Cal State San Bernardino's Music Faculty to Perform at Feb. 15 Palm Desert Concert

The following is a news release from CSUSB Palm Desert:

Members of Cal State San Bernardino’s music faculty will perform a classical music concert at the university’s Palm Desert Campus on Sunday, Feb. 15, at 2 p.m.

The concert will feature classical pieces performed by Lucy Lewis, Ana Maria Maldonado and ChoEun Lee.

The concert will take place in the campus’s Indian Wells Theater. Admission is $5 cash at the door and includes parking. Students are free will valid ID. Advanced reservations are not required.

Lewis has an active career as a soloist, chamber musician, orchestral performer and teaching clinician, and has appeared in these roles throughout the United States and internationally. At CSUSB, Lewis is assistant professor of orchestral music education. She oversees the instruction of applied violin and viola, conducting the orchestral studies program, coaching string chamber music and teaching string methods and pedagogy. Previously, Lewis has been on the faculties of the Preucil School of Music, the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory Preparatory Department, Southwestern and Lake Michigan Colleges, the Citadel Dance and Music Center and the Fischoff Chamber Music Association’s Mentor Program. She has been a guest clinician and performer at several music festivals.

Maldonado received her master of music in cello performance from the University of Southern California, where she studied with Gabor Rejto. She received her bachelor of music in cello performance from Texas Tech University. Maldonado was awarded a J.D. Rockefeller Fellowship to promote western classical music in Bangkok, Thailand, where she played in the Kennedy String Quartet. The Kennedy String Quartet traveled throughout Asia performing under the auspices of the United States Information Service. These concerts included playing in Vietnam, Laos and Nepal. Part of the fellowship included teaching Thai children at the Royal Music Academy in Bangkok and playing with the Pro Musica Orchestra, which was sponsored by the Goethe Institute.

After leaving Thailand, Maldonado auditioned and won a cello position in the Heidelberg Stadtisches Opera Orchester in Heidelberg, Germany. While in Germany, she taught cello to students at the Wiesloch Musik Schule. Currently, Maldonado teaches at Cal Poly Pomona, Cal State San Bernardino, Chaffey College, Cal Baptist University, Riverside City College and at the Claremont Community School of Music. She also has a private studio, is principal cellist with the San Bernardino Symphony Orchestra, and is a free-lance musician.

A native of Korea, Lee is an active collaborative pianist and has given numerous performances in Korea, the United States, Italy, Australia and New Zealand. She was invited as a fellow pianist at the Tanglewood Music Festival in summer 2013 and 2014, and received an opera-fellowship at the Aspen Music Festival. Lee has also participated in the Opera Theatre and the Music Festival of Lucca (Italy) and appeared in the Grandin Vocal Chamber Music Festival in Cincinnati.

Lee has accompanied numerous masterclasses, to name a few, of Stephanie Blythe, Vinson Cole, Phyllis Curtin, Grant Gershon, Håkan Hagegård, Jake Heggie, Martin Katz, Erie Mills, Anne Sofie von Otter, Christine Schäfer, Sanford Sylvan, Dawn Upshaw, Frederica von Strade and Diane Zola. She was a recipient of the distinguished Gwendolyn Koldofsky Award in Keyboard Collaborative Arts four times, elected into Pi Kappa Lambda, and recently, honored with the Grace B. Jackson Prize by the Tanglewood Music Festival.

Lee was awarded a doctoral degree in keyboard collaborative arts from the University of Southern California, and a master’s degree in collaborative piano studies from the University of Cincinnati. Lee currently works at CSUSB as a collaborative pianist/coach/opera music director.

The CSUSB Palm Desert Campus is located at 37-500 Cook St.