Brian Ganz, The Borowsky Family, and Friends:
A Benefit Concert for the
International Music Institute and Festival USA Scholarship Fund
Classical pianist Brian Ganz, the musical Borowsky family, violinist Blanka Bednarz, and violist Sharon Eng present a concert featuring compositions of Johannes Brahms and Erno Dohnanyi. Tickets are $35 (available at the door) and the proceeds will benefit the International Music Institute and Festival USA Scholarship Fund (www.imif.us)
Tickets: $35
Concert will be followed by a dessert and wine reception
PROGRAM:
The two major works to be performed are the luscious Trio in B Major, Op. 8 by Johannes Brahms, and the majestic Piano Quintet in C minor, Op. 1 by Erno Dohnanyi. The Brahms composition will be performed by Blanka Bednarz, violin, Cecylia Barczyk, cello, and Brian Ganz, piano. The music of Dohnanyi will be played by Blanka Bednarz, violin I, Emmanuel Borowsky, violin II, Sharon Eng, viola, Frances Grace Borowsky, cello and Brian Ganz, piano. In addition to the Brahms and Dohnanyi, Elizabeth Borowsky will join Brian at the piano in a performance of three movements from Maurice Ravel's Mother Goose Suite for piano 4-hands.
The International Music Institute and Festival USA (www.imif.us) is a dynamic summer chamber music festival geared towards accomplished pre-college and college musicians. The program is held on the beautiful grounds of Mount Saint Mary's University in Emmitsburg, Maryland - just an hour from Washington D.C. or Baltimore. IMIF is filled with private lessons, chamber music, interdisciplinary arts experiences (movement and theatre), and workshops on topics including practicing, improvisation, stage presence, and musical careers. Enrollment is limited, facilitating an intense musical experience as well as lasting friendships. This year's program will be held July 8-18, followed by an optional 5-day concert tour through Maryland and Pennsylvania from July 18-22. IMIF is exceptionally international: each year we welcome young musicians from around the world. Recent participants have joined us from Iceland, Estonia, Norway, Germany, Russia, Israel, Mexico, Sri Lanka, India, Indonesia, China, Taiwan, Japan, Korea, Argentina, and Canada (as well as across the USA). On Friday, July 20, students and faculty of IMIF 2012 will perform at An Die Musik!
"I have worked with the Borowsky family for years at the International Music Institute and Festival (IMIF) at Mt. St. Mary's University. Charles Borowsky created and runs the festival with his daughter, the marvelous pianist Elizabeth Borowsky. Charles' wife Cecylia Barczyk and their three children are all superb performers. This is an extraordinary family of gifted musicians and lovely people, deeply committed to educating youth in creative and passionate ways." -Brian Ganz
ABOUT THE PERFORMERS
Annapolis based Brian Ganz is widely regarded as one of the leading pianists of his generation. He began his quest to perform all of Frédéric Chopin’s works in January 2010 at the Music Center at Strathmore. The sold out recital marked the start of Ganz’s ambitious endeavor to perform the approximately 250 works of Chopin over the next decade. The next concert in the series will take place at Strathmore on February 11.Since his January 2011 Chopin recital, Ganz has performed the Grieg piano concerto with the National Philharmonic under the direction of Music Director and Conductor Piotr Gajewski and Beethoven’s first concerto with the National Symphony of Costa Rica under the baton of Mykola Diadiura.
He has toured northern California with the Palomarin Chamber Music Foundation and played in Italy with the Alba Music Festival. In January, he made his first appearances in South America as part of the Cartagena Music Festival in Colombia. Ganz has shared First Grand Prize in the Marguerite Long Jacques Thibaud International Piano Competition in Paris and won a silver medal (third prize) in the Queen Elisabeth of Belgium International Piano Competition. He has performed as a soloist with such orchestras as the St. Louis Symphony, the St. Petersburg Philharmonic, the City of London Sinfonia and Paris’s L’Orchestre Lamoureux and under the direction of conductors such as Leonard Slatkin and Mstislav Rostropovich. He is a graduate of the Peabody Conservatory of Music, where he studied with Leon Fleisher. Ganz is artist-in-residence at St. Mary's College of Maryland and joined the piano faculty at Peabody in 2000. www.brianganz.com
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Cellist Cecylia Barczyk Borowsky has achieved international recognition as a complete artist, successful teacher, and great humanitarian. She has given concerts, recitals, and master classes throughout Europe, Asia and the Americas, including appearances with prominent orchestras in Baltimore, Beijing, Berlin, Boston, Bucharest, Budapest, Cracow, Ho Chi Minh City, London, Moscow, New York, Prague, Salvador, Seoul, Shanghai, Sofia, St. Petersburg, Taiwan, Tel Aviv, Tianjin, Tokyo, and Warsaw. Ms. Barczyk has frequently performed on radio and television in the USA and abroad. Her recordings have been highly valued by experts and greatly appreciated by music lovers in many lands. She won top prizes in prestigious music competitions including the Danczowski Cello Competition (Poznan), the Pablo Casals International Cello Competition (Budapest), the Tchaikovsky International Cello Competition (Moscow), the Aldo Parisot International Competition (Brazil), the J.S. Bach International Competition (Leipzig), the Cassado International Cello Competition (Florence), and the W.C. Byrd Young Artists Competition (Michigan). For her musical and pedagogical achievements, she has received awards and honors from professional, cultural, and government institutions in China, Germany, Indonesia, Korea, Mexico, Poland, and the USA. The Maryland Chapter of the American String Teachers Association named her “Teacher of the Year” (1995, 2005). The Tianjin Conservatory of Music (China) granted her the title Distinguished Honorary Professor. The International Friends of the Cello Association granted her the Award for Great Achievements in Cello Music, and the Minister of Culture of the Republic of Poland gave her the Medal for Outstanding Contributions to Society and Culture. She has studied at the Chopin Conservatory in Warsaw, Tchaikowsky Conservatory in Moscow, and Yale School of Music with Kazimierz Wilkomirski, Natalya Gutman and Aldo Parisot. Since 1983, she has taught at Towson University, continuing her solo career while educating young cellists from virtually every part of the globe. www.cecyliabarczyk.com
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Charles H. Borowsky, has been internationally acknowledged for his many academic, educational, and leadership achievements. He received several distinctions, awards and honorary degrees from professional, social, and cultural organizations both in the USA and abroad. Borowsky has authored numerous articles and books in the areas of social movements and change, politics and religion, development and quality of life, sociology of culture, and sociology of youth, published in America, Europe, and Asia. He has been on the faculty of prominent universities including Yale University, Massachusetts Institute of Social Studies, and the University of Maryland and has lectured in 66 countries in North America, Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. In 2002, UNESCO/International Music Council published Dr. Borowsky’s works "Creativity and Innovation in Music" and “The Function of Music In Society.” Currently, Dr. Charles H. Borowsky is the President of Intermuse Performing Artists’ Bureau, and also the elected President of the International Friends of Music Association and Senior Advisor to the public and private organization in the USA and abroad.
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Blanka Bednarz enjoys a versatile career as a soloist, recitalist, chamber musician, concertmaster and teacher. She has concertized in the USA, United Kingdom, Poland, Germany, Sweden, Finland, the Netherlands, and Lithuania; at venues such as the Jordan Hall in Boston, Miller Hall, Philadelphia Ethical Society, Kosciuszko Foundation House, Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall in New York, Aula UAM and White Hall in Poznan, Lake Placid Center for the Arts, Cardiff City Hall; and at various prestigious festivals. As a soloist Bednarz has appeared with the Connecticut Virtuosi, the Georgia Southern Symphony, the Great Poland Symphony, Sinfonietta Polonia, the Gettysburg Chamber Orchestra, and the New England Conservatory Honors Symphony and Chamber Orchestra (Bednarz was particularly influential in the establishment of the latter). Bednarz is an avid chamber musician, performing in a variety of settings and with renowned artists such as Rita Sloan, Barry Snyder, Richard Stolzman, Adrian Levine, William Ransom, Joanna Kurkowicz, Daniel Veis, Roeland Hendrix, Eddie Gomez, Timothy Deighton, Heng-Jin Park, Ning An, Sergei Schepkin, Martin Storey, the Corigliano Quartet, the Chameleon Arts Ensemble of Boston, and Alarm Will Sound. In 2007 she was invited to join the Vega Quartet for a residency with the Piedmont Symphony (NC) and subsequently as first violinist with Vega Quartet-in-residence at Emory University in Atlanta GA. Bednarz is a member of the Atma Trio and is currently an Assistant Professor of Music at Dickinson College, PA.
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American violist, Sharon Eng, is a seasoned international strings educator, clinician, chamber recitalist and conductor. Her rich musical career has spanned five continents, including contracts with the American Ballet Theatre and New York City Opera, and such leadership positions as the Greenwich Philharmonic, Jakarta Chamber Orchestra and Polish Sinfonietta. Early in her career, she represented the United States at the von Karajan International Youth Orchestra in Berlin; and studied chamber music with some of the leading string quartets of our time: the Juilliard, Guarneri, Hungarian and Cleveland quartets. In 1998, Eng co-founded Classical Nuances, a unique trio of oboe, viola and piano that performed in 12 countries including at the United Nations in NYC, Seoul Performing Arts Center, Athens Opera House, and as guests of the Sultan’s family in Kuwait. Splitting her time in several Southeast Asian countries over a 20 year period, Dr. Eng was professor of violin and viola at the University of Pelita Harapan Conservatory of Music, and from 1996 to 2010 headed the High School and Middle School strings program at Jakarta International School, conducting JIS flagship orchestras in Shanghai, Budapest, Vienna and other principal cities in Europe and Asia. Her solo viola performances have involved collaborations with pianists on both coasts of the United States and internationally, including—among many-- world premieres of works at Lincoln Center, the Bennington Contemporary Music Forum, and the 20th Century Consort, solo performances at the Queensland Conservatory of Music in Brisbane, Australia, solo with orchestra at the National Cathedral in Washington, DC, and a recital tour of five major cities in Indonesia. Eng has served on the faculty of the summer International Music Institute and Festival at Coolfont and at Mount St. Mary’s University in Maryland since IMIF’s inception in 2003. Eng, earned her Bachelor and Master Degrees in viola performance at the Juilliard School where she was a five-year scholarship student of William Lincer and Paul Doktor. Dr. Eng plays on a viola made in 1978 by Margaret Shipman of Los Angeles. www.sharoneng.com
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Emmanuel Borowsky has been lauded as an outstanding musician of his generation, performing concerts internationally from a young age. At age ten, he performed Vivaldi’s A-minor concerto to an audience of over 9,000 people in Washington D.C.'s National Shrine. At thirteen, he represented North America at the UNESCO World Child Prodigies Concert in Amman (Jordan) and was honored with the distinguished Cultural Achievement Award. At fifteen, he was selected to perform on the nationally syndicated radio show From the Top, and at the age of seventeen he received the Erick Friedman Prize for Outstanding Young Musicians and performed his New York Debut at Carnegie Hall. Emmanuel has been featured as a soloist with respected orchestras including the Tianjin Symphony Orchestra, Eisenach Festival Orchestra, Young German Symphony Orchestra, Poznan Symphony, National Conservatory Orchestra of Jordan, Israeli Soloists Orchestra, Szczecin Philharmonic, Susquehanna Symphony Orchestra, Loudon Symphony, Katowice Philharmonic, and Rzezow Chamber Orchestra. His performance with the Polish Camerata was broadcast internationally by Pol-Sat TV. Among the awards Emmanuel has received are the Erick Friedman Prize for Outstanding Young Musicians, Pro Musica Award, Merit Award from the National Foundation for Advancement in the Arts, Best Classical CD 1999 (for Pearls of Music), Maryland Young Talent Competition, and the Montpelier Performing Arts Center Classical Recital Competition. Emmanuel studied at the Jacobs School of Music at Indiana University Bloomington under the guidance of famed violinists Jaime Laredo and Mark Kaplan. www.emmanuelborowsky.com
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Cellist Frances Borowsky performed her New York Debut at Carnegie Hall at the age of twelve as a recipient of the Erick Friedman Prize for Outstanding Young Musicians. She has performed in over twenty countries and was Artist-in-Residence at the Dilsberg Castle (Germany), toured as soloist for the Beethoven Triple Concerto with the Young German Symphony Orchestra, and performed as soloist with the Tianjin Symphony Orchestra as part of Pre-Olympic celebrations in Beijing. In December 2011, she performed the Dohnanyi Piano Quintet with Peabody faculty member Brian Ganz in Annapolis. Awards include the Baltimore Music Club Competition (First Prize, 2010), Sylvia and Irving H. Cohen Competition (Second Prize, 2010), and Peggy Friedman – Yale Gordon Competition (First Prize, 2008). She also received Honorable Mention in the Mary Diekmann Competition (2011) and Mary Graham Lasley Concerto Competition (2011). At the age of eighteen, Frances graduated from the Honor's College of Towson University as a recipient of a full-scholarship. Her mother, cellist Cecylia Barczyk, was her primary instructor through her studies at Towson University. Frances is currently a graduate student at Peabody Institute of The Johns Hopkins University, where she is studying under the instruction of Amit Peled. www.francesborowsky.com
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Heralded by the press as “a brilliant young musician with a great personality,” Elizabeth Borowsky enjoys a diverse musical career as a solo and collaborative pianist, composer, educator, and arts advocate.
“Elizabeth's performance and personality dismiss any preconceptions of classical music as elite, or being a music of the past. She is a vibrant and engaging performer and can draw even the most reluctant audience member into her spell.” Borowsky’s scintillating performances have led to invitations to perform as soloist with orchestras including the Israeli Soloists Orchestra, Lublin Philarmonic Orchestra, Polish Camerata, Young German Symphony Orchestra, Tianjin Symphony Orchestra, and Towson University Symphony Orchestra. Her live performance of the Haydn D-Major Concerto with the Polish Camerata was internationally broadcast by Pol-Sat TV. She has been a featured performed at such distinguished venues as Carnegie Hall and The Kennedy Center, and has performed recitals in over thirty countries in prestigious music festivals including Klavierwoche International, the Maryland Arts Festival, Concerti di Primavera, Heidelberg Klavierwoche, Music at the Paderewski Manor, and the International Festival of Music and Architecture in Torun. Borowsky has recorded CDs and DVDs of standard literature, new and/or unknown music, and her own original compositions for ICRecords. In 2005, she was among the pianists invited to participate in the International Chopin Competition in Warsaw and was awarded the Acte Preable Prize for Outstanding Interpretation of Chopin's Music, resulting in her solo album, “Chopin Recital.” As composer, Borowsky has written and published music for piano, violin, cello, piano trio, and string orchestra. She has earned a reputation as an outstanding teacher for young pianists; her students have garnered awards and honors at festivals and competitions. Borowsky has taught at Indiana University and Morgan State University, and is currently director of Piano Prodigies LLC. She has been a member of the piano faculty of the International Music Institute and Festival USA since 2003 and was appointed Executive Director in 2010.
