Colburn School: Nokuthula Ngwenyama is Violist and Composer on "Taste of Colburn" Program March 19, 2016, with World Premiere of her "Sonoran Storm"

Violist Nokuthula Ngwenyama

has a website at www.ngwenyama.com

and is featured at AfriClassical.com

Nokuthula Ngwenyama writes:

Good morning Bill,
Here is s link to Taste of Colburn, FYI.  I'm composing now!
Best,
Thula

https://www.colburnschool.edu/page.cfm?p=2917

Community School of Performing Arts
Taste of Colburn

March 19, 2016


Program Information and Event Schedule

Program 
SCHUBERT String Quintet in C Major, D. 956
Thompson Wang, violin
Jessica Park, violin
Sequoyah Sugiyama, viola
Jonathan Lien, cello
Tracy Lang, cello



NOKUTHULA NGWENYAMA Sonoran Storm (world premiere)
Nokuthula Ngwenyama, viola
Advanced Studies Modern Dance

JANÁČEK Selections from Idyll
Colburn Chamber Orchestra
Maxim Eshkenazy, director

CASADESUS Concerto in the Style of J. C. Bach
Nokuthula Ngwenyama, viola
Colburn Chamber Orchestra
Maxim Eshkenazy, director








About the 2016 Distinguished Alumna Nokuthula Ngwenyama



Nokuthula Ngwenyama’s performances as orchestral soloist, recitalist, and chamber musician garner great attention. Gramophone proclaimed Ms. Ngwenyama’s playing as providing “solidly shaped music of bold, mesmerising character," and the Washington Post described her as playing "with dazzling technique in the virtuoso fast movements and deep expressiveness in the slow movements."











Ms. Ngwenyama came to international attention when she won the Primrose International Viola Competition and the Young Concert Artists International Auditions at age 17. Plaudits followed her debut recitals at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC, and at the 92nd Street Y in New York City. In 1998, she received the prestigious Avery Fisher Career Grant.  









Recent highlights include an appearance with the Sinfonieta Cracovia 
performing Pendericki’s Viola Concerto and multiple domestic performances, including appearances at the Kimmel Center in Philadelphia and on the People’s Concert Series in New York City with the Kalichstein-Laredo-Robinson Trio. She also has completed a recording project of the three Bach gamba sonatas with keyboardist Eckart Sellheim.



She performed with the Phoenix Symphony and Maestro Ignat Solzhenitsyn, 
gave recitals in Los Angeles and Oakland with the world premiere of Byron Adams’s Sonata for viola and piano, and appeared with Bruno Mars on Saturday Night Live. Ms. Ngwenyama also appeared throughout the US, Japan, and China. In recent years, she was chosen for the coveted Duncanson Artist-In-Residence at the Taft Museum and appeared in Washington D.C. at the Cosmos Club, and at Symphony Space in New York, amongst others. Past seasons also include appearances with the Cincinnati Symphony, the Nurnberg Philharmonie and world premiere performances of Andrew Norman’s Sabina at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC, and Merkin Hall in New York City. She also performed with the Charlotte, Austin, Jackson, and Memphis Symphonies, and with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. Additionally, she “fascinated on viola and violin during recital" (Washington Post) at the National Academy of Sciences in Washington, D. C. and with the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society. 















Ms. Ngwenyama has performed throughout the United States and across four
continents. United States appearances include performances with the Atlanta, Baltimore, and Indianapolis symphonies, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and the National Symphony Orchestra. She has performed recitals at Tokyo’s Suntory Hall, the Louvre, the Ford Center in Toronto, and the Maison de Radio France. Summer festival appearances include Green Music, Vail, San Diego’s Mainly Mozart, Chamber Music Northwest, Marlboro Music Festival, Spoleto USA, and Burgundy’s Musique et Vin. 







Ms. Ngwenyama is no stranger to television and radio appearances. Her 
performance at the White House, commemorating the 10th anniversary of the radio show Performance Today, also featured artists Wynton Marsalis, James Galway, and Denyce Graves. A vivid portrait of Ms. Ngwenyama was televised nationally on CBS Sunday Morning with cultural correspondent Eugenia Zukerman. She was featured on the Emmy Award-nominated PBS program Sound of Strings in the Musical Encounter Series, hosted by cellist Lynn Harrell. A dedicated advocate for the arts, she has testified before Congress on behalf of the National Endowment for the Arts. As an artist recording on the EDI label, she has collaborated with pianist Mihae Lee on Grieg and Debussy and guitarist Michael Long on Bach Partitas as well as Corella’s Che! A Musical Biography. Her recent collaboration with pianist Jennifer Lim on the Rubinstein viola and violin sonatas was released to excellent reviews.





An avid educator Ms. Ngwenyama has served as visiting professor at the 
University of Notre Dame and at Indiana University. She has been director of the Primrose International Viola Competition since 2005 and is past-president of the American Viola Society. She spearheaded an award-winning string program for Biltmore Preparatory Academy, a public school in Phoenix, Arizona and performs with the Japanese group The Surfing Godzillas as both instrumentalist and vocalist. Born in California of Zimbabwean-Japanese parentage, Ms. Ngwenyama studied at the Colburn School’s Community School of Performing Arts before attending the Curtis Institute of Music. As a Fulbright scholar she 
attended the Conservatoire National Superieur de Musique de Paris, and received a Master of Theological Studies degree from Harvard University. 


Comments by email:

1) Great artist, worthy cause.  John Malveaux

2) Hi Bill, Thanks so much! Best, Thula [Nokuthula Ngwenyama]