“Arts @ Shields” Pop-up Performance

Aromi Park, violin
Kimberlee Uwate, viola (B.A. music ‘08)
Seth Biagini, cello

With returning UC Davis alum Kimberlee Uwate (viola), this string trio program inaugurates a new pop-up style series at Shields Library called “Arts @ Shields” and will include music from time to time. The concert selections will not be announced in advance. Passersby and attendees who know about the event in advance will both enjoy the surprise of discovering the program as it unfolds!

Located at Grand Staircase Mezzanine, Peter J. Shields Library

Program

To be announced from the stage.

Free

About the Performers

Korean born violinist Aromi Park is Acting Concertmaster of the Bozeman Symphony and Principal Second Violin of the Huntsville Symphony, where she also served as Acting Concertmaster in past seasons. She recently joined the Portland Opera as a member of the violin section and is a member of Iris and the Santa Rosa Symphony.

Aromi frequently plays as a guest in orchestras around the US including the Nashville Symphony, ProMusica Chamber Orchestra, Memphis Symphony, Sarasota Symphony and Opera, San Francisco Ballet as well as in Korea with the KBS orchestra. Additionally she is a regular guest at summer festivals like the Colorado Music Festival and Grant Park Music Festival.

As an active chamber musician, Aromi was playing with the Ensemble Ari in San Francisco and was a founding member of the EN string quartet in Korea which won the Haneum Competition and Korean Baroque Competition.

As soloist Aromi performed concertos with the Merced Symphony, the Balmoral Chamber Orchestra, University of Memphis Symphony Orchestra and the Korea Concert Orchestra. Further successes include first prizes at the Korean-Germany Brahms Association Competition, the National Music Association Competition, Beethoven Club Young Artist Competition and the Baroque Ensemble Chamber Music Competition in Seoul, Korea.

Giving “performances from the heart” with “matchless precision” (Daniel Buckwalter, Eugene Scene), violist Kimberlee Uwate creates musical experiences rooted in connection, reflection, and growth. As the violist of Delgani String Quartet, she has been building community in Oregon since 2015 through projects like “How We Remember.” This trifold experience in early 2020 included traditional Japanese origami paper-crane-folding community events among Delgani listeners; a new commissioned work by American composer Elena Ruehr; and an immersive concert honoring the children of World War II. Each season, Delgani programs concerts with its audience in mind, continually pushing the edge while deepening connections to music that is both familiar and new. In recent seasons, Kim has performed with Delgani at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, and Charles University in Prague. She works with students through Delgani’s summer String Quartet Academy, Adult Amateur Workshops, and Classical Spark program in third-grade classrooms around the state of Oregon.

As a lecturer, Kim leads Delgani deep-dive seminars on the music, life, and influences of various composers; and as faculty at the collegiate level, she has over ten years experience teaching viola, violin, and chamber music. She trained at the Manhattan School of Music, UC Davis, and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Uwate received her Doctor of Musical Arts degree with the completion of her dissertation, “Toward a Business History of the String Quartet: How the String Quartet Became a Career Path in the United States,” about American string quartet ensembles and the economic systems that have supported them. She plays a late eighteenth-century viola named Abby.

Seth Biagini’s musical experiences have taken him to venues as obscure as the top of Aspen Mountain, an isolated East Coast island accessible only by boat, and a beer hall in Austria, as well as Carnegie Hall, David Geffen Hall, Alice Tully Hall, and Disney Hall. Hailing from a family of cellists, Seth begun his training in piano at age four and added the cello at age nine. Having received both his Bachelor of Music and Master of Music degrees at The Juilliard School, Seth studied with renowned cellists such as Timothy Eddy, Natasha Brofsky, Alan Stepansky, and Robert deMaine. Competition accolades include Variations on a Rococo Theme by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky with the Palisades Symphony Orchestra and Dmitri Shostakovich’s First Cello Concerto with the Culver City Orchestra as well as the Pasadena Community Orchestra. His love for chamber music has led him to summer festivals, where he has spent time at Norfolk Chamber Music Festival, Kneisel Hall Chamber Music School and Festival, Taos School of Music, Aspen Music Festival and School, and Sarasota Music Festival. Attending Aspen Music Festival and School for three years, the New York String Orchestra Seminar led by Jaime Loredo, Germany’s Schleswig-Holstein Musik Festival, and, most recently, the Verbier Festival in Switzerland, has given Seth the experience needed to enter the professional orchestral arena, first with the Colorado Symphony and now the Oregon Symphony.