Guest Artist Recital: Adriana Ransom and Geoffery Duce

The Department of Music is pleased to announce a Guest Artist Recital featuring cellist Adriana Ransom and pianist Geoffrey Duce on Friday, February 24 at 8:00 p.m. in the Ophelia Parrish Performance Hall. Dr. Ransom and Dr. Duce will perform a selection of music from Beethoven, Bach and Brahms; the concert is free and open to the public.

Cellist Adriana Ransom enjoys a varied and active concert schedule. She is the recipient of numerous awards, including winning top prizes at the WAMSO Young Artist Competition, the Naftzger Young Artist Competition, and the Schubert Club Young Artist Competition.

She has appeared as a guest artist on notable solo and chamber music recital series across the Midwest, and was recently featured on two nationally broadcast recordings produced by Chamber Music Minnesota. Ms. Ransom has held the assistant principal cello position with the Minnesota Opera Orchestra for five years. She was also selected by audition to perform with the 2003 European Musical Festival Orchestra in Stuttgart and Berlin under the direction of Helmut Riling.

A native of Kansas City, Dr. Ransom received her Bachelor of Music degree from the University of Missouri where she studied with Nina Gordon. She has also earned a Masters and Doctorate degree from the University of Minnesota under the tutelage of Tanya Remenikova. She studied chamber music with internationally acclaimed pianists Margo Garrett and Lydia Artymiw and violinists Jorja Fleezanis and Benny Kim, and has participated in many masterclasses given by distinguished artists, recently being selected to perform an Armenian work for Yo Yo Ma in connection with the Silk Road project.

Dr. Ransom has served on the faculty at St. Cloud State University and at the Lutheran Summer Music Academy and Festival. She currently teaches at the Illinois State University.

Originally from Scotland, pianist Geoffrey Duce has performed throughout Europe, in the USA, Japan and Hong Kong, including in New York’s Carnegie Hall, Berlin’s Philharmonie and Konzerthaus, London’s Wigmore Hall, Manchester’s Bridgewater Hall and Edinburgh’s Queen’s Hall.

A versatile musician, Dr. Duce’s career has featured both solo and collaborative performances. As a concerto soloist he has appeared with the Sinfonie Orchester Berlin, the New York Sinfonietta, the Scottish Sinfonia, the Edinburgh Philharmonic and the Olympia Symphony Orchestra, and as a chamber musician and accompanist he has recorded for BBC Radio 3 and Hong Kong Radio, and has performed at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. He won the Young Artists Award from Britain’s National Federation of Music Societies, and was awarded the Prix de Piano at the American Conservatory in Fontainebleau, France. He has given masterclasses at colleges and music schools, including at Shorter and Darton Colleges in Georgia, at the Academy of Music Northwest in Seattle, and in the Middle East.

Dr. Duce initially studied at the Royal Northern College of Music and Manchester University, UK, before receiving a DAAD scholarship to the Universität der Künste, Berlin. His teachers have included Phillip Kawin, Klaus Hellwig, Ferenc Rados and Renna Kellaway. He received his doctorate from the Manhattan School of Music, New York, and currently teaches at Illinois State University.

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