house concert

I met Cindy Mong when she was but a wee froshie at Stanford University. In fact, I believe I met her during one of the first couple weeks of her time in college, which totally made me feel like a dirty old man as the old cellist in a string quartet with three young frosh (where “old” is a relative term). But I stayed in the group anyway, and we ended up having a great time. :)

Violist Cindy and pianist Julia Greer gave a wonderful concert at my loft on February 26th, 2005. Below are the program, artist bios, and some photos. A bunch of other people got sucked into playing in the show as well, including me, which was fun because I so rarely get to play the cello these days. Most of the guests were Stanford medical school folk. I wish I had had more time to hang out and get to know them, but hosting duties kept me busy.

Program —

Suite No. 6 for unaccompanied viola (J.S. Bach)
- Cindy Mong, viola

Three Pieces (Boulanger)
- Warren Wu, cello, Julia Greer, piano

Horn Quintet (Mozart)
- James Priest, french horn; Cynthia Frievogel, violin, Cindy Mong, viola,
- Isabel O’Meara, viola, Eric Cheng, cello

Sonata for viola and piano (Rebecca Clarke)
- Cindy Mong, viola; Julia Greer, piano

Sonata in g minor (Schumann)
- Julia Greer, piano

Artist Biographies —

Cindy Mong, viola

Ms. Mong earned a BA with honors in Human Biology from Stanford, and has distinguished herself with top prizes at the American String Teacher’s National Solo Competition, Kingsville Int’l Young Artists Competition, and the La Jolla Symphony Competition. A fellow of the New York String Orch, she has been principal violist of the San Francisco Symphony Youth Orch and a member of the American Youth Symphony and Aspen Festival Orch. Chosen as one of 12 fellows of 2004 BSO’s Tanglewood Music Center, she performed there as assistant principal violist. She has performed in masterclasses for Pamela Frank, Edgar Meyer, Tafelmusik, the Bretano String Quartet, and Kim Kashkashian and coached with Joel Smiroff of the Julliard Quartet and the SLSQ. Her principal teachers were Donald McInnes, Heidi Castleman, and Lesley Robertson. She now pursues an MD at Stanford University School of Medicine.

Julia R. Greer,piano

Julia R. Greer was born in Moscow, Russia and attended the Prep Division of the Moscow Conservatory School of Music where she studied piano with Mrs. N. Svetozarova. After her family’s immigration to the U.S. in 1992 she became the recipient of the Schwabs Piano Scholarship from Eastman School of Music to study piano with Vincent Lenti. At this time she frequently performed as a soloist and also with the Penfield and Brighton Symphony Orchestras. While an undergraduate at MIT majoring in Chemical Engineering, Julia was awarded a piano scholarship, studied with Prof. David Deveau and gave numerous recitals in the Boston area. After graduating from MIT, Julia received a Master’s in Materials Science and Engineering from Stanford while studying privately at the SF Conservatory of Music. She also founded the SOMA Duo with violinist, Grant Ho, and performed with the Redwood Symphony. Julia won 1st prize in the Concerto Division of the US Open Music Competition in 2000 and was the winner of the Redwood Symphony Concerto Competition in 2003.

Julia is currently a principal pianist of the Redwood Symphony and is still juggling her research work at Stanford with her music life. She is currently in the last year of her Ph.D. program in Materials Science and Engineering working on studying very small, gold nano-pillars.

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Special thanks to Jim Batcho for taking a bunch of photos, and to Warren Wu for being so helpful all the time.