Thursday Scholarship Concert features Liza Stepanova and David Fung

Hugh Hodgson School of Music professors Liza Stepanova and David Fung will open the 2018 Thursday Scholarship Series on 11 January at 7:30 p.m. with an unforgettable evening of piano performances in Hodgson Hall. The performance features works by Mendelssohn-Hensel, Granados, Bach, Ince, Liszt, Mozart, Villa-Lobos and Ravel, spanning 300 years of piano composition and showcasing their international reputations as concert artists.  Both musicians were newly appointed to permanent, tenure-track positions in piano at UGA this year.

The originally scheduled concert on January 11 by Professor Evgeny Rivkin will be rescheduled at a later date this spring.  Tickets previously purchased for Rivkin’s performance will be honored at the Stepanova/Fung event, and current ticket holders who purchased tickets for the Rivkin performance before 1/5 will receive more information about the rescheduled performance in the mail soon.

Liza Stepanova, a Hodgson School faculty member since 2015, has established herself as a leading educator and performer.

In the 2016-17 season, Stepanova performed at the Mostly Mozart Festival at Lincoln Center, Spivey Hall, the Kravis Center, Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall, on tour in Israel, at the Copenhagen Summer Music Festival, and with New York Philharmonic Ensembles. She served on the faculties at the Juilliard School and Smith College prior to joining UGA.

The 2017-18 season will see the release of Stepanova’s first solo piano CD, recorded in New York City with Grammy Award-winning producer Adam Abeshouse. Other season highlights include an Albany Records release featuring world premiere recordings of chamber music by composer Tom Cipullo, solo recitals in Atlanta, Minneapolis, San Francisco, and New York City, a residency at the University of North Texas, and chamber music performances at the Resonant Bodies Festival in New York City, Princeton University Summer Concerts, and at the Kravis Center for the Performing Arts in Palm Beach.

Since 2010, Stepanova has been on the faculty at SongFest at The Colburn School in Los Angeles and also served as the festival’s Associate Artistic Director and Piano Program Director for two years. She is a member of the Lysander Piano Trio, which won the 2012 Concert Artists Guild Competition and 2011 Coleman Competition Grand Prize. Stepanova received her DMA from The Juilliard School with a Richard F. French Award for outstanding doctoral work.

David Fung is the first piano graduate of the Colburn Conservatory in Los Angeles and a recent Yale DMA graduate. He has performed as soloist with the Israel Philharmonic, Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, Cleveland Orchestra, San Francisco Symphony, Melbourne Symphony, Sydney Symphony, and many others.

Performances from the 2016-17 season include a debut performance with the Cleveland Orchestra at the Blossom Music Festival and performances at Caramoor, Tippet Rise Art Center, Bravo! Niagara Festival of the Arts, and Schloss Elmau, as well as his New York recital debut presented by Lincoln Center’s Great Performers. 

In 2017-18, he has solo recital debuts at the Brussels Piano Festival and the Kennedy Center presented by Washington Performing Arts, and performances with Orpheus, Albany Symphony, and Marin Symphony.  He returns to the Ravinia Festival and Lincoln Center’s Great Performers this season. As a recitalist and chamber musician, Fung is a frequent guest artist at prestigious festivals and venues worldwide, including the Aspen Music Festival, Edinburgh International Festival, and Hong Kong Arts Festival.  

Fung garnered international attention as a winner in two of the "top five" international piano competitions (the Queen Elisabeth International Music Competition in Brussels and the Arthur Rubinstein Piano International Masters Competition in Tel Aviv).  In Tel Aviv, he was further distinguished by the Chamber Music and Mozart Prizes, awarded in areas in which Fung has a particularly passionate interest.  

Tickets for the performance are $20 or $6 with a UGA student ID. Tickets are available at the Performance Arts Center box office, online at http://pac.uga.edu or by phone at 706-542-4400. Those unable to attend can watch the concert live on the Hodgson School’s website: music.uga.edu/streaming.

The Thursday Scholarship Series began in 1980 and, as the flagship concert series at the Hugh Hodgson School of Music, continues the tradition of “Music Appreciation Programs” started by Hugh Hodgson himself in the 1930s. Proceeds from contributions and ticket sales to these concerts are among the primary means through which School of Music scholarship funds are raised each year.

The UGA Hugh Hodgson School of Music sponsors more than 350 performances each year. To view the performance calendar, subscribe to the weekly email concert listing, and learn more about the School of Music, go to music.uga.edu.