MEET THE ARTISTS

Varshavski-Shapiro Duo
Elisio Duo, Rector-Hong Duo

Varshavski-Shapiro Piano Duo

A piano duo that can charm even the most versed music lovers” (Gazeta Krakowska, Poland), the Varshavski-Shapiro Piano Duo is comprised of pianists Stanislava Varshavski and Diana Shapiro, who began playing together in 1998. Since then, they have gone on to capture the top prizes at numerous competitions, including the most prestigious competition for piano duos – the Murray Dranoff International Piano Competition in Miami.

A winner of the Astral Artists’ 2012 National Auditions, the Varshavski-Shapiro Piano Duo also won first prizes at the Italy’s XV Piano Competition “Rome 2004,” Jerusalem’s Kol HaMusica Young Artists Competition, the Israel Chamber Music Competition, the Schubert Competition in the Czech Republic, and the First International Piano Duo Competition in Bialystok, Poland.

The Varshavski-Shapiro Piano Duo has performed in such distinguished venues as the HKAPA Concert Hall in Hong Kong, Henry Crown Symphony Hall in Jerusalem, Teatro Valle in Rome, and Lincoln Theater in Miami. They have appeared with the Radio Orchestra in Munich, the Israel Chamber Orchestra, the Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra, the Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra, the Miami’s New World Symphony, and the Madison Symphony Orchestra.  Outside of their current home base in Wisconsin and Illinois, the duo has recently given concerts in Georgia, Missouri, Pennsylvania, Vermont, and Texas, where they performed Poulenc’s Concerto for Two Pianos with the Wichita Falls Symphony Orchestra.

The Duo has recorded for the Bavarian Radio, the Radio 4 of Hong Kong, the Israeli National Radio and TV, and the New York’s WQXR. They have recently produced a CD in collaboration with the Wisconsin Public Radio. The performances were also broadcast live on WPR and recorded for a documentary film, presented on Wisconsin television.

As music educators, Varshavski and Shapiro frequently present lectures and master classes across the United States. In 2016, they have been invited to showcase at the National Conference of the Chamber Music America and served as judges at the Chicago International Competition for Piano Duos.

Both Ms. Varshavski and Ms. Shapiro hold bachelor and master degrees from the Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance, where they studied with legendary Israeli duo Alexander Tamir–Bracha Eden. They continued their education under renowned American pianist Victor Rosenbaum, and in 2011 both pianists completed doctoral degree studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Ms. Shapiro is Assistant Professor of Piano and Chair of the Music Department at the University of Wisconsin at Whitewater.Ms. Varshavski is a Director of Education at the Holy Family Conservatory of Music.

Elisio Duo

Venezuelan born pianist Elena Abend and husband clarinetist Orlando Pimentel perform as the Elisio Duo promoting Latin American music. Ms. Abend is currently a professor of piano at the Peck School of the Arts at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and Mr. Pimentel is an adjunct professor of clarinet at the University of Wisconsin-Parkside.

Elena Abend has performed with all the major orchestras of her native country including recording and touring with the Filarmonica Nacional. A graduate of the Juilliard School, Ms. Abend was awarded the William Schuman Prize for outstanding achievement upon graduation. Performances have taken her to London’s Royal Festival Hall, Wigmore Hall, Lincoln Center’s Avery Fisher Hall, Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall, the Academy of Music with the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Toulouse Conservatoire, Theatre Luxembourg, University of Glasgow, the Corcoran Gallery in Washington D.C., the Chicago Cultural Center, Merkin Concert Hall in New York, Atlanta Historical Society, the Pabst Theater in Milwaukee and the Teatro Municipal, Teatro Nacional and Teatro Teresa Carren~o in her native Venezuela. More performances include the Ravinia and Marlboro Music Festivals, live broadcasts on Philadelphia’s WFLN, Wisconsin Public Radio at the Elvehjem Museum in Madison and Dame Myra Hess Concert Series on Chicago’s WFMT.

An avid chamber music collaborator, Ms. Abend has performed with Frankly Music, Present Music, Chamber Music Milwaukee, Milwaukee Musaik, and with the Fine Arts Quartet, Mendelssohn Quartet, Philomusica Quartet and KAIA String Quartet. She has joined the Milwaukee Chamber Orchestra in performances as well as invited artist at the “Classical Progressions” series at the Sharon Lynne Wilson Center for the Arts and the Four Seasons concert series in California.

Ms. Abend is chair of piano studies at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and faculty at the Collaborative Piano Institute and the New England Music Camp Chamber Music Intensive program.

Born in Caracas, Venezuela, Orlando Pimentel began his musical training in Venezuela’s System of Youth Orchestras, also known as “El Sistema.” From 1989 to 2009, he was a member of the Simon Bolivar Symphony Orchestra and performed with such renowned conductors as Claudio Abbado, Sergiu Comissiona, Gustavo Dudamel, Judit Jaimes, and many others. In 1988, together with three other colleagues, he formed the Caracas Clarinet Quartet (1996 National Artist Award: Best Classical Ensemble), a chamber ensemble that has performed throughout Venezuela, as well as in China, Europe, South America, and the United States of America. Since he moved to Milwaukee, Wisconsin, in 2009, Orlando has performed regularly with the Madison Symphony Orchestra, Fox Valley Symphony, Racine Symphony, Kenosha Symphony, and Festival City Symphony Orchestra. He performs also with his wife, pianist Elena Abend, as part of the Elisio Ensemble. Orlando received his master’s degree in Clarinet Performance from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee studying under the tutelage of Todd Levy.

Rector-Hong Piano Duo

Pianists Sylvia Hong and Michael Rector began performing together as a duo shortly after being married in 2011. They have played recitals at the Kennedy Center in Washington and the Lotte Concert Hall in Seoul, and are the current 1^st prize winners of the Ellis Duo Piano Competition (2021).  They have toured in Eastern Europe, performing with the Georgian Sinfonietta and Black Sea Symphony. Highlights of their numerous tours in Korea include playing two sold-out concerts on the same day in Busan, and an invitation to perform with the orchestra in the Olympic city of Gangneung during the 2018 winter games. Avid proponents of American music, Sylvia and Michael presented a lecture-recital on the music of Morton Feldman at the University of Music and Performing Arts in Graz, Austria, in 2019. Following extensive research at the Library of Congress, they recorded a program of rediscovered 19th-century American compositions for four hands.

Sylvia Hong is known to audiences worldwide as a pianist of imagination and virtuosity. As a concerto soloist, Sylvia has played in Korea with the KBS Orchestra, Mokpo Symphony, Busan Symphony and Suwon Symphony. In her native United States, she has performed with the Washington Metropolitan Philharmonic and Mt. Vernon Symphony Orchestra. She made her debut in the Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall at the age of 16 as the 1st prize winner of the National Russian Competition. Sylvia’s three commercial recordings, all live performances, were produced by the Far East Broadcasting Corporation. She was the Korea Times “Musician of the Year” for 2012. Sylvia credits much of her success to her principal teachers-Lydia Frumkin of Oberlin Conservatory, Lee Kum-Sing of the Vancouver Academy of Music, and Benjamin Pasternack of the Peabody Conservatory. She teaches piano at the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay.

Michael Rector graduated from the doctoral program at Manhattan School of Music in 2012, where his teacher was Philip Kawin. He also earned a bachelor’s degree from Oberlin College, where he majored in comparative literature. Michael has presented lecture-recitals and masterclasses both at home and abroad, including at China Conservatory in Beijing, the University of Kassel in Germany, and numerous universities and music schools in Korea. His academic research focuses on performance practice and style change, with articles in the journals Empirical Musicology Review, Perspectives of New Music and the Zeitschrift der Gesellschaft für Musiktheorie. He has also written about piano pedagogy for American Music Teacher, Clavier Companion, and the MTNA e-Journal. He is Professor of Music at the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay.