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Masterworks #1
Dr. Glenn S. Harmon, piano

Dr. Harman’s performance graciously sponsored by: Larry & Barbara Freiman, James & Lucy McCarl, and the Stevens Family Foundation.

Dr. Glenn S. Harmon was born in Lenoir, North Carolina.  He was very involved in the wonderful music programs at Lenoir High School, where he played oboe and English horn.  He studied piano in Lenoir with Alice Gwynne and Jean Bernhardt.  He has a B.S. from North Carolina State University, and obtained his M.D. from the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill.  His prior medical experience included 13 years in the US Air Force, most of which was spent running the Department of Defense Bone Marrow Transplant Program.  He was then on the faculty at the University of Iowa.  Since 1999 he has been a hematologist and medical oncologist at the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota.  He is a 2009 inductee into the Caldwell County Schools Hall of Honor.

Glenn's musical involvement includes extensive performance on piano, oboe, English horn, and recorder.  He is perhaps best known for his previous two-piano partnership with Jeffrey Arnold.  They performed throughout North America, including a recital by invitation at New York's Carnegie Hall in 1995.  As a solo pianist, he has performed extensively in the United States, Canada, Hungary, and the Philippines.  This includes numerous performances of the Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto #1, Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto Number 2, Grieg’s Piano Concerto in A Minor, and Prokofieff’s Piano Concerto Number 3.  Most recently, he performed the Tchaikovsky Concerto with the Miami Valley Symphony Orchestra in Dayton, Ohio.  He is an active member of the International Double Reed Society, for which he is chairman of the Reading Group Committee, which oversees the ensemble-sight-reading program at the society’s annual conference.  He also performs in a community orchestra and chamber groups in southern Minnesota. Glenn is a vocal proponent of music as a valuable lifelong avocation for people of any profession.  

Glenn has also been very involved in the Miss America Organization.  He has judged at the state and local levels throughout the country.  In August 2006, he judged the national finals of Miss America's Outstanding Teen in Orlando.  Also, he has recently been very involved in helping state winners in several Midwestern states prepare talent and interview skills for Miss America.  This has included performing accompaniments for use on the Miss America stage. 

Glenn shares his homes in Galena, Illinois and Mankato, Minnesota with his faithful dog, Gertie, and his cat, Little Bit.

He would like to dedicate this performance to the memory of his first piano teach teacher, Alice Gwynne, and also in honor of Jean Bernhardt, who is present at the performance.

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Masterworks #2
Michael Hanley, piano

Michael Hanley’s performance graciously sponsored by Mr. & Mrs. Larry Aiello.

Pianist Michael Hanley grew up in Hickory and is excited to return to perform with the Western Piedmont Symphony. Michael has performed on the piano extensively from a young age and developed his talent under the instruction of Robert Setzer of Hickory. At the age of nine, he performed as a soloist with a symphony and performed the Saint-Saens Concerto #2 in B minor with the Western Piedmont Symphony in 1995.  Over the next several years before graduating from St. Stephen’s High School, Michael consecutively won the North Carolina Federation of Music Clubs piano competition at the state level in every category available. He was the recipient of the Catawba County Emerging Artist grant, the selected young artist for a Yamaha television commercial, an Eagle Scout and St. Stephens High School class valedictorian and senior class president.

After leaving Hickory, Michael studied music, business and actuarial science as a Morehead and Honors Scholar at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. While studying piano under Michael Zenge, he also studied under faculty at Julliard, Peabody and Eastman Schools of Music, and under musicians such as Walter Hautzig and Seymour Bernstein. He has subsequently performed as a soloist with the Charlotte and Asheville Symphonies. During his years in Chapel Hill, Michael directed and performed with the 100-voice Christian choir and band “Heels to Heaven,” ministering to local schools, prisons, churches and the university community. Since then, he was named the National Winner of the Federation of Music Club’s centennial piano competition in Chicago and performed as a soloist with the Raleigh Symphony in their “Rising Star” series.

Michael currently lives in Atlanta, Georgia as an actuary and senior retirement consultant at Towers Watson. While continuing to perform throughout the area, his top priorities are as a husband to his wife, Janine, and as a new father to his 1-year-old daughter, Madden.

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Masterworks #3
Dmitri Pogoelov, violin
Ai Ishida, viola

Many thanks to First Citizens Bank for sponsoring tonight’s Guest Artists.

Critically acclaimed violinist Dmitri Pogorelov has won prestigious chamber music competitions in his native Russia at an early age, which led to numerous appearances in chamber music recitals and solo performances with orchestras in the USA, Germany, Italy, France, Japan, and Russia. Dmitri has appeared in chamber music concerts with principal players of Chicago, Houston, Saint Louis and Seattle Symphonies, Cleveland and Concertgebouw Orchestras, and the San Francisco, Chicago Lyric, and Frankfurt State Opera orchestras. As part of Dmitri’s interest in contemporary chamber music, he has recently recorded works by Eric Ewazen, Gunther Schuller, and Yehudi Wyner for Albany Records. A seasoned orchestral performer, Dmitri has worked under Pierre Boulez, Bernard Haitink, Sir Mark Elder, and Esa-Pekka Salonen as concertmaster of the Chicago Symphony’s Civic Orchestra. Dmitri is currently an adjunct violin teacher on the faculty of Lenoir-Rhyne University in NC

Violist Ai Ishida was born in Tokyo to two musicians of the New Japan Philharmonic. In Japan, she studied viola at the Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music. Ai has traveled the world to appear at music festivals such as the Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival; the Norfolk Chamber Music Festival, where she worked with the Tokyo String Quartet; and the Pacific Music Festival, where she performed with members of the Vienna Philharmonic. Ms. Ishida’s viola studies continued at Northern Illinois University, where she won the concerto competition and performed Bartok’s Viola Concerto. Her pedagogues include Richard Young, Li-Kuo Chang, Yukiko Ogura and the Vermeer Quartet. She has played with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and with the Civic Orchestra of Chicago as principal violist. Recent performances include masterclasses with Nobuko Imai and Yo-Yo Ma, and a show at Chicago’s Green Mill following studies with jazz master David Bloom.

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Masterworks #4
Bair Shagdaron, Piano

Masterworks 4 has been graciously sponsored by Alex Lee, Inc.

Pianist Bair Shagdaron was born in Moscow, Russia and began studying music at age of four. In 1964 he entered the prestigious Moscow Gnesins Music School for Gifted Children where he studied under Esther Fedorchenko and Valeria Polunina. After graduating in 1976, Mr. Shagdaron studied at the Moscow Tchaikovsky Conservatory under the renowned Tatiana Nikolaeva. In 1984, Mr. Shagdaron obtained his Doctorate degree in piano performance from the Moscow Tchaikovsky Conservatory. In 1988, he assumed the position of Assistant Professor at the Conservatory and was an Assistant of Tatiana Nikolaeva for six years. In 1990, Dr. Shagdaron graduated from the Conservatory with his second degree in composition, studying under Albert Leman.
As an accomplished soloist, Dr. Shagdaron took fourth prize at the 1980 International J.S.Bach Competition in Leipzig, Germany and third prize at the 1992 International Competition for Piano and Orchestra in Mazara del Vallo, Italy. Also in 1992 he was awarded the Honorary Title of "The People's Artist of Buryat Republic" (Russia). Dr. Shagdaron has given master classes in Japan and also performed throughout the USA, Russia, Japan, Germany, Italy, Portugal, Belgium and Mongolia.
After coming to the USA in 1996, Dr. Shagdaron taught at Ottawa University in Kansas. In the fall of 2000, he joined the faculty of Appalachian State University as Assistant Professor of Piano. Dr. Shagdaron continues to actively participate in the music world of today, including the world premiere of Edward Bullock's Concerto for Piano and Orchestra. He has been guest artist for An Appalachian Summer Festival, and soloist with the Western Piedmont Symphony performing the Second Piano Concerto by Shostakovich

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Masterworks #5
Lenoir Rhyne Youth Chorus

Masterworks 5 graciously sponsored by Corning, Inc.

The Lenoir Rhyne Youth Chorus (LRYC) was founded in 1997 as part of the then new Sacred Music Program.  Founding director Florence Jowers is an Associate Professor of Music at Lenoir-Rhyne University. From the beginning, the chorus has been comprised of three auditioned ensembles:  Minnesingers (beginning singers), Meistersingers (advanced singers), and Chamber Singers (a smaller select ensemble).   

LRYC has performed with other professional children’s choirs, has received only superior ratings in competitions, and has toured throughout the southeast United States. In 2010 the choir sang in Carnegie Hall under the baton of the renowned Russian conductor Elena Sharkova.  The choir’s first European tour was in 2007, performing in England and France.  In England, the choir competed for and won the privilege of singing Evensong at Canterbury Cathedral.  In Paris, the audience at the Church of the Madeleine gave the choir a standing ovation.  LRYC regularly performs with the Lenoir-Rhyne A Cappella Choir for Christmas programs, hymn festivals, and other special events such as the 75th Anniversary Concert for the A Cappella Choir in April of 2011.

In addition to the musical skills learned, choral singing develops maturity, character, discipline, group dynamics, dependability, creativity, decision-making, confidence, and self-esteem.  The young singers will reap life-long rewards from their experiences in LRYC. Many of the choir’s former members have gone on to become leaders in their high school choral and instrumental ensembles, and some eventually major in music in college (often at L-R.)

The choir performs a major concert each spring and fall, and regularly sings for other church and civic events.  Tonight’s performance marks the choir’s second appearance with the Western Piedmont Symphony.
 
FLORENCE JOWERS is an associate professor in the music program of Lenoir-Rhyne University.  Before coming to Hickory, she founded the Shenango Area Youth Chorus in northwestern Pennsylvania.  At L-R, in addition to LRYC, she is the university organist, and teaches classes in the various music programs of the school.  She was trained at Yale and Stetson Universities. Following graduate school, she won a Rotary International Fellowship to study organ and sacred music in Vienna, Austria, with Anton Heiller, the premier Bach scholar of his day.  Ms. Jowers has performed extensively in the U.S. and Germany.  She also serves as organist of First Baptist Church, Hickory.

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