AMoCA Spring Piano Series
The AMoCA Spring Piano Series
Saturday, March 8 at 3:00 PM — Erica Sipes
Erica Sipes, a pianist from Virginia will be the first performer in our Spring Piano Series of concerts. She will perform her program Let Them Fly! - Stories of Women Composers & Their Music. On the program will be music by Marianna Martines, Florence Price, Margaret Bonds, Germaine Tailleferre, Melanie Bonis, Lili Boulanger, Anna von Schaden, Dora Pejačević, and Madeleine Dring.
Erica Ann Sipes received her bachelor's and master's degrees in piano performance from the Eastman School of Music where she studied with Rebecca Penneys and Nelita True. She has also studied cello with Irene Sharp and with Paul Katz and has studied piano collaboration and accompanying with Jean Barr at the Eastman School and with Anne Epperson at the Music Academy of the West. Ms. Sipes debuted with the Chamber Soloists of San Francisco at age 10 and has also performed with the Chelsea Chamber Players in Ann Arbor, Michigan. She has worked as a staff accompanist at the Bowdoin Summer Music Festival and has been to Prague and to St. Petersburg as the pianist for various choirs. Her playing has also brought her to the La Terasse Restaurant in Interlaken, Switzerland and to the Bella Voce Restaurant in San Francisco where she served as music director.
Ms. Sipes currently lives in Roanoke, Virginia. Much of her time is spent accompanying young musicians, playing chamber music with friends and colleagues in the community, teaching piano, and working on the Piano Music She Wrote project that she and pianist Sandra Mogensen started in the Spring of 2020. She is also a co-founder and pianist of the Alma Ensemble, a trio dedicated to championing women in music, education, and creating connection through music.
Saturday, March 25 at 6:30 PM — Ben Cosgrove
Ben Cosgrove will be playing his original compositions inspired by environment, landscape and place. His newest record, Bearings, a collection of improvisation-based music that reflects upon the relationship between movement and place, was released in late 2023.
Ben Cosgrove is a traveling composer-performer whose music explores themes of landscape, place, and environment. Described by the Boston Globe as “a sonic plein-air painter… [using] his piano as a paintbrush,” Ben has performed in every U.S. state except for Delaware, collaborated with groups ranging from rock bands to research scientists, contributed music to several radio and film projects including the Ken Burns documentary The American Buffalo, and held residencies and fellowships with institutions including NASA, the National Park Service, the National Forest Service, Harvard University, Middlebury College, the Schmidt Ocean Institute, and the Sitka Center for Art & Ecology. He performs regularly with a wide array of other musicians, and has published nonfiction about landscape and place in the pages of Orion, Taproot, Northern Woodlands, Appalachia, Wildsam, and other outlets.
Ben’s music has been called "beautiful and fascinating" (The Maine Edge), "deeply impressive" (Independent Clauses), and "immediately evocative and fully arresting... brim[ming] with technical mastery and emotional capital" (Seven Days).
Sunday, April 6 at 3:00 PM — Kirill Gliadkovsky
Dr. Kirill Gliadkovsky will perform Hidden Piano Gems — Great Piano Music of Lesser-Known Composers, with works by Joseph Bologne, Louis Moreau Gottschalk, Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, Florence Price, Manuel Ponce, Alexina Louie and Arno Babajanian.
Kirill Gliadkovsky has performed with singers, instrumental duo partners and with various chamber music groups in concert series, competitions, and festivals in the US and abroad. His performances have been met with great enthusiasm by both audiences and music critics in Europe, Russia and North America. Josef Woodard, a critic at the Los Angeles Times, wrote: "...the intensity and a nicely honed musicality left the audience stunned...enthralling...all in all, a gripping and masterful performance". “Fine dramatic sense…appealing range of emotional effects and pianistic devices…wonderful” writes Fort Worth Star-Telegram; “The most impressive…memorable… deep musician… fine interpretation” - Izvestia (Moscow, Russia)
Gliadkovsky, his wife Anna, and their two daughters, Anastassia and Sophia perform as a family piano ensemble, both nationally and internationally. Dr. Gliadkovsky combines his busy concert schedule with teaching at Saddleback College as a Professor of Piano and Director of Keyboard Studies. Prior to coming to Saddleback, he has been on the piano faculty at USC and Santa Monica College and served as the Head of the Piano Area at SUU (Southern Utah University) in Cedar City, UT. Mr. Gliadkovsky has been in demand as a masterclass artist-teacher, guest lecturer and piano adjudicator in piano competitions in major U.S. cities. His students have won prizes at various piano contests, including international competitions (over 20 awards just in the past 2 years).
Sunday, May 11 at 3:00 PM — Marina Bengoa Roldán
Dr. Marina Bengoa Roldán will perform Spanish Souvenirs, a program of music by Spanish composers Isaac Albeníz, Manuel de Falla and Pascual Gimeno.
Marina Bengoa Roldán is a classical concert pianist from Spain. She has extensive performance experience in the United States, Spain, and other European countries in solo piano concerts with orchestra and chamber music. Marina commissioned and premiered the Fantasia Flamenca worldwide by the Spanish composer Pascual Gimeno, who dedicated the work to her.
Currently Bengoa Roldán teaches music as Assistant Professor of Piano at Eastern New Mexico University. Previously, she taught at Southern Arkansas University. In 2022, she completed her Doctoral studies in Piano Performance at the University of Oregon (USA) under the guidance of Dr. Alexandre Dossin with a full scholarship and assistantship. Marina received the Outstanding Award in Piano Pedagogy. In 2021, she completed a Master's in Piano Pedagogy under the guidance of Dr. Grace Ho, and created the website spanishpianomusic.org.
She has won numerous prizes in international and national piano competitions. She has received grants from Mu Phi Epsilon Foundation and DSAC of the University of Oregon. In 2016 and 2017, Marina was awarded The Elżbieta and Krzysztof Krawczyński Fund's scholarship from the Chopin Society of Atlanta, participating in the Paris International Summer Sessions and International Piano Course in Valldemossa (Spain) at the Catedra Chopin.