UD's Master Players Concert Series will present its season finale, "iMusic 6 – Languages of the World," at 8 p.m., Friday and Saturday, April 19 and 20, in Mitchell Hall.

April 19, 20: iMusic 6

Master Players to present season finale with iMusic 6 concert

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1:49 p.m., March 26, 2013--The University of Delaware Master Players Concert Series will present its season finale, “iMusic 6 – Languages of the World,” at 8 p.m., Friday and Saturday, April 19 and 20, in Mitchell Hall.

The multimedia, interdisciplinary “iMusic 6 – Languages of the World,” which follows the series’ successful “Six and 6ix” world premiere concerts last week, is created and directed by Xiang Gao, UD Trustees Distinguished Professor and MPCS artistic director.

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The concert will feature Gao, an internationally acclaimed violinist, and guest artists, including 22 UD student performers from various departments and faculty pianist Marie-Christine Delbeau.

Gao, who has created and produced the very popular family “iMusic” concert series for the past five years, said he is ready to treat music lovers with another multimedia performance.

To create “iMusic 6 – Languages of the World,” which he describes as the “most organic and powerful iMusic ever,” Gao spent the past six months collaborating with many accomplished international language educators, artists and linguists. 

The concert promotes the inner connection between music and languages from many regions of the world and the excellent foreign language education offered at UD, and also celebrates the 90th anniversary of the nationally acclaimed UD study abroad program.

The audience-friendly event will be hosted by Shuhan Wang, a UD alumna and former deputy director of the National Foreign Language Center at the University of Maryland and education associate for world languages and international education at the Delaware State Department of Education.

Tickets cost $25 for adults; $20 for UD faculty, staff, alumni and senior adults; and $10 for students. Advance tickets are available at the REP Box Office in the Roselle Center for the Arts or by calling 302-831-2204.

Biographies

Xiang Gao is recognized as one of the world's most successful performing artists of his generation from the People's Republic of China, and has gained accolades from audiences and reviewers for his musical integrity and virtuoso technique. He has performed for many international leaders, including former Chinese president Hu JinTao and the visiting King Carlos I of Spain.

Highlights of recent engagements include the North American premier of Eduard Tubin's Violin Concerto No. 1 with the Detroit Symphony; the 2011 world premiere of Kristin Kuster’s Two Jades for solo violin and symphony band in Disney Hall, Los Angeles and the National Center for Performing Arts, Beijing, China; and the U.S. premier performance of Eino Tamberg's violin concerto with the Absolute Ensemble in Merkin Hall, New York City.

As a member of the China Magpie ensemble established by Yo-Yo Ma's Silk Road Project and the 6ixwire Project, a crossover duet with erhu soloist Cathy Yang, Gao is frequently featured on CCTV, China's leading TV station, performing live concerts for more than one billion viewers worldwide. Both crossover ensembles combine multiple styles, from Chinese folk to western classical and rock music.

As a devoted chamber music performer and promoter, Gao has collaborated with some of the world's leading chamber musicians, including members of the Guarneri String Quartet, Opus One, Orion String Quartet and the Beaux Arts Trio. 

He is the founder and director of two non-profit art organizations -- the China Music Foundation and UD’s Master Players Concert Series. He is Trustees Distinguished Professor of Music at UD, and is also the ZiJiang Professor of Music at the East China Normal University in Shanghai, China, and the Distinguished Visiting Professor at the FuJian Normal University in FuZhou, China.

Gao performs on a fine violin by master luthier G.B. Ceruti of Cremona, Italy (1794), purchased by UD to support his international performing career. In 2007, the Stradivari Society in Chicago selected Gao to be a recipient of world famous Stradivarius violins for his international solo concerts. 

Marie-Christine Delbeau, pianist and associate professor of music at UD, has performed to critical acclaim in recitals throughout the United States and Europe, with Il Messagero fervently noting, "It was particularly compelling to follow the development of the music as guided by this great American pianist so in tune with the music, which she so intimately interprets." 

She has been a concerto soloist with numerous orchestras including the Delaware Symphony, Midland-Odessa Symphony, Austin Symphony and the Mid-Atlantic Chamber Ensemble. She has also performed in concert at the Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall in New York City

In addition to her appearances as soloist, Delbeau is an active chamber musician. She performed in the critically acclaimed gala concert "Fiddlefest" at Carnegie Hall with violinist Diane Monroe. There, she shared the stage with Ithzak Perlman, Isaac Stern, Midori, Arnold Steinhardt, Michael Tree, Samuel Sanders, Mark O’Conner and Billy Taylor.

Delbeau was also a member of Contrasts: Chamber Artists of Philadelphia, a group dedicated to featuring works by contemporary African-American composers. She has performed in recital with the eminent violinist Robert Mann and has performed in concerts with the Mendelssohn String Quartet.

Shuhan C. Wang is president of ELE Consulting International and is former deputy director of the National Foreign Language Center at the University of Maryland. She was co-principal investigator of the STARTALK project, a multi-year federally funded initiative that promotes the study and teaching of critical languages -- Arabic, Chinese, Dari, Hindi, Persian, Portuguese, Russian, Swahili, Turkish, and Urdu -- in the United States. 

From 2006-09, Wang was executive director for Chinese language initiatives at the Asia Society and prior to that she was education associate for world languages and international education at the Delaware Department of Education. Her collaborative efforts led Delaware to win the prestigious Goldman Sachs Award for Excellence in International Education in 2005.

Currently she serves as an Adviser for the Ministry of Education in Singapore on the Mother Tongue Language Project. She is a member of the board of directors of the Joint National Committee for Languages and the Leadership Team of the Alliance for the Advancement of Heritage Languages. 

Wang’s research interests include language planning and policy, world language and heritage language education, teacher education and development, and curriculum and materials development. Her academic work is published in books and peer-reviewed journals nationally and internationally, and her textbook series for K-6 learners has been adopted by many schools, school districts, and states and in Asia. 

Wang earned two master’s degrees, one from the Ohio State University and the other from UD. She received a doctorate in educational linguistics from the University of Pennsylvania.

Campus collaborators, performers

Artistic collaborators from the UD departments of Foreign Languages and Literatures and Linguistics and Cognitive Science, and the English Language Institute include:

Benjamin Bruening (Invented Languages), Iris Busch (German), Peter Cole (Endangered Languages), Eynat Gutman (Hebrew and Jewish Studies), Marcia P. Halio (English Language Institute), Julia Hulings (Russian), América Martínez (Spanish), Ikram Masmoudi (Arabic), Tim Mckinnon (Endangered Languages), Meredith K. Ray (Italian), Riccarda Saggese (Italian), Mutsuko Sato (Japanese), Nicole Servais(English Language Institute), Bruno Thibault (French), Lisa Thibault (German) and Chungmin Maria Tu (Chinese).

Featured UD student performers include:

Sarah Abeshouse, Mark Bockrath, Christina Brown, Matthew Tyler Brumbaugh, Jane Chandlee, Siyi Chen, Martin Drake, Alexa Greene, Meredith Greer, Rebecca Haggerty, Emily Harad, Allison Marie Herold, Kaitlyn Houser, Robert Kotheimer, Aric Christian Markl, Isabelle Marquez, Katherine Murphy, Erik Peterson, Chris Polisano, Megan Rosales, Tse-Min (Charlotte) Wang and Emily Weddle.

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