University Symphony: "Concerto Competition Winners"
Ensemble Concert
Feb 23, 2012 - 7:30 PM
Meany Theater
$15 ($10 students and seniors)
Buy TicketsWinners of the November 14 Concerto Competition perform with the University Symphony. Program includes movements from Mozart’s Flute and Harp Concerto, featuring Maria-Alise Agrawal, flute, and Megan Bledsoe, harp; the first movement of Mendelssohn’s Piano Concerto No. 2, featuring Britanee Hwee, piano; Saint-Säens’s Piano Concerto No. 4, featuring Monica Yoon, piano; and Strauss’s Tod und Verklärung, performed by the University Symphony.
PROGRAM DETAIL
Mozart: Flute and Harp Concerto (Mvmts 1 & 2) (Maria-Alise Agrawal, flute, and Megan Bledsoe, harp)
Mendelssohn: Piano Concerto No. 2 in D minor (Mvmt 1) (Britanee Hwee, piano)
Saint-Säens: Piano Concerto No. 4 (Monica Yoon, piano)
Strauss: Tod und Verklärung (University Symphony)
PERFORMER BIOS
Maria-Alise Agrawal
Maria-Alise “Meese” Agrawal, flute student of Donna Shin, is currently in the first year of her Master of Music degree at the University of Washington. She was principal of the University Wind Ensemble and the University Symphony Orchestra at the University of Puget Sound where she completed her Bachelor of Music degree in Flute Performance. She won the University of Puget Sound Concerto Competition in 2007. Meese was principal flute of the National Small College Intercollegiate Band of 2007 under the direction of Frank Tichelli. She was also selected to participate in the Rome Festival Orchestra in the summer of 2006 and attended the Burgos Chamber Festival in Spain the summer of 2007. She spent the summers of 2002-2005 attending the Marrowstone Music Festival where she served as principal and piccolo of the Festival Orchestra. Agrawal has performed in multiple master classes for Amy Porter, Jill Felber, Leone Buyse, Marianne Gedigian, Marina Piccinini and Bradley Garner.
Megan Bledsoe
Megan is working toward a DMA in Harp Performance under the tutelage of Valerie Muzzolini-Gordon, as well as a PhD in Music Theory.
Born and raised in Anchorage, Alaska, Bledsoe holds a BM Degree in Harp Performance with a Minor in Mathematics, an MM Degree in Harp Performance and Literature, and an MA Degree in Music Theory Pedagogy from Eastman School of Music, where she studied harp with Kathleen Bride. Megan was named the Young Alaskan Artist of the Year in 2007 and was awarded the prestigious Performer's Certificate from Eastman School of Music in the same year.
Bledsoe has performed with the Anchorage Symphony Orchestra, Anchorage Opera, Orchestra of the Southern Finger Lakes, Eastman Composer's Sinfonietta, Eastman Philharmonia, Genessee Symphony, Musica Nova New Music Ensemble, Geneseo Symphony Orchestra, Cayuga Chamber Orchestra, Ithaca College Contemporary Ensemble, Cornell Wind Ensemble, as well as with several chamber groups and as a soloist. In 2009, she held the Principal Harp position in the Eastman Wind Ensemble's US tour, where the group was featured at the Midwest Band Conference.
Britanee Hwee
Britanee Hwee is a sophomore studying piano performance with Dr. Robin McCabe. She grew up in Seattle and began taking piano lessons at six years old with Marissa Rebadulla-Ramos. At age nine she had her orchestral debut with the Port Gardner Bay Chamber Orchestra as a prize for winning the Port Gardner Bay Concerto Competition. She has also been a winner of the Anna Rollins Johnson scholarship competition three years in a row. In 2008 Hwee placed second in the Junior division of the Washington State Outstanding Artist Competition and then placed second in the Senior division the following year. She also placed first in the 2010 Northwest Chopin Competition. The same year, she entered the KING FM Ten Grands competition and was named as one of the ten finalists. As a prize, she performed a group piece with the Ten Grands artists and the other finalists at Benaroya Hall. She likes listening to all sorts of music and also enjoys being involved at her church and spending time with her two younger sisters when she can.
Monica Yoon
Monica Yoon, a current doctorate student at the University of Washington School of Music, is a Pianist who has been pursuing her music careers since her age of four. During her days at Busan Arts High School, Monica made her official debut with the Busan Symphony Orchestra, performing Beethoven’s First Piano Concerto. She graduated with a distinguished honor Bachelors degree from Korean National University of Arts, one of the top tiered Performing Arts Schools, established by the Korean government. She obtained her Masters degree in Piano Performance from New York University where she not only studied with Eduardus Halim but also taught many college students and communities. Monica is now pursuing her doctoral degree at University of Washington where she studies with Robin McCabe, the great Pianist and mentor in her life. Monica is now a winner of many international competitions including her first prize winning at the Bradshaw & Buono International Piano Competition in New York City. She has also attended many international piano programs including the Juilliard Summer Program and the Courchevel Music Camp in France. Monica truly enjoys performing various concerts and master classes and enthusiastically loves interactions with many audiences.
CONDUCTOR BIO
Jonathan Pasternack
Dr. Jonathan Pasternack is Director of Orchestral Activities at the University of Washington School of Music during the 2010-11 academic year. He has conducted orchestras, opera and ballet in the United States and Europe, with such ensembles as the London Symphony Orchestra, Residentie Orkest of the Hague, Scottish Chamber Orchestra and the National Symphony Orchestra at the Kennedy Center, among many others. His debut recording, leading the London Symphony Orchestra in Béla Bartók’s Miraculous Mandarin suite and the Symphony No. 1 by Johannes Brahms, will be released in January 2011 on the Naxos label.
His opera conducting experience includes productions of Tosca, Don Carlos, Die Fledermaus, The Turn of the Screw, Les Dialogues des Carmèlites, Cendrillon, L’enfant et les sortileges and Il barbiere di Siviglia. He led the Paris premiere of Robert Clerc’s Á l’ombre du grand arbre and the world premiere of The Prestigious Music Award by Gloria Wilson Swisher at Shoreline Community College. He recently conducted performances of Wayne Horvitz’s chamber opera-oratorio, The Heartsong of Charging Elk, as part of an educational tour presented by Washington State University in Pullman and Vancouver.
Born and raised in New York City, Jonathan Pasternack studied violin, cello, trombone, piano and percussion. He won a trombone scholarship to the Manhattan School of Music at the age of sixteen and later transferred to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to pursue studies in astronomy, philosophy and political science. He earned master’s and doctorate degrees in music from the University of Washington, where he studied conducting with Peter Erös and trombone with Stuart Dempster. His other conducting teachers and mentors have included Neeme Järvi, Hans Vonk, Valery Gergiev, Jorma Panula, James DePreist, Murry Sidlin, and David Zinman. At the invitation of Mr. Zinman, Jonathan Pasternack attended the Aspen Music Festival and School as a featured Academy Conductor, where he was the recipient of fellowships in both conducting and trombone. In 2002, he was awarded Second Prize at the Sixth Cadaqués International Conducting Competition in Barcelona, Spain, where he was the only American invited to compete.
Dr. Pasternack has served as Assistant Conductor with the Oregon Symphony, Resident Conductor and Managing Director of the Icicle Creek Music Center in Leavenworth, and Visiting Director of Orchestral Activities at Pacific Lutheran University. He has served as guest faculty at the University of Washington, Central Washington University, East Oregon University, Pacific University, Conservatoire de Maurepas in France and Conservatoire Supérieur de Musique de Genève in Switzerland.
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