CICA Summer Music Festival
And School
Home of world class music performance and education
July 26 Friday 7:30 pm
CICA 2013 Summer Music Festival-Symphony concert 3
Vivaldi 4 seasons violin concerto, Op. 8
"Spring"
Violin solo: Gregory Maytan
Beethoven, Ludwig Van
Piano Concerto No. 5, Op. 73 "Emperor"
Piano solo: Andrey Ponochevny
(Tchaikovsky international compeition and 9 other international competition awards winner)
Dvorak, Antonio Symphony No. 9
"From the new world"
Conductor: Maestro Thomas Chun-yu Chen
Dr. Gregory Maytan
Gregory Maytan is on the faculty at Grand Valley State University (Allendale, MI). Playing over 50 recitals a year, Maytan performs major pieces around the world—including major pieces such as Paganini, Bruch, Barber and Tchaikovsky violin concertos. More recently, Maytan has toured through Nevada, Indiana, Michigan, Sweden, China, Austria, Hungary and Slovakia.
An avid chamber musician, he has participated in the prestigious chamber music festival ‘Musikveckan’ in Junsele, Sweden; the Belvedere Chamber Music Festival in Memphis, Tennessee; and the Sagatuck Chamber Music Festival in Sagatuck, MI. He has performed at venues such as Ravinia, Tanglewood and the Chicago Cultural Center. Recently he performed live on Chicago Public Radio. Maytan’s first CD, consisting of music from his native Scandinavia, was selected by The Strad as the top recital CD of April 2009 and highly praised by Strings Magazine and the American Record Guide.
He has participated in the International Chamber Music Festival in Vienna, Austria, where he was a featured prize winner, and he has placed in the Swedish Royal Academy’s competition for post-graduate three years in a row. A sought-after teacher, he has presented master classes at Butler University (Indianapolis), the University of Tennessee-Knoxville, the University of Nevada-Reno, Northern State University-Aberdeen the Norwegian State Academy of Music in Oslo, Norway, the University of North Texas-Denton, The University of Florida- Gainesville and the University of Wyoming-Laramie.
Maytan has recently been involved in the musical ensemble Luna Nova and also maintains his position as concertmaster of the Battle Creek Symphony.
Maytan has also performed as concertmaster and section leader for legendary conductors Kurt Masur and Christoph Von Dohnanyi.
He earned his doctorate in violin performance from the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music in Bloomington, where he studied with the renowned violinists Miriam Fried and Paul Biss. Other teachers include Igor Petruschevski (London), Federico Agostini (Bloomington) and Alexander Kerr (Bloomington). He is currently performing on the 1766 ‘ex-Loeb’ Nicolo Gagliano.
Dr. Andrey Ponochevny
Andrey Ponochevny is a prize-winning pianist born in Minsk, Belarus on December 31, 1976. He graduated at the Belarussian State Academy of Music in 2001, and soon afterward was awarded the Bronze Medal at the XIII Tchaikovsky competition. In addition to his success in Moscow, Ponochevny has won First Prize at the “Tomassoni International Piano Competition in Cologne”, Germany and First Prize at the “William Kapell International Piano Competition in Maryland.” His other competition achievements include top prizes in Prague, Warsaw (Chopin), Dublin (AXA), Moscow, Hong Kong, Riga (Latvia), Alexandria and New Orleans (Louisiana).
Since then, he has toured extensively throughout the world, performing solo recitals at major historical venues such as Lincoln Center and Carnegie Hall in New York City; Kennedy Center and Phillips Collection in Washington, DC; Preston Bradley Hall, Beethonvenhalle, City Hal in Hong Kong, Salle Alfred Cortot in Paris among others.
Mr. Ponochevny has appeared with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, Des Moines Symphony, Rogue Valley Symphony and the Illinois Symphony, Nashua Symphony, Warsaw Philharmonic, Irving Symphony, Louisiana Philharmonic, Plano Symphony, Tianjin Symphony, Xinjiang Philharmonic, Orchester der Ludwigsburger Schlossfestspiele and Belarusian State Symphony.
His concerts have been broadcast on WGBH Boston, WQXR New York, WFMT Chicago, WDR Cologne (Germany), Kultura Minsk (Belarus), SIRTVS Ljubljana (Slovenia), ROROR Bucharest (Romania), AUABC Adelaide (Australia), DKDR Copenhagen (Denmark).
Andrey Ponochevny has performed at several prestigious festivals such as Ruhr Klavier Festival and the Bonner Herbst, International Keyboard Institute and Festival (IKIF) in New York city, International Ludwigsburg Festival; Serie de los Nuevos Virtuosos in Puerto Rico, Bravissimo Festival in Guatemala city, Changchun International festival, China, Music in the Mountains, Durango, CO. He also holds several prestigious awards from China such as Outstanding Artist in China 2009 and 2011, Honorable professor of Jilin College of Arts and visiting professor at the Beihua University.
Mr.Ponochevny graduated from Belarussian Academy of Music where he received his Bachelor and Master degrees. He also holds his Artist Diploma from TCU, Fort Worth, where he studied with Dr. Tamas Ungar. He continued to refine his skills in the Artist Certificate Program at SMU in Dallas with renowned pianist Joaquin Achucarro.
In addition to his concert schedule, he also teaches piano at the University of Dallas in Irving, Texas.
Dr. Thomas Chun-yu Chen
Maestro Thomas Chun-yu Chen is an internationally renowned conductor, violinist, composer, and string instruments maker and designer. A native of Taiwan, Mr. Chen has served as a member of the presidential string quartet, resident composer, and orchestra conductor for the ministry of Defense Symphony Orchestra in Taiwan. Maestro Chen is the founder and the director of CICA international Music Festival and School. Each year over 35 International world-renowned classical performance artists perform under the directions of Maestro Chen, alongside the Core-Art International Chamber Orchestra and the CICA Music Festival Symphony Orchestra. As orchestra conductor and violinist, Maestro Chen directs and performs three to four seasons of concerts each year. He has performed and collaborated with many top symphonic performers in the world, including Sara Sant’ Ambrogio, Alexander Gilman, Tao Fan, Lech Antonio Uszynski, Gregory Maytan, Erika Nickrenz, Julia Bushkova, Arsentiy Kharitonov, Shih-peng Chang, Susie Park, Arthur Hart, Alla Aranovskaya, Boris Vayner, Leonid Shukayev, Evgeny Zvonnikov, Dominika Zamara, Nanette Chen, Tony Baker, the Eroica Trio, the St. Petersburg String Quartet, and many other performing artists.
Chen has a BFA degree in performance from Fu-Jen Catholic University, MM degrees in performance, a Suzuki Violin Pedagogy degree from Southern Illinois University and a MA degree in Music Education from Lindenwood University. He did postgraduate doctorate study for the DM program at Florida State University and the DMA program at the University of Memphis. A decorated violin-maker and stringed instrument designer, Maestro Chen has received First Prize in String Quartet making and Tone Prizes in Violin and Viola from the VMAAI International Violin-making Competition. Maestro Chen, who has led research on violin making methodology for decades, is known for his development of a unique “crystallized” violin varnishing methodology that achieves extraordinary clarity, brightness, and tone. Maestro Chen serves as a competition judge for the “Eureka Springs Violin Makers Conference” held in Eureka Springs, Arkansas and “Dallas International Antonio Stradivari Violin Makers Conference” held in Dallas, Texas which feature over 200 string instrument exhibitions.
Maestro Chen has recently concluded a successful 2012 season of CICA Summer Music Festival consisting of 7 symphonic concerts, 12 extraordinary artists’ concert series’, 18 chamber music concerts and numerous other solo recitals performed by such leading musicians as the Eroica Trio, the St. Petersburg Quartet, Alexander Gilman, and Lech Uzsynski.
Maestro Chen’s upcoming performances include conducting 7 symphony concerts and many violin performances in the 2013 CICA summer music festival in Dallas, Texas from July 15 to August 4th 2013, leading and conducting the Core Art Chamber Orchestra, directing the Taiwan International Music Festival 2014 in Taipei Taiwan, and directing the Taipei 2014 International Jazz Festival.