Haik Kazazyan

Violin Recital

7:30, Monday, November 12, 2018

First Congregational Church, Salt Lake City

Guest Artists

Shi-Hwa Wang, violin

Yu-Jane Yang, piano

Shijun Wang, piano

Sponsored by

Amenian Apostolic Church in Utah

and Weber State University

Program

Violinist Haik Kazazyan has performed with such orchestras as Orchestra of The Mariinsky

Theater, Orchestra National de France, Scottish Royal National Orchestra, Russian National

Orchestra, Moscow Philharmonic Orchestra under the baton of Yu. Simonov, Moscow Symphony

Orchestra named after E. Svetlanov, Moscow State Symphony Orchestra under P. Kogan,

Prague Philharmonic orchestra, Dublin National Orchestra, Kaunas City Symphony Orchestra,

Poznan Philharmonic Orchestra, Katowice Radio Symphony Orchestra, Munich Chamber

Orchestra, Moscow Chamber Orchestra, ‘Musica Viva’ orchestra, S. Petersburg, Ekaterinburg,

Kazan, Samara Symphony Orchestra and many others.

The musicians Haik worked with as a soloist and chamber musician are conductors Valery

Gergiev, Teodor Currentzis, Andrew Litton, Vladimir Fedoseyev, Alexander Liebreich, Alexander

Lazarev, Constantine Orbelian, Jonathan Darlington, Ricardo Averback, Alan Buribayev, Jac van

Steen, David Brophy, Pavel Kogan, Alexander Polianichko, pianists Denis Matsuev, Freddy

Kempf, Eliso Virsaladze, Aleksey Lubimov, Alex Kobrin, Ekaterina Mechetina, Rem Urasin,

violinists Pavel Vernikov, Gordan Nikolitch, Boris Brovtsyn, cellists Natalia Gutman, Alexander

Rudin, Alexander Bouzlov, Sergery Antonov, Boris Andrianov and many other great musicians of

our generation.

He has performed in many great halls in the world, including ‘Carnegie Hall’ (Stern Auditorium) in

New-York, Berlin Philharmonic Hall, in Great, Small and Rakhmaninov Halls of Moscow conser-

vatory, in Tchaikovsky Hakk (Moscow), Victoria Hall in Geneve, Barbican Hall and Wigmore Hall

in London, Usher Hall in Edinburgh, Royal Concert Hall in Glasgow, etc.

In 2007, Haik won 1st prize at the International violin competition named after Isang Yun in South

Korea, also the special prize for best interpretation of Isang Yun’s piece. In 2011, Haik won

Enescu International competition in Bucharest. Recently, in 2015 he won a bronze medal at

Tchaikovsky International Competition in Moscow. He teaches violin at the Moscow Conservatory.

Haik Kazazyan

In demand as a violin teacher, Dr. Shi-Hwa Wang has established himself as an active recruiter

of high caliber students. His students have routinely won the concerto, solo, and chamber music

competitions in the state, regional, and national levels (including six national finalists in the MTNA

National Competitions). Several of his violin students have received full scholarships to attend

prestigious graduate music programs. He has been on faculty in the American String Workshop

(Ann Arbor), International Music Workshops (various cities in Europe), Sewanee Music Festival,

Interharmony International Music Festival, and many state string workshops and conferences. He

was a visiting violin professor at the Haydn Konservatorium in Austria in 2009. He has taught

master classes multiple times at the American String Teachers Association (ASTA) National

Conference, and has given master classes in many states in the US, Singapore, China, Taiwan,

Canada, Austria, and Hungary. He is professor of violin/viola at Weber State University in Utah.

Also active as a leader in ensembles, he has been concertmaster of the Taipei Symphony

Orchestra, Ballet West and Utah Chamber Orchestra, Ann Arbor Symphony, Classical Music

Festival Orchestra (Austria), Southfield Symphony Orchestra, and Illinois Opera. He is the found-

er of the Kismartin String Quartet, Browning String Quartet, Wasatch Piano Trio, and the Formo-

san Violin-Piano Duo. He has performed with renowned musicians such as Noah Bendix-Balgley,

Gerald Fischback, Lydia Artymiw, Nelita True, Alan Chow, Alexander Barantschik, Matthew

Young, Erin Keefe, Sophie Mutter, Frederic Chiu, Jano Starker, Steven Shipps, Abram Loft, Ivan

Strauss, Franvious Rabbath, Tsuyoshi Tsutsumi, Ian Hobson, and Charles Castleman. His solo

CD recordings includes Formosan Duo Classical Album, Formosan Duo Romantic Album, and

Formosan Duo Chinese Album.

He co-directed the WSU Solo and Chamber Music Camp, founded the WSU ASTA Stringfest,

and was the Executive Director of the Sid and Mary Foulger International Music Festival. Faculty

of the Foulger symphony orchestras, and dozens of prominent artists in the U.S. He helped plan

the ASTA National Conference in 2003, and was the Utah ASTA state president for the 4 years

and received the “Utah ASTA Educator of the Year” and the “Outstanding Teaching Award”.

Shi-Hwa Wang

Dr. Yu-Jane Yang is a Presidential Distinguished Professor and Director of Keyboard Studies at

the Weber State University (WSU) in Utah. In great demand as a presenter, performer, and

master class teacher nationally and internationally, Dr. Yang has performed in concert tours and

taught piano master classes extensively in Austria, Poland, Norway, Spain, Italy, Canada, Singa-

pore, China, Taiwan, the Philippines, and the United States. In addition, she also appears

frequently as an adjudicator for national and international piano competitions, including the Gina

Bachauer International Piano Competition Preliminary Auditions in 1997, 2006, 2008, and 2016.

Yu-Jane’s piano students have been selected as top prize winners in both collegiate and pre-col-

lege divisions in numerous state, national, and international piano competitions, including First

Place National Winner of the 2010 Music Teachers National Association Steinway Young Artist

Collegiate Piano Competition, New York International Piano Competition, Seattle International

Piano Competition, International Beethoven Piano Sonata Competition, Atlantic Music Festival

Piano Competition, Snowy Range Piano Solo Competition, and the MTNA Southwest Division

Collegiate Piano Solo and High School Piano-Duet Competitions. Dr. Yang has also produced 1st

place winners of many state, regional, and national concerto competitions such as the Aurora

Symphony, Coeur d’Alene Symphony, Grand Junction Symphony, and the Utah Music Teachers

Association Piano Concerto Competitions (in both Collegiate and High-School Divisions).

Dr. Yang’s WSU piano students have received piano scholarships to continue their graduate

studies from renowned music schools such as the Juilliard School, Eastman School of Music.

Cleveland Institute of Music, New England Conservatory of Music, and Peabody Conservatory of

Music.

Yu-Jane Yang

As the Rhein-Neckar-Zeitung Heidelberger described, “Shijun Wang is a fascinating, serious and

sensitive musician” As a solo pianist and orchestral soloist, Shijun Wang has performed in Cali-

fornia, New York, Oklahoma, Florida, Georgia, Utah, Connecticut, New Jersey, as well as Germa-

ny, France, Norway, China, Mexico, and Japan. His recent orchestral appearances include the

Rachmaninoff Rhapsody On a Theme of Paganini with the Lafayette Symphony, Beethoven

Piano Concerto No.2 with the Tulsa Symphony Orchestra, Evening Stars Orchestra; Duxbury

Music Festival Orchestra; Manhattan Chamber Orchestra; Music Academy of the West Orches-

tra; Tulsa Signature Symphony Orchestra.

He has won many national and international prizes of piano performances, including the Excel-

lence Award in the 65th Steinway Children and Young pianist Competition 2002. He subsequently

won the Excellence award of the 8th Germany Ettlingen International Competition for Young

Pianists in 2002. The same year he won the Bronze medal at the Hong Kong Tchaikovsky Piano

Competition. In 2008, he won the fifth prize in the Hamamatsu Piano Academy. In 2010, he won

the first prize and the audience prize in the Crescendo Piano Competition.

Professor Wang started teaching at Weber State University in 2015 where he teaches both piano

major and non-major students as well as the Piano Preparatory Program in which he helps

training the piano pedagogy major students. Professor Wang got his early music training in

Shenyang, China. He began learning piano at the age of four. In 1999, he was accepted into the

Music High School of the Shenyang Conservatory of Music. His mentors have included Professor

Thomas Schumacher and Dan-Wen Wei who was one of the last students of Vladimir, Horowitz.

Professor Wang received his Bachelor of Music and Master of Music degree in piano perfor-

mance from the Juilliard School with Professor Oxana Yablonskaya and Joseph Kalichstein and

is pursuing his Doctoral of Musical Arts at Eastman School of Music with Professor Nelita True.

Shijun Wang