Rong-Huey Liu, oboe
John Vaida, violin
Amy IwazumiVaida, viola
Miho Weber, cello

PROGRAM:

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Oboe Quartet in F Major, K. 370

Allegro
Adagio
Rondeau: Allegro

Benjamin Britten: Phantasy Quartet for oboe and string trio in F minor, Op. 2

Jean Françaix: Quartet for english horn, violin, viola, and cello

Allegro vivace
Andante tranquillo
Vivo assai
Andantino
Allegro giocoso

Malcolm Arnold: Oboe Quartet, Op. 61

Allegro non troppo
Allegretto
Vivace con brio

About the Artists

Rong-Huey Liu, oboe
Taiwanese-American Dr. Rong-Huey Liu is one of Southern California’s most active oboists, holding principal positions in Long Beach Symphony, Reno Chamber Orchestra, Fresno Philharmonic, and Riverside County Philharmonic. In high demand as a multi-faceted soloist, Liu has performed concertos of Bach, Corigliano, Daugherty, Ferran, Kalliwoda, Lebrun and Mozart, Navarro, to name a few. As the featured soloist in the world premiere of Saul’s "Kiev 2014: Rhapsody for Oboe and Orchestra", she garnered critical acclaim for her "sublime playing and crisp performance, filled with quiet perseverance and passion." Her Lebrun Oboe Concerto performance with Long Beach Symphony earned the review of “Her radiant tone easily filled the cavernous Terrace Theater, and she played with consummate grace and musicality. She put on an awesome technical display in the finale and played with assurance as Lebrun took the instrument way up high and way down low. And in the second movement, a lovely little song that is just cute as a bug’s ear, she was downright charming."Her festival credits include performances at Ojai Summer Music Festival, Nevada Chamber Music Festival, Southwest International New Music Festival, International Chamber Orchestra of Puerto Rico, and at the Cactus Pear Music Festival her playing was noted by San Antonio critics for "sweetness shaped by a sense of crisp articulation" and for leading a performance of a "razzle-dazzle piece...the audience was thrilled". As a recording artist, she has recorded on the “Fireflies in the Garden”, “Star War VIII”, “Lady Bird”, “Ferdinand”, and on the recording of Chris Botti, the Isley Brothers, and Andrew Bocelli, to name a few.

Rong-Huey holds Bachelor and Master of Music degrees from Manhattan School of Music, and the Doctor of Musical Arts degree from the University of Southern California Thornton School of Music. Her teachers include Rong-Yi Liu, Joseph Robinson, and David Weiss. She is oboe professor at California State University Fullerton School of Music, La Sierra University and Riverside City College Coil School for the Arts.

John Vaida, Violin
A versatile musician, violinist and violist John Vaida performs regularly as a soloist, recitalist, chamber musician, and orchestral player. He is a dedicated teacher, serving on the faculty at Mansfield University and Wilkes University, and Artist-in-Residence at the Wyoming Seminary College Preparatory School. During the summers he is on the faculty at the Killington Music Festival. An avid chamber musician, he is the executive director and co-founder of the Northeastern Pennsylvania Chamber Music Society, an organization dedicated to fostering the growth of chamber music in the Northeastern Pennsylvania region.

He has given performances in the United States and Europe, most notably at venues such as Weill Hall, Steinway Hall, Merkin Hall, and the Tenri Institute in New York City; the Eastman Theatre in Rochester, New York; the Goodrich Theater in Oneonta, New York; and the Kirby Center for Creative Arts in Kingston, Pennsylvania. He has appeared on numerous occasions on radio and television including most recently on WVIA FM's Simply Grand concert series.

Mr. Vaida has collaborated with renowned artists such as Daniel Phillips of the Orion String Quartet, Randolph Kelly of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, and violinist Sergiu Schwartz. He has performed as a member of numerous groups and festivals including the Florestan Piano Quartet, the Terrace Piano Quartet, the International Chamber Orchestra of Puerto Rico, the Eastman Chamber Music Society, the Manchester Chamber Orchestra, Tangueros De Ley (an Argentinian Tango ensemble), the Killington Music Festival, Ash Lawn Opera Festival, Scranton Bach Festival, the Sunflower Music Festival, the Meadowmount School of Music, the Waterville Valley Music Festival, and AIMS Festival in Graz, Austria. An advocate of new works, in recent years he has premiered compositions such as Three Little Lights by Baljinder Sekhon and the Viola Sonata no. 2 by Hwaen Ch'uqi, both of which were written for him.

Mr. Vaida's principal teachers have included Charles Stegeman, Daniel Phillips, and Zvi Zeitlin. He holds a B.M. from Duquesne University and a M.M. degree in Performance and Literature from the Eastman School of Music, and has studied chamber music with Randolph Kelly, Jean Barr, Richard Killmer, and members of the Ying Quartet.

Mr. Vaida plays on a violin made by Carl G. Becker in 1974, in Chicago, Illinois.

Amy Iwazumi, viola
Having given solo and ensemble performances to critical acclaim in over a dozen countries across five continents, Amy Iwazumi enjoys a diverse career as a musician, web developer and graphic designer, and the co-founder and chief of operations of the Northeastern Pennsylvania Chamber Music Society.

She has performed in major venues in the United States such as the Isaac Stern Auditorium, Zankel Hall, and Weill Hall at Carnegie Hall; Avery Fisher Hall (now David Geffen Hall), Alice Tully Hall, Rose Theater, and Peter Jay Sharp Theatre at Lincoln Center; Harris Hall and the Bayer-Benedict Music Tent in Aspen, Colorado; and the Terrace Theater at Kennedy Center in Washington D.C. Abroad, she has given performances at notable venues such as the Wigmore Hall in London, UK; Salle Cortot in Paris, France; Seoul Arts Center in Seoul, Korea; and Suntory Hall in Tokyo, Japan. She has also made TV and radio appearances on WQXR, NPR and CNN in the United States; Viva La Mañana and Tu Mañana in El Salvador; TeleClub in Costa Rica; KBS in South Korea; and NHK Radio in Japan.

She has performed at several music festivals including the Aspen Music Festival in Colorado, Festival Ljubljana in Slovenia, Great Mountains Music Festival in South Korea, Holland Music Sessions in the Netherlands, La Jolla Summerfest in California, Pablo Casals Festival in Puerto Rico, Salzburg Sommerakademie in Austria, and the Taipei International Arts Festival in Taiwan.

Ms. Iwazumi is also a recipient of the Asian Cultural Council Fellowship Grant which supported a four-month cultural research residency in Japan where she furthered her studies playing the Shamisen, a three-stringed traditional Japanese instrument, and her practice of Omotesenke school of tea ceremony.

At age eight she was accepted as a scholarship student to the Juilliard Pre-College Division studying violin with the late Dorothy DeLay and composition with Eric Ewazen. She continued her studies with Ms. DeLay at The Juilliard School receiving her Bachelor and Master of Music degrees, and studied chamber music with Martin Canin, the late Jacob Lateiner, the late Seymour Lipkin, and Joel Smirnoff.

Miho Weber, cello
“Full of Herculean power” (Time Out), cellist Miho Weber continues to excite audiences with her thought-provoking performances throughout the USA, Europe, and Asia. In New York, she regularly performs at Bargemusic, Carnegie’s Stern Auditorium, Lincoln Center, Merkin Hall, Symphony Space, and the UN. Miho’s recent projects have included the Glass Farm Ensemble, InterPlay duo, and collaborations with members of the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra in the Memling Ensemble. She has performed with the New England Symphonic Ensemble, Paragon Orchestra, and String Orchestra of New York City throughout the USA as principal cello. Her popular engagements have included a performance with Imagine Dragons on Saturday Night Live and Josh Groban at the US Open. Miho has held residencies at the Aspen Music Festival, Banff Centre, Schleswig-Holstein, and many others. She is the founding director of the strings after-school program at NEST+m, a specially gifted and talented school in math and science, and InterPlay Chamber Music, an educational organization with the unique mission to create an inspiring learning environment for chamber musicians of all ages. She has coached chamber music and private lessons at Riverdale Country School and chamber music for the New York Youth Symphony and New York Pops. Miho has given lectures on the Bach Suites at CUNY Baruch College and string pedagogy at CUNY Brooklyn College. During the summer, she has taught at the New York Summer Music Festival, Blue Mountain Festival at Franklin and Marshall College, the Odyssey Chamber Music Festival in residency at the University of Missouri- Columbia, and Point CounterPoint, and is currently the music director of the Middlebury Community Music Center Chamber Music Workshop.