“Up Close with the Figge: Women in Music" at the Figge Art Museum -- March 25.
Saturday, March 25, 7:30 p.m.
Figge Art Museum, 225 West Second Street, Davenport IA
Held in honor of the Figge Art Museum’s major exhibition Sporting Fashion: Outdoor Girls 1800 to 1960, a quintet of classical-music talents will share the spotlight when the Davenport venue and the Quad City Symphony Orchestra host the special March 25 program Up Close with the Figge: Women in Music, a night of glorious compositions featuring Hannah Holman on cello, Marian Lee on piano, and Emily Nash, Janis Sakai, and Deborah Dakin all on viola.
An active chamber musician, Hannah Holman studied at the Eastman School of Music and Michigan State University, where she completed her Bachelor of Music degree, and obtained her Master of Music Degree with Fritz Magg at the New England Conservatory. A founding member of the Beaumont Piano Trio, which performed around the United States and England, Holman was also a founding member of Quadrivinium, a music ensemble-in-residence at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts. From 2002 to 2011, she was a member of the Maia Quartet, the University of Iowa's quartet-in-residence, which toured China, Japan, and throughout the United States, including teaching residencies at Interlochen Center for the Arts, the Great Wall International Music Academy in China, and the Austin Chamber Music Center. Holman regularly performs in chamber ensembles with musicians from throughout the United States, and Fanfare magazine raved that “her tone and technique are the stuff that cello legends are made of.”
An Assistant Professor of Piano at St. Ambrose University who received her Doctor of Musical Arts at Baltimore's Peabody Conservatory of the Johns Hopkins University, Marian Lee made her New York debut at Carnegie Hall's Weill Recital Hall as the 1995 winner of the Artist International Award. She went on to serve as a soloist and chamber performer in Italy, France, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Poland, Russia, Thailand, and Hong Kong, as well as in major cities throughout the United States. Lee has made numerous appearances at the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C. and performed an exclusive recital in the Hermitage Theater at the Winter Palace in St. Petersburg, Russia, and also played piano in a nationally televised broadcast from Tchaikovsky Hall in Moscow. Additionally, Lee helped develop Moscow Nights, a first-time collaboration between the music and Russian-language departments at the University of Delaware, and served as president of the Delaware Music Teachers Association.
Emily Nash graduated with her MM in violin performance while studying with Almita and Roland Vamos at Northwestern University, graduating early and with high honors. She received her BM in violin performance from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign while studying with Simin Ganatra, and she has has participated in master classes with the Silk Road Ensemble, the Turtle Island String Quartet, Wendy Sharp, Roland and Almita Vamos, John McGrosso, Kurt Baldwin, Rebecca Henry, and the Parker Quartet. Nash has spent years performing with both the Quad City Symphony Orchestra and the Northwest Indiana Symphony Orchestra, where she serves as Associate Concertmaster and Assistant Principal Second, respectively. Nash also performs with the Milwaukee Symphony, Hawaii Symphony, Chicago Philharmonic, Fort Wayne Philharmonic, Illinois Philharmonic, Lake Forest Symphony, and the Midwest Mozart Festival.
As a violinist, Janis Sakai has performed orchestral, chamber music, and solo works internationally. She has been studying the violin since the age of five, winning numerous awards in competitions such as the Society of American Musicians, the Walgreens Concerto Competition, and the Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition, among others. Sakai has also played in master classes for Yo-Yo Ma, Ruggerio Ricci, Midori, The Pacifica Quartet, The Tokyo String Quartet, Eighth Blackbird, the Silk Road Ensemble, and Pinchas Zuckerman, and has performed with the Colorado Symphony, Music of the Baroque, the New World Symphony, and the Madison Symphony Orchestra.
An adjunct assistant professor of viola at Augustana College, Deborah Dakin is currently Principal Violist with the Quad City Symphony Orchestra, a position she has held since 1988. She is violist of the Ohmes String Quartet and a founding member of the Iowa Chamber Players, and she has joined with fellow Augustana colleagues Robert Elfline and Janina Ehlich to establish the ensemble Tikkun. With over 30 years of teaching experience, Dakin has served on the faculty of the University of Iowa and Cornell College, as well as the Eastern Music Festival and Pine Mountain Music Festival, he has twice traveled to Brasil as a guest performer and teacher.
The first half of the Women in Music program will take place in the Figge's Winter Garden and feature Johann Sebastian Bach's "Cello Suite No. 4 in E-flat major, BWV 1010," Kaija Saariaho's "Dreaming Chaconne for Solo Cello," Augusta Reed Thomas' "Incantation for Solo Violin," Ellen Taaffe Zwilich's "A Little Violin Music in Memory of Elijah McClain for Solo Violin," and Rebecca Clarke's "Two Pieces for Violin and Cello." After intermission, the program moves to the Davenport venue's lobby for Jessie Montgomery's "Strum for String Quartet," with the evening's repertoire wrapped up by Amy Beach's "Piano Quintet in F-sharp minor, Op. 67."
Up Close with the Figge: Women in Music will take place in Davenport on March 25, admission to the 7:30 p.m. concert event is $10-25, and more information and tickets are available by contacting the Quad City Symphony Orchestra at (563)322-0931 and QCSO.org.
