40th International Concerto Competition Judges

Ms. Robert has appeared as recitalist and chamber musician throughout the U.S., Canada. Europe and the Far East in major music centers including New York, London, Chicago, Washington D.C., Vienna, Beijing, Seoul, Montreal, Toronto and Ottawa. She has performed over thirty different works as violin soloist with all of the major orchestras in Canada, including the Montreal Symphony under Charles Dutoit. As a recording artist, she has performed for National Public Radio, the CBC Radio Network, Radio Canada, and Radio France, and received critical acclaim for her recording of violin sonatas by Faure and Saint-Saens. An active participant in the summer music festival scene, Ms. Robert has been guest artist or faculty member at festivals such as Bowdoin, the American Conservatoire at Fontainebleau, Musicorda, Meadowmount, Orford, Summit and Waterloo. She is currently on the faculties of the Texas Music Festival at the Moores School of Music and the Madeline Island Music Camp.

Highly sought after as a violin pedagogue, Ms. Robert serves as violin professor at the Manhattan School of Music and the Mannes College of Music in New York City. She has given master classes throughout the world at prestigious institutions such as the Central Conservatory in Beijing, Oberlin Conservatory, the Glenn Gould School in Toronto and the Conservatoire de Musique de Montreal. Her students have won prizes in major international competitions including Indianapolis, Young Concert Artists, Paganini, Sendai and the China International Violin Competition. In addition, her students currently occupy positions in orchestras throughout the world, and have been appointed to teaching positions at schools such as Seoul National University. Ms. Robert has served as a adjudicator for several competitions including the Montreal International Violin Competition.

Cultural Council Award. She completed her study in the United States with violist John Graham, and received her Master of Music degree from the State University of New York at Stony Brook. In addition to being a concert artist, Ms. Xiao has served as principal violist of the Minnesota Orchestra and is currently on the faculty at the University of Arizona School of Music.

She has appeared with the radio symphonies of Munich, Frankfurt, Stuttgart, and Berlin, the symphonies of San Francisco, Indianapolis, and St. Louis, toured with the Orpheus and the St. Luke’s Orchestras, and soloed with orchestras of Brazil, the Netherlands, the Czech Republic, and Russia. In September 2007 she joined the cast of 33 Variations, a new play by Moises Kaufman, in its debut production on the Arena Stage in Washington,D.C. for a month-long run. The play deals with Beethoven’s last years and his writing of the Diabelli Variations which Ms. Walsh performed on stage throughout the play. Coinciding with the play, her new CD of the Variations was released by Jonathan Digital Recordings.

Ms. Walsh has given recitals in major cities of the United States, Canada, Venezuela, Italy, Belgium, Germany, Poland, and the Netherlands. In demand as a chamber musician, she has performed in many festivals including Marlboro, Santa Fe, Bard, Appalachian Summer, and Strings in the Mountains. She is a member of the quintet, La Fenice, comprised of piano quartet plus oboe.

Her many awards include the top prize at the Munich ARD International Piano Competition and the Salzburg International Mozart Competition. She has also won the Concert Artist Guild and Young Concert Artists International Competitions, and was a prizewinner in the Van Cliburn International Competition, also winning that competition’s Chamber Music Award. Ms. Walsh also won prizes in the J.S. Bach International Competition in Washington, D.C., the William Kapell International Competition in Maryland, and the Busoni International Competition in Italy.

Ms. Walsh has recorded for Bridge, Nonesuch, Koch, Newport, Stereophile, and CRI labels. Her first recording for Jonathan Digital Recordings of Beethoven’s Diabelli Variations was released in 2007. Her most recent recording project for this label is the Schubert Piano Sonatas.

Ms. Walsh is a member of the piano faculty of Mannes College, the New School for Music, in New York City.

and Los Angeles Philharmonics, the Boston Pops, the Pittsburgh, San Francisco, Houston, Dallas, St. Louis, National Symphonies, and other top ensembles, while holding down an Artist-in-Residence position at Michigan State University for 38 years.

With eastern hemisphere concerto engagements stretching from London to Taiwan, he has also toured Russia, Japan, and Korea. He has made a special commitment to Latin America where he has toured for more than 42 years, performing repeatedly in Buenos Aires, Rio, Santiago, and other cities. He is equally celebrated as a solo recitalist throughout the United States, performing numerous times in Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, Chicago’s Orchestra Hall, and the National Gallery in Washington, D.C. Guest appearances with the Juilliard, Fine Arts, New World, and Chester String Quartets highlight his extensive chamber music experience.

Votapek was the soloist on Arthur Fiedler’s last Boston Pops recording, a Gershwin program released on CD by London Records and most recently available as a part of the Deutsche Grammophone CD titled, “The Arthur Fiedler Legacy”. In recent years he has recorded prolifically for the Ivory Classics and Blue Griffin labels On the former he recorded the complete Debussy Preludes, the complete Goyescas of Granados, and a collection of important 20th century works. On the latter there are “Votapek plays Gershwin”, “The Votapeks from Mozart to Piazzolla”, and the complete works for piano and cello of Beethoven with cellist Suren Bagratuni. They have been critically acclaimed by Grammophone, American Record Guide, International Piano, and Fanfare magazines.

His wife, Albertina, frequently joins him in two-piano and four-hand recitals. They have appeared in Buenos Aires under the auspices of the Mozarteum Argentina, on the Van Cliburn series in Fort Worth, the Pabst Theater Series in Milwaukee, and on many college campuses.

Votapek is Professor Emeritus of Piano at Michigan State University.

Among the countless awards that followed his orchestral debut at age twelve were a scholarship to the Salzburg Mozarteum and a French government grant to study with Magda Tagliaferro in Paris. International prominence came with his First Prize victory in the International ARD Competition in Munich, followed by a major triumph as a last-minute replacement for Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli as guest soloist for the Tchaikovsky First Piano Concerto at the Vienna Festival. Since then he has performed with the major orchestras and conductors throughout North and South America, Europe, Russia, Japan, Australia, South Africa and the Middle East as well as being featured at the world’s most famous festivals-- from Dubrovnik, Croatia to the Hollywood Bowl.

Mr. Tocco’s voluminous discography includes the complete solo piano works of Bernstein and Griffes, an all-Copland disc, complete Chopin Preludes, Bach-Liszt Organ Transcriptions, four piano sonatas of MacDowell, and Schulhof’s Cinq Etudes de Jazz.

Mr. Tocco is Eminent Scholar/Artist-in-Residence at the University of Cincinnati College Conservatory of Music and the Artistic Director of the Great Lakes Chamber Music Festival in Michigan.

Mr. Tocco’s exclusive worldwide representation (except the Netherlands) by arrangement with Matthew Sprizzo 477 Durant Avenue Staten Island, New York 10308 Phone: 718-984-8996