On March 2, 2018, Kevin Hekmatpanah, cello, and Tomok Kimura, piano, will present a concert at 7 PM at the Harrington Opera House. Admission will be by donation.

Kevin Hekmatpanah

This will be Keven's second appearance at the Harrington Opera House. In April 2017, he performed a concert of Russian masterpieces with pianist, Darin Manica.

A native of Chicago, cellist Kevin Hekmatpanah has presented hundreds of solo and chamber performances throughout the country, including concerts at the Piccolo Spoleto Festival in Charleston, the Dame Myra Hess Concert Series at the Chicago Cultural Center, the Society of the Cincinnati Artist Series in Washington D.C., the Sitka Music Festival, the Lower Makefield Performing Arts Society in Pennsylvania, the Camerata Musica Concert Series in Salem, Oregon, the Russian Chamber Music Foundation and the Kirkland Performance Center in Seattle. Additional recitals include appearances at the Princeton Music Club, the Cheekwood Museum of Art in Nashville, the Hornby Island Recital Series in Victoria, B.C., the Bing Performing Arts Center in Spokane, the John Addison Cultural Arts Recital Series in Washington D.C., Daniels Recital Hall in Seattle, the Duck Creek Cello Festival in Utah, the Lake Chelan Bach Feste, the Cutter Theatre, the Battelle Auditorium as well as the Merc Playhouse Theatre.  He has also presented concerts of the complete works for Cello and Piano by Beethoven and over twenty cycles performing all Six Bach Suites.  He has made over one hundred and twenty solo concerto appearances with various ensembles, including the Chicago Chamber Orchestra, the Richmond Philharmonic, the Pueblo Symphony, the Kingsport Symphony Orchestra, the Middle Tennessee Symphony, the Oregon East Symphony, the Salisbury Symphony Orchestra, the Chamber Orchestra of the Springs in Colorado, the Southern Arizona Symphony, Gulf Coast Symphony, and the Vashon Chamber Orchestra.  Additional concerto engagements have been with the Boulder Chamber Orchestra, Coeur d’Alene Symphony, the Grande Ronde Symphony, the Timberline Symphony, the Berrien Springs Symphony, the Cascadia Summer Festival Orchestra, the Mc Call Chamber Orchestra, Spokane Falls Orchestra, the Woodlands Orchestra and the Okanogan Valley Orchestra. 

Outside North America, he has performed concertos in Moscow and St. Petersburg, Russia, in Stockholm, Sweden, and at the home of Edvard Grieg in Bergen, Norway.  He also appeared as soloist with the Vidin Philharmonic Orchestra in Bulgaria.  He has also presented recitals in Costa Rica, Norway, and the Para XXV International Music Festival in Brazil.  This past summer he performed at St. Stephens Cathedral in Vienna and the Esterhazy Palace in Eisenstadt, Austria.

Mr. Hekmatpanah has released a compact disc recording containing cello sonatas by Franck, Debussy, and Chopin.  He has won several competitions and awards, including prizes in the Beethoven Club Young Artists’ Competition, the Virginia Chapter of the National Society of Arts and Letters Competition, the Brentwood-Westwood Concerto Competition, the Fort Collins Concerto Competition, and the Montpelier Cultural Arts Solo Competition.

Deeply committed to teaching, Mr. Hekmatpanah is a Professor of Music at Gonzaga University, where he has taught since 1994. He recently received an Exemplary Faculty Award for his Academic Citizenship. He is currently a member of the Spokane Symphony Orchestra.  He has previously served on the faculty of Middle Tennessee State University and has taught cello at the Governor’s School for the Arts. He has served on competition juries, and he has presented master classes and clinics throughout the country.  In addition to being the first cellist to earn a DMA from the Peabody Conservatory of Music, he also holds a MM from Indiana University and a BM from the University of Southern California.  His teachers have included such nationally renowned pedagogues as Stephen Kates, Fritz Magg, and Gabor Rejto, and he has received coachings from such internationally celebrated artists as Yo-Yo Ma, Lynn Harrell, and Janos Starker.  For more information, visit his web site at http://www.kevinhekmatpanah.com

Tomoko Kimura

Tomoko Kimura has been teaching Group Piano Class at Eastern Washington University since 2005. It was at Eastern that she received her Master's degree in Piano Performance in 2006, studying under Dr. Jody Graves, Ms. Kendall Feeney, and Margaret Brink. She received her Bachelor's degree in Music Education from the Kunitachi School of Music in 1996, where she studied under Fumiko Yoshida and Yukiko Takeyama. In her high school in Kunitachi, she majored in clarinet and was the principal clarinetist.

Since coming to Spokane to study, Tomoko has accompanied dozens of instrumentalists and vocalists, from undergraduate students to world-class performers. She has earned several awards including the James Edmonds Collaborative Pianist Award.

Tomoko was the music director for the Spokane Children's Theatre winter 2007 production of The Velveteen Rabbit as well as for the spring 2007 production of Cinderella. In addition to teaching at EWU, she also teaches private lessons to both children and adults and is in high demand as a professional accompanist.
Information from: https://www.ewu.edu/cale/programs/music/music-faculty/tomoko-kimura-piano