Neuss Chamber Orchestra

Stefanie Sassenrath was born in Düsseldorf, Germany. She received her first oboe lesson at the School of Music with Heinz Klaus and went on to become a prize winner in the Jugend Musiziert Competition.  While still pursuing her music studies she was a member of the Nordrhein Westfalen Youth Orchestra.

Ms. Sassenrath studied oboe with Helmut Hucke at the Musikhochschule in Cologne where she earned a degree in oboe.   She has taken part in master classes with Lothar Koch in Berlin and with Robert Bloom in Los Angeles, and has performed with orchestra for Werkgemeinschaft Musik.

Stefanie Sassenrath currently teaches oboe at the Music School in Neuss and frequently appears as soloist in addition to playing with chamber orchestras.

Originally from Kaua'i, Hawai'i, soprano Kimberly Sueoka earned a Bachelor of Music degree in vocal performance at the University of Evansville, Indiana, and a Masters Degree in vocal performance at the University of Minnesota. In 2005 she was awarded a Cultural Community Partnership Grant from the Minnesota State Arts Board to research the vocal music of ancient to early 20th century Hawai‘i and present a series of concerts and educational activities in the state of Minnesota. She received a finalist award in the McKnight Foundation’s Performing Artists Competition in 2007.

Kimberly Sueoka has appeared as a soloist in The Owatonna Arts Center Chamber Music Series, The Schubert Club’s Summer Song Festival and Courtroom Concert Series, Minnesota Guitar Society's Local Artist Concert series, The American Composers Forum SoundCheck Concert series, and The Royal Hawaiian Band's 'Iolani Palace Outdoor Concert Series. She currently sings with The Rose Ensemble, Full Moon Rabbit, with lutenists Phil Rukavina and Paul Berget, and with guitarists Wade Oden and Todd Tipton. Ms. Sueoka has performed and recorded works by Minnesota composers Abbie Betinis, Carol Barnett, Christopher Gable, Jeffrey Van, Todd Harper, and Libby Larsen. She is a voice instructor at The St. Paul Conservatory of Music and an adjunct professor of voice at Inver Hills Community College.

Mariko Sudo was born on April 18, 1984 and started her first piano lessons at the Music School Neuss at the age of five. From 1997 until 2003 she took private lessons from Mrs. Leontina Margulis in Cologne, Germany during which time she also studied at the Anton Rubinstein Akademie in Düsseldorf. After graduating in 2003 from Marienberg High School in Neuss, she began her studies with Prof. Arnulf von Arnim at the Folkwang-Hochschule in Essen, completing them in the summer of 2009.

Since the age of 12 Ms. Sudo annually took part in a “Russian School” master class with Prof. Vitaly Margulis in Freiburg, Germany, and in 2006 participated in a master class with Mozart specialist Robert Levin.

During the summers of 2005 and 2007 she participated in the Klavierfestival Ruhr and played in several competitions sponsored by the national music competition Jugend musiziert, winning first prizes in each level. At the tenth Concorso Pianistico Internazionale per giovani pianisti Fryderyk Chpoin in Rome she received a diploma, and in 2001 successfully took part in the J.S. Bach-Wettbewerb in Koethen, Germany.

In 2008 Ms. Sudo was awarded the Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy Preis and the Kammermusikpreis der Freunde junger Musiker in Berlin where she performed with the Orion Piano Quartet.  With her quartet she has been invited to perform by such chamber music festivals as the Montepulciano and the Muziek Biennale Niederrhein.

Mariko Sudo has played throughout Europe in numerous performances as a soloist as well as in chamber music.  She gave her first piano concerto début in 2002 with the Neusser Kammerorchester performing Beethoven’s third piano concerto. Performances of Beethoven’s first Piano Concerto, Piano Concerto in F Major, K. 413, Mozart’s “Jeune homme” concerto and Robert Schumann’s A minor piano concerto, Op. 54 followed during the next years.

Under the direction of such conductors as Joachim Neugart, Gus Anton and Eckard Fischer, Ms. Sudo has performed with Neusser Kammerorchester, the Oberbergisches Symphonieorchester and the Orchestra of the Cervo Summer Academy in Italy. Recently she gave her concert début with the Duisburg Philharmonic Orchestra under Jonathan Darlington at the Mercator Hall performing “Symphonic Shades” by Chris Hülsbeck.

Ms. Sudo currently lives in Essen, Germany where she is pursuing a Master’s program in piano performance and chamber music at the Folkwang Hochschule.