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IU Jacobs School students present concert at Kennedy Center for Performing Arts

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Feb. 16, 2012

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. -- A group of talented young artists from the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music will present a concert at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday, March 6, 2012. The 6 p.m. performance in the Terrace Theater is free to the public and will be streamed live on the web here.

Kennedy Center

Photo by Scott Ableman

Kennedy Center

The concert is part of the Conservatory Project, an initiative of Performing Arts for Everyone's Millenium Stage that takes place in February and May and is designed to present the best young musical artists in classical, jazz, musical theater and opera from leading conservatories, colleges and universities around the country. This will be the ninth consecutive year the Jacobs School of Music has presented a concert within the Conservatory Project. Previous performance videos can be enjoyed here.

Taking part in the performance this year are Jacobs School of Music students Laura Thoreson, mezzo-soprano; Caroline Gilbert, viola; and pianists Matthew Cataldi and Kati Gleiser.

The program includes works by J. S. Bach, von Weber, Bizet, de Falla, Rossini, Scriabin, Shostakovich, Rachmaninoff and contemporary composer Nikolai Kapustin.

About the Artists

A native of Vancouver, Wash., mezzo-soprano Laura Beckel Thoreson is a Performer Diploma student at the Jacobs School, where she recently completed her Master of Music in Voice. She received her Bachelor of Music in Vocal Performance from Central Washington University in Ellensburg, Wash.

Thoreson has been seen on the Indiana University Opera Theater stage as Suzy in Puccini's La Rondine and Jo March in Adamo's Little Women. Her other roles include Orfeo in the Bloomington performance of Gluck's Orfeo ed Euridice, Dido in Purcell's Dido and Aeneas and Gertrud in Humperdinck's Hänsel und Gretel with the Central Washington University Opera Theatre.

Thoreson has appeared as a soloist with the University Singers, the Contemporary Vocal Ensemble, the Summer Chamber Choir, the New Music Ensemble, the Oratorio Chorus and Concert Orchestra, and the Pro Arte Singers and Chamber Orchestra.

Upcoming engagements include her appearance as the Old Lady in Bernstein's Candide with IU Opera Theater and performances as the alto soloist in Haydn's Lord Nelson Mass with the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra. This summer, Thoreson will appear as a festival artist with Utah Festival Opera and Musical Theatre in Logan, Utah.

Thoreson is a member of several professional vocal ensembles and is a frequent musical collaborator in the Bloomington and Indianapolis communities. She is a student of Distinguished Professor Timothy Noble.

Violist Caroline Gilbert, born in Bloomington, Ind., started playing the violin at the age of five in the pre-college String Academy at the Jacobs School of Music. When she was 16, she toured Spain and Sweden with the Academy's Violin Virtuosi. She changed to the viola upon entering college and currently studies with Atar Arad at Jacobs.

In the summer of 2010, she attended the Keshet Elion summer master course in Israel, where she played in a chamber group with violinist Shmuel Ashkenasi; her solo performance received a New York radio broadcast. While attending the Jacobs School, she has collaborated with such faculty as violinist Alexander Kerr and cellist Eric Kim in the Starling Chamber Players and has performed in chamber groups with faculty members James Campbell, Bruce Bransby and Luke Gillespie.

Her recent accomplishments include performing with the New York String Orchestra in Carnegie Hall, working with Michael Tilson Thomas as part of the YouTube Symphony Orchestra in Sydney, Australia, and touring Turkey, Spain, Austria and Germany with the Schleswig-Holstein Festival Orchestra.

Kati Gleiser, a native of a small town in Ontario, Canada, has achieved international recognition as a pianist, vocalist and electronic musician. She is a national-level prize winner at the Canadian Music Competition and the Canadian Federation of Music Teachers Association Competition, and she was a finalist at the National Chopin Competition. Gleiser has appeared as soloist with numerous orchestras; recent performances include Rachmaninov's Piano Concerto No. 2 and Chopin's Concerto No. 1 at IU. Having performed both Chopin concerti with the Georgian Bay Symphony's String Quartet, she has been re-invited this April to perform the Prokofiev Piano Concerto No. 3.

Gleiser appears throughout the United States and Canada as an active proponent in new electro-acoustic piano repertoire. Recent solo appearances include at the Society for Electro-Acoustic Music in the United States and at the New York Electro-Acoustic Music Festival at CUNY, New York University. She actively commissions new works, including "Blue Traces" for piano, electronics and strings by Jacobs professor John Gibson. Her voice formed the electronic component of the piece "Ayin Shel" by Israeli composer Iddo Aharony, in collaboration with Grammy Award-winning ensemble The Eighth Blackbird at the University of Chicago. She recently completed her second film with Moss, Journey to the Northern Seas.

Gleiser holds a Master of Music from the Jacobs School, an undergraduate degree from the University of Western Ontario (where she was awarded the University's Gold Medal) and an Artist Diploma from the Glenn Gould School of The Royal Conservatory of Music, Toronto. Her principle teachers include Gwen Beamish, Andre Laplante and John Perry. She is currently completing a doctorate in piano performance at Jacobs with a minor in music theory and computer music, studying with Distinguished Professor Menahem Pressler.

Matthew Cataldi is currently pursuing his doctoral degree in piano at the Jacobs School of Music. His studies have taken him across the United States, from New York, where he began his studies at the Eastman School of Music, to Florida, where he earned his bachelor's degree from Florida State University, studying under Jacobs alumnus Read Gainsford, and, finally, to the Jacobs School, where he earned his master's degree studying under Arnaldo Cohen.

An active collaborator as well as a soloist, Cataldi has spent his whole life around the theater, performing and directing American masterpieces from the Golden Age to innovative modern projects, most recently serving as musical director for the 2011 season at the Post Playhouse. Currently minoring in jazz studies, he passionately believes in the adage "music is music," and places equal value on all types of musical expression.

Cataldi made his orchestral debut in 2007 with the Northwest Florida Symphony Orchestra, playing Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto No. 3 as winner of the orchestra's 20th Annual Young Artist's Competition. He has also earned numerous prizes and awards from a young age at the local, regional and national level, recently including first prize in the 13th Annual Competition in the Performance of Music from Spain and Latin America at Indiana University in 2010, which resulted in a recording of a documentary CD and an international concert tour. Cataldi currently serves as an associate instructor in piano at the Jacobs School and enjoys giving back the wealth of knowledge and experience he has gained from his inspirational teachers.

The Conservatory Project

The Conservatory Project is an initiative of Performing Arts for Everyone's Millennium Stage. As a semi-annual event occurring in February and in May, it is designed to present the best young musical artists in classical music, jazz, musical theater and opera from the nation's leading undergraduate and graduate conservatories, colleges and universities in performance at the Kennedy Center.

For more about the IU Jacobs School of Music, visit music.indiana.edu.