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Lisa Kozenko, oboe
Critically acclaimed for her virtuosity and versatility, oboist Lisa Kozenko performs internationally as a soloist, chamber artist and orchestral musician. Ms. Kozenko has appeared as a concerto soloist with the Nova Filarmonia of Portugal, the National Orchestra of New York, the National Symphony Orchestra of Mexico, the Lehigh Valley Chamber Orchestra and the Greenwich Village Orchestra. Concert engagements include performances at the Phillips Collection in Washington D.C., the Dame Myra Hess Memorial Concert Series in Chicago, the Frick Collection in Pittsburgh and the Trinity Noonday Series, Great Music in the Chapel Series and Merkin Concert Hall in New York City.
In 2001 she was a prizewinner of the 15th Louise D. McMahon International Music Competition. As a winner of the 1993 Artists International Special Presentation Award, Ms. Kozenko presented her solo debut recital at Carnegie Hall's Weill Recital Hall. She has recorded on the Digital Concerto, Albany and Arabesque labels. In 1999 her solo recording on the Arabesque label of Doubles by Judith Zaimont was named to Chamber Music America's Century List of recordings. She has 11 solo oboe and chamber music commissions to her credit. Her many commissions have been funded by the Minnesota Composers Forum and the Aaron Copland Fund for New Music. She has been featured on NPR Performance Today, WQXR Young Artists Showcase, Voice of America, CBS Sunday Morning and the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.
As a member of the Manhattan Wind Quintet, she was a finalist in the 1994 Walter W. Naumburg Foundation Chamber Music Competition and prizewinner of the Coleman, Fischoff, Monterey, Yellow Springs, and Chamber Music Chicago Competitions. In 1991 the Manhattan Wind Quintet was awarded a Chamber Music America Ensemble Residency Grant in collaboration with the National Orchestral Association. During her 9-year tenure as Director of Chamber Music for the New York Youth Symphony she created an educational model that is now used by many similar programs nationwide. In 1997 she was awarded the Chamber Music America Heidi Castleman Award for excellence in chamber music teaching for this work.
Lisa Kozenko has served as principal oboist of the New York City Opera National Company and the Lehigh Valley Chamber Orchestra and has appeared with the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra, the Grand Rapids Symphony, and The Bach Choir of Bethlehem. Currently she is a faculty member of Mannes College The New School for Music, a faculty member at the Music Conservatory of Westchester and a Teaching Artist for Lincoln Center Institute and the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. Ms. Kozenko has been an oboe faculty member at the Bowdoin Summer Music Festival, Eastern Music Festival, a full-time faculty member at Central Michigan University and Oklahoma State University, and an Artist-Lecturer at Moravian College.
Most recently Ms. Kozenko was awarded a Doctor of Musical Arts degree from the Graduate Center of the City University of New York where she studied with New York Philharmonic oboist Sherry Sylar. Her dissertation, New York Chamber Music Society, 1915-1937: A Contribution to Wind Chamber Music and a Reflection of Concert Life in New York City in the Early 20th Century, was funded in part by the prestigious Baisley Powell Elebash Research Fund. She began her undergraduate studies at Carnegie- Mellon University and participated in the Marcel Moyse Chamber Music Seminar. She received her Bachelor of Music degree in Oboe Performance, cum laude, from the Philadelphia College of the Performing Arts where she was a scholarship student of Robert Bloom and received her Master of Music degree in Oboe Performance from the Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music with Sara Lambert Bloom. She studied orchestral repertoire with Mason Jones and John Krell and was the winner of the Claus Adam Award of the National Orchestral Association. Ms. Kozenko pursued additional solo oboe and chamber music study with Hansjörg Schellenberger in Italy and with Maurice Bourgue in France and was an artist in residence at the Banff Centre of the Arts in Canada.