Charles Saenz is Professor of Trumpet at Bowling Green State University and also serves as Associate Dean.  His playing has been described as having “perfect agility and character” along with “confidence, accuracy, and wonderful musicianship”.  Mr. Saenz has performed with such ensembles as the Toledo Symphony, Michigan Opera Theatre, the Toledo Jazz Orchestra, the Sinfonia da Camera of Illinois, The Champaign-Urbana Symphony, the Illinois and Nebraska Brass Quintets, and the Omaha Big Band.  He is a member of the Toledo based Tower Brass Quintet and has released one recording with them entitled Road Trip.  His first solo recording, Eloquentia, was released in December 2015 and has received critical praise by both the International Trumpet Guild and the American Record Guide.

An active performer at international venues, he has presented recitals and master classes in Australia, China, Inner Mongolia, Taiwan, Thailand, Mexico and Brazil.  Other performances include the Burgos Chamber Music Festival in Burgos, Spain and the Exploring Brass Ensembles workshop in Kalavrita and Athens, Greece.  In 2011, he was a featured artist at the Fifth International Trumpet Festival of China held in Shenyang, China.  Of this recital, the International Trumpet Guild wrote, “Saenz has superb control of the instrument and performs with astonishing sensitivity with regard to phrasing, dynamics, and nuance.  It was well worth crossing an ocean to hear!” Saenz has also traveled to Monterrey, Mexico to teach at the International Trumpet Camp and Aguascalientes, Mexico as a guest artist for the tenth annual Chamber Music Festival.  In addition, he has presented recitals and master classes in Ohio, Illinois, Michigan, Alabama, Oklahoma, Nebraska, Wisconsin, Iowa, South Carolina, and New Mexico.  In January 2012, he was featured as a soloist at the annual conference of the New Mexico Music Educators Association.  

​Saenz received the PRO MUSICA AWARD for Exceptional Service to Students in May, 2017.  He is the recipient of various other awards including first prize in the 1994 International Trumpet Guild Solo Competition.  His students have also been winners in both the ITG Solo Competition and the Orchestral Excerpts Competition.  2017 marks the third consecutive year that his students have been finalists in the prestigious Solo Competition.  Prior to his BGSU appointment, he was on the faculty of the University of Nebraska Omaha where he served as Coordinator of Brass Studies and Instructor of Trumpet.  Saenz holds degrees from New Mexico State University and the University of Illinois.

Solungga Liu has been acclaimed as a pianist of great breadth. In addition to her commanding performances of standard piano repertoire, she is a champion of early twentieth-century American music as well as an uncanny interpreter of new music. Her discography is both wide-ranging and extensive.

Liu’s 2017 debut at the Library of Congress was praised for its “rhythmic precision, expression and a finely calibrated sense of balance between all of the moving parts.” There she performed a solo recital of works by Charles Griffes, Amy Beach and César Franck, a concert tailored to her strengths and uniquely composed of music from the Library’s manuscript collection. 

The American Record Guide described her recording “The Pleasure-Dome of Kubla Khan: Piano Works of Charles Tomlinson Griffes” for Centaur Records, as having, “excellent sound, sensitivity and beguiling color”. This recording led to the special request by the Library of Congress that she premiere Griffes’s 1915 piano transcription of Debussy’s Les parfums de la nuit from his orchestral work Iberia, once thought lost by Griffes’s biographers. About this world premiere, the Washington Classical Review wrote, “The piece retained an orchestral spectrum of colors in Liu’s hands. She served as the knowing conductor—the glue that held it all together while still allowing the transcription to shine through on its own merits”.

Liu’s newest Album, “The Passionate Amy Beach: Piano Quintet and Selected Works for Solo Piano” (Centaur, 2023), was praised by the Piano Magazine as “with a deep sense of poetry and lyricism and is full of depth, color and nuance”.

A dedicated performer of new music, Liu has had numerous premieres and recordings of contemporary works to her credit and has collaborated with many composers of our time. Her recent projects have included seven video releases of works by Stephen Hartke, Eric Nathan and Aaron Jay Kernis. Other major performances included Lutoslawski’s Piano Concerto with OSSIA, Steve Reich’s The Desert Music and Tehillim with Alarm Will Sound, Aaron Travers’s Concierto de Milonga, written for her and the Indiana University New Music Ensemble, and Gregory Mertl’s Piano Concerto, commissioned by the Barlow Endowment for her, conductor Craig Kirchhoff and the University of Minnesota Wind Ensemble. The 2017 Bridge Records release of the Mertl concerto has received great praise from the American Record Guide, Toronto’s WholeNote and Fanfare.

Liu enjoys an active career across five continents and has collaborated with the National Theater Symphony Orchestra of Brazil, the National Institute of Health’s Philharmonia in Washington D.C., the Taipei Metropolitan Orchestra, and the Toledo Symphony Orchestra/Choral Society. She has performed solo and chamber concerts at venues such as Carnegie Hall, The National Concert Hall in Taiwan, the Goethe Center in Bangkok, the Brazilian National Museum of Sculpture (MUBE) in São Paulo, and the Cultural Center of Braśilia, where she presented a series of solo recitals for the public as well as for members of the Cabinet and the Supreme Labor Court of Brazil.

In addition to her dedication to students at BGSU, Liu is a sought after Artist-Teacher at major international festivals and competitions, among them the 2023 Lied Center for Performing Arts Summer Piano Academy, the Eastman School of Music Summer Piano Festival, the Atlantic Music Festival, the Sicily International Piano Festival and Competition, the Thailand International Mozart Competition, and the Piano Plus International Piano Festival in Greece.

Liu holds a doctoral degree in piano performance from the Eastman School of Music where she studied with Alan Feinberg, Douglas Humpherys and Elizabeth DiFelice.

http://www.solungga.com

A versatile performer of many styles, Jane (Kelly) Anderson is an active trumpet player and educator currently based in Toledo, Ohio.  She is currently principal trumpet with the Adrian Symphony Orchestra and third trumpet with the Lansing Symphony.  She has performed with the Jackson (MI), Southwest Michigan, and Lima (OH) symphonies, as well as the Toledo Choral Society and the Tower Brass Quintet.  As a soloist, Jane has received first place in the brass division of the Tuesday Musical solo competition and second place in the 2022 Next Generation Trumpet Competition, as well as having performed as a semi-finalist in both the ensemble division and graduate solo division of the National Trumpet Competition, and as a finalist in the brass division of the MTNA solo competition.  

Jane is currently serving as adjunct instructor at Bowling Green State University, in addition to teaching PreK-4th grade general music at Trinity Lutheran School in Toledo.  Jane also maintains a private trumpet studio that has consisted of both virtual and in-person students in New Mexico and Ohio. Her students have received superior ratings at solo and ensemble festivals and been seen performing in top All-State ensembles, district honor bands, and summer festivals.  

Jane holds a bachelor's degree in trumpet performance from New Mexico State University and a master's degree in trumpet performance from Bowling Green State University. Her primary teachers include Dr. Pancho Romero and Charles Saenz.