Five College of Music students -- Jennifer Cook, Bryan Guarnuccio, Charles Morris, Dmitriy Yanov-Yanovskiy, and Haobing Zhu -- have been named winners of the MSU Collegiate Honors Recital Competition and will perform at Weill Recital Hall on Saturday, April 14, at 8:00 p.m. Tickets for this concert are available at the Carnegie Hall Box Office. 

• Jennifer Cook, soprano
  For her Weill Recital Hall performance, Jennifer Cook will sing Senza Mamma from Suor Angelica by Puccini; Nacht, Die Nachtigall, and Sommertage from Sieben Frühe Lieder by Alban Berg; and Song to the Moon from Rusalka by Dvořák. Jennifer is an MM candidate in vocal performance. She holds undergraduate degrees from MSU in both vocal performance and music therapy. Jennifer has performed several roles with the the MSU Opera Theater including the title role in Carlisle Floyd's Susannah and Giulietta in The Tales of Hoffman. In addition, she has participated in the Crittenden Opera Program and in master classes with both Johanna Meier and Janet Williams.
• Bryan Guarnuccio, flute
  DMA student Bryan Guarnuccio, who studies with Professor Richard Sherman, will play Sonata for Flute and Piano Op. 23 by Lowell Lieberman for his Weill Recital Hall performance. Bryan has been a prizewinner at several competitions including the South Eastern Michigan Flute Association Ervin Monroe Young Artist Competition and the Kentucky Flute Society Young Artist Competition. He was recently a qualifying round finalist for the National Flute Association Young Artist Competition. His quintet, Fresco Winds, advanced to the top six wind chamber ensembles in the 2011 Fischoff Competition. As a former recipient of the Stanley and Selma Hollander Endowed Scholarship for First Chair in Flute, Bryan was principal of MSU's Symphony Orchestra. As a recipient of the Leonard Falcone Scholarship, he currently plays principal in the MSU Wind Symphony. Bryan completed MM degrees in flute performance and music theory at Bowling Green State University and a BM degree in flute with minors in oboe and piano at Ball State University.
• Charles Morris, bass trombone
  For his Weill Recital Hall appearance, DMA student Charles Morris will perform Sonata for Bass Trombone and Piano by David R. Gillingham. A native of Somerset, Kentucky, Charles began playing trombone at the age of nine. He completed a BM in music education at the University of Kentucky in 2004, then continued his music education by accepting a graduate assistantship at the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music. There, he played with the premier school orchestra, the Food4Thought trombone quartet, and was the 2008 IU Concerto Competition winner. His research interests include film music and the modern brass solo and chamber repertoire. In addition to his scholarly activities, Charles works as a freelance musician, having performed with the Grand Rapids Symphony, Indianapolis Symphony, Indianapolis Chamber Orchestra, and a variety of music ensembles across Michigan. 
• Dmitriy Yanov-Yanovskiy, cello
  Dmitriy Yanov-Yanovskiy will perform Le Grand Tango by Astor Piazzolla for his Weill Recital Hall debut. Dmitriy was born into a musical family in Tashkent, Uzbekistan. In 2006 he entered the St. Petersburg State Conservatory to study with Professor Anatoly Nikitin. There Dmitriy participated in master classes with Robert Max, Carine Georgian, Natalia Shahovskaya, Yo-Yo Ma, Alexander Ivashkin, Alexander Rudin, and David Geringas. He has participated in chamber music master classes with the American Piano Trio, the Allegri Quartet, the Phoenix Quartet, the Bamberg Piano Trio, the Barbican Piano Trio, the Abegg Trio, and the Pablo Casals Quartet. Dmitriy is a laureate of several international music competitions, including the Evgeny Mravinsky Competition for solo instruments (fourth prize, 2008), the Maria Yudina Competition for chamber ensembles (first prize, 2009), and the Dmitry Shostakovich Competition for chamber ensembles (first prize, 2010). As a soloist he has performed with orchestras in St. Petersburg, Korea, and Uzbekistan. During his studies in Russia, Dmitriy participated in more than 400 chamber concerts in Russia, Korea, Hong Kong, the United States, France, Germany, and Uzbekistan. He has performed the premieres of more than a dozen new works for cello written by contemporary composers. His latest concerts include "Tango With Cello" (new compositions dedicated to Astor Piazzolla; St. Petersburg, April 2011) and "Chamber Concerts" (violin, piano, and cello ensemble; Hamburg, May 2011).
• Haobing Zhu, piano
  DMA student Haobing Zhu will play Sonata No. 46 in E major Hob. XVI: 31 by Haydn and Valse de l'opéra "Faust" de Gounod, S. 407 by Liszt for her Weill Recital Hall performance. Haobing gave her first public performance at Shanghai Concert Hall at the age of twelve. She counts among her competition honors the Outstanding Talent Award in the Second Bosendorfer International Piano Competition and Second Prize in the Kawai National Piano Competition. As the First Prize winner of the Shanghai Conservatory Mozart Concerto Competition, Haobing was selected by renowned pianist Fou T'song to perform the Mozart Piano Concerto in G major, K.453 with the Shanghai Youth Symphony Orchestra. She has also appeared as a soloist with the Jiangsu Symphony Orchestra. In 2009, she was invited to perform with the EOS Orchestra at the National Center for Performing Arts in Beijing. As a soloist, Haobing has been featured in the concert series of Shanghai International Spring Music Festival, Shanghai Conservatory, Rising Star (Boston), and Works by Christian Wolff at the New England Conservatory of Music. Haobing graduated from the Shanghai Conservatory of Music and received her MM degree in piano performance from the New England Conservatory of Music, where she studied with Wha Kyung Byun. At MSU she is the recipient of the Catherine Herrick Cobb Fellowship and studies with College of Music Professor Deborah Moriarty.  

Accompanists include Hyekyung Lee, Hsin-Chan Yang, Tzu-Yi Chang, and Natalia A. Tokar.

Cook, Guarnuccio, Morris, Yanov-Yanovskiy, and Zhu earned the opportunity to appear at this world-renowned venue when they were named winners of the MSU Collegiate Honors Recital Competition held in East Lansing in February. Each performance was judged by a three-member panel that included Ralph Votapek, MSU professor emeritus of piano; Stephen Shipps, professor of violin and senior adviser to the dean for international study at the University of Michigan; and Craig Arnold, artistic director and chair of Manhattan Concert Productions.

The MSU Collegiate Honors Recital is sponsored by Manhattan Concert Productions (MCP). MCP provides performance opportunities for select musicians throughout the United States and abroad. Each year, it invites one outstanding university music program to present their top students at Carnegie Hall in New York City. For more information, please visit manhattanconcertproductions.com.

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Posted on February 26, 2011