To celebrate Johann Sebastian Bach's upcoming 331st birthday, WCLV presented an hour of live music on this episode of First Fridays. This was in conjunction with Arts Renaissance Tremont's upcoming program, "Bach Birthday Celebration" on Sunday, March 20 at 3:00 p.m. at Pilgrim Congregational Church, 2592 West 14th Street in Tremont. Angela Mitchell hosted.
Azure Kline, cello
Bach: Suite No. 4 in E-flat Major, BWV 1010 (1720)
Prelude
Allemande
Sarabande
Gigue
Tobias James, guitar
Bach: Violin Partita No. 3, BWV 1006
Prelude
Bach: Suite in G minor, BWV 995, arranged for guitar (G minor Lute suite – arr. of C minor cello suite no. 5, BWV 1011)
Gavottes I and II (en rondeau)
Isabelle Durrenberger and, Kiarra Saito-Beckman, violins, and HyunSoo Kim, piano
Bach: Concerto for 2 Violins in D minor, BWV 1043
Azure Kline is a fourth year undergraduate student at the Cleveland Institute of Music where she studies cello performance with Dr. Melissa Kraut. Like most classically trained string players, Azure loves playing chamber music. While at CIM she has been honored to participate in the Intensive Quartet Seminar (IQS) under the guidance of Peter Salaff and the Cavani String Quartet, and the Advanced Piano Trio program (APTP), directed by Sharon Robinson. Originally from Smithfield, Utah, Azure loves hiking in the mountains and spending time with family and friends. Azure previously studied with Anne Francis (Fry Street String Quartet) and Karen Hendricks, and she has participated in masterclasses with Paul Katz and Elliot Cheney. She enjoys sharing her music through regular performances in the Greater Cleveland community. She also shares her time and knowledge teaching children in the string program at Dyke Montessori School of the Arts; part of the Cleveland Metropolitan School District. Thanks to the guidance and inspiration of Dr. Kraut, Azure aspires to have a professional career in which she can share the joy of music with others both as a performer and as a teacher.
Tobias James, originally from the Chicago area, began his classical guitar study at age 6. He has attended master classes presented by Lukasz Kuropaczewski, Anton Barinov, Oscar Ghiglia, Denis Azabagic and Sharon Isbin, and has been inspired by many others. Toby has enjoyed the many Suzuki institutes and guitar workshops he has attended over the years. He has placed highly in the Guitar Foundation of America competition (senior youth division). In 2011, he placed first in the youth category of the Louisville Guitar Competition and was a finalist in the 2014 All-Ohio Stroud Guitar Competition. He has also competed successfully in the collegiate level of competitions such as the Louisville Guitar Competition and The East Carolina Guitar Competition.
Tobias is in the Bachelor’s degree program at the Cleveland Institute of Music where he is a student of Grammy Award winning classical guitarist Jason Vieaux. He is also working on a Fulbright scholarship to study Flamenco at the Cristina Heeren Fundacion de Flamenco. Some non-musical interests include reading, running, math and studying foreign languages.
Kiarra Saito-Beckman, 17, is a violinist from Bend, Oregon. She is a freshman at the Cleveland Institute of Music (CIM), studying with world-renowned artist/pedagogue, Jaime Laredo (Kalichstein-Laredo-Robinson Trio) and Jan Mark Sloman (former associate concertmaster of the Dallas Symphony Orchestra). Kiarra has performed classical violin in cities across the country, including Atlanta, Charleston (South Carolina), Chicago, Cleveland, Coeur D’Alene (Idaho), Las Vegas, Portland (Oregon) and Washington, D. C., where she appeared on the National Public Radio program, From the Top, showcasing talented young musicians. Her awards include a From the Top Jack Kent Cooke Young Artist Award, the Sunriver Music Festival Young Artist Scholarship and a full scholarship to the well-known festival for young string players in Westport, New York, known as the Meadowmount School of Music. Kiarra is passionate about performing, both as soloist and in ensembles. She hopes to spend her career enriching the lives of others through performance.
Isabelle Durrenberger, 17, began studying violin at the age of 7. In the summer of 2012, she attended the Kent/Blossom Music Festival and was instructed by musicians from Kent State University and The Cleveland Orchestra. Fall 2012, she began violin studies with Mr. Jaime Laredo and Ms. Joan Kwuon in the preparatory division of the Cleveland Institute of Music (CIM). Solo, chamber and orchestral repertoire are all of great interest to Isabelle. She served as associate concertmaster in the Columbus Symphony Youth Orchestra, studies chamber music at the Cleveland Institute of Music and Chamber Music Connection (Columbus, Ohio), and has performed as soloist with the New Albany Symphony, Naples Orchestra and Chorus, Suburban Symphony Orchestra, CIM Orchestra and the Columbus Symphony. Isabelle was a featured soloist and chamber musician on the National Public Radio program, From the Top, in January of 2014. She has participated in masterclasses with such artists as Jan Mark Sloman, David Finckel, Joseph Silverstein, Anne Epperson and Peter Salaff, and the Cypress, Pacifica, Escher, Calidore, St. Lawrence, Jupiter and Cavani String Quartets. Her summers are spent studying with Jan Mark Sloman at the Meadowmount School of Music. Fall 2015 Isabelle entered the freshman class at the Cleveland Institute of Music.
HyunSoo Kim, piano, is originally from South Korea and began to play piano at the age of eight. He received a Bachelor of Music degree in piano performance from the University of Delaware, where he was a recipient of the John D. Martini Award. He has performed as soloist with the University of Delaware Symphony Orchestra, the Newark Symphony Orchestra and numerous community orchestras in the Delaware region. He was recognized as a Delaware Representative in the Young Artist Category by the Music Teachers National Association (MTNA) in 2008.
HyunSoo Kim completed his Master’s Degree in Collaborative Piano at the Cleveland Institute of Music in 2011, where he received the Rosa Lobe Collaborative Piano Award. HyunSoo recently completed his Artist Diploma with Anita Pontremoli at the Cleveland Institute of Music. He has been a staff pianist at the Kent State University Hugh A. Glauser School of Music since 2011. Summer 2013 he served as a collaborative pianist at the Interlochen Arts Academy. He spent the summer of 2014 in Siena, Italy, teaching, coaching and performing. Mr. Kim joined the CIM collaborative piano staff in 2013.