Gateways ARTISTS CONCERT

ABOUT THE ARTISTS

KELLY HALL-TOMPKINS, VIOLIN | Winner of a Naumburg International Violin Competition Honorarium Prize and featured in the Smithsonian Museum for African-American History and Culture, Hall-Tompkins is a violin soloist entrepreneur who has been acclaimed by the New York Times as “the versatile violinist who makes the music come alive,” for her “tonal mastery” (BBC Music Magazine) and as a New York Times “New Yorker of the Year.”

She has appeared as co-soloist in Carnegie Hall with Glenn Dicterow and conductor Leonard Slatkin, in London at Queen Elizabeth Hall, at Lincoln Center and with the Symphonies of Baltimore, Dallas, Jacksonville, Oakland, recitals in Paris, New York, Toronto, Washington, Chicago, and festivals of Tanglewood, Ravinia, Santa Fe, and in France, Germany and Italy.

As founder of Music Kitchen-Food for the Soul, Kelly Hall-Tompkins is a pioneer of social justice in classical music, bringing top artists to over 100 concerts in homeless shelters coast to coast from New York to Los Angeles, and internationally in Paris, France. Music Kitchen commissioned and will present the world premiere of Hall-Tomkins’ Forgotten Voices Song Cycle in Association with Carnegie Hall.

Hall-Tomkins earned a Master’s degree from the Manhattan School of Music under the mentorship of Glenn Dicterow, concertmaster of the New York Philharmonic. While there, she was concertmaster of both of the school’s orchestras. Prior to that, she earned a Bachelor of Music degree with honors in violin performance with a minor in French from the Eastman School of Music studying with Charles Castleman. While at Eastman, she won the school’s prestigious Performer’s Certificate Competition.

ALEXANDER LAING, CLARINET | Alex Laing began studying the clarinet at age 11 in his hometown of Silver Spring, MD. In 2002, he joined the Phoenix Symphony as principal clarinet. A graduate of Northwestern University, he received his master’s degree from the Manhattan School of Music, an artist’s diploma from the Sweelinck Conservatorium Amsterdam and a certificate in nonprofit management from Arizona State University’s Lodestar Center for Philanthropy and Nonprofit Innovation. Laing has held fellowships at the Tanglewood Music Center, New World Symphony, Aspen Music Festival and the Detroit Symphony Orchestra. He is Vice-Chair of Gateways Music Festival’s board of directors and chairs the board’s Artistic Programs Committee.

SAKURA MYERS, PIANO | SAKURA MYERS, PIANO | Described as an artist with “hands of steel, a heart of lava, and courage of a lion” by Dr. Cornell West, SAKURA most recently made her debut with the New Jersey Symphony under the baton of Mark Laycock, performing J.S. Bach’s Piano Concerto for Four Pianos BMW1065. She has performed throughout the United States, Europe, and Asia. With innovative programming that seeks to cross-pollinate varying musical styles, SAKURA continues to cultivate a new, untapped audience among the most unlikely of listeners. Second place winner of the Josef Suk International Piano Competition in Prague, Czech Republic and winner of the Rising Star Award for her artistic excellence and creative merit as a concert pianist from the Thomas Study Music Guild, SAKURA is a young emerging concert artist whose “intensity and stellar technique” inspire soulful performances leaving audiences indelibly spellbound. With “profound power”, she communicates incisively and challenges concert-goers with her daring sense of style. In her pursuit to translate the beauty, intellect and brilliance of Western Classical Music in non-traditional events, SAKURA played with singer Sumayya Ali for the debut collection of New York-based designer Nzinga Knight at New York’s Fashion Week, performing an all-new arrangement of Rachmaninoff’s Vocalise. SAKURA also acted alongside Clarke Peters and Colman Domingo in Spike Lee’s “Red Hook Summer.” Sakura holds a Master of Music Degree from Manhattan School of Music.

TROY STUART, CELLO | Troy Kenneth Stuart, gifted American cellist and highly respected pedagogue, has shared his passion for the cello and chamber music through his teaching at the Peabody Institute of Johns Hopkins University (Preparatory and Conservatory), Baltimore School for the Arts, Third Street Music Settlement (NYC), and the Maryland Talent Education Center. He has also served on the faculties of Opus 118 (NYC), Schwob School of Music (GA - Visiting Professor), and Morgan State University. In recent summers, Stuart has taught at Apple Hill Chamber Music Center, Reveille Music Camp, Kinhaven, and Musicordia.

Highlights from recent seasons, as a soloist, recitalist and chamber musician: performing the Beethoven Triple Concerto at Eastman School of Music with the Gateways Chamber Orchestra, presenting a duo recital with violin virtuoso Tai Murray at the Harvard Club in NYC, appearing in the Dorot Series in NYC―a concert of viola quintets (with Todd Phillips, Katherine Cho, Cynthia Phelps, and Maureen Gallagher), and a recital on the Four Seasons Series in San Francisco. For ten years, Stuart was a founding member of the Ritz Chamber Players. He has toured nationally, recorded, held residencies in Baltimore, Washington, DC, and Florida, and was featured on the international FOX-TV broadcast of the NAACP Image Awards.

In 1988 Stuart was invited to participate in the internationally televised (CBS) Kennedy Center Honors in honor of violinist/conductor Alexander Schneider, where he performed alongside Isaac Stern, Jamie Laredo, Michael Tree, Sharon Robinson, and Pamela Frank. In 1993, concert pianist and Gateways Music Festival founder Armenta Hummings Dumisani invited Stuart to participate in the then newly formed Gateways Music Festival where he continues to serve as principal cellist.

Stuart is a graduate of Peabody Conservatory, Baltimore School for the Arts, and Oberlin Conservatory of Music. Major teachers included Richard Kapuchinski, Steve Doane, Norman Fischer, and Ronald Thomas. He has coached chamber music with Apple Hill Chamber Players, Isidore Cohen, Abraham Skernick, Timothy Eddy, Isaac Stern and members of the Guarneri, Juilliard, Vermeer, Lydian, Audubon and Smithson Quartets.

Stuart is the recipient of numerous awards, including the Freidberg Lecture/Artist Award, and the Martell Cordon Bleu Award, presented by actor/musician Dudley Moore and the Seagram Company Ltd.

TITUS UNDERWOOD, OBOE | Emmy Award-winner and principal oboe of the Nashville Symphony Orchestra, Titus Underwood serves as associate professor at the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music and teaching artist for Aspen Music Festival and the National Youth Ensembles program at Carnegie Hall. Underwood has performed with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, Miami Symphony Orchestra, Florida Orchestra, Atlanta Symphony, Puerto Rico Symphony and San Diego Symphony. Additionally, he has played principal oboe in Chineke!, Gateways Music Festival and Bellingham Festival of Music orchestras. A 2021 recipient of the Sphinx Medal of Excellence award, Underwood received his Master of Music from The Juilliard School and bachelor’s from the Cleveland Institute of Music. Underwood teaches and mentors at the National Alliance for Audition Support program administered by the League of American Orchestras, the Sphinx Organization, and New World Symphony. His latest project includes a short film he directed entitled A Tale of Two Tails.

ABOUT THE MORGAN LIBRARY & MUSEUM

A museum and independent research library located in the heart of New York City, the Morgan Library & Museum began as the personal library of financier, collector, and cultural benefactor Pierpont Morgan. The Morgan offers visitors close encounters with great works of human accomplishment in a setting treasured for its intimate scale and historic significance. Its collection of manuscripts, rare books, music, drawings, and works of art comprises a unique and dynamic record of civilization, as well as an incomparable repository of ideas and of the creative process from 4000 BC to the present.