Tag Archives: Artspree

Ridge Piano Trio at Artspree

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Ridge Piano TrioUALR’s Artspree series kicks off the 2013 calendar year with the Ridge Piano Trio.  They will play at UALR’s Stella Boyle Smith Concert Hall this afternoon at 3pm.

The group consists of pianist Chiharu Iinuma, violinist David Gillham and cellist Tom Landschoot. They play the works of Mozart, Piazzolla and Brahms.

Much in demand as a chamber musician, Chiharu Iinuma has regularly performed across three continents. A founding member of the Ridge Trio, the Chamber Ensemble Bloomington and the Gillham-Iinuma Duo, for many years she was the studio pianist for Joseph Gingold, Janos Starker, Franco Gulli, Neli Shkolnikova, Tsuyoshi Tsutsumi, Miriam Fried, Yuval Yaron at Indiana University’s Jacobs School. In 1993, she was invited to participate in the inaugural Isaac Stern Chamber Music Workshop at Carnegie Hall in New York.From 2001 to 2004, Ms. Iinuma was the Director of Accompanying at the University of Central Arkansas, Conway, Arkansas.

Canadian violinist David Gillham has been described as a “violinist with a lean tone, a supple technique, and an amazing talent for sustaining a long line” (All Music Guide Magazine). Formerly on the faculties of Memorial University and the University of Central Arkansas, David was appointed Assistant Professor at the University of British Columbia in July 2011 and is a member of the Arianna String Quartet, in residence at the University of Missouri – St. Louis. He is on the faculty of the FEMUSC Festival in Brazil, the Madeline Island Music Festival, the Illinois Chamber Music Festival and the Britt Festival String Quartet Academy.

Praised for his expressive and poetic music making, cellist Tom Landschoot enjoys an international career as a concert and recording artist and pedagogue. He has toured North America, Europe and Asia and has appeared on National Radio and Television worldwide. His solo career started after taking a top prize at the International Cello Competition ‘Jeunesse Musicales’ in 1995 in Bucharest, Romania. He recently performed with the National Orchestra of Belgium, the Frankfurt Chamber Orchestra, Prima la Musica (Belgium), Shieh Chien Symphony Orchestra (Taiwan), Tempe Symphony and the Orchestra of the United States Army Band and has appeared at the Park City, Santa Barbara, Mammoth Lakes, Utah, Red Rock, Waterloo, Killington and Texas Music Festivals.

Johannes Möller, award winning classical guitarist, opens Artspree’s 2012 spring semester

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Guitarist Johannes Möller, the 2010 first prize winner of the Guitar Foundation of America’s Concert Artist Competition, opens the spring Artspree stage at 7:30 p.m. Monday, Jan. 30, at the Stella Boyle Smith Concert Hall in UALR’s Fine Arts Building.

Tickets are $20 general admission, $80 for the season, $10 for non-UALR students, and free for UALR students. Group discounts are available. For tickets or more information, call the Artspree office at 501-569-8993.

Möller began performing at 13, and his performances now total more than 500 and span the continents of Europe, Asia, and North and South America.

In 2010 he was awarded first prize in the GFA Concert Artist Competition, considered by many to be the most prestigious guitar competition in the world. As part of this prize, he will perform more than 50 concerts throughout the United States, including a Carnegie Hall debut in the Weill Recital Hall, Canada, Mexico, South America, and China.

At the age of 12 as a self-taught composer, Möller experienced an outburst of creativity that resulted in a large quantity of pieces that were performed and recorded with great critical acclaim. A selection of these works was recorded on a CD with some of the top instrumentalists in Sweden when he was 14. In his later teenage years, Möller continued composing, experimenting with various compositional styles and techniques.

Möller earned a bachelor’s degree in music from the Royal College of Music in London where he studied guitar with Gary Ryan and Carlos Bonell and composition with William Mival.

He received a master’s degree from the Royal Conservatoire in The Hague where he studied with Zoran Dukic. He also received a scholarship from the Royal Conservatoire that allowed him to study privately with Pavel Steidl in the Czech Republic as well as composition lessons with Dusan Bogdanovic in the United States. He completed a second master’s degree at the Conservatoire in Amsterdam where he studied guitar with Lex Eisenhardt and composition with Richard Ayers.

UALR Artspree: Ben and Brad in a Tribute to Fred Astaire

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UALR Artspree returns with its second offering of the season.  Tonight at 7:30 at the Stella Boyle Smith Concert Hall on the UALR main campus, Benjamin Sears & Bradford Conner will perform Ben & Brad: A Tribute to Fred Astaire.

The duo have been hailed by critics and audiences nationwide and received awards for their evening of American popular song and show tunes.  The Boston Globe notes “both Sears and Conner are helplessly gaga over this music. They just radiate happiness when they perform it, and you get happy too.”