Guest Violist Mark Neumann to Perform at UA

Tuscaloosa, Ala. – The University of Alabama presents violist Dr. Mark Neumann in recital in the concert hall of the Moody Music Building on Feb. 18 at 7:30 p.m.

Neumann will be accompanied by pianist Dr. Enchi Anna Ho. The program will feature “Suite Hebraique for Viola and Piano” by Ernest Bloch, “Sonata in F Minor for Viola and Piano, Op.120 No.1” and “Sonata in E-flat Major for Viola and Piano, Op.120 No.2” by Johannes Brahms.

The concert is free and open to the public. For more information, visit www.music.ua.edu or call 205/348-7111.

A native of Edmonton, Canada, Neumann is the professor of viola at the University of Georgia in Athens. He studied violin since the age of 4, leading to studies in violin at the University of Victoria, the Cleveland Institute of Music, and at the Juilliard School in New York, where he earned his doctor of musical arts degree in 1995.

He is the recipient of numerous awards including Canada Council Project Grants, British Columbia Cultural Arts Awards, the Winspear Foundation Grant, and the Canadian Aldeburgh Foundation Scholarship. He was the first prize winner in the Strings division at the British Columbia Competitive Music Festival and a two-time winner of the University of Victoria Concerto Competition. At Juilliard he held the Richard R. Levien Scholarship and the John and Eva Post Scholarship. His principal viola teachers included Karen Tuttle, Robert Vernon and Jaroslav Karlovsky.

Neumann has pursued a versatile performing career including solo appearances with the Calgary Philharmonic, Victoria Symphony and Thunder Bay Symphony orchestras in Canada and the Straubing Collegium Musicum in Germany, frequent performances at the music festivals of Banff, Victoria, Sarasota and Aldeburgh, England, chamber music recordings for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation and Deutschland-Funk in Germany, and the Victoria Symphony and Montreal Symphony orchestras.

In August 2002, Neumann began his current appointment as professor of viola at the University of Georgia, where he maintains a highly active schedule as a performer, teacher and clinician, and collaborates regularly in performance with members of the University of Georgia music faculty.

A native of Taichung, Taiwan, Ho has performed extensively in her home country and in many parts of the United States. Her piano studies began at the age of 5 as a private student of her uncle. After studies at National Chung-Hsin University, Ho entered Morningside College in Sioux City, Iowa graduating with a bachelor of music degree. She graduated with her master’s degree at the University of Wisconsin at Madison.

Ho returned to Taiwan in 1998 to take a position as orchestral pianist for the National Taiwan Symphony Orchestra in Wu-Feng and to concertize as a member of the Formosa Chamber Music Ensemble. In 1999, she returned to the United States to pursue studies in the doctor of musical arts program at Texas Tech University in Lubbock, where she received her doctor of musical arts degree in December 2003.

Ho has received many awards during her musical and educational career, including an International Studies Scholarship and the Klass Music Scholarship from Morningside College and a Graduate Teaching Assistantship from Texas Technical University. She was the winner of the first prize in the Chopin Piano Music Competition at Morningside College in 1994 and was the official pianist for the Morningside Choral Festival in 1993.

Ho now resides in Athens, Ga. where she maintains a private teaching studio and collaborates frequently as an accompanist with both students and faculty members of the University of Georgia School of Music.

The UA School of Music is located within the College of Arts and Sciences, UA’s largest division and the largest public liberal arts college in the state, with approximately 5,500 undergraduates and 1,000 graduate students. The College has received national recognition for academic excellence, and the College’s students have been selected for many of the nation’s top academic honors, including 13 Rhodes Scholarships, 14 Goldwater Scholarships, seven Truman Scholarships, and 16 memberships on USA Today’s Academic All-American teams.