Description
Cellist Wesley Baldwin holds degrees from Yale College, the New England Conservatory, and the University of Maryland. He performs throughout the United States, Europe, and Asia as a soloist and chamber musician. As a soloist with orchestra he has appeared with the Laredo Philharmonic, the Oregon Mozart Players, the Symphony of the Mountains, and the Aberdeen, Bemidji, Bryan, Chattanooga, Florence, Germantown, Johnson City, Hot Springs, Knoxville, La Porte, Oak Ridge, Manchester, New River Valley, Salisbury, Wintergreen, and Bismarck-Mandan Symphony Orchestras, among others. His passionate and charismatic performances have been widely lauded.
An advocate for great music from all eras, Mr. Baldwin is one of the only performers of several little known and new concerti for cello, including recently those by Sollima, Wagenseil, Jacob T.V., Behzad Ranjbaran, and Alan Shulman. His recording of music for cello by Alan Shulman, released by Albany records, enjoyed widespread critical acclaim. He has also recorded for the Naxos, Zyode, and Innova labels.
Wesley was the founder of the Plymouth String Quartet, with whom he was a top prize-winner in the Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition. He was also cellist of the James Piano Quartet for five years, with residencies at both Sweet Briar College and the Wintergreen Festival. More recently he has been a member of the Edison Piano Trio. Solo and chamber music performing honors Baldwin has received include the Homer Ulrich Award and the Tennessee Arts Commission Individual Performing Artist Fellowship, as well as recognition at the Prix Mercure, The Doug Davis Music Performance Awards, and the Paolo Borciani Quartet Competition.
As a member and principal cellist of the New World Symphony, Baldwin performed with many of the world’s great conductors and toured Japan, Scotland, England, Argentina, France, Monaco, and Brazil. His orchestral colleagues there selected him as the recipient of the New World Symphony’s Community Board Award for artistic integrity and leadership. For 15 years Wesley served on New World Symphony regional audition committee panels throughout the U.S.
Dr. Baldwin has performed chamber music at the Aspen, Cazenovia, Hot Springs, Ojai, Sandpoint, Mainly Mozart, May in Miami, Skaneateles, and Sub-tropics Music Festivals, and internationally in Italy, France, Monte Carlo, Spain, Austria, Brazil, Argentina, the United Kingdom, and Costa Rica. In 2017 and 2018 he had extended tours performing and teaching in China. In January of 2020 Wesley performed in a series of chamber concerts with the Ensemble D’Amici in South Korea.
In the summers he performs and teaches at the Michigan City Chamber Music Festival, the ARIA International Academy, the Ursus String Camp, and at the Ascent Cello Festival. For two decades he served as principal cellist of the Wintergreen Festival Orchestra.
Dr. Baldwin serves as Professor of Cello at the Natalie L Haslam College of Music at the University of Tennessee, where he received the Chancellor’s Award for Professional Promise. Wesley previously taught at the University of Maryland and at Florida International University. His former students play and teach throughout the United States and Malaysia, and have gone on to study at Juilliard, the University of Michigan, and the Royal Academy of Music in London, among others.
Other signs of Dr. Baldwin’s commitment to string education include founding and directing the Tennessee Cello Workshop, serving as conductor of the Knoxville Youth Chamber Orchestra for 15 years, and serving as Director of the Knoxville Symphony Youth Orchestra Association Chamber Music program. In Knoxville he also serves as Co-Director of the Knoxville Suzuki Academy.
In recent years Dr. Baldwin has worked with several of his string colleagues at the University of Tennessee to curate and edit the Mosaic Music Anthologies, which are collections of solo and ensemble volumes of music for young string players made up of compositions by Black and Latino composers from all time periods. This project has been supported by grants from both the Sphinx Foundation and National Endowment for the Arts. The first volumes are now available.
Wesley lives in Knoxville with his wife, Soprano and Theater Director Melisa Barrick Baldwin. They have four wonderful children.
Pianist Tracy Cowden’s professional life centers around making music with others, whether in duos, chamber music, or orchestral settings. Her work as a collaborative pianist includes a wide range of music and partners, from the music of Jane Austen’s songbook with soprano Julianne Baird, to klezmer-influenced music with clarinetist Alexander Fiterstein and cellist Nick Cannelakis, to American fiddle music with violinist Mark O’Connor. She is also active in commissioning and performing 21st century music and has premiered works in concerts from Kalamazoo to Bangkok.
Cowden serves as the Roland K. Blumberg Endowed Professor in Music and Director of the School of Music at The University of Texas at San Antonio. Currently, she also serves as Special Assistant to the Dean for Arts and Health. Her recent work includes performing in health care settings and facilitating interdisciplinary research regarding music and health; she is a member of the Brain Health Consortium at UTSA. Cowden has presented master classes and workshops on topics related to music in health, collaborative music-making, and creative programming in the U.S., U.K., and Croatia. She has been a presenter or performer at conferences including the National Opera Association, Music Teachers National Association, College Music Society, the National Conference on Keyboard Pedagogy, International Trumpet Guild, International Tuba Euphonium Conference, and the National Flute Association. Cowden is a Nationally Certified Teacher of Music through the Music Teachers National Association and currently serves as the Secretary of the National Association of Schools of Music.
A Michigan native, Cowden received the D.M.A. and M.M. degrees in piano accompanying and chamber music from the Eastman School of Music, and a B.M. degree in piano performance from Western Michigan University.
This concert brings to life a wonderful range of musical forms in duo music for cello and piano, with music from five composers spanning over two hundred years. Discover two of the nineteenth century’s most significant and courageous female composers through the sparkling Fantasia in G Minor by Fanny Hensel and the lyrical Sonata in A Minor Op. 5 by Ethel Smyth. Enter a journey of moods and impressions by one of America’s most important art song composers in Ned Rorem’s Dances for Cello and Piano, and delight in the joyful brilliance of Beethoven’s Variations in F Major on “Ein Mädchen oder Weibchen” from Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte Op. 66. Wes and Tracy will bring this exploration of musical forms to an end with one final celebratory dance, the Mexican “Atardecer Tapatío” from Danzas Latinoamericanas by Jose Elizondo.
Location
UTSA Recital Hall
Category:
Campus Events
