Read more about the performing musicians who are participating at the Benefit Concert for Ukraine on Saturday May 6, 2023!
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William Caballero
During the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra’s 2011 European Festivals Tour, William Caballero, and the Pittsburgh Symphony horn section he leads,received rave reviews. Michael Church of The Independent called Caballero “a principal horn whose pianissimo is simply miraculous,” and Guy Dammann wrote in The Guardian, “The horn section — led very much from the front by their excellent principal William Caballero – is one of the best in the business.” In its September 2012 review of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra’s Exton recording of Mahler’s Symphony No. 5, Gramophone magazine wrote, “Pittsburgh’s first horn is as spectacular as any on disc.”
The 2021-2022 Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra season represents William Caballero’s 32nd as its principal horn under Maestros Manfred Honeck, Mariss Jansons and Lorin Maazel. Before joining the symphony in May 1989, Caballero previously held principal horn positions with the Houston Symphony, Houston Grand Opera and Hartford Symphony. He held third horn positions with the Montreal Symphony, Montreal Opera and acting third horn with the Boston Symphony and Boston Pops. He has performed as guest principal horn with Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the Cleveland Orchestra, the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Dallas Symphony Orchestra, and the St. Louis Symphony.
Born in New Mexico and raised in Wisconsin, William Caballero’s early horn studies included working under Larry Simons, Barry Benjamin and Basil Tyler, as well as studying the piano and pipe organ. Caballero graduated from New England Conservatory in Boston where he studied with Richard Mackey and Thomas Newell, both former members of the Boston Symphony.
Currently, William Caballero is the associate teaching professor of horn at Carnegie Mellon University School of Music. Previously he held teaching positions at Indiana University Bloomington, Rice University in Houston, Texas, and Duquesne University. He has been invited and presented master classes throughout the world including Northwestern University, Colburn School of Music, New England Conservatory, University of Indiana Bloomington, Cleveland Institute of Music, Curtis Institute of Music, Manhattan School of Music, New World Symphony, and the Beijing and Shanghai Conservatories. Summers have included teaching and performing at the Aspen Music Festival, the Chautauqua Music Festival, and the Pacific Music Festival in Sapporo, Japan.
In January 2012, William Caballero began collaboration with the Internet music teaching company ArtistWorks.com based in Napa, California. His teaching website was released in September 2012 as the only complete horn teaching curriculum available via the internet for horn students worldwide.
William Caballero is also in demand as a chamber musician collaborating with musicians such as violinists Gil Shaham, Joseph Silverstein and Philip Setzer, and pianists André Previn, Christoph Eshenbach, Orli Shaham and Andre Watts. William has also performed and worked with jazz musician and composer Chris Brubeck, as well as ensembles that include the Tokyo String Quartet, Trio Johannas, Principal Strings of the Berlin Philharmonic, Center City Brass, Bay Chamber Concert Series, St. Barth’s Music Festival and the Grand Teton Music Festival. He is also a member of the Pittsburgh Symphony Brass, which includes fellow colleagues of the Pittsburgh Symphony Brass section.
Recent chamber music performances include performing Brahms’ Horn Trio in E-flat major with Gil and Orli Shaham in Zankel Recital Hall, Carnegie Hall, New York and appearing several times live on National Public Radio’s (NPR) “Performance Today” in NPR’s Washington, D.C. studios.
William Caballero solo’s regularly with the Pittsburgh Symphony with most recent collaboration as soloist under Maestro Honeck. In April 2014, Caballero performed the world premiere of Robert Levin Edition of Mozart’s 1st Horn Concerto in D, and in September 2012 performed the Pittsburgh Symphony premiere of Strauss Horn Concerto No. 1. Previous solo performances with the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra have included Richard Strauss’ Horn Concerto No. 2 in E-flat with Maestro Maazel, Mozart’s Horn Concerto No. 2 in E-flat with Maestro Andre Previn, Mozart Concerto fragments with Pittsburgh Symphony Concertmaster Andres Cardenes, Britten’s Serenade for Tenor, Horn and Strings with Maestro Stanislaw Skrowaczewski and tenor Anthony Griffey, Schumann’s Konzertstück in F for four horns and orchestra with his Pittsburgh Symphony horn colleagues under the baton of Maestro Sir John Elliot Gardener, and the John Williams Horn Concerto under the baton of Maestro Leonard Slatkin.
Other recent solo appearances outside of the Pittsburgh Symphony have included performances in Montenegro with Maestro Ronald Zollman and with the Carnegie Mellon Philharmonic at New York City’s Carnegie Hall under the baton of former Principal Horn of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Dale Clevenger.
In May 1992, William Caballero premiered Benjamin Lees’ Concerto for Horn and Orchestra with the Pittsburgh Symphony under the baton of then-Music Director Lorin Maazel. Following the performances in Pittsburgh, he performed Lees’ Concerto in Spain, Germany, and England with the Pittsburgh Symphony on tour. In May 1996, Caballero recorded the concerto with the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra and Lorin Maazel for New World Records.
Caballero holds the Pittsburgh Symphony’s Anonymous Foundation Principal Horn Chair.
Cynthia Koledo DeAlmeida
Cynthia Koledo DeAlmeida was appointed by Lorin Maazel as principal oboe of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra in 1991. For two years prior, she was associate principal oboe of the Philadelphia Orchestra under Riccardo Muti.
DeAlmeida received the Bachelor of Music degree from the University of Michigan, studying with Arno Mariotti, and the Master of Music degree from Temple University, as a student of Richard Woodhams. She is also grateful to her other teachers — Sarah Young, Robert Sorton, Elaine Douvas, John Mack, H. Robert Reynolds and Max Rudolf. DeAlmeida proudly plays on F. Loree oboes of Paris, France.
In November 2002, DeAlmeida’s first solo CD was released on the Boston Records label. Classic Discoveries for Oboe was hailed by American Record Guide as “a masterly recording… Cynthia Koledo DeAlmeida is simply one of the finest exponents of the instrument anywhere.” Her second solo CD, entitled Mist Over the Lakeon the Crystal Record label, was released in 2006 to rave reviews: “Ms. DeAlmeida is hands down one of the best players in the world…” In 2015, her third CD Silver and Gold was released on the Crystal Records label. Gramophone magazine called her “a poetic artist” and Fanfare magazine wrote “she is a soloist of immense technique and considerable charm…” DeAlmeida can also be heard on Crystal Records’ recording of Sir Andre Previn’s Sonata for Oboe, Bassoon, and Piano with Sir Andre Previn, as well as all the Pittsburgh Symphony recordings since 1991 under Lorin Maazel, Mariss Jansons, Marek Janowski and Manfred Honeck. In 2009, DeAlmeida travelled to Berlin to perform and record the German Requiem of Brahms with Marek Janowski and the Radio Orchestra of Berlin (RSB) on the Pentatone label.
DeAlmeida has been featured with the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra in concertos by J.S.Bach, Leonardo Balada, Alan Fletcher, Francaix, Haydn, Mozart, Lucas Richman, Richard Strauss and Vaughan Williams. She performed these concertos with the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra conducted by Andres Cardenes, Sir Andrew Davis, Gunther Herbig, Manfred Honeck, Lorin Maazel, Sir Andre Previn, Lucas Richman, Alessandro Siciliani, Leonard Slatkin, Jeanette Sorrell, Yoav Talmi and Pinchas Zukerman. The concertos by Balada, Richman and Fletcher were all commissioned for DeAlmeida by the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, in 1992, 2006 and 2015 respectively. The Balada was recorded for New World Records with the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, Lorin Maazel conducting. The Richman concerto was recorded for Albany Records with the Pittsburgh Symphony, Lucas Richman conducting. Four different times, DeAlmeida has performed Bach’s Concerto for Violin and Oboe with the Pittsburgh Symphony, partnering with violinists Vladimir Spivakov, Andres Cardenes, Pinchas Zukerman and Noah Bendix-Balgley. DeAlmeida also has appeared as soloist with the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Haddonfield Symphony, the Cayuga Chamber Orchestra, the Concerto Soloists of Philadelphia, the Knoxville Symphony, the U.S. Army Orchestra and the Carnegie Mellon Philharmonic.
DeAlmeida is an avid chamber musician, having performed 10 recitals at Carnegie Mellon University since 1993. For one of these recitals, she commissioned, published and recorded a piece for Oboe, Horn, Cello, and Piano by Michael Moricz, entitled “Three Consequences for Four Players.” Each summer since 2002, she performs and teaches as a faculty member of the Music Academy of the West in Santa Barbara, California. Several of her performances there have been featured on NPR’s Performance Today. DeAlmeida has also performed at the Strings Festival in Steamboat Springs, Colorado; the La Jolla Festival in La Jolla, California; and the Marlboro Music Festival in Vermont as well as several “Music from Marlboro” tours.
Teaching has always been a rewarding part of DeAlmeida’s artistic life. She has been associate teaching professor at Carnegie Mellon University’s School of Music since 2012, and a faculty member there since 1991. She has held teaching positions at Temple University in Philadelphia and Trenton State College in New Jersey, and has taught at the National Orchestral Institute at the University of Maryland as well as the New World Symphony. She has given masterclasses at universities in the United States and abroad including the Manhattan School of Music, the University of Tennessee, Eastern Michigan University, the University of South Carolina and the Seoul Conservatory.
In 2003, DeAlmeida was featured on national television on the CBS Early Show in a story relating to the oboe and its remarkable health benefits for asthma sufferers, which led to her work as an ambassador for the American Respiratory Alliance in Pittsburgh.
DeAlmeida volunteers at Pittsburgh’s classical radio station WQED in their fundraising pledge drives. She participates in the Pittsburgh Symphony’s Education and Community Engagement department playing and speaking to young people in various venues throughout the Pittsburgh area. Each summer, DeAlmeida enjoys volunteering at the Woodlands Foundation’s Notes from the Heart music camp in Wexford, Pennsylvania.
Solomiya Ivakhiv
Ukrainian born violinist Solomiya Ivakhiv is a highly celebrated soloist, chamber musician and educator. She has made solo appearances with the Istanbul State Symphony, Charleston Symphony, National Symphony Orchestra of Ukraine, Lviv National Philharmonic of Ukraine, and the Hunan Symphony Orchestra in China, and has performed at such prestigious concert halls as Carnegie Hall, Merkin Concert Hall, CBC Glenn Gould Studio, Curtis Institute Field Concert Hall, Philharmonic Hall in Kyiv, Pickman Hall in Cambridge, and Concertgebouw Mirror Hall. She has been featured at chamber music festivals worldwide, including Tanglewood, Ottawa Chamberfest, Bach Festival of Philadelphia, Prussia Cove Open Chamber Music, San Jose Chamber Music Society, Newport and Nevada Chamber Music Festivals, Emerson Quartet Festival, “Contrasts,” “Virtuosi,” and KyivFest, and she is Artistic Director of the Caspian Monday Music Festival in Greensboro, VT.
Dr. Ivakhiv’s recordings – Ukraine: Journey to Freedom (NAXOS), Mendelssohn Concertos (Brilliant Classics), Haydn & Hummel Concertos (Centaur Records), and Poems & Rhapsodies (Centaur Records) – have been featured on top charts in iTunes and Spotify, as well as NPR, WRTI, WQXR and radio stations around the globe. A champion of new music, she has premiered works by composers such as David Ludwig, John B. Hedges, David Dzubay, Bohdan Kryvopust, Yevhen Stankovych, and Oleksandr Shchetynsky. Her next album, to be released by Naxos in 2023 with pianist Steven Beck, will feature the music of Ukrainian composers Myroslav Skoryk, Viktor Kosenko, and Serhiy Bortkevych.
Since 2010, Dr. Ivakhiv has served as Artistic Director of Music at the Institute (MATI) Concert Series in New York City, where her primary focus is to introduce audiences to Ukrainian classical music. At MATI, Dr. Ivakhiv presents programs featuring Ukrainian women composers, young Ukrainians, and newly commissioned works, as well as children’s events, book presentations, and a recent concert at Carnegie Hall celebrating MATI’s 25th anniversary.
A dedicated educator, Dr. Ivakhiv has led master classes and coached chamber music at Yale, Columbia, Penn State, University of Hartford Hartt School of Music, Boston Conservatory, Curtis SummerFest, University of Maryland, Bard College Prep, SUNY – Fredonia Universities, Oberlin, Guangzhou and Hunan Conservatories in China, and regularly collaborates with high schools in outreach programs throughout the United States.
Dr. Ivakhiv’s performances have been featured on NPR’s Performance Today, and her “crystal clear and noble sound” (Culture and Life, Ukraine) make her “[one of the] major artists of our time” (Fanfare Magazine). She was recently named Honored (Merited) Artist of Ukraine, her native country’s highest cultural honor. She holds degrees from Curtis Institute of Music and Stony Brook University, and is Associate Professor of Violin and Viola and Head of Strings at UConn.
Since the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Dr. Ivakhiv has been very active in organizing and performing benefit concerts to help displaced Ukrainian musicians, wounded civilians, and the “Tikva” orphanage in Odesa. She has collaborated with the Lisa Batiashvili Foundation “Relief Fund for Ukrainian Musicians.”
Sung-Im Kim
Sung-Im Kim, born in Seoul, South Korea, started playing the piano at the age of seven. Two years later she won first prize in the Korean National Competition. By the age of fifteen, Sung-Im had her debut as soloist with the Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra. She went on to win the Eum Ak Chun Chu and Jung-Ang competitions, among the most prestigious in Korea. As a student in Seoul, she performed numerous solo and chamber concerts., including her solo debut recital as the winner of the Chosun Ilbo National Competition.
After obtaining her Bachelor of Arts from Kyung-Won University under Young-Ho Kim, Sung-Im continued to the Royal Academy of Music in London to study under Frank Wibaut and Christopher Elton. There she earned both a Diploma of Advanced Studies with Merit, and a Licentiate from the Royal Academy of Music. While in England, Ms. Kim gave solo performances at many venues, including the Academy of St. Martin-in-the-Fields, the Glenilla Arts Foundation, and the Pump Room in Bath. While in England, Ms. Kim won the Sterndale Bennett Prize at the Royal Academy of Music; and First Prizes at The Haverhill Sinfonia Competition, and The I Ibla International Piano Competition in Italy.
She earned her Master’s Degree at Carnegie Mellon University, studying under Sergey Schepkin and Enrique Graf.
As an active chamber musician, Sung-Im has performed recitals and chamber music throughout Pittsburgh, collaborating with Ray Chen, Sergey Schepkin, Luz Manriquez, and members of the
Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra. Ms. Kim has premiered two works by Nancy Galbraith: “Effervescent Air” at Yonsei University in Seoul, and Piano Concerto No. 3 with the Pittsburgh Chamber Orchestra. She has performed compositions by Reza Vali at the National Gallery of Arts Concert Series in Washington, D.C., and at the Chatham University Music Program. Sung-Im has played numerous times with the Pittsburgh Concert Society.
Internationally, she has performed on chamber music series in Taiwan, and traveled to Shaoxing, China to perform a solo recital, and to give a series of master classes.
Sung-Im is an Assistant Teaching Professor in Collaborative Piano, is a chamber coach and teaches preparatory school at Carnegie Mellon University.
Victoria Luperi
Victoria Luperi was appointed associate principal clarinet and principal E-flat clarinet of the Pittsburgh Symphony by Manfred Honeck in 2016, having previously held the position of principal clarinet with the Fort Worth and Winnipeg Symphony Orchestras. Since 2014, she has performed in the Grand Teton Music Festival in Jackson, Wyoming.
Luperi premiered “Fantasía sobre Yma Sumac,” a work for solo clarinet and orchestra written for her by John B. Hedges, with the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra. She has been a featured soloist with the Pittsburgh Symphony, Madison Symphony, Signature Symphony in Tulsa, Debut Orchestra in Los Angeles, Philharmonia of Kansas City, Córdoba Symphony, Córdoba Chamber Orchestra and the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra.
A devoted chamber musician, Luperi has collaborated with members of the Emerson, Vermeer, and Guarneri Quartets, and performed at the Marlboro, Mainly Mozart, and Mimir Festivals, the Académie musicale de Villecroze in France, the Oregon Bach Festival, Chicago’s Latino Music Festival and the Jackson Hole Chamber Music Series. She recently premiered “Canzoni di Fiori”, a work for two E-flat clarinets and string quartet written for her by composer Till Meyn.
Luperi has served as lecturer at the University of Texas at Austin, adjunct faculty at Texas Christian University and has been on faculty at Brandon University in Canada, the New York Summer Music Festival, the Filarmónica Jóven de Colombia and the Buffet Academy in Jacksonville, Florida. She served as a jury member in the Carl Nielsen International Competition in Odense, Denmark, in 2022.
Luperi is a graduate of the Curtis Institute of Music, where she studied with Donald Montanaro. She began her music education in her native Argentina with Oscar Gieco, and later studied with Richard Hawkins and Yehuda Gilad. Distinctions include the First Prize in the Pasadena Instrumental Competition, the Interlochen Fine Arts Award and the Banco Mayo Award of Buenos Aires. She has appeared in concert broadcasts on NPR’s Performance Today, WQED, WRR 101.1, WFMT and the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.
Luperi is a Vandoren Artist and Clinician, and a Buffet Crampon USA Performing Artist. She proudly served in the research and development team of Buffet Crampon’s Tradition clarinet model.
Victoria Luperi is married to Colombian-born conductor Andrés Franco.
Katie Manukyan
Katie Manukyan is an operatic soprano based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. In 2016, she was selected as a “Major Artist” by
the Pittsburgh Concert Society. Most recently, Katie has produced and performed in a Concert of Ukrainian Words and Music with the University of Pittsburgh’s Summer Language Institute and Department of Music and benefitting Razom for Ukraine, the Kyiv School of Economics, and Ukraine TrustChain. The recordings of the fully Ukrainian program of classical musical works, classical and contemporary poetry, and traditional kobzar songs are available to download for a donation of any denomination to the heroic relief work of Ukraine TrustChain online at ukrainetrustchain.org/donate-sli.
Katie specializes in Slavic repertoire and in recent years has sung the roles of Volkhova (Sadko) and Gorislava (Ruslan and Ludmila) with Opera Bel Cantanti and Tatiana (Eugene Onegin) in concert at Bellefield Hall with Undercroft Opera in a production for which she also served as primary diction coach and co-producer. Other roles that Katie has performed in Pittsburgh and beyond include: Butterfly (Madama Butterfly); Zdenka (Arabella); Angelica (Suor Angelica); Pamina (The Magic Flute); Sacerdotessa (Aida); Winnie Blocker (world premiere of Gilda Lyons’s A New Kind of Fallout); Micaela (Carmen); Lauretta (Gianni Schicchi); Monica (The Medium); Mabel (Pirates of Penzance); and Gloria Thorpe (Damn Yankees). In addition to opera, Katie treasures the art song repertoire and has enjoyed presenting art songs by many composers and in multiple languages over the years. Recent recital performances have been dedicated to Clause Debussy, Enrique Granados, Déodat de Séverac, and Vasily Kalinnikov (with pianist Eric Dzugan’s Exploring the Piano recital series) and Komitas Vardapet (St. Gregory of Narek Armenian Church in Cleveland).
Katie received musical training at Northwestern University, Tchaikovsky Musical College-Conservatory in Moscow, and The Ohio State University. She embarked upon her opera career with the support of the Opera Theater of Pittsburgh as a prize winner in its “Opera Champion of Pittsburgh” competition in 2011, the same year that she received her doctoral degree in Slavic Languages and Literatures. She has sung Slavic
repertoire in Czech, Russian, Polish and Ukrainian languages at a wide range of functions including, memorably, the 2014 visit of the former first lady of Poland, Danuta Wałęsa, to Pittsburgh and the homecoming reception of the Russian Para-Olympic team in Moscow after the 2004 Games. Since 2011 Katie has been on the faculty of the Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures at the University of Pittsburgh, where she teaches language and literature and is Managing Director of the Slavic, East European, and Near Eastern Summer Language Institute. She has published on opera and singing diction and enjoys combining her academic and musical interests in her performances and teaching.
Rodrigo Ojeda
Venezuelan born pianist Rodrigo Ojeda began his piano studies at the age of ten. He completed his Bachelor’s Degree in piano performance at the IUDEM (Institute of Musical Studies) in 1997 under Arnaldo Pizzolante. In 1999 he went on to complete his graduate studies at Carnegie Mellon University with Enrique Graf where he also remained to complete his Artist Diploma certificate.
Mr. Ojeda has performed on master classes with such notable pianists as Kasimierz Giesrod ( former rector of the Frederic Chopin Academy in Warsaw ), Marek Joblonsky, Georgy Sandor, Marta Gulyas, and Earl Wild. His solo recitals include performances throughout Venezuela, Ecuador and most recently in the Piccolo Spoleto Festival in Charleston, South Carolina. He has performed concerti from an expansive repertoire of Tchaikovsky, Brahms, Gershwin, Grieg, Schumann, Mozart, Lizt (Totentanz), Cesar Frank and Prokofiev.
Currently Mr. Ojeda is an Artist Lecturer in Piano in the School of Music at Carnegie Mellon University as well as a piano faculty member in its Music Preparatory School. He has also been playing with the Pittsburgh Symphony since October 2006. His wife, Giuseppina, and son, Sebastian, reside with him in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.