Piano Technicians Guild
WESTPAC - Western and Pacific Regional Conference

Premiere Classes:

• Extended Piano Techniques Summit (all day Sat.)

• All Day with Fazioli

• Renner: Out with the Old,
  In with the New

Conference and Class Schedule [PDF]

Revised 2/4/12

Concert 7:30 on Saturday

Concert Program to include:

• Entrade by Stephen Scott
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  Stephen Scott

  Stephen Scott was born in Corvallis, Oregon, in 1944 to scientifically trained parents who were also talented amateur musicians. Early study of music included tutoring in recorder in Bristol, England, clarinet and saxophone in elementary and secondary school bands, and private study and transcription of recordings by Charlie Parker, Miles Davis, Gil Evans, Oliver Nelson and John Coltrane in high school. Formal training in composition was at the University of Oregon and Brown University, with field studies in African music undertaken in Ghana, Tanzania and Zimbabwe in 1970.

  Scott is professor of music at Colorado College. He has served on the faculty of The Evergreen State College and as visiting composer at the Aspen Music School, New England Conservatory, Princeton University, University of Southern California, and at several universities and conservatoria in Australia.

  Awards have included the New England Conservatory/Rockefeller Foundation Chamber Music Prize (1980) and a National Endowment for the Arts Composers' Fellowship (1985-86). Scott is listed in New Grove's Dictionary of American Music and Baker's Biographical Dictionary of Musicians, and his work is discussed in several books on twentieth-century music. His bowed piano composition "The Tears of Niobe" represented the United States at the 1991 Internatioinal Rostrum of Composers in Paris.

  Stephen Scott's website is located athttp://www.coloradocollege.edu/dept/MU/scott.html.

  
  
• Euphotic by Ulrich Krieger
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  Ulrich Krieger

  Ulrich Krieger is a composer and saxophone performer. His pieces are widely performed by ensembles in Europe and the USA. Krieger’s recent focus lies on the experimental fringes of contemporary pop culture, the limbo between noise, metal, ambient, silence and experimental music. He transcribed and arranged Lou Reeds 'Metal Machine Music' for classical instruments. He has won several awards and residencies for: New York, Los Angeles, Venice, Rome, Bologna, Darmstadt and others. Ongoing collaborations include: Lou Reed, Lee Ranaldo, LaMonte Young, Phill Niblock, Christian Marcley, Mario Bertoncini, Merzbow, Michiko Hirayama, John Duncan, Zbigniew Karkowski, DJ Olive, Alan Licht, Kasper T Toeplitz, Radu Malfatti etc. He calls his way of saxophone playing 'acoustic electronics' and often uses his instrument as an 'analogue sampler' from which he can call his quasi-electronic sounds, which then get processed. His compositions also research ‘instrumental electronics’.

  Recent projects are Metal Machine Trio (with Lou Reed), Text of Light (with Lee Ranaldo), and zerfall–gebiete (with Thomas Köner) - somewhere in the nirvana between experimental rock, ambient and contemporary composition. He teaches composition and Experimental Sound Practices at CalArts.
• Selections from Makrokosmos by George Crumb
• "Vortex" - Etude for 2 pianos and 1 performer, by Milen Kirov
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  Milen Kirov

  Milen Kirov was born in Plovdiv, Bulgaria in a musical family and started playing the piano at the age of 4. He holds a Bachelor’s degree in Piano Performance, a Master’s degree in Composition, and in May, 2012 Milen will graduate with a Doctoral degree in Performer-Composer from California Institute of the Arts. He also serves as an adjunct faculty at Chapman University’s Conservatory of Music and the Department of Music at California State University, Northridge. Milen has won numerous piano and composition awards and has performed in Bulgaria, Greece, Germany, France, Canada, and the United States. Milen has shared the stage with some of the most exciting musicians in jazz, and contemporary music today and his compositions and performances have been featured on over 20 radio and TV stations in the US, England, Scotland, Germany, and Bulgaria. Currently Milen Kirov is based in Los Angeles, where he maintains a very busy composing, teaching, and performing schedule frequently giving concerts as a soloist or with his 11-piece Balkan brass ensemble “Orkestar MÉZÉ.” His personal website is www.milenkirov.net
  
• Selections from Sonatas and Interludes for Prepared Piano by John Cage

Artist to include:

• Jason Hardink
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  Jason Hardink

  A pianist of unusual versatility and depth, Jason Hardink holds the positions of Principal Symphony Keyboard at the Utah Symphony and Artistic Director of the NOVA Chamber Music Series. Hardink’s performing interests range from recital programs given on period instruments to concerts devoted entirely to new music. He has performed concerti by Beethoven, Liszt, and Bernstein with the Utah Symphony, and he was recently featured as a soloist at the Grand Teton Music Festival in the Mozart Concerto for Three Pianos, K. 242, with pianists Jeremy Denk and Brian Connelly and conductor Donald Runnicles.

  Much sought after as a chamber musician, Hardink has appeared on chamber music series including Music in Context, fEARnoMUSIC, Aperio, Music on the Hill, and the Cascade Head Chamber Music Festival. A strong advocate for new music, he served as the pianist for the Pittsburgh New Music Ensemble for three seasons. During this time he premiered over 15 works by composers such as Thomas Osborne, Daniel Kellogg, Vache Sharafyan, Pierre Jalbert, and Stefan Freund, and was featured in Curtis Curtis-Smith’s Rhapsodies for bowed piano.He has premiered works by Utah composers Morris Rosenzweig, Steven Ricks, and Bruce Quaglia.  He has appeared as guest recitalist and adjudicator for both the Gina Bachauer International Piano Competition and the Oberlin International Piano Competition. Hardink holds a DMA from Rice University, and his Doctoral thesis “Messiaen and Plainchant” explores the varying levels of influence that Gregorian chant exerted on the music of Olivier Messiaen.

  
  
• Scott Holden
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  Scott Holden

  Scott Holden enjoys an active career as soloist, chamber musician and teacher, and he has performed in 30 different American states and nine European countries as well as Canada and Mexico.
  As first-prize winner of the 1996 Leschetizky New York Debut Competition, he made his Carnegie Recital Hall concert debut. He has also performed at the John F. Kennedy Center and Lincoln Center. Performances have been aired on CBC, NPR and NBC, and he has had many radio and television appearances on KBYU. Holden is a member of BYU's popular American Piano Quartet.

  
  
  and Students
• Neema Pazargad
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  Neema Pazargad

  Neema Pazargad has been playing and performing piano since the age of six. A Los Angeles native, Neema began his studies under concert pianists Claudine Perriere and Sheldon Steinberg. He then attended the University of Denver's Lamont School of Music on a full scholarship, studying with professors Alice Rybak, David Genova, and Theodore Lichtman.  At Lamont, he attained a Bachelor of Music in Piano Performance and was the recipient of numerous awards in solo and collaborative piano performance.  Winner of the Most Outstanding Senior in Performance of 1999, Neema was the first student from the Lamont School of Music sent to Japan to collaborate and perform with Japanese musicians from Nagoya, Japan. In 2001, Neema began his studies at the California Institute of the Arts with pianist Vicki Ray.  He completed his Masters of Music in Collaborative Arts in 2004. In June of 2010 Neema joined the Piano Technicians Guild and was recently accepted to the Piano Technician Internship Program at The Colburn Conservatory in Downtown Los Angeles.  Neema resides in the San Fernando Valley, working as a performer, piano instructor and piano technician.
• Jenny Cho
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  Jenny Cho

  Born in Seoul, Korea, Jenny Yejin Cho is an active pianist, collaborative artist and musicologist. She received her first piano lesson at the age of seven and received multiple scholarships from distinguished organizations such as the Royal Academy of Music (London, UK) and National university of Singapore (Singapore) throughout her career. She has performed in many well-known venues in several countries including USA, South Korea, Australia, New Zealand, Philippines, Singapore, and Malaysia. She has also received numerous accolades for both solo piano and chamber music, and is an experienced contemporary musician. Her fondness of contemporary music continued to grow after her performance of George Crumb’s Music for a Summer Evening as a finalist in the National Chamber Music Competition. Since then she performed and premiered works by Neville Hall (New Zealand/ Slovenia), Gareth Farr (New Zealand), Kawai Shiu (Hong Kong) and many other internationally-renown composers of our time to critical acclaim. She graduated from the Yong Siew Toh Conservatory of the National University of Singapore with first-class honors in Piano Performance, under the tutelage of Dr. Thomas Hecht (USA, Peabody Institute) and Dr. Marian Hahn (USA, Peabody Institute). Jenny is currently working on her graduate thesis on the development of western music culture in post-war Asia, as well as performing actively as collaborative artist and chamber musician.