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JANUARY 24TH, 7:30 p.m.
Tickets: $25/$30 door

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OPUS TWO

William Terwilliger, Violin
Andrew Cooperstock, Piano

The award-winning Opus Two has been internationally recognized for its “divine phrases, impelling rhythm, elastic ensemble and stunning sounds,” as well as its commitment to expanding the violin-piano duo repertoire. Seasoned chamber players, violinist William Terwilliger and pianist Andrew Cooperstock specialize in the duo literature and have developed an uncanny sense of musical unity.

Winners of the United States Information Agency’s Artistic Ambassador Auditions in 1993, Opus Two embarked on a 30-concert tour of Latin America and the Caribbean, which included performances, radio broadcasts and master classes throughout Chile, Peru, Ecuador, Bolivia, Panama, the Dominican Republic and the Bahamas. The overwhelming success of that tour launched the duo on a distinguished concert career on four continents. Further international engagements have included performances in France, Belgium, Holland, England, Scotland, Sweden, Germany, Latvia, Ukraine, Canada and Australia. Opus Two has concertized across the United States, including recitals in New York, Chicago, New Orleans, Detroit, Houston, Dallas, Denver, Minneapolis and Baltimore.

In April 2006, Opus Two made its Asian debut, with recitals, concerto appearances and master classes throughout China, Korea, Japan and the Russian Far East, in such locales as Beijing, Tianjin, Nanning, Shenzhen, Seoul, Sapporo, Okinawa, Kobe, Kanazawa, Khabarovsk and Vladivostok, among others. Highlights of recent seasons include the ensemble’s debut at London’s St. John’s, Smith Square, following which The Strad remarked that “violinist William Terwilliger played with supreme tenderness and finely judged control and was partnered with assurance and sensitivity by Andrew Cooperstock.” Opus Two’s recent festival appearances include performances at the Australian Festival of Chamber Music (Queensland), Piccolo Spoleto (South Carolina), and the Round Top International Festival-Institute (Texas). Terwilliger and Cooperstock have been in residence at North Carolina’s Brevard Music Festival since 1991.

Opus Two’s radio and television credits include appearances on National Public Radio’s Performance Today, and Chicago’s WFMT, the BBC, Radio France, Radio Latvia and the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. Their South American tours have also included appearances on television in the Dominican Republic and Bolivia.

Champions of American music, Opus Two has performed Aaron Copland’s complete works for violin and piano extensively across the United States and abroad. The duo’s recording of this same music (Azica Records) features works never before recorded, including two early, unpublished preludes. Of this recording American Record Guide remarks that “it would be hard to imagine finer performances of these works.” Leading Aaron Copland biographer Howard Pollack applauds the duo’s “utterly compelling performances of Copland’s music for violin and piano, full of tenderness and sensitivity in slower passages and vigor and buoyancy in faster ones.” The ensemble’s most recent recording, Chamber Music of Lowell Liebermann, features performances with cellist Andres Diaz and the Ying Quartet, and was praised as “splendid” by Strings magazine. Earlier this year, the two won a grant from the American Music Center’s Aaron Copland Recording Fund, which will be used to release Souvenirs: Music of Paul Schoenfield in the 2006/07 season. Opus Two’s discography also includes two discs of works of Robert Starer, one of which features the world premiere recording of Dispositions with clarinetist Martha MacDonald, a work that was composed especially for them.

In addition to their concerts as Opus Two, William Terwilliger and Andrew Cooperstock frequently join forces with Martha MacDonald as members of Trio Contraste. The Trio has been honored with the Centennial Chamber Music Award for Outstanding Promotion of American Music from the National Federation of Music Clubs. Additionally, William Terwilliger and Andrew Cooperstock have collaborated together or individually with members of the Takács, Emerson, and Juilliard String Quartets and the Dorian Wind Quintet, violinists Oleh Krysa and James Buswell, cellists Lynn Harrell and Yehuda Hanani, and hornists Eli Epstein of the Cleveland Orchestra, William VerMeulen of the Houston Symphony and Jerome Ashby of the New York Philharmonic.

Opus Two has commissioned a number of additions to the chamber music repertoire including Sonata Lunaris by John Fitz Rogers, and with Martha MacDonald, Meditations on Yeats by Donald Grantham for Trio Contraste, among others. The list of awards and grants to their credit includes grants from the American Music Center, Chamber Music America, the National Federation of Music Clubs and the Arts International Fund, to name but a few.

Andrew Cooperstock serves as chair of the keyboard department at the University of Colorado. In addition to his concerts with Opus Two he has the distinction of having performed as soloist or chamber player in most of the fifty states. He has also given lectures and recitals at the Hochschule für Musik Hans Eisler in Berlin, Germany, the Academy of Music in Riga, Latvia, and the Universities of Bordeaux and Nice in France, among others. William Terwilliger is professor of violin and director of chamber music at the University of South Carolina. He has held a faculty position at the University of Toledo and given master classes on four continents in addition to directing the annual USC String Quartet Workshop. Both regularly present for national meetings of such organizations as the American String Teachers Association, the College Music Society and the National Federation of Music Clubs. In 2005, they were jurors at the Music Teachers National Association National Competition in Seattle, Washington.

William Terwilliger and Andrew Cooperstock also have the distinction of being published authors and have written articles for Strings, American String Teacher and Keyboard Companion, among others.

William Terwilliger received his doctorate from the Eastman School of Music, and Andrew Cooperstock is a graduate of The Juilliard School and the Cincinnati and Peabody Conservatories.