Buy your tickets now for the opening concert of the season! Jon Mutchler is releasing two new CDS of creative solo piano music.

Release Concert is Sunday, September 21, at the beautiful Mutchler home! Tickets are limited for all BHC and KFPC events.

Quick Links: Concert Dates -- | September 21 | October 26 | November 23 | December 14 | February 1 | March 1 | March 29 | April 26 | May 10 |

Quick Links: Events --| Mutchler CD Release | PIano Variations | Geisa Dultra New CD Release | Scholarship Benefit Concert | Dueling Duels/Two Piano Concert |

| Youth Showcase (High School) | Heinke: Vienna to Brazil | Hill/Gilliam Classical Piano | University Showcase (WWU) |

Quick Links: Artists -- | Jeffrey Gilliam | Ford Hill | Dan Sabo | Victoria Ebel-Sabo | Jon Mutchler | Geisa Dutra | Cassandra Carr | Arthur Barnes | Sandra Heinke |

Quick Links: Ticket Information and Prices

Quick Links: Contact information: Email and Address

General Information:

 

Welcome to Bellingham House Concerts and Keyboard Friends Piano Concerts.  Both performance series will showcase Washington musicians. Bellingham House Concerts are held in comfortable homes with exceptional instruments and offer a welcoming and refreshing musical venue.  Keyboard Friends concerts will be held in small intimate community venues.  In addition to playing, the musicians will discuss the music they will perform and share something about themselves.  An informal question and answer time will follow.

BELLINGHAM HOUSE CONCERTS: A showcase of Washington Musicians, award winning student and professional artists, performing on exceptional instruments in an intimate home setting. And usually unqiue and delicious refreshements are served following!

KEYBOARD FRIENDS PIANO CONCERTS: Four piansts, Ford Hill, Jeffrey Gilliam, Dan Sabo and Victoria Ebel-Sabo join forces with special guests to present an entertaining variety of keyboard concerts which will include solo and four-hand duet literature, and two piano repertoire.

The musical offerings for this season will include nine musical events, scheduled from September 2008 through May 2009, and be held on Sunday afternoons at 3:00pm.  Please check each concert listing for the location.

Our venues include private homes, The Amadeus Project, in downtown Bellingham, and the Firehouse Performing Arts Center, in Fairhaven. ( Specific directions will be provided to guests attending the home concerts.)

Instruments include a lovely American 9-foot concert grand Steinway, dating from 1911, a rosewood Hamburg Steinway from 1894, a millennium edition Schimmel, and a Fazioli 308.  The opportunity to hear artists perform on these fine instruments is reason enough to attend.

 

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TICKETS

Bellingham House Concerts (most events in private homes)

Tickets - $20.00 per person, per concert . Must be reserved in advance due to limited seating of thirty people

Talented Youth Showcase Events (March 1 and May 17 homes concerts)

$15.00  per person.  Must be reserved in advance due to limited seating of thirty people

Keyboard Friends Piano Concerts ( at the Firehouse or Amadeus Project)

Tickets - $15.00 adults, $12.00 seniors, $10.00 students

 

To reserve your tickets, confirm with Victoria that tickets are available and mail your check to the address in the next paragraph.

Contact Information

Call - 360-671-6104, 360-661-5984  Victoria Ebel-Sabo or email -
bellinghamhouseconcerts @gmail.com.  Please make checks payable to
Bellingham House Concerts and mail to Bellingham House Concerts,
Victoria Ebel-Sabo, 1600 Valencia St., Bellingham, WA  98229

 

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The Concert Series for Season Three, 2008-2009:

Click on artists name for more information on the performer(s) and their concert.

--Jon Mutchler

Bellingham House Concert
Jon Mutchler: New Music and CD Release Concert: La Place Sur La Mer and Still Prone to Wander
September 21, 2008 - Sunday 3:00 pm -Limited Seating!
Mutchler Residence, Ferndale (Jon's web site)

 

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--Sabo, Ebel-Sabo, Hill, Gilliam

Keyboard Friends Piano Concert
Piano Variations (for piano solo, two pianos, and piano four-hands)
Jeffrey Gilliam, Ford Hill, Dan Sabo, Victoria Ebel-Sabo
October 26, 2008 - Sunday - 3:00 pm - Limited Seating!
The Amadeus Project, 1209 Cornwall, Downtown Bellingham

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--Geisa Dultra

Keyboard Friends Piano Concert
Geisa Dutra, Award Winning Brazilian classical pianist, performs Latin
Composers New CD Release
November 23, 2008 - Sunday - 3:00 pm - Limited Seating!
The Amadeus Project, 1209 Cornwall, Downtown Bellingham (Geisa's web site)

 

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--Sabo, Ebel-Sabo, Hill, Gilliam

Keyboard Friends Piano Concert
Student Scholarship Benefit Concert for Washington State Music Teachers Assoc.
Music teachers with Jeffrey Gilliam, Ford Hill, Dan Sabo, Victoria Ebel-Sabo
December 14, 2008 - Sunday - 3:00 pm - Limited Seating!
Firehouse Center For the Performing Arts, Fairhaven

 

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--Arthur Barnes, Cassandra Carr (no pict), Victoria and Dan Sabo

Keyboard Friends -Two Piano Concert
Dueling Duos - Cassandra Carr and Arthur Barnes, and Victoria and Dan Sabo
February 1, 2009 - Sunday -3:00 pm - Limited Seating!
The Amadeus Project, 1209 Cornwall, Downtown Bellingham

 

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Talented Youth Showcase (Outstanding Highschool Pianists)

Bellingham House Concert - Talented Youth Showcase***
Winners of the Enid Carrick Scholarship Competition - High School Pianists
March 1, 2009 - Sunday - 3:00 pm - Limited Seating!
Sabo Residence , Bellingham

 

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--Sandra Heinke

Bellingham House Concert
Sandra Heinke - From Vienna to Brazil
March 29, 2009 - Sunday - 3:00 pm - Limited Seating!
Sabo Residence , Bellingham

 

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--Gilliam / Hill

Keyboard Friends Piano Concert
Ford Hill and Jeffrey Gilliam - Classical Piano
April 26, 2009 - Sunday - 3:00 pm - Limited Seating!
The Amadeus Project, 1209 Cornwall, Downtown Bellingham

 

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Talented Youth Showcase (Outstanding WWU Student Pianists) A SPECIAL MOTHER'S DAY TREAT!

Bellingham House Concert - Talented Youth Showcase***
Scholarship Winners from Western Washington University
May 10, 2008 - Sunday - 3:00 pm - Limited Seating!
Ford Hill House, Bellingham

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Jon Mutchler -  Jazz and Classical pianist

New Music and CD Release Party: La Place Sur La Mer and Still Prone to Wander.
The BHC starts it's 2008-09 season with something special.  A versatile and interesting pianist, Jon Mutchler creatively blends his jazz and classical training to generate exciting and original piano music.  Jon will be debuting two just-released CDs.  La Place Sur La Mer is a collection of original and popular music done in his eclectic style inspired by a luxurious bed and breakfast of the same name on a beach north of Port Angeles, WA. The second half of the program will include work from Still Prone to Wander , his second collection of highly original improvisations based on hymnal material which follows his successful Prone to Wander album (2001).   Lovers of classical, jazz, sacred, and even new age music will find his work refreshing and exciting.  This will also be the first time BHC holds an event in Ferndale--this time at the beautiful Mutchler home, which Jon custom-built for his family and brilliant Yamaha C7 (7.5 foot) concert piano for special events like this.

Jon is a graduate of Western Washington University where he double majored in piano performance (student of Ford Hill) and jazz studies. He maintains an active music life of performing, recording, and teaching in Whatcom County while also pastoring the Ferndale Alliance Church where he has served 20 years. He has released 7 piano CDs and is the house pianist at Semiahmoo Resort where he performs requests on weekends. His greatest enjoyment: his wife Diane, and their 7 children. (Jon's web site)

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Ford Hill - Classical Pianist

Ford Hill graduated from Wisconsin State University at Eau Claire with a Woodrow Wilson Fellowship.  At Indiana University, Hill was awarded a Performers Certificate and took first prize in the Concerto Competition for graduate students. Ford Hill has taught at numerous schools including Western Washington University.  He has performed throughout the Pacific Northwest, Canada, and Australia and has adjudicated and given many master classes and workshops for festivalsi n Canada and Washington State.  Many of his students have won local, state, and regional competitions. Recently, Hill was honored by the Bellingham Arts Commission with a Mayor's Arts Award.

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Jeffrey Gilliam - Classical Pianist

Since joining the piano faculty at Western Washington University in 1992, pianist Jeffrey Gilliam has performed throughout the Pacific Northwest as solo recitalist; as chamber musician and soloist in the Marrowstone and Bellingham Festivals; as concerto soloist with local orchestras; and as guest pianist with The Seattle Chamber Players at Seattle's Benaroya Hall. In addition, Mr. Gilliam's extended association with the late Lord Yehudi Menuhin has led to his collaboration with superb instrumentalists, with whom he has performed at London's Wigmore Hall, The Kennedy Center in Washington D.C., Carnegie Recital Hall in New York City; in numerous concert toursacross the U.S. and Canada, and in distinguished European, Asian, and South American festivals.

Originally from Akron, Ohio, Jeffrey Gilliam studied piano with Cécile Genhart at the Eastman School of Music, and with Theodore Lettvin at the University of Michigan. A Fulbright Scholarship enabled him to continue his studies with Günter Ludwig in Cologne, Germany, where he made his European recital debut in 1982. He has also performed in master classes for Leon Fleisher, György Sebök, John Perry, Maria Curcio Diamand, Dorothy Taubman, Tatiana Nikolayeva, and György Sandor.  He studied piano accompanying with Martin Katz and with Margo Garrett.

Mr. Gilliam taught an accompanying course at The Juilliard School, and for three years he was Assistant Professor of Piano at the University of Michigan School of Music. He worked on the faculty of the International Menuhin Music Academy in Gstaad/Blonay, Switzerland for fourteen years. He has recorded with violinists Yehudi Menuhin, Ruggerio Ricci, and Alberto Lysy, for EMI, Opus 111, and Dinemec Classics, respectively.

At Western Washington University, Jeffrey Gilliam teaches piano and directs the piano accompanying program. In 2008 he was promoted to the rank of Full Professor.  In recent years he has taught on the faculties of The Summer Institute for Contemporary Performance Practice at The New England Conservatory in Boston; at The University of Pretoria, South Africa (1998-99), and at Silpakorn Fine Arts University in Bangkok, Thailand (1999). In 2005, he received his second Fulbright, a Senior Specialist Award for performance and teaching in Thailand.

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Victoria and Dan Sabo - Classical Pianists

Dan and Victoria's formal musical education culminated in four years of study in Paris and Brussels.  In Paris, they worked with legendary pianist, Yvonne Loriod-Messiaen, and they also studied the duo-piano repertoire at the Royal Conservatory of Music, Brussels, where they were awarded the Higher Diploma, in Chamber Music, with great distinction.  Dan and Victoria perform as soloists and duo-pianists, and Victoria as a composer-performer.  Victoria was recently named Composer of the Year, 2009, and commissioned by the Washington State Music Teachers Association, to write a composition, which will be premiered next June, at the state convention.  Her choral works have been published by Boosey and Hawkes (Wind on the Hill has sold over 250,000 copies around the world), Mark Foster, Shawnee Press, Santa Barbara Publishing, and Kjos; and she has a growing list of piano compositions, published  by Willis Publishing.  Last year she was commissioned to composed a full length ballet, "Mary Poppins" for the Boulder Ballet, and is currently working on another Boulder Ballet commission, "Peter Pan", to be premiered in March, 2009.  Dan Sabo has released a CD of Scriabin's Preludes and together the Sabos have released a CD of four-hand music by Janacek and Dvorak.

 

 

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Geisa Dutra - Award Winning Brazilian classical pianist. Geisa's Home Page

Geísa Dutra has been internationally acclaimed as recitalist and concerto soloist in England,  Belgium, Germany, Canada, the United States, and Brazil where she also recorded for  national television and national public radio stations. Her debut in Belgium was described as "A brilliant evening" (Wolluwe News, Brussels). The Nottingham Evening Post, England  stated "It was a privilege and a treat to hear pianist Geisa Dutra... a gorgeous range of  expression".

Her recordings include Brazilian and Spanish Piano Works; Chopin, Preludes; El Ultimo  Tango, Six Tangos by Astor Piazzolla and The Spanish Piano, her latest release. Geísa Dutra's rare ability to communicate a wide gamut of emotion and sound has been  praised by the press. "She has succeeded admirably. Spiky angular passages abruptly give  away to something solemn or gorgeous. Another will  be sassy and suddenly turn tenderly  melodic...other moments ominous or occasionally serene" (Clavier Magazine, USA).

Born in Rio de  Janeiro, Geísa Dutra was described as "Artistic, mathematic, feminine and  charismatic ... one of the greatest talents of the new generation" (Jornal do Comércio, Rio  de Janeiro). She began her musical education with her mother Isabel Dutra and graduated with a Bachelor of Music from the Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, where she was  a student of Heitor Alimonda. At the University of Washington on a full scholarship, she  studied under Bèla Siki and received her Master of Music in Piano Performance.

She has kept a versatile and ever-growing career as concert pianist, master teacher, lecturer,  recording artist, producer and ambassador for Brazilian music and culture: "Dutra's  splendid performance completely captured the spirit of Villa-Lobo's music" (Journal American, Washington). From 1999 to 2001 she was a performer for the Kennedy Center  Performing Arts Calendar sponsored by the U.S. Department of State, and in 1995  represented Brazil at the 50th Anniversary Celebration of the United Nations in San Francisco. Since 1995 she has been sponsored by the 4CULTURE Arts Commission in Washington, for the Touring Arts Roster for the Northwest.  Geísa won seven first prizes in National Piano competitions in Brazil, and the prize for the  Best Performer of Brazilian Music from the Maria Luisa Priolli National Piano  Competition, which she won at age 14. In the following year, she made her solo debut with  the Orquestra Sinfonica da Universidade do Rio de Janeiro, earning the review - "A revelation... a young lady that could be the best Brazilian pianist of the 80's" (O Bacharel).  In 1983 she was awarded a scholarship at the Johannessen International School of the Arts,  in Canada. She received in 1984 First Prizes at the North Shore Musicians Club  Competition in Chicago, at the Illinois Alpha Iota Piano Music Competition, and at the  Illinois State Collegiate Artist Competition. In 1985 she received the Van Cliburn  International Piano Institute full tuition scholarship, and was the winner of the Ladies  Musical Club Competition of Seattle. The University of Washington awarded her the Milnor Roberts Scholarship in 1985-1987 and the Foster and Houts Scholarship in 1988.   As soloist, she has performed with the Broadway Symphony, University of Washington  Symphony, Cascade Symphony, Brazil's Orquestra Sinfonica Nacional, Orquestra  Sinfonica da Universidade do Rio de Janeiro, Philharmonia Northwest, Northwest Symphony Orchestra and Vancouver Symphony.

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Cassandra Carr and Arthur Barnes - Two Piano Team- Classical Pianists

Cassandra Carr and Arthur Barnes met as students of Bela Siki at the University of Washington.  Later they were colleagues on the faculty of Seattle University where they became close friends.  Arthur recently retired from Seattle Univeristy and now lives in Bellingham. Cassandra left the SU faculty in the late 80s and now maintains a successful private studio in Seattle.  She is active as an adjudicator and clinician for MTNA (Music Teachers National Association). Cassandra has recently returned from France, where she and her husband, Gary, lived for one year.

While in Seattle, Arthur gave regular faculty recitals at Seattle University, and performed concertos with several local orchestras, including Seattle Symphony.  Cassandra, together with the late Patricia Bowman, performed a great deal of the piano ensemble repertoire. "Barnes and Carr", became a duo piano team in 1998 and have been performing together regularly since then.

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Sandra Heinke - From Vienna to Brazil

Sandra Heinke began her piano studies at the age of five in Oakland, California.   When she was eight, she was accepted as a pupil by Alexander Libermann of Mills College.   In high school she performed as a soloist in youth concerts with both the Oakland Symphony and the San Francisco Symphony.

She received her Bachelor of Arts degree from Pomona College, where she studied piano and composition with Karl Kohn, and her Master of Music degree from Western Washington University, where, as a Teaching Assistant, she taught undergraduate piano and also assisted the music faculty as an accompanist.   Her teacher and inspiring mentor at Western was Ford Hill.   Upon completing her degree she was invited to join the accompanying staff; in that role she performed in numerous recitals, workshops and opera productions.

Besides her appearances as soloist, accompanist and chamber musician in concerts on the West Coast, Sandra has performed at the American Academy in Rome and toured as a member of the New Music Ensemble of Providence.   During her years in Bellingham, she and her late husband, composer James Heinke, together founded the Lairmont Piano Series, which presented outstanding West Coast artists to the Bellingham community.

A resident of Mercer Island, Sandra maintains a large private studio there and is also on the faculty of Music Works Northwest in Bellevue.

Award Winning Student Concerts

Award Winning Student Concerts in cooperation with Bellingham Music Club and Western Washington Univeristy - A showcase of Talented Youth. This season Bellingham House Concerts is pleased to present two events in conjunction with institutions which promote excellence in the arts through scholarship programs for young pianists.

Our March 1 event will showcase three high school winners of the Enid Carrick Scholarship Competition, which is sponsored by the Bellingham Music Club.  The competition is held in February.

Our May 17 event will showcase the three highest awarded scholarship students from Western Washington University.

 

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