String Scholarship Concert

• Hamilton Cheifetz, cello
• Tomas Cotik, violin
• Julia Hwakyu Lee, piano

The String Area presents a special concert in celebration of the brilliant students at PSU. The concert will feature performances by our 2021-2022 String scholarship recipients in a beautiful program of chamber music by Brahms, Mendelssohn, and Vaughan Williams. There will also be performances by String Area faculty Hamilton Cheifetz, Tomas Cotik, and piano faculty Julia Lee.

The concert also serves as an announcement of our new Hamilton Cheifetz Endowed Scholarship. This new fund will support the talented and deserving students studying in the string area at PSU, in perpetuity. PSU is honored to be able to award this new scholarship in Hamilton’s name. Funded by a generous anonymous donor, we are asking the string community to join together and match their $60,000 gift, which will be transformative in bolstering our ability to recruit and retain the best and brightest string musicians. Please join us in this special fundraising initiative by making a gift: https://giving.psuf.org/hamilton

About Portland State University School of Music & Theater

https://www.pdx.edu/music-theater/

About Hamilton Cheifetz, cello

https://www.pdx.edu/profile/hamilton-cheifetz

About Tomas Cotik, violin

Hailed by Michael Tilson Thomas as "an excellent violinist," Tomás Cotik was a first-prize winner at the National Broadcast Music Competition in his native Argentina in 1997 and the winner of the Government of Canada Award for 2003-2005. An avid recording artist, Dr. Cotik has recorded fifteen CDs for Naxos and Centaur Records, which have received three million Spotify streams and over two hundred enthusiastic reviews from publications such as Gramophone, American Record Guide, Downbeat, and MusicWeb International. His latest Piazzolla CD on Naxos was nominated for the International Classical Music Awards.

Mr. Cotik was a rotating concertmaster with the New World Symphony and has performed hundreds of recitals and chamber music concerts across the globe as a member of the acclaimed Amernet, Delray, and Harrington string quartets. He has worked closely with artists such as Joseph Kalichstein, Franklin Cohen, and members of the Cleveland, Miami, Pro Arte, Vogler, Vermeer, Tokyo, and Endellion string quartets. Committed to passing on his passion for music, Dr. Tomás Cotik recently received the inaugural Dean's Council Award for Research, Scholarship & Creativity for his significant contributions at the international level and was promoted to Associate Professor of Violin at Portland State University. He previously taught at West Texas A&M University, Florida International University, and the University of Miami's Frost School of Music.

About Julia Hwakyu Lee, piano

https://www.pdx.edu/profile/julia-hwakyu-lee