Guest Recital to Feature Cellist and Pianist

Cellist Adriana Ransom and pianist Geoffrey Duce will collaborate for a guest artist recital at 8 p.m. Feb. 24 in Ophelia Parrish Performance Hall.

The performance, which will feature a selection of music from Beethoven, Bach and Brahms, is free and open to the public.

Ransom enjoys a varied and active concert schedule. She is the recipient of numerous awards, including winning top prizes at the WAMSO Young Artist Competition, the Naftzger Young Artist Competition and the Schubert Club Young Artist Competition. She has appeared as a guest artist on notable solo and chamber music recital series across the Midwest, and she was recently featured on two nationally broadcast recordings produced by Chamber Music Minnesota. Ransom has been the assistant principal cello with the Minnesota Opera Orchestra for five years. She has served on the faculty at St. Cloud State University and at the Lutheran Summer Music Academy and Festival. She currently teaches at Illinois State University. She was also selected by audition to perform with the 2003 European Musical Festival Orchestra in Stuttgart and Berlin under the direction of Helmut Riling.

A native of Kansas City, Ransom received her Bachelor of Music degree from the University of Missouri where she studied with Nina Gordon. She also earned master and doctorate degrees from the University of Minnesota under the tutelage of Tanya Remenikova. She studied chamber music with internationally acclaimed pianists Margo Garrett and Lydia Artymiw and violinists Jorja Fleezanis and Benny Kim. She was recently selected to perform an Armenian work for Yo Yo Ma in connection with the Silk Road project.

Originally from Scotland, Duce has performed throughout Europe, in the U.S., Japan and Hong Kong, including in New York’s Carnegie Hall, Berlin’s Philharmonie and Konzerthaus, London’s Wigmore Hall, Manchester’s Bridgewater Hall and Edinburgh’s Queen’s Hall. A versatile musician, his career has featured both solo and collaborative performances. As a concerto soloist he has appeared with the Sinfonie Orchester Berlin, the New York Sinfonietta, the Scottish Sinfonia, the Edinburgh Philharmonic and the Olympia Symphony Orchestra. As a chamber musician and accompanist, he has recorded for BBC Radio 3 and Hong Kong Radio and has performed at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. He won the Young Artists Award from Britain’s National Federation of Music Societies and was awarded the Prix de Piano at the American Conservatory in Fontainebleau, France.

Duce initially studied at the Royal Northern College of Music and Manchester University in the U.K. before receiving a DAAD scholarship to the Universität der Künste, Berlin. He received his doctorate from the Manhattan School of Music, New York, and currently teaches at Illinois State University.

The guest recital is sponsored by the Department of Music.