Featuring compositions by Caroline Shaw (USA), Osvaldo Golijov (Argentina), William Grant Still (USA) and Astor Piazzolla (Argentina).
Guest Artists:
Alyona A. Waldo - piano
A native of Voronezh, Russia, pianist Alyona A. Waldo has pursued an accomplished and versatile career as a chamber musician, collaborative pianist, and educator. Recent engagements include faculty artist at the Clazz International Music Festival in Arcidosso, Italy, concert soloist with the Edgewood Chamber Orchestra, and collaborative pianist for faculty and student recitals at the University of Wisconsin-Madison Mead Witter School of Music. Alyona has performed across the U.S., Europe, and Asia as a member of the cello/piano team A.W.Duo. As a chamber musician, performance highlights include Piccolo Spoleto Festival in Charleston, SC, performances with cellist Sara Sant’Ambrogio at the Highlands-Cashiers Chamber Music Festival, and New York City venues including Carnegie Hall, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Polish, Russian and French Consulates, and Lincoln Center. Alyona was pianist of the Listen Closely chamber music initiative, presenting concerts of historical and newly-commissioned works for the people of uptown Manhattan. In Russia, Alyona was winner of the Gavrilin Governor's International Competition, the finalist of the International Gnessin Piano Competition in Moscow, and concert soloist with the Voronezh Academic Symphony Orchestra. Other notable positions include staff pianist for the La Lingua Della Lirica Festival in Novafeltria, Italy; faculty of the International Piano Festival in Portland, ME; and staff pianist for Mannes Preparatory Division. She received her Master of Music degree from Mannes College, the New School for Music (NYC), under the tutelage of Vladimir Feltsman and Pavlina Dokovska. Now living in Madison, WI, Alyona is active as a collaborative pianist and music educator.
Ryan Loken - percussion
Dr. Ryan Loken, Assistant Professor of Percussion at the University of Minnesota Duluth, is known across the region as a solo performer and collaborator. Recent solo performances by Loken have highlighted the works of Francisco Perez, John Luther Adams, and Emma O’Halloran, among others. Loken has played with the Fargo Moorhead Symphony Orchestra since 2018 and now performs regularly with the Duluth Superior Symphony Orchestra. In 2019, he was a guest artist at the Oregon Fringe Festival in Ashland, Oregon, where his quartet, MinusOne Percussion, performed John Luther Adams’s Strange and Sacred Noise and joined other guest artists in creating immersive musical experiences. Loken is also an active pursuer of new music and has commissioned numerous works, including duets, quartets, and mixed chamber ensembles.
A believer in the impacts of physical and mental health on musicianship, Loken stresses the importance of a total-body approach to percussion. He is certified in Noa Kageyama’s “Bulletproof Musician” course, which teaches mental resilience and deliberate practice strategies. In addition, Loken incorporates the scientific approach of sports medicine, including mobility and calisthenics training, into his playing and teaching for lifelong healthy musicianship. He has been a member of Rob Knopper’s Audition Hacker Academy, which provides a systematic approach toward audition preparation, since the program’s founding in 2015. He has continued to serve as a beta tester for some of Knopper’s other courses.
In addition to his instruction at UMD, Loken is on faculty at the International Music Camp, where he works with students from the United States, Canada, and around the globe. He also offers private studio instruction. His percussion teachers include David Eyler and Sigurd Johnson, and he has studied composition with Jocelyn Hagen and Kyle Vanderburg. Loken has a Bachelor of Music in Percussion Performance from Concordia College, Master’s degrees in both Percussion Performance and Music Theory Pedagogy and a DMA in Percussion Performance from North Dakota State University.