Piano Faculty

** The faculty are still being finalized for 2012, so please look for updates soon.

Carolyn Bridger

Derison Duarte

Since making his concerto debut at fourteen with the Missouri Symphony, Brazilian born Derison Duarte has performed more than a dozen works for piano and orchestra. His list of engagements include the Saint Louis Symphony, Corpus Christi Symphony, Indianapolis Chamber Orchestra and Boise Philharmonic. Mr. Duarte his given recitals throughout the United States as a guest of the Seattle Art Museum, the Oberlin Conservatory, the Boston Conservatory, Brown University, the Dame Myra Hess Series in Chicago, the Maestro Foundation Series in Santa Monica, and the Bunka Kaikan Series in Tokyo, among others. He has made numerous radio appearances including NPR's Performance Today playing works of Chopin. He is a seasoned collaborator who has enjoyed performing with many professional artists and ensembles including Indianapolis based Dance Kaleidoscope.

Mr. Duarte has been a major prizewinner in national and international competitions including the Missouri Southern International Piano Competition, Kingsville Young Performers International, Nena Wideman Concerto Competition, Grace Welsh Prize for Piano, and Young Keyboard Artists International as well as a laureate of the Gina Bachauer International Piano Competition. In 1997, he was awarded the American Pianists Association Fellowship.

Tonu Kalam

Tonu Kalam was trained as a conductor, pianist and composer at Harvard University, the University of California at Berkeley, and the Curtis Institute of Music. His summer credits include fellowships at Tanglewood and Aspen, as well as many years at the Marlboro Music Festival.

A prizewinner in the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra Young Conductor's Competition, he has appeared as guest conductor with the North Carolina Symphony, the Huntsville Symphony Orchestra, the ProMusica Chamber Orchestra of Columbus, the Baton Rouge Symphony Orchestra, the Marlboro Festival Orchestra, and in Europe with the Estonian National Symphony Orchestra and Finland's Oulu Symphony Orchestra.

Maestro Kalam has conducted over 130 opera performances, for companies including the Shreveport Opera, the Lake George Opera Festival and the Nevada Opera Company. He has been a faculty member at the University of Illinois and has held visiting appointments at the University of Miami in Florida and St. Olaf College in Minnesota. For thirteen years he was an administrator and artist-faculty member at the renowned Kneisel Hall summer chamber music festival in Blue Hill, Maine.

Presently he is a Professor of Music at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, serving as Music Director and Conductor of the UNC Symphony Orchestra. Maestro Kalam is also in his seventeenth season as Music Director and Conductor of the Longview Symphony Orchestra, and in 1999 he founded the Chapel Hill Chamber Orchestra, a 12-member professional string ensemble. In addition to his conducting activities, he performs regularly as a pianist and chamber musician. Maestro Kalam is also President-Elect of the international Conductors Guild.

Randall Love

Randall Love has degrees from Oberlin Conservatory of Music, the New England Conservatory of Music, and Sweelinck Conservatory of Music (Amsterdam). He has studied piano with, among others, Edith Lateiner-Grosz, Patricia Zander, Benjamin Zander, and Sanford Mogolis, and has also studied with Robert DiDomenica (composition), Lisa Crawford (harpsichord), and Denes Koromsay (chamber music). He has studied fortepiano with Jos van Immerseel, Paul Badura-Skoda, Malcolm Bilson, and at the Oberlin Baroque Performance Institute.

He is particularly interested in historical performance practice on original instruments (fortepiano) and twentieth century piano music, and maintains an active performance schedule.

more about Randall Love

Eun-Hee Park

Dana Protopopescu

Dana Protopopescu began her musical studies in Bucharest at a very young age, finishing at the Brussels Conservatory and the Hochschule fur Musik in Hannover under the guidance of Eduardo del Pueyo and Karl Engel. She performed her first concerto with orchestra at the age of 14. Since then, she has played under the baton of leading conductors including A.Rahbari, I.Markevitch, A.Ostrowsky, and L.Langrée. She has also taken part in many festivals and has been guest of the "Great Soloists" series.

As a soloist and chamber musician, Protopopescu has captivated audiences in London, Seoul, Moscow, Paris, Barcelona, and Montreal, and has recorded various CDs, including the complete piano works of Mendelssohn. Her recordings of the Hummel and Weber concertos won her the highest acclaim in press reviews by CD Classics London, Penguin Guide USA, and Diapason France. Among other awards, she has received the Music Critic Award in Bucharest.

An avid chamber music player, she recorded the ten sonatas for piano and violin of Beethoven, holds the title of official pianist in the Queen Elisabeth International Competition, and has been a member of the Ensemble Contrasts for more than twenty years.