Cello and chamber music faculty member André Emelianoff will perform a series of three concerts at Merkin Concert Hall this spring. The concerts on February 4, March 14, and May 6 will feature new and older commissioned works, as well as familiar pinnacles of the repertoire. The recitals (which will include assisting artists) will showcase the broad range of Emelianoff’s artistic interests and viewpoints, and will include music by Poulenc, Perle, Carter, Schoenberg, Debussy, Brahms, Schuller, Bach, Bloch, Wernick, Tower, Gates, Beethoven, and Messiaen.

Pre-College violin faculty member Shirley Givens participated last July and August in two international music festivals in Germany as violin professor, and also presented four master classes on stage deportment for performers. The festivals were held in Birklehof in the Black Forest and in Sulzbach-Rosenberg, Bavaria. At both festivals, she was joined by her husband Harry Wimmer (Diploma ’50, cello) as cello professor and chamber music coach.

L&M faculty member Behzad Ranjbaran’s The Blood of Seyavash (part of his Persian Trilogy) was performed by the Fort Worth Symphony, conducted by Miguel Harth-Bedoya (MM ’93, orchestral conducting), in October and November as part of his residency with the orchestra in 2008-09. Also Ranjbaran’s Piano Concerto, a commission by the Atlanta Symphony, was premiered by pianist Jean-Yves Thibaudet and the Atlanta Symphony, conducted by Robert Spano, in June.

Pre-College and MAP faculty member Huang Ruo (MM ’02, DMA ’08, composition) was awarded both the first prize and the special audience award from the Luxembourg International Composition Prize 2008 in October. His winning work, MO: Concerto for Sheng and Chamber Orchestra, was given its premiere by the Luxembourg Sinfonietta in the Centre des Arts Pluriels, conducted by Marcel Wengler, in Luxembourg in October. Ruo’s Written on the Wind: Multimedia Drama for Pipa, Voice, and Kinetic Painting is being taken on tour by pipa virtuoso Min Xiao-Fen; a performance took place in November at the McConnell Theater in Simon’s Rock, Mass.

Second-year piano student Steven Lin won the gold award in NTDTV’s First Chinese International Piano Competition in November. The prize brings $10,000 and a recording contract with Pro Piano.

Doctoral student in composition Ray Lustig was among the composers represented on American Opera Projects’ “Composers Up Close and Personal,” a collaborative evening of new music and interviews presented with the Brooklyn Conservatory’s New Music Collective at the conservatory in October. Also in October, an excerpt from Lustig’s The Doctor’s Ward was included on a program of scenes from new operas being presented by American Opera Projects this season.

Pre-College pianist Shiya Wang was awarded a $10,000 Jack Kent Cooke Young Artist Award in October by From the Top, the nonprofit organization best known for its NPR and PBS programs featuring America’s best young classical musicians. She will have an opportunity to perform on From the Top’s radio program this year.

Angela Wee, Zeynep Alpan, Amy Tan, Stasz Klinge-Loy, and Alex Jang, all Pre-College violin students of Shirley Givens, joined her in Germany and performed last July and August at the international music festivals of Birklehof, Black Forest, and Sulzbach-Rosenberg in Bavaria. They appeared both in solo and chamber music concerts. In addition, Klinge-Loy was concertmaster and soloist with a chamber orchestra conducted by Sidney Harth.