Veda Zuponcic, Pianist As a recipient of a Martha Baird Rockefeller grant, Ms. Zuponcic made her formal European debut in 1971. As a prizewinner in the Alfredo Casella Competition, Naples, Miss Zuponcic toured Italy under the auspices of the U.S. Dept. of State, followed by more than a dozen tours of Western Europe. Her American debut at Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall in 1973 was followed by performances throughout the United States, including numerous appearances in New York, Philadelphia, Chicago and Washington D.C. She has played more than 100 concerts and recitals in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union, including the cities of Moscow, St. Petersburg, Dubrovnik, Tbilisi, Tashkent and Kiev. Her orchestral appearances include the Russian State Orchestra, Moscow Philharmonic, the Zagreb and Seville Orchestras, New Jersey Symphony Orchestra, Savannah Symphony, Tbilisi Symphony, and the Kharkov Symphony. Born in Aurora, Minnesota, Miss Zuponcic exhibited early promise at the piano as a student of Dorothy Bourgin and Katherine Hessler. She studied at Indiana University with Sidney Foster. Further studies were with Ilona Kabos in New York and London. She has been Professor of Music at Rowan University  since 1972. Her students have been prize winners in numerous international and national competitions and she is in demand as adjudicator and lecturer. In 1992 she was an Exchange Professor at the Moscow State Conservatory. She has recorded two CD’s for Melodiya, The Romantic Piano, and Americans from Moscow.

Chiu-Ling Lin, internationally renowned pianist and educator, made her Carnegie Recital Hall debut as the winner of the East and West Young Artist Auditions. She has soloed with fourteen orchestras, including the Atlanta Symphony, the Chicago Civic Orchestra, the Singapore Symphony, and the Des Moines Symphony, where she currently serves as the Principal Keyboard Player. Appearances in New York, Boston, Chicago, England, Canada and throughout the Far East have featured Dr. Lin's unique mix of music by Chinese and Western composers. Her virtuosity is showcased in a new CD, "Portraits of China."  As an acclaimed chamber artist, critics call Dr. Lin's ensemble playing "a richly emotional experience for the audience ... including beauty, power, energy and excitement - as well as a complete unity of musical and emotional intention..." She has collaborated with world-renowned artists such as Marina Piccinini, Marcos Granados and Ignat Solzhenitsyn. In the summer of 2003, she was a chamber music coach at the Madeline Island Music Festival in Wisconsin. Dr. Lin is a committed educator who received her bachelor's degree from New England Conservatory of Music and her master's and doctoral degrees from Indiana University. Her 30 years of college teaching experience include positions as Chair of the Music Department and Professor of Piano at Drake University in Des Moines, IA and Artist-in-Residence at Indiana University at South Bend. At Drake, she recruited scores of exceptional students, many of whom have succeeded in professional music careers.

Mitsuko Ichimura, pianist, has concertized extensively throughout Japan and the US as a soloist and in collaboration with other artists on stage and on television.  She is known for her huge coloristic range and lyricism. Ms. Ichimura is founder and director of the Ichimura Music School in Englewood Cliffs, NJ, where she produces strong performers and professional musicians from enthusiastic young pianists.  Since 2003, she has also been active in the Connecticut area providing a new door for the young musicians.  She conducts master classes in several cities in Japan and the US for piano and chamber music.  Her students have gone on to study at such prestigious schools as the Juilliard School, Toho School in Tokyo, the Royal Academy in London, Tokyo University of the Arts, and Manhattan Music School. Her students have garnered awards at major national and international competitions and are often featured in music festivals around the world.  Frequently, young professional pianists travel from overseas to New York for intensive study with her before important concerts, auditions or competitions.  Ms. Ichimura regularly conducts Master Classes and performance workshop in Japan. As an authority on musical education, she has appeared on cable television and as a guest speaker at cultural institutions.  According to the New York Education Guide published by U.S. Japan Publications New York: “She not only builds pianists, teaching them the technique of playing an instrument and communicating to the audience through the instrument, she grows music into their personalities through the instrument.  Through this process the student’s individuality is developed.  She teaches both the discipline and the pleasure needed for accomplishment in music.”  Ms. Ichimura is a graduate of the Musashino Academy of Music and The Juilliard School.  Her teachers include Beveridge Webster, Felix Galimir and Leonid Kochanski.  She has taught at the State University of New York at Purchase and also was director of Parnassus International Music Institute at SUNY, Purchase where many young musicians gathered from all over the world for intensive master classes and performances during the summer.

Setsuko Nagata was invited to the US to study at the Juilliard School as a scholarship student of Dorothy DeLay and Ivan Galamian. Her musical gifts were quickly recognized, and she was awarded the Fritz Kreisler Award, the Naumburg Scholarship Award and prizes in the Hudson Valley Competition and the Tibor Varga International Competition.  As soloist, Miss Nagata has performed with the North Carolina Symphony and gave her debut at Carnegie Hall with the National Orchestra Association under the direction of John Barnette.  She has also performed with the Municipal Orchestra, the Jamaica Symphony, the Great Neck Symphony and the Juilliard Orchestra. She made her European debut in London's Wigmore Hall.  As a chamber musician, she has performed with the Aeolian Chamber Players, the Tokyo String Quartet, the American Quartet, the Cavani Quartet and the DaCapo Chamber Players.  She is the founding member of the Concerts Artists of Chappaqua and the Cremona Arts Trio, which made its New York debut in l982 at the Metropolitan Museum. She has appeared on TV, on radio and numerous recitals in the New York area.  She has been active as a teacher at Juilliard School, Meadowmount School of Music, Wesleyan University, Bowdoin College Summer program, Manhattan School of Music preparatory Division, and as a private teacher. 

Igor Petrushevski, is a professor at the Royal Academy of Music. One of the leading violin teachers in the UK, his students are winners of many international competitions including: the Tchaikovsky, Marguerite Long-Jacques Thibaud and Nicolai  Paganini. He studied at the Moscow Conservatory with M. S. Glezarova and at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama with Y. Neaman. He has made numerous radio and television performances all over the world. Over the last 20 years he has given master classes and played in the major concert halls of Italy, France, Austria, UK, all of former Yugoslavia, Russia, USA, China, Australia and Japan. Some of his current and former students are leading important orchestras, have prominent solo international careers and are holding teaching posts in universities all over the world. He has been an artistic director of the 'London Oratory International Music Festival and International Violin Competition'. A documentary film 'From East to West' about his life and work has been broadcast in over 20 countries on satellite television.
He is an artist in residence in festivals in Great Britain, Austria and the USA where he also gives regular master classes in solo violin and chamber music. He has been a jury member of international competitions including: The George Enescu International Violin Competition, The London Oratory International Violin Competition and The Allegro Vivo Competition. He plays on a Joseph Rocca violin.

Paul Wirth is a prominent figure in the musical community of the Midwest. His unique combination of masterful performing and teaching, along with an unassuming personality have made him a much sought-after featured artist in concerts, master classes, conventions, and lecture series. With BM, MM and DM degrees in Piano Performance from Temple University and Indiana University, he co-founded and is now the Artistic Director of the Central Minnesota Music School. He has performed throughout the East and Midwest as a recitalist, concerto soloist, and chamber player. A well known teacher who has taught numerous prize winning students of regional, national and international competi-tions, he was awarded the 2005 Distinguished Teacher of the Year by Minnesota's Thursday Musical organization and has been the featured speaker at numerous state conventions throughout the USA, as well as clinician at the University of St. Thomas (MN) Summer Institute, Augustana Piano Teachers Workshop (SD) and at the Goshen Piano Teacher's Workshop in 2002 and 2006. Author of Concertos for Elementary Aged Students (Kybd Comp, Autumn 2005) and other articles, his students have given over fifty solo performances with orchestra. In August of 2007, he will be a featured speaker at the biannual National Conference on Keyboard Pedagogy in Chicago. Also an avid supporter of young performers, he co-founded the Salon se Leve concert series in Minneapolis and the nationally recognized Young Artist Piano Camp, UMD in Duluth, Minnesota.

Thomas Rosenberg is nationally known as a dynamic performer, chamber music coach, and teacher. A resident of Saint Paul, Minnesota, he was awarded the prestigious McKnight Performing Artist Fellowship Award in 2004. He also has received top chamber music prizes at the Munich, Portsmouth and Chicago Discovery Competitions, and is a three-time Naumburg Chamber Music Award finalist. Mr. Rosenberg was a founding member of the highly acclaimed Chester String Quartet with whom he made numerous recordings and for twenty years, appeared on concert stages and live radio coast to coast in the United States, Canada, Central America and Europe. He has been solo cello of the New York Chamber Ensemble performing in all of the major concert halls in NYC and appeared at many music festivals including Aspen, Newport, Banff, South Mountain, Cape May, the Grand Tetons, and the International Music Festival in San Jose, Costa Rica. As a soloist, he has been noted by the Boston Globe as displaying “beautifully inflected, noble playing with a gorgeous dark tone.” His free-lance activities include numerous solo and chamber music recitals, performances with the Schubert and Veblen Piano Trios and performances with the Minnesota Orchestra and the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra. He performs on a rare cello by Lorenzo Storioni made in Cremona, Italy in 1794. He is on the faculties of the University of Minnesota as Coordinator of the String Chamber Music Program and coaching numerous ensembles, Macalester College teaching cello and at Carleton College teaching cello, coaching chamber music and performing in the Veblen Trio. Recipient of the 2003-4 “Master Studio Teacher Award” from the Minnesota chapter of the American String Teachers Asssociation, he also maintains a busy private studio of cellists and chamber ensembles. He has led chamber music “informances” to audiences around the US, and has recently presented a series of lectures on the Beethoven String Quartets. Tom has been named "Arts Educator of the Year" by the Michigan-Indiana Arts and Sciences Council and since 1981, has been Artistic Director of the prestigious Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition through which he is a recipient of the 2007 Indiana Governor’s Arts Award. During the summers he teaches and coaches at music centers such as the Tanglewood Institute, The Quartet Program where he has also been Associate Director, Icicle Creek, Bravo, and the Green Mountain Chamber Music Festival. Tom is a graduate of Oberlin and the Eastman School of Music where he was teaching assistant to both Paul Katz and Laurence Lesser. Other teachers include Richard Kapuscinski, Alan Harris, Alta Mayer, and for chamber music, members of the Budapest, Juilliard, Tokyo, Guarneri, and Cleveland Quartets.

Michael Lehtinen, a native of Palo/Aurora, Minnesota, began his undergraduate studies at the University of Colorado at Boulder. He completed the Bachelor of Music degree at Oberlin Conservatory, Oberlin, Ohio. He received the Master of Music and Doctor of Musical Arts in organ performance from the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York. His teachers include David Craighead, Haskell Thomson, and Russell Saunders (organ), William Porter (harpsichord), and Mark Waite (piano). Dr. Lehtinen resides in Charlotte, North Carolina, where he has taught piano and organ at Southern Park Music School since 1995. In 2006, he became the owner and director of Southern Park. Michael plays the organ at St. Stephen United Methodist Church. He also plays occasionally with the Charlotte Symphony Orchestra. Recent performances include the Spoleto Festival (Charleston, South Carolina), Charlotte Chapter Summer Series, and St. Stephen United Methodist Church; in Minnesota: Juvenile Diabetes Benefit (Virginia), Our Savior’s Lutheran 50th Anniversary (Aurora), St. Mark’s 100th Anniversary (Palo), and Aurora’s 100th Anniversary.Mike is the past president of the Charlotte Piano Teachers Forum, and is the chair of Professional Development for the Charlotte Chapter of the American Guild of Organists.
 

Marina Horak, a Slovenian pianist of Polish-Macedonian descent, grew up in a musical environment. Her mother Hilda Horak was an eminent concert artist and professor at the Academy of Music in Ljubljana, where Marina graduated with honors at the age of 19. She went on to study in Munich, Paris and London, to attend master classes and to win international prizes and awards (Croatia, France, Italy, Germany, Netherlands). She has appeared with orchestras in Yugoslavia, Norway, England, Holland, France and performed in recital and chamber music (including piano duo) all over Europe, in the Far East including China, Australia, New Zealand and the USA, and was a guest at summer festivals in Dubrovnik and Hvar (Croatia), Copenhagen (Denmark), Bergen Festspillene (Norway) Tibor Varga Sion (Switzerland), Festival d'Estiu, Cataluna (Spain), Ljubljana (Slovenia) and elsewhere. She recorded for national radios and TV networks of many countries.

Ms. Horak's discography includes Robert Schumann (Papillons, Nachtstücke, Kreisleriana), Pavane-Records, Brussels; Slovenian Piano Sonatas (Škerjanc, Lipovšek, Šivic, Matičič), Gallus Carniolus, Ljubljana; The Unknown Chopin (Sonata Op. 4, Polish Songs Op. 74 - with soprano Pija Brodnik), ZKP-RT Slovenija, 1999.

Critics have acknowledged her “high flight of pianism” (France), “individual style of playing” (Iceland), “refined and experienced virtuosity” (Belgium), ‘fine style, evident intelligence and imagination” (The Times, London) “a lucid penetrating intellect and a passionate spontaneous creative urge” (Switzerland) “style, technical brilliancy and musical finesse” (Austria), “power, intuition and imagination” (Dubrovnik, Croatia), “fabulous technique” (Spain), “noble poetry of the keyboard” (Rome, Italy) “boundless pianistic strength” (Croatia), “superb interpretative power” (Bombay, India), “glittering precision” (New Zealand), “profound musicality” (Bonn, Germany), “eminent art of piano playing” (Oslo, Norway).

Ms. Horak speaks nine languages fluently: Slovene, English, German, French, Croatian, Italian, Dutch, Norwegian and Spanish. She has lived in Germany, France, the Netherlands and England. In 2001 she made Slovenia her home again, where she is a professor at the Academy of Music in Ljubljana.

Throughout her career she has been a sought-after piano teacher. A vast number of children, music students and professional musicians have been nourished by her knowledge. She held master classes and workshops in Belgium, Switzerland, England, Slovenia, Italy, Germany, Sweden, Norway, Croatia and the USA.

Her specific approach, which strives towards the blossoming of natural creativity within the pupils, is aimed at creating sensible connections between our own need for personal expression and a live correlation to the inherent musical structures. It helps us develop our potential by making us sensitive for the intrinsic message of the music and create a basis for our individual understanding of the music meaning via own life experiences, thus allowing us to develop a free and full expression.

For more go to www.marinahorak.com