Announcing the 2019 Silberman Chamber Music Competition Winners
Trio Cassatt
Phoebe Robertson, flute
Bronwyn Hagerty, cello
Alyssa Hensley, harp
The 2019 Silberman Chamber Music Competition took place on Sunday, April 28th at 6pm in Kresge Theatre. 5 chamber music ensembles performed music by Mozart, Nielson, Schubert, Jongen, and Beethoven. Trio Cassatt was named winner of the 2019 Silberman Chamber Music Competition with Joseph Jongen’s Deux pièces en trio.
Inspired by Pittsburgh-born artist Mary Cassatt and the Impressionist art philosophy, Trio Cassatt is a chamber ensemble whose goal is to bring enchanting and rarely performed music by traditionally-marginalized composers to the world. Its founding members are Phoebe Robertson, flute, Bronwyn Hagerty, cello, and Alyssa Hensley, harp, who came together through the chamber music program at Carnegie Mellon University. Trio Cassatt has concertized throughout the Pittsburgh area, including at the Heinz Memorial Chapel Concert Series, Phipps Conservatory and Botanical Gardens, and Pittsburgh Theological Seminary.
Flutist Phoebe Robertson has performed in concert halls across North America and Europe. She has been awarded many of Canada’s most prestigious distinctions for young musicians, including Grand Prize of the National Arts Centre Orchestra Bursary Competition, and her playing has been featured on BBC Radio 3 and on the Decca and NYOC labels. Upcoming concert appearances include a performance of the Mozart Flute Concerto in G Major as winner of the Graduate Carnegie Mellon Philharmonic Soloist Competition and recitals in the Pittsburgh Concert Society Major Artist and Johnstown concert series. A student of Lorna McGhee, Phoebe will receive her Master of Music degree from Carnegie Mellon University in May 2019, and holds a Bachelor of Music degree from her studies with Camille Churchfield at the University of Ottawa. In the fall of 2019, she will commence a Doctorate of Musical Arts at the Manhattan School of Music under Linda Chesis and Robert Langevin.
A native of the San Francisco Bay Area, cellist Bronwyn Hagerty has appeared as a soloist, adjudicator, and conductor throughout California, the Pacific Northwest, and the greater Pittsburgh area. She has garnered multiple awards and accolades for her chamber music playing, including the 2017 Silberman Chamber Music Competition for Schubert’s Octet in F Major. She frequently performs with the symphonies of Tacoma, Westmoreland, and Johnstown; and, as she is an active advocate for new music, can often be found in the Carnegie Mellon Contemporary Ensemble and Pittsburgh’s new music group, Nat 28. Bronwyn holds a bachelor’s degree in cello performance from the University of Puget Sound and a master’s degree from Carnegie Mellon University; with her primary teachers including David Requiro, Meta Weiss, and Anne Martindale Williams. She is currently pursuing an Advanced Music Studies Certificate in cello at Carnegie Mellon, where she will graduate in May 2019.
Harpist Alyssa Hensley performs as a soloist, chamber musician, and orchestral musician in Chicago and Pittsburgh. Ms. Hensley holds a Bachelor’s degree from Northwestern University where she studied harp with Liz Cifani and Lynn Williams. She is currently pursuing a Master of Music degree in harp performance at Carnegie Mellon University as a student of Gretchen Van Hoesen. Her other teachers include Laura Fako-Utley and Joan Holland. When in Chicago, Ms. Hensley can be found regularly playing with the Northshore Concert Band and the Chicago Composer’s Orchestra, a group dedicated to performing works by living composers. Recently, she performed in the premiere of Pittsburgh-based composer Federico Garcia de Castro’s Surround, for Six Harps Placed Around the Audience. Ms. Hensley can be heard on the CD Reflections, by the Northwestern University Symphonic Wind Ensemble under the baton of Dr. Mallory Thompson, and on My Music: Engelbert Humperdinck in Hawaii on PBS.
Photo by Alexander Chen Photography