Sights meet sound with Utah Chamber Artists

Intermountain Catholic

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Utah Chamber Artists co-founder and director Barlow Bradford (left) presents and congratulates trombonist Larry Zalkind, pianist Vera Oussetskaia, pianist and violinist Eugene Watanabe, classical guitarist Todd Woodbury, the symphony orchestra, and the Utah Chamber Artists Choir who performed May 3-4. IC photo by Christine Young

SALT LAKE CITY — "It is not serendipity that the Utah Chamber Artists performed two nights for the Madeleine Festival May 3-4," said Drew Browning, Madeleine Festival program director. "If you have attended any of their Fall Collage Concert series at the Cathedral, you know that they are quite special.

"We invited them specifically to be a part of this centennial year festival, and we are delighted they chose to accept," said Browning.

The Utah Chamber Artists, joined by a full orchestra, the Cathedral’s Eccles Organ, Pianist Vera Oussetskaia, Pianist and Violinist Eugene Watanabe, Trombonist Larry Zalkind, Classical Guitarist Todd Woodbury. The Utah Chamber Artists are directed by Dr. Barlow Bradford.

The Utah Chamber Artists, based in Salt Lake City, was established in 1991, by Music Director Dr. Barlow Bradford. The ensemble consists of 40 singers and 40 players who together create a balance and sonority rarely found in a combined choir and orchestra.

Besides presenting the traditional and revered repertoire of the past, the group provides audiences with the contemporary works and regularly commissions new music. The musicians perform out of their love for great music and a genuine desire to enrich the lives of their listeners.

The choir and orchestra offer a concert season in Salt Lake City in addition to touring and recording.

The range of the Utah Chamber Artists is extensive, which is manifest by the musicians’ proficiency and enjoyment in performing music from all eras. They are as equally at home with music of the Renaissance as they are with jazz and popular music. Their concerts feature the choir and orchestra in tandem as well as highlighting each group separately.

Over the course of Bradford’s musical career, he has distinguished himself as a conductor, composer, arranger, pianist, organist, and teacher. As an orchestral and choral conductor, he co-founded the Utah Chamber Artists in 1991, and has led them to international acclaim for their award-winning recordings, including an INDIE from NAIRD (National Association of Independent Record Distributors & Manufacturers) for the CD "Welcome All Wonders," released in 1996 on the BWE label.

Utah Chamber Artists was featured on NPR’s "The First Art," a program dedicated to choral music and performed as a featured ensemble with the Boston Pops and Utah Symphony.

Bradford’s focused, energetic conducting style led to his appointment as music director of the Orchestra at Temple Square in Salt Lake City and associate director of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. Prior to that, he was director of orchestras at the University of Utah.

Russian born pianist and teacher Oussetskaia is one of only a few students to complete her entire musical training at the exclusive Gifted School and Conservatory in Ekaterinburg, Russia. She graduated with the highest Russian postgraduate degree "Aspirantura," equivalent to a doctoral degree in the U.S., from the Ural State Mussorgsky Music Conservatory as a pupil of Natalya Pankova.

As a soloist, Oussetskaia has toured extensively throughout the Russian Ural region with the Ural Symphony and Surgut Symphony, and also given more than 50 performances with the School for Gifted Children Orchestra. She currently resides and teaches in Utah.

Watanabe, an American pianist and violinist, has established an international reputation as a unique artist of his generation. The only student to graduate from the Curtis Institute of Music with double degrees in violin and piano, he has since performed with many renowned artists and orchestras in the world. After launching his career in 1989, with the New York String Orchestra at Carnegie Hall and the Kennedy Center, he performed with leading orchestras and chamber groups including Moscow State Symphony Orchestra, Hamburg Symphony, Calgary Philharmonic, Santa Barbara Symphony, the New Zealand String Quartet, and the Saint Lawrence String Quartet.

A native of Utah, Watanabe has performed over a dozen concertos with the Utah Symphony and has performed on concert tours on both piano and violin throughout the U.S. and abroad.

Zalkind is the Utah Symphony principal trombonist. He was 8 years old when he jumped at the chance to enter the music program at his local elementary school. Inspired by his favorite group The Tijuana Brass. He always wanted to play the trumpet. But there were no trumpets left, so his music teacher, Nora Graham, said he looked like a trombone player. He proceeded to carry the enormous trombone case home from school with the help of a fellow third grader.

Zalkind entered the California Institute of the Arts Youth program in eighth grade, and by age 17, was a student at the University of Southern California, where completed his bachelor’s and master’s degrees. In the fall of 1981, while pursuing his doctorate at the University of Michigan, at 25, he won the audition to become the principal trombonist for the Utah Symphony, a position he still holds.

Woodbury is one of Utah’s leading classical guitarists. For more than two decades he has performed and toured throughout the Western United States as both a soloist and with ensembles. Woodbury has performed with the Utah and Colorado Springs Symphonies, the Utah Chamber Artists and the Ririe-Woodbury Dance Company along with many of Salt Lake’s chamber groups and series. He has been on the touring arts programs in Utah, Idaho, Washington, South Dakota, and Arizona.

Woodbury has performed in the Cathedral of the Madeleine on a number of occasions with various arts organizations, and is currently on the faculties of the University of Utah, Westminster College, and Weber State University.