Bergey, a vocal performance and church music major, will perform Baroque and modern music from the “B’s” – J.S. Bach’s aria “Frohe Hirte” from his Christmas Oratorio and his chamber cantata (BWV 157), “Ich lasse dich nicht, du segnest mich denn” with six other musicians; as well as Samuel Barber’s “Despite and Still” cycle; and Benjamin Britten’s Irish Folksong arrangements.

Phillip Martin, a sophomore environmental science and music performance major from Mount Joy, Pa., will provide piano accompaniment. Other musicians assisting Bergey are Jenny Hochstetler, Matthew  Hunsberger, Janelle Dean, April Miller, Kaitlin Heatwole and Briana Eshleman.

Bergey sings tenor with the EMU Chamber Singers and is co-president with Michael Spory of the Student Government Association (SGA). He is a member of Blooming Glen (PA) Mennonite Church and a 2007 graduate of Christopher Dock Mennonite High School, Lansdale, Pa.

Admission to the program is free. Donations will be accepted toward a European tour that Bergey, Phillip Martin and Steve Kniss are planning to different Mennonite Churches in Germany, Netherlands and the Alsace region in May.



Robert is 200 years old – more specifically, Robert Schumann (1810-1856).

Pianist Lise Keiter will celebrate the 200th birth year anniversary of the German composer with a recital 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, Mar. 17, in Martin Chapel of the seminary building at EMU.

Dr. Keiter, an associate professor of music and chair of the music department at Mary Baldwin College in Staunton, will perform Schumann’s “Fantasie,” a major work which is well-loved by pianists and audiences. The rest of the program will be built around the “Fantasie.”

Keiter will open the program with Beethoven’s “Sonata-Fantasie in E-flat Major, op. 27, no. 1.” Schumann greatly admired Beethoven and even paid homage to him within his “Fantasie” with some direct quotes from Beethoven works.

She will also play Clara Schumann’s “Variations on a Theme of Robert Schumann.” Schumann’s wife, Clara, greatly influenced his life and music; he composed the passionate first movement of his “Fantasie” with her in mind.

The program will end with three of the op. 116 “Fantasies of (Johannes) Brahms.” Brahms and both Schumanns were close friends and respected each others’ works.

Keiter joined the Mary Baldwin faculty in 1998. She has performed nationwide and is active as a solo recitalist, collaborative artist and soloist with orchestra. In 2005, she developed an all-women composers program of solo piano works in honor of the bicentenary year of pianist and composer Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel (1805-1847). This popular recital has become her most-requested program.

The Charlestown, Ill., native has a bachelor of music degree from the Oberlin Conservatory and completed a masters degree and the doctorate of music at Indiana University, where she also received the award for outstanding teaching.

Admission to the program is free; donations are welcomed for the EMU music student scholarship fund.

Learn more about music at EMU

James Lyon, violinist, and Timothy Shafer, pianist, will play contrasting selections by Mozart, his “B-flat Sonata,” featuring embellished dialogue between piano and violin, and Beethoven’s “Kreutzer Sonata,” characterized by fiery virtuosity and musical one-upmanship between the two instruments.

The duo will also perform two smaller musical gems from the Far East – “Birds in Warped Time” by Somei Satoh, a piece of tranquil reflection, and Shuhu Xu’s “Song of the Fisherman,” a classic Chinese fish story of the big one that got away.

Lyon and Shafer first met at Penn State University in 1991, where they teach studio violin and studio piano, respectively. Lyon has appeared as soloist with the Spoleto Festival Orchestra, the Dallas Ballet and the Amarillo, Genesee, Hershey, Nittany Valley and Altoona symphonies.

Lyon is a graduate of West Texas State University, North Carolina School of the Arts and Eastman School of Music. He also has served on the faculties of the Eastern Music Festival, West Texas State University, and Indiana University Southeast, as well as summer appointments at The Quartet Program at Bucknell University and the University of Siena.

Shafer earned his undergraduate degree in piano performance from the Oberlin Conservatory and received masters and doctoral degrees in piano performance from Indiana University. He is an active performer, clinician, and adjudicator throughout the country for professional music organizations and colleges and is a frequent soloist with many regional orchestras.

Their performances have taken the musicians to South Korea, Taiwan and Hong Kong as well as Carnegie Hall’s Weill Recital Hall in New York City. Their compact disc recording, “Outstanding in Our Field,” features works by Stravinsky, Debussy and Strauss. Their performances and recordings have been hailed by The New York Concert Review and Strings Magazine.

Admission to the program is free; donations are welcomed for the EMU music student scholarship fund.

Learn more about music at EMU

The music department shines the performance spotlight on one of its own, , pianist, in a faculty recital 7:30 p.m. Saturday, Jan. 23 in Martin Chapel of the seminary building at EMU.

Dr. Mackey, an associate professor of music, will present a program of music by Spanish composers as well as composers of France, the United States and Argentina who were strongly influenced by the culture and musical idioms of Spain.

Selections

Program highlights include Book I of the "Iberia Suite" of Spanish composer Isaac Albeniz, French composer Maurice Ravel’s "Alborada del gracioso" from "Miroirs," Cry of the Mothers" by American composer Amy Rubin and "Sonata for Piano" (1952) of Argentine composer Alberto Ginastera. Mackey will also play "Valses Poeticos" of Enrique Granados and "Danza de la Pastora" of Ernesto Halffter.

About Lynne Mackey

Mackey performs in solo and chamber music settings in the United States and Europe and currently tours as an artist for the Virginia Commission of the Arts and serves as director of the Virginia Baroque Performance Academy.

She holds a graduate degree from The Juilliard School and a doctorate from the Eastman School of Music. She has appeared with the Grand Rapids and Flint Symphonies as well as with the Lynchburg Symphony in Virginia. Upcoming engagements include a concerto performance at the 2010 Shenandoah Valley Bach Festival in June this year.

Mackey also performs in the Gee-Mackey Duo with cellist David Gee. They performed a concert tour in Spain and Morocco in 2008 and perform widely in the mid-Atlantic region of the U.S.

More info

Admission to the recital is free. Donations are welcomed for the EMU music student scholarship fund.

An eclectic and entertaining program awaits listeners when music professor and pianist Lynne Mackey presents a unique recital 7:30 p.m. Saturday, Mar. 21, in Lehman Auditorium at EMU.

In her program, titled "NEW?? A Century of Piano Experiments," Dr. Mackey will perform pieces that require a variety of techniques, inside and outside the piano, to present some inventive uses of the instrument.

A recital highlight will be excerpts from John Cage’s "Sonatas and Interludes for prepared piano." This piece requires the piano be "prepared" with more than 60 bits of hardware – screws, bolts, pieces of jar rubber, etc. – fit between the strings at strategic points. This preparation "completely transforms the piano," according to Mackey, "producing a phenomenon of percussion and unconventional sounds."

Other selections will include the "Winnsboro Cotton Mill Blues" of Frederic Rzewski and Ann Silsbee’s "Doors," both requiring unusual techniques. The Rzewski piece utilizes large and small clusters of tones to imitate the driving sound of the mill machinery, Mackey noted. The "whimsical piece" of Ann Silsbee is "a musical dialogue involving non-traditional gestures and knocking on the piano frame, resulting in a visual choreography of arms and elbows at the keyboard," she noted.

She will also play pieces by composers Henry Cowell, Charles Griffes, Emma Lou Diemer and Robert Evett.

Mackey joined the EMU faculty as an associate professor of music the fall of 2008. A graduate of the University of Michigan, The Juilliard School and the Eastman School of Music, she has long been involved in performing contemporary music. She has coached repertoire with composers such as Joan Tower, George Crumb and Samuel Adler, and her performances include three New York premiers.

In addition to her work as a soloist, Mackey performed this past season in the US and overseas with cellist David Gee in the Gee-Mackey Duo, and also traveled to Brazil to perform concerts and masterclasses with the chamber ensemble, Musica Harmonia.

Admission to this recital is free of charge. Donations are welcomed for the EMU music scholarship fund.

Eojin Lee. Photo by Lindsey Roeschley

Ms. Lee will perform hymn arrangements by Sedio and Burkhardt, “Trumpeting” by Wood and “Prelude and Fugue in C minor” by Bach on organ. Piano selections will include “32 Variations on Original Teme, WoO 80,” by Beethoven, “Klavierst

The duo will explore light and dark in a program on the theme, "Rising from the Ashes."

They will perform "Le Merle Noir" (The Blackbird) by Olivier Messiaen’ "Sonata for flute and piano" by Edison Denisov; "Dance of the Blessed Spirits" by CW Gluck; "Elysian Fields" by Robert Maggio; "Sonata in b minor" by JS Bach; "Supernova" by Terry Winter Owens and "Rising from the Ashes" by Tarek Younis.

Wayla Chambo, an adjunct flute teacher at EMU

Wayla Chambo, a freelance performer and teacher based in Charlottesville, is an adjunct flute teacher at EMU and also teaches flute in the Preparatory Music program. She holds a master of fine arts degree from the California Institute of the Arts.

She has appeared recently with the Virginia Consort, the Oratorio Society of Charlottesville-Albemarle, the UVA New Music Ensemble, Noise in the System and Du Ciel flute and harp duo. In October, 2008. she will premiere Steven Kemper’s "At the Crossing of Five Paths" at the "pixilerations" festival in Providence, RI.

Linda Blondel is a collaborative pianist in Charlottesville, teaches piano privately and regularly performs both instrumental and vocal chamber music. She is pianist for the Charlottesville-University Symphony Orchestra and the pianist for Cove Presbyterian Church.

Admission to the program is free; donations are welcomed for the EMU music department student scholarship fund.

David Gee, cellist, and Lynne Mackey, pianist, will perform music of French, Spanish and Russian composers. Their repertoire will include “Suite Francaise, Op. 114” by Paul Bazelaire, “Elegie, Opus 24” by Gabriel Faure, “Siete Canciones populares Espanolas” by Manuel de Falla, and “Sonata in G minor” by Sergei Rachmaninoff.

David Gee, cellist; Lynne Mackey, pianist

The duo formed in 2004 and has performed in the U.S. and abroad, most recently in southern Spain, Gibraltar and Morocco.

Dr. Mackey is associate professor of music at EMU. She holds a BS degree in piano from the University of Michigan, a master of music in piano from The Julliard School and a doctor of musical arts in piano from Eastman School of Music. She is an accomplished musician with numerous solo and chamber music performances along with prior teaching and academic administrative experience. Mackey continues to serve on the Virginia Commission for the Arts touring roster.

Gee, from Columbia, S.C., Gee, performs with several orchestras, including four years with the National Orchestra of Granada, Spain. He graduated with honors from Purchase College, where he received the president’s award for outstanding undergraduate achievement. He received a graduate degree from Yale University, where he was named a Ellen Battel Stoeckel scholar.

He was recently on the faculty of the Chamber Music Festival at the University of Virginia and is a listed artist on the tour roster of the South Carolina Arts Council.

Admission to the concert is free; donations are welcomed for the EMU music department student scholarship fund. For more information, call (540) 432-4225.

But two years to the day after being diagnosed with a rare cancerous growth, she was once again playing “my beloved Chopin.”

During a noon concert of the Shenandoah Valley Bach Festival at Asbury United Methodist Church, Janina Fialkowska tells of her battle with cancer in her left arm that threatened to end her career as a concert pianist.
Photo by Jim Bishop

Internationally-acclaimed Canadian pianist Janina Fialkowska recounted her miraculous recovery during a noon program June 14 of the annual .

Speaking to an audience as part of the daily noon concerts held at Asbury United Methodist Church in Harrisonburg, Ms. Fialkowska said she feels “almost terrified” in thinking back to what might have been, but if her experience can inspire and encourage others who are going through difficult situations “it is worth it” to share her story.

She returned to the Lehman Auditorium stage at EMU to play Chopin’s “Concerto No. 2 in F Minor for Piano and Orchestra” and “Concerto No. 1 in E Minor for Piano and Orchestra” during the second concert of the festival June 15.

She first collaborated with the Bach Festival in 1999.

An Early Beginning

Born in Montreal to a Canadian mother and a Polish father, Fialkowska started piano studies with her mother at the age of five.

She received advanced degrees from the University of Montreal at age 17 and one year later entered Juilliard School of Music in New York. Her career was launched by Arthur Rubinstein after a prize-winning performance at his inaugural Master Piano Competition in Israel in 1974.

When Fialkowska turned 50 in 2001, “everything was going extremely well” in her life with musical career that spanned the globe. Then, her mother, “my greatest supporter,” died of leukemia, she said.

The 9/11 terrorist attack made touring more difficult for her, but that was offset by marriage to “a wonderful man, Harry Oesterle, from Germany.”

While on holiday, she noticed a swelling in her left arm that wouldn’t go away. In early 2002, she saw a specialist who told her to get an MRI. That test revealed a tumor, a rare cancerous growth.

Aggressive Treatment

She endured five weeks of daily radiation and several surgeries in that arm at Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York City – “they played Mozart over the public address system during the procedures,” she told the audience – followed by a rare muscle transfer from another part of her body.

After that, she had to keep her arm “absolutely still” for eight weeks, with “no idea” at the time if the uncommon procedure would prove successful.

Along with regular physical therapy sessions, she began playing concertos arranged for one hand, which helped her regain confidence.

“The doctors never expected me to play again – they didn’t tell me that at the time,” Fialkowska said. “But, I set a goal that exactly two years after the initial biopsy, I would again be performing my beloved Chopin, and I was – in January 2004,” she smiled.

Critics from around the world declare that her playing now exceeds her virtuosity prior to the ordeal, a testimony to the power of music and healing against all odds.

Whatever the undertaking, it pays to do it well. Just ask ²ÝÝ®ÉçÇø senior Jonathan Keener.

Keener, a piano performance major, was invited to play piano at the opening session of a meeting held Feb. 1 in Washington, D.C., of the Council of Christian Colleges and Universities (CCCU), an association of 102 schools in the US and Canada of which EMU is a member.

Keener played Chopin’s “Ballade #4” to an audience of some 100 persons, mostly presidents of CCCU-member schools.

Apparently, the group appreciated his performance. Shortly thereafter, Keener was awarded a scholarship from Sallie Mae Campus Solutions toward graduate studies in music. Sallie Mae is a leading charitable organization that has helps students and families make Christian educatio more affordable.

“I was pleasantly surprised and grateful to receive the award,” Keener said. “Applying to graduate school can be expensive, and I certainly could use the money.”

Decisions

Keener is currently deciding between an assistantship at James Madison University, where he would teach and accompany students, or Westminster Choir College in Princeton, NJ. At JMU, he would receive full tuition and a stipend for living expenses.

The Elizabethtown, Pa., native has been a member of the EMU Chamber Singers, a select student choir, and a pastoral assistant with , helping to plan and lead worship services.

“ is small, but for me that’s been a real plus,” Keener said. “The professors are great, and they’ve related to me on a personal level.”

Not only that, “but I’ve had many opportunities to perform individually and in ensembles,” he added. Most recently, he played a movement from Beethoven’s “Emperor” piano concerto at the EMU-Community Orchestra’s spring concert.

Keener will graduate with a BA in music performance and a minor in TESL (Teaching English as a Second Language) on Apr. 29. This summer, he will put that training to work as a teacher in EMU’s (IEP), which helps prepare students from many countries for undergraduate studies.

Keener’s long-range goal, after graduate school, is to either teach piano on the college level or to serve overseas in long-term missions.

He is a member of Elizabethtown (PA) Mennonite Church.

Jonathan D. Keener, an ²ÝÝ®ÉçÇø senior, will present a piano recital 7:30 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 24, in Martin Chapel of the seminary building at EMU.

Keener a piano performance major and TESL minor, will perform Sonata, Op. 57 “Appassionata” by Ludwig van Beethoven, “Gaspard de la Nuit” by Maurice Ravel, “Ballade No. 4” by Frederic Chopin and “Etude-Tableaux Op. 39 No. 5” by Sergei Rachmaninoff.

Keener is a student of Dr. Paulo Steinberg, assistant professor of piano at EMU.

Keener is a pastoral assistant with the involved with planning chapels and other worship services on campus. He teaches piano to six students through EMU’s .

Admission to the recital is free.

An ²ÝÝ®ÉçÇø junior will present a recital for solo cello and piano-cello duo 7:30 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 25 in Martin Chapel of the seminary building at EMU.

Nathan G. (Nate) Bontrager, a education and cello performance major from Akron, Pa., will play the “D minor suite for Unaccompanied Cello” by J.S. Bach, one of six suites the German composer wrote for the cello.

He will also perform “A Major Sonata for Cello and Piano” by Ludwig Van Beethoven, Robert Schumann’s “Three Fantasty Pieces” for cello and piano and “Seven Spanish Folksongs” by Manuel de Falla, transcribed for cello.

Bontrager will be accompanied on piano by Monica Hochstetler Carlson, an instructor in the at EMU.

Bontrager is a member of the , the EMU Orchestra, the EMU Piano Trio, the EMU Jazz Quintet and leads worship for the Sunday evening “” service on campus. He also teaches in the Preparatory Music Program.

Admission to the program is free. Donations are welcomed for the EMU music student scholarship fund.

²ÝÝ®ÉçÇø sophomore students Jonathan D. Keener and Nathan N. Bontrager will present a duo recital 4 p.m. Saturday, Apr. 23, in EMU’s Lehman Auditorium.

Keener, a pianist, and Bontrager, a cellist, will perform Johannes Brahms’ "E Minor Sonata for Cello and Piano" and the "Waldenstein" Piano Sonata by Ludwig Van Beethoven. Keener will also play solo works by Chopin and Liszt.

Keener, from Mt. Joy, Pa., and Bontrager, from Akron, Pa., have played a variety of solo pieces while at EMU and have collaborated on chamber music works since the beginning of their college career. Both are dual music performance and music education majors.

Admission to the program is free.

The duo will perform "Three Batatelles for Viola and Piano" by contemporary composer Don Freund, "Sonata for Viola and Piano Op. 147" by Dmitri Shostakovich, "Seven for the Flowers Near the River," composed in 1988 by Stephen Paulus and "Variations on ‘My Favorite Things’" by Mark Kuss.

Violist Scott Rawls

Dr. Rawls currently serves as associate professor of viola and chair of the instrumental division in the School of Music at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. Under the baton of maestro Dmitry Sitkovetsky, he plays principal viola in the Greensboro Symphony Orchestra.

He is active as guest clinician, adjudicator, and master class teacher at universities and festivals in America and Europe. During the summers, Rawls plays principal viola in the festival orchestra at Brevard Music Center where he also coordinates the viola program. He holds a bachelor of music degree from Indiana University and M.M. and D.M.A. degrees from State University of New York at Stony Brook.

Pianist Phillip Bush

One of the busiest chamber musicians among American pianists, Bush has performed and recorded with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, the Kronos Quartet and the Miami String Quartet. In 2001, he made his concerto debut at Carnegie Hall with the London Sinfonietta. He can be heard frequently on public radio in the U.S., including appearances on "Saint Paul Sunday" and on nationwide live television broadcasts via the Classic Arts Showcase.

From 2002 to 2004, Bush taught piano and chamber music at the University of Michigan. In addition to a full performing schedule, he continues to give masterclasses for young musicians across the country. He is a graduate of the Peabody Conservatory, where he studied with Leon Fleisher.

Admission to the concert is a suggested $5 donation at the door.

The EMU orchestra’s fall concert will include several note-worthy special features.

The program, at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 18, in Lehman Auditorium, will spotlight Lori Piitz, interim piano professor, and Daniel Stutzman, a recent EMU music graduate, as duo piano soloists in Saint-Saens’ "Carnival of the Animals."

Dr. Joan Griffing, chair of EMU’s , will conduct the 50-member ensemble comprised of students and community persons.

Short poems introducing each animal will be read throughout the performance by Patrick Reynolds, interim assistant professor of theater.

The concert will also include the popular "Fireworks Music" by George Frederic Handel and the much-loved "Unfinished Symphony" by Franz Schubert.

Admission is free; donations are welcomed for EMU music department student scholarship fund.