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The Clark College Orchestra under the direction of guest conductor German Caceres, Music Director/Conductor of the El Salvador State Symphony, will present its fall concert as part of the 2011-2012 season entitled "Buried Treasures" on Wednesday, December 7, in the Royal Durst Theatre of the Vancouver School of Arts & Academics, 3101 Main St., Vancouver. Featured on the program will be Yung Teng, a Freshman at Camas High School. He will perform Saint-Saens' Introduction and Rondo Capriccioso, op. 28 . The program will open with Coriolan Overture by Beethoven. The orchestra will also perform Franck's tone poem Le chasseur maudit and Tchaikovsky's Symphony No. 2 "Little Russian". The performance is at 7:30 p.m. and admission is free and open to the public. Donations to the Orchestra General Fund will be accepted at the door.
Yun Teng immigrated to the United States from Taiwan in 2000 when he was three years old. He has been playing violin since age four and currently studies with Kathryn Gray. He has also studied with Cara Epp and Clarisse Atcherson. In 2003, he was the youngest player to play in the Oregon-ASTA Statewide Honors Recitals. Starting in 2006, he was a winner of OMTA Romantic Festival for three consecutive years. He also won the Trula Whelan Concerto Competition in 2010.
Apart from music as an individual, Yun has also participated in the Portland Youth Philharmonic. In 2007, he was assistant-concertmaster of YSE during his first year in the organization. Besides playing with a large group of musicians, he has also taken interest in small chamber groups. In 2009 and 2010, he played as lead violinist in chamber groups at Portland Summer Ensembles. Now he plays as 1st violin in I Ragazzi baroque ensemble, directed by David Kerr.
Yun's musical realm doesn't only include classical music. During his middle school years, he played as lead trumpet in concert and jazz band. He is also familiar in contemporary Christian music and hymns as he was part of the church's worship team for many years. Occasionally, Yun likes to share his passion for music in retirement centers by playing hymns and popular music.
He also has accomplishments in chess and art. Yun has been competing in various chess tournaments since second grade and has studied with Tony Sanchez and FIDE Master Charles Schulien. In 2007, he was a co-champ of the Washington State Elementary Chess Championships at his grade level and in 2008, he placed 19th in blitz and 17th in standard at Nationals. The following year, due to his passion for the game, Yun attended K-6 Super Nationals IV in Nashville, Tennessee, and placed 19th. As for art, he has won the Second Washington State Youth & Children's Drawing Contest and an Evergreen award from "Celebrating the Visual Arts" of Evergreen Public Schools Art Show.
Yun has been in the Evergreen District EXCEL Highly Capable Program from second to eighth grade. In 2008, he was recognized for outstanding scholarly performance in the UW Washington Search for Young Scholars. This summer, he qualified for the 2011 Grand Ceremony of Johns Hopkins University CTY Talent Search. Yun is currently a freshman in the Magnet (math, science, and technology) program at Camas High. He is a member of Science Olympiad and the golf team.
German Cáceres began his musical training in San Salvador studying harmony, counterpoint and form with Ion Cubicec and Esteban Servellon and orchestra conducting with Alejandro Munoz Ciudad Real and Recardo del Carmen. He earned two degrees from The Juilliard School of Music where he studied oboe and chamber music with Ronald Roseman and composition with Stanley Wolfe and David Diamond. While in New York he also studied composition with Julian Orbon and orchestra conducting with Jose Serebrier. In 1989 he earned the Doctor of Musical Arts degree in Composition from the Cinncinati Conservatory of Music at the University of Cinncinati where he studied with Jonathan Kramer.
As a composer his works have been performed throughout the US and Latin America as well as in Europe and Israel. His awards include grants from the Guggenheim Foundation, Meet the Composer, the Rockefeller Foundation, and the Fulbright foundation. He received the National Prize of Culture in El Salvador, the International Gertrud Ramdohr Prize in Germany, and the L'ordre des Arts et Lettres in France. He has been commissioned by the North and South Consonance Ensemble of New York, The Cleveland Museum of Art, The Duo Contemporain from Holland, the Organization of American States, the Guanajuato Symphony (Mexico), The Foundation for Contemporary Music (Puerto Rico), The Ensemble of Caracas, the Halffter String Quartet (Mexico), Octeto Academico (Venezuela) and The New Juilliard Ensemble.
Currently Dr. Cáceres is the Principal Conductor and Music Director of the El Salvador Symphony Orchestra, a position he held from 1985 to 1999 and then was reappointed to in 2002. He has appeared extensively as a guest conductor with orchestras in Mexico, Central America, South America, and in the United States. In addition he has conducted orchestras in Romania, Belgium, and the Ukraine.
From 2000 to 2002 he served as Director of Arts and Culture at the University of El Salvador. He is currently a member of the Music History Faculty of the Universidad Centroamericana Jose Simeon Canas in San Salvador.
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