Artist Bios for Woodhams Concert

Having accidentally forgotten to insert the biographies for Richard Woodhams and his fellow colleagues at last night's concert, we are posting them here.  You can find full biographies on the Philadelphia Orchestra website or by clicking on each artist name below.

Richard Woodhams, principal oboe of the Philadelphia Orchestra since 1977, is a 1968 graduate of The Curtis Institute of Music. Mr. Woodhams’s tenure has included solo appearances with The Philadelphia Orchestra in Philadelphia, as well as in New York, Boston, and other cities throughout the United States and Asia in collaboration with its four previous music directors. Since 2000 Mr. Woodhams has taught and played annually at the Aspen Music Festival, where he performed Christopher Rouse’s Oboe Concerto in 2009 with David Robertson; he has also participated in the Marlboro and La Jolla music festivals, among others. He began his musical studies in his native Palo Alto, California, with Raymond Dusté and started his orchestral career with the Saint Louis Symphony under Walter Susskind at the age of 19.

Juliette Kang is the first associate concertmaster of the Philadelphia Orchestra. She holds a Master of Music degree from the Juilliard School, where she studied with Dorothy DeLay and Robert Mann. A native of Edmonton, Canada, Juliette Kang came to Philadelphia from the Boston Symphony, where she served as assistant concertmaster from 2003 to 2005. Prior to that she was a member of the first violin section of the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra from 2001 to 2003. Ms. Kang has been actively involved with chamber music since studying quartets at the Curtis Institute of Music with Felix Galimir. Festivals she has participated in include the Bravo! Vail Valley, Bridgehampton, Kingston Chamber Music, Marlboro, Moab (Utah), Skaneateles (New York), and Spoleto USA. In New York she has performed with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, at the Mostly Mozart Festival with her husband, cellist Thomas Kraines, and at the Bard Music Festival.

Violinist Lisa-Beth Lambert joined the Philadelphia Orchestra in 2001, following six seasons as a member of the National Symphony in Washington, D.C.  An active chamber musician, she has appeared at the Marlboro Music Festival, on Marlboro’s 50th Anniversary recording, at the White House, and with the Brandenburg Ensemble, the Smithsonian Chamber Players, and the 20th Century Consort.  Ms. Lambert has appeared as soloist with numerous orchestras, including the National Symphony and the New World Chamber Orchestra of Mexico City.  A graduate of the Curtis and Cleveland institutes of music, her major teachers have included Jaime Laredo, Yumi Ninomiya Scott, Donald Weilerstein, and Ronda Cole, with whom she began studying at age three.

Yumi Kendall joined the Philadelphia Orchestra in 2004 as assistant principal cello after graduating from The Curtis Institute of Music. While at Curtis she studied with the late David Soyer and Peter Wiley, both of the Guarneri Quartet. Ms. Kendall began studying cello at the age of five following the Suzuki method. She made her recital debut at age seven, and, upon completion of the Suzuki method, continued to study for seven years with the National Symphony’s principal cello, David Hardy. Ms. Kendall’s participation in summer festivals includes Music from Angel Fire, the Verbier Festival, the Marlboro Festival, touring with Musicians from Marlboro, the Taos School of Music, the Kingston Chamber Music Festival, and Carnegie Hall’s Emerson String Quartet Workshop. Ms. Kendall has served on the faculties of the New York State School for Orchestral Studies, the Philadelphia International Music Festival, the University of Pennsylvania chamber music department, the Brevard Music Center, the National Orchestral Institute, and as mentor in the Curtis Institute’s new Community Artist Program.

Violist Che-Hung Chen has been a member of The Philadelphia Orchestra since the spring of 2001, when he was hired by then-Music Director Wolfgang Sawallisch, becoming the first Taiwanese citizen ever to join the Orchestra. He has also served as acting associate principal viola under former Music Director Christoph Eschenbach. Mr. Chen was the first-prize winner at the Seventh Banff International String Quartet Competition as the founding member of the Daedalus Quartet; he was also awarded the Pièce de concert prize for the best performance of the commissioned work and the Székely Prize for the best performance of a Beethoven quartet. A three-time top-prize winner at the Taiwan National Instrumental Competition, Mr. Chen began his studies at the age of six with Ben Lin in his native Taipei, and he later entered the Curtis Institute of Music at age 14, where he studied with Joseph de Pasquale, retired Philadelphia Orchestra principal viola. Mr. Chen currently serves on the faculty of Temple University’s Esther Boyer College of Music and its Preparatory Division.

Kiyoko Takeuti joined the Philadelphia Orchestra as pianist in 1985 and is heard frequently in recitals and chamber music concerts in the Philadelphia area and elsewhere on the East Coast. She has been the pianist of the Philadelphia Chamber Ensemble since its inception, with which she has introduced to the public many unknown chamber music works, both old and new. Born in Tokyo, Ms. Takeuti began playing the piano at the age of three. Among her early teachers in Japan and the United States were Tanya Ury, Max Egger, and Soulima Stravinsky. Ms. Takeuti’s formal musical training culminated in studies with renowned artists Rudolf Serkin and Mieczyslaw Horszowski at the Curtis Institute of Music. At Curtis she also studied chamber music extensively with Misha Schneider and the members of the Guarneri Quartet.