Sayun Chang- Percussion

Multi-percussionist Sayun Chang’s musical interests range from traditional and contemporary classical music to many diverse disciplines of world music. She has collaborated with Taiwanese indigenous dance groups on several occasions, and she has performed in international folk festivals throughout Turkey, Greece, Canada and Hungary.

In 2011, Sayun participated in the Summer Institute of Contemporary Performance Practice at New England Conservatory, Boston. Later that summer, she presented the world premiere of Che-Yi Lee’s Fantasy on the Love of Shiao-Guei Lake for violin and marimba in MiaoLi, Taiwan.

During 2009 and 2010, she performed Anders Koppel’s Marimba Concerto No. 1 with The Sound of the Spring Orchestra, and also gave the world premiere of Feng-Hsu Lee’s percussion concerto, Love Songs from The Kalabai River, with the Evergreen Symphony Orchestra in Taipei, Taiwan.

Currently, Sayun is a doctoral student at The Hartt School, where she studies orchestral percussion with Ben Toth and multiple-hand drumming with Shane Shanahan.

She received her Master’s Degree from The Hartt School and Bachelor’s Degree from Taipei National University of the Arts. Her past teachers have included Ted Piltzecker (Jazz Vibes), Rogerio Baccato (Brazilian drumming), John Amira (Cuban and Haitian drumming), Joe Galeota (African drumming), Pei-Ching Wu, and Tzong-Ching Ju. She was a member of the Ju Percussion Group and Youth Concert Band in Taiwan.

Yu-Hao Chang- Violin 

Yu-Hao Chang, a passionate violinist, has a wide variety of performing experiences as a soloist, chamber music and orchestral player. He is adept at presenting many genres of music such as Classical, contemporary, world music, and pop music. In addition, he arranges Taiwanese Aboriginal folk music into his violin compositions and improvisations. Mr. Chang was born in Taiwan, 1987. He started learning music with his mother, a music teacher, and has studied violin since the age of 7. Yu-Hao obtained the first prize of the Miaoli County Music Competition when he was in 8th grade. He studied violin performance with Chih-chao Yang during high school, and afterwards earned his Bachelor Degree of Music at the Taipei National University of Arts under the instruction of Nancy Tsung. Currently, he is a Master of Music student of Anton Miller at The Hartt School, the University of Hartford.

Charles Huang– Oboe & English horn

 Dr. Charles Huang has performed in chamber music and solo recitals in the United States and Canada, as well as Mexico, Brazil, Germany, Thailand and throughout Taiwan. He has concertized with members of the Miami String Quartet, the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, and with soloists Humbert Lucarelli, Henrique Pinto, and Angel Romero. A founding member of Oboe Duo Agosto and the Sylvanus Ensemble, he is active in commissioning new works and advancing a wide variety of repertoire for their concerts. Huang has been a Fulbright Scholar, semi-finalist in the Concert Artists Guild International Competition, scholarship recipient to the Music Academy of the West and the Norfolk Chamber Music Festival, and a winner of the Miami String Quartet Competition. Currently he serves as Chair of Chamber Music at The Hartt School, and in the summer Huang teaches at the Festival Eleazar de Carvalho in Fortaleza, Brazil.

Han-Wei Lu– Cello

Taiwanese-born cellist Han-Wei Lu has concertized in recitals and music festivals in North, South America, Austria and Taiwan. Ms. Lu has collaborated with such renowned musicians as Katy Lansdale, Marcy Rosen and Bright Sheng. A founding member of the Sylvanus Ensemble and the 016 New Music Ensemble, she recently completed a concert tour in Taiwan and several performances in Connecticut. Ms. Lu has also participated in master classes with Timothy Eddy, Slovatcri Serghvsky and the Miami String Quartet. Ms. Lu received her Master’s Degree at The Hartt School, University of Hartford, where she was awarded a full-tuition scholarship to be a member of the chamber music program, Performance 20/20. She completed an Artist Diploma from The Hartt School, under the tutelage of Mihai Tetel.

Kum Joung You– Violin & Viola  

Kum Joung You was born and raised in Seoul, South Korea. After high school, he decided to further his musical studies in the United States, by attending the State University of New York at Fredonia. Among the numerous scholarships and awards he has received, are the Harry King Award, the Julet Rosch Award, 1st Prize in the Concerto Competition at EKU, and 2nd Prize in National Violin Competition at Kimpo College in South Korea. He is also a two-time winner of the Hot Spring Music Festival Violin Competition (06, 08). Mr. You continued his education at The Hartt School, where he received a Master of Music degree in violin performance in 2009, and a Graduate Performance Diploma, focusing on viola performance in 2011. He is currently pursuing an Artist Diploma in viola performance. He has studied extensively with Katie Lansdale, Janet Sung, Steve Larson, and Rita Porfiris.

Wen-Hui Lily Lin– Piano

Pianist Wen-Hui Lily Lin, D.M.A., has concertized and participated in music festivals in Russia, Argentina, Taiwan, Thailand, Spain, and the United States. In 2006 Dr. Lin performed with the Tucumán Symphony Orchestra in Argentina; she has given other recitals in locations such as the prestigious Steinway Hall in New York and the historical Rachmaninoff Hall in Moscow, Russia.  An active chamber musician, she is a founding member of the Sylvanus Ensemble, with whom she recently completed a concert tour in Taiwan. Her particular interest in contemporary music has led to premieres of several works written expressly for her, and also collaboration with the Hartt Bass Ensemble at the “Bang on a Can” Contemporary Music Marathon in New York City. Dr. Lin has been an Assistant Professor at the College of Music, Mahidol University in Salaya, Thailand since 2010.

Ling-Fei Kang– Oboe 

A native of Taiwan, oboist Ling-Fei Kang is an avid chamber musician. Her concert engagements have brought her to North, South America, Thailand and Taiwan. She is a grant-recipient of Le Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec, and a founding member of Oboe Duo Agosto and the Sylvanus Ensemble. She has performed with world-renowned musicians such as Ancuza Aprodu, the faculty members at the Festival Eleazar de Carvalho in Brazil, and the Montreal Symphony Orchestra. Ms. Kang graduated with the Prix avec grande distinction from the Conservatoire de musique de Montréal and also earned an Artist Diploma from The Hartt School, of the University of Hartford. Her principal teachers include Humbert Lucarelli and Bernard Jean.

The Sylvanus Ensemble performed two pieces (Mandarin Ducks, ob & Eh; Three Street Pieces, arranged for ob, Eh, va & vc)  by Phil Salathé at the Brazilian Endowment for the Arts in New York City on Friday, October 21, 2011 at 8pm.

Phil Salathé (b. 1976) spent his formative musical years playing jazz trumpet, making homemade musique concrète on an old tape deck, and getting in trouble for surreptitiously composing in high school chemistry class. His music has been performed in the United States, Canada, Europe, and Asia, and ranges widely in scale and scope, from multi-movement compositions for large ensembles (Divisions for soprano saxophone and chamber orchestra), to pieces for electronic media (On the Beach), to miniatures for solo instruments or duos (Ajándék for cello and percussion, written for the Uncanny Valley cello-percussion duo).

He has studied at Bennington College (B.A. 1998) and the Hartt School (M.M. 2006, A.D. 2007), and is currently a doctoral candidate at Stony Brook University, where he teaches courses in composition, theory, and analysis in the undergraduate and Pre-College programs. His teachers have included John Luther Adams, Robert Carl, Perry Goldstein, Stephen Gryc, Bun-Ching Lam, Tobias Picker, Allen Shawn, Daria Semegen, Stephen Siegel, Ken Steen, and Peter Winkler.

In addition to composing, Phil has penned articles and reviews for the Hartford Courant and Masstransfer magazine, among other publications. He recently contributed musical analysis and commentary to Julian Palacios’s book Syd Barrett and Pink Floyd: Dark Globe, released in October 2010.

Previous Composer in Collaboration

The Sylvanus Ensemble commissioned a new piece from Feng-Hsu Lee for their concert in April, 2011.

Taiwanese composer Feng-Hsu Lee, has received numerous awards, among them, the runner-up of the Minnesota Orchestra Composer Institute (2010), honorable mention for the Chamber Music Rochester Young Composer Competition, (2009), the Anthony and Carolyn Donato Prize of the Eastman School of Music (2008), the second prize in the Literature and Arts Creation Award of the Ministry of Education in Taiwan (2008), the first prize in the Taipei Percussion Composition Competition (2002), the first prize in the National Taiwan Symphony Orchestra International Composition Competition (2001).

Feng-Hsu Lee’s commissioned works include, those for the Council for Cultural Affairs Taiwan, Evergreen Symphony Orchestra, YinQi Symphony Orchestra and Chorus, Central Connecticut State University Chamber Players, Performance 20/20 of The Hartt School, Taipei Century Choir, Taiwanese Choral Society of Rochester, Lien Percussion, and Composition VII Saxophone Quartet.

Mr. Lee is currently pursuing Doctoral of Musical Arts degree in Composition at the Hartt School, University of Hartford, studying with Robert Carl and David Macbride. He holds the degree of composition from the Eastman School of Music (MM), National Taiwan Normal University (MA) and Soochow University (BM), studying with Ricardo Zohn-Muldoon, Carlos Sánchez-Gutiérrez, and Gordon Shi-Wen Chin.