AUSTIN PEAY STATE UNIVERSITY

 

KELLY VIA received the Bachelor of Music from Drake University and the Master of Music fromEastCarolina University.  He is the piccoloist with the Atlanta Ballet Orchestra.  A flute choir enthusiast and arranger, Kelly was selected to perform with the National Flute Association Professional Flute Choir each year from 2000 to 2016.  He was appointed to the position of Flute Choirs Coordinator for the NFA from 2007 to 2012 and Coordinator for the NFA High School Flute Choir Competition from 2012 to 2014.  He conducted the NFA High School Flute Choir in 2008, the Windy City Flute Orchestra to open the 2014 NFA Convention and the NFA Collegiate Flute Choir in 2017. 

His arrangements and compositions for flute choir are available through Nourse Wind Publications.  Two of his arrangements were named winners in the National Flute Association’s 2002 and 2013 Newly Published Music Competition and another was named a finalist in 2004.  He has appeared as guest conductor with flute choirs in Arizona, Connecticut, Florida, Iowa, Michigan, New Jersey, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia and Canada.

Kelly teaches flute at Mercer University and the Atlanta Music Academy.  He also directs the Mercer University Flute Choir. 

Kumiko is Associate Professor of Music at Delta State University. She completed her Doctor of Musical Arts degree at the University of Oregon, where she had been a piano student of Victor Steinhardt and studied collaborative piano and opera coaching with Gregory Mason. As a collaborative pianist, she has played for several competitions (including National Opera Association, District Metropolitan, National Association of Teachers of Singing, Mississippi Music Teachers Association, and Music Teachers National Association) and opera companies (Eugene Opera, Lake George Opera, Rimrock Opera, among others) and has been invited to perform at conferences/conventions for the College Music Society including its international conferences in Korea and Finland and national conference in Oregon, the American Choral Directors Association, the National Association of Teachers of Singing Southern Region, the National Flute Association, the Mid-South Flute Society, the International Clarinet Association Southeastern Festival, and the Song Collaborators Consortia Art Song Festival.
Her current performing interests are to perform art songs that are rarely heard in the USA and to present world premieres. She has performed Japanese, Swedish, and Korean art songs at various venues such as the CMS National Conference, the NATS Southern Region Conference, and DSU Guest Artist Recital (with the Public Project Grant from the American-Scandinavian Foundation: Thord-Gray Memorial Fund). The most recent world premieres include Sy Brandon’s Phantasie on Singaporean Folk Songs (for piano) and Bruce Trinkley’s The Sylvan Cycle (for voice and piano).
Her recording of Sy Brandon’s piano music, Phantasie on Singaporean Folk Songs, has been released on the Emeritus Recordings label and available at CDBaby. She is the co-editor of Japanese Art Song Anthology Volume 1 published by Classical Vocal Reprints.