Image: Composer Daniel Akiva and cellist Brinton Averil Smith.
The 2023 Cello│Fresno International Festival is from Oct. 12-15 at Fresno State and includes a world premiere composition, two gala concerts, a concerto competition, two large cello ensembles and many master classes and workshops. Cellists from around the globe will enrich the community with four days of master classes, cello ensemble rehearsals, concerts and workshops for cellists of all ages and levels. Violin makers from the area will be on hand, presenting their instruments and answering questions.
The community is invited to experience the following events.
7:30 p.m. Friday, Oct. 13, at the Fresno State Concert Hall
Cello Mania Concert featuring the Fresno State Symphony Orchestra
- Featuring Dr. Daniel Akiva, one of Israel’s most notable composers and winner of Israel’s Prime Minister Award for composers. The Fresno State Symphony Orchestra will give Dr. Akiva’s “Requests for Cello and Orchestra” its world premiere during the festival. The work is a prayer based on liturgical songs in the style of ancient Sephardic Jews, and it expresses the longing for worldwide peace.
- Works for cello and orchestra by Bragato, Bruch, Dvořák, Faure, Glazunov, and Piatti.
- Tickets are $15 for general; $10 for employees, seniors, military/veterans, non-Fresno State Students and free for Fresno State students with ID.
6 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 14, at the Fresno State Concert Hall
Concerto Competition
- Free and open to the public.
3 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 15, at the Paul Shaghoian Memorial Concert Hall
Closing Gala Concert featuring the Youth Orchestras of Fresno
- Featuring Brinton Averil Smith, principal cellist of the Houston Symphony since 2005 and cello professor at the Shepherd School of Music at Rice University and the Aspen Music Festival performing Korngold’s Cello Concerto. Critics have hailed Dr. Smith as a “virtuoso cellist with few equals,” describing him as “a proponent of old-school string playing such as that of Piatigorsky and Heifetz.”
- Two cello ensembles, conducted by Cara and Emilio Colón.
- Emilio Colón’s Poema: La Garza en el Daule conducted by Dr. Thomas Loewneheim.
- Tickets are free for all. Suggested donation is $20.
Artistic Directors Dr. Thomas Loewenheim, Fresno State; Emilio Colón, Indiana University Jacobs School of Music and Cara Elise Colón, American Cello Institute, bring cellists from around the globe to enrich the Fresno community with four days of master classes, cello ensemble rehearsals, concerts and workshops for cellists of all ages and levels. Other faculty guest artists will include Thomas Landschoot, Jonathan Ruck, Brian Schuldt and Andrew Smith, representing many of the top music programs in the United States.
About the Artistic Directors
Thomas Lowenheim
Thomas Loewenheim is a modern renaissance man: a unique musician who enjoys an international career, combining cello performance, conducting and teaching at the highest levels. He has toured North America, Europe, the Middle East and the Far East, performing with orchestras, giving recitals and playing chamber music, and has been broadcast over the national radio networks in Austria, Canada, Israel and the United States.
Loewenheim is currently a professor of cello and director of orchestras at the California State University, Fresno, and the Music Director and conductor of the Youth Orchestras of Fresno. Recently he received the Fresno State Provost’s Award for Excellence in Teaching (2016), the California Music Educators Association John Swain College/University Educator Award (2015), the Ella Odorfer Educator of the Year Horizon Award from the Fresno Arts Council (2012), the Fresno State Provost’s Award for Promising New Faculty (2011) and Special Recognition from the Honor Society of Phi Kappa Phi for his service to the university and the community (2011). Previously, he taught at the Indiana University String Academy and the Memorial University of Newfoundland (MUN) and served as music director and conductor of the Musical Arts Youth Orchestra (MAYO) in south-central Indiana.
As a conductor, Loewenheim has earned a reputation for getting the most out of any orchestra, whether coming in for a single performance or festival week, as at the Hong Kong International School Choral and Orchestra Festival or building an orchestra over a period of years, as at MUN or for MAYO. He founded the iMAYO festival in Bloomington, Indiana, and co-founded the international Tuckamore chamber music festival in St. John’s, Newfoundland.
Through his performing, working with some of the great musicians of our day, and his cumulative experience as a teacher, Loewenheim has synthesized an approach to teaching and conducting that produces technical confidence that rapidly enables music-making at a sophisticated level. He is currently demonstrating this approach in his master classes around the world.
Loewenheim is also an active researcher who has been rediscovering lost masterpieces and performing and editing them. He has been the dedicatee of a number of cello works, most unaccompanied.
Loewenheim earned a doctorate in cello performance from the renowned Jacobs School of Music at Indiana University, where he studied with Janos Starker and Tsuyoshi Tsutsumi and was mentored in conducting by David Effron. He received a master’s degree from the University of Michigan under Erling Blöndal Bengtsson and a bachelor’s degree from the Rubin Academy for Music and Dance in Jerusalem. He also participated in master classes with Yo-Yo Ma, Mischa Maisky, Antonio Meneses, Arto Noras, Aldo Parisot, William Pleeth and Menahem Pressler, among others. He plays a Jean Baptiste Vuillaume cello, made in 1848.
Emilio Colón
The critically acclaimed cellist Emilio Colón is described in prose as “his playing is full of life and warmth” by the American Record Guide has praised his performance as “lively, exciting, expressive and absolutely beautiful.” Fanfare Magazine wrote of the cellist, “Emilio Colón is obviously a virtuoso with taste.” Emilio was awarded the “2017 Artist of the Year” by the New York Classical Music Society.
Performing throughout the world, Emilio has been invited as a soloist with the Reno Chamber Orchestra, Casals Festival, National Symphony of the Ukraine, Istanbul State Symphony Orchestra, İzmir State Symphony Orchestra, Antalya Symphony Orchestra, International Symphony Orchestra of Lviv, Guayaquil Symphony Orchestra, Puerto Rico Symphony Orchestra, Guayaquil Philharmonic Orchestra, Huntsville Symphony Orchestra, Classical Orchestra of Guatemala, Bozeman Symphony and San Angelo Symphony; recitalist for Shanghai Oriental Arts Center in China, Nevada Chamber Music Festival, L’Hermitage Foundation and Bruman Summer Concerts in Los Angeles, Tons Voisin Festival in Albi, France, La Musica International Chamber Festival in Sarasota, Florida, Mill Valley Chamber Music Society, Round Top International Festival Institute, Miami Music Festival, Chamber Music Unbound in California and recital tours throughout Europe and Asia.
At 26, Emilio was appointed to the faculty of the Jacobs School of Music at Indiana University and has since established himself as a highly sought-after pedagogue. He has been invited to offer courses at the Paris Conservatoire, Geneva Conservatoire, Franz Liszt Academy of Music, Royal Academy of Music in London, Hochschüle für Musik in Stuttgart, Yonsei University in Seoul and Toho Gakuen in Tokyo.
Emilio appeared performing on screen for the movie Un Poema a L’Exili “EL PESSEBRE” de Pablo Casals y Joan Alavedra, which received the Best Picture Award at the 2014 REUS International Festival in Spain. His recordings are featured on the Enharmonic, Centaur, Zephyr, Klavier and Lyras labels. As the founder and artistic director of the International Chamber Orchestra of Puerto Rico, Emilio has won three consecutive awards from the National Endowment for the Arts and awards from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Flamboyan Foundation for providing free concerts and outreach events for underserved communities in Puerto Rico and throughout the Caribbean, US and Canada through educational televised programming. As host and producer of the television series “Beethoven in the Caribbean” and “Music and Puerto Rico,” Emilio is an advocate of making classical music accessible and engaging in the digital world, appearing on CBS, ABC, NBC and the CW in markets in the Caribbean, USA, Canada & Guam.
As composer and conductor, Emilio was commissioned to write a symphonic poem by the Garza Roja Foundation in Ecuador. “Poema: La Garza en el Daule” premiered with Colón as guest conductor with the Guayaquil Philharmonic Orchestra in October 2022.
As a Larsen Artist, Emilio performs using Il Cannone® strings on his Amati cello made in Cremona in 1690 in combination with his Dominique Peccatte bow.
Cara Elise Colón
American cellist Cara Elise Colón enjoys a career as a performer, pedagogue and arts administrator. She has been invited to perform in concert for the L’Hermitage Concert Series, the Bruman Summer Chamber Music Festival in Los Angeles, the Mammoth Lakes Music Festival, the Lancaster International Piano Festival, the National Music Museum Concert Series in South Dakota, International Chamber Orchestra of Puerto Rico, Ware Center Concert Series in Pennsylvania, Killington Music Festival, PSPA International Chamber Ensemble on tour in Malaysia, Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra Chamber Series and Fundación Musical Chamber Series in Puerto Rico. She has studied with many leading musicians, including Janos Starker, Anne Martindale-Williams and Sidney Harth and played in master classes for Mstislav Rostropovich and the Diaz Trio.
As a pedagogue, Cara has held positions on the faculty of the Indiana University String Academy and the Indianapolis Academy of Music. A Suzuki-trained teacher, she has been invited as a guest clinician for the London Suzuki Group, Killington Music Festival, Cello|Fresno Festival, the University of Alaska Cello Festival, University of Oklahoma ‘Low Strings Attached’ Festival and for pedagogy courses and ASTA events at Indiana University.
As an arts administrator, Cara is currently the Vice President of the American Cello Institute, whose project, the International Chamber Orchestra of Puerto Rico, has won numerous awards from the National Endowment for the Arts for their work providing free access to the arts. The ICOPR connects kids and communities with classical music through free concerts, educational events and television programming throughout Puerto Rico and abroad.
Featured Guest Artists
Daniel Akiva
Daniel Akiva is a composer, performer and educator. His guitar and lute performances have earned international acclaim. A native of Haifa whose family has lived in Israel for over five hundred years, he was steeped in the Sephardi tradition from his youth. Many of his compositions have evolved from the music of Sephardi Jews.
Daniel has performed in concerts as a guitarist and lutenist in Israel, the U.S.A., Russia, Spain, France, Switzerland, Germany, Portugal, Mexico and most countries in Central and South America.
His compositions include pieces for solo instruments—guitar, piano, mandolin, cello, violin, flute, oboe, clarinet, viola de gamba, recorder—as well as voice, chamber ensembles, choir, voice and guitar, voice and piano, a choir and orchestra concerto for guitar and orchestra, 2 concertos for three guitars and orchestra as well as various orchestral works with choir and soloists.
In 1984, he accompanied soprano Victoria de los Ángeles in a series of concerts at the prestigious Israel Festival.
In 1990, his work “Psalms” for guitar solo was awarded the ACUM prize for composition. His string quartet “Ciclos” was awarded the ACUM prize for composition in 2002. In 2006, he received the Amazon prize for his CD Hope with Laurel Zucker (flute) and Ronit Widmann-Levy (soprano). In 2017, he was awarded the Prime Minister Prize for composers in Israel.
He was the artistic director of the Guitar Gems Festival & competition from 2006 – 2018, held in Netanya, Israel.
On Requests for Cello and Orchestra:
“I wrote and dedicated the requests for cello and orchestra to maestro Thomas Loewenheim, whom I have known for many years and greatly appreciate his work as a wonderful artist and pedagogue. The work is a prayer based on liturgical songs in the style of ancient Sephardic Jews, and it expresses the longing for worldwide peace.
The name of the piece, “Requests,” is taken from a Jewish tradition from Spain before the expulsion, and it spread after the expulsion to many countries, including Turkey, Morocco, Iraq and more. It is a mystical and unique poetry performed at night and influenced by Jewish Kabbalah. The piece uses the Makamat Eastern sound systems. There is also the use of many ornaments resulting from the frills in the prayers, quarter tones and polyrhythmic systems.”
Brinton Averil Smith
Critics have hailed cellist Brinton Averil Smith as a “virtuoso cellist with few equals,” describing him as “a proponent of old-school string playing such as that of Piatigorsky and Heifetz.” Reviewing his recent live recording of the revival of Castelnuovo-Tedesco’s Cello Concerto, BBC Music Magazine wrote, “his is a cast iron technique of verve and refinement put entirely at the service of the music. The artistry on display here is breathtaking…” His debut recording of Miklós Rózsa’s Concerto with the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra won similar international acclaim, with Gramophone praising Smith as a “hugely eloquent, impassioned soloist,” while the American Record Guide praised his recording of chamber music of Fauré with Gil Shaham as “Stunningly beautiful.”
Mr. Smith’s engagements have included performances at Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center and recital and concerto appearances internationally and throughout the United States. His broadcast performances include CBS’s Sunday Morning and regular appearances on NPR’s Performance Today and Symphonycast, while his live performances have been viewed over one million times on YouTube. As a chamber musician, Smith has collaborated with cellists Yo-Yo Ma and Lynn Harrell, pianists Yefim Bronfman, Emanuel Ax, Jeffrey Kahane and Kirill Gerstein, violinists Gil Shaham, James Ehnes, Cho-Liang Lin and Sarah Chang, soprano Dawn Upshaw and members of the Guarneri, Emerson, Juilliard, Cleveland and Berg quartets. Previously a member of the New York Philharmonic and the principal cellist of the San Diego and Fort Worth symphonies, Mr. Smith has been the principal cellist of the Houston Symphony since 2005 and is also a faculty member of the Shepherd School of Music at Rice University and the Aspen Music Festival.
The son of a mathematician and a pianist, Mr. Smith was admitted to Arizona State University at age 10, where he took courses in mathematics and German and, at age 17, completed a B.A. in mathematics. As a student of Eleonore Schoenfeld at the University of Southern California, he was also a teaching assistant in the mathematics department and completed work for an M.A. in mathematics at age 19. He subsequently studied with the legendary cellist Zara Nelsova at The Juilliard School and received a Doctor of Musical Arts degree, writing on the playing of Emanuel Feuermann. Mr. Smith resides in Houston with his wife, the pianist Evelyn Chen. Their daughter, Calista, is a soprano studying at Northwestern University. His cello was recently identified as the work of Gaetano Pasta, Brescia, c.1710.
Guest Artists
Brian Schuldt
As a founding member of the Felici Piano Trio, Brian Schuldt has performed hundreds of critically acclaimed concerts in the U.S., Europe and South America. His chamber music collaborations include renowned artists such as Tsuyoshi Tsutsumi, Edward Auer, Atar Arad, Corey Cerovsek, Hagai Shaham and Eli Eban. Brian was the cellist of the Arcadia String Quartet, which won the grand prize of the 1995 Yellow Springs Chamber Music Competition and the Indiana University Kuttner Quartet Scholarship. He has appeared as a soloist with the Oak Ridge Symphony, Auburn Symphony, Owensboro Symphony, Eastern Sierra Symphony and the Chamber Orchestra “Cantelli” of Milan, Italy. He has served as guest principal cellist for the Fresno Philharmonic and Reno Chamber Orchestra and has been a guest lecturer/instructor at Indiana University, UNLV, Cal-State Fresno, University of Tennessee and Tennessee Tech. Brian studied with Toby Saks at the University of Washington and continued under Tsuyoshi Tsutsumi and Janos Starker at Indiana University, where he earned his Bachelor of Music and Master of Music degrees. From 1994-1996, Brian held the appointment of Assistant Instructor of Cello at Indiana University. He is currently the Executive Director of Chamber Music Unbound and conductor of the Eastern Sierra Chamber Orchestra. Brian plays a cello by Jean-Baptiste Vuillaume.
Jonathan Ruck
American cellist Jonathan Ruck maintains a multifaceted career as a soloist, chamber musician, orchestral musician and pedagogue. Praised for his “virtuosic command” and “full-bodied tone,” he has performed throughout North America, Europe, Australia and the Caribbean. Festival appearances include recent engagements at the Oregon Bach Festival, Sanibel Island Festival, OK Mozart, Unruly Music and as principal cellist of the International Chamber Orchestra of Puerto Rico. Jonathan currently serves as the principal cellist of the Oklahoma City Philharmonic.
An avid chamber musician, Jonathan Ruck is a core member of Brightmusic, Oklahoma City’s resident chamber music ensemble. He has performed as a guest cellist with the American Chamber Players and Penderecki String Quartet and given recent world-premiere performances of chamber works by Christopher Theofanidis and Sydney Corbett. As a founding member of the Dubinsky String Quartet, Jonathan was a prizewinner in the Fischoff and Coleman national chamber music competitions.
Jonathan Ruck joined the University of Oklahoma School of Music in 2006 as one of the youngest faculty appointees in the school’s history. Previous appointments include serving as the teaching assistant to Janos Starker and Tsuyoshi Tsutsumi at the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music and a visiting professorship at the Depauw University School of Music. During the summer, he has enjoyed teaching on the faculties of the Fresno Summer Orchestra and Opera Academy (FOOSA), the Zodiac Festival in Southern France and the Indiana University Summer String Academy. In 2018, he founded the University of Oklahoma Summer String Academy and continues as its director. Graduates of Jonathan Ruck’s cello studio have been accepted to continue their studies at schools such as Juilliard, Indiana University, Eastman, Oberlin and the Cleveland Institute of Music and can be found in ensembles and on college and pre-college faculties throughout the world.
Jonathan Ruck lives in Norman, Oklahoma, with his wife, violinist Katrin Statmatis, and their two daughters, Arianna and Galia.
Thomas Landschoot
Praised for his expressive, virtuoso and poetic music-making, Belgian cellist Tom Landschoot enjoys an international career as a concert and recording artist and pedagogue. He has toured North America, Europe, South America and Asia and has appeared on national radio and television worldwide.
His solo career started after taking a top prize at the International Cello Competition ‘Jeunesse Musicales’ in 1995 in Bucharest, Romania. He has performed with the National Orchestra of Belgium, the Frankfurt Chamber Orchestra, the Tempe Symphony, Prima la Musica, the Symphony of the Southwest, the Shieh Chien Symphony Orchestra, the Scottsdale Philharmonic, the Flemish Symphony Orchestra, Kaohsiung City Symphony, Loja Symphony Orchestra in Ecuador and the Orchestra of the United States Army Band and has appeared at Barge Music, Park City, Santa Barbara, Mammoth Lakes, Eureka, Utah, Red Rock, Park City, Manchester, Fresno, Madeline Island, Waterloo, Killington and Texas Music Festivals. His recordings are available on Summit, Organic, Kokopelli, ArchiMusic and Centaur Records.
Since 2013, he has been a member of the Rossetti Quartet. He has also performed with the Takacs, Dover and Arianna Quartets and members of the Cleveland, Vermeer, Tokyo and Orion Quartets. Past collaborations include Lynn Harrell, Peter Wiley, Gilbert Kalich, Cho-Liang Lin, Martin Beaver and Martin Katz. An avid promoter of music of our time, he has commissioned and premiered more than 20 new works for cello, including a concerto by Dirk Brosse. Recent engagements included several concerts with the Symphony Orchestra of Flanders with a new concerto of Belgian composer Frank Nuyts.
Landschoot has been involved in interdisciplinary public service projects through his music, such as raising funds and awareness for the need to build an orphanage and hospital in Tamil Nadu, India. As part of this humanitarian project, Landschoot was featured in a documentary film of a cellist performing across India, integrating photography, culinary, journalism and original music compositions.
He has served as a faculty member at the Music Academy of the West in Santa Barbara, the Castleman Quartet Program in New York, Killington Music Festival, Meadowmount School of Music, Foulger International Music Festival, High Peaks, Madeline Island, Manchester, Montecito and Texas Music Festival. Landschoot has given master classes at conservatories and universities throughout Asia, the U.S., Europe and South America.
His students can be found among national and international competition winners, occupy positions in major string quartets and symphony orchestras and teach at Universities around the U.S. and abroad.
Landschoot is currently a professor of cello at Arizona State University, one of the top music schools in the United States. Before joining the music faculty at Arizona State University, Landschoot taught at the University of Michigan. He is the recipient of ASU’s prestigious Herberger College of Fine Arts Distinguished Teaching Award. Landschoot has served on the faculty of the Shieh Chien University in Taipei since 2008. Landschoot is the founder and the artistic director of the Sonoran Chamber Music Festival, as well as the president of the Arizona Cello Society. He performs on a cello by Tomaso Balestrieri (1776) and a Dominique Pecatte bow.
Andrew Smith
Cellist Andrew Smith is a professor of music at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, the Principal Cellist of The Las Vegas Philharmonic and the artistic director of the UNLV Chamber Music Society. He is an original member of the Camerata Deiá, a group founded in 2001 to be the resident ensemble with The Festival Internacional de Deiá, a summer festival in Majorca, Spain. He was also a founding member of The Adriatic Chamber Music Festival, a summer music program in southern Italy, where he taught and performed from 1998 – 2008. An active recitalist, Andrew has collaborated with pianist Alfredo Oyagüez in cello/piano recitals in Spain, Italy, Germany, Sweden, Denmark, New Zealand, Argentina and Japan, as well as in Kosovo, Serbia and Macedonia. Recent recitals include performances at the Emilia Romagna Festival, the Accademia Musicale Chigiana in Siena and Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall in New York City. The Smith/Oyagüez duo released a CD entitled “Spanish Music for Cello and Piano” on the Delos label in January 2017. Of the CD, the American Record Guide said the duo plays “with verve and sensitivity” and recommended the disc “without reserve.”
During summers, in addition to The Festival Internacional de Deiá in Spain and The Adriatic Chamber Music Festival in Italy, Smith has taught and performed in several music festivals, including the Marrowstone Music Festival, Sitka Summer Music Festival, Festival Mozaic in San Luis Obispo, CA, the Rocky Ridge Music Center, the Blue Mountain Festival, Dakota Chamber Music, The Green Valley Chamber Music Festival, the Tuacahn Summer Arts Institute, the Las Vegas Music Festival and currently he is teaching at the new Redfish Music Festival in Port Orford, Oregon.
Smith received a Doctor of Musical Arts degree from the University of California, Santa Barbara, where he was a member of the Young Artists String Quartet. He has also earned a Master of Music degree from The Mannes College of Music in New York and a Bachelor of Music degree from the Hartt College of Music in Hartford, CT. He has studied cello with Timothy Eddy, Bernard Greenhouse, Leslie Parnas, Ron Leonard and Geoffrey Rutkowski.
The College of Arts and Humanities at Fresno State 