Eugene Drucker & Friends Concert

Artist Bios

Eugene Drucker
Violinist Eugene Drucker, a founding member of the multiple Grammy Award-winning Emerson String Quartet, is also a soloist. He has appeared with the orchestras of Montreal, Brussels, Antwerp, Liège, Hartford, Richmond, Louisville, and Jerusalem, as well as with the American Symphony Orchestra, the Aspen Chamber Symphony, the Poway Symphony Orchestra and the Las Vegas Philharmonic. A graduate of Columbia University and the Juilliard School, where he studied with Oscar Shumsky, Mr. Drucker was concertmaster of the Juilliard Orchestra, with which he appeared as soloist several times. He made his New York debut as a Concert Artists Guild winner in the fall of 1976, after having won prizes at the Montreal Competition and the Queen Elisabeth Competition in Brussels. Mr. Drucker has recorded the complete unaccompanied works of Bach, reissued by Parnassus Records, and the complete sonatas and duos of Bartók for Biddulph Recordings.

His first novel, The Savior, was published by Simon & Schuster in 2007 and later appeared in a German translation called Wintersonate. A second novel, Yearning, was published in 2021.

Mr. Drucker’s suite for string quartet, Series of Twelve, was commissioned by the New Music for Strings Festival in Denmark. It was premiered in Copenhagen and Reykjavik in August 2018 and was later performed by the Escher Quartet in the U.S. He has also composed several settings of poetry by Shakespeare and Denise Levertov for voice and strings.

Eugene Drucker has taught at Stony Brook University since 2002, and recently joined the faculty of the Manhattan School of Music. He became Music Director of the Berkshire Bach Society’s “Bach at New Year’s” Concerts in 2017, and was appointed year-round Artistic Director for that organization in 2024. He lives in New York City with his wife, cellist Roberta Cooper.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=pf_Qc–kTlA%3Ffeature%3Doembed

Harold Reeves
Born in Santa Barbara, CA and raised in San Diego, CA, Harold holds a Bachelor of Music in Violin Performance from the Eastman School of Music and a Master of Music in Violin Performance from the Cleveland Institute of Music. His mentors include Mikhail Kopelman, Ilya Kaler, Olga Kaler, Philip Setzer, Zvi Zeitlin, Glenn Dicterow, and Kathleen Winkler. During his pre-college years, he studied with Jeff Thayer, Michael Tseitlin, Rebekah Yoon, and Hernan Constantino in San Diego.
Formerly associated with Lincoln Center Stage and RWS Entertainment in New York City, Harold now serves as a founding member of the Aries Music Group based in Southern California. He performs on a 1949 Helmuth Ellersieck violin, from his grandfather, Harold Reeves Sr., an amateur violinist and WWII Veteran. His father is a Vietnam veteran and Harold is bi-racial with a Korean/American cultural upbringing.
Apart from music, Harold enjoys pursuits such as powerlifting, basketball, snowboarding, camping, fishing, and motorcycle riding. His greatest artistic influences are J.S. Bach and Yo-Yo Ma. His favorite sports to watch are NBA, NFL, UFC, and Boxing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hVN3n9LYd-Y

Ching-Ming Cheng
Dr. Ching-Ming Cheng not only has been a recipient of the Top Music Teacher Award from Steinway & Sons every year since 2016, but in 2023, she was inducted into the Steinway & Sons Teacher Hall of Fame, a prestigious designation recognizing the work of North America’s most committed and passionate piano educators. Being a full professor at CSU San Marcos and currently the chair of the Music Department and the Faculty Director on the CSUSM Foundation Board, Dr. Cheng was the recipient of the CSUSM President’s Outstanding Faculty Award in Service Leadership in 2021.

Originally from Taiwan, Dr. Ching-Ming Cheng started playing the piano at the age of five and won her first prize in the Taipei Music Competition in her early teens. She won a silver medal in the International Keyboard Odyssiad Piano Competition and a semi-finalist in the Second Chinese International Piano Competition in New York City, representing Taiwan. Dr. Cheng holds a Bachelor of Music degree in Piano Performance from National Taiwan Normal University, a Master of Music degree and a Doctoral of Musical Arts degree in Accompanying and Chamber Music both from University of Miami.

Dr. Cheng is an active performer, both as a soloist and a collaborative pianist. She toured with Poway Symphonette to China, toured with world renowned saxophonist Kenneth Radnofsky in southern California, and completed a solo recital tour in Taiwan and Japan during her sabbatical. Besides numerous solo recitals around the world, Dr. Cheng’s concerto performances include programs with Humboldt Symphony, Palomar Symphony, Poway Symphony and CSUSM ensembles.

Dr. Cheng is a member of MTAC and CAPMT, and a frequent adjudicator for musical events and competitions locally and virtually. As a committed faculty member, Dr. Cheng dedicated herself to growing and expanding the music department at CSUSM. She helped form the music major, successfully raised funds to build a smart music lab and acquire a Steinway grand piano and has established the first All-Steinway School in the region.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=n8gQSuI7pi0%3Ffeature%3Doembed

Roberta Cooper
Roberta Cooper, cellist, won the Artists International Competition which sponsored her Carnegie Hall debut. She is a member of the Walsh-Drucker-Cooper Trio, which has performed extensively on major series in the US. and Europe. Ms. Cooper is the assistant principal cellist of the American Symphony Orchestra and is a member of the American Composers Orchestra and the Westchester Philharmonic. She has performed in the Berlin Philharmonic, the Brooklyn Philharmonic, the New York City Opera and the ballet orchestras of both the NYC Ballet and American Ballet Theatre. Roberta has been a guest cellist with the Emerson Quartet in many concerts in the US and Europe.  She has been the continuo player with the Berkshire Bach Society for more than two decades and has been a regular chamber music participant at many music festivals at Classical Tahoe, Festival Napa, and the St Bart’s Music Festival. In 2024 she made her debut with the “Frankly Music” series in Milwaukee in January and at Taconic Music in Manchester, Vermont in July.

A favorite project was as featured soloist on pop singer Linda Ronstadt’s recording of jazz standards, titled “Hummin’ to Myself”. This group, filled with jazz legends performed for an A&E TV special and at Jazz@ Lincoln Center.

Ms. Cooper was a scholarship student of Lorne Munroe and Harvey Shapiro at the Juilliard School, where she received her Bachelor and Master of Music degrees and the William Henderson Prize for outstanding achievement.

Julie Park
Julie Park, viola, originally hails from Ann Arbor, Michigan. She started her musical journey studying piano and violin as a child, igniting a lifelong passion for music. At Harvard University, she served as principal second violinist in the Harvard-Radcliffe Orchestra and studied chamber music under Robert Levin and Daniel Stepner while majoring in chemistry. Julie continued to actively play and study chamber music during graduate school at Caltech and law school at Harvard.

During the pandemic, Julie took up the viola as a way to expand her musical horizons. She fell in love with it and now considers it an integral part of her musical identity.

In addition to playing and performing chamber music, Julie plays an active role in the chamber music community as a board member of the SoCal Chamber Music Workshop, a summer workshop for adult amateur chamber musicians. She is also a dedicated participant in the workshop, where she has studied under esteemed quartets such as the Telegraph Quartet, Del Sol Quartet, Enzo Quartet, and Hausmann Quartet.

Beyond her musical achievements, Julie is a full-time attorney and managing partner of Morrison Foerster’s San Diego office. She defends companies in complex and mass tort litigation, and advises them on product safety compliance.

Julie plays a viola that she commissioned from Yam-Uri Raz of Hilo, Hawaii. She lives in San Diego with her husband and two teenage sons.

Paul Tseng
Paul Tseng (cello) has performed as a soloist, recitalist, orchestral, and chamber musician throughout the United States, Canada, Egypt, Jordan, Israel, and South Africa in concert halls such as Avery Fischer Hall, Carnegie Hall, Alice Tully Hall, the Cairo Royal Opera House in Egypt, The Royal Cultural Center in Amman, Jordan.
Paul is the second cellist ever to be awarded the Doctor of Musical Arts degree at the Peabody Conservatory (Johns Hopkins University). There he specialized in the cello music of Prokofiev and studied with Stephen Kates, Samuel Sanders, and performed with Earl Carlys and Ruth Inglefield.

He has served as principal cellist of the Millbrook Orchestra in WV, the Gettysburg Symphony, and assistant principal cellist of the Maryland Symphony under the baton of Barry Tuckwell.

He also holds a Bachelor’s and Master’s Degree from the Juilliard School. He has held various faculty positions in New York, Maryland, West Virginia, New York, and Washington DC.

In recent years, he has performed cello concertos by Elgar and Dvorak with the Mira Costa Orchestra and concertized as recitalist and chamber musician throughout Southern California.

Paul is a founding member of the Logos Trio and the artistic director of the San Diego Music Society, which presents the Music by the Sea Concert Series in Encinitas, and the Intimate Classics Concert Series at the California Center for the Arts, Escondido. Connect with Paul on Instagram @paultsengcellist and Facebook https: facebook.com/paultVCL/