What is Music in May?
Mim brings renowned musicians to Santa Cruz in a weekend full of concerts. Our intent is to expand and broaden the audience of classical music, impact youth, increase awareness of and develop relationships with other local non-profit organizations serving the Santa Cruz community.
2010 Artists
Resident Musicians
Guest Artists
Liang-Ping How
LIANG-PING HOW (violin and viola) began studying violin at the age of four and continued his studies at the Interlochen Arts Academy and with Jaime Laredo at the Curtis Institute of Music. How made his solo debut with the National Youth Orchestra of Taiwan at the age of seven and his Carnegie Hall debut in 1974 with the New York String Orchestra under Alexander Schneider. He has been a member of the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra since 1980, appearing both as member and soloist and often leading the group as concertmaster. He has toured extensively throughout North and South America, Europe, and Asia with Orpheus, among other ensembles, and has recorded on numerous occasions with Orpheus for the Deutsche Grammophon label. How is an active soloist and chamber musician. He performed as soloist with Orpheus playing the Bruch violin concerto and the Morzart G major with the New Mexico Symphony. How's chamber music activities have included performances at the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, Grand Teton Music Festival, Spoleto, Caramoor Music Festival, the Lockenhaus Festival, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. He also appeared with the New York Philomusica at the International Music Festival of Sofia and with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. How currently resides in Santa Fe, New Mexico, where he is a member of the Santa Fe Opera Orchestra and the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival. He plays an 1863 J.B. Vuillaume.
Rebecca Jackson
Hailed as "riveting" by The San Francisco Examiner, founder and artistic director of Music in May, Korean-American REBECCA JACKSON (violin), is a native of California. She has traveled and performed throughout the U.S., Puerto Rico, Spain, Italy, Ukraine, Romania, Japan, China, and Taiwan. Ms. Jackson received her B.M. from The Juilliard School and recently received a graduate degree from UC Santa Cruz where she studied with Roy Malan. She is assistant concertmaster of the Sarasota Opera Orchestra and regularly performs with the San Francisco Opera. She has performed with the Mendocino Festival and Cabrillo Festival Orchestras. Founder of A Musical Gift, Rebecca Jackson originated this concert series devoted to raising funds for worthwhile community causes. To date, over $100,000 has been raised. She was part of the broadway musical South Pacific during its 2009 fall time run at the Golden Gate Theater in San Francisco. Ms. Jackson's acting and original composition was featured April 2010 at Exit Theater (San Francisco) in the production, "The Wind and Rain." In addition Ms. Jackson has completed two marathons, three triathlons, is an avid salsa dancer, and served as Miss Santa Cruz County 2005. www.rjviolin.info
Amy Yang
Hailed by Harris Goldsmith of The New York Concert Review as "a magnificent artist and poet: everything she touches turns to gold--a Midas touch for tone and music", twenty-four-year-old pianist AMY JIAQI YANG has captured first prizes at many competitions and has performed in various renowned venues in the United States, Europe and Asia. Most recently, she toured the east coast with Musicians from Ravinia's Steans Institute, made her debut at The OK Mozart Festival, returned for her second season at Marlboro Music Festival, and competed in the Thirteenth Van Cliburn Piano Competition. This season will include Ms. Yang’s debut recital at Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall and recitals at Steinway Hall in New York. An experienced performer, Ms. Yang has concertized in major venues including the Kennedy Center, Columbia University, Lincoln Center’s Rose Studio, Cemal Resit Rey Concert Hall in Istanbul, and at The Ravinia Festival, to name a few. From a chamber recital, Peter Dobrin from The Philadelphia Inquirer remarked, "Yang made sense of complex passages by deftly highlighting one voice among many [and] elevated joy to the edge of rapture while still in control of a totally refined sound." Ms. Yang has garnered first prizes at the International Corpus Christi Young Artists' Competition, where she also received the grand prize, the National Chopin Piano Competition of the Kosciuszko Foundation of New York City, and the International Frederic Chopin Piano Competition (Corpus Christi). She has been a soloist with the Houston Symphony, Connecticut Virtuosi Chamber Orchestra, Corpus Christi Symphony, Richardson Symphony, and Woodlands Symphony. Her performances have been heard on radio broadcasts in Poland, across the U.S., and on National Public Radio. Ms. Yang received degrees from The Curtis Institute of Music and The Juilliard School. Currently, she is pursuing an Artist Diploma at The Yale School of Music, where she received the Elizabeth Parisot Prize for an Outstanding Piano Student. Her principal teachers are Hua Yang, Qing Li, Timothy Hester, Claude Frank, Robert McDonald, and Peter Frankl. A visual artist, she devotes her time to drawing, painting, and sculpting as well as reading great literature, playing classical guitar, and taking art classes at Yale. Her compositions have been premiered at Juilliard's Double Visions series. www.amyjyang.com
Eric Sung
ERIC SUNG is the Associate Principal Cellist of the San Francisco Ballet Orchestra. He has studied at the Cleveland Institute of Music, University of Southern California, and the Juilliard School. His principal teachers have been Stephen Geber, Ronald Leonard, Fred Sherry, David Geber and Lynn Harrell. An avid chamber musician, Eric has performed at the Taos, Sarasota, Scotia, Banff, Mendocino, Kent/Blossom, Aspen, Tanglewood and San Luis Obispo Mozart Festivals. He has participated in the New York String Seminar, Piatigorsky Seminar and has attended the National Repertory Orchestra, National Orchestral Institute, Pacific Music Festival and Verbier Festival. As a soloist, Eric has appeared with the Colburn Chamber Orchestra, Aspen Academy of Conducting Orchestra and the Saratoga Symphony. He was a member of the Metamorphosen Chamber Orchestra and was the Assistant Principal Cellist of the Hong Kong Philharmonic. Eric has served as Acting/Guest Principal of the National Arts Centre Orchestra in Ottawa, Canada and has performed with the Los Angeles Philharmonic and the San Francisco Opera Orchestra.
Ronald Leonard
Guest Artist
Ronald Leonard has long been acknowledged as one of America’s most highly acclaimed cellists, chamber musicians and teacher. While a student at the Curtis Institute of Music, where he studied with Leonard Rose and Orlando Cole, Mr. Leonard won the prestigious Walter W. Naumburg award. Upon graduation he was invited by George Szell to join the Cleveland Orchestra, a position he held for two years. He was then appointed principal cellist of the Rochester Philharmonic and also joined the faculty of the Eastman School of Music. Before joining the Los Angeles Philharmonic as Principal cellist in 1975, he was a member of the Vermeer Quartet. During his years as principal cellist with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, he was presented as soloist with the orchestra many times, performing, to name a few, concertos by Haydn, Dvorak, Elgar, Barber, Shostokovitch, Brahms, Beethoven, Strauss, Tschaikovsky and Prokofiev, with world famous conductors Zubin Mehta, Carl Maria Giulini, Sir Simon Rattle, Michael Tilson Thomas and Esa-Peka Salonen. Chamber Music has also been a major part of his musical career. While at Eastman he was a member of the Eastman Quartet, spent summers at both Aspen, where he regularly performed with Itzahk Perlman, Pinkus Zuckerman, Claude Frank, and Marlboro, where he collaborated with Rudolph Serkin, Alexander Schneider, Felix Galimir, Jaimie Laredo, Arnold Steinhardt, Richard Goode, Lilian Kalir,Ruth Laredo, Murray Perahia, Walter Ponce, Shmuel Ashkenasi, Pina Carmirelli, Isidore Cohen, Sylvia Rosenberg, Michael Tree, Sandor Vegh, James Dunham, Bruno Giuranna, John Graham, Raphael Hillyer, Jorge Mester, Philip Naegele, Timothy Eddy, Madeline Foley, Yo Yo Ma, Siegfreid Palm, Miklos Perenyi, and many others . He has been involved in the chamber music programs at many festivals, including Aspen, Marlboro, Musicorda, Music Fest, the Australian Music Festival, Reno Chamber Music Festival and the Sarasota Music Festival. He has also been guest artist with the Guarnerius, American, Mendelssohn , Boromeo, and Jiulliard Quartets. Mr. Leonard was an active member in the Hollywood studio scene and can be heard on the sound tracks as soloist in such movies as Witches of Eastwick, Sophies Choice and Snow Falling on Cedars. Regarded as one of the world’s leading pedagogues, Mr. Leonard has held important posts at the Eastman School of Music, the Aspen Music Festival, the Meadowmount School of Music, the Perlman Music Program, Musicorda, UCLA, the Heifitz International Music Festival, USC, where he was the Piatigorsky Professor of Cello, and now the Colburn School, where he teaches cello and chamber music and is conductor of the Colburn Chamber Orchestra. His former students are members of orchestras such as Cleveland, Boston, Cincinnatti, Los Angeles, Toronto, and Buffalo, and many others hold positions in chamber music groups and educational institutions.
Michael Tree
Guest Artist
MICHAEL TREE was born in Newark, New Jersey and received his first violin instruction from his father. Later, as a scholarship student at the Curtis institute of Music in Philadelphia, Mr. Tree studied with Efrem Zimbalist, Lea Luboshutz and Veda Reynolds. In 1954, the New York Herald Tribune wrote, "A 20- year-old American violinist, Michael Tree, stepped out upon Carnegie Hall stage last night and made probably the most brilliant young debut in the recent past... the violinist evidenced not one lapse from the highest possible musical and technical standards". Subsequent to his debut, Mr. Tree has appeared as a violin and viola soloist with the Philadelphia, Los Angeles, Baltimore, New Jersey and other major orchestras. He has also participated in leading festivals, including Marlboro, Casals, Spoleto, Israel, Aspen, Santa Fe and Taos. As a founding member of the Guarneri String Quartet, Mr. Tree has played in major cities throughout the world. In 1982, Mayor Koch presented the Quartet with the New York City Seal of Recognition, an honor awarded for the first time. One of the most widely recorded musicians in America, Mr. Tree has recorded over 80 chamber music works, including piano quartets and quintets with Artur Rubinstein. Other artists with whom he has recorded include Emanuel Ax, Richard Goode, Jamie Laredo, Yo- Yo Ma, Sharon Robinson, Rudolf Serkin, Isaac Stern and Pinchas Zukerman. Mr. Tree is co-founder of the Schumann Trio, featuring works for clarinet, viola or violin, and piano. His colleagues include Anthony McGill and Anna Polonsky. Mr. Tree is on the faculties of the Curtis Institute of Music, The Juilliard School, Manhattan School of Music, Bard College and the University of Maryland at College Park.