The Hills are Alive

Tuesday, October 22, 2024
7:30 pm

Hosted by Pat & John Zagelow
30 Guests • $100

The West Hills, that is at the beautiful hilltop Zagelow home! OSO’s finest, Sarah Kwak (violin) and Vali Phillips (viola), join pianist Cary Lewis for a captivating program featuring Bruch’s Scottish Fantasy. Savor marvelous music, exceptional wines, and mouthwatering delicacies in this delightful woodland setting.

Photos of previous events at the Zagelows’ home:

More About Sarah Kwak

Sarah Kwak was appointed Concertmaster of the Oregon Symphony in 2012. Since then, she has performed to critical acclaim throughout Oregon. Hailed as a “world-class soloist,” Kwak is renowned for her “lyrical depth, thoughtful phrasing, myriad shadings of tone and easy technical prowess.” After her concerto debut with the Oregon Symphony, the Oregonian said she “tore it up in a performance as dazzling as any recent star guest soloist.”

Sarah joined the Oregon Symphony after serving as first Associate Concertmaster of the Minnesota Orchestra from 1988 to 2012 and Acting Concertmaster from January 2010 to September 2011. Kwak, a 2008 McKnight Artist Fellowship winner, has appeared with many orchestras as soloist including the Philadelphia Orchestra, Minnesota Orchestra, Houston Symphony, and Curtis Chamber Orchestra. The first artist ever to capture all three memorial awards at the Washington International Competition, Kwak also won the 1989 WAMSO Young Artist Competition. An avid chamber musician, she has toured nationally with “Musicians from Marlboro” and internationally with the Casa Verde Trio. She was a founding member of the Rosalyra String Quartet, which made its New York debut in 1996 and was awarded a McKnight Artist Fellowship in 2000. She has served on the faculty of Princeton University and at the University of Nevada at Reno.

She has participated in the Marlboro Music Festival, Chamber Music Northwest Festival, Portland Piano International Summer Festival, Pensacola Festival, Pittsburgh Summerfest, Bargemusic of New York, Festival Mozart in France, Siletz Bay and Astoria Festivals. In 2014, she was appointed Concertmaster of the Oregon Bach Festival and has toured with Asia Philharmonic Orchestra under Myung-Whun Chung. In addition, she has served as guest Concertmaster with the Utah Symphony.

Born in Boston and raised in Lawrence, Kansas, Kwak studied briefly at the Vienna Hochschule für Musik before entering the Curtis Institute of Music at the age of 12. Among her teachers were Joseph Sivo, Ivan Galamian, and Szymon Goldberg.

Kwak is a founding member and Executive Director of Classical Up Close, a non-profit organization whose mission is to to make classical music accessible to all by presenting free chamber music concerts in neighborhoods around the Portland metro area where people live, work and play.

More About Vali Phillips

Vali Phillips joined the Oregon Symphony in 2012. Before moving to Portland, Vali was a longtime member of the Minnesota Orchestra, with whom he served as principal second violin for 11 seasons before joining the first violin section in 2008. Vali made his solo debut with Minnesota, performing Bruch’s First Violin Concerto in 2001; during his tenure, Vali also soloed with Dvořák’s Romance, the “Summer” concerto from Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons, and in 2007, Bach’s Double Violin Concerto with then-first associate concertmaster Sarah Kwak. During the Minnesota Orchestra’s Sommerfest 2004, Vali played Shostakovich’s Trio in E minor with pianist André Watts.

Before coming to Minnesota, Vali served as concertmaster of the Savannah Symphony Orchestra, and associate concertmaster for both the Erie Philharmonic, and the Charleston Symphony. As a soloist, Vali has appeared with the Boston Pops Esplanade Orchestra and the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra, as well as in recital at Carnegie Hall. Vali spent two summers at the Tanglewood Festival and has performed at the Grand Teton Music Festival.

Vali graduated from the Eastman School of Music, where he studied under Charles Castleman. He began his musical training at Project STEP (String Training and Education Program), a non-profit program for minority children in his native Boston. At Project STEP, Vali studied with artistic director Farhoud Moshfegh. As a way of giving back to the program that nurtured his early music studies, Vali performed a benefit recital for Project STEP at the New England Conservatory.

With three colleagues from the Minnesota Orchestra, Vali co-founded the Minneapolis Quartet, which won a McKnight Artist Fellowship in 2006.

More About Cary Lewis

Pianist Cary Lewis is in frequent demand as a collaborative pianist for soloists and chamber music groups. He joined William Preucil (concertmaster of the Cleveland Orchestra) and his wife, cellist Dorothy Lewis, to form the Lanier Trio, whose recording of the complete Dvorak Trios was honored by TIME Magazine as one of the Ten Best Recordings in 1993. With degrees from the University of North Texas as well as a doctorate and Performer’s Certificate from the Eastman School of Music, he was a Fulbright scholar for two years in Vienna. His teachers included Eugene List, Brooks Smith, and Dieter Weber. He has performed at Carnegie Hall, Bargemusic, the Library of Congress, the White House, the Kennedy Center, Wigmore Hall in London, the National Philharmonic in Warsaw, and in other music capitals of the United States and Europe. Dr. Lewis is retired from the faculty of Georgia State University in Atlanta and is now based in Portland, Oregon. In recent years he has participated in festivals in Montana, Colorado, Michigan, Maine, Hawaii, St. Croix and Turkey, and has recorded over three dozen albums featuring works from the standard literature as well as music by American composers.

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