mark clinton, piano

Mark Clinton has worked extensively with some of the world's foremost pianists, among them Leon Fleisher, John Perry, Carlo Zecchi, and Tatiana Nikolayeva. This critically acclaimed pianist has garnered prizes at such prestigious international competitions as the 1987 William Kapell International Piano Competition and the 1991 Joanna Hodges Piano Competition. He has been featured frequently on national radio and television broadcasts and has also appeared throughout the United States as a soloist with numerous orchestras, including the National Symphony, the Baltimore Symphony, and the United States Air Force Symphony.

Clinton’s current concert activities reflect his commitment to a wide range of performing experiences.  Highlights of his recent calendar include enthusiastically received recitals at the American Cathedral in Paris, Seattle’s Benaroya Hall, and the historic rotunda of Steinway Hall in New York City.  Other noteworthy performances have included an appearance as guest soloist in Beethoven’s “Emperor” Piano Concerto with the Lincoln Symphony Orchestra, an international tour with the Montecristo Ensemble (together with violinist Mihai Craioveanu, violist Lisa Nelson, and cellist Nina Gordon), a performance of Dvorak’s Piano Quintet in A major with the Chiara Quartet, and numerous performances at the 2014 Illinois Chamber Music Festival. 

Mark Clinton has shared his musical insights with gifted students from around the world while serving on the faculties of Salisbury University, the Aspen Institute, Missouri Southern State University, the Ameropa Chamber Music Festival in Prague, Czech Republic, and the International Chamber Music Festival in Kyustendil, Bulgaria.  He also frequently serves as an adjudicator for important national and international competitions.  Clinton is currently Hixson-Lied Professor of Piano and Head of the Keyboard Area at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.  Mark Clinton is a Steinway artist.

irina kats, piano

Pianist Irina Kats enjoys a career as a teacher, soloist, chamber musician and accompanist. According to The Washington Post, she is a "splendidly able accompanist" with "considerable emotional powers." Ms. Kats' career began in her native Russia, where she graduated with honors, studying with the great pianist and teacher Vasily Pavlov, from the Astrakhan Conservatory and the Kazan Post-Graduate Music School.
 
During her time in Russia, Ms. Kats was an active piano performer with a broad repertoire that included classical, romantic and contemporary masterpieces of Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Chopin, Liszt Moussorgsky, Rachmaninov and Prokofiev. In addition, she has been a frequent performer on television and radio broadcasts.
 
In 1996, Ms. Kats came to the United States where she taught privately before taking a position at Levine Music in Washington, DC in 1998. Since joining Levine's piano faculty, she has resumed her performance career as a chamber musician and accompanist, performing throughout the Northeast region of the United States. She has collablorated with such musicians as Slovakian sopranos Eva Blagove and Sisa Sclovsk, chellist John Gevorkian, horn soloist Eric Rusk and baritone Jerome Barry in such venues as the Austrian Slovakian Embassies, The Lyceum in Alexandria, VA and the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. ms. Kats also collaborated with violinist Mihai Craioveanu at the Romanian Embassy in Washington, DC, Holland,

franklin larey, piano

Franklin Larey is the Director of the School of Music at Illinois Wesleyan University. Hailed as a leading South African pianist of his generation, he is acclaimed for his performances of works by Brahms, Mozart, Scriabin and Ravel.

Before becoming Director and Professor of the School of Music at Illinois Wesleyan, Larey previously served as Director of the South African College of Music at the University of Cape Town, and as Professor of Piano there until 2019.

Additionally, he has also served as Acting-Director of both the School of Dance and the Opera School, at the same university. During the summer months, he serves as Director of the Adamant Music School in Vermont.

He appears as recitalist, soloist and accompanist, and has worked with the conductors Isaiah Jackson, Gabriel Chmura, Bernard Gueller, Victor Yampolsky, Teri Murai and Lesley Dunner, among others. Of his appearance with the San Jose Symphony, the San Jose Mercury News wrote, "When Franklin Larey turned to soft poetry, time stood still, and the audience held its breath for an eternity. His slow movement was sheer ecstasy - clear, measured, lyrical."

Larey, who studied with Bruce Gardiner, Laura Searle, Frank Weinstock, and Richard Fields, has received several honors for his work as a concert pianist and for his contribution to music in South Africa, including the Distinguished Alumnus Award from the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music in 2003. He has been the subject of several articles, publications, and broadcasts.  In South Africa, he has served on the National Arts Council, a documentary of his career was aired on national television and he was featured in the Human Sciences Research Council’s series Living Treasures in 2003. He is featured in the Oral History Project of the Association for Diplomatic Studies, first published online by the American Library of Congress, and, in 2014, by SUNY Press as the book Outsmarting Apartheid.

He has won several awards, including first prize at the 1991 Young Chang International Piano Competition, and third prize at the 1996 New Orleans International Piano Competition. In 2003, he was awarded a prestigious Fulbright Researcher Award and spent six months in residence at the University of Cincinnati. He regularly performs in the USA, and has performed at the Kennedy Center in Washington DC, and at Carnegie Hall in New York City.

His critically acclaimed recordings include works by Brahms, Scarlatti, Mozart, Beethoven and Chopin. Most recently he released recordings of Mozart’s Piano Quartets, and the second book of Claude Debussy’s Préludes with Gabriel Fauré’s Sixth Nocturne.

As a scholar, Larey’s main research is in the area of Brahms studies, and specifically in the theoretical principles of developing variation and motivic unity which underpin Brahms’s compositional style.

vanessa fadial, piano

Born in Charlotte, North Carolina, pianist Vanessa Fadial began piano lessons at the age of four. As a young pianist, she won several competitions and at 11, performed on WDAV, the local classical radio station. She went on to high school at the North Carolina School of the Arts. As a student, she won fellowships to attend the Tibor Varga Festival in Sion, Switzerland, Banff Centre for the Arts in Canada, and Music Academy of the West in Santa Barbara. She was a teaching assistant for four years at Stony Brook University and a member of the Graduate Trio.

In addition to a DMA in solo piano performance from Stony Brook University, she also has a Master degree in solo performance, a Master degree in Collaborative Piano from the Cleveland Institute of Music, and a Bachelor degree in solo performance (’92) from Oberlin Conservatory. Her primary instructors included Robert McDonald, Robert Shannon, Anne Epperson, and Christina Dahl, as well as studies and master classes with Gilbert Kalish, Jerome Lowenthal, Claude Frank, and Menahem Pressler.

Dr. Fadial has a vital interest in performing music by living composers and as a member of the Yarbo/Fadial Duo, with violinist, Anyango Yarbo-Davenport, they are working on recording their debut CD, to be released in 2017. This will include premieres of works by Dan Visconti, and Grammy Award winner, Robert Livingston Aldridge. The Yarbo-Davenport Duo recently performed at the South Pasadena Library in California and in New York City.

While living in New York City, she was on the roster of the Golden Key Salon Series at Klavierhaus, was a member of the New York–based chamber group the Circadia Ensemble, and performed with her trio on the Trinity Concerts at One series at Trinity Church, Wall Street. Also a member of the Lilac Piano Quartet, formed with members of the Rochester Philharmonic, she performed on WXXI’s, backstage pass radio program and at the George Eastman House.

Her students have won numerous competitions over the years, including MTNA Baldwin Junior, SYMF Chopin Competition, and Piano Competition of the Music of Nicholas Flagello, four years in a row. Also at the Third Street Music School Settlement Concerto Competition in New York City, 4 years in a row, and the International Young Artists Competition in Washington DC.

Dr. Fadial is a highly regarded teacher, chamber music coach and adjudicator. She is a member of the Music Teacher’s Association of California and teaches on the faculty of the Colburn Community School of Performing Arts.

r. kent cook, piano

Dr. R. Kent Cook is Professor of Piano and Head of the Keyboard Department at Illinois Wesleyan University in Bloomington, Illinois.  He keeps an active schedule as soloist and chamber musician, having performed in venues throughout the United States and abroad.  Regionally, he has appeared in Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio, and Wisconsin, while in Europe, he has performed in Austria, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, England, France, Germany and Italy.

R. Kent Cook hails from Odessa, Texas where he began to play the piano at age six.  He attended Baylor University to pursue dentistry, but quickly began serious study of the piano.  After finishing a Piano Performance Degree with honors under the guidance of Roger Keyes, he continued his studies at Indiana University receiving both his Masters and Doctorate Degrees in Piano Performance.  He has worked with distinguished pianists Leonard Hokanson, Eteri Andjaparidze, Michel Block, James Tocco, and Karen Shaw, and in 1992-93, he studied with Herbert Seidel as a Fulbright Scholar at the Hochschule für Musik in Frankfurt, Germany.

Before joining the piano faculty at Illinois Wesleyan University in 1999, Dr. Cook served on music faculties at DePauw University, the Indiana University Piano Academy, and the Blue Lake Fine Arts Camp.  He is currently active as an adjudicator and master teacher throughout the Midwest, and during the summer he teaches at the Illinois Chamber Music Festival.  In 2009, he joined the faculty of the International Chamber Music Festival based in Kyustendil, Bulgaria. 

Cook released his first recording in 2002 on the Novitas label.  Entitled Nachtstück, it is a recording of twelve Nocturnes by seven different composers including Chopin, Liszt, and Schumann.  Soon to be released are two recordings, one featuring Debussy’s Préludes for Piano and trio recording with longtime collaborators oboist Roger Roe and violist Michael Isaac Strauss.

nancy pounds, piano

Nancy Pounds is an Adjunct Faculty Accompanist and Instructor of Piano at Illinois Wesleyan University.  She received the MM in Piano Performance from Illinois State University where she studied with Tella Marie DeBose. Nancy maintains a very active performing and teaching schedule working with students, colleagues, and visiting artists. She regularly appears at the IWU contemporary music programs, the Illinois Chamber Festival, and for several summers as faculty accompanist for the IWU Cello Camp.This past year she performed David Vayo's Seis Cosechas at the October IWU New Music Cafe and a series of fall recitals with colleague and friend, Nina Gordon. Nancy is also a member of the team of artists for the Summer Music Fest, Poco a Poco, directed by Kate Tombaugh, an IWU Alumna.