Education

This season we offer educational opportunities in cooperation with Sherman Clay/Moe’s Pianos. All events are free and open to the public.

Saturday, March 17, 2012, 4:00 p.m.

Kirill Gerstein

Program:

Beethoven: Sonata, Op. 81a in Eb Major "Les Adieux" I. Das Lebewohl, Adagio; Allegro

Performed by Ik Hoon Jung

Brahms: Selections from Piano Pieces, Op. 118

Performed by Ruta Kuzmickas

Shostakovich: Piano Concerto #2 in F Major, Op. 102 I. Allegro

Performed by Ryan Hsu

(Second piano orchestral reduction performed by Renato Fabbro)

STUDENT BIOS

Ik Hoon Jung is a 14-year-old freshman at Southridge High School who studies with Linda Hayes. He has received numerous awards at the Oregon Music Teachers Association Classsical and Romantic Festivals. He has also won several OMTA Scholarship Competitions, and most recently won second place at the 2011 Music Teachers National Association Oregon Chapter Junior Piano Performance Competition. He has participated in master classes with Mei-Ting Sun and Hans Boepple. His other activities include swimming and speech/debate. In his spare time, he enjoys reading and spending time with friends and family. 

Ruta Kuzmickas, 15, began expressing her love for music at an early age. Ruta has had several master classes with respected pianists, including Arnaldo Cohen, Simone Dinnerstein, Hans Boepple and Gianluca Luisi. At 13, Ruta was a winner of the MetroArts Young Artists Debut! Concerto Competition where she performed the first movement of Chopin's F minor piano concerto with the Oregon Symphony. That same year, she won the finals of the World Piano Pedagogy Conference's Most Wanted Piano Concerto Competition. She was also selected as a Chamber Music Northwest Young Artist Fellow for the year 2010-2011 and has performed various chamber works. She was awarded a scholarship from the Chopin Foundation of the United States in 2011, as well as receiving a Jack Kent Cooke Young Artist Award. Ruta is a student at Clackamas Web Academy and continues her musical studies with Dr. Jean-David Coen.

Ryan Hsu, a 15-year-old freshman at Westview High School, currently studies piano with Dr. Ron Fabbro. His previous teachers include Joan Serfass and Gail Buchanan. Ryan is the winner of numerous Oregon Music Teachers Association Baroque, Classical and Romantic festivals. He also won the 2007 and 2009 Trula Whelan Concerto Competition and was a finalist in the 2012 MetroArts Van Buren Concerto Competition. Ryan participated in the Young Pianists Institute, a segment of the Portland International Piano Festival, in master classes with Ingrid Jacobson Clarfield and Scott Smith. While in middle school at Summa Academy North at Meadow Park, he played piano for the jazz band and accompanied the choir. Outside of piano, Ryan likes playing video games and solving Rubik's cubes.

Master classes take place at:

Sherman Clay/Moe’s Pianos

131 NW 13th Ave, Portland, OR

Please contact Harold Gray at harold@portlandpiano.org if you are interested in participating in a future master class.

At age 16 and studying jazz piano at the Berklee College of Music, Kirill Gerstein rebelled...by turning to classical music! That independent spirit and musical curiosity are part of the virtuosity the Gilmore committee recognized when it awarded him the 2010 Gilmore Artist Award, given once every four years to "a superb pianist and a profound musician" with charisma and broad musicianship. While in Portland Mr. Gerstein will teach a Master Class, giving us a further opportunity to hear how roots in jazz can inform a major classical artist and bring a fresh perspective.

We welcome Mr. Gerstein to Portland!