Summer Chamber Series continues July 24 with "Echoes of the Forest: Cello, Fauna, and Flora"
Award-winning Canadian cellist Marie-Elaine Gagnon will present a classical music program on Thursday, July 24 at 7 pm in the Childwold Memorial Presbyterian Church. The program includes works by Gabriel Fauré, Alberto Ginastera, Camille Saint-Saëns, Heitor Villa-Lobos, and a few more surprises! Think of the Swan, Papillon, Silent Woods, etc... She will be accompanied by Risa Okina on piano.
Dr. Gagnon is a first prize-winner of numerous music competitions in Canada, which led to many solo performances in her native home. In 2000, she was chosen amongst several young candidates to perform a cello recital for the prestigious Canadian Broadcasting Company program: "Jeunes Artists." Gagnon has performed in many music festivals, including: Le Festival International du Domaine Forget, The Penderecki String Quartet Chamber Workshop, Orford Music Center and The National Youth Orchestra of Canada. In May 2002, she was the first cellist to win a scholarship from the D. Robinson Foundation to study at the Aspen Music Festival. Her participation in these many music festivals gave her the opportunity to study with well-known cellists such has Leslie Snider (Quebec), Sharon Robinson (Indiana), Desmond Hoebig (Cleveland), Philipe Muller (Paris), Roland Pidoux (Trio Pasquier), Paul Watkins (London), and David Ellis (Alcan String Quartet).
An avid chamber music player, Marie-Elaine was a member of the Rawlins Piano Trio from 2007 to 2017, in residence at the University of South Dakota. The trio has formed a reputation as a preeminent interpreter of 19th and early 20th century American music. Owing to its expertise, the ensemble has recorded four CDs of these works on the Albany Records label. The fourth disc- American Discoveries-, released in July 2009-is "...another winner from the Rawlins Trio...they continue their work of bringing us American composers' music that is worth hearing...Their playing is artful, suave and pleasing." (Morrison) Since joining the Rawlins Piano Trio in 2007, Dr. Gagnon has toured in Taiwan, South Korea and Panama. She has performed to prestigious music conferences such as the Chamber Music Society in New York and the College Music Society National conference in San Diego.
A strong advocate for music education and outreach, Dr. Gagnon has taught at the Barry University in Miami and prior to join the music faculty at the University of South Dakota, taught at the Université de Montréal for the Preparatory Program. She was associate professor of cello and chamber music at the University of South Dakota since 2007. Raised in Québec, she received her Diplôme d'Étude Supérieur I at the Conservatoire de Musique de Montréal, her Diplôme d'Étude Supérieur II from the Conservatoire de Musique de Québec, M.M. from the Florida International University and finally her D.M.A from the University of Miami. Several times a year, she performs with her newly formed ensemble, the Zapateado Duo with Venezuelan-born pianist Angelica Sganga. Gagnon is principal cello for the Sioux City Symphony since 2015 and owns a cello made in 1904 by the French Master Paul Bailly. She is an assistant professor of cello at the Crane School of Music, SUNY Potsdam.
Risa Okina is a theorist and collaborative pianist who has performed throughout the United States and Japan. Before moving to upstate New York, she was a much-sought-after collaborative pianist in the Philadelphia area and regularly performed with students and local musicians. She has also collaborated with many local opera and theater groups, including the Philadelphia-based opera company, ENAensemble. She was a member of the Toradze Piano Studio, where she studied with the world-renowned pianist Alexander Toradze. She performed regularly at the Toradze Studio Recital series during her master's program.
Dr. Okina received her Ph.D. in Music Theory from Temple University, where she has taught both written and aural music theory. Her dissertation "Brahms and The Uncanny" explores the musical uncanny in the piano chamber music of Johannes Brahms, utilizing the notion of the uncanny from the perspective of the German philosophers Ernest Jentsch and Sigmund Freud. Her primary argument is that the musical uncanny acts as a hermeneutic window to reach a deeper musical meaning, which can open us up to unique interpretations.
Her research interests include Sonata Theory, Musical Semiotics, Musical Narrative, Psychoanalysis, Schenkerian Analysis, and Hermeneutic Analysis of the music of Johannes Brahms and other 19th-century composers. Her work has been presented in both national and international conferences, including the International Brahms Conference in Irvine, CA (2019), Music Theory Midwest Annual Conference and the Society for Music Theory Annual Metting (2020). She was also invited as a guest scholar for the Performance and Analysis Graduate Seminar at the University of Missouri, Kansas City, where she performed Brahms's Violin Sonata in D minor, Op. 108 and discussed how our analysis and hauntological reading of the piece could shape our interpretations and performance. This past summer, she presented at two international conferences: The 29th European Association for Music in Schools (EAS) Conference, Belgrade, Serbia, and the 15th International Congress on Musical Signification, Barcelona, Spain.
She holds a MM in music theory from Temple University, a MM in piano performance at Indiana University South Bend, and a baccalaureate degree from the Toho Gakuen School of Music in Japan. She has served as an Adjunct Assistant Professor of Music Theory at Temple University, a pianist for the Villanova Singers and the Main Line Singers, as well as Rowan University, and West Chester University, and an organist for Trinity Reformed UCC in Collegeville, PA, and Emanuel UCC in Philadelphia, PA. Dr. Okina is an Assistant Professor of Music Theory and Accompanying at SUNY Potsdam’s Crane School of Music.