Acclaimed Boston-based Chamber Group to Play at Holy Cross

WORCESTER, Mass. – The Holy Cross Chamber Players present a concert by Winsor Music, Inc., featuring the works of Franz Josef Haydn, Bruce Adolphe, and Robert Schumann, on Thursday, April 3 at 8 p.m. in Brooks Hall at the College of the Holy Cross. The event is free and open to the public.

The program will include Peggy Pearson, oboe; Gabriela Díaz, violin; Carol Rodland, viola; Rafael Popper-Keizer, cello; and Katherine Chi, piano.

Winsor Music, Inc. was founded in 1996 by Pearson; their mission is to foster the appreciation and enjoyment of chamber music. The Lexington, Mass. organization consists of three branches: a chamber music concert series given at the Follen Community Church in Lexington and St. Paul’s Church in Brookline; the direction of a national consortium of chamber music groups that commissions new works; and a highly successful outreach program, in which students from the Boston area perform chamber music in retirement communities, homeless shelters and recovery homes.

About the artists: Peggy Pearson, director of Winsor Music, Inc., is a member of the Bach Aria Group, solo oboist with the Emmanuel Chamber Orchestra and is the principal oboist in the Boston Philharmonic. She has toured internationally and recorded extensively with the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, and has appeared with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, and Music from Marlboro. Pearson is the recipient of the Pope Foundation Award for Outstanding Accomplishment in Music.

Gabriela Díaz began her musical training at the age of five. As a teenager she was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s disease. As a cancer survivor, she is committed to cancer research and treatment, and lends her talents to a wide range of organizations. Last year she was the recipient of a grant from the Albert Schweitzer Foundation which enabled her to organize a series of chamber music concerts in cancer units at various hospitals in Boston called the Boston Hope Ensemble. In 2003, she won the BMOP/NEC concerto competition, and is the youngest person to ever record the Ligeti Violin Concerto, recorded for Mode Records with New England Conservatory’s Contemporary Ensemble (not yet released). She received her B.A. from the New England Conservatory of Music (NEC), where she received the Chadwick Medal, the highest award bestowed on undergraduates at NEC. She recently completed her second year of master’s study at NEC. Carol Rodland made her solo debut with the Philadelphia Orchestra at the age of 17. In turn she was awarded first place at the Washington International Competition, the Artists’ International Auditions, the Juilliard Concerto Competition, and the Universal Editions Prize at the Lionel Tertis International Viola Competition. She currently enjoys a multi-faceted international career as a concert and recording artist and teacher. Recent engagements have included recitals, chamber music concerts, and master classes in the U.S. and abroad. She holds degrees from the Juilliard School and from the Musikhochschule Freiburg, where as a Fulbright Scholar she studied with noted violist Kim Kashkashian. In 2002 she joined the viola faculty of the New England Conservatory, where she was recently recognized with the Krasner Award for Excellence in Teaching. Rafael Popper-Keizer, a prominent fixture on the Boston contemporary music scene, has toured throughout the U.S., including recitals in New England Conservatory’s Jordan Hall, the Phillips Collection in Washington, D.C, and as a guest artist on the faculty concert series at Grinnell College. He was invited to the Tanglewood Music Festival in 1998 and 1999, where he had the opportunity to understudy Don Quixote for Yo-Yo Ma with Seiji Ozawa. Popper-Keizer has played with many of Boston’s most esteemed chamber musicians, including members of the Borromeo String Quartet, the Museum of Fine Arts Trio, the Boston Symphony Orchestra, and a recent appearance with Lucia Lin and Heng Jin Park Ellsworth of the Boston Trio. He has toured extensively with the CORE Ensemble, a nationally acclaimed percussion trio, and is the principal cellist of the Boston Philharmonic Orchestra. Katherine Chi, has performed throughout Europe and the U.S., giving her debut recital at the age of nine. A year later she was accepted to The Curtis Institute of Music. She continued her studies at the New England Conservatory in Boston, where she received her Master’s degree and Graduate and Artist Diplomas. She later studied for two years at the International Piano Foundation in Como, Italy, and at the Hochschule für Musik in Cologne, Germany. She is the recipient of the 1998 Busoni International Piano Competition and was the first Canadian and first woman to win Canada’s Honens International Piano Competition. Her debut recording, of works by Beethoven and Rachmaninoff, was released in 2003 on Canada’s Arktos label. She is currently a resident of Boston where she teaches and is pursuing her doctorate at the New England Conservatory of Music. Her upcoming performances include a debut recital at Lincoln Center in N.Y.