Yoshiyuki Ishikawa is active as a soloist, chamber musician and pedagogue and has performed and presented master classes in Japan, Great Britain, Germany, the Netherlands and throughout the United States. He is the recipient of grants and awards for touring, commissioning and recording from the US National Endowment for the Arts, the Western States arts Foundation and the Arizona Commission on the Arts.  He has also served as a judge for various competitions including the 12th Japan Wind and Percussion Performance Competition.

As founder of the Sierra Wind Quintet in 1983, Yoshi served as its bassoonist and artistic director until 1991. Currently he is a member of the Mahler Festival Orchestra and the Colorado Ballet Orchestra and has performed with the Colorado Symphony Orchestra and the Colorado Music Festival. He served as President of The International Double Reed Society (IDRS) from 1994 until 1997 and now serves as the editor of IDRS On-line Publications and is the webmaster of the idrs www.

Yoshi has recorded on the Cambria label and recently produced and edited for Crystal Records the IDRS 25th Anniversary CD.

He has a Doctor of Musical Arts in Bassoon Performance from Michigan State University and Bachelor of Music Education and Master of Music in Bassoon Performance from Northwestern University.

 Brenda Ishikawa has appeared as a recitalist and chamber musician in the United States, Europe and Japan, has recorded on the Cambria label with the Sierra Wind Quintet and has appeared in Weill Recital Hall with this ensemble.  Since 1993 Brenda has been a faculty member at the University of Colorado at Denver.  Prior to this appointment she taught at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, where she was responsible for developing and co-ordinating the Piano Class programme.  She has been active in the Music Teachers National Association and has adjudicated for the MTNA and Kawai America piano competitions.  Brenda holds Bachelor of Music and and Master of Music Degrees in Piano Performance from Northwestern University and a Doctor of Musical Arts Degree in Piano Performance, Literature and Pedagogy from the University of Colorado at Boulder.

Review - Christchurch (New Zealand) Press Sat 21 March 1998

                Reviewed by David Sell

This was a great concert with all the ingredients one can wish for.  The performers were both first class playing as a smoothly co-ordinated team; the programme was interesting  with something familiar and something new; presentation was pleasant and dignified; and Yoshiyuki Ishikawa's comments on the items were scholarly and informative.

The wonderful sound that Ishikawa gets from his bassoon was immediately apparent in the opening item, a sonata by Giovanni Antonio Bertoli.  Agile passage work alternated with lyrical melody that seemed to owe much to Monteverdi in the second movement.

Transcriptions for bassoon and piano of four Mozart songs might seem an unlikely bracket.  Ishikawa's singing tone and impeccable phrasing was assisted by copies of the words and translations provided for the audience.

Then it was to one of those works that is the mainstay of the bassoonist's repertoire, Saint Saens' Sonata Opus 168, before concluding with a Sonata by the modern American composer, Alvin Etler.

On being told that Etler was an oboist who devoted himself to composing in the latter years of his life, my fears, founded on having heard so much indifferent music by well-meaning performers, came to the fore.  They were immediately dispelled by the charm of the music, with its shades of Gershwin, Hindemith and Copland and just the right dash of originality.

On the few occasions I was able to wrest my full attention away from the beauty of the playing, I wondered if Yoshiyuki and Brenda were capable of making music sound anything but great.

Their absolute professionalism, impeccable judgement, musicianship and presentation made this a concert by which one sets new standards.
 

This Page Was Created by Neville Forsythe.  Visit his Homepage.  CLICK HERE