Concert of Splendid Sounds: American Vignettes

About The Event

Join us for an afternoon of “Splendid Sounds: American Vignettes” featuring Ann Yu (violin) and Irwin Shung (piano) celebrating Forest Hill Church’s new piano! The hour-long concert will feature pieces by George Gershwin, Amy Beach, Florence Price, Samuel Barber, and Caroline Shaw. The concert is free but we gratefully accept freewill offerings for Friends of Music. Reception to follow.

Ann Yu

Praised for her “full-bodied, rich and warm tone” (Cleveland.com), violinist Ann Yu is an accomplished soloist, chamber, orchestral, and session musician and educator whose versatility, excellence in artistry, and collaborative spirit has secured her as one of the most coveted musicians throughout Northeast Ohio’s artistic communities. She received her bachelors and masters degrees from the Cleveland Institute of Music studying with Jaime Laredo, Jan Sloman, and William Preucil, where she was the 1st prize winner of the 26th Annual Darius Milhaud Competition and Concerto Competition and the recipient of the Fortnightly Musical Award. She has soloed with the Cleveland, CIM, and National Repertory Orchestras and attended prestigious programs such as Thy Masterclass, Kneisel Hall, Perlman Music Program, New York String Orchestra Seminar, and the Credo Festival, where she served as faculty for four summers. Locally, you can find her performing at the Candlelight Concerts, Severance Hall with the Cleveland Pops Orchestra, and teaching through the Cleveland Orchestra’s Crescendo Program as Lead Teaching Artist at the Cleveland and Dike School of the Arts. Ann finds great joy in exploring other genres and styles of playing the violin. Currently she studies Baroque violin with Julie Andrijeski, Old Time fiddle with Paul Kirk, and jams with local blues, bluegrass and old time musicians. Outside of music, she enjoys dancing lindy hop and blues and volunteering for the Cuyahoga Valley National Park.

Dr. Irwin Shung

Dr. Irwin Shung, whose playing has been praised by State Magazine for its “ease, technique, and musicianship,” has performed throughout North America, Europe, and Asia. Shung teaches at the Cleveland Institute of Music and Case Western Reserve University, in addition to serving as Artistic Director of the Resonance Masters’ Series near Seattle, Washington. Currently in his second year as President of the Northeast Ohio Music Teachers Association, Shung’s leadership over the organization has seen the development of dynamic new programs for hundreds of regional precollegiate music students.

Shung received his Doctorate of Musical Arts in Piano Performance from the Cleveland Institute of Music in January, 2015, where he studied with Dr. Daniel Shapiro. He has also received instruction on piano from distinguished teachers such as Marian Hahn (Peabody Conservatory), Leon Fleisher (Peabody Conservatory), Herbert Stessin (Julliard School), Gabriel Chodos (New England Conservatory), and Victoria Bogdashevskaya (Moscow Conservatory). Awards received include the Pauline Favin Memorial Award from the Peabody Conservatory of Music, and prizes in the Darius Milhaud Competition as well as the Young Artist International Piano Competition.
Shung serves as piano faculty at the Notre Dame College in Cleveland. Appearances in 2023-24 include workshops and concerts in Bellevue, WA; Victoria, British Columbia; Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, Singapore, and numerous cities in Ohio. His complete recording of the first book of Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier is available online, with the second book and the Goldberg Variations currently in-progress. Current projects include the construction of a chamber recording studio at the Artist House in South Euclid, as well Crescendo Cleveland, a summer music program for young musicians.