Adjunct Associate Professor of Vocal Coaching and pianist Joel Ayau, soprano Alina Kirshon-Goldman ’16 (Doctor of Musical Arts in Performance), Kennedy Center Opera House Orchestra violinist Richard Chang and violinist Cheng-Yin Lin present a free recital of French music and more for soprano, violin and piano.

MEET THE ARTISTS

A graduate of the Domingo-Cafritz Young Artist Program of the Washington National Opera (WNO), JOEL AYAU has assisted on eleven productions at WNO, including Carmen, Aida and Eugene Onegin. He has also worked on the music staffs of North Carolina Opera, Portland Opera, Opera Memphis, Wolf Trap Opera, and Charlottesville Opera. Since 2018, Dr. Ayau also has assisted in the preparation of operas, musicals and oratorio at the National Symphony Orchestra. He has served as cover conductor for more than twenty concerts from the Pops and Declassified series, assisting conductors including Gianandrea Noseda and Steven Reineke.

Dr. Ayau’s performances as a pianist have taken him to venues such as Stern Auditorium in Carnegie Hall, the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow, and National Concert Hall in Taipei. Described as “zesty” and “energetic” by The New York Times, he has performed with vocalists including Andrea Bocelli, Frederica von Stade, George Shirley, Kathryn Lewek, Zach Borichevsky, and Russell Thomas. Dr. Ayau is a regular performer at many of the venues at the Kennedy Center; his recent performances of the Ben Folds Concerto for Piano and Orchestra, accompanying the Nashville Ballet in the Kennedy Center Opera House, were praised as “a worthy spectacle” by DC Theatre Scene. He went on to perform this concerto as a guest artist at the Chautauqua Institution in 2018.

Mr. Ayau holds a doctorate in musical arts from the University of Michigan in collaborative piano, having studied under renowned pedagogue Martin Katz. He earned a master’s in collaborative piano from The Juilliard School and bachelor’s degrees from New York University in computer science and piano performance.

RICHARD CHANG began playing the violin at the age of four in Taiwan and continued his studies with professor One in Tokyo. In 1978, Chang attended the Juilliard Pre-College and College Divisions, studying with Hyo Kang and Dorothy DeLay as a scholarship student. He received his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in 1987. He also studied with Aaron Rosand for two years at the Mannes School of Music and received his professional studies diploma. Chang has served as concertmaster of the Pittsburgh Youth Symphony, the Juilliard Orchestra and the Mannes Orchestra. For three summers from 1987 to 1989, Chang received a grant from the French government to attend the Music Festival in Nice; he also performed in the Summer Concert. Other orchestras that Chang has performed with include the Pittsburgh Symphony, the Wheaton Symphony of Chicago and the Aspen Symphony. He has been a member of the Kennedy Center Opera House Orchestra since 1995.

Dr. ALINA KIRSHON-GOLDMAN has participated in international festivals and competitions in Austria, the Czech Republic, Israel and the United States. Upon her graduation with a Doctor of Musical Arts in Performance (Voice) from Shenandoah Conservatory in 2016, Kirson-Goldman received the Dean’s Scholarship Award for her research in the field of Israeli Art Song. While pursuing her doctoral studies at Shenandoah Conservatory, Kirson-Goldman performed the role of Leonora in the opera Inquisitive Women by Wolf Ferrari. In 2013 she was a finalist in the Concerto Competition and performed in several chamber music recitals. Kirson-Goldman joined the Washington National Opera Chorus in 2017 for the production of Verdi’s Aida. In 2019 she joined the company in Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin. Her recent engagements include the role of Cio-Cio San in Puccini’s adaptation of Madama Butterfly with the Loudoun Lyric Opera. Kirson-Goldman is a recipient of the America-Israel Cultural Foundation Grant and the third place winner of the Paul Robeson Vocal Competition. Dr. Kirshon-Goldman is the founder and director of Alina’s Music Studio in Northern Virginia, where she teaches voice, violin and viola lessons. Her students perform with the Washington National Opera Children’s Chorus, National Children’s Chorus, National Philharmonic Chorale, and Fairfax Symphony Orchestra. Some of her students have been the winners of local competitions and have performed with the Virginia State Youth Orchestra and chorus. In addition to her performance and teaching career, Dr. Kirshon-Goldman served as a co-chair of competitions for the Northern Virginia Music Teachers Association, and she is currently their Educational Programs’ s co-chair. In 2017, Dr. Kirshon-Goldman was featured as a guest singer in the new CD of Samovar Russian Folk Music Ensemble. Simply Samovar is available on Spotify.

Photos by Shenandoah University’s Office of Marketing and Communications and courtesy of artists