The Five Cities Baroque Festival

We round out our series for the week with the final member of our Young Artist quartet, Seth Hobi!

Seth Hobi, baritone, has performed in a wide range of operatic productions across Baroque, Classical, and twentieth-century repertoire, and has also appeared as a soloist and ensemble singer across North America and Europe. His recent stage appearances include Voltaire/Dr. Pangloss in Bernstein’s Candide with Opera at Notre Dame, Pallante in Handel’s Agrippina with the Boston Early Music Festival, and Aeneas in Purcell’s Dido & Aeneas with both Opera at Notre Dame and Apollo's Fire Baroque Orchestra. Seth’s concert and oratorio work includes collaborations with Incantare & Alchymy Viols, Leipziger Barockorchester, Bach Collegium Fort Wayne, and SESTINA Early Vocal Ensemble. He has participated in advanced training programs and festivals, including the Boston Early Music Festival Young Artists Program, the Internationale Bachakademie Stuttgart, the Aspen Music Festival Seraphic Fire Professional Choral Institute, and the Tafelmusik Baroque Summer Institute.

Seth has worked under the direction of conductors including John Adams, Jos van Veldhoven,
Susanna Mälkki, and Jeannette Sorrell, among others. He is currently pursuing a Master of Sacred Music in Voice at the University of Notre Dame, where he performs with the Notre Dame Concordia Choir and the Notre Dame Chamber Choir. He received a Bachelor of Music in Vocal Performance from Cleveland State University.

Come catch Seth and the rest of our Young Artists all week, The Five Cities Baroque Festival: Young Artists in Recitalts in Recital, The Five Cities Baroque Festival: Handel’s “Israel in Egypt” (Springfield performance), and The Five Cities Baroque Festival: Handel’s “Israel in Egypt” (Decatur performance). As always, events are free and open to the public!

With less than 4 weeks to go until we open The Fourth Five Cities Baroque Festival, it's time to get started with our series. First up is keyboardist extraordinaire Chung-Ha Kim!

Dr. Chung-Ha Kim teaches Class Piano and Piano Pedagogy at Millikin University as well as Private Piano Lessons through Millikin Community Arts Academy. Born and raised in Germany, Dr. Kim moved to the United States in 1995 to pursue a Bachelor of Music in Piano Performance at the Manhattan School of Music in New York. She subsequently earned a Master of Music and a Doctor of Musical Arts at the University of Cincinnati's College-Conservatory of Music in Ohio. Dr. Kim was named Steinway Artist in 2014 and has released three CDs that are available on Amazon and Apple Music: Maurice Ravel: Miroirs (2013), A Palace of Strangers (2013) and Carnival of Animals (2014). She remains active as a solo as well as collaborative pianist: her most recent performances were at the Robert Schumann Hochschule in Düsseldorf (Germany), the University of Louisiana in Lafayette, and Mount Union College in Ohio. An active member of the Music Teachers National Association (MTNA), she served as 1st vice-president of the Illinois State Music Teachers Association (ISMTA) from 2008-2011 and as president of the Decatur Area Music Teachers Association (DAMTA) from 2009-2016. She is currently the Achievement in Music (AIM) Performance Chair and the Coordinator for DAMTA's annual Duet Festival.

Dr. Kim will be accompanying our fabulous Young Artists at The Five Cities Baroque Festival: Young Artists in Recital, June 19 at St. John's Episcopal Church - Decatur, IL. You won't want to miss these outstanding artists, so come on out to see it!