Thi Nguyen, violin artist and music professor at California State University, Fresno, will perform in a faculty violin recital at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, April 5, at the Concert Hall in the New Music Building (2380 E. Keats Ave.).
Nguyen will be joined by pianist Natasha Kislenko in a program of works by J.S. Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Brahms and Saint-Satins.
Nguyen was born in Ho Chi Minh City (formerly Saigon). He was introduced to the violin by his father, Mo Nguyen, at the age of five. In the United States, his studies continued with Leo Reynolds, Dorothy Delay, Endre Granat, and Cho Lan Lin as well as in Russia with Zakhar Bron. At 16, he was the youngest concertmaster of the Philharmonia Orchestra during the Aspen Music Festival. As a teenager, he won the Rotary Club, ASTA and NCTA National Violin Competitions, served as the assistant concertmaster of the 1986 National Orchestra and was the first prize winner of the Victor Violin Competition.
Nguyen has performed in Europe, South America, Japan. He performed the Tchaikovsky “Violin Concerto” with the Rio Hondo Symphony in Whittier, concertos by Beethoven and Brahms with the Orange County Symphony, Haydn’s “Violin Concerto” with the Mozart Classical Orchestra, also based in Orange County, and was a featured soloist in the film “The Phoenix Effect.”
In 2001, Nguyen formed the Del Gesu Quartet and started the Irvine Chamber Orchestra and the Irvine Chamber Music Festival. He joined the Fresno State faculty in 2004.
Admission to the concert is $7 general, $5 faculty/staff/seniors/students. Tickets may be purchased in the Music Department Box Office from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m., Monday through Friday and beginning at 6:30 p.m. April 5. Tickets also are available online at www.csufresno.edu/music.
For more information, call 559.278.2654.
