College of Musical Arts

An accomplished solo, chamber and collaborative musician, Jeffrey Heisler excels in traditional as well as contemporary repertoire. Among his significant accomplishments was a 2005 Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition gold medal with the Blue Square Saxophone Quartet, which garnered national acclaim. Heisler has performed concerts throughout the United States, Italy and France, and has appeared on the prestigious Portes Ouvertes aux Noveaux Talents concert series in Paris. In addition, he collaborated with the Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Ellen Taaffe Zwilich on a transcription of Episodes for soprano saxophone and piano, which was premiered in March 2007. In summer 2007, Heisler created a new version of Morton Subotnick’s In Two Worlds for alto saxophone and interactive computer (MAX/MSP).

Heisler has promoted the creation of new works for the saxophone by commissioning and premiering new works by composers such as Robert Ash, Randall Cornelison, Halim El-Dabh, Timothy Stulman and BGSU Distinguished Artist Professor Marilyn Shrude. In 2006, he presented the American premiere of Magic by Ivan Fedele, and in 2008 will premiere a concerto for saxophone by David R. Gillingham.

He has appeared on the BGSU New Music & Art Festival, the North American Saxophone Alliance Biennial Conferences and the XIII World Saxophone Congress. Additionally, he has been a featured soloist with the Central Michigan University Wind Ensemble and Symphony Orchestra and the BGSU Wind Symphony.

Other competitions include the Outstanding Collegiate Classical Instrumentalist in Downbeat’s 2002 Student Music Awards and third prize at the 2005 MTNA National Chamber Music Competition. He earned a bachelor’s degree in music education from CMU, where he studied with John Nichol, and a master’s degree in saxophone performance from BGSU, as a student of Distinguished Artist Professor John Sampen. At BGSU, Heisler has studied conducting with Bruce Moss and is currently a teaching assistant in Sampen’s studio.

Born in Taiwan, Yu-Tzu (Isabelle) Huang began to play the piano at the age of four. She later studied percussion with Chi-Hung Cheng. She earned her bachelor’s degree at the Taipei National University of the Arts, where she studied with Shin-San Wu, Kuen-Yean Hwang and Pei-Ching Wu. She was also a member of the Jumping Percussion Group (the junior group of the Ju Percussion Group) in Taiwan. While pursuing her master’s degree at Ithaca College with Gordon Stout, she played in Ensemble X, directed by Steven Stucky. She also was a concerto competition winner in both 2005 and 2006. Huang attended the Taipei International Percussion Summer Camp, the Zeltsman Marimba Festival, the 2004 International Marimba Competition in Belgium and has attended master classes given by Keiko Abe, Bogdan Bacanu, Michael Burritt, Momoko Kamiya and Leigh Howard Stevens. She graduated from the Taipei National University of the Arts in 2004 with a bachelor’s and from Ithaca College with a master’s in 2006. She is currently a doctoral candidate in contemporary music at BGSU, where she studies with Roger Schupp.

Flutist Yeji Kim received her master’s degree in flute performance in May 2007 and a Performance Certificate in 2005 from Bowling Green State University under the guidance of Nina Assimakopoulos. At BGSU, Kim has participated in a number of solo competitions and was a prize winner in the state division of the 2006 Music Teachers National Association Young Artist Competition, the 2005 Young Artist Competition of Flute Society of Washington, D.C. and a winner in the graduate division of the 39th Annual Competitions in Music Performance at BGSU. She also served as the principal flute of the Bowling Green Philharmonia.

A native of South Korea, Kim graduated from Seoul Arts High School and received her bachelor’s degree from Mokwon University. College awards include the “Special Scholarship for Top Freshman” and the Mokwon University College of Music Concerto Competition. Other honors include winning the Daejeon Symphony Orchestra, Chungnam Symphony Orchestra Young Artist Concerto Competitions and the Ehwa and Eumag Chunch Competitions.

She has appeared on the Way Public Library Young Artist Recital Series in Perrysburg, the New Music & Art Festival (2004–2007), and has been actively involved in workshops and festivals throughout the world. She has participated in master classes with world-renowned flutists including Alain Marion, Michel Debost, Peter Lloyd and William Bennett. She studied with Dongsoo Kim and Soyoung Lee, and is currently working with Nina Assimakopoulos.

Conductor Octavio Más-Arocas was the 2005 prize winner of the Third European Conductors Competition. In the same year, he served as assistant conductor for Strauss’ opera Die ägyptische Helena, with soprano Deborah Voigt as Helena, at the Teatro Real de Madrid. He has been a finalist in the Rosario Symphony Orchestra Conducting Competition in Argentina. He also won a competition for Spanish conductors and subsequently was named a member of the National Youth Orchestra of Spain conducting staff. In 2003, he won a full scholarship from the Institute of International Education of New York and the Spanish Foundation Pedro Barrié de la Maza to pursue his master’s at Bard College, New York.

He has conducted in Europe and North and South America, with ensembles such as the National Youth Orchestra of Spain; Rosario Symphony Orchestra, Argentina; Kharkov Symphony Orchestra, Ukraine; Pescara Symphony Orchestra, Italy; Amsterdam Brass, Netherlands; National Youth Orchestra of Portugal, and the Hampden Chamber Choir, Massachusetts. In Spain, he conducted the Alcalá de Henares City Orchestra Deza Classical Orchestra, City of Elche Symphony Orchestra, Valencia University Philharmonic Orchestra, City of Chiva Orchestra, City of Silleda Symphony, Armónica Chamber Orchestra of Buñol, Murcia and Silleda Brass Ensembles and the Villarrolla Festival Orchestra. In summer 2002, he was invited to audition the musicians of the National Youth Orchestra of Portugal and to conduct the orchestra on a concert tour through Portugal. This coming January he will conduct the Toledo Symphony Orchestra.

Born in Valencia, Spain, he holds a diploma in orchestra conducting from Accademia Musicale Pescarese, Italy and a master’s degree from Bard College. An active participant in conducting workshops, he has worked with leading conductors and teachers such as Marin Alsop, Christoph Eschenbach, Otto-Werner Mueller, James Conlon, Gustav Meier, Kenneth Kiesler, Jorge Mester, Larry Rachleff, Jesús Lopez-Cobos and Colin Metters.

Drummer and percussionist Olman E. Piedra left Costa Rica in 1998 to pursue a musical career in the United States. He has performed with a variety of ensembles, including the Sphinx Orchestra, the National Symphony Orchestra of Costa Rica, the Waco Symphony Orchestra, the American Wind Symphony Orchestra, the Toledo Jazz Orchestra, the Ensamble de Percusión Costa Rica, the Detroit Chamber Winds and Strings, the Michigan Chamber Players and Roland Vazquez’ latin jazz combo. He is a member of NOMO, an eight-piece afro-funk band out of Ann Arbor, Mich., and has toured with them throughout the United States, Canada and Europe.

He can be heard on William Bolcom’s Grammy award-winning album Songs of Innocence and of Experience with conductor Leonard Slatkin, on His Name Is Alive’s Detrola, NOMO’s New Tones and several albums with the University of Michigan Symphony Band and Percussion Ensemble.

Piedra holds two master’s degrees from the University of Michigan, in percussion performance and improvisation, and a bachelor’s degree from Baylor University.

Timothy Stulman is currently a doctoral student in Contemporary Music at BGSU under the tutelage of Distinguished Artist Professor Marilyn Shrude and Dr. Mikel Kuehn. He studied at the Cleveland Institute of Music and finished his undergraduate work at Anderson University; he received his master of music in composition at BGSU.

He has received numerous honors and awards at both national and international levels. These include juried selection for performance in the International Tribuna Sax-Ensemble, selection in the Cleveland Chamber Symphony call for scores, featured composer in Electronic Music Midwest festival, winner of the 26th annual BGSU Competitions in Music Performance-Composition division, honorable mention in National Association of Composers annual composition competition and second place in the Greater Cleveland Flute Society Composition Competition. He has been commissioned by the Toledo Youth Orchestra and the Toledo International Youth Orchestra.

Stulman has also studied with Wallace DePue, Burton Beerman, and Margaret Brower. He has presented at the master classes of John Corigliano, Betsy Jolas, Miklos Maros, Larry Austin and Robert Lemay. Stulman is interested in Eastern aesthetics and studies the interrelationship of Chinese art and religious form to Western art forms. He is fluent in Chinese and has spent two years traveling around the ShangHai area.

A native of Kaohsiung, Taiwan, pianist I-Chen Yeh has been a competition prize winner in Taiwan, Japan and the United States. In 1992, she studied piano in Vienna under Rudolf Kehrer, and in 1993, she moved to California to study at the Idyllwild Arts Academy as a student of Laura Melton. Her performances include the Internationale Wiener Musik Seminar (Austria), the Aspen Music Festival, the International Music Camp of Marktoberdorf (Germany), Eastern Music Festival, Las Vegas Piano Festival, Bowdoin Music Festival and at the Tijuana Cultural Arts Center (Mexico). She completed her bachelor’s degree at Oberlin College, master’s degree at the Eastman School of Music and certificate program at BGSU where she studied with Angela Chang, Thomas Schumacher and Laura Melton, respectively.

Currently a doctoral candidate in contemporary music at BGSU, Yeh recently premiered Greg Sandow’s Shakespeare Songs with soprano Ann Corrigan at BGSU’s 27th annual New Music & Art Festival. Of the performance, Sandow said Yeh “stood out for her firm and joyful precision.” Yeh also won second place in the graduate division as collaborative pianist with soprano Courtney Cleveland in the 2006 Dr. Marjorie Conrad Peatee Art Song Competition and won the graduate division of the 40th Annual Competitions in Music Performance.