Friday, October 3, 2025
7:30 p.m.
Graham Tyler Memorial Chapel, 8700 NW River Park Drive, Parkville, MO

The ICM Orchestra starts its 2025-2026 season with a varied program of works for string orchestra. Mendelssohn’s 4^th String Symphony is a dramatic work written by the composer in his teen years and is followed by the moving Trauermusik (Music of Mourning), composed by Paul Hindemith in memory of King George V. of England. Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 12 is a graceful, charming work which will be heard in its original setting of strings only, and Handel’s Concerto Grosso in D Major, the fifth of his Op. 6 collection (written to be performed during intermissions of his English Oratorio performances) will begin the second half of the concert. The evening concludes with Beethoven’s magisterial Grosse Fuge, Op. 133, originally written for string quartet and heard here in the arrangement for string orchestra by the great conductor Felix Weingartner.

Timothy Hankewich

Hankewich, who is popular with audiences and critics alike, has earned an outstanding reputation as a maestro whose classical artistry is as inspiring as his personality is engaging. Recent guest appearances have included performances with the Jacksonville, Victoria and Hamilton Symphonies as well as a tour throughout the Czech Republic and Slovakia with the Moravian Philharmonic and the Slovak State Orchestra. In September of 2014, Orchestra Iowa under Maestro Hankewich’s direction released its first ever commercial recording featuring composer Michael Daugherty’s American Gothic.

While in Iowa, Maestro Hankewich led his organization through a catastrophic flood in 2008 and raised it to new heights of artistic accomplishment and financial security. He helped restore its damaged performance venue, aided in the reconstruction of its offices, and helped implement a new successful business model allowing the orchestra to grow. Because of these achievements, he has been asked to advise boards of directors of other orchestras on how to achieve meaningful artistic and financial health in the wake of a crisis.

Prior to his position with Orchestra Iowa, Mr. Hankewich served as the Resident Conductor of the Kansas City Symphony for seven years. He has held additional staff conducting positions with the Oregon Symphony, Indianapolis Symphony and the Evansville Philharmonic. Winner of the prestigious Aspen Conducting Award in 1997, Hankewich has enjoyed appearing often as a guest conductor, leading such organizations as Orchestra London, the Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony, as well as the Windsor, Santa Rosa, Indianapolis, Oregon and China Broadcasting Symphony Orchestras.

Timothy Hankewich is a native of Dawson Creek, British Columbia and is married to his wife Jill, a pharmacist. He graduated from the University of Alberta, earning his bachelor of music degree with honors in piano performance under Professor Alexandra Munn, and a master’s degree in choral conducting under the direction of Dr. Leonard Ratzlaff. He received his doctorate in instrumental and opera conducting from Indiana University, where his primary teachers were Imre Pallo and Thomas Baldner. His studies have also included summers in Vienna and Aspen where he worked under the tutelage of Maestros David Zinman, Bruno Weil, Yuri Temirkanov, Robert Spano, Michael Stern, Murray Sidlin, Julius Rudel, James DePreist, and James Conlon.

Iana Korzukhina, Viola

Korzukhina Iana was born in 1995 in the little city of Arkhangelsk in Russia. In 2013, she enrolled in St. Petersburg College named after Modest Mussorgsky in the class of Dmitry Yakubovsky. In 2022 she graduated with honors from the Saint Petersburg Conservatory named after Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, class of Honored Artist of Russia, Professor Vladimir Stopichev.

Participated in various competitions as part of string and piano quartets during her studies. In addition to participating in chamber ensembles, she performs solo. Laureate of international competitions, participant of master classes of such outstanding musicians as Herman Tsakulov, Yuri Bashmet, Pavel Romanenko, Yuri Afonkin, Vladislav Pesin, Shmuel Ashkenasi etc.

Since 2021, she was an artist of such orchestras as the St. Petersburg State Academic Symphony Orchestra, the Kazakh State Symphony Orchestra named after E. Rakhmadiyev and the Symphony Orchestra 1703 in Russia. Iana participated in various festivals and the cultural life of St. Petersburg.

Since 2024, she has been studying for a master’s degree in the USA at the Park University International Music Center with Professor Peter Chun.

Jiarui Cheng

Jiarui Cheng began studying both piano and painting at the age of 3 in his hometown of Nanjing. While both disciplines shaped his early development, his connection with music gradually became the defining force in his life. From a young age, he was drawn not only to the sound of the piano but to the expressive freedom it offered. “I really love the feeling of being on stage and creating the music somehow spontaneously;” he describes performance as an act of real-time storytelling and emotional honesty. Jiarui currently studies at Park University in Kansas City with 2001 Cliburn Gold Medalist Stanislav Ioudenitch, on full scholarship. He previously earned an artist certificate at the Cleveland Institute of Music under the guidance of Kathryn Brown and studied with Jin Tang at the Music School affiliated with Shanghai Conservatory of Music.

He’s performed extensively across China, Europe, and the United States. He was awarded second prize at the Scriabin International Piano Competition and was a prize winner at the Isangyun International Piano Competition, where he performed as soloist with the Tongyeong Music Festival Orchestra. He has also appeared with the Aspen Conducting Academy Orchestra as winner of the Aspen Concerto Competition, the Cleveland Orchestra after winning the CIM Concerto Competition, and the Shanghai Conservatory of Music Symphony Orchestra as part of the Conservatory’s 70th Anniversary Celebration Concert. For Jiarui, “music is a form of truth that begins where language ends.” He draws inspiration from the complexity and vulnerability of human experience: “The emotional depth found in relationships and in life itself—whether it’s joy, sorrow, love, or struggle—profoundly shapes how I understand and perform music.” He says his artistic journey continues to be fueled by a desire to communicate something honest and timeless.