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2007 Competition Winners

Daniel Paul Pingrey, Percussion
(Accompanied by Michael Mixtacki, percussion)
Etude in C Major by Clair Omar Musser
Down a Country Lane by Aaron Copland
Michi by Keiko Abe/arr. by performer

    Daniel Paul Pingrey, 20, is currently a junior level music performance major studying under Dr. Anthony Di Sanza at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music. He has received a four-year tuition scholarship from the UW-Madison Summer Music Clinic, performed for three years in the WSMA State Honors orchestras and bands as well as the Area Honors jazz band, acted as principal percussionist of both the UW Concert Band and Wind Ensemble, and performed with the UW-Madison Symphony Orchestra as a winner of the 2006-2007 Student Concerto Competition. He graduated with honors from Baraboo High School in 2004. Daniel’s primary interests in music range from American minimalists to European masters of Romantic symphonic tradition, as well as contemporary Japanese composers. He has also studied a diverse sample of percussion music outside the western classical tradition, including Afro-Cuban, Brazilian, Middle Eastern and Indian.

Yisha Chen, Chinese Guzheng
Spring Flowers in the Moonlit Night on the River – anon.
The General’s Order – anon.

    Yisha Chen, 17, was born in Chongquing, China and is currently a student at Shorewood High School in Milwaukee. She plays a guzheng, a traditional Chinese instrument in the zither family, a forerunner of the Japanese koto, Korean gayageum and Vietnamese dan tranh. In the summer of 2003, she won top honors in the Fangying Cup Chinese National Guzheng Competition.

Mary Elizabeth Mackenzie, Voice
(Accompanied by Eli Kalman, piano)
Four Frost Songs by John Frantzen

    Born in Madison, 25 year-old soprano Mary Elizabeth Mackenzie received her Bachelor’s Degree and Professional Studies Certificate in Vocal Performance at the Cleveland Institute of Music and will receive her Master of Music degree from the Manhattan School of Music next month. In addition to solo recitals, her opera roles include Susanna (The Marriage of Figaro), Laetitia (The Old Maid and the Thief), Lucia (The Rape of Lucretia) and Beth (Little Women). She has performed Mozart’s Exultate Jubilate with the Cleveland Institute of Music Orchestra, Handel’s Messiah with the Green Bay Symphony Orchestra and Mahler’s Symphony #4 with Ensemble 212 in New York City. An advocate for contemporary music, Ms. Mackenzie has worked with Richard Danielpour, Ricky Ian Gordon, John Harbison and Jake Heggie; in May, she will appear in the Vox 2007: Showcasing American Composers workshop with the New York City Opera.

Kyle T.J. Traska, Marimba
Unha & Carne by Guinga
Los Paraguas by Federico Chueca
Two Movements for Marimba, Mvt. 1 by Toshimitsu Tanaka
Melodia Branca by Guinga

    Kyle T.J. Traska, 20, is a sophomore percussionist studying with Dane Richeson at Lawrence University in Appleton, a candidate for a Bachelor of Music degree in Performance. Kyle, originally from Oregon, WI, started playing percussion when he was 13. In addition to standard percussion repertoire, Kyle studies music from Brazil and Cuba and enjoys adapting for marimba works for other instruments.

Erik Saunders, Piano
Partita No. 2 in C Minor, I. Sinfonia by Johann Sebastian Bach
Scherzo No. 4 in E Major, Op. 54 by Frederic Chopin

    Eric Saunders is 20 years old and is a junior at UW-Madison studying piano performance with Catherine Kautsky. He began playing piano at age 7 and has played violin and saxophone in his high school’s band and orchestra as well. In the summer of 2005, he spent two weeks in France studying with British pianist Paul Roberts and studied with Gerald Stofsky in Vienna in the fall of 2006. He hopes to attend the Aspen Music Festival this summer and intends to continue performance studies in graduate school after 2008.


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