This weekend, The Cleveland Orchestra gave the world premiere of "Will-o'-the-Wisp: Tone Poem for Piccolo and Orchestra" by Gabriela Lena Frank. The soloist was Mary Kay Fink, Cleveland Orchestra solo piccolo player.
Also on the program, Mozart's Requiem and Christopher Rouse's Rapture.
Gabriela Lena Frank
Identity has always been at the center of Gabriela Lena Frank’s music. Born in Berkeley, California, to a mother of mixed Peruvian/Chinese ancestry and a father of Lithuanian/Jewish descent, Frank explores her multicultural heritage most ardently through her compositions. Inspired by the work of Bela Bartók, Alberto Ginastera, and Chou Wen Chung, Frank is something of a musical anthropologist. She has traveled extensively throughout South America and her pieces reflect and refract her studies of Latin-American folklore, incorporating poetry, mythology, and native musical styles into a western classical framework that is uniquely her own. In addition to frequently collaborating with Pulitzer playwright Nilo Cruz on vocal works, Gabriela has written for leading artists such as soprano Dawn Upshaw and cellist Yo Yo Ma, and pre-eminent chamber groups and symphonies. A recipient of both a Guggenheim Fellowship and the Latin Grammy for Best Classical Contemporary Composition in 2009, Gabriela was also awarded a prestigious USA Artist Fellowship in 2010. She is in high demand as a concert pianist, specializing in contemporary chamber music. Gabriela currently makes her home in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Mary Kay Fink
Mary Kay Fink joined The Cleveland Orchestra as piccoloist in 1990 and has appeared as a soloist with The Orchestra on numerous occasions. Prior to coming to Cleveland, Ms. Fink was a member of the New Jersey Symphony (1986-88), the Madison Symphony (principal flute 1988-89) and the New York Philharmonic (acting piccolo 1989-90). She has also performed with the San Francisco Symphony, the Minnesota Orchestra and the Seito-Kinen Festival Orchestra of Japan. In addition to soloing with The Cleveland Orchestra, Ms. Fink has performed as soloist with the Bismarck Symphony, Concert Artists of Baltimore, Madison Symphony, Milwaukee Symphony (as youth soloist), New Jersey Symphony, the New Mexico Symphony and the Ohio Chamber Orchestra. Ms. Fink was awarded first prize in the 1986 National Flute Association Young Artist Competition. She has performed in five National Flute Association conventions: St. Louis (1987), San Diego (1988), Orlando (1995), Washington, D.C. (2003) and in Albuequerque NM (2007), where she was the final performer in the NFA Gala Concerto Concert, performing Bruce Broughton's Piccolo Concerto. Born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, she attended UW-Madison where she studied with Robert Cole from 1979-81. In 1983 she graduated from the Oberlin College Conservatory of Music with a Bachelor of Music degree a student of Robert Willoughby. She earned a Master of Music degree from The Juilliard School of Music, where she studied with both Julius Baker and Paula Robison. She has also studied with avant-garde flutist/composer Robert Dick, with whom she recorded a duo titled Recombinant Landscapes for the disc Venturi Shadows (O.O. Discs, 1989). Ms. Fink is very active as a chamber musician. This season she will be performing for “Heights Arts” and in several venues with the Cleveland Chamber Collective, including a collaboration with Verb Ballet. She has been on the CIM faculty since 2006. She has also taught at the Baldwin-Wallace College Conservatory of Music and was assistant professor of flute at the University of Wisconsin-Madison (1988-89). She gives flute and piccolo master classes at colleges and universities throughout the United States.