Woodwind Quintet

Presenter

• The Bardekova Ensemble
  

  The Bardekova Ensemble

  The group is a woodwind quintet: a flute, an oboe, a clarinet, a French Horn, and a bassoon.

  ELLEN BARDEKOFF (oboe) began studying piano at the age of eight at the Juilliard School. She attended the High School of Performing Arts in New York City, where she continued the piano and began studying the oboe with Lois Wann. At the college level, she began studying the piano with the world-renowned concert pianist Nadia Reisenberg. While she was at Queens College, she won first prize in a concerto competition in the oboe. She also recorded on Grenadilla Records as principal oboist of the Nota Bene Ensemble. In a concert at Carnegie Recital Hall, she was a soloist with the New Repertory Ensemble. Regarding this concert, the Phoenix Press said, “Ellen Bardekoff in her debut with the N.R.E. played with full-bodied tone and tasteful musicianship.” During her time at Queens College, Ms. Bardekoff was a founding member of the Dover Woodwind Quintet. They were also in residence at the Waterloo Music Festival, which was directed by Gerard Schwartz. She also received the Adele Lerner Award for Chamber Music. After finishing Queens College, she continued her post- graduate studies at the Juilliard School. While continuing her studies at New York University, she received the N.E. Collins Scholarship for Music. Ms. Bardekoff has performed with the Steve Reich Ensemble both within the U.S. and Europe. She recorded “Tehillim” by Steve Reich, which is on the E.C.M. label. She is also on his Desert Music album, which was conducted by Michael Tilson Thomas on Nonesuch CDs. She has also recorded with the Villa Lobos Society. Fanfare Magazine wrote the following in the June 1993 edition about this CD: “The 1957 Duo for Oboe and Bassoon …presses the outer limits of both instrumental and instrumentalists. Oboist Ellen Bardekoff and Bassoonist Donald Johannessen rise to the occasion in a taut probing and illuminating reading that in the lento movement where a good deal of the acid evaporates ably conveys the piece’s choros roots. Intonation balances and tone production are exemplary.”

  ADAM RAY (flute) has distinguished himself as a talented musician with extended technique and great versatility and insight. The son of trumpeter Michael Ray (who played with Kool and the Gang and the Sun Ra Arkestra), Adam’s musical talent was recognized early. Originally from Yonkers, NY, he began playing the flute at Museum School 25 at the age of 11, and after just 3 months was invited to join the Yonkers All-City Band under the direction of the late Paul Bernardi. Adam began private study with Maryellen Shepley in 2001, and currently stidies with Denise Lozano. He has performed and competed on a local and national level. His awards include the Untermeyer Performing Arts Council Music Competition, NAACP ACT-SO Competition (both regional and national), Hudson Valley Music Club’s Student Award, and the Jerome Sala Memorial Competition, among others. Throughout the year he also appears as a soloist for The College of New Jersey’s Jazz Ensemble, The Westchester Band, Michael Ray & the Cosmic Krewe and the Con Brio Ensemble, just to name a few. For more than 15 years, Adam has played flute and piccolo with the Yonkers Philharmonic Orchestra, and in the fall of 2014 he became the Principal flutist of the Lehman College Symphony Orchestra.

  AKARI YAMAMOTO (clarinet) was born in Tokyo, Japan, and is a freelance clarinet player currently based in New York City. In addition to her frequent orchestral engagements, she is an avid chamber music player and a member of the Eastern Winds woodwind quintet, a recent winner of the Artists International 2005 Young Artists Chamber Music Award. She attended the Toho Gakuen School of Music in Tokyo where she earned her BM. Upon graduation, she was awarded a Rotary International Ambassadorial Scholarship and moved to New York in 2000 to further her music studies at SUNY Purchase where she earned her MM. Akari has participated in many music festivals around the world including the Martha Argerich Music Festival in Japan (where she played under the esteemed conductor Myung-Whun Chung), the Kirishima International Music Festival (Japan), Sarasota Music Festival (Florida), and the Bayreuth Young Musicians Festival (Germany). Her teachers include, Ayako Oshima, and Charles Neidich.

  SHOTARO MORI (bassoon) is originally from Fukuoka, Japan, and completed his studies at Mannes College of Music in New York City, where he received full scholarship and won the first prize in the Concerto Competition for woodwinds, brass and percussion. He has performed with such groups as New York Philharmonic Chamber Ensemble, Jupiter Symphony, New York Philomusica, Charleston Symphony Orchestra and Eroica Ensemble (Memphis). As a soloist he has performed with Lyric Theatre Orchestra in NJ, One World Symphony, Camerata Virtuosi of New Jersey, Korean Chamber Orchestra, Mannes Orchestra and Philharmonia Fukuoka (Japan). He has participated the Aspen Music Festival, the Virgin Atlantic Holders Festival in Barbados and the Asian Youth Orchestra in Hong-Kong. Shotaro is bassoonist for the Springfield Symphony Orchestra, and faculty on the Summer trios Chamber Music Festival.

  SIGRUN KAHL (horn) is a freelance hornist from Germany, with musical roots in the Special School for Music and Hanns Eisler School of Music’s pre-college program in Berlin. She has performed throughout Germany, France, Austria, Hungary, the Czech Republic, and Finland, before coming to the United States in 2007, where she has played with groups such as Astoria Symphony, DiCapo Opera, and Salisbury Sinfonietta. She is actively involved in initiatives that seek to make classical music accessible to non-classical audiences and children, such as the Park Avenue Chamber Symphony’s popular InsideOut concerts, which offer a very different experience from traditional concerts as the audience is sitting within the orchestra. She has also played on the Symphony’s numerous recordings that aim to shed new light on classical standards such as Tchaikovsky’s Pathetique, which Gramophone magazine has praised for its “excellent textural contouring” and “X-ray clarity.”