Biographies
Monika Gruber and Hillary Nordwell formed the Eusebius Duo in 2005, shortly after graduating from the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. They have performed chamber music together, both as a duo and in the formation of a piano trio, since the Fall of 2004. While completing their graduate studies at the San Francisco Conservatory, they studied Chamber Music with Mark Sokol, Paul Hersh and Ian Swensen and participated in Master Classes with Gilbert Kalish, Menahem Pressler (Beaux Arts Trio) and Martha Katz (Cleveland Quartet). They played several concerts in Washington State during the Summers of 2005 and 2006, where they were also featured on KONP Radio’s ‘Art Beat’ show, and are very happy to appear in the 2006/07 edition of Northwest on Tour, the juried roster of artists sponsored by the Washington State based agency Arts Northwest. During the summer of 2006 they played in Carnegie Hall’s Weill Recital Hall as 1st Prize winners of the 2nd International Chamber Music Ensemble Competition in Boston, MA, at the ‘Festival del Sole’ in Napa, CA, in Katrineholm, Sweden, and as part of the ‘Summer Matinees for Young Artists’ concert series in Dortmund, Germany. They are regular guest artists at the ‘Bing’ concert series at Stanford University, CA and perform extensively throughout the San Francisco Bay Area.
A native of Germany, Monika Gruber graduated from the ‘Hochschule fuer Musik’ in Weimar in 2003 with an Artistic Diploma and a Teaching Diploma. She spent the Academic Year 2000/01 as a recipient of the European “Erasmus” Scholarship at the ‘Conservatoire National Superieur de Musique’ in Lyon, France, studying violin with Stephane Tran Ngoc. In 2003 she won the Rotary Ambassadorial Scholarship Award, which enabled her to come to the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, where she studied with Ian Swensen and completed her Masters Degree in May 2005. After having served as 1st violinist of the SF Conservatory’s New Music Ensemble, Monika currently pursues her passion for New Music as concertmaster of the SF Composers Chamber Orchestra. A dedicated teacher, she was a faculty member of the SF Conservatory’s Preparatory Division in 2005/06 and currently teaches at the SF Community Music Center, where she won this year’s Faculty Concerto Competition and will perform the Sibelius Concerto in June of 2007.
Hillary Nordwell is a graduate of Lawrence Conservatory in Appleton, Wisconsin, where she studied with Catherine Kautsky and was honored for three consecutive years with the Marjory Irvin Prize for “excellence in solo piano and chamber music.” In 2005 she completed her Masters Degree in Chamber Music, studying both piano and chamber music with Paul Hersh, Mark Sokol, and Ian Swensen at the San Francisco Conservatory. Hillary has performed in master classes with renowned artists and teachers Richard Goode, Robert McDonald, and Gilbert Kalish, and in collaborative classes with Paul Katz, Lynn Harrell, and Menahem Pressler. She has performed chamber music throughout the United States, as well as in Italy, Austria, Germany, and Sweden. Her solo engagements have included concerto appearances with the Lawrence Symphony Orchestra, Port Angeles Chamber Orchestra, and the Port Townsend Orchestra. Hillary maintains an active private teaching studio and is a member of the piano faculty at St. Brigid School in San Francisco. For more information, please see her website at www.hillarynordwell.com