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Sunday, March 23, 2025, 7:30 PM

— a “hybrid” event —

“Discrete Structures”

Emily Tsai, Oboe
Tristan Savella, Piano

PROGRAM

CLAUDE DEBUSSY: “Reverie“

FRANCIS POULENC: “Sonata for Oboe & Piano“, FP 185
I. Élégie
II. Scherzo
III. Déploration

ALEXANDER SCRIABIN: “Deux Poèmes“, Op. 32

FREDERIC CHOPIN: “Ballade No. 3” in Ab Major, Op. 47

MARINA DRANISHNIKOVA: “Poem for Oboe & Piano“

MARC MELLITS: “Discrete Structures“
I. Circular Structure
II. Red Structure
III. Survival Structure
IV. Gold Structure
V. Blue Structure
VI. Tight Structure
VII. Clock Structure
VIII. Liquid Structure
IX. Shiny Structure
X. Square Structure

BIOGRAPHY

Filipino-American pianist, Dr. Tristan Savella is an active performer, collaborative pianist, teacher and adjudicator based in Toronto. His career has taken him to performances at Carnegie’s Weill Recital Hall in New York City, the Schloss Mirabell in Salzburg, Austria, and the Canadian Opera Company’s Richard Bradshaw Amphitheatre in Toronto. Furthermore, Tristan is the recipient of multiple prizes at various national and international competitions, including third place at the Concours Flame in Paris, a finalist prize at YoungArts Week (sponsored by the National YoungArts Foundation) in Miami, and third place at the Glenn Gould School’s Chamber Music Competition.

Season highlights in 2024-25 include performances at the Kennedy Center’s Millennium Stage in Washington D.C., Syrinx Concerts Toronto, Doors Open for Music at Southminster in Ottawa, and the Kitchener-Waterloo Chamber Music Society. An avid chamber musician, his programs this season will feature works for solo piano, as well as works for piano four-hands, cello-piano duo, and oboe-piano duo.

Tristan began keyboard lessons at the age of four in the Philippines, and piano lessons at the age of eight after moving to the USA. He is an alumnus of various prestigious institutions such as the Interlochen Arts Academy, the Eastman School of Music (B.M.), the Universität Mozarteum Salzburg (M.A. with distinction) , the Royal Conservatory of Music’s Glenn Gould School (Artist Diploma), and the University of Toronto (D.M.A). He has had the privilege of working with esteemed pedagogues such as George Kern, John O’Conor, Lydia Wong, Jamie Parker, and the late Nelita True and Marietta Orlov.

In addition to performing, Tristan works as a private piano and music theory teacher in Toronto. He also works as a collaborative pianist at The Royal Conservatory of Music’s Glenn Gould School and Taylor Academy, as well as at the Canadian Children’s Opera Company. He has also served as an adjudicator for several local festivals and competitions including the Aegio International Piano Competition and for the Ontario Registered Music Teachers’ Association (ORMTA). Aside from music, Tristan enjoys traveling, cooking and is an avid, lifelong tennis fan.

To learn more, please visit his website or follow him on Instagram:

https://www.tristansavella.com/
Instagram: tpiano91

Quoted by DMV Classical as “[having] a consistently lovely tone and [taking] her melodic twists and turns with stylish assurance,” and from The Washington Post’s opera critic, Michael Andor Brodeur, as “frequently catching my ears from the pit,” Emily Tsai is a world renowned orchestral, chamber musician, and educator. She is the Assistant Principal Oboe of the Washington National Opera and Kennedy Center Opera House Orchestra and can be seen playing regularly at the prestigious Kennedy Center in Washington, DC on opera, ballet, and musical theater productions. She is also on faculty at the University of Maryland School of Music.

Emily is a former MKI Artist as the former oboist and touring director of the internationally renowned wind quintet, WindSync, gold medalist at the International Fischoff Competition, and medalist at the M-prize Chamber Arts Competition. She has performed with WindSync in prominent venues, such as Ravinia, IL, the Library of Congress, DC, the Grand Tetons Music Festival, WY, Strathmore, MD, and has taught artist residencies at many colleges and universities, including the Eastman School of Music, Northwestern University, Orchestra of the Americas, and New World Symphony. She has made solo appearances with the Lafayette Symphony Orchestra, the River Oaks Chamber Orchestra, the Alba Music Festival Orchestra, the Paragon Philharmonia, the Amadeus Orchestra, and others.

Emily has had the privilege of performing chamber music with such prominent musicians as Nathan Hughes, Frank Morelli, Clive Greensmith, Martin Chalifour, and Matthew Lipman.

Emily has been on a number of recorded albums and singles including WindSync’s 2024 album recorded at Abbey Road Studios, WindSync Plays Miguel del Aguila, which debuted at #1 on the Classical Billboard charts. Prior to that, she also recorded WindSync’s 2022 album, All Worlds, All Times, which debuted at #2 on the Classical Billboard charts.

Other recordings include WindSync’s Pulcinella Suite and D’amore Duo’s Behind the Moon, among others. She has also arranged and recorded many pieces for wind quintet and double reed choir.

Emily began her musical studies at the age of four on the violin and started the oboe when she was ten. Her main teachers include Mark Hill, Richard Killmer, and Malcolm Smith. Emily received her Bachelor of Music degree in Oboe Performance, with a Performer’s Certificate and the Chamber Music Award, from the Eastman School of Music, and her Bachelor of Science degree in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology from the University of Rochester, graduating Magna Cum Laude. She received her Master of Music from the University of Maryland, where she was part of the Graduate Fellowship Quintet.

In her downtime, Emily has completed a number of half marathons, a full marathon, an Olympic triathlon, and a Tough Mudder, and can be found on the pickleball court many weekends with her husband, Karl. Inside, she can be found playing video games, and spoiling her two adorable cats, Xenia and Perch.

Emily is a Lorée Artist and plays on a Lorée Royal oboe and a Lorée English Horn. Follow her on Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube for more information.

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