Keyboard Area: 2024-2025 Masterclasses & Recitals

The Department of Music Keyboard Area welcomes the following artists for their 2024-2025 Masterclass and Recital Series. View the PDF poster here.


Kyoko Hashimoto

McGill University

Recital | October 21, 2024 | 7:30 p.m.
Masterclass | October 22, 2024 | 4-6 p.m.

Both in Convocation Hall

Kyoko Hashimoto | Piano

October 21, 2024 | 7:30 p.m. | Convocation Hall


From 9 Preludes, Op. 103 | Gabriel Fauré (1845-1924)

3. Andante, in G minor 
4. Allegretto moderato, in F major
5. Allegro, in D minor

From the Préludes | Olivier Messiaen (1908-1992)

4. Instants défunts 
5. Les sons impalpables du rève
6. Cloches d’angoisse et larmes d’adieu

From Préludes book 1 | Claude Debussy (1862-1918)

4. Les sons et les parfums tournent dans l’air du soi
5. Les collines d’Anacapri
10. La cathédrale engloutie
11. La danse de Puck

~intermission~

Sonata Op. 106, <Hammerklavier> | Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827)

1. Allegro 
2. Scherzo; assai vivace
3. Adagio sostenuto
4. Introduzione: Largo- Allegro – Fuga: Allegro risoluto

Piano Master Class Presented By

Professor Kyoko Hashimoto

October 22, 2024 | 4 p.m. | Convocation Hall

Concerto no. 1 in E-flat major | Liszt
  • Raphael Jahnert
  • Paolo Tablante
Capriccio brillant in B minor, op. 22 | Mendelssohn Bartholdy
  • Amy Chau
  • Julia Chau
Concerto no. 4 in G major, op. 58 | Beethoven

Allegro moderato

  • Gabe Omolida
  • Rose Yam

Kyoko Hashimoto was born in Tokyo and began to study the piano at the age of three. After graduating from the Toho-Gakuen School of Music in Tokyo, she studied at the International Menuhin Music Academy, Indiana University and the Juilliard School. Among her teachers were György Sebök, Menahem Pressler, William Masselos, György Sandor, György Kurtág and Ferenc Rados.

She has been regularly performing throughout the world, so far in more than 35 countries, including many major cities and halls such as the Wigmore Hall in London, the Lincoln Center and the Carnegie Hall in New York, the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C., Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, etc. She has been invited to many important festivals including the Prague Spring Festival, the Lockenhaus Chamber Music Festival, the Kuhmo Chamber Music Festival, the Pacific Music Festival and the Saito Kinen Festival. Besides performing Solo recitals worldwide, she has performed Concertos with distinguished orchestras such as the Prague Chamber Philharmonic Orchestra and the Belgrade Philharmonic Orchestra with an extensive repertoire, from Bach to contemporary. She has performed many duo recitals with the world’s top musicians such as Ruggiero Ricci (Vn), Thomas Zehetmair (Vn) and Antonio Meneses (Vc), and duo and chamber music concerts with artists such as Vegh (Vn), Maisky (Vc), Kantorow (Vn), Kirshbaum(Vc), Isserlis (Vc), Adorján (Fl), Gallois (Fl), Bourgue (Ob), Prinz (Cl), Collins (Cl), Schellenberger (Ob), Tuckwell (Hr), Arad (Va), Marwood (Vn), Imai (Va), Horigome (Vn), Azzolini (Fg), van Keulen (Vn), Juillet (Vn), Faust (Vn), Baumann (Hr), Pasquier (Vn), Haimovitz (Vc), Hirschhorn (Vn), Shaham (Vn), Myers (Hr), Mann (Vn), Ženatý (Vn), Neubauer (Va), Rhodes (Va), Petracchi (Cb), and Giuranna (Va).

Ms. Hashimoto was awarded numerous prizes such as the 1st grand prize and the public prize at the Concours International de Musique Française, the top prize at the Concours Musical de France, and the special prizes at the Budapest International Music Competition and at the Spohr International Competition. She has recorded many times for TV and radio worldwide including a series of 20 works by Beethoven for Dutch radio. Her performances were many times featured for CBC (Canada) and BBC (UK) and in 2012, her concert performance of a Schubert Impromptu was selected alongside recordings by Edwin Fischer, William Kapell and Wilhelm Backhaus for a programme of 'Great Schubert Performances' in the BBC “. She has also made more than twenty CD recordings, including Solo recordings of Messiaen, Schumann, Scriabin, Shostakovich, Schubert, Debussy, Bach, Beethoven, Brahms, Bartók, Blumenfeld, Mozart, and Terashima

She is a Professor of Piano and Coordinator of the Piano Area at McGill University in Montreal, Canada. She was on the piano and chamber music faculty of the Utrecht Conservatory in Holland for 12 years. She has been invited as an International Jury member for many competitions such as the Gina Bachauer Piano Artists Competition (USA), CMC Steppingstone Competition (Canada), Montreal Competition (Canada), Piana del Cavaliere Piano Competition (President of the Jury, Italy), YAMAHA Benelux Competition (the Netherlands) and Maj Lind Piano Competition (Finland). She has been the Artistic Director of the International Music Workshop and Festival (IMWAF) in the Czech Republic, Germany and Portugal since 2004. She has also given master classes in many major music institutions in most European, North American and Asian countries.


Rolf Bertsch

Mount Royal University

Masterclass | January 30, 2025 | 4-6 p.m.

Convocation Hall

 

Piano Master Class Presented By

Professor Rolf Bertsch

January 30, 2025 | 4 p.m. | Convocation Hall

English Suite no. 6 in d minor | Bach

Prelude 
Allemande
Courante 
Sarabande 
Gigue

  • Ka Yuk (Rose) Yam
From 3 Trois études de concert, S.144, La leggierezza  | Liszt
  • Yuanyuan (Miche) Que
Sonata no. 9. op. 68 (Black Mass) | Scriabin
  • Neil Ren
Rolf Bertsch conductor, pianist, educator Rolf Bertsch has had an illustrious career as a conductor and pianist, notably during his 26 seasons as pianist and conductor-in-residence of the Orchestre symphonique de Montréal. During his Montreal years, he also was solo pianist and Principal Conductor with Les Grands Ballets Canadiens and pianist for the National Arts Center Orchestra in Ottawa. He has conducted most of Canada’s major orchestras, and has performed as solo pianist with a number of them. After his nearly three decade Montreal-based performing career, which included some 3800 concerts, 100 recordings, numerous international tours, and regular collaborations with many of the world’s top artists, he now makes his home in Calgary, where from 1998-2001 he enjoyed a highly successful tenure as Resident Conductor of the Calgary Philharmonic. Since 2008, Rolf Bertsch is Music Director & Conductor of the Calgary Civic Symphony, Canada’s leading non-professional orchestra. During his tenure with “the Civic”, he has overseen a period of unprecedented artistic and organizational growth. He also serves as pianist of the Calgary Philharmonic since 2008. While he remains an active performer, he has developed an excellent reputation as a passionate and dedicated teacher, both in Canada and abroad. He directs the internationally recognized Academy Piano program at the Mount Royal University Conservatory and has a large private studio. He has been a guest teacher in Canada, the United States, and part of stellar international faculties in China (Beijing Central Conservatory, Xiamen University) and in Europe. Born in British Columbia to Dutch immigrant parents, Rolf Bertsch was raised in the United States. He is an Honor Roll graduate of Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts, and has studied in Salzburg, Oporto, and Essen. He returned to Canada to pursue musical studies at McGill University and graduated with High Distinction. Rolf Bertsch is a firm believer in the power of the arts to move and enrich the lives of anyone and everyone, and works hard to build bridges, to forge collaborations, and to create conditions which encourage magic to happen. A proud father of three, he enjoys lively conversation, golf and skiing, and fine food and wine in his spare time. Contact: maestrobertsch@gmail.com / 1 (403) 690-5665 / Facebook: Rolf Bertsch / Instagram: rolfbertsch / X: maestrobertsch June 2023

Stéphane Lemelin

McGill University

Masterclass | February 2, 2025 | 11 a.m.-1 p.m.

Convocation Hall 
Co-sponsored by the Edmonton Recital Society, and the U of A Department of Music

Piano Master Class Presented by

Stéphane Lemelin

February 2, 2025 | 11 a.m.-1 p.m. | Convocation Hall

  1. Riley Lozeron (King’s University)—Brahms: Intermezzo in A major, Op.118, No. 2

  2. Jaydon Zhuang (student of Wolfram Linnebach)—Beethoven: Sonata in B-flat major, Op. 22, first movement

  3. Amy Chau (U of A)—Glinka: Variations on Alyabyev’s Romance “The Nightingale

  4. Angelina Lee (U of A)—Beethoven: Sonata in E-flat major, Op. 81a ("Les adieux"), first movement

Pianist Stéphane Lemelin is well-known to audiences throughout Canada and regularly tours in the United States, Europe and Asia as soloist and chamber musician. 

His repertory is vast, with a predilection for the German Classical and Romantic literature and a particular affinity for French music, as evidenced by his more than twenty-five recordings, which include works by Fauré, Saint-Saëns, debussy, Poulenc and Roussel. Stéphane Lemelin is director of the French music series "Découvertes 1890-1939" on the Atma Classique label, dedicated to the rediscovery of neglected early twentieh-century French repertoire and for which he has recorded works by Samazeuilh, Ropartz, Pierné, Migot, Dupont, Dubois, Rhené-Bâton, Rosenthal, Alder, Lekeu, and Vierne. His latest recording features the complete works for violin and piano by Gyorgy Catoire, with violinist Laurence Kayaleh, and was released on the Naxos label in 2016. 

Stéphane Lemelin studied with Yvonne Hubert in Montreal, Karl-Ulrich Schnabel in New York, and received both Bacholer's and Master's degrees from the Peabody Conservatory as a student of Leon Fleisher. He holds the Doctor of Musical Arts degree from Yale University, where his teachers were Boris Berman and Claude Frank. He was a professor at the University of Alberta and the University of Ottawa, where he also served as Director of the School of Music from 2007 to 2012. He is now Chair of the Department of Performance and Professor of Piano at the Schulich School of Music of McGill University. A dedicated pedagogue, he has been invited to give master classes around the world. Stéphane Lemelin was a member of Trio Hochelaga from 2003 to 2012 and the founder and artistic director of the Prince Edward County Music Festival from 2004 to 2017. 


Craig Sheppard

University of Washington

Recital | March 13, 2025 | 7:30 p.m.
Masterclass | March 14, 2025 | 4-6 p.m.

Both in Convocation Hall

Craig Sheppard | Piano

March 13, 2025 | 7:30 p.m. | Convocation Hall


Nocturne in D flat, Opus 63 #6 (1894) | Gabriel Fauré (1845-1924)  

Enfance: Quatre Tableaux (2015) | Joël-François Durand (1954 -     )
Jeux
Rêves          
Batailles
Les Voyants

Prélude, Choral et Fugue (1884) | César Franck (1822-1890) 


INTERMISSION

Miroirs (1904-05) | Maurice Ravel (1875-1937)
Noctuelles 
Oiseaux tristes
Une barque sur l’océan
Alborada del gracioso
La Vallée des cloches

Estampes (1903) | Claude Debussy (1862-1918)
Pagodes
Une Soirée dans Grenade
Jardins sous la pluie 

Craig Sheppard came to the School of Music of the University of Washington in Seattle in 1993 and is currently the Michiko Morita Miyamoto Professor in Piano and Head of Keyboard Studies.  His former students, including those from his previous twenty years living in London (1973-93), hold positions in conservatories and universities throughout the world.  A veteran of nearly sixty years on the international stage, Sheppard recently performed the complete Chopin Nocturnes for the Chopin Society in London, then flew to Beijing to perform the Nocturnes and give several days of masterclasses at the Central Conservatory.  In recent years, Sheppard  performed both Shostakovich’s 24 Preludes and Fugues and Bach’s The Art of Fugue in many venues throughout the United States, as well as London, Manchester (UK), Jerusalem, Shanghai and Beijing’s Forbidden City Concert Hall, in addition to giving masterclasses at all the above.  A prolific recording artist, his LPs and CDs have appeared on the Sony, Chandos, Philips, EMI and AT-Berlin labels.  He has also published 26 CDs with Romeo Records (NY) since 2005, all from live performances, including the complete Beethoven sonatas (Beethoven: A Journey), the Six Bach Partitas, the Inventions and Sinfornias, both books of The Well Tempered Clavier, the last three Schubert sonatas, Liszt’s Années de Pèlerinage I and II, Debussy’s 24 Preludes and 12 Études (including both books of Images and Estampes), the 24 Preludes and Fugues of Shostakovich, the Late Piano Works Opus 116-19 of Johannes Brahms, the Early Piano Works of Brahms (three CDs of works up through Opus 76), and Bach’s Die Kunst der Fuge (The Art of Fugue).   Within the past two decades, he has traveled many times to the Far East for performances and masterclasses, including Japan, Korea, China, Hong Kong, and Singapore.  He has also performed at the Nehru Memorial Library in New Delhi, held a two-week residency at the Melba Conservatory in Melbourne, Australia, and performed three times in New Zealand, including the first-ever public performances in that country of both books of Bach’s Well Tempered Clavier.  In 2023, he performed the Complete Chopin Nocturnes at the Museu do Oriente in Lisbon, Seattle’s Meany Theater, and Bologna (Italy)’s Sala Biagi.

Born in Philadelphia in November 1947, Craig Sheppard graduated from both the Curtis Institute and the Juilliard School, studying with Eleanor Sokoloff and Sasha Gorodnitzki respectively.  He also worked with Rudolf Serkin and Pablo Casals at the Marlboro Festival, and later with Ilona Kabos, Peter Feuchtwanger, and Sir Clifford Curzon in London.  During his early years, in addition to a well received début at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art, he won top prizes in the Busoni, Ciani, and Rubinstein competitions.  However, it was his Silver Medal at the Leeds International Piano Competition in 1972 that initially brought him to international attention.  Moving to London in 1973 and living there for the next twenty years, Sheppard taught at Lancaster University, the Yehudi Menuhin School, and the Guildhall School of Music and Drama.  He performed on multiple occasions with all of the British orchestras (including a recording on the EMI/Classics for Pleasure label of Rachmaninoff’s 3rd Piano Concerto with the London Philharmonic) and with many orchestras on the European continent, under such conductors as Sir George Solti, Erich Leinsdorf, Kurt Sanderling, James Levine, Michael Tilson Thomas, Aaron Copland, Lord Yehudi Menuhin, Sir Charles Mackerras, Sir Andrew Davis, Sir John Pritchard, Esa Pekka Salonen, David Zinman, and Leonard Slatkin.  In the United States, he has performed with the orchestras of Philadelphia, Boston, Chicago, Atlanta, Dallas, San Francisco, Rochester, Seattle, and many others.  

Craig Sheppard’s solo repertoire is eclectic, comprising nearly fifty solo recital programs and over sixty concerti covering a wide spectrum within the Western canon.  He has a great love of chamber music and has collaborated with many great instrumentalists and singers, including Wynton Marsalis, José Carreras, Victoria de los Angeles, Irina Arkhipova, Ida Handel, Sylvia Rosenberg, Mayumi Fujikawa, the Cleveland, Emerson and Miró string quartets, and many musicians of the younger generation, including James Ehnes, Augustin Hadelich, Stefan Jackiw, Richard O’Neill, Edward Arron and Johannes Moser.

Sheppard returns regularly to the Jerusalem Music Center to perform and teach, as well as the Chetham’s Summer Piano School in Manchester, UK.  With colleague Dr. Robin McCabe, Sheppard is Co-Founder and Artistic Director of the Seattle Piano Institute, an intense musical experience for aspiring young pianists held every July at the University of Washington.  This summer, the SPI celebrates its 15th anniversary.  Sheppard holds wide intellectual interests and has fluency in several languages.