‘To play the emotion’ – music faculty recital Nov. 10

Andrei Pidkivka and Irina Trenga

Roy Sonne

“To play the vision, the feeling, the emotion, not just the notes”

When he takes the stage at Lincoln Park Performing Arts Center on Nov. 10 for the first of three faculty recitals this season, internationally acclaimed flutist Andrei Pidkivka will be performing for some of the only people who can make him nervous: his own students.

“When I perform for my students, they are judging. It’s the worst audition for me. I’m nervous, there are little butterflies,” admits Dr. Pidkivka

Violinist Roy Sonne, whose distinguished career includes 28 years in the first violin section of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, is to perform in the first half of the recital with Marina Lupinacci on piano for the first selection, Debussy’s “Sonata in G Minor.”  Sonne will play Bach’s “Chaconne from the Partita in D Minor” and finish on a light note with fiddle and blues selections by Mark O’Connor and Jeremy Cohen.

“Seeing their artist/teachers in performance is an important source of inspiration and education for our students, and also for their families and for the community at large,” said Sonne.

The second half will feature Pidkivka on flute and folk flutes, accompanied by Irina Trenga on piano, performing “Fantasy on Two Ukrainian Folk Themes” by Mikola Lysenko, “Poem” by Zanna Kolodub, and “Melody” by Myroslav Skronyk. Using traditional wooden folk flutes he himself makes, Pidkivka will play selections of other folk music from Ukraine and Eastern Europe.

Curtain time in Lincoln Park’s studio theater is 7:30 p.m. Tickets are $5 and may be purchased by calling the box office at 724.643.9004.

Pidkivka, Trenga and Sonne are artists-in-residence at the center and adjunct faculty members at Lincoln Park Performing Arts Charter School. Sonne said faculty recitals are routine at music conservatories and universities, but rare at the high school level.

Members of the Lincoln Park music faculty have committed to performing in a total of three recitals this year, said Sonne, who teaches violin and directs the string ensemble at Lincoln Park. The next one is set for Feb. 10.

Trenga believes students need to be shown by their teachers how to perform onstage in front of an audience. “We all started out as performers,” said Trenga, a native Russian who trained in St. Petersburg. “To play the vision, the feeling, the emotion, not just the notes. . . We teach our students not just what (skills) they can take from us, but to understand what is good and bad in the performance.”

Said Pidkivka, “At some point in life, almost every performer has the desire to teach.”

Trenga treasures the compliment once paid to her by a piano student: “You are the first teacher in my life who opened my eyes and woke up my imagination.”

Roy Sonne, who also teaches at Carnegie Mellon University, trained at the New England Conservatory, Mannes College of Music, and Ohio State University. He took an early retirement from the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra to devote himself to musical projects and interests. In 2003, after 40 years as a professional symphony musician, he satisfied a lifelong yearning to take up jazz violin. To share the experience with other classically trained string players he founded the Pittsburgh Jazz and Fiddling Camp (now known as Strings Without Boundaries) at Duquesne University.

Sonne spent the past two summers in La Paz, Bolivia, conducting, instructing and performing with string players from the Bolivian National Symphony and the National Bolivian Conservatory of Music.

Andrei Pidkivka is a concert classical flutist in demand in the recording studio and as concert soloist for symphony orchestras, He is considered the preeminent performer on the folk flutes of his native Ukraine, and not only plays but makes traditional wooden instruments such as the pan flute or the tylynka, a long, slender shepherd’s flute with no finger holes.

Pidkivka once was interviewed by the Voice of America Network for broadcast in Ukraine, and appeared on National Public Radio and the Cleveland TV affiliate of PBS.  Several of his recordings were released on the Traditional Crossroads Record Label. He has presented lecture-workshops on the folk flutes of Eastern Europe in universities and colleges across the United States.

He performs extensively in concerts and festivals, and has appeared at the Kennedy Center for the Arts, Metropolitan Museum of the Art, The Andy Warhol Museum, Severance Hall, the National Folk Alliance Conference, and National Flute Association in Washington, DC. Recent performances as a soloist and a guest musician include the Columbus Symphony, Phoenix Symphony, Seattle Symphony, Oregon Symphony and Pittsburgh Symphony orchestras. He earned the Doctorate of Musical Arts degree in flute performance at Michigan State University.

Irina Trenga earned both bachelor’s and master’s degrees in piano performance and teaching in St. Petersburg, Russia. She won the Bach Piano Competition and the Young Pianists of Central Russia Competition, was accompanist for the Katz Violin Ensemble and was musical director and accompanist for Central Puppet Theater of St. Petersburg.

For the St. Petersburg Central Radio Station she was musical editor for the world-known Andreev Folk Orchestra, presenting historical performances on air twice a week.

In 1995 she moved to the United States, working as a performing accompanist for vocal groups. Performances included a 2007 Concert in Heinz Hall for the late Pittsburgh Mayor Bob O’Connor and, for the past four years, playing with the Lincoln Park chamber ensemble (flute, cello, piano) and chamber duet (flute and piano). She joined the music faculty at Lincoln Park when it opened in August 2006 as a piano teacher and accompanist for voice classes and the ballet program.

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