Piano Series: October
Join the Office of Student Affairs for our October Piano Series, featuring Markus Kaitila, in concert with Bethanne Walker on flute. A light reception will follow the concert.
Program:
Beethoven Sonata in F-sharp Major, Op. 78
Prokofiev Sonata No. 9 in C Major, Op. 103
Gabriel Fauré’s Sonata in A Major, Op. 13
Biographies:
Born in Helsinki, Markus Kaitila began to play the piano at age six. After high school and six years of Junior Academy at the Sibelius Academy with Dr. Hui-Ying Liu-Tawaststjerna, he started university at Folkwang University of the Arts in Essen, Germany, with Prof. Till Engel. In Spring 2017, he graduated cum laude with a Bachelor of Music in Piano Performance from Aaron Copland School of Music, City University of New York Queens College, where he studied with Dr. Nina Lelchuk. Markus has participated in masterclasses with Thomas Adès, Paul Badura-Skoda, Leon Fleisher, Alan Gilbert, Angela Hewitt, Leslie Howard, Jerome Lowenthal, Robert McDonald, Jon Nakamatsu, and Boris Slutsky. He has performed as a soloist of Joutseno Art Summer, Wratislavia, St. Peter’s Festival, Queens College and Jackson Heights chamber orchestras as well as One World and New Amsterdam Symphony orchestras with conductors such as Tong Chen and Charles Neidich, and conducted J. S. Bach’s Keyboard Concerto No. 2 in E Major, BWV 1053, from the piano in LeFrak Concert Hall (New York). He was a prizewinner of the Köhler-Osbahr piano competition, Juvenalia Music Institute Competition, and E. Melartin Chamber Music Competition.
Markus’ appearances in Europe and the US include Wiener Saal Salzburg, Austria; Musica Mundi Festival 2008, Belgium; Yamaha Artists Services Europe, Paris; Theater Duisburg and Jahrhunderthalle Bochum, Klavier-Festival Ruhr, Germany; Embassy of Finland, Budapest; Palazzo Ricci, Montepulciano, Italy; Muziekcentrum Enschede, the Netherlands; Helsingborg piano festival, Sweden; RNCM, Manchester, the UK; as well as Mannes, Merkin and Carnegie Halls, New York. He has been awarded grants and stipends by Vantaan Perinnejazz ry, Wihuri and Finnish Cultural Foundation, Sibelius Academy’s endowment funds and Queens College Foundation. Markus received the Stephen Schaible and Daron Builta Scholarship to attend Music Academy of the West’s solo piano fellowship program in Santa Barbara, CA in summer 2015 and, in subsequent years, completed residences at Chautauqua Institution in New York, Banff Centre for the Arts and Creativity in Canada and Pianofest in the Hamptons. He is a graduate student of Artist Faculty member Eteri Andjaparidze at NYU Steinhardt, where he also teaches private piano lessons and group classes as an adjunct instructor.
Known for her intensity and versatility in her performances and repertoire, flutist Bethanne Walker is dedicated to modern, orchestral, and historical performance practice. She is the principal flutist of the Stockton Symphony, and performs with the San Francisco Symphony among several others. As a baroque flutist, she is a 2019-2020 Mercury Orchestra Juilliard Fellow, and has also performed with New York Baroque Incorporated, Sonnambula, Ars Antiqua, Cal Performances, and Les Arts Florissants at the Dans le Jardin de William Christie. She has had the pleasure of performing under the leadership of Masaaki Suzuki, Richard Egarr, Nicholas McGegan, Christoph von Dohnányi, Alan Gilbert, Michael Tilson Thomas, Herbert Blomstedt, Osmo Vanska, David Hill, and William Christie.
A strong advocate of new music, she has given performances of over fifty world premieres. She has given premieres and has worked with composers including Mason Bates, John Adams, Nico Muhly, Kaija Saariaho, Gunther Schuller, and George Crumb. She is a recipient of a fellowship at Music Academy of the West; the Kaplan Fellowship at Bowdoin International Music Festival; a full tuition scholarship recipient at American Bach Soloists Academy, Tafelmusik Winter Institute, Tafelmusik Summer Baroque Institute, the Baroque Performance Institute at Oberlin; and a Historical Performance Fellowship Recipient of a full tuition scholarship at The Juilliard School, among several other awards and scholarships.
Walker maintains an exclusive private teaching studio, and has taught baroque flute through the Historical Performance Program at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. She has studied with Tim Day, Linda Toote, and Sandra Miller.