Summer Festival Subscription Concert 2
Amy Taylor, Christian Colberg, Zuill Bailey, and Katerina Chatzinikolau
Saturday, June 7, 7 p.m.
Harrigan Centennial Hall
Program
Max Reger – Serenade for Flute, Violin, and Viola, Op. 141a
Ernő Dohnányi – Serenade in C for String Trio, Op. 10
Intermission
Ludwig van Beethoven – String Trio in G major, Op. 9, No. 1
Artists
Amy Taylor, flute
Evin Blomberg, violin
Christian Colberg, viola
Zuill Bailey, cello
Ilya Finkelshteyn, cello
About the Artists
Amy Taylor, Flute
Amy Taylor is a piccolo specialist who has held positions with several major United States orchestras including the Cincinnati, San Diego, Milwaukee, and the Honolulu Symphonies.
Amy will be the Acting 2nd flutist with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra during the ’23-24 season and will be guest piccolo with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra. Ms. Taylor was recently the winner of the 2nd flute position with the Chautauqua Symphony Orchestra.
Throughout her career she has played frequently with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, and joined the CSO on tours to Asia and Carnegie Hall. She has also performed with the Cleveland Orchestra, Minnesota, Atlanta, Baltimore and St. Louis Symphony Orchestras on both piccolo and flute, and was a member of the Civic Orchestra of Chicago.
Ms. Taylor is a frequent guest at a number of summer music festivals, including the Bellingham Festival of Music and the Sun Valley Music Festival. She has also performed with the Mainly Mozart Music Festival and the Sitka Summer Music Festival.
Other notable accomplishments of this Yamaha Artist include her performance in 2006 as a soloist with Yo-Yo Ma and the Silk Road Ensemble at Chicago’s Grant Park. She was also the first place winner of the National Flute Association’s Orchestral Excerpts Competition and the Oklahoma Young Artist Competition.
In addition to her active performing career, Ms. Taylor is a devoted teacher. In addition to her UNT position, she is teaches at the Interlochen Summer Arts Academy. She has also held teaching positions at Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music.
Originally from the Dallas, Texas area, she received her BM from the University of North Texas and her MM from Northwestern University. Her primary teachers include, Walfrid Kujala and Terri Sundberg.
Evin Blomberg, Violin
Praised for her “virtuoso technique” and “commanding musical presence”, violinist Evin Blomberg has performed on stages around the world. Recently, Evin received the Bronze Award at the 2022 Singapore International Music Competition, and was a Laureate at the 2021 International Chicago Violin Competition. She has also previously won prizes in competitions including 4th Prize at the International Irving M. Klein String Competition in 2016, 2nd Prize at the Schmidbauer International Competition in 2013, 1st Prize at the Korea Times Competition in the United States in 2007, and was also a competitor at the 8th International Fritz Kreisler Competition in Vienna, Austria.
At the age of 15, Evin Blomberg was accepted into the studio of Robert Lipsett at The Colburn School Conservatory of Music, where she received both a Bachelor of Music degree and Artist Diploma. Evin then went on to study at the Manhattan School of Music in New York as a student of Pinchas Zukerman, and received a Master of Music degree in the Pinchas Zukerman Performance Program. In addition to her music education, Evin has received certifications from The Wharton School Online (Leadership and Management Certificate Program) and The YWCA Rising Star Leadership Program (Board and Equity Leader Certification).
In 2021, Evin received a Next Up Alumni Recital Series Grant from The Colburn School to record, edit, and produce a digital recital in response to the Covid-19 pandemic. Available on YouTube, the recital (titled “Solo”) is an example of Evin’s passion for performance. The following year, Evin received a second Next Up Alumni Grant together with cellist Natalie Helm. Evin and Natalie formed the duo “DuoSkope” following their years together at The Colburn School, and the grant allowed for them to join forces again and present a recital on campus in Thayer Hall.
Prior to the pandemic, Evin has performed recitals throughout Southern California, New York, and Florida, and was featured in performances hosted by the American Fine Arts Festival in Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall, and solo performances around the Bay Area by the Steinway Society and Insight Chamber Players.
Evin has collaborated with many artists through several educational institutions, most notably The Colburn School and the Aspen Music Festival and School. As a part of the Colburn Chamber Music Society concert series, Evin has performed with artists such as Robert DeMaine, Jennifer Frautschi, Clive Greensmith, Viviane Hagner, Ronald Leonard, Robert Levin, John Perry, Elizabeth Schumann, and the Ebène Quartet. She has also been a dedicated member of several piano trios, and has intensively studied numerous works in the repertoire with chamber musicians and pedagogues such as Martin Beaver, James Dunham, Clive Greensmith, Wu Han, Ronald Leonard, Menahem Pressler, and Sylvia Rosenberg.
As concertmaster of The Colburn Orchestra, Evin had the opportunity to work with conductors such as Esa-Pekka Salonen, Gilbert Varga, and James Conlon, and even garnered a review in the Los Angeles Times for her work with James Conlon. Evin has taken part in several productions in the film and entertainment industry for the GRAMMY Foundation, ABC television network, and several music records. As a native of California, Evin attended pre-college at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, where she studied with Davis Law and Alexander Barantschik, Concertmaster of the San Francisco Symphony.
Evin has also shown great commitment as a teacher, and in 2013, Evin was a recipient of a Teaching Fellowship from The Colburn School. The Fellowship provided the opportunity to work with local music students, while studying teaching styles and the psychology of learning. Evin also pioneered an early music program with pre-school students in Northern California, and also started working on a summer extension of the program. While living in New York, Evin maintained a small private studio, and was an assistant faculty member at the 2016 Manhattan in the Mountains Summer Festival in Hunter, New York. Currently, Evin is a Mentor for the CSO/CCM Diversity Fellowship Program, and also teaches private lessons.
Evin currently lives in Northern Kentucky, and in addition to her position in the second violin section of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, Evin is the Founder & CEO of the Soli Music Society. Previously, Evin was based in London, England, where she performed in the violin sections of the London Philharmonic Orchestra and the Philharmonia Orchestra. While working in London, Evin went on several performance tours, including London Philharmonic tours to Taiwan, China, South Korea, France, Italy, Germany, Switzerland, and the United States, and also participated in the Glyndebourne Opera Festival and recording sessions at the legendary Abbey Road Studios.
Evin plays on a 1772 Joseph Gagliano violin.
Zuill Bailey, Cello
Zuill Bailey, widely considered one of the premiere cellists in the world, is a Grammy Award winning, internationally renowned soloist, recitalist, Artistic Director and teacher. His rare combination of celebrated artistry, technical wizardry and engaging personality has made him one of the most sought after and active cellists today.
Mr. Bailey has been featured with symphony orchestras and music festivals worldwide. He won the Best Solo Performance Grammy Award in 2017, for his recording of Michael Daugherty’s Tales of Hemingway, with the Nashville Symphony led by Giancarlo Guerrero. His extensive discography includes his newest release – the world premier recording of Ellen Taaffe Zwilich’s Cello Concerto with the Santa Rosa Symphony.
Mr. Bailey received his Bachelor’s Degree from the Peabody Conservatory where he was named the 2014 Johns Hopkins University Distinguished Alumni, and received a Master’s Degree from the Juilliard School. He performs on the “Rosette” 1693 Matteo Gofriller Cello formerly owned by Mischa Schneider of the Budapest String Quartet.
Ilya Finkelshteyn, Cello
Ilya Finkelshteyn, principal cellist of the Cincinnati Symphony, has performed extensively throughout the United States, Europe and Asia as soloist, recitalist, chamber musician and principal cellist of the Baltimore and Cincinnati Symphony Orchestras. Highly acclaimed for his performances, Finkelshteyn was recently praised in the Washington Post as a “complete master of his instrument.”
Finkelshteyn has been featured as soloist with numerous orchestras including the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, St. Louis Symphony Orchestra, Detroit Symphony Orchestra, Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra, Baltimore Chamber Orchestra, Saint Paul Civic Orchestra, the Peninsula Music Festival Orchestra, National Repertory Orchestra, Bardy Symphony Orchestra (England) and the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra. Finkelshteyn has claimed top prizes of the Concertino Praga, Russian Cello Competition, the WAMSO International Competition, the Aspen Music Festival Concerto Competition (where he was the recipient of a Fellowship) and the Chautauqua Concerto Competition. First prize winner of the Juilliard Concerto Competition, Finkelshteyn performed as soloist with the Juilliard Orchestra on tours to France and Bermuda.
An active chamber musician, Finkelshteyn has collaborated in chamber music with such artists as András Schiff, Hilary Hahn, David Soyer, Richard Goode, Joseph Silverstein, Steven Ansell, Harold Robinson, Vadim Repin, Isidore Cohen and Lydia Artymiw, and has been featured at the Aspen, Marlboro, Mostly Mozart, Innsbrook, Bay Chamber and Peninsula Music Festivals, the Linton Music Series and with the Jupiter Players in New York. Finkelshteyn has been featured on Wisconsin Public Radio, Maine Public Radio, KFUO-FM in St. Louis, WYPR in Baltimore, WGUC in Cincinnati and has recorded on the Sony Label.
While Finkelshteyn maintains a busy private teaching studio, he presents frequent public master classes at major conservatories of music across North America including the Manhattan School of Music, Peabody Conservatory, Indiana University, University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music (CCM) and at the University of California Chico. He has also been on the faculties of the Jonannesen International School of the Arts, Victoria, Canada, NOI and Orchestra Academy at Indiana University. In January 2012 Finkelshteyn was appointed to the faculty of CCM where he teaches applied cello lessons and will design and teach a new orchestral repertoire audition course for cello beginning Fall Semester 2012.
Finkelshteyn was born in Leningrad of the former USSR and began his musical training in St. Petersburg Conservatory Special Music School under the tutelage of Sergei Chernyadiev. Once he immigrated to the United States, he continued studies with Tanya Remenikova at the University of Minnesota the year before attending the Juilliard School for both undergraduate and graduate studies as a full scholarship student of Harvey Shapiro. Chamber music coaches include Felix Galimir, Samuel Sanders and members of the Juilliard String Quartet. Finkelshteyn won his first orchestra job with the St. Louis Symphony prior to his graduation where he performed for five seasons under the late Hans Vonk. From 2002-2009 he performed as principal cellist of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Yuri Temirkanov, departing in 2009 to become principal cellist of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra where he holds the Irene & John J. Emery Chair.
Finkelshteyn's performs on a cello by Giovanni Crancino, c.1700. In his spare time he enjoys golf, reading, museums, billiards and table tennis.
Christian Colberg, Viola
Violist, violinist, and composer Christian Colberg, began his musical studies at the age of four in his home country of Puerto Rico. At sixteen, he continued his studies at the Peabody Conservatory of Music, in Baltimore Maryland. Mr. Colberg is currently the Principal Viola of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra. Prior to joining the CSO, he was Assistant Principal Viola with the Baltimore Symphony. Other positions currently include serving as Principal Viola of the Bellingham Festival of Music and Aspen Music Festival Chamber Orchestra. In addition he is Artist-faculty at the Aspen School and has also held teaching positions at both the Peabody Conservatory of Music, and the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music.
His main teachers include, Alexander Schneider, Saul Ovcharov, Charles Libov and Shirley Givens. Recipient of numerous awards, including the Alpha Delta Kappa Foundation Fine Arts grant, Colberg has also been recognized by the House of Representatives and the Senate of Puerto Rico for his achievements in the field of classical music.
As an active chamber musician, Mr. Colberg has collaborated with such artists as, Gary Karr, Milton Katims, Augustin Hadelich, Leon Fleisher, Samuel Sanders, Joseph Silverstein, Jaime Laredo, Sharon Robinson, and Marvin Hamlisch. Chamber music collaborations include, the Muir, Cypress and Ariel String Quartets and with the Silk Road Festival in China.
Mr. Colberg performed his Viola Concerto with the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra in October, 2018 (Read review in Cincinnati Business Courier.) He has performed it with numerous orchestras, including the Puerto Rico Conservatory Orchestra and Música de Cámara in New York City. The second movement of his concerto, "Aldonza", was used as the competition piece for the 2014 Primrose International Viola Competition. In June, 2018, The Rant - For Two Violas, was also premiered at the International Viola Congress in Los Angeles. In 2024, the third movement "Sancho" of his Viola Concerto was used as the mandatory piece for the Sphinx Competition.
About the Sitka Music Festival
The Sitka Music Festival (SMF) inspires audiences, sparks creativity, and strengthens community across Alaska through live chamber music performances, music education, and training by artists of the highest caliber.
For over 50 years, SMF has presented classical music at the highest artistic standards. Throughout its history, SMF musicians have shared their music with Alaskans who would otherwise not have access to live chamber music of the highest caliber and, in turn, Alaskans have shared their music, traditions, and ways of life with the visiting musicians. These shared experiences have taken SMF musicians to more than 40 Alaskan communities, many of which are small, remote villages off the road system. As a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, SMF remains dedicated to bringing exceptional music experiences to communities statewide.