February 17 Sarah Plum, violin J.S. Bach: Grave from Sonata No. 2 for solo violin Béla Bartók: Fuga from Sonata for solo violin

Eric Lyon: Personal Noise with Accelerants

Sidney Corbett: selections from Archipell Chagall 1

March 9

Mei-Hsuan Huang, piano Frédéric Chopin: Nocturne, Op. 9, No. 2 Nocturne, Op. 55, No. 2 Ballade No. 1 in G minor Sergei Rachmaninoff: Moment Music No. 1 Moment Music No. 4

March 2

Reuben Kebede, violin Pyotr Ilyrich Tchaikovsky: Violin Concerto in D major, Op. 35

February 24 Ashley Sandor Sidon, cello Sonya Siebert, piano Robert Schumann: Cello Concerto in A minor, Op. 129 Vittorio Monti: Czardas

LENTEN MUSIC SERIES 2016 Wednesdays 5:30 PM – 6:00 PM

FIRST UNITED METHODIST CHURCH

1001 Pleasant Street Des Moines, Iowa

The Lenten Music Series is sponsored by the First United Methodist Music Ministry Endowment Fund

Sarah Plum began her performing career by winning the first prize at the International Stulberg Competition in 1984. Since then she has carved out a distinctive role as a serious interpreter of a wide range of repertoire both old and new.

Plum recently released two new CDs on the Blue Griffin label that are garnering critical praise: Music for a New Century (BGR 371) features world premiere recordings of violin concerti by Sidney Corbett and Christopher Adler with conductors Nicholas Deyoe and Akira Mori and Bela Bartok: Works for Violin and Piano, Volume 1 (BGR 373) is the first of a two volume set of Bartok’s works for violin and piano with her longtime duo partner Timothy Lovelace.

As a new music specialist Plum has tirelessly championed composers - commissioning, premiering and discovering new works while also bringing them to the attention of a larger public. This has brought her acclaim at noted festivals and venues such as the Luzern Festival, Ars Musica Brussels, New York City Electoacoustic Music Festival, 3rd Practice Festival, Quiet Cue (Berlin), Spectrum New York, the Center for New Music San Francisco), the Cube of the Moss Arts Center at the Institute for Creativity and Technology at Virginia Tech, Unruly Music at the Marcus Center (Milwaukee) and Sonic Landscapes at California State University Fullerton among others. In the past 3 years alone she has commissioned pieces from Sidney Corbett, Christopher Adler, Charles Nichols, Eric Lyon, Laurie Schwartz, Mari Kimura, Sidney Boquiren, Mari Takano and Jeff Herriot.

Plum’s performances have been praised as “consistently stunning with works that demanded conventional virtuosity but also great skill in unconventional techniques” (third coast journal) and “extraordinary, meaningful and magnificent music” (Berlin Tageszeitung).

Plum is a graduate of the Juilliard School where she received a BM and MM and SUNY Stony Brook where she received a DMA. Her major teachers were Joyce Robbins, Szymon Goldberg, Dorothy Delay, David Cerone and Lyman Bodman. Please visit sarahplum.com for additional information and media samples.

Respected as both a soloist and chamber musician, Ashley Sandor Sidon has performed throughout the United States, Europe, South America, Canada, and Asia; and is the Artistic Director of the Zenith Chamber Music Festival. Dr. Sidon is the Briggs Endowed Professor of Cello at Drake University and previously held an appointment at the Shanghai Conservatory of Music in Shanghai, China. As an invited performer and clinician, Sidon’s credits include international solo performances across China, in Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore, Canada, Taiwan, Italy, Germany, France, Poland, and Brazil. Nationally, her performances as a chamber musician and as an orchestral soloist have taken her to the leading universities and concert stages from Maine to California. An advocate for new music, Ashley Sidon has commissioned new works by Phillip Koplow, Matthew Quayle, Roger Vogel, Miguel del Aguila, and William Dougherty; and in 2014 she performed the Polish premiere of Ned Rorem’s cello concerto on tour in Poland. She has premiered new chamber music and unaccompanied works to critical acclaim nationally, including in New York City, Cincinnati, Chicago, and other Midwestern cities; and internationally, including Beijing, Shanghai, Paris, and Vancouver, BC. Dr. Sidon has presented lectures/presentations at professional conferences including College Music Society Southeast Convention, the Music Educator's National Conference (MENC), MENC Southeast Convention, and the Iowa Music Educator’s Conference. Her research document titled, "Lineage and Comparison of Versions of Igor Stravinsky’s Suite Italienne" was published by the Hawaii International Conference on the Arts (2004). Ashley Sandor Sidon has performed under the direction of artists such as Daniel Barenboim, Pierre Boulez, Michael Tilson Thomas, and Christopher Wilkins. She has appeared with numerous orchestras, including the Chicago Civic Orchestra, the Zazrbe Filharmonia (Poland), Aspen Festival Orchestra, the Butte Symphony Orchestra, the Des Moines Symphony Orchestra, the Dayton Philharmonic Orchestra, Colorado College Music Festival Orchestra, the Florida Atlantic Symphony Orchestra, Daytona I Solisti Orchestra, the DaSalo Chamber Orchestra, and the Drake Symphony Orchestra. Dr. Sidon performs on a 1789 Antonio Gagliano cello and 1801 John Dodd bow.

Pianist Mei-Hsuan Huang is Assistant Professor of Piano at Iowa State University and a member of the Amara Piano Quartet (Joanne Rile Artists Management). Huang has been a prizewinner in several international piano competitions, including the USASU International Piano Competition in Tempe, Arizona, the 57th Wideman Piano Concerto Competition in Shreveport, Louisiana, and the International Chopin Piano Competition in Taipei, Taiwan. She regularly performs over fifty solo and chamber recitals every year in Europe, States, Canada and Taiwan. She has been invited to summer festivals including the 2006 Aspen Music Festival, the 2007 Pianofest in the East Hamptons, the 2008 Orford Music Festival, Quebec, the 2010 Atlantic Music Festival in Maine, the 2012 CICA Eureka Springs International Music Festival in Arkansas, and the 2012 and 2013 Banff Music Festival, Alberta. Festivals increasingly ask for her presence on their artist rosters. Recently, Huang also was presented in a piano recital in National Taiwan Concert Hall (Taipei), as a result of being nominated for the prize of “Excellent Musician Series” by ProArtist. In 2013, Huang performed George Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue with the Central Iowa Symphony, Robert Schumann’s Piano Concerto with the Iowa State University Orchestra, and Camille Saint-Saëns’ Carnival of the Animals with the Des Moines Symphony. She also travelled with the Amara Quartet to perform at the Colours of Music Festival in Barrie, Ontario and on concert series in Illinois, Virginia, Michigan, Ohio, and Texas. The quartet will release compact disc on the Fleur de Son label in 2016, a recording of American quartets that will feature the piano quartet by George Tsontakis’ piano quartet No. 3, Dark Rosaleen—written by Lee Hoiby for the Ames Piano Quartet—a piano quartet by Walter Piston and Carolina Reveille by Paul Schoenfield. Huang received her bachelors degree at The National Taiwan Normal University, where, she won the prestigious Xing Tang Temple Piano Competition Prize. She received her masters degree at the Cleveland Institute of Music, where she studied with Sergei Babayan, Margarita Shevchenko, and Paul Schenly. She received her doctorate of musical arts degree at The Ohio State University under full-scholarship. Huang is on piano faculty at The Atlantic Music Festival in Maine and guest pianist at Caroga Music Festival in New York during the summer. Huang was named a Steinway & Sons Artist since 2014.

A recent graduate of Drake University, Reuben Kebede is a violinist with the Des Moines Symphony. He has appeared in masterclass for Jaime Laredo, Olivier Charlier, Mauricio Fuks, Paul Kantor, and Gerardo Ribeiro, as well as for members of the Emerson, Miro, and Chiara string quartets. While at Drake, he served as concertmaster of the Drake Symphony and Drake String Ensemble. Additionally, Kebede has been heard in recital in Germany and in France, where he has participated in the Zodiac Music Festival for the past three summers.