April 27th SZALON!

1.     Anders Hillborg Sax Quartet (2020), performed by the Stockholm Saxophone Quartet: Jörgen Pettersson (alto saxophone), Mathias Björnstad (soprano saxophone), Theo Hillborg (tenor saxophone), Teo Hillberg (baritone saxophone), from Stockholm, Sweden

2.     Sumi Tonooka performs a new solo piano work, Mvmt II from a Suite for Four Piano’s called We Will Not Let This Happen, in response to the subject of Book Banning.

3.     Raji Malik performs acoustic, Indian-influenced, instrumental music medicine that creates a portal through which we may sense our interconnection and more clearly channel love, from the Szalon

4.     Yiguo Zhang, Evan Yoon, Ian Lin of the Benjamin and Carol Auger Contemporary Ensemble, a Settlement Music School Advanced Studies group, performs Piano Trio #1, Mvmt 1: “Life Cycle”, composed by Pierre Jalbert, from the Szalon

5.     Jerome Kitzke performs live at the Philadelphia Salon his now 25 year old work, The Green Automobile, for amplified speaking pianist with a text by Allen Ginsberg

6.     Julio Martin-Navas and Collin Parker-Szekely perform the first and second movements, “Broken Voice” and “Broken Chord, from Broken Music for cello and piano, from the Salon

7.     Artem Tenkeli performs his own Adagio and Fanciful Waltz followed by Skriabin Etude Op.8 No. 12, from the Szalon

8.     Hannah Nicholas performs a piece for solo viola, Rising on the Wings of Dawn by composer Judith Shatin, from the Szalon

9.     Cellist Jeffrey Solow and pianist Elise Auerback perform Piatigorsky's 'updated' concert version of Luigi Boccherini's Sonata in C major in honor of Gregor Piatigorsky's 121st birthday, from the Szalon

10.  Holly Roadfelt performs singles from her Preludes Project CD; and her two upcoming releases, North American Narratives; and Hommages by Anthony J. Lanman, from the Szalon

11.  Mezzo-soprano Andreia Lucaciu with pianist Mădălina-Claudia Dănilă, perform "Seguidilla" from Carmen by G. Bizet, “Baga, Doamne, luna'n nor…” and “vai, badita, dragi ne-avem” by by T. Brediceanu, from the Szalon

The Stockholm Saxophone Quartet

The Stockholm Saxophone Quartet is one of Europe's foremost ensembles for new music. With four saxophones and insatiable curiosity, they have since 1969 blown boundaries and redefined what the saxophone can express. Swedish and international composers have so far written over 800 works directly for the quartet. Today's ensemble – Linn Persson Kornhammar, Theo Hillborg, Jörgen Pettersson and Mathias Karlsen Björnstad - combines technical brilliance with artistic passion. They move just as naturally between opera houses, schools and experimental concert stages as between continents, from France to Mongolia, Iran to the USA, Japan to Bolivia.

www.stockholmsax.com

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Sumi Tonooka

Sumi Tonooka has been called a “fierce, fascinating composer pianist” (Jazz Times), “provocative and compelling” (New York Times) With sixteen recordings to her name and a vast catalogue of compositions and award winning works in genres symphonic, chamber, dance, and film, Tonooka continues to be a creative force.

Tonooka is a 2023 PEW artist fellow. Tonooka is a winning finalist in the Emerging Black Composers Project to compose her fourth symphonic work for the San Francisco Conservatory of Music in December 2022. She is also a 2021 recipient of the Doris Duke, Creative Inflections Grant, co-creating with vocalist/composer Jen Shyu, for In The Green Room, a multi- disciplinary music production inspired by the stories of women in Jazz. Other awards include, Chamber Music America’s New Jazz Works grant, (2019) and composer in residence with the South Dakota Symphony through the New Music Alive Residency, New Music USA. Her first symphonic work “Full Circle” was performed by the American Composers Orchestra in NYC in 2013, through the Jazz Composers Orchestra Intensive, a program that was created through Columbia University, UCLA, Herb Albert School of Music and Doris Duke to support and foster new works for Orchestra by Jazz composers.

Links: 

sumitonooka.com
Paypal:  sumi.tonooka@gmail.com
Venmo: @Sumi-Tonooka
Instagram: @sumitonooka
Facebook: Sumi Tonooka

Videos:

Raji Malik

Raji Malik has performed and recorded hard rock and instrumental Indian-influenced music in the Philadelphia area for the past 30 years.  He is self-taught and started playing guitar when he was 19.   Raji’s initial musical influences were the great rock guitarists Jimmy Page (Led Zeppelin), Jimi Hendrix, and David Gilmour (Pink Floyd).  Then he discovered Shakti, featuring 3 masterful Indian musicians and guitar legend John Mclaughlin playing a modified sitar-like acoustic guitar.  Raji promptly put away his electric guitar and immersed himself in the pure tones of the acoustic guitar.  Raji finds deep inspiration from many brilliant “Modern Fingerstyle” guitarists who are all disciples of the late Michael Hedges, who reinvented the acoustic guitar with his harmonic percussive playing.  Raji hopes that his music brings peace, healing, and inspiration. May this music bring you a deeper appreciation of your goodness and a tangible sense of interconnection.  May we all continue to challenge ourselves to grow with honest self-reflection so that we may more clearly channel love. 

Links:
Donations: https://venmo.com/u/Raji-Malik
Website: https://www.rajimalik.com/
Streaming: https://rajimalik.hearnow.com/
Facebook: Raji Malik Music
Instagram: @rajimalik88

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Yiguo Zhang, Evan Yoon, and Ian Lin

Yiguo Zhang, Evan Yoon, and Ian Lin of the Benjamin and Carol Auger Contemporary Ensemble, a Settlement Music School Advanced Studies group, coached by Linda Reichert

Violinist Yiguo Zhang is a junior at Lower Merion High School and is a student of Shelley Beard at Settlement Music School. In addition to winning awards at multiple competitions, he is a violinist in the PYO and Auger Contemporary Music Ensemble, and has recently served as concertmaster of the PMEA District 11 orchestra. 

Evan Yoon has been studying the cello for 9 years. Now in his second year in the Auger Contemporary Piano Trio, he delves deeper into the rigorous yet fascinating world of modern music.

15-year old pianist Ian Lin currently studies with Natalie Zhu. He has won numerous top prizes at piano competitions, including International Chopin Competition in Hartford, CT, International Paderewski Piano Competition, and the Steinway Society of Massachusetts Competition. Additionally, Ian is a composer, and also a violinist in the Philadelphia youth orchestra.

Jerome Kitzke

Jerome Kitzke lives in New York City but grew up along the southwestern shore of Lake Michigan in Milwaukee, where he was born in 1955. Since his first work in 1970, he has thought himself to be as much a storyteller as he is a composer. Some of the stories are about life's personal roads, like The Redness of Blood and Sunflower Sutra which both express the composer's love for his blood family. Many, however, like Haunted America and The Paha Sapa Give-Back are about the roads that go looking for what it means to be an American early in the 21st Century, especially as it relates to the connection between how we live on this land and the way we came to live on it. Kitzke's music celebrates American Vitality in its purest forms. It thrives on the spirit of driving jazz, Plains Indian song, and Beat Generation poetry, where freedom and ritual converge. It is direct, dramatic, and visceral — always with an ear to the sacred ground. His music has been performed around the world and recorded on the Innova, New World, Mode, and Starkland labels and is published by Peer Music in New York and Hamburg. He is currently preparing for the October 2025 world premiere in New York City of I Wonder If This Ground Has Anything to Say (A Treaty Illumination) to be done by thingNY at Merkin Hall. Upcoming new work will be the electric guitar quartet, Nothing Wrong With Quiet, and the theatrical musical adaptation of Andrew Krivak’s novel, The Bear.

Link:

peermusicclassical.com/composers/12371

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Julio Martin-Navas and Collin Parker-Szekely

Julio Martín-Navas, 17, is a cellist from Abington, PA, just outside of Philadelphia. He began to study cello at age 7, and currently studies with Gloria dePasquale. Julio has served as the principal cellist of several youth ensembles throughout the Philadelphia area. During the 2024-25 season, Julio held the position of Assistant Principal Cellist of the Philadelphia Youth Orchestra. Throughout the years, Julio has attended summer programs and festivals such as, Center Stage Strings, Sphinx Performance Academy, McDuffie Center for Strings’ Labor Day Festival, and Forum Musikae Conservatory’s summer program in Madrid, Spain. As a chamber musician, Julio has had the opportunity to study with members of the Emerson and Cavani Quartets. Julio has performed in masterclasses for artists and pedagogues such as, Sheku Kanneh-Mason, Amit Peled, and Natasha Brofsky. In 2024, Julio was a recipient of the Bruce Montgomery Foundation for the Arts Springboard Grant, given to talented individuals who are pursuing excellence in the performing arts. Julio is also a proud member of the Philadelphia Music Alliance for Youth (PMAY) Artist’s Initiative.

Collin Parker-Szekely, 18, of Abington, PA,  is involved in many different musical activities, primarily through his studies in both piano and cello. Collin studies his primary instrument, the piano, with concert pianist and Curtis Institute of Music faculty Michelle Cann. He also takes private cello lessons with Thomas Kraines of the Daedalus Quartet through Settlement Music School, where he has been a multi-year scholarship recipient.  As a pianist, Collin won the overall concerto competition for the Philadelphia International Music Festival, was a featured soloist for both the Bach and Beyond festival and the Menges concerto competition, and was a finalist for the MostArts Festival and Young Pianists Competition.

Julio’s Instagram: @jmn.cellist
Collin’s instagram: @_collinps.__

Artem Tenkeli

Pianist Artem Tenkeli brings a lifelong passion for music to his captivating performances. Classically trained from a young age, Artem began with a humble 2-octave toy keyboard before entering music school at 11. He went on to study at the prestigious Conservatory of Mussorgsky and then sharing the stage with renowned orchestras and collaborating with celebrated artists and great theaters. Artem's impressive portfolio includes wins at the PHL LIVE competition, Nevada International, and Franz Liszt Center competitions. He has performed extensively throughout Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, and Central Asia, and currently performs in the Greater Philadelphia area, New Jersey, Delaware, Pennsylvania, and New York. His concerts showcase technical mastery and emotional depth, inspiring audiences with his love for music.


Links:
Instagram: @artem_tenkeli
Facebook: Artem Tenkeli

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Hannah Nicholas and Judith Shatin

Hannah Nicholas is the principal violist of the Philadelphia Ballet Orchestra. She has appeared on series including the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society, Bowerbird, SoFar Sounds, the Network for New Music, LyricFest, Artcinia, Lincoln Center Atrium 360, Garth Newel Music Festival as guest violist, and Festival Mozaic (upcoming). Hannah heads her own chamber music series, "Hannah Rose Presents," that has featured musicians from the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Ballet and Opera, WPO, the Daedalus Quartet, and Ernesto's Club. She enjoys writing her own music and has taught songwriting at the University of Pennsylvania. Hannah currently teaches viola and coaches chamber music at Swarthmore College.

My website is www.hannahroseviola.com, where you can find out more about me and what concerts I have upcoming.  I have several recordings on Spotify and bandcamp under my name, Hannah Rose Nicholas. Feel free to follow me on instagram: @hannah_rose_presents.  

Judith Shatin (www.judithshatin.com) is known for music that spans acoustic, electroacoustic and digital realms. A sonic explorer, from  acoustic instruments tomaterials such as zippers and tape, her music is ‘…bursting with imaginative detail’ (San Francisco Chronicle). She pairs timbral innovation with an approach she calls ‘paratonality,’ building form on a substrate of connected harmonic motion. Commissions have come from organizations including the Barlow Endowment, Carnegie Hall, the Fromm Foundation and the Library of Congress, as well as ensembles including the Dutch Hexagon Ensemble, Ensemble Berlin PianoPercussion, Kronos Quartet, the National Symphony, Scottish Voices and many others. A noted teacher, Shatin is William R. Kenan, Jr. Professor Emerita at UVA, where she founded the Virginia Center for Computer Music. An advocate for her fellow composers, she was President of Amercian Women Composers, Interim-Vice President of the American Composers Alliance and on the Advisory Board of the International Alliance for Women in Music (IAWM).

Jeffrey Solow and Elise Auerbach

Cellist Jeffrey Solow’s compelling playing has enthralled audiences throughout North America, Europe, Latin America and Asia as soloist, chamber musician and teacher. Born and raised in Los Angeles, he earned a degree in Philosophy magna cum laude from UCLA while studying with and assisting the legendary Gregor Piatigorsky at USC. He has performed more than 40 different solo works with orchestras worldwide and he has been guest artist at many national and international festivals. Among his numerous recordings (for Columbia, New World, ABC, Centaur, Delos, Capstone, Kleos, Desmar, Orion, Laurel, Everest, and Telefunken) two received Grammy Award nominations. Jeffrey has been professor of cello at Temple University since 1989 and received the Lindback Award for Distinguished Teaching in 2020.

www.jeffreysolow.com
https://www.facebook.com/jeffrey.solow

Elise Auerbach's wide-ranging interests and expertise span the spectrum of the collaborative pianist. She has appeared with singers and instrumentalists in such venues as Weill Recital Hall, Alice Tully Hall, Alys Stevens Performing Arts Center, and the Kimmel Center. Other performance highlights include orchestral appearances with the Delaware and Temple University Symphonies, live broadcasts on Cincinnati Public Radio WGUC, premieres of new works for keyboard, and numerous recitals throughout the region. She has participated and performed at festivals and programs in Japan, Canada, Italy, and the United States, and toured twice in Germany as part of the Ribbeck-Auerbach violin & piano duo. Elise has served as music director for local opera companies, staff pianist for the ROW summer program, and orchestral pianist with the Princeton Symphony Orchestra. A devoted chamber musician, she is a founding member of Philalea, a Philadelphia-based chamber ensemble. Currently, Elise is a vocal coach at Temple University and staff pianist at the Academy of Vocal Arts in Philadelphia. She holds degrees from Temple University and the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music, and studies the Taubman Approach with Robert Durso.

Holly Roadfeldt

Few musicians balance the new opposite the old quite like American pianist Holly Roadfeldt. Recently deemed “on fire...a perfect pairing of technical prowess and innate sensitivity” (American Record Guide), “a vivid pianist” (Gramophone), and “jaw-dropping” (Mainly Piano), she frequently advocates for eclectic programming and creative pedagogical approaches. Recognized by audiences and critics for both her technical facility and distinctive interpretation of music from all eras, she has appeared in venues across Canada, Europe, Asia, and over 40 U.S. states. Holly tirelessly searches for like-minded musicians who share her obsession with creating opportunities for listeners to connect with the music. Best demonstrating this ethos is her three-year artistic flagship, “The Preludes Project,” which saw her premiere 65 preludes by 16 composers, leading to Holly’s debut album, The Preludes Project. Holly will be continuing her advocacy of combining recently-composed and familiar works with her newest project “North American Narratives” over the next three years. This will include multiple commissions and three recording projects: Anthony J. Lanman’s Hommages, the Études of Philip Glass, and North American Narratives, which she will be recording as part of her 2024-2025 Pesky Artist-in Residency at Lafayette College.

HollyRoadfeldt.com
Instagram: @HRoadfeldt
bluesky: @hroadfeldt

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Andreia Lucaciu and Mădălina-Claudia Dănilă

Romanian-American mezzo-soprano Andreia Lucaciu is a performer of deep expression and musicality, whose voice and presence have been praised by conductors and stage directors both here and abroad. Performances in Europe, Japan and China have featured her in operetta, opera, symphony, chamber music and recital, spanning repertoire from the Baroque to the Contemporary. The recipient of numerous awards, Andreia holds First Prize from the New York Classical Music competition, the Virtuoso International, Charleston International and Victory International competitions, as well as additional winnings in London, Rome, and Romania. During her pursuit of her Master of Music degree in Vocal Performance at Temple University, she has distinguished herself by receiving three significant awards and scholarship tuition from the institution. Notably, she was awarded the first prize in the 2024 Temple University Student competition. Her performance engagements include concerts and recitals presented under the auspices of esteemed Romanian cultural institutions in Philadelphia and New York, as well as Norwegian Embassy, showcasing and promoting Romania’s rich cultural heritage. Additionally, she is engaged in performances with Abington Symphony Orchestra and The Opera Project Stockton NJ.

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@andreialucaciu8362
Instagram: @andreia_lucaciu

Mădălina-Claudia Dănilă, a Romanian-born concert pianist, has earned international acclaim for her exceptional skill and artistic depth. Her performances are celebrated for their profound artistry and technical mastery, captivating audiences around the globe. Mădălina has distinguished herself in prestigious competitions, notably winning the Best Performance prize at the International Piano Competition in Vigo, Spain, and securing multiple first-place awards at the Charleston 20th Century Music Competition in 2023. She is a DMA candidate at Temple University. She performs in a piano duo with Hugh Sung, celebrated collaborative pianist and Vice President of Cunningham Piano Company where they merge decades of performance experience with cutting-edge musical innovation.

https://www.madalinadanila.com/

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