WINONA LAKE – A recital by Dr. Phoenix Park-Kim, piano, with Dr. Tammie Huntington, soprano, will be presented Saturday at 7:30 p.m. and held at Warsaw Evangelical Presbyterian Church, 210 S. High Street, Warsaw.
Huntington and Park-Kim are semi-finalists in the Liszt-Garrison International Collaborative Artists Competition that is held biannually at the College of Notre Dame of Maryland.
Both performers are faculty members of the Music Department at Indiana Wesleyan University.
The recital is free and open to the public. Collaborative sponsors include Trinity United Methodist Church, Warsaw Evangelical Presbyterian Church, and Northern Lakes Music Studio.
The recital entitled “Words in Music,” is a collaborative presentation of the great international poets Victor Hugo and Goethe set by Liszt, Charles Baudelaire and Jean Lahor set by Duparc, old Spanish poets set by Wolf, and Emily Dickinson set by Aaron Copland. “I always choose music that speaks to me first through the poetry. If the poet doesn’t speak to me alone, I don’t even look at the song!” said Huntington. “For the competition, we selected poets that touched us and then settings (composers) that moved us even deeper into the poetry. Hugo Wolf states it rather bluntly in a letter to Mayreder, ‘There’s something gruesome about the intimate fusion of poetry and music in which, actually, the gruesome role belongs only to the latter. Music has decidedly something of the vampire about it. It claims its victim relentlessly and sucks the last drop of blood from it.’ All of the composers we’ve selected are renowned for their ability to intimately merge poetry and music. It makes for a program that is technically very difficult for both of us, but extremely rewarding to the soul of both performer and audience.”
Park-Kim is an Associate Professor of Piano at Indiana Wesleyan University.
Her performances have taken her throughout the United States, South Korea, Taiwan, Italy, Switzerland and Russia.
She has won numerous competitions including the Miami, Jefferson City, and Kansas City Philharmonia Concerto Competitions and has been featured as a soloist with the Korean Philharmonic Orchestra and the Marion Philharmonic Orchestra among others.
She has given performances in various music festivals in the states and abroad. She is dedicated to bringing music to the undeserved public as well as providing more exposure to musical compositions that are less known.
Huntington is an Associate Professor of voice and opera at Indiana Wesleyan University. She has enjoyed a variety of opera/operetta performances including the roles of Lucy in Menotti’s The Telephone, Papagena in Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte, Josephine in Gilbert & Sullivan’s H.M.S. Pinafore, and Suor Genovieffa in Puccini’s Suor Angelica. As a guest soprano soloist, Tammie has performed in orchestral productions of Fauré’s Requiem, Haydn’s Creation, Mendelssohn’s Elijah, Bach’s Magnificat, Bach’s Cantata No. 51, Mozart’s Requiem, Vivaldi’s Gloria, Handel’s Messiah, and Schubert’s Mass in G Major, No. 2.
In addition to this competition, both Huntington and Park-Kim are scheduled to perform at Carnegie Hall’s Weill Recital Hall on March 2 with Soprani Compagni as part of DCINY’s Distinguished Concerts Artist Series.
This ensemble, Soprani Compagni, will be performing at Trinity United Methodist Church in 2012 before heading to New York City. “It is exciting to have these fine musicians and friends offer their musical gifts and abilities to our community,” remarked Dr. Ardis Faber, Northern Lakes Music Studio; “we are fortunate to have them come and present this recital.”
The Liszt-Garrison Festival and International Piano Competition is a five day long celebration of music featuring performances, lectures, and master classes featuring the expertise and artistry of world renowned musicians. Emulating Liszt’s generous spirit, chapter members share their artistic talent by promoting music and the musical experience within the community.
The Festival was founded in 2004 by Nancy Roldán with the cooperation of Ernest Ragogini in memory of William Garrison. Inaugurated in 2005, the extended international format of the Festival, held at the College of Notre Dame of Maryland since 2006, includes duo collaborative artists and two solo piano competitions.
The extraordinary growth of this event over the past seasons determined a more practical shift towards a biannual schedule. In 2009 we introduced a four-day festival and competition.
The recital is in collaboration with Trinity United Methodist Church, Warsaw Evangelical Presbyterian Church, and Northern Lakes Music Studio.
