SHARING the SPOTLIGHT BOSON MO, Violin ZACHARY SPONTAK

SHARING THE SPOTLIGHT BOSON MO, Violin ZACHARY SPONTAK, Violin PHILIP MARTEN, Violin MEREDITH KUFCHAK, Viola IVO-JAN VAN DER WERFF, Viola JOSH HALPERN, Cello DESMOND HOEBIG, Cello ANDREW STAUPE, Piano Thursday, November 14, 2013 8:00 p.m. Lillian H. Duncan Recital Hall PROGRAM Sextet No. 2 in G Major, Op. 36 Johannes Brahms Allegro non troppo (1833-1897) Scherzo – Allegro non troppo – Presto giocoso Adagio Poco allegro Zachary Spontak, violin Philip Marten, violin Meredith Kufchak, viola Ivo-Jan van der Werff, viola Josh Halpern, cello Desmond Hoebig, cello INTERMISSION Piano Trio in E-flat Major, Op. 100, D. 929 Franz Schubert Allegro (1797-1828) Andante con moto Scherzando. Allegro moderato Allegro moderato Boson Mo, violin Desmond Hoebig, cello Andrew Staupe, piano The reverberative acoustics of Duncan Recital Hall magnify the slightest sound made by the audience. Your care and courtesy will be appreciated. The taking of photographs and use of recording equipment are prohibited. BIOGRAPHIES JOSH HALPERN, 20, is a 2012 YoungArts Merit Award Winner, spon- sored by the National Foundation for Advancement in the Arts. In 2011, he won the Gold Medal performing with the Polaris Quartet in the Junior Division of the Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition; was the national winner in the senior strings division of the Music Teachers National Association Competition; and appeared on NPR’s nationally syndicated program From the Top. Josh has appeared as soloist with the Miami Valley Symphony Orchestra and the Starling Chamber Orchestra, and has held principal cello positions in the Starling Chamber Orchestra, the Dayton Philharmonic Youth Orchestra, and the Music Academy of the West Festival Orchestra. He was also a founding member of the Polaris Quartet. He has attended many music festivals, including the Music Academy of the West, the Meadowmount School of Music, the Tanglewood Institute, the Robert McDuffie Labor Day Festival for Strings, the Credo Chamber Music Pro- gram. He is a student at the Shepherd School of Music at Rice University, where he studies with Desmond Hoebig. DESMOND HOEBIG, Professor of Cello at The Shepherd School of Mu- sic at Rice University, has had a distinguished career as a soloist, orchestral and chamber musician. Desmond was born in 1961 and raised in Vancouver, Canada. He studied with James Hunter, Jack Mendelsohn and Ian Hampton. In 1978 he moved to Philadelphia to study with David Soyer at the Curtis Institute of Music. He received his BM and MM at the Juilliard School with Leonard Rose and Channing Robbins, and participated in master classes with Janos Starker and Tsuyoshi Tsutsumi at the Banff Centre. Mr. Hoebig won the First Prize at the Munich International Competi- tion (1984), the Grand Prize of the CBC Talent Competition (1981) and the Canadian Music Competition (1980). He was also an award winner at the Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow (1982). Mr. Hoebig has been a soloist with many prominent orchestras in North America, including Cincinnati, Cleveland, Houston, Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver. His international orchestral engagements have been in Germany, Spain, Portugal, Japan, Mexico and Colombia. As a chamber musician, Desmond was the cellist with the Orford String Quartet when they won a Juno award for the best classical music album in 1990. He has also performed for 30 years with the Hoebig-Moroz Trio and in a duo with Andrew Tunis. Mr. Hoebig has taught and performed at festivals throughout North America, including Aspen, Banff, La Jolla, Marlboro, Mu- sic Bridge, Orcas Island, Sarasota and Steamboat Springs. Before joining the faculty of The Shepherd School, Mr. Hoebig had been Principal Cellist of the Cleveland, Houston, and Cincinnati Symphony Or- chestras. Violist MEREDITH KUFCHAK is a senior at Rice University and studies with Ivo-Jan van der Werff at the Shepherd School of Music. Born into a talented musical family, Ms. Kufchak grew up in Columbus, Ohio as the youngest of six musicians. Her commitments in viola and chamber music have brought her to appear at such prestigious competitions as the Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition as well as the St. Paul String Quartet Competition. Ms. Kufchak was a recipient of the Jack Kent Cooke Young Artist Award in 2010. Meredith has made appearances at such festivals as Credo Chamber Music and Chamber Music Connection and worked with such artists as Peter Salaff as well as the Claremont Trio and Cavani, Cypress, Emerson Guarneri, St. Lawrence, and Ying Quartets. PHILIP MARTEN is currently a junior at Rice University Shepherd School of Music studying with Cho-Liang Lin. As a soloist, he has most recently performed with the In the Plains Festival Orchestra, the Kansas City Youth Symphony, and the Topeka Symphony, among other orchestras. He is also an involved chamber musician, performing in Carnegie Hall for the final round of the International Chamber Music Ensemble Competition, and earning the Silver Prize at the 2011 Music Teacher National Association, Collegiate Divi- sion Chamber Music Competition. In addition, he has studied and performed at renowned music festivals such as the New York String Orchestra Seminar, Kneisel Hall, Sarasota Music Festival, Norfolk Chamber Music Festival, Music Mountain, Juilliard String Quartet Seminar, and McGill International String Quartet Academy. BOSON MO discovered the violin at the age of seven and has since received numerous national and international distinctions. Mr. Mo was recently the 3rd prize winner of the Hellam Young Artists’ Com- petition. He was the recipient of the “Prix Joseph-Rouleau” at the 2010 Mon- treal International Violin Competition in Canada, and was a participant of the Queen Elisabeth International Violin Competition, the Menuhin International Violin Competition, and the International Violin Competition of Indianapolis. He was winner of the Canadian Music Educators’ Association’s Wilfred Harvey Award for the Best Small Ensemble Performance, Third Prize at the Concours Orchestre symphonique de Montréal, and First Prize at the Canadian Music Competition. Boson has attended the Perlman Music Program (New York), the Banff Centre’s Chamber Music Residency, Morningside Music Bridge (Cal- gary), and the Aspen Music Festival and School as a Fellowship recipient for four consecutive years. Boson has been featured as soloist with the CIM Orchestra and the Or- chestre symphonique de Longueuil, while he has served as concertmaster of the Shepherd School Chamber Orchestra, the CIM Orchestra, and the F.A.C.E. Symphony Orchestra. Recent performance engagements include a five recital tour of Canada presented by Début Atlantic as well as a featured performance at the Montreal Chamber Music Festival in May 2013. As a student of Paul Kantor, Boson pursues his studies at the Shepherd School of Music and has completed his undergraduate studies as a Starling Foundation Scholarship recipient at the Cleveland Institute of Music. He has performed in masterclasses for Itzhak Perlman, Donald Weilerstein, Sylvia Rosenberg, Olivier Charlier, Cho-Liang Lin, Peter Salaff, Masao Kawasaki, Joan Kwuon, Paul Katz, Roger Tapping, Jerome Lowenthal, and Yoheved Kap- linsky, among others. Boson currently performs on a violin by Jean-Baptiste Vuillaume (1871), graciously on loan from the Canada Council for the Arts. ZACHARY SPONTAK, 21, born and raised in Alaska, is a student of Paul Kantor at Rice University in Houston, Texas. Zachary began studying music at age three with Jean Krause, later studying with Dr. Gail Johansen. In 2009, he moved to Chicago to study with Roland and Almita Vamos. Zachary is an active chamber musician and soloist, playing recitals and in concerts across America, Switzerland, and Germany. A three-time winner of the Fairbanks Symphony’s Concerto Competition, he won First Place at the Skokie Valley Symphony Concerto Competition in Chicago in 2010. In summer of 2012, he won the Music Academy of the West Concerto Competition in California. A gold medal winner in the Junior Division of the Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition, Zachary also participated in the 2011 Interna- tional Cooper Competition in Ohio. Zachary has been to several summer festivals including Meadowmount, Astona-International, and Music Academy of the West. Apart from music, Zach enjoys running, reading, and hiking. Recipient of the 2011 Pro Musicis International Award, American pianist ANDREW STAUPE is an internationally recognized soloist hailed by audi- ences and critics alike for his compelling virtuosity and poetic lyricism. Staupe has performed across the United States and extensively in Europe, appearing in Russia, Holland, Latvia, Romania, France, Germany, and Bulgaria. On tour in Europe, he has performed in distinguished concert venues including the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, Rachmaninov Hall in Moscow, and the Ateneul Roman in Romania among others. This season Andrew will make his Carnegie Hall debut, as well as his Boston debut at Pickman Hall. Recent highlights include an acclaimed San Diego Symphony debut under Jahja Ling as a last minute replacement for Orli Shaham, and debuts with the Rochester Symphony and Minnesota Sinfonia. Since 2005 Andrew has been consistently re-engaged with the Minnesota Orchestra, and has performed with the orchestra five times with Osmo Vänskä, Andrew Litton, Mischa Santora, and Daniel Alfred Wachs. He was a guest artist at the 2010 Orcas Island Chamber Music Festival, and performed on numerous occasions with acclaimed violinist Chee-Yun, including a

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