Faculty and Guest Artist Concerts

von Kuster Hall

We are proud to welcome guest artists to perform in our venues and showcase faculty members in exciting individual and collaborative programs at the Don Wright Faculty of Music. 

In addition to the opportunities listed below, we are proud to host distinguished artists in residence, those visiting for residencies and public masterclasses, as well as those who perform each week during our signature "Fridays @ 12:30" concert series.


2023-24 Performances

Joining us on campus for an in-person event? For always-up-to-date health and safety protocols, check our Audience Information webpage before you leave home.

Sunday, September 24 | 1pm (approx. 1 hour)
von Kuster Hall and via livestream
Homecoming Concert
Student winners of the 2023 Maritsa Brookes Concerto Competition perform in a special Homecoming concert with faculty pianists Kyung Kim and Michael Kim.

Sunday, October 22 | 1pm (approx. 1 hour)
von Kuster Hall
Flute Day Recital
Featuring Flute Day guest artist Susan Hoeppnerflute. This recital is free admission and open to the public. To participate in the full day, please register on the Flute Day website.

Friday, October 27 | 7:30pm – Concert (approx. 2 hours)
Saturday, October 28 | 10am – Masterclass
von Kuster Hall
Parsons and Poole Concert and Masterclass
We are honoured to welcome internationally renowned pianist Yekwon Sunwoo as the guest artist for this year's  Parsons and Poole Concert and Masterclass. Visit main website for more details and to purchase tickets.
Concert Tickets | $40/$15 in advance (additional $5 at the door)
Masterclass | Free Admission

Tuesday, November 7 | 8pm (approx. 1.5 hours)
von Kuster Hall
Across the Waves
Pianist Stephen Runge performs barcarolles and other works from the last two centuries inspired by waves, water, and the ocean. Visit Masterclasses and Residencies page for additional programming.

Friday, November 10 | 8pm (approx. 1.5 hours)
von Kuster Hall
Musicians from Marlboro
Musicians from Marlboro return to Western! Musicians from Marlboro tours are noted not only for their joyous and thoroughly prepared performances but also for offering valuable touring experience to artists at the beginning of their careers and for featuring programs of unusual as well as beloved chamber repertoire. Viola, Viola by 2022 Marlboro Composer-in-Residence George Benjamin features on the season-opening tour program, which also includes Felix Mendelssohn’s exuberant E-flat Major Quartet, Haydn's String Quartet in G Major, and Lyric for Strings by George Walker, the first Black composer to win the Pulitzer Prize for Music. 
Musicians: Maria Ioudenitch, violin, Claire Bourg, violin, Beth Guterman Chu, viola, Hayang Park, viola, Christoph Richter, cello. Visit Masterclasses and Residencies page for additional programming.

Thursday, November 16 | 8pm (approx. 1.5 hours)
von Kuster Hall
American Pioneers
Joel Sachs, piano, Professor emeritus, The Juilliard School, will be performing the rarely-played Piano Sonata No. 1 of Charles Ives as well as piano works by Aaron Copeland, Ruth Crawford Seeger and Henry Cowell.
Funding for this residency was generously provided by the Music Undergradute Gift Fund and the Music Graduate Colloquium Series. Visit Masterclasses and Residencies page for additional programming.

Sunday, November 26 | 3pm (approx. 2 hours)
von Kuster Hall
Nore: Songs my father taught me
Korean cellist and University of Seoul professor Hocheol Shin joins Associate Professor of Piano Dr. Kyung Kim in a Sunday afternoon concert devoted to masterpieces that bring together and showcase diverse cultural milestones in their musical journey as artists.

Sunday, December 3 | 3pm (approx. 1 hour)
von Kuster Hall
Tafelmusik with Early Music Studio
Students of the Early Music Studio (EMS) are lead by musicians of Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra in a side-by-side performance, with EMS faculty also joining the concert. A world-class opportunity for experiential learning at Western! This performance is in addition to the Fridays at 12:30 concert on December 1. Visit Masterclasses and Residencies page for additional programming.

Wednesday, January 24 | 6pm (approx. 2 hours)
von Kuster Hall
Artists-in-Residence: New Orford String Quartet
The New Orford String Quartet, consisting of Andrew Wan and Jonathan Crow (violins), faculty member Sharon Wei (viola), and Brian Manker (cello), perform "Pizzicato!" This captivating program showcases the diverse ways in which pizzicato, a technique where the strings are plucked instead of bowed, is used to shape the expressive landscapes of string quartet music. New Orford String Quartet performs works by Caroline Shaw, Ana Sokolovic and Beethoven. They will be joined by students to perform Mozart's delightful Divertimento in D majorVisit Masterclasses and Residencies page for additional programming.

Friday, January 26 | 8pm (Concert approx. 1 hour, with preceding roundtable discussion at 7pm)
von Kuster Hall
Schoenberg’s Pierrot Lunaire

At its 1912 premiere in Berlin, audience members hissed, booed and hurled insults. What will you do?
Hear Arnold Schoenberg’s 1912 bombshell masterpiece Pierrot Lunaire in a setting of poetry by Albert Giraud, performed by Western faculty. Performers include 
Patricia Green, mezzo-soprano, Scott St. John, violin/viola, Thomas Wiebe, cello, Stephen Tam, flute/piccolo, Jana Starling, clarinets, and Stéphan Sylvestre, piano.
A roundtable discussion precedes at 7pm, exploring “Pierrot” from several different angles of expertise; moderator 
Emily Abrams Ansari joins roundtable panelists including Omar DanielKevin Mooney, Thomas Wiebe and French Studies faculty member Genevieve de Viveiros.

Sunday, February 4 | 3pm (approx. 1.5 hours)
von Kuster Hall
Brett Kingsbury, piano
A solo piano recital from piano faculty member Brett Kingsbury featuring The Jack Pine by Jocelyn Morlock, Beethoven's Eroica Variations, R. Schumann's Humoreske, Scriabin's Poemes Op. 32, and Debussy's L'isle Joyeuse.

Tuesday, February 6 | 8pm (approx. 1.5 hours)
von Kuster Hall
Horizon: Madog
Welsh baritone Jeremy Huw Williams and Ensemble Paramirabo present the premiere of Horizon: Madog, a new chamber opera by Western Music faculty member Paul Frehner and librettist Angela J. Murphy. The program also features the premiere of Tynged yr laith (the Fate of the Language) by Welsh composer Claire Victoria Roberts, and works by William Mathias and Claude Vivier.
pdf-icon.jpgView program (PDF, 19.5M)

Part of a multi-day residency, funding for which has been generously provided by the Don Wright Faculty of Music Undergraduate Gift Fund.

Visit Masterclasses and Residencies page for additional programming. 

Horizon: Madog Synopsis:

Event poster for Horizon: Madog

Horizon: Madog takes place in a distant future, when the world’s oceans have flooded coastal regions across the globe, and geomagnetic storms have decimated global communication systems, isolating the scant remaining survivors of societal collapse. Humanity is recovering but is still in a fragile state, and once-great nations are now fractured into island states. 

The piece explores the musings of Madog, who believes he is a descendant of the legendary Welsh prince ‘Madoc’ who purportedly reached North America centuries before Columbus. This tri-lingual (French, English and Welsh) Elder has been an instrumental founder of the fictional Île-Mont-qui-Tremble, a vibrant trilingual island community situated somewhere in what was ‘Quebec’. Madog and his now-deceased wife Élodie and their descendants are core founders of this ‘back-to-the-earth’ movement that have found a new Way, a mantra, for living in harmony with the environment. 

At the core of their ethos, nothing is created from objects that contribute to further pollution; everything is reused and re-usable. But, Madog’s roughewn “radio” has been transmitting news in Welsh that somewhere east, societies are re-developing. He fears that with the use of build-build-build technology, they will commit the same environmentally destructive errors and desecrate an already fragile-but-healing world. Seeing himself as a Messianic figure, he is making his final preparations before embarking on a solo perilous ocean journey by sailboat to find what remains of his ancestral homeland, and to spread his knowledge of the Way to those he encounters. 

Thursday, February 8 | 7:30pm (approx. 1.5 hours)
Paul Davenport Theatre
An Evening with Rodney Whitaker and the Western University Jazz Ensemble
The Western University Jazz Ensemble is honoured to welcome internationally renowned recording artist and jazz bassist Rodney Whitaker as Artist in Residence. Over a 25-year span, Mr. Whitaker has toured and recorded with a who’s who of jazz artists, including Jimmy Heath, Dianne Reeves, Cassandra Wilson, Diana Krall, Joe Henderson, Roy Hargrove, and Wynton Marsalis, to name but a few. Rodney Whitaker will also perform with a student Jazz Combo during the Fridays @ 12:30 Concert Series on February 9. 
This artist residency is supported by the Undergraduate Music Student Gift Fund

Saturday, March 23 | 7:30pm (approx. 1.5 hours)
Paul Davenport Theatre
Joyful, Joyful!
Chorale and Western University Singers choirs collaborate with special guests London Gospel Collective in an evening of gospel and sacred music.

Sunday, April 14 | 3pm (approx. 1.5 hours)
von Kuster Hall
Ema Nikolovksa, mezzo-soprano and Charles Richard-Hamelin, piano
Vancouver Recital Society Visiting Artist Series at Western University presents acclaimed Canadian-Macedonian mezzo-soprano Ema Nikolovksa with Charles Richard-Hamelin, piano. Acclaimed for her expressive abilities and vast repertoire, Canadian-Macedonian mezzo-soprano Ema Nikolovksa is gaining a reputation as “one to watch”. She was a BBC New Generation Artist from 2019-2022 and won first prize at the International Vocal Competition in ‘s-Hertogenbosch, the Ferrier Loveday Song Prize (Kathleen Ferrier Awards), and was a prize winner at the Young Classical Artists Trust (YCAT) International Auditions. She will be accompanied by Canadian pianist and past Parsons and Poole distinguished artist Charles Richard-Hamelin, “a musician-pianist: fluent, multi-faceted and tonally seductive” (BBC Music Magazine).
This concert is part of the Vancouver Recital Society Visiting Artist Series


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Inquiries

musicevents@uwo.ca