CMNW: 'Peter & the Wolf' with WindSync (Sensory Friendly Concert)
Free (RSVP required)
- Garrett Hudson, flute
- Emily Tsai, oboe
- Graeme Steele Johnson, clarinet
- Rémy Taghavi, bassoon
- Anni Hochhalter, French horn
Sergei Prokofiev — Peter and the Wolf, Op. 67 (arr. for wind quintet)
Unknown — The Moose Song
Valerie Coleman — Umoja
Various — Selected works (TBD)
WindSync's signature concert program for children and families celebrates storytelling through music. The cornerstone is Sergei Prokofiev's classic Peter and the Wolf. The musicians do triple duty as narrators, characters, and soundtrack in this fully staged adaptation, complete with costumes and choreography.
Young people learn how the instruments produce sound through an old-fashioned Texas hoedown, and they apply musical terms to dance through selections from well-loved classical repertoire. The audience performs, too, clapping rhythm patterns in a rousing finale!
This FREE event is presented by Chamber Music Northwest, RSVP required.
This education program is structured into distinct segments: Concert Time, Story Time, Conducting Time, and Clapping Time.
3 performances:
- Thursday, February 15, 10:30am at Tualatin Public Library
- Thursday, February 15, 7pm at The Judy – sensory friendly performance
- Friday, February 16, 5pm at Powell's City of Books (Burnside St. location)
About WindSync
WindSync has established itself as a vibrant chamber ensemble performing wind quintet masterworks, adapting beloved music to their instrumentation, and championing new works by today’s composers. The quintet often eliminates the “fourth wall” between musicians and audience by performing from memory, creating an intimate connection. This personal performance style, combined with the ensemble’s three-pronged mission of artistry, education, and community-building, lends WindSync its reputation as ”a group of virtuosos who are also wonderful people, too” (Alison Young, Classical MPR).
WindSync launched an international touring career after winning the 2012 Concert Artists Guild Victor Elmaleh Competition and the 2016 Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition. In 2018, they were finalists at the M-Prize Chamber Arts Competition. WindSync has appeared in recital at the Library of Congress, Ravinia, Shanghai Oriental Arts Center, and Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall. Their commissions and premieres include The Cosmos, a concerto for wind quintet and orchestra by Pulitzer finalist Michael Gilbertson, and recent works by Ivan Trevino, Marc Mellits, Erberk Eryilmaz, and Akshaya Avril Tucker. Their album, "All Worlds, All Times," was released on Bright Shiny Things in 2022, debuting at no. 2 on the Billboard Traditional Classical charts.
WindSync’s thematic programming responds to the people and places where they work. In their artistic hometown of Houston, they curate a four-concert season and present the Onstage Offstage Chamber Music Festival each April, spotlighting everyday public spaces as gathering places for culture. The ensemble’s educational work includes tour stops at public schools and ongoing collaborations with the social music programs Sistema Ravinia and Houston Youth Symphony Coda Music Program. WindSync has been featured in educational concerts presented by the Seattle Symphony, the Hobby Center, and Orli Shaham’s Bach Yard, and the ensemble’s concerts for young people reach over 5,000 students per year. In recognition of this work, they are the winners of the 2022 Ann Divine Fischoff Educator Award.
The members of WindSync have led masterclasses at New World Symphony, Eastman School of Music, Florida State University, and Northwestern University, among others. The quintet has also served as Ensemble-in-Residence for the Nevada Chamber Music Festival, the Chamber Music Festival of Lexington (KY), the National Museum of Wildlife Art, and the Grand Teton Music Festival.
http://www.windsync.org/About Chamber Music Northwest (CMNW)
Chamber Music Northwest serves more than 50,000 people annually in Oregon and SW Washington with exceptional chamber music through over 100 events annually, including our flagship Summer Festival, year-round concerts, community activities, educational programs, broadcasts, and innovative collaborations with other arts groups. CMNW is the only chamber music festival of its kind in the Northwest and one of the most diverse classical music experiences in the nation, virtually unparalleled in comparable communities.
Chamber Music Northwest's mission is to inspire our community through concerts and events celebrating the richness and diversity of chamber music, performed by artists of the highest caliber, presenting our community with exceptional opportunities for enjoyment, education, and reflection.
https://cmnw.org/About Garrett Hudson, flute
Recognized by the Winnipeg Free Press for “shaking up the classical music world,” Garrett Hudson is known for his charismatic stage presence and highly personal voice on the flute. The young Canadian’s roots lie in Winnipeg, Manitoba where he emerged at the age of 16 in a solo debut with the Winnipeg Symphony.
Before embarking upon a dynamic career as an international soloist, instructor, and orchestral and chamber musician, Garrett held positions in some of North America's leading professional training orchestras including the National Academy Orchestra of Canada and l’Orchestre de la Francophonie in Montreal, Quebec and participated in other world-class training programs such as the Young Artists Program through Ottawa's National Arts Center.
Garrett completed a Bachelor of Music degree from the University of British Columbia, studying under Scottish flutist Lorna McGhee and earned his Masters of Music degree from Rice University’s Shepherd School of Music under the tutelage of renowned flute pedagogue Leone Buyse.
Since 2009 Garrett has served as flutist with WindSync, an ensemble considered to be one of North America’s foremost emerging chamber forces and a recent winner of the Concert Artists Guild international competition for artist management. Based in Houston, Texas, the group tours extensively throughout North America and abroad and recently presented their Carnegie Hall Debut in New York City.
https://www.windsync.org/garrett-hudson.htmlAbout Emily Tsai, oboe
Emily Tsai is a professional oboist, oboe instructor, and music arranger.
She is the Assistant Principal Oboe in the Washington National Opera and the Kennedy Center Opera House Orchestra, and can be seen performing regularly at the Kennedy Center in Washignton, DC on opera, ballet, and musical theater productions.
Emily has a passion for education and is the Assistant Oboe Professor at the University of Maryland School of Music. She has also and has taught artist residencies and masterclasses at many colleges and universities, including the Eastman School of Music, Northwestern University, University of Maryland, Orchestra of the Americas, and New World Symphony.
Along with her local DMV positions in at the Kennedy Center and the University of Maryland, Emily is an MKI artist as the oboist of WindSync, gold medalist at the International Fischoff Competition and medalist at the M-prize Chamber Arts Competition. She is also the co-founder, oboist, and violinist of C Street Collective.
Her greatest passions are to use music as a means to bring communities together, teach and encourage young people to engage with classical music, and expand the repertoire for the double reeds in particular.
About Graeme Steele Johnson, clarinet
Praised for his "elegant and rounded sound" (Albany Times Union) and "effortless...unmatched" technique (The Clarinet Online), Graeme Steele Johnson is an artist of uncommon imagination and versatility.
His diverse artistic endeavors range from a TEDx talk comparing Mozart and Seinfeld, to his reconstruction of a forgotten 125-year-old work by Charles Martin Loeffler, to performances of Mozart's Clarinet Concerto in its original form on an elongated clarinet that he commissioned. Johnson’s recent and upcoming performances include appearances at the Library of Congress, Chamber Music Northwest, Bridgehampton Chamber Music Festival, Ravinia, Phoenix Chamber Music Festival, Emerald City Music, Maverick Concerts, Music Mountain and Yellow Barn, as well as solo recitals at The Kennedy Center and Chicago’s Dame Myra Hess series. He is also a regular performer at the Annapolis Chamber Music Festival, Archipelago Collective Chamber Music Festival, and Caroga Lake Music Festival. As a concerto soloist, he has performed twice with the Vienna International Orchestra, as well as with the Springfield Symphony Orchestra, Caroga Arts Ensemble, Vermont Mozart Festival Orchestra, and the CME Chamber Orchestra.
Since 2022, he has served as the clarinetist of the award-winning quintet WindSync (MKI Artists), one of only two American wind quintets with a full-time, international touring schedule.
Driven by his interest in shedding fresh perspective on familiar music, Johnson has authored numerous chamber arrangements of repertoire ranging from Mozart and Debussy to Gershwin and Messiaen, and performed them around the country with such artists as the Miró Quartet, Valerie Coleman, and Han Lash. His arrangements have also been championed around the world, with performances by the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra (Australia), Moscow Conservatory, and the La Jolla Music Society.
Johnson is the winner of the Hellam Young Artists’ Competition and the Yamaha Young Performing Artists Competition; other recent accolades include the Saint Botolph Club Foundation's Emerging Artist Award and the inaugural Lee Memorial Scholarship from the Center for Musical Excellence. He has recorded commercially for Hyperion Records, MSR Classics, and Musica Solis Productions, as well as a recent recording project at Abbey Road Studios with WindSync.
http://www.graemesteelejohnson.comAbout Rémy Taghavi, bassoon
Rémy Taghavi is a highly sought-after bassoonist and educator based in the Northeast. Rémy is Principal Bassoon of the New Haven Symphony Orchestra and has performed with the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, Orchestra New England, the Las Vegas Philharmonic, and the Cape and Princeton Symphonies, among others. He is a Founder and Artistic Director of the Annapolis Chamber Music Festival, a member of the New York-based chamber ensembles Frisson and SoundMind, and an alumnus of Carnegie Hall’s teaching artist and chamber music program, Ensemble Connect. Mr. Taghavi is Assistant Professor of Bassoon at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, where he also serves as the Woodwind Chamber Music Coordinator, and faculty at the Rocky Ridge Music Center’s Young Artist Seminar (Colorado). He completed degrees at the University of Southern California, the Juilliard School, and Stony Brook University. His primary teachers include Frank Morelli, Judith Farmer, and Norbert Nielubowski.
https://www.umass.edu/music/member/remy-taghaviAbout Anni Hochhalter, French horn
Born in California and raised in Las Vegas, Nevada, Anni is an active musician and innovator in the arts field. Specializing in chamber music, she has launched an exciting career as a recitalist, instructor, and social entrepreneur. Anni graduated from the University of Southern California with a Bachelor of Music degree in French Horn Performance, studying with leading studio and orchestral musicians Rick Todd, James Thatcher, and Kristy Morrell, along with summers under Roger Kaza as a fellow at the Chautauqua Music Festival and Texas Music Festival.
In 2009, Anni won first prize in the Yen Liang Young Artist Competition and performed Richard Strauss’ First Horn Concerto in E-flat Major with the Diablo Symphony. As a touring musician, she has performed with orchestras and chamber ensembles across North America, Europe, and Asia, and performs each summer as principal horn of the McCall Music Festival in McCall, Idaho.
Anni is based in San Francisco, California and enjoys trail running and backpacking whenever possible. During the summer of 2020 she backpacked over 250 miles, including a 75 mile section of the Pacific Crest Trail in Washington, and in the last year has run two marathons. Anni currently serves as executive director and musician chair of WindSync.
https://www.windsync.org/anni-hochhalter.htmlThe Judy Kafoury Center for Youth Arts (The Judy)
1000 SW Broadway T-100Portland, OR 97205
United States