Cellist Linda Jennings and pianist Chindarat Charoenwongse will present the first recital of the IUP season in Gorell Hall on Tuesday evening, September 3, at 7:00 p.m. The program will present traditional works alongside newer works, including Claude Debussy’s sonata, the slow movement of the Rachmaninoff sonata, and works by David Maslanka, Chen Yi, and Samuel Magrill. The recital is open and free to the public.
Chindarat Charoenwongse, DMA, is from Bangkok, Thailand, and teaches applied piano, piano pedagogy, and piano literature, and coaches chamber music. She received a bachelor of fine and applied arts in piano performance with first-class honors from Chulalongkorn University and a performer's diploma from Trinity College of Music. As a Fulbright scholar, she graduated with a master of music in music education from Eastman School of Music. She obtained her doctor of musical arts in piano performance and pedagogy from the University of Oklahoma. She studied piano with Edward Gates, Barry Snyder, Anton Nel, Tongsuang Israngkun, and Natchar Pancharoen, and piano pedagogy with E. L. Lancaster, Jane Magrath, Tony Caramia, and Tongsuang Israngkun.
Her international performances include concertos with the faculty of Fine and Applied Arts Orchestra of Chulalongkorn University, Chulalongkorn University Symphony Orchestra for Her Royal Highness Princess Galayani Vaddhana. In June 2006, she performed as a soloist with the Thai National Symphony Orchestra to honor His Majesty the King of Thailand’s sixtieth anniversary of His Accession to the Throne. She also performed with the University of Central Oklahoma Symphony Orchestra, and most recently in 2018 with the University of Central Oklahoma Chamber Orchestra.
Since 2007, she has been a member of the Arcadia Piano Trio, which has performed in the US, Canada, and Thailand. In July 2015, the trio was invited to perform at the eleventh annual Thailand International Composer Festival.
Prior to joining the University of Central Oklahoma School of Music faculty, she taught at Chulalongkorn University, Kasetsart University, and Chintakarn Music Institute, where she served as the head of the piano department.
An active piano pedagogy clinician, she presented both in the US and Thailand workshops, master classes, and lectures for Alfred and Hal Leonard publications on various university campuses, including the University of Wisconsin at Whitewater, Kansas State University, Chulalongkorn University, Kasetsart University, Mahidol University, Payap University, Rangsit University, and Srinakharinwirot University. An active adjudicator, she has served as an adjudicator for numerous piano auditions/competitions in the US. She has been a member of the interdisciplinary faculty group dedicated to the applications of brain research to teaching and learning since 2016. The mind-brain education and embodied brain activities from this group are to help students experience transformative learning and become life-long brain changers.
Her piano students were winners representing Oklahoma in the Music Teachers National Association’s Young Artists Piano Competitions (division/regional) in 2011, 2012, and 2013, as well as winners in Oklahoma competitions. She also teaches pre-college piano students through UCO Central Community Music School, and her students were winners of OMTA Junior Competitions.
Charoenwongse has been a piano faculty member at the University of Central Oklahoma since 2000 and served as the Piano Division head during 2005–10. She is honored to serve as the director of the Music Outreach Program, which brings music to local and global communities.
Linda Jennings is a professor of music at ºÚÁϳԹÏÍø, where she leads the Cello and Bass Studios, teaches chamber music, and directs the IUP String Project. Jennings received her bachelor of music at the University of Wisconsin, Madison; a master of music from the University of Southern California; and a doctorate of music from the University of Texas at Austin. She has studied with cellists Geraldine Jennings, Janet Grieve, Parry Karp, Eleonore Schoenfeld, Uri Vardi, and Phyllis Young.
She is an active solo, chamber, and orchestral performer. She has played in orchestras throughout Texas, the Midwest, and Alaska and served as principal cellist for the Fairbanks Symphony Orchestra, the Arctic Chamber Orchestra, and the Chamber Orchestra of the Alleghenies. In the summer of 2002, she was invited to serve as guest principal cellist of the Bangkok Symphony Orchestra in Thailand for the seventieth birthday celebration of Thailand’s Queen Sirikit.
She has also appeared as a soloist and chamber musician in concerts and festivals in the US, Mexico, Europe, Thailand, Indonesia, and Haiti. Jennings served as a member of the Litton String Quartet and Gorell Piano Trio, ºÚÁϳԹÏÍø’s faculty chamber ensembles-in-residence. Currently, she is a member of the Herbert Street Piano Trio. Jennings has also been invited to present master classes nationally in Wisconsin, Texas, North Carolina, Georgia, and Oklahoma as well as internationally in Mexico, Croatia, Thailand, and Haiti. Since 2020, she has provided monthly master classes for Chiang Rai Youth Orchestra Oversea Online Class Project in Thailand.
In addition to her performing and teaching career, Jennings is a strong proponent for string music education. From 1997 to 1999 she served as director of the prestigious UT String Project, an internationally acclaimed teacher-training program. Currently, she directs a similar program, the IUP String Project, which she founded in 2004. In recent years Jennings was invited to teach and provide pedagogy training for music teachers in Haiti and Thailand. In 2014 she served as artistic director and guest artist for the Bangkok Symphony Orchestra Cello Festival and the Chiang Rai Youth Orchestra Cello Festival, the first festivals of this kind in Thailand.