Department of Music
Piano Institute 2008,
July 28 through August 2nd
Dr. Christopher Bowlby began his studies on the
piano at the age of eight. He has received recognition as a soloist and chamber
musician, having been awarded the highest degrees in piano performance at
universities in the United States and Canada. As a winner of several young
artists' competitions, he was featured several times on Public Radio both as a
speaker as well as a performer on stations in the mainland and Hawaii. He has
appeared regularly as a soloist with Midwest orchestras. His extensive
repertoire shows his expertise both in the great romantic masterworks as well
as new works by living composers, including John Corigliano, Jeff Junkinsmith,
Laura Kaminsky, and Owen Bloomfield. Equally at home with chamber music
literature, Mr. Bowlby performed Beethoven's Sonata in A major with cellist,
Yo-Yo Ma and frequently performs four-hand and duo piano music with his wife, Ivona
Kaminska-Bowlby.
Dr. Bowlby has taught piano for over thirteen years. His students range in age and ability from four years to advanced adults mastering works such as Liszt's etude, La Campanella. All of them have greatly enjoyed working with him. His patience and humor allow him to create a pleasant, amiable atmosphere during lessons without compromising the quality of instruction. Many of them have been awarded scholarships for both undergraduate and graduate programs in music at numerous prominent colleges and universities in Canada and the United States. His secondary academic interest led him to study with some of today's most prominent music theorists, including Henry Klumpenhouwer, Richard Kurth, John Rahn, and Jonathan Bernard. Mr. Bowlby's research has led him to discoveries of religious symbolism in the music of Olivier Messiaen.
Formerly, he taught at Mount Royal College, University of
British Columbia, Shoreline Community College, and the University of
Washington. Dr. Bowlby is currently the Program Director of the Chopin Academy
of Music in Issaquah, Washington, and vice-president of the Seattle Int'l Piano
Festival, which hosts, among other events, an international piano competition.
He is also a member of the Washington Music Teachers' Association and is an
active Washington state adjudicator.
The
unique artistry of Dr. Ivona Kaminska results from a rare blend of passion and
intellect, scholarly research and sublime inspiration. With an inexorable
thirst for knowledge, she studied internationally, coming into a wide array of
influences representing the various world-wide schools of pianism and
musicology. A native of Warsaw, Poland, Ivona Kaminska holds such prestigious
degrees in piano performance as a Master of Arts degree and Postgraduate
Artists' diploma from the Frederic Chopin Academy of Music in Warsaw, a Master
of Music degree from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, as well as a Doctorate
degree from the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada. She has
also participated in international festivals including the Mozarteum
Sommerakademie in Austria, the Schleswig-Holstein Musik Festival in Germany, as
well as the international music festival in Duszniki-Zdroj, Poland. Winner of
several solo concerto competitions, she has appeared as a soloist in Poland,
Canada, and the United States, gaining acclaim for her tempestuous
performances. Dr. Kaminska was also bestowed several distinguished awards and
artists' grants, including the Stefan Batory Foundation Award in 1993, the Mozarteum
Akademie Scholarship in 1995, the Beryl Barnes Music Award in 1999, the PhD
Recruitment Scholarship from the University of Alberta in 1998 and 1999, and
the Astral Career Development Grant in 2003, among many others. She is an
active performer, presenting dozens of recitals yearly, including programs of
not only traditional solo piano repertoire, but also premiering several new
works by living composers of Poland, Canada, and the United States. During her
international studies, she worked with such artist-teachers as Andrzej
Stefanski, Tatiana Shebanova, Boris Bloch, Ruth Laredo, James Cook, Stephane
Lamelin, Mark Clinton, Henri-Paul Sicsic, and Marek Jablonski.
Dr. Kaminska's repertoire encompasses a wide spectrum of styles, ranging from early Baroque music performed on historic instruments, to the tempestuous avant-garde works of Frederic Rzewski and others. Having come into contact with such eminent experts in 18th-century music as Igor Kipnis, Gregory Butler, and George Ritchie, she has immersed herself in stylistic performance practice and pedagogical research. Having enriched her expertise by intense studies of the music of J. S. Bach on both organ and harpsichord, in 2003 Ms. Kaminska presented her doctoral dissertation, which discusses the genesis and analysis of the composer's often unappreciated and frequently misinterpreted French Overture, BWV 831.
Equally passionate as a pedagogue, Dr. Kaminska is the founder and artistic director of the Chopin Academy of Music in Issaquah, Washington, faculty member of Cornish College of the Arts in Seattle, Washington, and president of the Seattle Int'l Piano Festival, which hosts, among other events, an international piano competition. She is frequently featured as a guest lecturer, master class clinician and an adjudicator throughout the Pacific Northwest.
Dr. Alexander Tutunov is one of the most
outstanding virtuosos of the former Soviet Union. His playing was described by
Soviet Culture, Moscow, as "exhilarating and inspired, and which
demonstrated a unique talent". A native of Belarus, he entered the Central
Music School of the Moscow Conservatory at age 7, one of three chosen out of
200 applicants, to study with Lev Naumov and Victor Merzhanov, where he
graduated magna cum laude.
He also holds diplomas in concert performance, with honors, from the Minsk Musical College (Belarus), University of North Texas (piano studies with Joseph Banowetz), and the Belarussian National Academy of Music. Tutunov was awarded the highest post graduate degree in concert performance from the Belarussian State Conservatory in Minsk. Tutunov won the First Prize at the Belarussian National Piano Competition, and was a winner of the Russian National Piano Competition. He has performed widely in the former Soviet Union, Poland, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, China, Mexico, and the United States as a recitalist, soloist with orchestra, and on radio and television. Tutunov is presently under contract with Altarus Records to record the complete solo piano works of Lev Abeliovich. He also has recorded on AUR, Bravissimo, and Albany Records labels.
Currently director of keyboard studies and artists in residence at Southern Oregon University, Tutunov is also the artist in residence at the University of Alaska Southeast and Artistic director of the SOU International Piano Institute. He continues to be in great demand as a recitalist and orchestral soloist.
