Five Cleveland area musicians will be coming together to present an evening of nineteenth-century chamber music featuring the horn on Friday, Jan. 22, at 7:30 p.m. at The Little Church in the Vale, 610 Chagrin River Rd., Gates Mills. Pianist Julia Russ, Violinist Janice Lee, Oboist Kristin Perry, and Soprano Vanessa Pintabona will be joining horn player Greg Hillis in this concert of works that spans the 1800s. The program is free and open to the public.
The program will open with the delightful Trio for Oboe, Horn and Piano, Op. 61, written in 1889 by the little-known Austrian composer Heinrich von Herzogenberg. It continues with Franz Schubert’s Auf dem Strom for Voice, Horn and Piano, D.943, written in 1828 as an homage to Beethoven. The concert concludes with the well-known Trio for Piano, Violin and Horn by Johannes Brahms, written in 1865 to commemorate the death of the composer’s mother earlier that year.
Greg Hillis, horn, currently serves as Principal Horn of the Firelands Symphony, Principal Horn with Cleveland Opera Theater and Fourth Horn of the Lima Symphony. He is also a member of both the Heritage Brass and Olympic Brass quintets, and is a founding member of Ekklésia Ensemble. Greg has also performed with the Cleveland POPS Orchestra, Mansfield Symphony, Ashland Symphony, and Rabbit Run Theater Orchestra. He maintains a large studio of brass students and recently joined the faculty at Hiram College as Adjunct Instructor of Brass. In addition to his free-lance performing throughout northeast Ohio, he is a published composer and serves as the Director of the Great Geauga County Fair Band and Junior Fair Band.
Pianist Julia Russ is on the piano faculty of the Cleveland Institute of Music. Before her appointment to CIM, Ms. Russ was on the piano faculty of Kent State University’s Hugh A. Glauser School of Music. Ms. Russ has concertized extensively as both a soloist and as a collaborative pianist. As a solo pianist she has won numerous top prizes and scholarship competitions; including those at the Tuesday Musical Association, Peel Music Festival, Toronto Kiwanis, Kent State University, and the Cleveland Institute of Music, just to name a few. She has given solo piano recitals across both Canada and the United States. As a collaborative pianist, Ms. Russ has worked with, performed with, and/or coached by, some of the finest musicians in the field. She frequently performs with violinist James Thompson.
Violinist Janice Lee, Known for her compelling performance and interpretation, has performed as soloist with the Raleigh Symphony Orchestra and East Carolina University Symphony Orchestra. A graduate of the Cleveland Institute of Music, she continues to perform and freelance in the Cleveland area. As an orchestral musician, she plays with CityMusic Cleveland, Erie Philharmonic, Firelands Symphony Orchestra and other regional orchestras. Ms. Lee discovered a passion for teaching nurtured by CIM’s strong connection with the community and local music programs. Janice currently teaches at CSA Lower Campus as an Artist in Residence as well as The Orchestra Program at Tri-C. As a teaching fellow of the MusAid program, Ms. Lee traveled to El Salvador in May where she worked with students in the El Sistema program under the guidance of Mimi Zweig. This past summer, she was a member of the National Repertory Orchestra.
Kristin Perry is a freelance oboist and English hornist in the Cleveland area. She has performed with the Cleveland Orchestra, Indianapolis Symphony, Mansfield Symphony, Firelands Symphony, Camerata Symphony and Cleveland Opera Theater. Ms. Perry also teaches at the Avon School of Music, Lakewood High School, and subs at the Aurora School of Music. She began playing the oboe in the sixth grade after already having played piano, flute, and harp.
Soprano Vanessa Pintabona is an elementary music teacher in the West Geauga Local Schools. She frequently performs in community and professional theaters in the greater Cleveland area. Most recently, she has been seen in Geauga Lyric Thetaer’s Mary Poppins, Rabbit Run Theater’s production of “Jacques Brel is Alive and Well and Living in Paris,” and Cleveland Opera Theater’s production of Tosca. Vanessa is also a frequent guest soloist with the Great Geauga County Fair Band.
