Music in Landrum presents the first concert of the season, Upton Trio, on Sunday, Oct. 2 at 3 p.m. at Landrum United Methodist Church (next to HotSpot).

The program will include “Equestrian Romance” composed by violinist, Mary Lee Taylor Kinosian, “Piano Trio No. 1” by Schumann and “Jammin a Classic” by Dick Goodwin. The concert is free and open to all.

On a beautiful new piano installed this week at Landrum United Methodist Church, the Upton Trio will perform three pieces, in a 50-minute performance without intermission. “Equestrian Romance,” composed by the trio’s violinist will start the program, followed by Schumann’s “Piano Trio No. 1,” and the program closes with “Jammin a Classic” by award-winning composer Dick Goodwin.

Billy Shepherd, piano, was born in Camden, S.C. and began formal piano study with Sandra Crater at Boylan-Haven-Mather Academy (Camden), a private college preparatory school founded to serve the children of freedmen. Billy continued piano study, at age 12, with John Adams, artist-in-residence at the University of South Carolina School of Music, Columbia. Mr. Shepherd became a Doctor of Musical Arts candidate in piano performance with Raymond Dudley at the University of South Carolina School of Music.

Mr. Shepherd was invited by Sylvia Upton Wood, philanthropist and Camden resident, to become pianist of the Trio in 1989. Mrs. Wood commissioned the Trio to present chamber music concerts for the artistically underserved in Kershaw County schools.

Mary Lee Taylor Kinosian, violin, started playing the violin at the age of 5. She played chamber music with her parents and sister since childhood. At 15 she played in the SCPO (then the Columbia Philharmonic). After graduating from USC, she then went to California to play with the San Jose Symphony. In 1990 she won the chair of principal second violin in the Nashville Symphony. In 1997 she joined the Upton Trio.

On the one-year anniversary of 9/11 a ferocious syncopated piece on piano started to be heard played in the Taylor household. This became “Evocation: In Memoriam (September 11, 2001).”

Taylor Kinosian is an active soloist.  She has performed the concertos of Weill, Mozart and Brahms with the South Carolina Philharmonic and regional orchestras. She is concertmaster of the South Carolina Philharmonic and assistant concertmaster of the Greenville Symphony.

Dusan Vukajlovic, cello, was born into a musical family in Belgrade, Serbia and began to play the cello at the age of 5. He obtained his undergraduate degree from the Belgrade Music Academy and went on to study with Martha Gerscefski at Georgia State University in Atlanta, where he completed his master’s degree in 2003. Following that he spent a year studying with Johanne Perron at the Lynn University in Florida.

Dusan is first cellist of the South Carolina Philharmonic and recently received rave reviews for his performance of Friedrich Gulda’s “Concerto for Cello and Wind Band.” 

Currently, Dusan is working towards completing his DMA with Robert Jesselson at the University of South Carolina in Columbia.

– article submitted by Whitney Blake