March 17th: Chamber Music Charleston Players at the ATG

Chamber Music Charleston Players will be the featured performers at the next Chamber Music series at the Art Trail Gallery. They will perform music of Martinu, JS  Bach, Milhaud and Telemann. The concert is at 5 PM Sunday March 17, 2013 in the Art Trail Gallery 185 W Evans St. (corner of Irby and Evans Sts.) A meet the artists’ reception will follow.

Chamber Music Charleston (CMC) is an organization dedicated to developing the audience for classical music through chamber music concerts and educational performances of high artistic quality by musicians of the Low country. All programs presented by CMC are developed to highlight the diversity, eclecticism and excitement possible in chamber music.

Performing  in this concert will be Francis Hsieh violin, Sandra Nikolajevs, bassoon, Regina Helcher Yost flute and Julia Harlow, harpsichord

Frances Hsieh, a native of Chapel Hill, began studying violin at age five under Dorothy Kitchen of the Duke University String School.  She continued her studies with Eric Pritchard as an A.J. Fletcher Scholar at Duke University earning degrees in Music and Biology.  Under the tutelage of Charles Castleman, Frances received her Masters in Violin Performance at the Eastman School of Music.  There, she performed with the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra through an internship with the Eastman Orchestral Studies Program.  Frances is an active chamber musician of Chamber Music Charleston and has performed with numerous symphonies including the North Carolina and Phoenix Symphonies and has won positions with the Colorado Music Festival, Richmond, Asheville, and Charleston Symphony Orchestras.

Born and raised in central Massachusetts, bassoonist Sandra Nikolajevs began her formal musical education at the Oberlin College and Conservatory of Music in Ohio and continued studies at the Juilliard School in New York City and at the Paris Conservatory.  Ms. Nikolajevs has participated in the National Repertory Orchestra and the Tanglewood Music Center summer music festivals and worked with such notable conductors as Seiji Ozawa, Pierre Boulez and Robert Spano.  She has performed chamber music at Carnegie Hall, Alice Tully Hall and with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center.  Ms. Nikolajevs is currently Principal Bassoonist of the Savannah Philharmonic and has held the same position with the Charleston Symphony Orchestra, South Carolina Philharmonic and Augusta Symphony.  She is Director and Founder of Chamber Music Charleston.

Regina Helcher Yost is Second Flute of the Charleston Symphony Orchestra, Assistant Principal Flute/Piccolo of the Colorado Music Festival in Boulder, Colorado, core flutist of Chamber Music Charleston and Adjunct Professor of Flute at Charleston Southern University. 

In the summer of 2006, Regina served as Acting Flutist with the Atlanta Chamber Players on their 30th Anniversary European Tour, performing for enthusiastic audiences in France, Switzerland, and Rome, Italy. In the summer of 2009, Regina was Co-Principal Flutist of the International Pacific Music Festival 20th Anniversary Alumni Orchestra in Sapporo, Japan.

Previously, Regina was the Associate Principal Flute/Piccolo of the Honolulu Symphony, Second Flute/Piccolo of the Knoxville Symphony, and Acting Second Flute of the St. Louis Symphony. In 2000, she soloed with the St. Louis Symphony in Brandenburg #4 in Powell Symphony Hall in a performance which received a standing ovation and rave reviews. In that same year, Regina was also chosen to play in the Minnesota Orchestra on their NYC/European tour, performing in Carnegie Hall and the finest halls in Europe, including the Musikverein and the Philharmonie.

Julia Harlow is currently Organist at Second Presbyterian Church in Charleston. She earned the Doctor of Musical Arts in Organ Performance and Pedagogy at the University of Oregon, the Master of Music in Early Keyboard Performance at the University of Oregon, and the Bachelor of Music in Organ Performance from the University of Iowa. She has extensive performance experience of early music, as well as European, Balkan and Middle Eastern folk music. She has often performed as harpsichordist or organist in Piccolo Spoleto, on the Early Music, Choral Artists/Festival of Churches, and L'Organo series. In her spare time she enjoys playing the bagpipes with the City of Charleston Police Pipes and Drums.