Department of Music

In accordance with UVA's latest UVA COVID-19 policy this event is cancelled. 
Ticket holders to cancelled events will be contacted by e-mail.  
If you have questions, please contact the UVA Music Department at 434.924.3052 or e-mail music@virginia.edu.

The McIntire Department of Music is pleased to present the 2019-2020 University of Virginia Chamber Music Series. This annual series, which presents innovative performances by the University of Virginia's world-class performance faculty and celebrated guest artists, is comprised of six professional performances for the University and the central Virginia community. These intimate concerts are programmed to offer both new and traditional works that will delight audiences of all musical tastes.

The series continues on March 29 at 3:30 pm in Old Cabell Hall, with the McIntire Department of Music’s world-class performance faculty presenting a panoply of chamber works. From newly composed works to well-loved classics by Mozart and Brahms, this concert contains something for everyone.

Featuring Ayn Balija, viola; Adam Carter, cello; I-Jen Fang, percussion; Nathaniel Lee, trombone; John Mayhood, piano; David Sariti, violin; Kelly Sulick, flute; and Arthur Zanin, trumpet.

Program

G.P. Telemann - Canonic Sonata No. 5

            Nathaniel Lee, trombone; Arthur Zanin, trumpet

W.A. Mozart - Le Nozza De Figaro From Operatic Duets

            Nathaniel Lee, trombone; Arthur Zanin, trumpet

Ingrid Stölzel - The Voice of the Rain

         Kelly Sulick, flute; Adam Carter, cello; I-Jen Fang, percussion

Katherine Hoover – Two Preludes

         Kelly Sulick, flute; I-Jen Fang, percussion

Johannes Brahms - Piano Quartet No. 1 in G minor, op. 25 (40’)

            David Sariti, violin; Ayn Balija, viola; Adam Carter, cello; John Mayhood, piano

Biographies

Ayn Balija

Violist Ayn Balija leads a musically rich life performing and teaching throughout the country.

She is currently the Associate Professor of Viola at the University of Virginia, Principal Violist of the Charlottesville Symphony at the University of Virginia, and violist of the Rivanna String Quartet. She has also been on faculty at James Madison University and Lorain County Community College. She presents masterclasses throughout the south-central region of the country. During the summer she is on faculty at the Tennessee Governor’s School for the Arts.

As an orchestral musician, Ms. Balija has performed in such venues as Heinz Hall and Carnegie Hall with the Pittsburgh Symphony as well as performs with the Richmond Symphony, Williamsburg Symphonia, Charlottesville Opera, Victory Hall Opera, and the Roanoke Symphony. For twelve years she was also a tenured member of ProMusica Chamber Orchestra of Columbus helping to promote new music for chamber orchestra through commissions and recordings of new works under the Summit label. Ms. Balija has performed additional chamber works at Yachats Summer Music Festival (OR), North Carolina Chamber Music Festival (NC), and the Staunton Music Festival (VA).

As a soloist, Ms. Balija has performed recitals in New Zealand, Oregon, North Carolina, Tennessee, West Virginia, and Virginia focusing on promoting the versatility of the viola. She has also been invited to solo with the Tennessee Governor’s School for the Arts Orchestra and the Charlottesville Symphony.

A devoted pedagogue, Ms. Balija strives to promote a diverse learning experience. In 2014, Ms. Balija created Violapalooza, an annual, all-viola day, featuring viola ensembles, workshops, guest viola artists teaching and preforming for the education and enjoyment of violists of all ages.  Guests have included top violists Kim Kashkashian, Roger Tapping, Paul Neubauer, and George Taylor. In addition to maintaining a private studio, she teaches in the Charlottesville City and Albemarle County school districts through the Boyd Tinsley Foundation and the Symphony’s Preludes program coaching and mentoring young musicians.

Ms. Balija has also presented at the American String Teachers Association and been published on the American Viola Society’s Teacher’s Toolbox page. In 2017 she presented a lecture at the 44th International Viola Congress in Wellington, NZ.

Ayn Balija holds a Bachelor of Music from the Oberlin Conservatory of Music, Masters of Music from The Cleveland Institute of Music and Doctorate of Musical Arts from James Madison University. Her principal mentors have been Peter Slowik, Jeffrey Irvine, and Karen Tuttle.

When not performing, Ms. Balija enjoys spending time in nature and baking for all her colleagues in the orchestr

Adam Carter

Cellist Adam Carter maintains an active career as a recitalist, chamber and orchestral musician, and teacher.  Recent engagements include recitals and chamber music performances at UNC-Chapel Hill, Wake Forest University, the University of Virginia, Randolph College, Bridgewater College and Hampden-Sydney College.

Dr. Carter is currently the principal cellist of the Charlottesville Symphony and has performed with the Richmond Symphony, Madison Symphony, Winston-Salem Symphony, Erie Philharmonic and Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra.

A top prizewinner at the 1998 Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition, Dr. Carter continues to enjoy a rich and diverse career playing chamber music.  He currently performs with the Rivanna String Quartet, Artemis Duo and the Virginia Sinfonietta.  A founding member of the Tarab Cello Ensemble, Dr. Carter traveled the country playing new works for cello octet. The ensemble’s accolades include grants from the Howard Hanson Institute for American Music for its accomplishments in the performance and creation of contemporary American music, the Foreman Institute for the Creative and Performing Arts and the Fromm Foundation. The Ensemble has recorded on Bridge Records and Albany Records.

As a teacher, Dr. Carter is on the faculty at the University of Virginia as Lecturer in Cello.  Prior to his appointment at U.Va, he was adjunct professor of cello and bass at Ripon College in Wisconsin.  Dr. Carter grew up in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, and attended high school at the North Carolina School of the Arts. He received his Bachelors degree and Masters degree with distinction from the Eastman School of Music, and completed his Doctoral degree at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. His principal teachers include Steven Doane, Rosemary Elliot, Robert Marsh and Uri Vardi. 

I-Jen Fang

Described as an “intrepid percussionist” by Fanfare Magazine,I-Jen Fang has a career as a solo performer, chamber musician, orchestral player, and teacher.  She joined the faculty of the McIntire Department of Music at the University of Virginia in 2005 and as Principal Timpanist and Percussionist of the Charlottesville Symphony.

As a soloist, I-Jen has performed as a marimba soloist in Taiwan, U.S., Austria, France, Hungary, Romania, and South Africa.  She was also the featured marimba soloist with the Charlottesville Symphony in 2006 and 2010. As a chamber musician, I-Jen has performed or recorded with artists such as Keiko Abe, William Cahn, Christopher Deane, Mark Ford, Heini Kärkkäinen, Mike Mainieri, Jan Müller-Szeraws, Diane Pascal, Carsten Schmidt, Ed Smith, Michael Spiro, NanikWenton, Nyoman Wenton, Attacca Percussion Group, and DaCapo Chamber Players.  She has appeared in Heritage Theater Festival, Staunton Music Festival, University of Virginia Chamber Music Series, Percussive Arts Society International Convention and Regional PAS Day of Percussion.  

An advocate of New Music, I-Jen is currently the director of the UVA New Music Ensemble.  The ensemble has recently collaborated with composer/improviser George Lewis, and performed for composers such as Phillip Glass and Christian Wolff.  She has also commissioned and/or premiered works by Matthew Burtner, Ted Coffey, Kevin Davis, Christopher Deane, Erik DeLuca, Aurie Hsu, Sarah O’Halloran, Chris Peck, Judith Shatin, Brian Simalchik, Ed Smith, and D.J. Sparr.  

Born in Taipei, Taiwan, I-Jen began her musical education at age six taking piano. Taking up percussion at the age of nine, she came to the United States at age fifteen to pursue her Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in Percussion Performance at Carnegie Mellon University.  She received her Master of Music degree from Northwestern University and her Doctor of Musical Arts degree from the University of North Texas where she served as a teaching fellow.

I-Jen is an Innovative Percussion artist.

Nathaniel Lee

Nathaniel Lee is the Lecturer of Trombone at the University of Virginia and serves as Principal Trombone of the Charlottesville Symphony at the University of Virginia.  He also maintains an active freelance career having played with the Richmond Symphony, Staunton Music Festival, Castleton Music Festival, Charlottesville Opera, the Oratorio Society of Virginia and the Virginia Sinfonietta.

As a founding member of the American Trombone Quartet, Nathaniel has performed at multiple universities and international festivals; most recently at the 2018 International Trombone Festival and the Lille Trombone Festival in France in 2019. He appeared as a soloist at the Virginia Music Educators Association conference in 2017, and has performed recitals at colleges and universities across the country. In both 2018 and 2019, Nathaniel was invited to adjudicate the International Trombone Association Trombone Quartet Competition.

Before his appointment at the University of Virginia, Nathaniel was pursuing a Doctor of Musical Arts degree in Trombone Performance and Brass Pedagogy at the University of Iowa where he was awarded the 2013 Downbeat Magazine Award for Outstanding Graduate Soloist. During his studies at the New England Conservatory, he was selected by the late Lorin Maazel to perform in the Castleton Music Festival. As part of the Castleton Orchestra, he also performed in the Royal Opera House in Muscat, Oman, and in the Virginia and Washington, D.C. areas.

Nathaniel Lee earned his Master of Music degree in Trombone Performance from New England Conservatory and a Bachelor of Music Performance degree from Virginia Commonwealth University. He studied under Dr. Ross Walter (VCU), Toby Oft and Steve Lange (NEC), and Dr. David Gier (Iowa). Nathaniel is an Edwards artist and performs on Edwards trombones.

https://www.facebook.com/people/American-Trombone-Quartet/100063546429299/
https://www.edwards-instruments.com/artists/nathaniel-lee/

John Mayhood

John Mayhood enjoys a busy performance schedule that in recent seasons has taken him across the North America and Europe in a wide variety of solo and collaborative settings and in repertoire that spans from the English virginalists to music of the present day.  His concerts often explore the works of a single composer, combining solo piano and chamber music – he has dedicated complete evenings to the works of Poulenc, Hindemith, Feldman, and Schubert, and to new works by emerging composers.  He has recently given world premieres of works by Matthew Burtner, Daniel Kessner, and James Sochinski, and the US premiere of Bruce Mather’s Doisy Daëne III.  His performances are often featured on NPR, CBC, and SRC radio, and his recordings can be heard on Ravello Records and the EcoSono label.

Also a scholar, he has presented work on ‘transformational theory’ and ‘theory and performance’ at the University of Chicago and at the annual meeting of the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Musiktheorie.  His main interest is the philosophy of music, particularly meaning in abstract music and the philosophy of performance.

John holds the Master of Music degree from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where he studied with Ian Hobson; his other major teachers are Caio Pagano and Jean-Paul Sévilla.  He has taught piano at the University of Illinois and philosophy at Brown University and the Rhode Island School of Design.  He currently resides in Charlottesville, Virginia, where he is head of the piano faculty at the University of Virginia.

David Sariti

Violinist David Sariti enjoys a multifaceted career, with performance and research interests that span four centuries.  Known for bringing fresh interpretive insight to works both familiar and unfamiliar, he has recently appeared as recitalist at universities across the country, as soloist with orchestra, and in diverse chamber collaborations.  A recent all-Mendelssohn piano trio program was hailed as “Chamber music at a high professional level, reflecting credit on the schools that choose to have their students taught by musicians who not only have academic credentials but are also first-class performing artists.” (Classical Voice of North Carolina).  An ardent proponent of new music, he has performed works by composers throughout the Southeast including UVA Professor Emeritus Judith Shatin.

Equally at home with earlier repertoires on the Baroque violin, Sariti has appeared with many notable chamber ensembles and orchestras, including the Washington Bach Consort, The Vivaldi Project, and others.  He is a member of “Mr. Jefferson’s Musicians”, which was founded along with members of the Baltimore Consort to perform music from the collection of Thomas Jefferson in a scholarly and musically engaging way.  The group was recently featured on the Gotham Early Music series in New York.  He has given numerous solo presentations on Jefferson’s music, and is featured on the CD “Music from the Jefferson Collection”.  An improviser of music both old and new, he also plays jazz with Greg Howard, John D’earth, and others.

Faculty at UVa since 2005, he is Director of the period-instrument Baroque Orchestra, performs in the Rivanna Quartet, and is Principal Violin II of the Charlottesville Symphony, having previously performed in over a dozen professional symphonies. His studio teaching emphasizes the development of a relaxed, efficient technique and comprehensive musicianship skills that enable students to make informed interpretive choices.  In 2016-17 he was chosen as part of the first cohort of College of Arts and Sciences Arts Fellows.  He has also taught violin and music history at the Hartt School, University of Hartford, and recently completed a term as Performance Chair of the College Music Society Mid-Atlantic Chapter.  His articles on topics ranging from performance practice to string pedagogy have been featured in Early Music America, American String Teacher, and American Music Teacher. He holds degrees from the Hartt School, the University of Akron, and Ithaca College; studies were with Pamela Gearhart, Katie Lansdale, Pamela Frank and members of the Cleveland and Miami quartets and the Meadowmount Trio.

Kelly Sulick

Kelly Sulick currently teaches at the University of Virginia and serves as Principal Flute in the Charlottesville Symphony. Prior to her appointment, she served as Principal Flute with the Evansville Philharmonic Orchestra and as Consortium Instructor of Flute at the University of Evansville for three years. She earned her Master of Music degree in Flute Performance from the University of Southern California; prior to her graduate studies, she earned a Bachelor of Music degree in Flute Performance and a Bachelor of Arts degree in English Language and Literature from the University of Michigan, where she graduated with highest honors and was named a James B. Angell Scholar for her academic achievements. 

An active orchestral musician, Ms. Sulick has performed with the Richmond Symphony Orchestra, the Ash Lawn Opera Orchestra, the Owensboro Symphony Orchestra, Orchestra Kentucky, and the Livingston (MI) Symphony. She completed three seasons as principal flute with the Young Musicians Foundation Debut Orchestra in Los Angeles, California. Hailed as “flawless” by the Evansville Courier Press for a concerto performance with the Evansville Philharmonic Orchestra, Sulick has also appeared as a concerto soloist with ensembles throughout the country, including the Southern Illinois Music Festival Orchestra, the Charlottesville Symphony, and most recently the Ann Arbor Symphony Orchestra and alongside Sir James Galway at the Kennedy Center. Equally at home on the concert and popular stages, Ms. Sulick has performed and recorded with several rock bands, including The New Fidelity, a Mod-Power Pop outfit from southern California; Superdot, a world music group based in Detroit; Homesick Elephant, a folk duo from Los Angeles; and Michigan singer-songwriter Timothy Monger. 

A champion of new music, she has commissioned and recorded dozens of works for solo flute and flute with electronics, and has premiered several additional works for solo flute and chamber ensemble. She has performed at the SEAMUS National Conference, the Atlas INTERSECTIONS festival, the TomTom Founders Festival, the Technosonics Festival, and the Minimalist Jukebox series, a music festival curated by John Adams. She has worked with such notable composers as Leslie Bassett, William Bolcom, Matthew Burtner, Evan Chambers, Michael Daugherty, Karel Husa, Daniel Kessner, Lowell Liebermann, Judith Shatin, and Frank Ticheli, among others.

An avid chamber musician, she is the co-founder of .thrum, a new music collective, and is a member of the EcoSono Ensemble, an eco-acoustic cohort that explores connections between music, technology, and environmental activism. She also performs regularly as a member of the Albemarle Ensemble, the University of Virginia faculty woodwind quintet, and serves as Director of the University of Virginia Chamber Music Series.

Ms. Sulick maintains a national profile as a performer and educator, having performed and presented at six National Flute Association Conventions, the International Double Reed Society Conference, the Richmond Flute Fest, and at multiple Mid-Atlantic Flute Conventions. She has given masterclasses throughout the country; most recent engagements include the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, Penn State University Flute Day, Virginia Tech, Western Kentucky University, CalArts, and San Diego State University. She served as Guest Artist for the 2012 Hampton Roads Flute Faire. Active within the flute community, she currently serves as Vice President of the Flute Society of Washington and as Chair of the Flute Club Committee of the National Flute Association, and was the Volunteer Coordinator for the 2015 National Flute Association Convention in Washington, D.C. She also founded the University of Virginia Flute Forum,  a free annual flute festival featuring guest artists, masterclasses, and recitals accessible to all members of the community.

Ms. Sulick won second place in the 2010 National Flute Association's Young Artist Competition, and was awarded the prize for the best performance of Kristin P. Kuster's "Perpetual Afternoon." She can be heard on several compact discs, including William Bolcom's “Songs of Innocence and of Experience” under Leonard Slatkin, a Naxos release that received four Grammy awards including Best Classical Album. 

Her principal teachers include Marina Piccinini, Amy Porter, and Jim Walker.

Arthur Zanin

Arthur Zanin has performed in orchestral and chamber music settings in South America, the United States, and Europe.  Dr. Zanin worked as a freelancer in New York City performing in a variety of recitals, shows, and recordings appearing in prestigious concert venues such as the Lincoln Center, Carnegie Hall and the Kauffman Center. He won the Georgia Haigh, In Memory of Joseph F. Haigh Chair with the Southwest Florida Symphony and also performed as a guest with a number of orchestras, including the Honolulu Symphony, Sarasota Orchestra, Charlottesville Opera and the Naples Philharmonic.

As an educator, Dr. Zanin held a Teaching Assistant position at Rutgers University and taught master classes to brass programs in colleges and high schools around the country. Dr. Zanin led youth orchestras as a conductor in Brazil and Spain and currently appears as a board member and Trumpet Instructor at the Music Foundation of Greater Naples, in Naples, Florida.

Arthur Zanin earned his Master of Music degree from the Lamont School of Music at the University of Denver. He also attended the Manhattan School of Music where he earned a Performance Studies Certificate and earned his Doctor of Musical Arts from Rutgers University. Dr. Zanin has also participated in numerous summer music programs in the U.S., such as the Aspen Music Festival and School and Music Academy of the West. His most influential instructors include Alan Hood, Raymond Mase, Vince Penzerella, Tom Smith, Kenny DeCarlo, and Barbara Butler.

Visit www.arthurzanin.com for more information.

Individual Tickets: $15 General / $13 for UVA Faculty and Staff / $5 Students / Free for UVA Students who reserve in advance / Free for students under 18. Tickets and subscriptions can be purchased at the UVA Arts Box Office website or by calling 434-924-3376.  To see all events in the UVA Chamber Music Series, please visit http://music.virginia.edu/uvacms

Old Cabell Hall is located on the south end of UVA's historic lawn, directly opposite the Rotunda. Parking is available in the central grounds parking garage on Emmet Street, in the C1 parking lot off McCormick Rd, and in the parking lots at the UVA Corner.  Handicap parking is available in the small parking lot adjacent to Bryan Hall.

To see all events in the UVA Chamber Music Series, please visit http://music.virginia.edu/uvacms

All programs are subject to change.