By Kathleen Suss, Executive Director, Concordia Conservatory

Feb. 3, 2025: Concordia Conservatory presents the More Than Music concert FOLK TRAILS on February 9, at 4 pm. CLICK HERE to purchase tickets.

The concert features Concordia Conservatory faculty Katherine Lerner Lee, mezzo-soprano, Clare Hoffman, flute, and Ji Na Kim, piano, in a chamber music program with music by David Amram, John Corigiliano, Germaine Tailleferre, Béla Bartok, Maurice Ravel, and Joseph Canteloube.

The concert will take place at The Reformed Church of Bronxville, Edwards Room, 180 Pondfield Road.

This 45 minute concert/lecture program explores folk music and its influence on classical music.

We’ll hear folk tunes used in the works of great composers, and examine how those tunes influenced, changed, and connected them to the time and place in which they lived.

Tickets are $27 for adults and $13.50 for seniors and children. CLICK HERE to purchase tickets or call 914-395-4507.

About the Artists

Katherine Lerner Lee

Mezzo-soprano Katherine Lerner Lee enjoys a diverse career performing opera, art song, chamber, and contemporary music.

This season, she will appear with Opera Essentia in New York City, Cincinnati Song Initiative, the 21st Century Consort in Washington, DC and presents multiple recitals throughout New York State.

Her season currently includes four world premieres of chamber music, art song and opera.

An avid recitalist, Katherine has presented recitals at the Shandelee Music Festival, the Stissing Center for the Arts, Concerts in the Village in Kinderhook, NY and has appeared with Concerts on the Slope, Bard Music Festival, Downtown Music at Grace and the Legacy Arts International series in Princeton, NJ.

In 2024, she was named a finalist in the “Joy in Singing” Competition and, in 2023, was awarded Third Place in the Altamura/Caruso Vocal Competition in Italy, where she made her European recital debut.

Katherine was the winner of the 2022 Bard Concerto Competition, competing with Olivier Messiaen’s Poèmes pour Mi, which she performed at Symphony Space in May of 2023.

She has sung at Carnegie Hall Stern Auditorium and the Brooklyn and Cleveland Museums of Art, performing repertoire by Stravinsky, Harrison Birtwistle, Louis Andriessen and David Gordon. Katherine’s operatic credits include Trasimede, (Handel’s Admeto), Gold-Spur (The Cunning Little Vixen), Leila (Iolanthe), Susanna (Le nozze di Figaro) and Pamina (Die Zauberflöte).

She holds a double Bachelors in French and Voice from Oberlin College and Conservatory as well as a Masters in Music from Bard Conservatory.

Katherine currently holds voice faculty positions at the University of Mount Saint Vincent and Concordia Conservatory in New York City. More at katherinelernerlee.com

Clare Hoffman 

Co-founder with her husband, harmonica virtuoso Robert Bonfiglio, and artistic director of the Grand Canyon Music Festival, flutist Clare Hoffman has toured the United States, Europe and Asia, performing in a variety of settings from major concert halls to an ancient ampi-theatre on the Greek island of Rhodes.

She has performed at Tanglewood and Lincoln Center, and at chamber music festivals throughout the U.S. She has premiered works by John Corigliano, Seymour Barab, Brent Michael Davids, Arnold Black and Richard Einhorn and recorded for television, film, and RCA and High Harmony Records.

Under her guidance, the Grand Canyon Music Festival has been presenting critically acclaimed musicians and outreach education programs to schools in northern Arizona’s rural areas, primarily schools and communities on the Hopi and Navajo Nations, for 41 years, and received funding and recognition from diverse organizations, including the National Endowment for the Arts, Chamber Music America, WESTAF, and The Nina Mason Pulliam, Flinn, Compton, ASCAP, and APS Foundations.

She is a dedicated advocate for arts education and has worked throughout the United States with students from diverse backgrounds, from inner-city schools in places like Los Angeles and New York City to farming communities in Iowa and Native American communities in Arizona.

Her education projects for the Grand Canyon Music Festival include an arts curriculum for fifth graders that integrates music and visual arts with core subjects, and the Native American Composer Apprentice Project (NACAP), with composers-in-residence Raven Chacon, Trevor Reed, and Michael Begay, ensembles including the Catalyst Quartet, ETHEL, and Sweet Plantain, which was recognized by First Lady Michelle Obama and the President’s Committee on the Arts and the Humanities with a National Arts and Humanities Youth Program Award.

Recent projects for the GCMF include a new work by the young Hopi composer Trevor Reed and Hopi traditional singer Clark Tenakhongva.

She is currently on the faculty of Concordia College Conservatory in Westchester, New York, and The Dalton School in New York City.

She studied at the Mannes College of Music with Andrew Lolya, at L’École d’Été in France with legendary French flutists Jean-Pierre Rampal and Alain Marion, and with Samuel Baron, and in master classes with Julius Baker.

Ji Na Kim

Pianist Ji Na Kim, a native of South Korea, has cultivated a diverse career as both a soloist and chamber musician, performing across the United States and in various international stages, including Europe, Canada, and Korea.

Her performances have been featured at venues such as Alice Tully Hall and Rose Theater at Lincoln Center, the Spieker Center for the Arts, the Lied Center, Bella Concert Hall, and the Staller Center for the Arts.

Her U.S. debut was in 2019 when she won the Stony Brook University Concerto Competition and performed Ravel's Piano Concerto in G Major with the Stony Brook Symphony Orchestra. Additionally, she has had the privilege of collaborating with faculty members at Stony Brook, including Gilbert Kalish, Jennifer Frautschi, Colin Carr, Frank Morelli, and Nirmali Fenn.

As a chamber musician, Kim has been invited to participate in festivals such as Music@Menlo, Kneisel Hall Chamber Music Festival, Gijon International Piano Festival, and the Banff Music Festival.

She has collaborated with esteemed artists such as Gil Kalish, Paul Neubauer, Kristin Lee, and Dimitri Atapine, and her performance with them was featured on Gather, a Music@Menlo Live Recording Album.

Additionally, she has participated in masterclasses with Robert McDonald, Jaime Laredo, Sharon Robinson, and Joel Krosnick.

Beyond her performance career, Kim's dedication extends to education. She has served as a visiting faculty member at Susquehanna University and worked as a teaching assistant for undergraduate piano students at Stony Brook University. She currently teaches piano at Concordia Conservatory and JCC Thurnauer School of Music.

Furthermore, she extended her passion for education through outreach and interactive performances as an educational outreach fellow at Juilliard, where she introduced classical music to K-12 students in NYC public schools and provided interactive performances at nursing homes, pediatric centers, homeless shelters, and hospitals throughout NYC.

She earned her Bachelor's and Master's of Music degrees at the Juilliard School under Julian Martin and received her Doctoral degree at Stony Brook University under the guidance of Gilbert Kalish. Concordia Conservatory’s mission is to inspire, instruct, and enrich lives through music by offering excellence in education and performance.