Big talent featured at FVCC spring concerts

Local and international talent will be featured in two free concerts when Flathead Valley Community College music faculty members and special guests take the stage on Feb. 2 and March 2. Both concerts will begin at 7 p.m. in the large community room of FVCC’s Arts and Technology building.

World-renowned cellist Jessica Chen from Taiwan will perform with violinists Wai Mizutani and Lauren Welch at FVCC’s first concert of 2018.

Chen began studying the cello at age 9 and has since won numerous music competitions in Taiwan, including the Concerto Competition held by Taipei City Symphony Orchestra. With merit scholarship, she studied with Marion Feldman and Lorne Munroe at Manhattan School of Music in New York. As a founding member of Ars Trio Taipei, Chen has performed in concert halls around the world, including Canada, the United States, Costa Rica and Israel.

In addition to her Feb. 2 performance, Chen will co-teach two master classes with her husband, violinist Fang-Liu Chen, on Feb. 8 and 15 from 5 to 7 p.m. in the large community room of the Arts and Technology building. All student and community musicians are invited to participate in these classes free of charge.

FVCC’s spring semester concert series will continue March 2 with performances by faculty members Mizutani, Nicole Sanford, Micah Hunter, Craig Naylor and guest artists from Dawson Community College’s (DCC) Music Department, Dr. Tsai-Ying Li on French horn and Dr. Wei Pai on piano.

Originally from Taiwan, Li has been playing the French horn since she was 15. She received a master’s in music performance in 2014 from Northern Illinois University and a Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where she studied French horn with Daniel Grabois and wind conducting with Scott Teeple. In 2007, she won the National Solo Horn Competition in Taiwan. In 2015, she performed at Carnegie Hall with the University of Wisconsin Madison’s Wind Ensemble. She joined the faculty at DCC last year.

Pai started playing the piano at age 6 and studied for eight years at Gnessin’s Academy of Music in Moscow. His teachers included Boris Lvov, Maria Gambarian, Alexey Skavronsky and Alexander Braginsky. In 2003, he placed second in the International Mendelssohn Chamber Music Competition in Moscow. He has performed in Russia, Germany, Taiwan and the United States and now teaches at DCC.

For more information about the concerts or the master classes, contact Sanford at nsanford@fvcc.edu or 756-4813.