SJS News

Saint James School welcomes the D'Amore Duo for a concert of music for viola and guitar on Sunday, January 14 at 1:00 pm in Teach Recital Hall in the Pohanka Fine Arts Center. Admission is free and open to the public.

The program will consist of the Arpeggione Sonata of Franz Schubert, the Four Seasons by Astor Piazzolla, two works by Niccolo Paganini (one featuring the viola, the other the guitar) and a work written for the D'Amore Duo by the award-winning Cuban-American composer, Jose Lezcano. Entitled Sonata for Guitar and Oboe - A La Tristeza de Buenos Aires, it is based on the life, death and poetry of Argentina's national poet, Alfonsina Storni.

The D'Amore Duo members are William Feasley, guitar, and Dan Zhang, viola. The duo has been described as "a perfect partnership of sound" by the Washington Post and has toured extensively in the US and abroad and performed at such venues as the National Cathedral, the Smithsonian, The Spanish Institute in New York, the Yale Centre for British Art, the University of Auckland and London's St Martin in the Fields.

BIOS

Violist Dan Zhang has played concerts throughout Europe, the United States, Asia, and South America as a soloist, chamber musician, and orchestra musician. Dr. Zhang has performed in prestigious venues such as Carnegie Hall, Kennedy Center, Heinz Hall, Gewandhaus in Leipzig, Teatro Centro Cultura Kirchner in Buenos Aires, and NHK Hall in Tokyo.

Dr. Zhang teaches at Washington Adventist University and Catholic University.

As a collaborator and advocate, Dr. Zhang has had the privilege to serve as artist director of "The Sound of Piano, Strings and Voice International Music Festival", based in Xi'an, China. This program provides young musicians with a strong artistic vision and stage presence.

Dr. Zhang was the winner and finalist of many competitions, including the First China Viola Festival and Competition, 3rd Hong Kong International Strings Competition, the International Max Rostal Competition in Berlin, and the International Anton Rubinstein Viola Competition in Dusseldorf, Germany.

Dr. Zhang received her D.M.A. at The Catholic University of America, M.M. at Yale School of Music, A.D. from Shenandoah University and B.M. from Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing.

Classical guitarist William Feasley was the first guitarist to be awarded the Peabody Conservatory's coveted Artist Diploma. He has since been the recipient of numerous prizes and awards: a gold medal in the 1987 PanHellenic Guitar Competition in Athens, the 1990 and 1995 Baltimore Chamber Music Awards and a 1996 Governor's Citation for Outstanding Achievements in the Arts in Maryland.

Selected to play for Andrés Segovia at the master's historic last class at the University of Southern California in 1986, he was later featured on the CBS special, Eulogy of Segovia.

Mr. Feasley has appeared in the Ohrid Spoleto Festival in Macedonia and venues such as St. Martin in the Fields in London, the National Gallery of Art, the Phillips Collection, the Washington National Cathedral and the Yale University Centre for British Art. He has toured with the Russian Chamber Orchestra, Music Viva, in the former Yugoslavia, with the Moyzes String Quartet in Slovakia, performed live on ABC International Radio in Australia, with New York's Bacchanalia Ensemble under the direction of Nina Beilina and Washington's 20th Century Consort.

Mr. Feasley has performed in Spain, the Caribbean, Greece, Serbia, Italy, Ecuador, New Zealand, Poland, Slovakia, Honduras, Peru, Bolivia, The Czech Republic, Slovenia, Bosnia, Australia, the United Kingdom, and Iceland.

He released four critically acclaimed discs for the Sonora label: Simplicity, American Sketches - musical Americana with rags, Gershwin and Coplandesque landscapes, Echoes of Goya - a multimedia presentation on the life of the famous painter and his impact on several generations of composers and Shenandoah, featuring music of Robert Beaser, Ralph Towner, George Rochberg and Joaquin Rodrigo. His most recent solo recording, the French Perspective, is out on the Center Earth label.

Mr. Feasley teaches at Washington Adventist University in Takoma Park, MD and Saint James School, Hagerstown MD.