Faculty Artist Series: Dwight Parry, oboe and Solungga Liu, piano

Dwight Parry is the principal oboist of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra and Professor of Oboe at Bowling Green State University.  As a dedicated pedagogue with over two decades of experience, he remains dedicated to lifelong learning and collaboration.  Guest appearances include the New World Symphony and universities such as UM, IU, CCM, CIM, SFCM, USC, and Juilliard.  His students have positions with the Ft. Wayne Philharmonic, Cincinnati Chamber Orchestra, the Dayton Philharmonic, ProMusica Chamber Orchestra, the Chattanooga Symphony and the Topeka Symphony.  One of his great joys is performing with his former students.  He has had this privilege with the Bach Ensemble of St. Thomas, the Mainly Mozart Festival Orchestra, ProMusica Chamber Orchestra and the Cincinnati Symphony.  

Mr. Parry is a versatile and passionate soloist, an avid chamber musician and an advocate for new music. A background in jazz led Mr. Parry to pursue a career that spans from concert halls to the streets of New Orleans, where he has improvised with Dixie bands. In May 2022, Mr. Parry premiered an oboe concerto, Les Belles Heures, by Guillaume Connesson, which was written for him and co-commissioned by the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra.  He was then featured in the same piece with the Springfield (MO) Symphony.  Mr. Parry subsequently gave the US premiere of Carl Vine's Oboe Concerto with the Ohio Valley Symphony.

In recent seasons, he performed the Martinů Oboe Concerto with the CCM Chamber Orchestra and the Strauss Oboe Concerto with the Prague Summer Nights Orchestra in the Czech Republic.  He has also been a soloist with the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra in Bach's Brandenburg Concertos 1&2. After hearing his performance of the Vaughan-Williams Oboe Concerto in Mexico City, he was invited by Hansjorg Schellenberger to be a judge for the 2018 and 2023 Sony International Oboe Competitions in Tokyo.  In May, 2025, he performed the Strauss Oboe Concerto with the Jakarta Symphony Orchestra.  Then in July, 2025, he gave the African premiere of Connesson’s Les Belles Heures with the Stellenbosch Festival Orchestra in South Africa.

Mr. Parry was formerly principal oboist of the San Diego Symphony and a Fellow with the New World Symphony. He has appeared as guest principal oboist with the New York Philharmonic, Philadelphia Orchestra, Chicago Symphony, LAPhil, Minnesota Orchestra, San Francisco Symphony, Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, Guangzhou Symphony, Deutsche Symphonie of Berlin and Korean Broadcasting Symphony.

Originally from Southern California, he found his passion for music early on through piano, voice, and saxophone.  In high school, Mr. Parry took up the oboe and decided to make a life in music.  He went on to study at the Cleveland Institute of Music with John Mack and at the University of Southern California with Allan Vogel and David Weiss, a gentleman who also taught him to surf!

During the summer, he is in residence at Interlochen Arts Camp, Grand Teton Music Festival, Mainly Mozart Festival and Lakes Area Music Festival. In those rare moments when he is without an oboe in hand, he can be found attending concerts, plays, and other community events. He spends the rest of his time hiking, reading, volunteering, tossing frisbees, and creating curiosities in the kitchen.

Mr. Parry is a Lorée artist.

Pianist Solungga Liu has been praised as “prismatic, glowing, and even cinematic in
scope” (The Washington Classical Review), “masterful” (Clavier Companion), and
“sublime” (Seattle Post-Intelligencer), for her “excellent sound” (American Record
Guide) and “thoughtful interpretive style” (Atlanta Audio/Video). She is celebrated for
her advocacy of early twentieth-century American music, underrepresented works in the
classical repertoire, and her interpretation of contemporary compositions. Liu is a
recording artist with eleven commercial recordings as of 2026.

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”, Liu’s recording “The Pleasure-Dome
of Kubla Khan: Piano Works of Charles Tomlinson Griffes” for Centaur Records
prompted the Library of Congress to request 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.
Her recent projects have included ten video releases of works by Stephen Hartke, Eric
Nathan and Aaron Jay Kernis. Other major performances included Lutoslawski’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.

Liu enjoys an active career across five continents and has collaborated with orchestras
such as 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 Brasília (CCBB), 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 2026, Liu was appointed Professor of Creative Arts Excellence at Bowling Green State
University to celebrate her exceptional performing career. 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 Lied Center for Performing Arts Summer Piano Academy,
the Eastman School of Music Summer Piano Festival, the Atlantic Music Festival, the
Sicily International Piano Festival and Competition, the Thailand International Mozart
Competition, and the Piano Plus International Piano Festival in Greece.
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