For Immediate Release
Contacts:
Gloria Gottschalk, New School University
(212) 229-5667, ext. 239

Patricia Ann Neely, Mannes College of Music
(212) 580-0170, ext. 228

NEW SCHOOL UNIVERSITY’S MANNES COLLEGE OF MUSIC WILL PRESENT THE MANNES ORCHESTRA WITH CONDUCTOR DAVID HAYES ON THURSDAY, APRIL 5, 2001 AT 8 PM AT SYMPHONY SPACE

Program to include Anders Koppel’s Marimba Concerto with Mannes Concerto Competition winner, Yuri Yamashita, Mozart’s Violin Concerto No. 5 with Mannes Concerto Competition winner, Wen-Lei Gu, andProkofiev’s Symphony No. 5

(February 27, 2001 — New York, NY) New School University’s Mannes College of Music will present The Mannes Orchestra with conductor David Hayes featuring Mannes Concerto Competition winners on Thursday, April 5, 2001 at 8 PM at Symphony Space located at Broadway and 95^th Street, NYC. Admission is free. For further information, call Mannes College of Music at (212) 496-8524. The program will include Anders Koppel’s Marimba Concerto (1995) with Mannes Concerto Competition winner, Yuri Yamashita, Mozart’s Violin Concerto No. 5 with Mannes Concerto Competition winner, Wen-Lei Gu, and Prokofiev’s Symphony No. 5.

Marimbist and percussionist Yuri Yamashita was born in 1973 in Hyogo, Japan. She began her musical studies on the piano at age five and on percussion at age sixteen. She studied with Hiroyoshi Kita at Kobe College and earned a bachelor’s degree and a graduate diploma in music. She came to the United States in 1998 to study at Mannes, earning a master’s degree in 2000. While studying at Mannes, she has performed chamber music with trombone ensembles - Four of a Kind Quartet and the Wiener Posaunen Quartett. She appeared as solo timpanist for the New York Philharmonic’s "Mentor and Disciple" series under the Philharmonic’s timpanist, Roland Kohloff.

At Mannes, she has been featured several times as a soloist with the Mannes Percussion Ensemble, and she performed Bach’s Solo Violin Sonata in G Minor on the marimba in Mannes’s Bach 2000 Festival.

Ms. Yamashita is currently enrolled in the Mannes Professional Studies Program, where she studies with James Preiss and Barry Centanni. In addition to her work on the marimba and other mallet instruments, she is also an expert performer on the timpani and on multiple percussion. She recently became interested in the hand drum, which she studies with Glen Velez.

Violinist Wen-Lei Gu first captured attention at the age of thirteen, when she won top prize in the Yehudi Menuhin International Violin Competition in England. Lord Menuhin was so impressed with her playing that he invited her to perform the Saint-Saëns Violin Concerto with the Folkstone Symphony Orchestra, under his baton. Since then, Ms. Gu has performed throughout North America, Europe and the Far East both as a soloist with orchestras and as a recitalist in numerous distinguished halls including: the Berlin Philharmonic Hall in Berlin, Smetana Hall in Prague, the Beijing Concert Hall, Avery Fisher Hall and Alice Tully Hall at Lincoln Center, Merkin Hall, and the 92^nd Street Y.

Born into a musical family, Ms. Gu started to play the piano when she was four years old and the violin at age five. At six, she won first prize in the first National Children’s Piano competition held in Canton, China. At seven, she was the winner in a statewide violin competition in her hometown of Canton. At twelve, she won first prize in China’s Fourth National Violin Competition, the youngest ever to achieve this honor.

Since coming to America at age thirteen, Ms. Gu has won numerous awards and prizes. Among the many awards she has won in the United States are the Hennessy Cognac Scholarship Award in New York and institutional scholarships from Oundjian, Karl H. Kraeuter, Fritz Kreisler, Carabo-cone, Cordilia Lee, and the H. Gilbert Family. In March of 1999, Ms. Gu won top prize in the 1999 California International Young Artists Competition.

In April of 1999, she won first in prize in the Bergen Philharmonic Violin and Piano Competition, and was subsequently invited to perform as a soloist with the Bergen Philharmonic in the opening Concert of the Millennium at the John Harms Center for the Arts in New Jersey. Most recently, Ms. Gu won the violin division of the Mannes Concerto Competition.

Ms. Gu holds a Bachelor’s Degree from the Juilliard School. Currently, she is pursuing a master’s degree in music at Mannes College of Music, where she studies with Ida Kavafian. She has also studied with Felix Galimir, Sally Thomas, Dorothy Delay, Yao-Ji Lin and Bin Chao.

The Mannes Orchestra will perform next with the Mannes Opera Program in an all-Verdi program under the baton of Joseph Colaneri, director of The Mannes Orchestra and conductor at the Metropolitan Opera, on May 9 and 10 at the Sylvia and Danny Kaye Playhouse at Hunter College.

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