Press Room
SUU Department of Music presents Xun Sun Faculty Recital
For Immediate Release: March 1, 2008
(Southern Utah University, Cedar City, Utah) The SUU Department of Music presents Xun Sun in a faculty recital on Sunday, March 9th, 2008 at 2:00 p.m. in the Thorley Recital Hall on the SUU campus. The recital is free and open to the public.
Guest pianist Dr. Jensina Byington, a Music teacher at Shoreline Community College in Washington State, will join Xun Sun for this recital. For the first half of the program, Byington will perform from the brilliant piano sonatas of Mozart and Brahms. Sun will join her in the second half of the recital as they perform Cesar Franck's well known, superbly rich and colorful, Sonata for Violin and Piano in A Major.
Born in City of Taiyuan, China, Xun Sun manifested distinctive musical talent at an early age. He began his formal music training and violin studies at Wuhan Conservatory of Music at age 11 through the government' s scholarship program for exceptional music students. Mr. Sun came to the United States in 1995 and studied in New York. Awarded an Evelyn Nelson Ryan Concertmaster Fellowship. Appointed to his current academic position in 2001, Mr. Xun Sun serves as the Director of Orchestral Activities at Southern Utah University. His teaching duties in this post include those of conducting the SUU Symphony Orchestra and String Ensemble, as well as serving as Assistant Professor of Conducting and Violin. In 2003, Mr. Sun became the Music Director and Conductor of the Orchestra of Southern Utah in Cedar City, Utah.
Born in Memphis, Tennessee, Jensina Oliver Byington has appeared as soloist and chamber musician in the United States, Canada, Europe, and Israel. Her performances with orchestra include appearances with the Utah Philharmonic, Intermountain Chamber Orchestra, University of Washington Symphony, and the University of Utah. Byington is in her ninth year as Music faculty at Shoreline Community College. She is currently working toward a Doctorate of Musical Arts at the University of Washington.