2012
Postmark Deadline for MusicFest
MusicFest: 11am to 6pm at Southern Pianos
Postmark Deadline : Local Auditions: .
Local Auditions: At Georgia State University
MTNA National Conference: Details from the MTNA website
AMTA meeting and Presentation: At Cooper Pianos; Featuring Soohyu Yun; Pianist, Soohyun Yun, born in Korea, has explored solo and chamber music from baroque to contemporary and performed in venues throughout Germany, Korea and the US. New York Concert Review said "Yun unleashed much passion and color along the way.." at her solo debut recital at Carnegie Weill Recital Hall, NY in 2008. Again, Yun was invited to perform at the same hall in April, 2009 upon her winning First Prize of 2009 American Protégé International Piano Competition.

Her numerous awards include Pro-Mozart Scholarship Competition Award, Artists International’s Special Presentation Award, 21st Century Piano Commission Award, NY Dorothy MacKenzie Award and prizes of Bradshaw & Buono International Piano Competition. Yun's enthusiasm for contemporary music brought her to perform a piano solo, Cloches d’adieu, et un sourire... in memoriam Olivier Messiaen by Tristan Murail, who was a pupil of Messiaen, at the composer's presence at Krannert Center in Illinois in 2002. Yun received DMA and MM in Piano Performance under Professor Ian Hobson and MM in Piano Pedagogy under Professor Reid Alexander from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and BM in Piano Performance under Myung-Won Shin from Yonsei University, Korea. Yun extended her summer studies at Mannes School, NY and at Hochschule "Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy," in Leipzig, Germany. As an educator, clinician and adjudicator, Yun has been actively involved in local MTNA chapters while she has taught in venues. Previously, she taught at University of Idaho at Moscow, Millikin University in Decatur, IL, coordinated Piano Laboratory Program in University of Illinois. Since 2010, Yun serves as an Assistant Professor of Piano at Kennesaw State University where she teaches applied lessons, piano literature, piano pedagogy, small chamber groups and accompanying classes, oversees class piano and coordinates the piano area.
AMTA meeting and Presentation: At Cooper Pianos; Featuring David Kalhous; David Kalhous is increasingly gaining recognition in Europe and the United States for his elegant musicianship, brilliant pianism, probing intelligence, and adventurous programming. With wide-ranging repertoire spanning three centuries, he is equally at home with music of Scarlatti and Bach, Beethoven and Chopin, and Ligeti and Feldman. In demand both as soloist and chamber musician, David Kalhous has recently performed Beethoven's Third and Fifth Piano Concerti with the Czech Chamber Philharmonic Orchestra and appeared both as soloist and chamber musician at Northwestern University in Chicago, Czech Radio's Studio Live Concert Series, Bertramka Concert Series in Prague, and Beethoven Festival in North Bohemia. He attended the Gilmore Keyboard Festival as a Gilmore Fellow.

He appeared recently as a soloist with Prague Philharmonia, Israel Symphony Orchestra and Moravian Philharmonic. David Kalhous's debut solo recital at the Prague Spring Festival received critical acclaim, and he has been invited to present solo recitals at Prague Symphony Orchestra's World Piano Literature recital series, Bargemusic (Masterworks and Here and Now series), Bechstein Piano Center, and Cornelia Street Café (Classical at the Cornelia) in New York City, Czech Philharmonic Chamber Music Society, Konvergence New Music Series in Prague, International Music Festival Český Krumlov, and Czech Center in Brussels, to name a few. His collaborations with orchestras last season included a performance of Brahms' D Minor concerto with the North Bohemia Symphony Orchestra and Mendelssohn’s Double Concerto for Violin and Piano with the Plzeň Philharmonic Orchestra.

David Kalhous has also appeared as a soloist with the Prague Symphony Orchestra FOK, Chamber Philharmonia Pardubice, West-Bohemia Symphony Orchestra, and Musici de Praga among others and has worked with such conductors as Libor Pešek, Eli Jaffe, Leoš Svárovský, Stanislav Vavřínek and Marián Valčuha. He has also made various recordings for the Czech Radio and Television. In addition, David Kalhous was the author and host of a series of radio programs devoted to music for piano and its interpretation that were produced and broadcast by the radio station Classic FM in Prague. Czech Television's Channel 2 showed a documentary film about David Kalhous, and his new CD featuring complete piano works of Leoš Janáček will be released this year.

David Kalhous's interest in new music has resulted in close collaboration with many European and American composers who have written works expressly for him. He has performed with and under the auspices of the Northwestern University Contemporary Music Ensemble (György Ligeti Memorial Concert, Steve Reich Celebration, American premiere of Peter Ablinger's 6 Linien), and presented numerous contemporary music recitals in New York, Chicago, and several European cities. He was the first pianist to present recently the first book of György Ligeti's piano Études and Morton Feldman's For Bunita Marcus in Prague. David Kalhous is cooperating on several projects with Konvergence Composers Association in Prague and with SoundField, a Philadelphia-based new and experimental music organization. His new recording project slated for release in the 2013/2014 season, “Piano Music from Prague,” will feature newly commissioned pieces by six leading Czech composers, written specifically for David Kalhous.

David Kalhous began his professional studies at the Prague Conservatory as a student of Jaroslav Čermák. His attended such institutions as Hochschule für Musik und darstellende Kunst in Vienna, the Rubin Academy of Music at Tel-Aviv University, Yale University, and studied with Paul Badura Skoda, Emil Leichner, Victor Derevianko, David Northington, and Peter Frankl. He also worked with Jerome Lowenthal at the Music Academy of the West in Santa Barbara. David Kalhous is completing a Doctor of Musical Arts degree at Northwestern University in Chicago, working with Ursula Oppens. In the 2009/10 academic year, he served as professor of piano at Texas Tech University School of Music. He is currently Assistant Professor of Piano at Florida State University College of Music.

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