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Featuring Thursday Musical Members KaTrio Karen Hansen, clarinet with guest artists Kaia Sand, oboe and Kate Saumur, bassoon; Meghann Schmidt, soprano with guest artist Susan Munson, piano; Salam Murtada, piano; and Aja Majkrzak, violin.
*please note Aja Majkrzak has canceled
Click the photo on the left for artist and program information.
For everyone’s safety, Thursday Musical strongly recommends all audience members to wear a non-cloth mask such as a N95, KN95, KF94, or surgical mask inside of the recital hall.
Karen Hansen Gurstelle is principal clarinetist of the Bloomington Symphony Orchestra and Mississippi Valley Orchestra and clarinetist with the Rochester Symphony Orchestra and Incidental Trio. Her freelance work also includes performing in the Moody Blues backing orchestra, OCEAN with the Merce Cunningham Dance Company, and world premieres of three operas. As a chamber ensemble musician, she has worked for Classical MPR, The Schubert Club, Thursday Musical, and other artist series. schoolchildren busy seasons as a Class Notes Artist for Classical MPR when Dolce Wind Quintet played dozens of concerts for thousands of school children. Karen teaches clarinet at Cadenza Music in St. Paul and enjoys hearing her students succeed in youth symphonies, honors programs, and school and university ensembles. Having worked in France and Germany. Karen now scratches her travel itch twice a year by working as an arts enrichment lecturer on board cruise ships. She earned her B.A. from St. Olaf College and her M.A. from the University of Wisconsin–Madison and studied music and theater in London.
Kaia Sand is an active freelance oboist and teacher in the Twin Cities metro area. In addition to holding principal oboe positions with the Kenwood Symphony Orchestra and the Mississippi Valley Orchestra, she has subbed with numerous area orchestras, including the Duluth Superior Symphony Orchestra, the Bloomington Symphony Orchestra, and the Wayzata Symphony Orchestra. Kaia knew she wanted to play the oboe from an early age. Encouraged and supported by wonderful teachers, she followed her passion and earned a B.A. in music from Luther College and an M.M. in oboe performance from the University of Oklahoma. Along the way, she performed with the Norman Philharmonic, the Cimarron Opera, and the Wichita Symphony Orchestra, and in such venues as Harpa Hall in Reykjavik, Iceland, Girona Cathedral in Girona, Spain, and the Konzerthaus in Vienna, Austria. She now teaches oboe lessons at Cadenza Music in St. Paul and at several area schools, and she hopes to instill the same love for the oboe in her students.
Kate Saumur is a busy Twin Cities freelance bassoonist. She has performed with the Minnesota Orchestra, the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, and many other local and regional groups. She plays principal bassoon in the Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra, is a member of the Rochester Symphony, and is a frequent sub with the Duluth Superior Symphony Orchestra. After earning a degree in computer science, she had enough of being practical and sensible and later earned a master's degree in theology and the arts. She worked in arts administration for ten years, as a writer and producer for American Public Media’s Performance Today and as a marketing specialist for Minnesota Opera. Kate's relationship history with woodwinds includes a failed attempt at the flute, which lasted a week, followed by a sullen and loveless pairing with the clarinet, which went hand in hand with acne and teenage angst. It wasn't pretty. She finally broke free and found the love of her life when she met the bassoon. The rest, as they say, is history.
Meghann Schmidt has appeared in operas and musicals with Theater Latte Da (La Boheme, Susannah), Skylark Opera (Iolanthe), Colorado Lyric Opera (Into the Woods), CU Opera (La Boheme, Turn of the Screw, Die Fledermaus, Dialogue of the Carmelites), Top Hat Theater (Cinderella), the Black Hills Summer Music Festival (Carmen, The Old Maid and the Thief) as guest soloist with the Minnesota Philharmonic (Knoxville: Summer of 1915), and the St. Thomas Liturgical Choir performing German Lied in the Stephaniensaal and Johaneum concert halls in Graz, Austria. She holds a Bachelor of Music degree from the University of St. Thomas and a Master of Music degree from the University of Colorado in Boulder.
Aja has been playing the violin since she was 4 years old. She received her Bachelor’s of Music from the University of Minnesota in 2011 under the tutelage of Mark Bjork, and her Master’s of Music from Louisiana State University in 2013 studying with Espen Lilleslatten. Since then she has performed with many regional orchestras and has served as section leader for various community orchestras. Her orchestral experiences have given her the opportunity to share the stage with performers like Leila Josefowicz, Audra McDonald, and Gil Shaham.
Orchestral playing is the focus of her career but Aja has also performed with 2 Cellos, Foreigner, Harry Connick, Jr., Kygo, the Transiberian Orchestra and the Latin jazz group Charanga Tropical. In June 2015 she traveled to Havana, Cuba with the group to become the first band from the United States to participate in the International Danzon Festival.
If she is not making music you can find Aja with her two cats, Dexter and Cindy Lou Who, cooking vegetarian and vegan meals, and attempting to keep her plants alive.
Salam Murtada is a native of Amman, Jordan. He was a semi-finalist in the Fourth Van Cliburn International Competition for Outstanding Amateurs in 2004, a semi-finalist in the Washington International Piano Artist Competition in 2006, a winner in the Masters Concerto and Aria Competition (MCAC) in 2019 and a prize winner in the Greensboro Music Academy National Piano Competition in 2000. He has been featured on the WDAV 89.9 FM (Charlotte, NC), several newspapers in North Carolina, the Dallas Morning News, Fort Worth Star-Tribune, the London Times, HDTV and BBC Radio. His original compositions have been premiered in the US, Australia, Ukraine, Estonia, Egypt and Jordan. His instructors include John Ruggero in Raleigh NC, Christine Kefferstan of West Virginia University at Morgantown, Lita Guerra of University of Texas at Austin, and Samia Abu-Khader Ghannoum in Amman, Jordan. He has also coached with Walter Hautzig and Vanessa Cornett-Murtada.
Salam is a civil and environmental engineer currently working for the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources.
