Charisse Baldoria, one of today's most promising pianists, has a rare
combination of performance awards and academic accomplishments. In 1999,
Miss Baldoria was selected to be among the top four pianists in the Ducrest
Young Artist International Competition and was also chosen to participate
in the 2000 Hilton Head International Competition. After only one semester
at Michigan, she won the 1999 concerto competition and performed with the
University Philharmonia Orchestra at Hill Auditorium in Ann Arbor. She
has also been a consistent first-prize winner in several competitions in
her native country, the Philippines: the National Music Competition for Young
Artists (NAMCYA), the University of the Philippines Piano Competition,
the Jefferey Ching Sonata Competition, and the National Yamaha Electone
Festival.
Miss Baldoria was a Fulbright scholar, and just recently, as a doctoral
student at the University of Michigan, was awarded the Barbour
Scholarship---an award given to Asian women "of the highest academic
and professional caliber."
Charisse Baldoria, pianist, is also a composer. She had written and arranged
commercial music for television and radio ads in the Philippines (e.g.
for Philippine Airlines, the Philippine Long Distance Telephone Company,
Landbank of the Philippines, etc.) as well as for the movie Anak ng Bayan
(Son of the Nation), which is a movie on the Philippine revolutionary
hero Andres Bonifacio. As a student at the University of Michigan, she had
studied electronic music under Evan Chambers and Erik Santos. Just recently,
her composition Throb---a composition utilizing digitally manipulated
pulsar pulses--- was featured in the 2001 Electronic Music Microfestival in
Ann Arbor.
Miss Baldoria now studies with Logan Skelton at the University of Michigan
in Ann Arbor. She also studied the harpsichord with Edward Parmentier
and the fortepiano with Penelope Crawford. Her repertoire is relatively diverse,
ranging from the Baroque period to the 20th century.