Mark Votapek
Cello
Following five years as Associate Principal Cellist of the Saint Louis Symphony, Mark Votapek has moved to Honolulu to begin performances in the 2004-2005 season as the new Principal Cellist of the Honolulu Symphony. His continuing activities on the mainland include regular annual appearances at the Olympic Music Festival in Washington and at Maine Mountain Chamber Music. 2003 marked his Aspen debut, collaborating with Sarah Chang and Joseph Kalichstein. The proximity of these music festivals to the great mountains of the country has attracted the cellist to climb. To date, he has summitted Mts. Rainier, Hood, Elbert, Washington, Katahdin, and many others, each without the aid of a conductor or score.
In Hawai'i, St. Louis, and guest venues, Mr. Votapek's performing mixes with pedagogy, teaching that has seen his students over the past decade progress to attend Juilliard and most other major music schools in the United States. His own travels have brought him over the past three years to guest recital performances in Orlando, Miami, Nashville, Interlochen, Kansas City, and San Francisco. His 1996 performance of Schelomo with the Oregon Symphony was aired on NPR's Performance Today and as a teenager Mr. Votapek played in recital at the first World Cello Congress in Washington D.C. In the most recent 6 months, he presented the Dohnanyi Concertpiece for Cello and Orchestra in its premiere performances with both the Southern Great Lakes Philharmonic and the Saint Louis Symphony, and coached and performed with Indiana University's Summer Festival Orchestra. Also this summer, Mr. Votapek made his first appearance at the Sebago-Long Lake Festival and gave away all his winter clothes.
Mark Votapek credits his success to the guidance of many teachers and chamber music coaches, especially the master teaching of Janos Starker, with whom he studied from 1987 through 1992, and to direction received from violinists Josef Gingold and Rostislav Dubinsky. Mr. Votapek can often be found online passing off this wisdom as his own as one of the hosts of the Internet Cello Society (www.cello.org).
[Back to Musicians page]
|
|
