Guest clarinetist Virginia Figueiredo is this year’s winner of Cal State Fullerton’s Music Associates Solo Competition. She began her musical studies at the age of 7. Subsequently she studied at the Music Conservatory of Coimbra and at the Superior School of Music in Lisbon where she receive her bachelor’s degree. As a member of the Orchestra of Wind Instruments in Coimbra she toured France, Italy, Spain and Russia. She was also a member of the Youth Symphony Orchestra in Lisbon. She has been heard in solo performances with the Beiras Symphony Orchestra and the Youth Symphony Orchestra in Portugal. Her primary clarinets teachers have included Carlos Alves, Nuno Silva and Bruno Graça, and has attended master classes with internationally renowned clarinetists such as Jacques di Donato, Karl Leister, Joan Lluna, Perez Piquer, Walter Seifarth, António Saiote, Walter Boeykens, Philippe Cuper, and others. A founding member of the Diaphonia Quintet, she has given performances throughout Portugal and she was awarded top prize in chamber music category in 2003 at the Portuguese Classic Radio in Portugal.

Figueiredo is currently a student in the Master of Music program at the California State University, Fullerton where she studies with Professor Håkan Rosengren through scholarships from CSUF’s Department of Music, Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation and Foundation for the Science and the Technology, both in Portugal.
Conductor Kimo Furumoto continues to lead the University Symphony Orchestra at California State University, Fullerton, bringing it to new musical and academic heights. In addition to Furumoto’s responsibilities at Cal State Fullerton, he is music director/conductor of the Huntington Symphony Orchestra in West Virginia. He has been music director of the Concert Orchestra at the University of Cincinnati, College Conservatory of Music, guest assistant conductor with the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, and served as associate conductor of the Cincinnati Symphony Youth Orchestra and the Cincinnati Chamber Orchestra. He has appeared as guest conductor with orchestras both in the United States and Europe, and has worked with noted conductors such as Leonard Bernstein and Robert Shaw.

Elizabeth Champion, College of the Arts at 657-278-2434