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Meet the Artists
Desmond
Hoebig
Cello
Cellist
Desmond Hoebig has become established as one of Canada's finest instrumentalists.
First prize winner of the Munich International Competition, CBC Talent
Competition and Canadian Music Competition, and an award winner in Moscow's
Tchaikowsky Competition, he studied at the Curtis Institute with David
Sawyer and at the Juilliard School of Music with Leonard Rose and Channing
Robbins. He also participated in masterclasses with Janos Starker and Tsuyohshi
Tsutsumi at the Banff Centre for the Arts. As guest soloist, Desmond Hoebig
has performed with all the major orchestras in Canada, as well as the Cincinnati,
Houston and Madison Symphonies, Stuttgart Philharmonic and the Radiodifusao
Portuguesa (Lisbon). He has had the privilege of working with many distinguished
conductors, including Kazuyoshi Akiyama, Mario Bernardi, Charles Dutoit,
Sixten Ehrling, Rafael Frubeck de Burgos, Christoph Eschenbach, Jukka-Pekka
Saraste, Neville Marriner, and Sergiu Comissiona. As a chamber musician,
Desmond Hoebig was formerly cellist of the Orford String Quartet, and has
performed throughout Canada, Europe, Israel, Egypt and Japan. He has appeared
at the Marlborough, Vancouver, Banff, Steamboat Springs and Scotia Festivals.
With pianist Andrew Tunis, Mr. Hoebig has made three recordings, one of
which, "Beethoven: Music for Cello and Piano" was nominated for a Juno
Award. Desmond Hoebig has been associate principal of l'Orchestre Symphonique
de Montréal, principal cellist for the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra,
and is now principal cellist of the Houston Symphony Orchestra under Music
Director Christoph Eschenbach. He is currently Associate Professor of cello
at Rice University.
William
Preucil
Violin
William
Preucil was appointed concertmaster of the Cleveland Orchestra in 1994.
Prior to joining the orchestra, Preucil performed for seven seasons the
first violinist of the renowned Cleveland Quartet. As a member of the quartet,
Preucil performed more than 100 concerts each year in the world's major
musical capitals and recorded for Telarc a variety of chamber works by
Beethoven, Haydn, Mozart, Schubert, and Brahms. Previously Preucil served
for seven years as concertmaster of the Atlanta Symphony, after
earlier holding the same position with the orchestras of Utah and Nashville.
During his tenure in Atlanta, Preucil appeared with the orchestra as soloist in 70 performances of 15 different concertos. Stephen Paulus's Violin Concerto was written for, and dedicated to Mr. Preucil, who premièred it and then recorded it for New World Records with the Atlanta Symphony and conductor Robert Shaw. He has also made solo appearances with the symphony orchestras of Minnesota, Detroit, Rochester and Hong Kong.
Mr. Preucil regularly performs at the most prestigious North American chamber music festivals, including those of Seattle, Sitka, Sarasota and Norfolk, as well as at international festivals in Switzerland, France and Germany. He also serves as concertmaster and violin soloist of the Mainly Mozart Festival in San Diego and continues to perform as a member of the Lanier Trio, whose recording of the complete Dvorák piano trios was honoured as one of TIME magazine's top 10 compact discs for 1993. The Lanier Trio has also recorded the trios of Mendelssohn and Paulus for Gasparo Records.
Actively involved as an educator, Mr. Preucil currently teaches at the Cleveland Institute of Music and is a member of the artistic advisory board for the Interlochen Center for the Arts in Michigan. He previously held positions as professor of music at the Eastman School of Music and as a distinguished lecturer in music at the University of Georgia.
Mr. Preucil began studying violin at the age of five with his mother,
Doris Preucil, a pioneer in Suzuki violin instruction in the United States.
At the age of 16, he graduated with honours from the Interlochen Arts Academy
and entered Indiana University to study with Josef Gingold. He was awarded
a prestigious performer's certificate at Indiana University and also studied
with Zino Francescatti and Gyorgy Sebok.
Gwen Starker
Preucil
Violin
Gwen
Starker Preucil is a member of the Seattle Chamber Music Festival, the
Mainly Mozart Festival and the Festvial der Zukunft in Ernen, Switzerland.
She has been a member of the Nashville and Utah Symphonies, and was concertmaster
of the Atlanta Ballet Orchestra for six years. She also spent two years
with the Festival Strings Luzern, a chamber orchestra which toured Europe
and South America.
She received a Performers Certificate from Indiana University where
she was a student of Franco Gulli and Josef Gingold. She is married to
William Preucil, the former first violinist of the Cleveland Quartet who
has recently become concertmaster of the Cleveland Orchestra. They have
a 13 year old daughter, Alexandra, who is also a violinist.
On a number of special occasions Gwen has performed with her father,
Janos Starker.
Toby Saks
Cello
Toby
Saks has been Professor of cello and chamber music at the University of
Washington since 1976, and is the Artistic Director and the founder of
The Seattle Chamber Music Festival since 1982. Ms. Saks has performed in
the United States, Canada, Europe, the (former) USSR and Israel.
Her chamber music credits include the Sitka, Boston Chamber Music Society,
Vancouver, Cascade Head, Bargemusic, St. Cere, New Mexico, Amsterdam, Juneau,
Marlboro, Stratford, Spoleto, and Anchorage Festivals. In January of 1988,
she led musicians of the Seattle Chamber Music Festival on a two-week tour
of the Soviet Union. Ms. Saks was First Prize winner at the International
Pablo Casals Competition in Israel and she was also a top prizewinner at
the Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow. A recipient of Fulbright and Rockefeller
grants, she studied with Leonard Rose at Juilliard and with Andre Navarra
at the Conservatoire de Musique in Paris. She made her Town Hall debut
at age 18 after winning the New York Concert Artists Competition.
Jon Kimura
Parker
Piano
Internationally acclaimed concert pianist Jon Kimura Parker was born, raised,
and educated in Vancouver. A true Canadian ambassador of music, Mr. Parker
has given two command performances for Queen Elizabeth II, and has performed
for the Prime Ministers of Canada and Japan, and for the United States
Supreme Court.
A remarkably versatile artist, Mr. Parker has, in recent seasons, performed in Carnegie Hall (with the Orchestra of St. Luke's, the Warsaw Philharmonic and the Philadelphia Orchestra), Chicago's Orchestra Hall, the Hong Kong Cultural Centre, London's Queen Elizabeth Hall and the Sydney Opera House; toured the Canadian Arctic as part of "Piano Six" performing the music of Beethoven, Chopin, Nirvana, and Alanis Morissette on an electronic keyboard for over 1,000 Inuit school students; jammed with Doc Severinsen and the original Tonight Show Orchestra; been profiled in "Newsweek" magazine in Australia; and given an impromptu concert at the Victoria Falls Hotel while on safari in Zimbabwe. He also played himself in a guest appearance on the children's program "Under the Umbrella Tree" on the Disney Channel.
Equally eclectic in recording, Mr. Parker's previous recordings for Telarc have included a solo Chopin album, Tchaikovsky and Prokofiev Piano Concerti with Andre Previn, and a recent venture into comedy as Peter Schickele's pianistic sparring partner in the "Concerto for Two Pianos vs. Orchestra" by the fabled P.D.Q. Bach. Last spring Telarc released a new recording of Jon Kimura Parker performing the Samuel Barber Piano Concerto with Yoel Levi and the Atlanta Symphony.
On New Year's Eve, 1995, Jon Kimura Parker gave a benefit performance of Beethoven's "Emperor" Concerto in war-torn Sarajevo. The concert, sponsored by AmeriCares, was televised live in 59 countries worldwide, and was covered by CNN. In 1996, Mr. Parker received the Canadian Governor General's Performing Arts Award, presented by the National Arts Centre, joining such distinguished company as Oscar Peterson and Joni Mitchell.
"Jackie" Parker began training with his uncle, Edward Parker, with daily
coaching from his mother Keiko Parker. He also studied with Robin Wood
and Marek Jablonski, which led to four years of advanced study with Lee
Kum-Sing at the Vancouver Academy of Music. He was subsequently admitted
to The Juilliard School on full scholarship as a student of the renowned
pedagogue Adele Marcus.
Aloysia
Friedmann was the winner of the Artists International Competition, under
whose auspices she gave her Carnegie Recital Hall debut. She has participated
as a violinist and violist in the Bard, Blossom, Caramoor, Kapalua, Mostly
Mozart, Seattle, San Diego, and Vancouver festivals.
She is concertmaster of the Fairfield Orchestra in Connecticut and a member of the Orchestra of St. Luke's and the American Symphony Orchestra in New York. She has also performed with the newly formed Eos Ensemble, Sea Cliff Chamber Players, Orpheus Chamber Orchestra and at the New England Bach Festival, as a baroque violinist in the Brenner Quartet.
Recent tours have included performances in Japan, the Carribean, Canada, Argentina, Mexico and the U.S. Ms. Friedmann was the featured soloist in the world premiere recording of William O. Smith's "Jazz Set" for violin and wind quintet with the Soni Ventorum Woodwind Quintet. She has performed in the Gershwin hit musical "Crazy For You" and "A Christmas Carol".
Her teachers were Ivan Galamian and Margaret Pardee at the Juilliard School, her father, Martin Friedmann, and Emmanuel Zetlin at the University of Washington.
"A fiery spirit and an unusual sense of being alive to the developing
adventure of each piece..."
New York Times 2/16/86