Chopin and Bassett

Composer/pianist Leslie A. Hogan received her principal training at the University of Kansas and the University of Michigan. Her music often manifests her longtime fascination with other art forms and with the potential of music to reflect or respond to visual stimuli from the natural world. As a pianist, she has performed with UC Santa Barbara’s Ensemble for Contemporary Music and was a co-founder and frequent performer for the Current Sounds concert series in Santa Barbara. She was on the board of the Chamber Music Society of Santa Barbara for over a decade. She has received awards from the American Academy of Arts and Letters (Charles Ives Fellowship, 2002; Charles Ives Scholarship, 1993), the Rapido Composition Contest, the American Music Center, ASCAP, and the Chicago Civic Orchestra, among others. Dr. Hogan has taught composition in the College of Creative Studies at the University of California-Santa Barbara since 1995.

Larissa Fedoryka, cellist, began her cello studies at the age of three. As a child she joined her nine siblings who toured as the Classical chamber ensemble, The Fedoryka Family Players. The group performed in venues nationally, their tours culminating in multiple performances at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts as well as a performance at The Wolf Trap International Children’s Festival. More recently Larissa has made the transition to world music, touring with artists such as Marco Antonio Solis, Croatia’s pop artist Tajci, the Celtic/Americana band Scythian, and Mexico’s pop diva Gloria Trevi. In 1910 she was hired to arrange pop songs for orchestra by “The Harmony Project” – the LA Symphony’s program to enrich inner city youth through music. She studied at the Boston Conservatory with Andrew Mark and at Ohio University with Dr. Michael Carrera, and is currently completing her DMA in Performance at UCSB, where she studies with Jennifer Kloetzel.

Natasha Kislenko, pianist, was born in Moscow, holds graduate degrees from the Moscow Tschaikowsky Conservatory and Southern Methodist University (TX), and earned her DMA Degree from Stony Brook University (NY). She has concertized in Bulgaria, Germany, Italy, Russia, Spain, Turkey and the U. S., and has been prizewinner in piano competitions in both Europe and the U.S. Collaborative faculty member at the Music Academy of the West since 2004 and Principal Keyboard with the Santa Barbara Symphony since 2010, Dr. Kislenko is currently a Lecturer in the UCSB Department of Music.