Steven Whiting, Kathryn Votapek, and Christopher Harding will present a lecture concert concerning Beethoven, to include the violin sonata in C Minor, Op. 30 #2. This sonata was written at the same time as Beethoven’s Heiligenstadt Testament, in which he explains his deafness and inability to relate normally with the world. Presented in the 200th anniversary year of Beethoven’s death.

PRESENTER BIOS

Professor STEVEN WHITING taught at the University of Illinois, where he took his MM and PhD, before joining the University of Michigan faculty. Following his undergraduate education, he studied at Christian-Albrechts-Universität in Kiel, Germany, on a Fulbright study grant.

Whiting has published twenty articles and book chapters about Beethoven, Satie, French cabaret music, and E.T.A. Hoffmann, and has co-edited A. L. Ringer’s Musik als Geschichte. His book Satie the Bohemian: From Cabaret to Concert Hall (Oxford University Press, 1999) was recognized as an outstanding academic book by Choice.

A former director of the University’s Center for European Studies and associate director of its International Institute, Whiting served SMTD as associate dean for graduate studies from 2003 to 2014.

---

A member of the Chester String Quartet for 15 years, violinist KATHRYN VOTAPEK now maintains an active career as a soloist and guest artist at chamber music festivals throughout the United States, Canada, and Europe. She has participated in numerous commissioning projects and premieres and can be heard with the Chester Quartet on the Koch International Classics and New Albion labels. Along with pianist Ralph Votapek and clarinetist Paul Votapek, she performs as violinist and violist with the Votapek Trio. She has also given numerous duo performances with her husband, violinist Aaron Berofsky.

Votapek has been on the faculty of the Chautauqua Institution, the Meadowmount School of Music, the Interlochen Arts Camp, the Madeline Island Music Musi Camp, the Quartet Program, the Banff International Festival, the Accademia Musicale Chigiana (Italy), the Peter de Grote Summer Academy (Holland), and the Music & More Summerfest (Bosnia and Herzegovina), as well as performing at the Klosterkammerfest (Germany), Speedside Festival (Canada), the International Deia Festival (Spain), the Garth Newel Festival, the Fontana Festival, and with the Chicago Chamber Musicians, and the Detroit Chamber Winds & Strings.

Votapek is currently on the faculty at the University of Michigan and is the associate concertmaster of the Ann Arbor Symphony Orchestra. In prior years she was an associate professor of violin and artist-in-residence at Indiana University – South Bend.

Votapek received her bachelor of music degree at Indiana University and master’s degree from The Juilliard School. Her teachers were Robert Mann, Franco Gulli, and Angel Reyes.

---

Pianist CHRISTOPHER HARDING maintains an international presence as a noted teacher and performer. He has given solo, concerto, and chamber music performances in venues as far flung as the Kennedy Center and Phillips Collection in Washington, D.C., the IBK and Recital Halls of the Seoul Art Center, Suntory Hall in Tokyo, the National Theater Concert Hall in Taipei, the Jack Singer Concert Hall in Calgary, and halls and festival appearances in Newfoundland, Israel, Italy, Singapore, Thailand, Indonesia, Romania, Russia, and China. His concerto performances have included concerts with the National Symphony and the Saint Louis Symphony Orchestras, the San Angelo and Santa Barbara Symphonies, and the Tokyo City Philharmonic, working with such conductors as Andrew Sewell, Eric Zhou, Taijiro Iimori, Gisele Ben-Dor, Fabio Machetti, Randall Craig Fleisher, John DeMain, Ron Spiegelman, Daniel Alcott, and Darryl One, among others.

Mr. Harding’s chamber music and duo collaborations have included internationally renowned artists such as clarinetist Karl Leister, flautist Andras Adorjan, and members of the St. Lawrence and Ying String Quartets, in addition to frequent projects with his distinguished faculty colleagues at the University of Michigan. He has recorded solo and chamber music CDs for the Equilibrium and Brevard Classics labels. He has additionally edited and published critical editions and recordings of works by Claude Debussy (Children's Corner, Suite Bergamasque, the Arabesques and shorter works) and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (Viennese Sonatinas) for the Schirmer Performance Editions published by Hal Leonard.

Professor Harding has presented master classes and lecture recitals in universities across the United States and Asia, as well as in Europe, Israel, and Canada. He is a Permanent Guest Professor at the Sichuan Conservatory in Chengdu, China; he has additionally served as a Fulbright Senior Specialist at the Sichuan Conservatory (2008) and Seoul National University (2011) and Ewha Womans’ University (2023). He has taught masterclasses and performed lecture recitals at all the major universities and schools of music in South Korea, and throughout China, Taiwan, Thailand, Indonesia and Singapore.

In addition to serving as Chair of Piano and teaching undergraduate and graduate piano performance and chamber music at the University of Michigan School of Music, Theatre & Dance, Mr. Harding also serves on the faculty of the Sicily International Piano Festival and is a regular guest artist and teacher at the Rebecca Penneys Piano Festival in Tampa, Florida.

Harding was born of American parents in Munich, Germany and raised in Northern Virginia. His collegiate studies were with Menahem Pressler and Nelita True. Prior to college, he worked for 10 years with Milton Kidd at the American University Department of Performing Arts Preparatory Division, where he was trained in the traditions of Tobias Matthay. He has taken 25 first prizes in national and international competitions and in 1999 was awarded the special "Mozart Prize" at the Cleveland International Piano Competition, given for the best performance of a composition by Mozart.