Heisey Wind Ensemble 20th Anniversary Season continues on with the presentation of "Postcards: Music from Around the World" at 8 p.m. on Saturday (Feb. 19) in Swasey Chapel. Featured on this concert will be Caroline Hong, piano, performing "Rhapsody in Blue" by George Gershwin.

Russel Mikkelson, music director, says the "postcards" came from Spain with "Amparito Roca" by Jaime Texidor, Korea with "Variations on a Korean Folk Song" by John Barnes Chance, Russia with "Festival in Russia" by Anatoli Liadov, Germany with "Ammerland" by Jacob de Haan and Norfolk with "Four Norfolk Dances" by Philip Sparke.

Piano soloist Caroline Hong is an assistant professor at Ohio State University in Columbus. She earned her bachelor's degree from the Peabody Institute of the John Hopkins University, her master's from Julliard, and doctorate from Indiana University. She has appeared in Carnegie Weill Recital Hall, Orchestra Hall and Wilshire Ebell Theatre, and abroad at the Seoul Arts Center, Seoul National University, and the University of South Africa (Pretoria). Hong has performed as soloist and chamber musician in master classes for Menahem Pressler, Gyorgy Sebok, Charles Rosen, John Browning, and Josef Gingold.

Former teachers include her mother, with whom she began study at the age of three, Dmitrii Paperno, Michel Block, Jerome Lowenthal, and Sergei Babayan. She has garnered top prizes in numerous competitions including the Frinna Awerbuch International Piano Competition (New York), Chicago Civic Orchestra Soloist Competition, and Society of American Musicians (Chicago).

She is a Laureate of the Beethoven Foundation (Indianapolis), and Distinguished Performer of the Palm Beach International Invitational Piano Competition. In addition to competing at the international level, Hong also has served as a member of the jury for the Bartok-Kabalevsky International Piano Competition. Hong continues to appear regularly as a soloist and as a chamber musician with Columbus Symphony Concertmaster Charles Wetherbee.

The remaining concert in the Heisey Wind Ensemble 20th Anniversary 2004-2005 Season is Saturday, April 30, when "Happy Birthday Heisey Wind Ensemble!" will feature a world premier of a new work written for the Heisey Wind Ensemble and one of the finest horn soloists in the world today, Eric Ruske. Ruske will be a Vail Visiting Artist in Residence.

Concert tickets are available at the door; cost is $10 for adults, $5 for seniors and students, and students under 12 are free. Area band directors have free student passes available for their students.

The Heisey Wind Ensemble was selected as one of the top community music groups in the state of Ohio by the Ohio Music Educators Association last year and performed at OMEA's annual conference on Sunday (Feb. 6). The concert was received with tremendous enthusiasm. The band membership is made up of community members, Denison University students and Denison faculty.

The Heisey Wind Ensemble was formed in February of 1985 by J. M. Day and Don Workman to provide an outlet for skilled musicians interested in playing traditional concert band literature. Since 1987, the Denison University music department has provided facilities support and some operational funding, but the balance of the cost of the season is funded through patron giving and ticket sales. Denison students are admitted the Heisey Wind Ensemble through successful audition, as are community members.

Russel Mikkelson serves as director of University Bands and associate professor of conducting at Ohio State, where he conducts the Wind Symphony and Chamber Winds, guides the graduate wind conducting program, and guides all aspects of the University's band program. A strong advocate for the creation of new works, Mikkelson serves on the Big Ten Band Directors Association Commissioning Panel, and has instituted a program of regular commissioning projects at OSU, including the new Donald E. McGinnis Award in Band Composition, scheduled to begin in 2004-05. He is a member of the American Bandmasters Association, the most prestigious American honor a band conductor can receive.

Calendar Listing:

CALENDAR LISTING: Denison University, Granville -- Heisey Wind Ensemble presents "Postcards: Music from Around the World" at 8 p.m. on Saturday (Feb. 19) in Swasey Chapel, featuring Caroline Hong, piano, performing "Rhapsody in Blue" by George Gershwin. Cost is $10 for adults, $5 for seniors and students, and students under 12 are free. Please contact (740) 344-8333 to confirm information.

About Denison:

Denison University, founded in 1831, is an independent, residential liberal arts institution located in Granville, Ohio. A highly selective college enrolling 2,100 full-time undergraduate students from all 50 states and dozens of foreign countries, Denison is a place where innovative faculty and motivated students collaborate in rigorous scholarship, civic engagement and the cultivation of independent thinking.

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