SUMMER SONGS: AN OUTDOOR CONCERT

Colleen Wang is an Indiana University trained violinist based in Ann Arbor, MI. As an avid teacher, she is a former faculty member at the Qatar Music Academy in Doha, Qatar, and has been invited as a guest adjudicator for the MSBOA Solo & Ensemble Festivals. International appearances include the Mediterranean Opera Studio Festival in Italy, Atlas Music Festival in Tunisia, Dar Choral Society Orchestra in Tanzania, and the Homeland National Concert Hall Series in Taiwan. She is a frequent sub with the Toledo Symphony Orchestra and currently a BTG artist/violinist for NUCLASSICA, an electro-pop violin group, and has previously appeared on stage with Ed Sheeran for his Subtract (-) Tour. Past mentors include Paul Kantor, Mark Kaplan, and the late Nam-Yun Kim.

James Park is a violinist, trained musicologist, and university administrator. He is a core member of the JSO and frequently performs around Michigan as an orchestral and chamber musician. James holds an undergraduate degree from Princeton University and graduate degrees from Yale University.

Jasper Zientek, a Michigan native, joined the Jackson Symphony Orchestra in 2018 and the Kalamazoo Symphony in 2021. Zientek studied with Atar Arad and Steve Wyrczynski at Indiana University Jacobs School of Music as well as with Vicky Chiang at Johns Hopkins Peabody Institute. During his schooling he attended many summer festivals nationally and internationally including National Orchestral Institute (MD,USA) , Casalmaggiore Music Festival (Italy), Summer Academy Leutkirch (Germany), and attended Aspen Summer Music Festival (CO,USA) as a New Horizon Fellow.

Croatian cellist Ivana Biliskov received her Bachelor of Music in Performance at the University of North Texas, and a Master of Music in El Paso TX, where she served as a teaching assistant to Zuill Bailey. Her path in the US has led her from Texas to Oregon to now Michigan, where she is the current Principal Cellist of Detroit Opera, and is actively involved with Adrian Symphony, Jackson Symphony, and Orchestra Sono. Ivana has participated in masterclasses with acclaimed musicians such as Melissa Kraut, Lynn Harrell, Heidi Litschauer, Hans Jørgen Jensen, Dora Schwarzberg, and is a three-time recipient of the Gloria Miner Fellowship at the Sitka International Cello Festival in Alaska. She is an avid chamber musician and has won the Grand Prize in the chamber competition Salzburg=Mozart in Tokyo, Japan as part of a piano trio. Ivana is an active freelancer in Metro Detroit and maintains a private teaching studio in Ann Arbor, Michigan.