Guest Artist/Faculty Recital: American Liszt Society Festival Concert

Gabriel Dobner is on the American Liszt Society Board of Directors. He has played for singers Kevin McMillan, Rod Gilfry, Gehard Siegel, René Kollo, Christiane Oelze and Cornelia Kallisch.  He has recorded for Haenssler Klassik, Ottavo and MDG (Musik Dabringhaus und Grimm) in Germany and the Netherlands. Following his recording of Brahms Lieder with Cornelia Kallisch for MDG, the West German Radio described him as “A master among Lieder pianists.”. His 2015 recording with Metropolitan opera tenor Gerhard Siegel, released by Haenssler Klassik Profil , featured songs of Strauss, Schoenberg and Kurt Hessenberg. The duo recently recorded Strauss, Wagner, and Schubert’s Winterreise.  He has broadcast for the Bavarian State Radio, West German Radio, North German Radio, Nippon Broadcasting Corporation in Japan, and for Saint Paul Sunday in the United States. Dobner has collaborated with members of the LA Philharmonic, Berlin Philharmonic, and Emerson Quartet, 

In 1993, Dobner moved to Munich to study Lied with Prof. Helmut Deutsch. Upon winning the piano prize in the International Hans Pfitzner Lieder Competition in Munich, he quickly established a solid reputation as a Lieder pianist. He has appeared in concert in the opera houses of Dresden, Hamburg and Zürich, the Herkulessaal in Munich, Cologne Philharmonie, Musikverein in Vienna, Alte Oper in Frankfurt, as well as throughout the United States, Japan and South Korea. Dobner completed his Bachelors Degree in piano at Roosevelt University with Ludmila Lazar. At Indiana University he completed his Masters and Doctoral Degrees with Leonard Hokanson.  Dobner joined the piano faculty at James Madison University in 2001 and the faculty of AIMS in Graz, Austria in 2017, where he teaches German Lieder.  

Yakov Kasman has concertized in the Americas, Europe, Russia and Asia. He has been soloist with more than eighty orchestras including the Buffalo, Oregon, Pacific, Syracuse, Memphis, Miami, Ft. Worth, Nashville and Alabama symphonies, Athens State Orchestra, the orchestras of Lille and Montpellier in France, the Singapore Symphony, the National Symphony Orchestra (Taiwan), Orquestra Sinfonica de Baleares (Spain), Daejeon Philharmonic Orchestra and KBS Symphony (South Korea), and the Moscow Philharmonia Orchestra. 

Kasman has recordings on the Calliope and Harmonia Mundi labels. His two-CD set of the complete sonatas of Prokofiev was awarded the “Grand Prix de la Nouvelle Académie du Disque '' in France. Other CDs include solo works by Haydn, Stravinsky, complete sonatas by Scriabin and Rachmaninoff,  a Tchaikovsky CD featuring The Seasons and Grand Sonata in G-Major, a four-CD set of the complete chamber music with piano of Shostakovich with the Talich Quartet, Piano Concerto No. 2 by Lukas Foss with the Pacific Symphony, and more. The International Piano Quarterly magazine recommended his CD of Moussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition as one of 14 equally ranked best in a survey of recordings over the past 75 years. His recording of Shostakovich’s Concerto No. 1 and Schnittke’s Concerto for Piano and Strings received the “Choc du monde de la musique” award in France. 

Kasman is active as a teacher and adjudicator. He was a jury member of the Busoni International Piano Competition, International Piano Competition in Memory of Vladimir Horowitz in Kyiv, Ukraine, the Corpus Christi International Competition, "Merzlyakovka invites friends" All-Russian Piano Competition in Moscow, etc. He has been a guest artist and faculty member at Piano Texas, the International Summer Music Academy in Kyiv, IKOF in Fort Collins, CO, the Busan International Music Academy, IKIF in New York City,  the “Vivace” Festival in Wilmington, NC, and others. 

Kasman, Distinguished Professor of Piano and Artist-in-Residence at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, was named 2023 “Teacher of the Year” by the Alabama Music Teachers Association.  

Mezzo-soprano Clara Osowski, who sings “from inside the music with unaffected purity and sincerity” (UK Telegraph), is an active soloist and chamber musician throughout the United States and Europe. Recognized for her excellence in Minnesota, Clara was a recipient of the prestigious 2018-2019 McKnight Artist Fellowships for Musicians administered by MacPhail Center for Music. 

Known particularly for her interpretation of art song, Clara has been awarded several international prizes in Lieder, most notable the first ever American prize winner at Thomas Quasthoff's Das Lied Competition, and both the Schubert and Ralph Vaughan Williams prizes at Wigmore Hall's prestigious song competition in London. HIghlight performances include Mendelssohn's Elias with the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra, Mahler's Das Lied von der Erde for chamber orchestra with Salastina Los Angeles, debuts with Music of the Baroque, St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, Handel and Haydn, and Minnesota Opera, and her Wigmore Hall debut recital with pianist Julius Drake. 

In addition to performing, Clara serves as the Artistic Director of Source Song Festival, a week-long art song festival in Minneapolis, Minnesota. This festival strives to create and perform new art song, and cultivate an educational environment for students of song, including composers, vocalists, and collaborative pianists. Please see www.claraosowski.com for more information. 

Acclaimed by the Baltimore Sun as “one of the biggest pianistic talents to have emerged in this country in the last 25 years”, Terrence Wilson has appeared with the symphony orchestras of Atlanta, Baltimore, Cincinnati, Dallas, Detroit, Houston, Washington, DC (National Symphony), San Francisco, St. Louis, and with the orchestras of Cleveland, Minnesota, and Philadelphia and the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra. Conductors with whom he has worked include Christoph Eschenbach, Alan Gilbert, Neeme Järvi, Jesús López-Cobos, Lawrence Renes, Robert Spano, Yuri Temirkanov, Stanislaw Skrowaczewski, Gunther Herbig and Michael Morgan. 

Abroad, Wilson has played concerti with the Lausanne Chamber Orchestra, the Malaysian Philharmonic, the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, and the Orquestra Sinfonica do Estado de Minas Gerais in Belo Horizonte, Brazil. He has toured with orchestras in the US and abroad, including a US tour with the Sofia Festival Orchestra (Bulgaria) and in Europe with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra conducted by Yuri Temirkanov. 

Wilson has received the SONY ES Award for Musical Excellence, an Avery Fisher Career Grant, and the Juilliard Petschek Award. He has broadcast on NPR’s “Performance Today,” WQXR radio in New York, and on the BRAVO Network, the Arts & Entertainment Network, public television, and as a guest on late night network television. In 2011, Wilson was nominated for a Grammy for his world premiere recording with the Nashville Symphony conducted by Giancarlo Guerrero of Michael Daugherty’s Deus ex Machina for piano and orchestra, written for Wilson in 2007. 

Wilson, a graduate of Juilliard, studied there with Yoheved Kaplinsky. He has also enjoyed the invaluable mentorship of the Romanian pianist and teacher Zitta Zohar. A native of the Bronx, he resides in Montclair, New Jersey. In March 2021, Wilson was appointed to the piano faculty at Bard College Conservatory of Music.