Musicians

Music and the other arts are the most potent demonstration that, in the heart, we are all one community.

~ Jan Swafford

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Ying-Li Pan
violin

Ying-Li Pan, violin

Ying-Li is currently pursuing her M.M degree in violin performance at the University of South Carolina in Columbia, studying violin with Dr. Donald Portnoy. She holds the positions of Concertmaster with the USC Chamber Orchestra and Associate Concertmaster with the USC Symphony Orchestra, in addition to membership with the USC Graduate String Quartet. Ying-Li is a graduate from National Taiwan Normal University, where she studied with Nanette Chen.

She has participated in chamber and violin master classes with Qian Zhou, Nai-Yuan Hu, James Buswell, Yehonatan Berick, Lynn Chan, Vadim Mazo, Vadim Gluzman and Michael Ludwig. She has toured with NTNU Symphony Orchestra and Asia Youth Orchestra throughout Asia, Australia and USA. Ying-Li was born in Kaohsiung, Taiwan.

Her first instrument, at the age of five, was piano, which was quickly followed by her first lessons on the violin at the age of six.

Sherezade Panthaki
soprano

Sherry’s international success in music of the Baroque and beyond has been fueled by superbly honed musicianship. An acknowledged star in the early-music field, Sherry enjoys ongoing collaborations with many of the world’s leading interpreters including Nicholas McGegan, Masaaki Suzuki, Mark Morris, Nicholas Kraemer, Matthew Halls, Paul Agnew, and Lawrence Cummings. This season marks return appearances with Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra, Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra, The Boston Early Music Festival, the Orchestra of St. Luke’s, Music of the Baroque (Chicago), as well as debuts with NDR Radiophilharmonie (Hannover, Germany), the Minnesota Orchestra, the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, Musica Angelica (Los Angeles), The Caramoor Music Room Concert series, and several others.

Firmly at home in the numerous Baroque oratorios, operas, and cantatas of Handel, Bach, Vivaldi, Purcell, and Monteverdi, Sherry is no stranger to 19th, 20th and 21st century concert repertoire. She has received wide acclaim for her interpretations of Brahms’ Requiem, Orff’s Carmina Burana, and Poulenc’s Gloria; notable among her new music premieres is the soprano role of Emily Dickinson in Martin Bresnick’s brand new oratorio Passions of Bloom at Yale University and the Norfolk Chamber Music Festival.

An active and passionate music educator, Sherry is frequently called upon to present vocal masterclasses at Universities and Arts Schools across the United States; most recently to students from Houston Grand Opera, Rice University’s Moore School of Music, the University of Texas School of Music, Rollins College, and the Governor’s School for the Arts at West Virginia Wesleyan College. She served as the Christoph Wolff Visiting Performer at the Harvard University Department of Music where she gave masterclasses and performances in collaboration with Nicholas McGegan and the Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra. Sherry has served as Vocal Coach for the Yale Baroque Opera Project, and currently teaches voice lessons to scholarship winners of the top undergraduate and graduate choral ensembles at Yale University.

Born and raised in India, Sherry began her musical education at an early age. Following intensive study and earning national distinction as a young pianist, she turned to singing and found a more personal and expressive means to connect with audiences. She holds an Artist Diploma with top honors from the Yale School of Music and the Yale Institute of Sacred Music, where she was the winner of multiple awards of distinction including the prestigious Phyllis Curtin Career Entry Prize. She earned a Master’s degree from the University of Illinois, and a Bachelor’s degree from West Virginia Wesleyan College.

  • astonishing coloratura with radiant top notes (Calgary Herald); a full, luxuriously toned upper range (The Los Angeles Times),
  • and passionately informed interpretations, mining deep emotion from the subtle shaping of the lines (The New York Times).
    In a recent review, San Francisco critic Joshua Kosman commented,
  • it becomes increasingly difficult to find words that will adequately convey the multifold splendor of her singing. It is full-bodied and rich in coloration, yet her phrases move with all the litheness and grace of a dancer. She reaches notes that other singers can only eye with envy, and does so with effortless precision. She tears through the most demanding passagework without batting an eye or missing a beat. Her diction is flawless. She’s a phenomenon, and only getting more marvelous with each passing year.(SF Gate)

For more about Sherry see her website.

Jennifer Parker
violin, vocalist, viola, mandolin, guitar

Jennifer Parker - violin, voice, viola, mandolin and guitar

Jennifer Parker, an Augusta native, started her musical journey at the age of 10 when starting violin through the Richmond County Orchestra program. At the age of 12, Jennifer picked up the guitar and began writing songs, and has been a singer-songwriter ever since. Throughout her teens, Jennifer also picked up the bass, piano, ukuleles, viola, and more. An avid bluegrass and folk music lover, Jennifer has played with bands such as the Tom Miller Project and Mamie Foreman and The Rosebuds, and has also recorded with local Augusta bands, the Radar Cinema, Jokers & Thieves, and Mann Ray.

Jennifer is often a featured performer with Event Horizons. She is also a part of the Sand Hills String Band, the Augusta State University (ASU) Orchestra, and is a student assistant for the Greater Augusta Youth Orchestras. Jennifer is also a strings teacher at East Aiken School for the Arts, a secretary and violin teacher at the Carolina Academy of Music, and teaches private lessons in the Augusta area for violin, guitar, and mandolin.

Jennifer received a degree from ASU as a Music Education major, and studied with Laura Tomlin and Carl Purdy. She is currently Assistant Orchestra Director at Durham Middle School in Acworth, GA.

Josef Patchen
piano/keyboards, composer

Josef Patchen, piano/keyboards, composer

Patchen began work writing and arranging popular music while at Eastman and received a job offer as house arranger at Studio South in Augusta. He worked on a wide variety of music projects and styles while there. In 1991 he began work scoring original video for large corporate clients through Edge Media in Aiken, South Carolina. His work has won regional and national awards. Throughout his composition and production work, he has maintained his performance skills in jazz, pop, and classical music and is heard in the Augusta area on a regular basis. He currently teaches at Portman’s Music Academy.

Though fluent in many modern styles, Patchen is most at home providing tuneful, well-known music from the classical era through the first half of the twentieth century – Gershwin, Arlen, Kern, Mercer, Carmichael, Cole Porter – in short, the golden age of American song – to provide a sophisticated atmosphere. Click here for more information.

Links to samples of his music and performances can be found at the following sites:

Lisa Pham
cello

Lisa Pham began studying Violoncello at the University of North Georgia where she received her Associate of Arts in Music. She moved to Augusta in 2012 to further her music studies and received her Bachelor of Arts in Music at Augusta University. She often performs with various chamber ensembles and orchestras in the South East. During the summer, she works as a Camp Counselor at Laurel Ridge Music Camp, and during the school year, she is an Orchestra Director at East Aiken School of the Arts.

Jonathan Pilkington
tenor

Jonathan Pilkington is a native of LaGrange, GA, whose recent solo engagements include Verdi’s Requiem, Mendelssohn’s Elijah, Haydn’s Creation, Handel’s Israel in Egypt, Mozart’s Requiem, Handel’s Messiah, and Orff’s Carmina Burana. He sang the tenor solo in New York premiere of Mendelssohn’s Humboldt Cantata and was the tenor soloist for Elliott Carter’s The Defense of Corinth with the National Chorale at Avery Fisher Hall. He was a guest soloist at the 2014 Bassi Brugnatelli International Conducting and Singing Symposium in Robbiate, Italy. As a frequent recitalist, Pilkington’s most recent solo recital featured songs for tenor and guitar, including excerpts from Schubert’s Winterreise transcribed for guitar, in collaboration with Nicolas Deuson. In early 2017, he completed a tour of concerts featuring the songs of Samuel Barber, including a performance at Spivey Hall in Atlanta. Pilkington has performed many major choral works with the New York Philharmonic, American Symphony Orchestra Los Angeles Philharmonic and others, and has been guest lecturer in vocal pedagogy for University of Wisconsin – Stevens Point, the Sautee Chorale, and St. Bartholomew’s Church in Atlanta. With degrees from Shorter College(B.M.), Westminster choir College (M.M.), and the University of Georgia (D.MA.), Pilkington is assistant professor of music at Piedmont College. As a dedicated voice teacher, he has participated in the highly selective NATS Intern Program and competed further training at the LoVetri Institute for Somatic Voicework™ at Baldwin Wallace University.

Kevin Pollock
piano

Kevin Pollock - piano

Kevin has been an active musician and teacher in the Southeast for more than twenty years. He is an acclaimed pianist, baritone soloist, and conductor. In addition to his busy performing schedule with Ensembles Intermezzo, Kevin serves as Music Director at Warren Baptist Church, and is owner and principal instructor of Pollock Music Studios at Turner’s Keyboards in Augusta.

He has also served as Choral Director at Augusta Preparatory School and as Prep School Chorus Director at Westminster Schools of Augusta, GA. Staying close to his boyhood home, Kevin attended Augusta College as a Vocal and Piano Performance major. He studied piano with Artemesia Thevaos from 1987 until her retirement from teaching in 2001.

Kevin currently studies with Lydia Porro Milham, Artemesia’s duo-concert partner. He has also studied in the vocal studio of William F. Toole from 1988-2004. Music is a binding thread within the Pollock household. Kevin’s wife, Andrea Pollock, is an active lyric soprano, as well as a voice and piano instructor at Pollock Music Studios. They have one daughter, Sophie, who has recently received state-wide recognition in piano competitions.

Jason Pooler
violin

Jason Pooler - violin

Jason Pooler has been recently featured in the Morris Museum Concert Series and will appear as soloist with the Columbia County Orchestra in Augusta, GA in May of 2013. He regularly performs with the Augusta Choral Society, Columbia County Orchestra, and several other venues and churches around the CSRA in addition to traveling to perform with the LaGrange Symphony Orchestra.

During his undergraduate studies with Dr. Angela Morgan at Augusta State University, Jason was an ASU Concerto Competition Winner in 2009 and 2011, a Warren Baptist Performing Scholar, an ASU Maxwell Scholarship recipient, and held the positions of co-concertmaster of ASU Orchestra, 1st violin of the ASU Student String Quartet, and participant with the Symphony Orchestra Augusta Mentoring Program.

Jason works as Box Office Coordinator at the Georgia Regents University Maxwell Theatre, and is a member of the Empyrean String Quartet. Jason loves to listen and play all sorts of music, and is hoping one day to learn how to play Latin and Eastern Indian music.

Carl Purdy
viola, violin, mandolin, guitar, pennywhistle, banjo, harmonica, bagpipes, recorder, composer

Carl Purdy - viola, violin, mandolin, guitar, pennywhistle, harmonica, bagpipes, recorder, composer

Carl’s versatility as an instrumentalist and vocalist has enabled him to perform many styles of music, including Classical, Jazz, Traditional British Isles, Classic American Folk, New Age Country Western, and Bluegrass. Carl is violist and founding member of the Magellan String Quartet and Lyra Vivace Chamber Orchestra. He also performs as principal viola with the Augusta Opera and Augusta Choral Society.

At Augusta State University, Carl teaches viola, humanities, and directs the Sand Hills String Band. Carl also performs as soloist and chamber musician on the faculty of the International Music Festival at Vale Veneto, Brazil. He has recorded and toured internationally on the viola, jazz violin and viola, recorder, classical guitar, and folk guitar, in addition to composing and arranging for symphonies and chamber ensembles.

Carl performed with the members of the Franciscan Chamber Players in residence at the Summer Music Monterey music camp for many years, during which they recorded a compact disc with legendary jazz violinist Stephane Grappelli. He developed his talents as a folk musician with the Boston-based Celtic band, St. James Gate, while attending New England Conservatory of Music in the 1980s. He was the principal violist of the La Crosse Symphony in Wisconsin before moving to Georgia for the position of Principal Viola with the Augusta Symphony.

Carl studied viola with Heidi Castleman and Walter Trampler at the New England Conservatory of Music, where he earned Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees.

Stan Pylant
viola, violin, conductor, vocalist

Stan Pylant - Viola, Violin, Conductor, Vocalist

Since 1994, Stan Pylant has performed as a violist with the Augusta Symphony (Symphony Orchestra Augusta), and with the Lyra Vivace Chamber Orchestra since 2000. He frequently supports the CSRA professional music culture by performing with local accompanying orchestras for professional and community productions, including the Augusta Opera and the Augusta Choral Society.

Stan is a minister at First Baptist Church of Augusta, GA, where he was called to serve in 1993. Before moving to Augusta, Stan served as church minister in Louisiana, Texas, and Oklahoma; everywhere Stan has served, the regional professional orchestras have been grateful for his availability to perform on both viola and violin.

Stan is also a gifted vocalist (tenor), and travels throughout the USA and internationally to perform with and lead several distinguished choruses, including the CenturyMen and Sons of Jubal.

Stan received a Bachelor of Music degree from University of Louisiana at Lafayette, a Master of Music degree from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas, and a Doctorate in Worship Studies from the Institute of Worship Studies in Jacksonville, Florida. He is also a licensed multi-instrument private pilot!

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One thought on “Musicians”

  1. Kate,
    My son is getting married at our home in Evans on October 16, 2021 . It is a small wedding of approximately 130 people, and will be held outdoors. We are beginning to plan the music for the wedding and wanted to incorporate a “String Trio”with violin or viola, cello, and flute. My friend Stan Pylant, recommended that I contact you since you schedule wedding events through “In Praise of Music”. I would appreciate you contacting me so that we could discuss the possibilities of special wedding music.
    Sincerely,
    Jan Key
    706-294-0330

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