W&M Featured Events
[PAST EVENT] The Ewell Concert Series 2021 - 2022 Season Presents Michelle Huang and Magdalena Adamek Piano Duo!
Access & Features
- Open to the public
The Ewell Concert Series 2021 - 2022 Season Presents Michelle Huang and Magdalena Adamek Piano Duo!
Pianists Magdalena Adamek and Michelle Huang have both enjoyed fulfilling and vibrant careers as soloists, chamber musicians, and educators. The duo met at Virginia Commonwealth University where both pianists served on the Piano Faculty. Since 2019, they have collaborated and performed together. Their shared enthusiasm for music from different cultural backgrounds has spurred their interest in performing a wide array of four-hand and two piano works by composers such as Maria Szymanowska, Frederic Chopin, Johannes Brahms, Maurice Ravel, to a contemporary composer Richard Bennett.
In addition to performing, Adamek and Huang are both avid teachers. They have collectively presented lectures and masterclasses in different venues. In 2020 the duo launched a series of piano technique classes as well as an online summer program for pre-college pianists called “The Online Piano Symposium for Young Pianists.”
Pianist Magdalena Adamek holds Master of Arts in Piano Performance from the Chopin Academy of Music, Warsaw, Poland (now the Fryderyk Chopin University of Music), and Doctor of Music in Piano Performance from the University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada. Her principal teachers include Professor Barbara Hesse-Bukowska and Professor Jacques Després. She has also participated in masterclasses under renowned pedagogues, such as Halina Czerny-Stefanska, Andrzej Jasi?ski, Paul Badura-Škoda, Stêphane Lemelin, Kyoko Hashimoto, and Kevin Fitz-Gerald.
Michelle Huang holds a Bachelor of Music in Piano Performance from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Master of Music in Piano Performance from the University of Tennessee and Doctor of Music in Piano Performance from Florida State University. Her principal teachers include Barbara Rowan, David Northington, and Read Gainsford. As an educator, Huang has held teaching positions at both Walter States Community College and Lincoln Memorial University. She served as Assistant Professor of Piano at Edward Waters College in Jacksonville, Florida. In 2012, she launched a Concert Series at Edward Waters College in which high caliber performing artists performed concerts as well as conducting master classes, workshops, and lectures for the continuing enrichment and exposure of classical music to both the school and the community. She is also the co-founder of the Online Young Pianist Summer Symposium, which launched in May 2020. The Symposium was conducted virtually, in which guest speakers were invited to present topics such as the art of practicing, the art of memorization, and Alexander Technique, as well as a masterclass to college and pre-college pianists.
Currently Magdalena serves as a full-time faculty in the Department of Music at Virginia Commonwealth University where she teaches chamber music, piano ensemble, and keyboard skills courses. She also has been involved in various performance projects with the VCU faculty, guest artists, and students. Her previous teaching engagements include serving as the piano instructor and collaborative pianist at several institutions: The Stanislaw Moniuszko Warsaw Music Society School of Music, The University of Alberta in Edmonton, The String Quartet Program at S.U.N.Y Fredonia; Alberta Music Academy, Alberta College Conservatory of Music/Grant McEwan University, and Global Summer Institute of Music in Richmond, VA. Adamek’s former students received high marks at Royal Conservatory of Music piano examinations. They have been also recognized through numerous awards and scholarships at the Edmonton Kiwanis Music Festival, the Provincial Music Festival, Alberta Registered Music Teachers Association High Exam Marks Awards, and a gold medal for the highest exam mark in the province of Alberta, presented by The Royal Conservatory of Music.
Most recently, Michelle was on the piano faculty at the Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, Virginia. In the summer, she is on the faculty of East/West International Piano Festival in Seoul, Korea. In addition to teaching in the collegiate setting, Dr. Huang also maintains a private studio, where she works with talented pre-college students both in her Seattle studio and online. She has served as President and first Vice President of Programming for the Richmond Music Teachers Association. She is currently an active member of the Seattle Music Teachers Association and Eastside Music Teachers Association. In the past, she served as a frequent adjudicator for local and state competitions in Florida and Virginia. Many of her students have won top awards and successfully pursued studies and careers in music.
As a dynamic and a versatile pianist, Magdalena enjoys performing in the solo and chamber music settings. Her performing career includes recitals across Poland, Germany, Austria, Lithuania, France, China, USA, and Canada, with a diverse repertoire that highlights works by Polish composers. In addition to performing, she has presented masterclasses and workshops on numerous performance-related topics including piano technique, elements of a successful interpretation, performance anxiety, piano works by Feliks Nowowiejski, Maria Szymanowska, and Frederic Chopin, to name just a few.
A native of Taiwan, pianist Michelle Huang has performed and taught extensively throughout the U.S. as well as abroad in the Czech Republic, Italy, Switzerland, and Taiwan. She has appeared as soloist and guest artist in numerous recitals and has given lectures, workshops, and master classes. As a chamber musician, Michelle Huang has collaborated frequently with vocalists and instrumentalists as well as various chamber groups, such as the Mary L’Engle Ensemble, the River City Trio, the chamber group-in-residence at Friday Musicale in Jacksonville, Florida, and the Jacksonville Symphony and Richmond Symphony musicians. In 2017, she received a grant to commission ten paintings by two graduates of Virginia Commonwealth University art students. These paintings were presented alongside the complete performance of Mussorgsky’s piano suite Pictures at an Exhibition during her concert tour in 2018-19. In 2019-20, she collaborated with pianist Magdalena Adamek on four-hands and two pianos programs. In 2020-21, she also collaborated with Richmond Symphony concertmaster and musicians on numerous live streamed chamber recital programs.
This performance is open to the public and is free. Masks are required.
Contact
[[vxhaskins, Victor Haskins]]