Faculty Artist Series: Andrew Pelletier, horn; Charles Saenz, trumpet and David Saltzman, tuba

Internationally active horn soloist, Grammy Award winning chamber musician, and masterclass clinician, Andrew Pelletier enjoys an extremely busy and varied life as a performer, educator and mentor.  Consistently praised for his interpretations and artistry, John Henken of the Los Angeles Times wrote, “gleaming, handsome playing. Pelletier is a soloist who seems capable of anything on his instrument.” Fanfare Magazine called him “Phenomenal…undeniably in tune with what he plays” and his recording of music of Samuel Adler as "a stunning virtuoso display", and the American Record Guide has praised his “full sound and playing with authority and imagination.” The First Prize winner of the 1997 and 2001 American Horn Competition (America’s only internationally recognized competition for the horn), he has appeared as a Featured Artist at the International Horn Society Annual Symposia of 2009 and 2014, and has appeared as a solo artist at the Symposia of 1997, 2003, 2005, 2013, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2021, 2023 and 2024. He is in regular demand for artistic residencies and clinics at universities and music schools, and these solo tours have taken him to 30 US states, Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, China, Dominican Republic, England, Mexico and Thailand.

Dedicated to new music and the collaboration between performer and composer, he has commissioned and premiered over 60 new works for the horn as a solo voice, by such noted composers as Samuel Adler, Meredith Brammeier, Carson Cooman, David Crumb, Fernando Deddos, Christopher Dietz, Randall Faust, David Gillingham, Joseph Landers, Katherine Likhuta, Anne McGinty, Roger Reynolds, Martin Rokeach, Corey Ryan, Karlheinz Stockhausen, and Kerry Turner.

As a chamber musician, he performs with Southwest Chamber Music in California (with whom he won the 2005 Grammy award for Best Classical Recording, Small Ensemble) and the Tower Brass Quintet in Toledo, OH.   He has performed with the Empire Brass Quintet, Detroit Chamber Winds and Strings, the Motor City Brass Quintet, Portland (Maine) Brass Quintet, Maine Brass Quintet, the Maine Chamber Players, and with Chamber Music at the Scarab Club, Detroit. A seasoned orchestral performer, he was the Principal horn of the Detroit Opera Orchestra for 16 seasons, Principal horn for the Ann Arbor Symphony for 12 seasons, Principal horn of the Santa Barbara Symphony for four seasons, was a regular member (Assistant Principal/Utility) of the Portland (Maine) Symphony for over five seasons, and was a founding member of Opera Maine, playing for its first three seasons.  He has performed as guest principal horn for the Los Angeles Philharmonic (under Music Director Gustavo Dudamel), the Detroit Symphony, the Toledo Symphony and Toledo Opera, ProMusica Chamber Orchestra of Columbus, and the Windsor (Canada) Symphony. Other Principal horn positions he has held are the Ann Arbor Ballet Theatre, Columbus Bach Ensemble, Long Beach Camerata, Maine Chamber Ensemble, and Portland (Maine) Ballet.  He spent almost a decade as an active free-lance performer in Los Angeles and can be heard on various film soundtracks as Battle: Los Angeles, Your Highness, Lethal Weapon 4, The X-Men, Frequency and TV movies for Lifetime TV and the SiFi Channel.  

A Lifetime member of the International Horn Society and the British Horn Society, he is dedicated to service to the horn community, and has served the International Horn Society in a variety of ways over the years: as President (2018-2021), host/coordinator of the 53rd Annual International Horn Society Symposium (2021), Advisory Council member, Coordinator of Scholarships and Competitions, member of the Digital E-Newsletter committee, and Ohio Regional Coordinator.  For all his service to the International Horn Society, he was awarded the Society's Service Medal of Honor in 2022, its highest recognition for volunteer service.  His pedagogical articles have been published by the International Horn Society, the Norwegian Horn Society, the New England Horn Society, the Texas Bandmaster’s Association, and the New York Brass Conference. He holds a B.M. degree, Summa Cum Laude, from the University of Southern Maine, and an M.M. and the D.M.A (voted Outstanding Graduate of the Class for both degrees) from the University of Southern California. His primary mentor was James Decker, with additional studies with John Boden, David Jolley, trumpeter Roy Poper, Michael Thompson and Gail Williams. He has recorded for MSR Classics, Cambria Master Classics, Centaur Records, ToneQuest Recordings, Koch International, and Delos labels.

Since 2004, Pelletier is extremely proud to serve as the Professor of Horn of the College of Musical Arts at Bowling Green State University, in Bowling Green, Ohio, where he also serves as the Chair of the Department of Music Performance Studies.  He was named a Professor of Creative Arts Excellence at BGSU in 2020.  He has previously taught at the Portland (Maine) Conservatory of Music, Moorpark College, Ventura Community College, and the University of Southern California.  Andrew Pelletier plays exclusively on horns by Paxman of London, England, and mouthpieces by PHC London.

Charles Saenz is Professor of Trumpet at Bowling Green State University and also serves as Associate Dean.  His playing has been described as having “perfect agility and character” along with “confidence, accuracy, and wonderful musicianship”.  Mr. Saenz has performed with such ensembles as the Toledo Symphony, Michigan Opera Theatre, the Toledo Jazz Orchestra, the Sinfonia da Camera of Illinois, The Champaign-Urbana Symphony, the Illinois and Nebraska Brass Quintets, and the Omaha Big Band.  He is a member of the Toledo based Tower Brass Quintet and has released one recording with them entitled Road Trip.  His first solo recording, Eloquentia, was released in December 2015 and has received critical praise by both the International Trumpet Guild and the American Record Guide.

An active performer at international venues, he has presented recitals and master classes in Australia, China, Inner Mongolia, Taiwan, Thailand, Mexico and Brazil.  Other performances include the Burgos Chamber Music Festival in Burgos, Spain and the Exploring Brass Ensembles workshop in Kalavrita and Athens, Greece.  In 2011, he was a featured artist at the Fifth International Trumpet Festival of China held in Shenyang, China.  Of this recital, the International Trumpet Guild wrote, “Saenz has superb control of the instrument and performs with astonishing sensitivity with regard to phrasing, dynamics, and nuance.  It was well worth crossing an ocean to hear!” Saenz has also traveled to Monterrey, Mexico to teach at the International Trumpet Camp and Aguascalientes, Mexico as a guest artist for the tenth annual Chamber Music Festival.  In addition, he has presented recitals and master classes in Ohio, Illinois, Michigan, Alabama, Oklahoma, Nebraska, Wisconsin, Iowa, South Carolina, and New Mexico.  In January 2012, he was featured as a soloist at the annual conference of the New Mexico Music Educators Association.  

​Saenz received the PRO MUSICA AWARD for Exceptional Service to Students in May, 2017.  He is the recipient of various other awards including first prize in the 1994 International Trumpet Guild Solo Competition.  His students have also been winners in both the ITG Solo Competition and the Orchestral Excerpts Competition.  2017 marks the third consecutive year that his students have been finalists in the prestigious Solo Competition.  Prior to his BGSU appointment, he was on the faculty of the University of Nebraska Omaha where he served as Coordinator of Brass Studies and Instructor of Trumpet.  Saenz holds degrees from New Mexico State University and the University of Illinois.

David Saltzman is the Tuba and Euphonium Instructor at Bowling Green State University and has been the Principal Tuba player of the Toledo Symphony and the Toledo Symphony Brass Quintet since 2007. In 2011, David joined the Glimmerglass Opera Festival based in Cooperstown, NY as their Principal Tuba player for their summer Opera series. Prior to these appointments, he was the Principal Tuba player for the Honolulu Symphony Orchestra and the Honolulu Brass Quintet (1997-2007). He was also the Tuba/Euphonium instructor at the University of Hawaii and the founder and director of the University of Hawaii’s Tuba/Euphonium Ensemble.

David has performed with many orchestras throughout the United States and Canada, including the Cleveland Orchestra, the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra, the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, the Baltimore Symphony, the Alabama Symphony and the Windsor Symphony. Most recently, David spent four months of the summer of 2018 playing with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra and guest teaching at the Melbourne Conservatory of Music, as well as joining them for their tour of China.

An active soloist and chamber musician and a Buffet-Crampon Artist, David was the winner of the Colonial Tuba Euphonium Quartet’s Tuba Solo Competition held in Albany, New York back in 1996. Since then, David has performed and given Master classes as a featured soloist and educator throughout the United States, Australia and Europe. In 2014, David performed Eugene Bozza’s Concertino with the United States Army Orchestra. He has also performed John Williams’ Tuba Concerto and Arild Plau’s Concerto for tuba and strings with the Toledo Symphony in 2010 and 2014 respectively. In October of 2018, David was privileged to give the world premiere of Samuel Adler’s Concerto for Tuba in Toledo.

David is proud to have studied with Harvey Phillips, Daniel Perantoni, Fritz Kaenzig, Toby Hanks and David Fedderly. He lives in Sylvania, Ohio with his amazing wife, three beautiful children, two happy and energetic standard poodles, and two much quieter and less energetic cats.

Solungga Liu has earned acclaim as a pianist of remarkable breadth, celebrated for her advocacy of early twentieth-Century American music, underrepresented works in the classical repertoire, and her interpretation of contemporary compositions. Her discography is both wide-ranging and extensive.

Liu’s 2017 debut at the Library of Congress was praised for its “rhythmic precision, expression and a finely calibrated sense of balance between all of the moving parts.” There she performed a solo recital of works by Charles Griffes, Amy Beach and César Franck, a concert tailored to her strengths and uniquely composed of music from the Library’s manuscript collection.  

Hailed as “the best interpreter of Charles Griffes”, the American Record Guide described her recording “The Pleasure-Dome of Kubla Khan: Piano Works of Charles Tomlinson Griffes” for Centaur Records, as having, “excellent sound, sensitivity and beguiling color”. This recording led to the special request by the Library of Congress that she premiere Griffes’s 1915 piano transcription of Debussy’s Les parfums de la nuit from his orchestral work Iberia, once thought lost by Griffes’s biographers. About this world premiere, the Washington Classical Review wrote, “The piece retained an orchestral spectrum of colors in Liu’s hands. She served as the knowing conductor—the glue that held it all together while still allowing the transcription to shine through on its own merits”. 

A dedicated performer of new music, Liu has had numerous premieres and recordings of contemporary works to her credit and has collaborated with many composers of our time, among them Stephen Hartke, Steve Reich, Paola Prestini, Jeffrey Mumford, Eric Moe, and Aaron Jay Kernis. Highlights of her performances include Lutosławski’s Piano Concerto with OSSIA, Steve Reich’s The Desert Music and Tehillim with Alarm Will Sound, Aaron Travers’s Concierto de Milonga, written for her and the Indiana University New Music Ensemble, and Gregory Mertl’s Piano Concerto, commissioned by the Barlow Endowment for her, conductor Craig Kirchhoff and the University of Minnesota Wind Ensemble. 

One of Liu’s 2025-26 new music projects is to perform and record a collection of solo and chamber works by Stephen Hartke with the eminent Verona String Quartet, under the composer’s invitation.

Liu enjoys an active career across five continents and has collaborated with the National Theater Symphony Orchestra of Brazil, the National Institute of Health’s Philharmonia in Washington D.C., the Taipei Metropolitan Orchestra, and the Toledo Symphony Orchestra/Choral Society. She has performed solo and chamber concerts at venues such as Carnegie Hall, The National Concert Hall in Taiwan, the Goethe Center in Bangkok, the Brazilian National Museum of Sculpture (MUBE) in São Paulo, and the Cultural Center of Braśilia, where she presented a series of solo recitals for the public as well as for members of the Cabinet and the Supreme Labor Court of Brazil. 

In addition to her dedication to students at BGSU, Liu is a sought-after Artist Teacher at major international festivals and competitions, among them the Sicily International Piano Festival and Competition, the Lied Center for Performing Arts Summer Piano Academy, the Eastman School of Music Summer Piano Festival, the Atlantic Music Festival, Thailand International Mozart Competition,  the Piano Plus International Piano Festival in Greece, and the Global Summer Institute of Music in Bad Vöslau, Austria.

Liu holds a doctoral degree in piano performance from the Eastman School of Music where she studied with Alan Feinberg, Douglas Humpherys and Elizabeth DiFelice.

http://www.solungga.com

Yevgeny Yontov has established himself as one of the leading Israeli pianists of his generation. As finalist in the 2017 Arthur Rubinstein International Piano Master Competition, he received the Prize for Best Performance of Chamber Music, and the Prize for the Best Israeli Pianist. Other international top prizes include gold medals at the Wideman International Piano Competition and Berliner International Music Competition, as well as additional prizes at the Boesendorfer International Piano Competition, the Olga Kern International Piano Competition, and the Pinerolo International Piano Competition, among others.

A founding member of icarus Quartet, an award-winning 2piano/2percussion group, from 2015 to 2022, Mr. Yontov holds chamber music close to heart. He has performed chamber music in Israel, Europe, Asia, and North and South America, in venues that include Carnegie Hall and the John F. Kennedy Center for Performing Arts in Washington D.C. Chamber colleagues include distinguished artists, such as David Shifrin, Roberto Diaz, Tara Helen O’Connor, Fred Sherry, and many others, including members of established string quartets like the Orion, Dover, Aviv, and Miro Quartets. Mr. Yontov has also performed in numerous chamber festivals, most notably returning visits to Chamber Music Northwest.

As a soloist, Mr. Yontov has performed on stages across Israel, the US, China, Hong Kong, Korea, Japan, and many European countries. Orchestral engagements include numerous orchestras in the US, including orchestras in New York, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, Florida, Louisiana and Arkansas, and all major Israeli orchestras. He also performed on Israeli national TV, and recorded for Israeli, US, Portuguese and Spanish radios.

Mr. Yontov’s playing can be found on a number of commercial CDs, including his own debut CD, “Schubert: Piano Variations,” released on Naxos Records in 2017, “Big Things,” icarus Quartet’s debut album released on Furious Artisans in 2022, “Samuel Adler: A Celebration of Sam @ 95” released on Toccata Classics in 2022, and “Turning into Song” released on Musica Solis in 2023.

Mr. Yontov began his musical studies at the age of six with Adela Umansky, and later received his B.Mus degree summa cum laude from the Buchmann-Mehta School of Music at Tel-Aviv University, where he studied with Prof. Arie Vardi. He then moved to the US to study with Prof. Boris Berman at the Yale School of Music, from which he received his M.M. and D.M.A. degrees.

Mr. Yontov has given masterclasses across the US, East Asia, and Israel. In 2018, he joined the faculty of Bowling Green State University, where he serves as Associate Professor of Piano.