Concert Clare Longendyke and Pauline Kempf

Hailed a “superlative pianist,” (Journal of the IAWM), Clare Longendyke is a passionate soloist and chamber musician recognized for her colorful musicality, technical fluency, and ability to interpret repertoires across the musical spectrum.  Clare has performed solo and chamber music recitals across Europe and North America and has won 1^st place prizes in national competitions in Minnesota, Indiana, Illinois, and Massachusetts. She made her orchestral debut in 2012 performing Bartók’s 3rd Piano Concerto with the Indiana University Concert Orchestra. Clare has been a featured soloist in the Fazioli Piano Series (Los Angeles), the Silvermine Artist Series (Connecticut), the SoundBites Series (Boston), as well as in performances on NPR’s Performance Today. An active performer of new music, she has premiered over 80 new works since 2012. Clare is a founding member of the Uproar Duo, the Longendyke/Wollman Viola and Piano Duo, and is the founder and Artistic Director of Music in Bloom, a new performance festival in Bloomington, Indiana. Through her solo and ensemble work, she has worked with and performed the music of living composers Joan Tower, Frederic Rzewski, Mason Bates, Vivian Fung, Gabriela Lena Frank, and Joseph Schwantner, among many others. Last season, Clare performed over 40 concerts across the United States and in Europe, including two performances of Joan Tower’s Piano Concerto and solo recital tours in Minnesota, Maine, San Francisco, and Boston. This season’s highlights include recitals in Boston, Portland, Maine, and Indianapolis, and appearances with orchestra in Pennsylvania and Minnesota. Clare holds degrees from the Boston University College of Fine Arts, the École Normale de Musique in Paris, France, and Indiana University. Clare is an alumna of the Fondation des Etats-Unis and the Harriet Hale Woolley scholarship (2009-2010).  She currently lives in Indianapolis and is a Doctoral Candidate in Music at Indiana University’s Jacobs School of Music. Clare is a Lecturer of Music in Piano at Franklin College in Indiana.

Born in Paris, violinist Pauline Kempf made her debut as a soloist in Chicago, playing Mozart’s Sinfonia Concertante with the French Rameau Youth Orchestra at the Cultural Center in 2012. An active chamber musician, she has performed as first violinist with the Leggio Quartet in France, Switzerland, Italy and in Chicago, and has premiered the works of composers such as Christian Lotito and Bernard Barsotti. She has collaborated with the Amateurs Virtuoses Festival at the Châtelet Theatre’s Grand Foyer in Paris and in Chile and Argentina. Her collaboration with the American and talented pianist Clare Longendyke since 2017 allowed them to perform both in France and in the USA innovative and original duo programs. Between 2017 and 2018, she performed two concertos by Bach with Northwestern University’s Baroque Music Ensemble, Beethoven’s Triple Concerto and Mozart’s fifth violin with the Prometeo Sinfonietta at Northwestern. In 2019, she performed a violin concerto by Jean-Marie Leclair with the Bienen Strings Ensemble under Maestro Yampolsky’s baton.She has served as concertmaster of the Sinfonia Pop Orchestra in Paris from 2009 to 2013 and often performs as assistant concertmaster with the Elmhurst Symphony Orchestra since 2017. She is a regular member of the Chicago Civic Orchestra since the fall of 2018. Pauline was the first-prize winner of the International Alpen-Adria Competition in Udine and won a special interpretation prize at the 2015 Knopf International Competition in Düsseldorf. Fully supported by the Eckstein Scholarship, Pauline is a candidate for the Doctoral of Musical Arts degree at the Bienen School of Music (Northwestern University), studying with Blair Milton. Recipient of the Boettcher and Bogue Award Scholarship from 2016 to 2018, she has been the Teaching Assistant of professors Milton and Stacia Spencer. She is a faculty member at the Music Community Division at DePaul University (Chicago). Pauline earned a Bachelor of Music degree in violin performance from the Music University of Geneva and a Master of Music degree in both violin performance and chamber music from the Music University of Vienna.