The 2015 fall semester at the School of Music will be marked by the addition of a new tenure-track professor of violin, Soh-Hyun Park Altino, and adjunct professor of clarinet, Wesley Warnhoff.

Park Altino replaces Felicia Moye, a tenured violin professor who decamped to McGill University in the summer of 2014 and was replaced for 2014-2015 by Leslie Shank. Warnhoff replaces Linda Bartley, a tenured professor of clarinet who has retired. Below are their official biographies.

Violinist Soh-Hyun Park Altino is highly regarded as a gifted teacher and a versatile performer of solo and chamber music. Her concert engagements have taken her to Brazil, Colombia, Germany, Korea, Venezuela, and throughout the United States. Praised for her “poise and precision,” she has appeared as soloist with the Memphis Symphony, Jackson Symphony, Peabody Concert Orchestra, Masterworks Festival Orchestra, Sinfonica de Campinas in Campos do Jordão, Festival Virtuosi Orquestra in Recife, and Suwon Philharmonic in Seoul among others.

She has collaborated with renowned artists such as Monique Duphil, Oleh Krysa, Suren Bagratuni, Daniel Shapiro, and Jasper de Waal in festivals such as Duxbury Music Festival, Masterworks Festival, the Academy y Festival Nuevo Mundo in Venezuela, and in the Memphis Chamber Music Society concert series.

Prior to her joining the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music in 2015, Soh-Hyun served on the faculty at the University of Memphis for fourteen years. During her tenure at Memphis, she frequently performed with pianist Victor Asunción and cellist Leonardo Altino in the Dúnamis Trio, and as a member of the resident ensemble, Ceruti Quartet, she presented recitals and educational programs throughout the U.S. as well as at the National Assembly in Seoul, Korea and Teatro Santa Isabel in Recife, Brazil. The quartet’s recording of the Debussy Quartet released in 2013 was hailed by Gramophone for its “physically emotional power.” As an enthusiastic supporter of new music, she has enjoyed working closely with composers such as Steven Mackey, Margaret Brouwer, James Mobberley, and Kamran Ince, and in 2014 she premiered a commissioned work, En Voyage for violin and cello, by Paul Desenne.

As a dedicated teacher, Soh-Hyun directed the String Intensive Study Program at Masterworks Festival for eleven summers, taught through projects such as Fabrica de Musica and eMasterclass in Brazil and Festival y Escuela Internacional de Musica in Colombia, and presented violin master classes at universities nationally and internationally. Her experiences and insights gained from overuse injuries as a student have served as one of the major factors that inspire her passion and inquisitiveness for teaching, and she has become an advocate of continuing education for performers and teachers. To this end, she has regularly presented professional development sessions and held forums and clinics for violin teachers and their younger students. While her former students are national competition prizewinners and members of professional orchestras, a great many of them are devoted teachers at colleges and string programs across the country.

A native of Korea, Soh-Hyun grew up in a musical family and studied with Young-Mi Cho. At age sixteen, she came to the U.S. and studied with Violaine Melançon at the Peabody Institute where she was also given intensive training in chamber music and music theory, and she was a participant at Yellow Barn, Kneisel Hall, Tanglewood, Aspen, and Sarasota Music Festival. Her major chamber music coaches include Anne Epperson and the members of the Peabody Trio and the Juilliard, Concord, Cavani, and Cleveland Quartets. Soh-Hyun received her bachelor’s, master’s and the doctor of musical arts degrees in violin performance from the Cleveland Institute of Music, where she was a student and teaching assistant to Donald Weilerstein.

American clarinetist Wesley Warnhoff’s thoughtful and intense performance style has gained him international acclaim as a soloist, orchestral, and chamber musician. Dr. Warnhoff’s research into contemporary techniques has helped him to develop a unique pedagogical approach that provides a new perspective on creating the ideal embouchure and sound concept, and it is this dedication to the art of teaching that makes Dr. Warnhoff a sought after clinician throughout the United States.

As a champion of new music he has given many premiere performances including the world-premiere of Murray Gross’ Rhapsody for Clarinet, I Surrender. Along with performing new music, Dr. Warnhoff has also added to the performing repertoire, most notably with his transcription for clarinet, voice, and piano of “La Vita e Inferno” from Verdi’s La Forza del Destino.

Dr. Warnhoff is currently on the music faculty at the University of Wisconsin-Madison where he leads the clarinet studio and performs with the renowned Wingra Woodwind Quintet. He is a founding member of the VCP International Trio, a violin, clarinet, piano trio that advocates new music performance, and he is also the principal clarinet of the Battle Creek Symphony Orchestra in Michigan, a post he has held for 5 years.

Dr. Warnhoff holds degrees from Michigan State University and Missouri State University. His primary teachers are Dr. Elsa Ludewig-Verdehr, Dr. Allison Storochuk, and Dr. Jack Scheurer.