Photo by Weston Bennett
Monday, October 11, 2021
12 PM
Free concerts at noon every other Monday from fall through spring . . . no wonder the Mini-Concerts are the longest-running and one of the most popular classical music series at the library! This series was founded by Glenna Hazleton in 1970 at the Athenaeum, and has been going strong ever since. The concerts feature both local and touring musicians, prize-winning students, university music faculty members, local chamber ensembles. . . and the repertoire also includes jazz, folk and world music. There are no reservations, no tickets . . . just line up at the side door of the Athenaeum before noon. (Donations are always welcome!) Mini-Concerts take place every other Monday at noon and last about an hour.
Known for her expressivity, virtuosity, and versatility, Indonesian-born pianist Ines Irawati is in demand both as a solo recitalist and a collaborative pianist. Ms. Irawati is currently serving as the music and artistic director of San Diego Opera's Young Artist Training Program, as well as its community outreach concert series, Opera Exposed! Concerts. She has served as a vocal coach and pianist at the Institute for Young Dramatic Voices and was the head vocal coach and collaborative piano faculty at Point Loma Nazarene University from 2004-2017.
Her past engagements include performances with Art of Élan, concerts with San Diego Opera’s Opera Exposed!, and Musikamar chamber concerts. She has performed a solo work for TEDxSan Diego at Copley Symphony Hall, as well as a collaboration with jazz pianist Danny Green. Last summer, Ms. Irawati served as the music and stage director of San Diego Opera’s production of the children’s opera, Seymour Barab’s Little Red Riding Hood. With violinist Robert Schumitzky and cellist Erin Breene, she founded the Aviara Trio, a piano trio group described as the “highest level of instrumental perfection, intensity, passion, and expression.” She has collaborated with many other esteemed chamber musicians such as Strings of the West, the Hyperion String Quartet, and members of the San Diego Symphony Orchestra.
At the age of 13, Ms. Irawati was accepted to the Junior Original Concert, a music program where exceptional young musicians compose original works and perform them around the world. Through the program, she performed her own compositions all over Indonesia, Singapore, Japan and Sri Lanka. She was invited to the International UNICEF Benefit in Japan, where she performed her piano concerto with the NHK Symphony Orchestra. Her work for solo flute, “Flirting Belugas”, was published by the Manduca Music Publication.
Recommended by the former conductor of San Diego Symphony Orchestra, Jahja Ling, Irawati came to the US at age 14 to join the prestigious Young Artists Program at Cleveland Institute of Music, where she earned her bachelor’s degree under the tutelage of Olga Radosavlejich. She then received her master’s from Yale University, where she studied with Claude Frank. Her chamber music coaches include Vivian Weilerstein, Anne Epperson, Peter Frankl, and members of the Cleveland Quartet and the Tokyo String Quartet. She spent two summers the Music Academy of the West in Santa Barbara, where she studied vocal accompanying with Warren Jones and Marilyn Horne. She was awarded Best Vocal Pianist by the Marilyn Horne Foundation, and made her New York debut at the Kosciuszko Foundation.
Ms. Irawati has won numerous prizes including the top prize of the Suburban Concerto Competition, the Cleveland Institute of Music Concerto Competition, the D’Angelo International Young Artists Competition, and the La Jolla Symphony and Chorus Competition, and has soloed with Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra, California Chamber Orchestra, and Orchestra Nova. She has performed at The Weill Music Institute at Carnegie Hall, Severance Hall, Copley Symphony Hall, California Center for the Arts, Irwin M. Jacobs Qualcomm Hall, Old Town Temecula Community Theatre, and Centro Cultural Tijuana in Mexico.
She is the founder and director of MusiKamar, a chamber music series which brings exquisite chamber music concerts into smaller and intimate spaces. Ms. Irawati currently lives in San Diego with her husband and their two children.