Apollo Music Festival: Masterclasses and Student Recital
Cappella Performing Arts Center
This is a free event. No tickets will be issued for this event.
PIANO MASTERCLASS WITH GARRET ROSS, 1:00pm
OBOE MASTERCLASS WITH LINDSAY FLOWERS, 1:45pm
BASSOON MASTERCLASS WITH EVAN KUHLMANN, 2:30pm
STUDENT RECITAL, 3:30pm
Based in Houston, Minnesota, The Apollo Music Festival (AMF) is a classical music festival focusing mostly on chamber music. It was founded in 2013 by pianist Garret Ross, a native of Houston. Ross presented his first professional concert in Houston in December of 2012, with cellist Ruth Marshall, in the space that would become the International Owl Center. Performing under the name Artu Duo, they have been the ensemble-in-residence at the Apollo Music Festival ever since. In the summer of 2013, the first AMF concerts were held at the Houston Preschool, and all subsequent concerts have been held at Cross of Christ Lutheran Church.
The Apollo Music Festival runs every summer during the two weeks before Labor Day, producing four concerts in Houston. It has run annually since 2013, with the exception of 2020 when it was forced into a hiatus due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Since its founding in 2013, The Apollo Music Festival has also produced concerts in Caledonia, Winona, and Saint Paul. Since 2014, AMF has also offered educational opportunities for students, including master classes with AMF musicians, and student recitals at Cross of Christ Lutheran Church.
In the years since 2013, over twenty excellent musicians have performed at Apollo Music Festival concerts. These musicians are members of the Minnesota Orchestra, the Oregon Symphony, the Illinois Symphony, the Quad City Symphony Orchestra, the Lyric Opera of Chicago, the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Kansas City Symphony, the Britt Festival Orchestra, the Minnesota Opera, the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, and have taught on the faculties of the University of Minnesota, the State University of New York, Northern Kentucky University, Eastern Illinois University, Illinois State University, Lewis and Clark College, the Saint Paul Conservatory of Music, Northwestern University, New York University, Mannes School of Music, Winona State University, and Illinois Wesleyan University. They have come from Oregon, Montana, Wisconsin, Indiana, Missouri, Ohio, Illinois, New York, Germany, and of course, Minnesota. These musicians’ skills and gifts, coming from far and wide, create the excellence for which the Apollo Music Festival is known. For the two weeks before Labor Day, there is nowhere they would rather be than Houston, Minnesota.
The Apollo Music Festival offers all of its concert and educational programming free to the community. As such, it is mightily supported by the Southeastern Minnesota community. Each year, individual donors give generously to AMF to help off-set the significant costs of producing concerts of such high caliber. The Apollo Music Festival has also received grant funding from the Minnesota State Arts Board and the Southeastern Minnesota Arts Council, and in-kind support from the Houston Arts Resource Council.
Performers
Pianist Garret Ross is an experienced soloist and avid chamber musician with a wide ranging repertoire. He is the founder and Director of the Apollo Music Festival as well as the co-founder and co-Artistic Director of Florestan Chamber Music. Garret has performed on stages and series across the USA including Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall, the Dame Myra Hess Memorial Concert Series in Chicago, The Roerich Museum in NYC, the Bermuda Piano Festival, and Music Northwest in Seattle WA.
As a soloist, Garret gave the World Premiere of Gregory Vajda’s Csardas Obstine with the Texas Festival Orchestra and the Music in The Mountains Festival Orchestra. Other concerto appearances include the repertoire of Bach, Beethoven, Grieg, Rachmaninoff, and Hindemith. Garret has performed at numerous festivals including the Aldeburgh Festival, Banff Centre, and the International Festival-Institute at Round Top.
Garret holds a Doctor of Musical Arts from the University of Minnesota, as well as a Certificate in Music Education from NYU’s Steinhardt School of Music. Garret’s principal teachers are Alexander Braginsky and Eteri Andjaparidze. Both Braginsky and Andjaparidze studied at the Moscow Conservatory where their teachers, Teodor Gutman and Vera Gornostaeva, respectively, were students of Heinrich Neuhaus. Garret hopes to continue this tradition of piano playing through his performances and teaching. An active teacher himself, Garret teaches students throughout the Twin Cities, and conducts masterclasses at universities throughout the United States. He is on the faculty of The Saint Paul Conservatory of Music.
Garret lives in North Minneapolis with his partner Justin, cat Marzipan, and Doberman Reginald Barclay. He enjoys cooking, gardening, and traveling.
Lindsay Flowers is the Principal Oboist of the Milwaukee Ballet Orchestra and English Hornist of the Madison Symphony Orchestra, Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra, and Quad Cities Symphony Orchestra. She previously was a member of the New Mexico Philharmonic and Civic Orchestra of Chicago.
Lindsay serves on the faculty at the University of Wisconsin-Madison Mead Witter School of Music where she is a member of the Wingra Wind Quintet. At Indiana University Jacobs School of Music, she received a Doctor of Music degree and designed a curriculum, “School of Music Student-Generated Community Engagement Projects.” Lindsay’s teaching integrates her collegiate volleyball training: disciplined commitment, performance visualization, supportive teamwork, persistent resilience, and the balance of effort and finesse.
A passionate chamber musician, Lindsay was a founding member of the Arundo Donax Reed Quintet, Bronze Medal Winners of The Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition. Together with Dr. Andrew Parker, she recorded an album of oboe and English horn duo music to be released Fall 2022.
During recent summers, she has performed with the Santa Fe Opera, Grant Park, Midsummer’s (Door County), Lakes Area, Lake George, Castleton, Aspen, and Banff Music Festivals. She has also performed with the Milwaukee, Chicago, Indianapolis, Utah, and Nashville Symphony Orchestras.
Evan Kuhlmann was appointed Contrabassoon of the Los Angeles Philharmonic by Gustavo Dudamel in 2018, shortly after completing his twelfth season as Assistant Principal Bassoon and Contrabassoon of the Oregon Symphony. A native Seattleite, he is a graduate of Interlochen Arts Academy and The Juilliard School; where he earned a B.M. in Bassoon Performance with Scholastic Distinction as a student of Frank Morelli, a Graduate Diploma in Music Composition as a student of Robert Beaser, and the Peter Mennin Prize for Outstanding Achievement and Leadership in Music. Evan also studied bassoon with Francine Peterson, Barrick Stees, and Eric Stomberg; and composition with Samuel Jones, Stanley Wolfe, and Philip Lasser.
Evan has performed with numerous orchestras internationally including the St. Louis, San Diego, and Seattle Symphonies, the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, Orchestra of St. Luke’s, All-Star Orchestra, Grant Park Orchestra, and Orchestra of the Festival dei Due Mondi in Spoleto, Italy. He has appeared as a soloist with the Seattle Symphony at Benaroya Hall, the Marrowstone Festival Orchestra, and alongside Jethro Tull with the Oregon Symphony. As Principal Bassoon of the Cabrillo Festival Orchestra, Evan has performed countless premieres, including works of John Adams, Magnus Lindberg, and James MacMillan.
A dedicated teacher, Evan has served on the faculty of Portland State University and the Marrowstone Music Festival. He has also coached the bassoonists of the Filarmónica Joven de Colombia, Portland Youth Philharmonic, and Metropolitan Youth Symphony.