Oak Ridge Coffee Concert Feb. 26 to include KSO Music and Wellness String Quartet

The Oak Ridge Civic Music Association (ORCMA) has announced the next coffee concert of the season will be at 2 p.m. Sunday at the United Church, Chapel on the Hill, 85 Kentucky Ave.

Members of the KSO Music and Wellness String Quartet, Zofia Glashauser, and Sean Claire, violins, Josh Ulrich, viola and Stacy Nickell, cello, will perform music by Smetana, William Grant Still and others.

Glashauser joined the KSO for the 2016-17 season. She is currently the concertmaster of the South Bend Symphony Orchestra, the assistant concertmaster of the Northwest Indiana Symphony Orchestra and a member of the Fort Wayne Philharmonic. She is also an active chamber musician, playing violin with the Michigan City Chamber Music Festival and the South Bend Symphony String Quintet, according to a news release.

Glashauser was born in Krakow, Poland. Upon her arrival in America, she was immediately accepted into the studio of pedagogue Renata Knific at Western Michigan University. While there, she was both a winner of the 2001 concerto competition and a semi-finalist in the Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition. She then continued her studies at Northwestern University for a master’s degree in the combined studio of Roland and Almita Vamos.

Glashauser is also an avid soloist, having performed with various orchestras on violin concertos by Tchaikovsky, Vieuxtemps, and Mozart, as well as “brilliante” works by Wieniawski, Sarasate and Kreisler. "These performances were lauded by audience and critics alike. Her playing is often characterized as having a sublime, yet fiery passion and a fine, crystalline technique," according to the release.

Glashauser has also been a member of the Civic Orchestra of Chicago, the Kalamazoo Symphony, and the Lira Orchestra of Chicago. With these and other orchestras, she has worked under conductors Daniel Barenboim, Claudio Abbado, and Sir Neville Mariner.

Claire has been a violinist with the Knoxville Symphony Orchestra since 1990, has appeared several times as soloist with the Knoxville Symphony Chamber Orchestra, and holds the distinction of being the first of a select group of solo performers in the KSO’s Music and Wellness program. In 2010, Claire was appointed to the position of concertmaster of Symphony of the Mountains (SOTM) with which he has appeared as soloist on several occasions, and he is a very active chamber musician and recitalist in the East Tennessee area. His orchestral credits include the Syracuse Symphony, Nashville Chamber Orchestra, and Asheville Symphony, among others. He is a 15-year veteran of the Crested Butte Music Festival from 2002-2016.

Raised in California, Claire began his training at age 11, made his first solo appearance with the North Coast Symphony at 15, and at 16, he was admitted to San Diego State University with a full scholarship under the tutelage of Professor Michael Tseitlin; he later continued studies at the Eastman School of Music with Professor, Zvi Zeitlin.

Ulrich has performed internationally as soloist, recitalist, and chamber musician. His growing artistic reputation is supported by having collaborated with such esteemed artists as James Tocco, Awadagin Pratt, and Anton Nel. He was educated at the Juilliard School and the College-Conservatory of Music at the University of Cincinnati.

His teachers include Dorothy Delay, Won-Bin Yim, Edward Dusinberre, Geraldine Walther, Hyo Kang, Joel Smirnoff, and Cho-Liang Lin. He has performed in master classes taught by Midori, Pinchas Zuckerman, Cheeyun Kim, and Igor Ozim. He has been awarded fellowships at the Aspen Music Festival and Bowdoin International Music Festival and was a Shouse Artist at the Great Lakes Chamber Music Festival. As an orchestral musician, he was a performer with the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, an associate musician with the Columbus Symphony Orchestra, and the associate concertmaster of the Richmond Symphony Orchestra, Indiana.

He has just completed a post-graduate degree at the University of Colorado-Boulder, where he and the Altius Quartet were the Fellowship String Quartet-in-Residence working with the Takács Quartet.

Nickell moved to Tennessee and began playing cello with the KSO in 1998. She won a position with the full-time string section of the symphony in 2001. Throughout the seasons she has performed with various small ensembles in the region, in addition to her regular string quartet work with the KSO.

Currently, she is a part of the KSO’s Music and Wellness program, which regularly offers musical services to area hospitals and patients. In 2016, she earned, along with other quartet members, certification as a music practitioner through training in the Music for Healing & Transition Program (MHTP) specifically targeting patient care.

She has enjoyed teaching cello throughout her career and consistently has a studio of a dozen students who participate in annual recitals in area churches, schools and in her home. She was awarded a teaching certificate in 2001 from the University of Tennessee for K-12 instrumental music and has taught orchestra in Knox County Schools. In 2020 she received an Outstanding Teacher Award from The Tennessee Governors School of the Arts.

Prior to moving to Tennessee, she was assistant principal cello for 12 years with the West Virginia Symphony.

Her early instruction on cello was with Ukrainian World War II refugee Eric Stein, who had settled in her hometown of Salina, Kansas, with his family. She would go on to receive a bachelor of Music from Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas, and an MFA in Music Performance from The Ohio University.

This coffee concert is free and open to the public. Refreshments will be served at a reception following the performance. For more information, check the ORCMA website or email susanshor@yahoo.com.

This article originally appeared on Oakridger: Oak Ridge Coffee Concert Sunday: KSO Music and Wellness String Quartet