Portland Chamber Orchestra: Zeda Zuponcic, pianist

As a prizewinner in the Alfredo Casella Competition, Naples, Miss Zuponcic toured Italy under the auspices of the U.S. Dept. of State. Since then, Miss Zuponcic has performed widely on four continents. A tour of Japan in June, 1998 expanded her activities into Asia. Her successful American debut at Lincoln Center's Alice Tully Hall in 1973 was followed by recital and orchestral performances throughout the United States. In the past decade she has become a sought-after performer in the concert halls of Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union, having played more than 100 concerts and recitals in, among others, Moscow, St. Petersburg, Dubrovnik, Tbilisi, Arkhangelsk, Tashkent, Kiev, Kishiniev, Zagreb and Kharkov. The London Times critics called her "Absolute Mistress of Romantic Syntax. " After her most recent New York recital at Carnegie Hall's Weill Recital Hall, the New York Times critic Allen Kozinn stated, " In Schumann's "Kreisleriana" the storminess and bristling speed she applied to the fast movements were offset by the warmth and poetry she lavished on the introspective ones." Similar praise has been garnered in concerts around the world.

Miss Zuponcic's orchestral appearances have included the Russian State Symphonic Orchestra, the Moscow Philharmonic, the Zagreb and Seville Orchestra (Sutej), the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra (Manahan), the Savannah Symphony Orchestra (Greenberg) and the Tbilisi Symphony (Jordania).

Born in Aurora, Minnesota, Miss Zuponcic exhibited early promise at the piano. Early studies were with Dorothy Crost Bourgin of Virginia, and later, Katherine Hessler of Hibbing. She studied at Indiana University with the great pedagogue and pianist, Sidney Foster, where she distinguished herself by winning the Rachmaninoff 3rd Piano Concerto Competition and the Performers Certificate. Further studies were with Ilona Kabos in New York and London, and with Abbey Simon and Seymour Bernstein.

She has been Professor of Music at Rowan University of New Jersey since 1972, where she has built a reputation as a pragmatic and successful pedagogue of students of all ages. In 1992 she was an Exchange Professor for one semester at the Moscow State Conservatory where she taught a full class of students and gave a series of lectures on American piano music. Miss Zuponcic is in frequent demand as a clinician, and has presented workshops and masterclasses throughout the world, including the Barcelona Liceo, the Moscow State Conservatory, the Tashkent Conservatory, Temple University, the University of Wisconsin, Northern Illinois University, Eastman School of Music, Croatian National Conservatory, Kharkov Institute of Arts and Shizuoko Musical College. Her students have been prizewinners in the Philadelphia Orchestra Competition; San Angelo, TX Competition; the Bartok Kabalevsky Competition, the Washington D.C. International competition, the Stravinsky Competition, ARTS Competition, Kingsville, TX Competition; Josef Hofmann Competition; and MTNA Collegiate, Senior and Junior High School Competitions.

As administrator, she chaired the Department of Music at Rowan University for nine years; was Dean of the International Summer School of the Moscow State Conservatory for eight years; and was the Executive Director of the Hollybush Festival, an opera and ballet festival, from 1982-90. She serves on the Advisory Board of Directors for the Camden School of Musical Arts, where she also teaches. She is the Artistic Director of the Northern Lights Music Festival in Aurora, Minnesota.

She has recorded two CD's for Melodiya, The Romantic Piano , and Americans from Moscow: Works by Carter, Dello Joio, Fine, Copland and Gershwin.