16 Accomplished Youth Musicians + 2 Piano Fellows from Around the World Converge in Portland with Esteemed Faculty & Staff at University of Portland | Part of CMNW 2022 Summer Festival
This summer, Chamber Music Northwest (CMNW) launches their new Young Artist Institute (YAI), a new intensive education program for 16 talented string players from around the world, ages 14-18. The four-week YAI program will be held from June 18 to July 10 on the University of Portland campus, and the young musicians will be featured in free performances throughout the community, including on the brand new mobile concert stage, during CMNW’s 2022 Summer Festival.
YAI faculty includes esteemed musicians and teachers: CMNW’s Artistic Director Soovin Kim, Jessica Lee (violin), Nicholas Cords (viola) and Peter Stumpf (cello). The Institute is managed by violinist and music education powerhouse Alyssa Tong, and the students will be supported by young artist mentors Katie Danforth and Paul Kim. A new Collaborative Piano Fellowship has also been created to support the YAI with two fellows, Pualina Lim Mei En and Yandi Chen, who will collaborate intensively each day in rehearsals and performances with the Institute students.
The violinists, violists and cellists selected for the YAI program are among the top high school string players from North America and Asia. The students have been finalists in the most important competitions in the world such as the Menuhin and Sphinx Competitions, and they hail from prestigious preparatory programs at the New England Conservatory, San Francisco Conservatory, Colburn Academy, Cleveland Institute of Music, Korea National University of the Arts and Portland’s own Portland Youth Philharmonic. CMNW’s Institute will provide talented young musicians the unique opportunity to perform numerous times during its three weeks. The students will experience tremendous growth performing both solo works and string quartets for small and large audiences. The Portland community will get to enjoy the amazing virtuosity and precociousness of these musicians at festival concerts and pop-up performances around the city.
Collaborative Piano Fellowship
Hand-in-hand with the YAI program comes the new Collaborative Piano Fellowship. Selected from major conservatories, two graduate-level pianists join this summer’s program, sponsored by pianist, Lewis & Clark faculty and CMNW Board Member Yoko Greeney with her husband, Jon. “A critical person in a young string player’s development is the pianist with whom they collaborate in concertos, sonatas and other pieces with piano,” said Peter Bilotta, CMNW Executive Director. “The pianist provides the string player with the sense of rhythm, harmony and texture. We are excited to create the CMNW Collaborative Piano Fellowship that brings two of the finest graduate student pianists to rehearse and perform with the Institute string players.”
“Supporting and educating young artists has been at the core of our work at Music@Menlo (where Gloria was institute director), and at the New England Conservatory and Yale School of Music (where Soovin teaches),” said Gloria Chien and Soovin Kim, CMNW Artistic Directors. “This Young Artist Institute is a dream come true, and we know it is going to affect the lives of the extraordinary students and the CMNW audiences. Our hope is to inspire and invigorate the love of chamber music through these bright, shining musical talents!”
“As manager of the Young Artist Institute, it has been amazing to watch the project grow,” said Alyssa Tong, YAI manager. “Soovin and Gloria’s vision is incredible and I am excited to see it all come together! The students are extremely talented and mature, and the faculty is just as amazing and impactful. The final puzzle piece is the audience; I can’t wait to see the audience get to experience and enjoy such a high level of playing from such young artists.”
Institute Faculty
Soovin Kim, violin, faculty
Jessica Lee, violin, faculty
Nicholas Cords, viola, faculty
Peter Stumpf, cello, faculty
Institute Staff
Alyssa Tong, manager
Katie Danforth, young artist mentor
Paul Kim, young artist mentor
Collaborative Piano Fellowship
Pualina Lim Mei En • Piano fellow • Singapore
Yandi Chen • Piano fellow • Shanghai, China
Institute Young Artists
Corina Deng (14) • Violin • Vancouver, Canada
Fiona Huang (14) • Cello • Saratoga, California
Emily Hwang (16) • Viola • Palo Alto, California
Hanna Jang (17) • Viola • Seoul, South Korea
Sarah Kave (18) • Cello • Los Angeles, California
Joshua Kováč (15) • Cello • Johnson City, Tennessee
Eleanor Markey (17) • Violin • Wayland, Massachusetts
Jiyu Oh (16) • Violin • Seoul, South Korea
Ella Saputra (17) • Violin • Schaumburg, Illinois
Nazeeh Shahid (17) • Viola • Chicago, Illinois
Nate Strothkamp (18) • Violin • Portland, Oregon
Moshi Tang (17) • Violin • Cleveland, Ohio
Hana Taylor (16) • Violin • Brookline, Massachusetts
Maanas Varma (17) • Viola • Flower Mound, Texas
Kira Wang (17) • Cello • Portland, Oregon
Marina Ziegler (17) • Violin • Akron, Ohio
Free Community Events: Young Artist Institute
SHOWCASE: June 24 @ 7pm Mago Hunt Recital Hall, University of Portland
PRE-CONCERT: June 27 @ 6:30pm Kaul Auditorium, Reed College
POP-UP DAY: June 28*
PRE-CONCERT: June 30 @ 6:30pm Patricia Reser Center for the Arts
SHOWCASE: July 1 @ 7pm Lincoln Recital Hall, Rm. 75, Portland State University
PRE-CONCERT: July 2 @ 6:30pm Kaul Auditorium, Reed College
POP-UP DAY: July 5*
PRE-CONCERT: July 7 @ 6:30pm Patricia Reser Center for the Arts
SHOWCASE: July 8 @ 7pm Pilot House, University of Portland
PRE-CONCERT: July 9 @ 6:30pm Kaul Auditorium, Reed College
*Multiple pop-up performances by YAI students, citywide, locations and times TBA. Visit cmnw.org and our social media channels for details.
The inaugural Young Artist Institute is supported by collaborative visionaries:
Daniel H. Boyce and Lilla Cabot, Kennett F. Burnes, Howard Greisler and Elizabeth Hudson, Greg and Betsy Hatton, James Jones, Ronni Lacroute, Kate Lyons and Corey Millard, Peter and Ann van Bever, Ravi Vedanayagam and Ursula Luckert, Slate and Davida Wilson and an Anonymous Friend of CMNW.
Key Links
CMNW website Young Artist Institute page (info, faculty, staff, students, fellow, mentors photos and bios
Young Artist short bios and photos
2022 Summer Festival
2022 Summer Festival concert guide
2022 Festival Subscriptions and Single Tickets
OVERVIEW: Chamber Music Northwest 2022 Summer Festival
From Artistic Directors Gloria Chien and Soovin Kim: “Our world is full of beautifully diverse cultures that are interconnected in remarkable ways. The exchange of ideas between people from different parts of the world has created a vibrant musical fabric that today’s composers continue to use in their fresh creations. Throughout our 2022 Summer Festival, Inspirations & Influences, we will explore and celebrate ways in which composers are impacted by their peers while retaining their own distinct voices. Composers and their pieces will often “talk” to each other on these programs: Claude Debussy’s harmonic liberation leading to George Crumb’s wildly colorful orchestration of Black American spirituals; Maurice Ravel, Reena Ismail and Henry Cowell incorporating styles and tonalities of traditional music from Asia; and Melinda Wagner’s modern-day reimagining of one of the great works of the 17th century, Henry Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas.”
Chamber Music Northwest’s 2022 Summer Festival features close to 100 of the finest chamber musicians in the world — from string and saxophone quartets to renowned soloists — performing a wide variety of compositions — from classics to new works — by some of today’s great living composers, and with musical influences from across the globe.
The 2022 festival boasts five CMNW-commissioned, or co-commissioned world and west coast premiere works, by Alistair Coleman (Flute Quintet), Melinda Wagner (Dido Reimagined), Chris Rogerson (Meditation for Violin and Saxophone Quartet), David Schiff (Vineyard Rhythms) and Fang Man 方满 (Partridge Sky). Creating opportunities for composers to create new music is a long-standing hallmark of CMNW, with more than 135 new works commissioned and premiered since 1971.
Particularly exciting festival inclusions for audiences in Portland are Sandbox Percussion’s two concerts. On July 14 and 15 Sandbox Percussion will perform with acclaimed baritone Lester Lynch in the recently late George Crumb’s A Journey Beyond Time – American Songbook II that melds the human voice with more than 100 instruments. The next week, on July 19 at the Alberta Rose Theatre as part of New@Night, award-winning Portland-based composer Andy Akiho and Sandbox Percussion join forces for Seven Pillars. A mesmerizing fusion of sound, light and movement, Seven Pillars was nominated for two 2022 Grammy Awards. Another very special opportunity for festivalgoers will be a one-night-only presentation of Pulitzer Prize-winner Melinda Wagner’s world premiere Dido Reimagined with renowned soprano Dawn Upshaw and the Brentano Quartet. This is an exploration of the Renaissance soundscape of Henry Purcell’s beloved opera Dido & Aeneas that offers a new take on Dido’s tragic tale.
CMNW brings back the exciting contemporary music series that has transformed into New@Night with an early evening social time and music by some of today’s most innovative and creative composers at The Armory and Alberta Rose Theatre. The organization’s much-lauded Protégé Project is back with a new crop of talented artists: Alistair Coleman (composer), Zlatomir Fung (violin), Anna Lee (violin) and Viano String Quartet. New this year, CMNW will offer three intimate Protégé Artist Spotlight recitals at Lincoln Recital Hall showcasing two young rising-star musicians, Anna Lee and Zlatomir Fung, whose careers are beginning right now, and a now-famous Protégé Project alum, Benjamin Beilman.
Citywide performance venues this year are Beaverton’s new Patricia Reser Center for the Arts, Kaul Auditorium at Reed College, Lincoln Recital Hall at PSU, Alberta Rose Theatre and The Armory, as well as to-be-announced free outdoor community concerts and pop-up performances. For the 2022 festival, five of the live festival concerts (one each week) will be professionally recorded and streamed online for our AT-HOME series, each beginning two weeks after the performance, with access on cmnw.org through August 31.
Week-by-Week Highlights
Week 1 — Honoring the Past And Looking Forward
The 2022 festival kicks off by recognizing CMNW’s first five decades, and honoring David Shifrin’s incredible 40 years of leadership as Artistic Director! David, and many more long-time CMNW-favorite musicians, will join together to celebrate the past, present and future in an opening week of musical inspiration!
Week 2 — Recognizing Culture and Continuum
Week two introduces the future of CMNW with the amazing talents of 2022 Protégé Artists Zlatomir Fung and the Viano Quartet. These already internationally-acclaimed young artists headline a musical journey through time and place exploring how musical heritage evolves into new and glorious sounds.
Week 3 — Painting Vibrant Pictures with Music
Creating a mosaic of sound with a myriad of instruments, week three plumbs George Crumb’s epic songbook of Black American spirituals with baritone Kenneth Overton and Sandbox Percussion, exploring the landscape of Eastern-inspired chamber music and new works by young American composers.
Week 4 — Prepare to be Wowed
From Andy Akiho’s scintillating Seven Pillars to the premiere of Pulitzer Prize-winner Melinda Wagner’s inventive Dido Reimagined, world-renowned soprano Dawn Upshaw, the Brentano Quartet and the dynamic Sinta Quartet will make week four the highlight of your summer.
Week 5 — Out with a Shimmer
The festival finale week is filled with presence, musical poetry and love — from David Schiff’s vineyard-inspired world premiere to chanteuse Fleur Barron’s evocative voice, and concluding with a romantic and effervescent masterpiece celebrating the transformative power of love.
Community Access & Education
Chamber Music Northwest is committed to making great music and music education accessible in our community. While still in the planning stages, CMNW will present free community concerts and short pop-up concerts throughout Portland. The local community is invited to weekly open rehearsals at Reed College on Friday mornings. CMNW is planning free masterclasses with visiting musicians that will be streamed at cmnw.org. Complimentary AT-HOME passes will be offered to local music education organizations that serve students from diverse backgrounds and underrepresented communities.
Chamber Music Northwest 2022 Summer Festival
About Chamber Music NorthwestL
Now in its 52nd season, Chamber Music Northwest shares the richness and diversity of chamber music with more than 50,000 people through 80 events annually, including our Summer Festival of outstanding concerts, illuminating outreach activities, educational programs and support of young musicians, and innovative collaborations across the Portland Metro region.
Chamber Music Northwest’s mission is to inspire our community through concerts and events celebrating the richness and diversity of chamber music, performed by artists of the highest caliber, presenting our community with exceptional opportunities for enjoyment, education and reflection. Chamber Music Northwest is led by Artistic Directors Gloria Chien and Soovin Kim and Executive Director Peter Bilotta.
As one of the nation’s leading chamber music presenters, Chamber Music Northwest brings to our community the world’s greatest musicians and composers, from rising-star members of our Protégé Project and exceptional local musicians to world-renowned artists that include Grammy Award winners, Avery Fisher Prize honorees and MacArthur ‘Genius Award’ recipients. Together they collaborate to perform the expansive 500-year chamber music repertoire, ranging from beloved classics and hidden masterpieces to less conventional projects and contemporary works.
Chamber Music Northwest is an international leader in celebrating chamber music’s enduring relevance and diversity, with more than 100 commissions and premieres of new works as well as its Protégé Project, which cultivates the next generation of dynamic chamber music performers by supporting exceptional, early-career chamber musicians and composers in their professional development.