Media Contact: Olga Krayterman Shupyatskaya, okrayter@esm.rochester.edu, 585-274-1563
Olga Shupyatskaya, left; Futaba Niekawa, right
Several Eastman School of Music graduates, each already an established performing artist, will reunite to present a local summer concert premiering a new work by an Eastman composer Jennifer Bellor on July 2 in Kilbourn Hall.
Building on the success of a similar concert last year, “Sonic Cluster II” is a collaboration involving Eastman alumni, current students, freelance musicians, and dancers from across the Rochester area. Both events have been spearheaded by pianist Olga Shupyatskaya, who has invited fellow alumna and pianist Futaba Niekawa to return for a program centered on repertoire for two pianos.
The concert will be presented at 7:30 p.m. on Sunday, July 2, in Eastman’s Kilbourn Hall. Admission is $10 for the general public and free to UR ID card holders. Tickets are available in advance at the Eastman Theatre Box Office, 433 East Main St.; 585-274-3000; online at EastmanTheatre.org . On the day of the performance, tickets will also be sold at the Kilbourn Hall Box Office beginning 30 minutes before the event.
Shupyatskaya and Niekawa will premiere a work by Bellor, an award-winning composer who, among other honors, received a DownBeat magazine composition award in her final year of doctoral studies at Eastman. In addition to the premiere, concert performers will present works by Bach, Chopin, and Piazzolla.
“Sonic Cluster II” also features Matt Witten and Christopher Jones, percussion; Alexander Tatarinov, violin; Chilean violist Sergio Muñoz; Russian-born cellist Svetlana Garitselova; and Spencer Phillips, double bass. The Eastman musicians will be joined for “Sonic Cluster II” by violinist Noemi Miloradovic and dancers Christopher Collins and Hannah Campanelli.
Shupyatskaya serves as the Director of Graduate Advising and Services at Eastman and as a member of the piano faculty at the Eastman Community Music School. Niekawa is currently on the faculty of collaborative piano at Indiana University’s Jacobs School of Music and is a founding member of the violin-piano duo, duo526. Both Shupyatskaya and Niekawa are competition prize winners and enjoy active performance careers as solo and collaborative musicians.
Bellor is a composer, performer, and educator, a recipient of numerous commissions and awards, and currently teaches music composition and theory at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.
Witten is on the faculty at Finger Lakes Community College and the University of Rochester, where he is director of the University’s Percussion Ensemble. With many competition prizes to his credit, he is also a passionate proponent of contemporary music.
Jones and Phillips are current doctoral candidates at the Eastman School of Music. Jones is active as a performer with the A/B Duo and the percussion quartet Clocks in Motion, and Phillips is the principal bass at Tri-Cities Opera and section bass at the Binghamton Philharmonic.
Alexander Tatarinov also serves on the faculty of the Eastman Community Music School and enjoys an active free-lance career. Muñoz and Garitselova both completed their master’s degrees at Eastman and have been active chamber musicians in the Rochester area.
Miloradovic is Assistant Concertmaster with the Binghamton Philharmonic, as well as a member of the Rhode Island Philharmonic Orchestra, the Portland Symphony in Maine, and the Santo Domingo Festival Orchestra in the Dominican Republic.
Dancers Campanelli and Collins are native to the Rochester area and have danced with the Rochester City Ballet. Campanelli is currently pursuing a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in Commercial Dance at Pace University in New York City.
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