Ken Kulosa, cello with Patti Wolf, piano, faculty recital
Program:
Sonata for Cello and Piano by Claude Debussy
Prologue
Sérénade et Finale
Trois Pièces by Nadia Boulanger
Louange à Éternité de Jésus by Olivier Messiaen (from Quartet for the End of Time)
INTERMISSION
Fratres by Arvo Pärt
Sonata for Cello and Piano by Dmitry Shostakovich
Allegro ma non troppo
Allegro
Largo
Allegro
Biographies:
A native of Albuquerque , NM, Kenneth Kulosa moved to St. Louis in 1997 at the invitation of the St. Louis Symphony. Kenneth moved from Chicago where he played with the Chicago Symphony, the Grant Park Symphony, and at the same time, held the posts of principal cellist for both the South Bend and Northwest Indiana Symphonies. A graduate of the New England Conservatory and the University of Houston, Kenneth studied with Laurence Lesser and Hans Jørgen Jensen, later becoming Mr. Jensen’s assistant at Northwestern University. An active pedagogue as well as performer, Kenneth is in great demand as a private teacher and in 2003 the Missouri chapter of the American String Teachers Association named him their artist/teacher of the year. Mr. Kulosa maintains a large private studio of talented cellists and has placed students in virtually every major music school and conservatory in the United States. Currently, he serves as adjunct professor of cello at both Webster University and Washington University in St. Louis.
A versatile musician, Kenneth is found performing in many realms. Kenneth has appeared throughout the United States as soloist with the Storioni Ensemble, Ars Nova Chamber Orchestra, the Bataquitos Festival Orchestra, the civic orchestras of Boston and Fort Worth, as well as the orchestras of St. Louis, Santa Fe, Lake Charles, South Bend, Northwest Indiana, and Webster University. An active and enthusiastic chamber musician, Kenneth can be found performing as well as teaching chamber music on a regular basis. Past years have included nationwide live performances on WFMT radio as a member of the Chicago Chamber Musicians, performances at the Boston Academy of Music, the Three Arts Club in Chicago, Santa Fe Bach Festival, Alterezza Chamber Music Series, Missouri Chamber Music and New Music America Festivals as well as the Innsbrook and Wintergreen summer music festivals. He is active as a chamber musician throughout the St. Louis area with the St. Louis Symphony’s community partnership program, the Pulitzer Foundation, and as a member of the Sheldon Concert Hall’s education series Classical Connections Trio.
Passionate about period performance, Kenneth is currently a member of both the Kingsbury Early Music Ensemble and St. Louis Bach Society and frequently performs music from the baroque and classical period on baroque cello, violoncello piccolo, and viola da gamba. He has also performed with Early Music St. Louis, Bach at the Sem, and has served on the faculty of the Baroque String Academy of the Community Music School at Webster University. In the summers he travels to the French Pyrenees with the Kingsbury Ensemble to perform at the Festival de Musique Ancienne de Saint- Savin. Since 2011, Kulosa has performed 10 complete cycles of the Unaccompanied Cello Suites of J.S. Bach on baroque cello, and his performance of the C Major Suite can be heard in the documentary film, “Forty-seven Views of Leslie Laskey.”
Since being chosen at age nineteen as the youngest competitor of the 1985 Van Cliburn Competition, Patti Wolf has performed as a soloist, recitalist, and chamber musician. She has collaborated in recital with many of the world’s most distinguished musical artists, such as cellist Lynn Harrell, pianist Jon Kimura Parker, flutist Carol Wincenc, violinist Ilya Kaler, concertmasters Glenn Dicterow, Andrés Cárdenas, David Halen and Nina Bodnar, soprano Erin Wall, Chicago Symphony principal horn Dale Clevenger, and renowned German horn soloist and recording artist Hermann Baumann. As a collaborative pianist, Ms. Wolf has participated in International Brass Conferences in Chicago, Kansas City, and San Francisco.
A scholarship student of Jane Allen at the Saint Louis Conservatory, Ms. Wolf later studied with Joseph Kalichstein at the Juilliard School, where she received a Bachelor of Music in 1987. In 1989 she earned a Masters Degree from Yale University School of Music, working with Peter Frankl, Claude Frank, and Boris Berman. Ms. Wolf’s numerous awards and honors include the Kosciuszko Chopin Competition, the American Music Scholarship Association, the Artists’ Presentation Society, Music of the Americas, and the Yale Alumni Association Award.
From 2001 to 2009 Ms. Wolf was a staff collaborative pianist at the Shepherd School of Music, Rice University, performing a repertoire of over 200 recitals. She has also served on the faculties of Washington University and Maryville University in St. Louis. She has performed and given master classes at the University of Michigan, Northwestern University, Westminster College, Clemson University, Eastman School of Music, University of Iowa, University of Houston, University of Texas-Austin, the Chautauqua Piano Program and the Juilliard School of Music. In August of 2004, Ms. Wolf made her Chautauqua, New York debut, playing a duo recital with Hungarian pianist, Peter Frankl. Subsequently, she has appeared on an almost annual basis with the Audubon Quartet, the Chautauqua Wind Quintet and the Chautauqua String Quartet. In 2010, she performed the Grieg piano concerto with the Chautauqua Symphony Orchestra, America’s oldest summer festival orchestra. Summer engagements have taken her to the Marrowstone Festival, the Cactus Pear Festival, Strings in the Mountains, Garth Newel, and the Aspen Festival, where she worked as an accompanying fellow.
As a soloist she has appeared with the Saint Louis Symphony, the Houston Symphony, the Saint Louis Philharmonic, the Portland Youth Philharmonic, and has performed under the baton of Leonard Slatkin, David Robertson, Raymond Leppard, and many others. Recently, Ms. Wolf was a guest artist with the Olmos Ensemble in San Antonio and is featured on their first CD, Olmos Live, performing the John Harbison trio for piano, violin, and horn. In 2017, Ms. Wolf was appointed to the faculty at the University of Texas, Austin, Butler School of Music where she is assistant professor in collaborative piano. She performs regularly with other faculty members and recently was a guest with the Austin Symphony.