Formal Concert 2023-10-07

The Fortnightly Music Club In cooperation with The City of Palo Alto Arts and Culture Division
Palo Alto Art Center
1313 Newell Road

*guest performers

Christopher Otsuka Erling, 24, began his piano studies at the age of 10 and received his bachelor’s degree, summa cum laude, from the University of Southern California’s Thornton School of Music, where he majored in piano performance under the tutelage of Dr. Stewart Gordon. Chris was honored as one of two Outstanding Graduates of USC Thornton’s undergraduate Class of 2021. Recent accomplishments include 1st prize in the Pasadena Sigma Alpha Iota Scholarship Competition, 1st prize in the 2019 James Ramos International Video Competition, 2nd prize at the Los Angeles International Liszt Competition in 2018, 1st prize in the 2016 Seattle Russian Chamber Music Piano Festival solo competition, as well as various recognitions in the MTNA Piano Competition. Chris has been featured twice as a radio guest on Seattle’s Classical King FM Northwest Focus Live performing works by Ravel, Scriabin, and Gershwin-Wild. He also worked as a hand-double for the Amazon Prime TV Show, The Romanoffs playing live excerpts from Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No.1 and Rachmaninoff’s Piano Sonata No. 2. Chris relocated to the Bay Area in early 2022 and currently studies with St. Petersburg pedagogue, Olya Katsman, in preparation for upcoming graduate school entrance auditions. Outside of piano, Chris loves travel, studying world history and foreign languages, and attending live concerts.

Robert Marcus, clarinetist, recently returned to Palo Alto after a 15-year hiatus. He has played the clarinet for more than 75 years, having studied in Los Angeles with Mitchell Lurie and at the Music Academy of the West. His long history of solo and chamber music performance includes appearances with Nova Vista and Redwood Symphonies in concerti by Mozart, del Aguila, and John Adams, Debussy’s Premiere Rhapsodie, and the Luciano Berio orchestral transcription of Brahms’ F-minor Clarinet sonata. His local Chamber Music performances include Stravinsky’s L’Histoire du Soldat, Milhaud’s Creation du Monde, Schoenberg’s Pierrot Lunaire, and Golijov’s Dreams and Prayers of Isaac the Blind. He has performed in several Fortnightly programs, including the Dohnanyi Sextet. During his residence in Santa Fe he played frequent solo recitals and played the Mozart Clarinet Concerto with the Los Alamos Symphony.

Pianist Jean Goyal left her native Singapore in 1985 to pursue music in the United States. She earned her B.Mus. in chamber music and piano accompanying and a M.A. in musicology from Indiana University. Her Ph.D. (ABD) from Stanford University was fortuitously interrupted by the birth of her first child. As her family has matured, she has rediscovered the joys of performing music, and through performance, returned to her study of music.