist with orchestra. As a prizewinner in the APPTA International Piano Competition, she was invited to give a solo recital in Steinway Hall in New York in the fall of 1997. Other prizes have included First Prize in the Canadian Music Competitions, the Millenium Prize for Russian Performing Arts, and the prestigious Arts B Grant, awarded by the Canada Council. She is a three-time recipient of The Female Doctoral Students Grant, awarded by the Government of Canada. In 1993, she was Artist in Residence at the Banff Centre, where she was invited to give masterclasses in the spring of 2000. Ms. Tsong has participated in music festivals in Aspen, Banff, Orford, Sarasota, Texas and Switzerland. Active as a teacher, clinician and adjudicator in Canada and China, she has also recorded for television and CBC Radio in Canada. Ms.Tsong holds graduate degrees in Piano Performance and Music Theory and she is currently completing her Doctor of Musical Arts in Piano Performance under John Perry at Rice University in Houston, Texas. From 1998-1999, she served on Faculty at California State University in Humboldt, where she was invited to teach and perform at the Sequoia Chamber Music Festival and Workshop in Northern California in the summer. She is currently Assistant Professor of Piano at the University of Lethbridge in Alberta, Canada.
Program: Romantic Selections tba
Karen Shaw, professor of piano at the Indiana University School of Music, has been performing, teaching, and presenting lectures and master classes for more than three decades. American born, Ms. Shaw inherits the background of a musical family. She first appeared in New York as winner of the Concert Artists Guild Award, prompting unusual acclaim from New York Times critic Donal Henahan. Her debuts in London and Berlin were received with equal praise and enthusiasm. Since then the artist has distinguished herself in numerous performances across the United States, Europe, Canada, Mexico, and the Far East as both a recitalist and a soloist with orchestra.
In a series of concerts at Carnegie Hall, Ms. Shaw was repeatedly recognized as a 'persuasive interpreter of Romantic music' possessing a virtuosity 'as dazzling as accurate, and sensitively, tenderly poetic' (The New York Times). Her performance of Rachmaninoff's Études prompted her recording of the complete set for Musical Heritage Society.
Her recent professional activities include performance in and coordination of lecture-recitals including "Liszt in Recital," "Chopin Festival of Concerts," and "Chopin Celebration," in an ongoing effort to preserve the spirit of the Romantic Age.
A teacher of reputation, Dr. Shaw dedicates herself to assisting young pianists in reaching their career goals. Among her numerous pupils are noted performers and successful teachers at every level.
