Thursday Morning Artist Series
Parking Information: Click here
Complimentary Coffee and Donuts at 10:00 am
Tickets $15, $10 (groups of 8+), $6 students, sold at the door, general seating
Program
Charles-François Gounod
Je Veux Vivre (I Want to Live)
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Oiseaux, si tous les ans (Birds, if every Year…)
Lauren Senden, soprano
Young Artist Scholarship Competition Winner 2017 – High School Voice
Sue Ruby, piano
Gerald Finzi
Eclogue Op. 10
Max Janowski
Avinu Malkeinu
Transcribed by M. Wallace
Megan Wallace, piano
Christopher Wallace, piano
Gerald Finzi
Five Bagatelles, Op. 23
Ona Pinsonneault, clarinet
James Kurschner, piano
Jean Sibelius
String Quartet in d minor, Op. 56 “Intimate Voices” (1909)
Mill City String Quartet
Huldah Niles & Erika Hoogeveen, violin
Valerie Little, viola
Ruth Marshall, cello
Kate Lamb has cancelled due to illness.
Performer Information
Lauren Senden, soprano
Young Artist Scholarship Competition Winner 2017
Lauren Senden, soprano
Young Artist Scholarship Competition Winner 2017 - High School Vocal
Lauren Senden is a junior at Mankato East High School. She has been singing since she was four years-old. She has always had a passion for musical theatre but has recently fallen in love with performing classical repertoire. She has been training with private instruction for five years and has participated in MacPhail’s Prelude: Singer/Actor Performance Lab for 2 ½ years. She is currently in Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat and A Midsummer Night’s Dream in Mankato. She would like to thank her parents for their endless support.
Christopher and Megan Wallace, piano
Megan Monahan Wallace has been a member of Thursday Musical since 1998. She grew up in Butte Montana, and earned degrees from Eastman under Nelita True, and a D.M.A. from the University of MN under Lydia Artymiw. She has adjudicated and performed in Minnesota, Indiana, Washington, Texas and Montana and presented at the 2012 MMTA state convention. She has performed the five Beethoven concerti with the Mayo Clinic chamber symphony. She met her husband, Dr. Christopher Wallace at Eastman. They reside in St. Louis Park and maintain Wallace Piano and Organ Studios there with their 14 yr. old springer Spaniel, and a Bernese Mountain Dog.
Christopher Wallace, a native of Atlanta GA, received his Bachelor and Master of Music degrees from Eastman School of Music as a student of Dr. Nelita True. He also received a Doctor of Musical Arts degree from the University of MN as a student of Lydia Artymiw. Christopher teaches with his wife, Megan, through their private studio, Wallace Piano and Organs Studios, is Music Director/Organist at Our Lady of Grace, Edina MN and is owner of Allen Organs of the Twin Cities, Inc./Allen Organs of Iowa, a mid-west dealer for Allen Organ Company.
Ona Pinsonneault, clarinet
Ona Pinsonneault retired from Normandale Community College after having taught Music Theory and Ear Training there for many years. She holds a D.M.A. in clarinet performance from the University of Minnesota where she studied with John Anderson. She currently performs with the Normandale Concert Band and the OTL Clarinet Quartet and writes a Music Theory column for Clapper Chatter, the newsletter of Area VII Handbell Musicians of America. Ona’s scale study Clarinet Agility is available from Jeanné, Inc.
James Kurschner is a member of the music faculty at Normandale Community College in Bloomington, MN, where he conducts the concert band, instrumental ensembles, and teaches class piano and applied saxophone. He has been the Music Director of the Sheldon Theatre Brass Band since 2002. He is a graduate of the University of Wisconsin-River Falls, and Northwestern University in Evanston, IL.
Mill City String Quartet: Huldah Niles, violin; Erika Hoogeveen, violin; Valerie Little, viola; Ruth Marshall, cello (Thursday Musical debut)
Cellist Ruth Marshall maintains a diverse career as a performer and a pedagogue. As an orchestral musician, she is principal cello of the Illinois Symphony Orchestra (Springfield IL), a member of the Britt Festival Orchestra (Jacksonville OR), and a regular substitute with the Indianapolis Symphony in Indiana, and the Columbus Symphony in Ohio. Ruth is very active as a chamber musician. In addition to playing in MCSQ, she frequently performs as the “Artu Duo” with pianist Garret Ross across the United States, as well as in Canada and the UK. Ruth is a devoted cello teacher, and has been on the faculties of DePaul University, Butler University, and Illinois State University, and Eastern Illinois University.
Ruth holds undergraduate degrees in Comparative History of Ideas and Music Theory from the University of Washington, and graduate degrees in cello performance from DePaul University in Chicago IL. She was a member of the Civic Orchestra of Chicago, and was a student at the Aspen Music Festival, the Banff Centre for the Arts, the Aldeburgh Music Festival, and the Festival-Institute at Round Top.
A founding member of the Mill City String Quartet, Erika Hoogeveen, is also associate concertmaster of the Dakota Valley Symphony Orchestra and has performed with a variety of other groups, including South Dakota Symphony, Kantorei, Mankato Symphony, and Northwest Iowa Symphony Orchestra. She received her Master of Music degree in violin performance and Suzuki pedagogy at the University of Minnesota, studying with Sally O'Reilly, and her Bachelor of Arts degree in violin performance from Dordt College, studying with Rick Lohmann and Margaret Carpenter. Erika has been on the violin faculty of MacPhail Center for the Arts, St. Joseph's School of Music, and Dordt College. Currently, she teaches private lessons in her home in St. Paul where she resides with her husband and four children.
Pennsylvania native Valerie Little is an active freelance violist in the Twin Cities. She has performed extensively with the Minnesota Orchestra and Minnesota Opera, as well as Orchestra Iowa and Quad Cities Symphony. Notable performances include appearing as soloist with the Mankato and York Symphony Orchestra (PA), and performing Quincy Porter’s Suite for Viola Alone at the 38th International Viola Congress. She is the viola artist-in-residence and librarian of the Apollo Music Festival in Southeast Minnesota. Valerie's interest in chamber music stemmed from her studies with Miro Quartet, and has led her to collaborate with musicians from all over the world. She holds degrees from in Music and English Literature from Pennsylvania State University, an MM from the University of Texas, and a DMA from the University of Minnesota. Her principal teachers include Kathleen W. Yeater, Timothy Deighton, Roger Myers, and Korey Konkol. She has also been a mentor for area schools, GTCYS, YMF Summer Music Camp, ComMUSICation, Lancaster County Music Camp, Central Pennsylvania Youth Symphony, and the MNSOTA Middle Level Honors Orchestra. Since September 2015, Valerie is one of the newest tenured members of the Minnesota Orchestra as the Assistant Principal Librarian, where she also serves at the orchestra's ICSOM delegate. In her non-musical time, she is a children’s hospice and palliative volunteer with Children’s Hospitals and Clinics of MN. She lives in southwest Minneapolis with her husband and two spoiled and zany cats.
Huldah Niles is a founding member of Mill City String Quartet. Ms. Niles currently plays violin as a substitute with the Minnesota Orchestra and Minnesota Opera Orchestra. Huldah has been Associate Concertmaster and Principal 2ndviolin for the Mankato Symphony and Principal Viola for the Minnetonka Symphony Orchestra. Huldah began her music studies on violin at the age of five at the Preucil School of Music in Iowa City, Iowa with Doris Preucil. Through the Preucil School of music, Huldah traveled to Japan with a group of peers from the Cleveland Institute of Music where they played for Dr. Suzuki at his private residence and for the Prince and Princess of Japan in Tokyo.
Ms. Niles received both her Bachelor and Master of Music degrees in Violin Performance from the University of Minnesota under the tutelage of Sally O’Reilly. She has also studied viola with Thomas Turner, Principal Viola of the Minnesota Orchestra. Huldah has attended many wonderful summer music festivals such as Italy Summer Music Festival in Pienza, Italy (studying with Eriko Tsuchihashi, Associate Concertmaster at Teatro alla Scala), Chautauqua Music Festival in New York, Bowdoin International Music Festival in Maine, and Bravo! in Minnesota.