Lillian Copeland
2001 ARTS Finalist
Music Instrumental - Oboe
Interlochen Arts Academy
Lexington, VA
Lillian Townsend Copeland from Lexington, VA, attended Interlochen Arts Academy in Interlochen, MI. In 1999 she won the Interlochen Arts Academy Concerto Competition and the Interlochen Arts Academy Fine Arts Award/High School Music - Oboe.
Lillian began playing the oboe in public school at the age of ten. She attended Interlochen Arts Camp the summer after sixth grade where she studied with Dr. Robert Krause and Daniel Stolper, which she would do for the next five summers. At age twelve, Lillian began studying privately with Kirsten Hadden Lipkens. Under her teaching, Lillian played principal oboe in the Roanoke Youth Symphony Orchestra, was a member of the Washington and Lee University Wind Ensemble and Orchestra, as well as a member of the All-Virginia Band and Orchestra her freshman and sophomore years.
During the summer of 1999 at Interlochen Arts Camp, Lillian was a member of the World Youth Symphony Orchestra, and played under such conductors as Theo Alcantara, Miguel Harth-Bedoya, Russell Reed, Timothy Russell, Larry Rachleff and Neeme Jarvi. She was also a high-school concerto winner that summer, and performed the first movement of the Haydn Concerto with the World Youth Symphony Orchestra.
In the fall of 1999, Lillian transferred to Interlochen Arts Academy. Her junior year, she was principal of the Wind Ensemble and the English hornist for the orchestra. The summer of 2000, Lillian attended Boston University Tanglewood Institute, and was a member of the Young Artists' Orchestra under the direction of Lan Shui, David Hoose, and Julian Wachner, played chamber music under the direction of David Martins and Eric Larson, studied with Ralph Gomberg, and participated in master classes by Laura Ahlbeck and Robert Sheena.
Her senior year, Lillian was principal oboe of the Interlochen Arts Academy Orchestra, was a member of a woodwind quintet, and continued her studies with Daniel Stolper. She was a finalist and a level one awardee in the A.R.T.S. program of NFAA and was a semifinalist in the 2001 Presidential Scholar in the Arts program. After the A.R.T.S. competition, Lillian went on to win the distinguished Music for Youth Foundation award.
Lillian now attends Oberlin Conservatory where she studies with James Caldwell. During her first two years, she has played with the Oberlin Contemporary Music Ensemble, the Oberlin Orchestra and Chamber Orchestra and has a reed trio. In addition, she has been a member of the Wooster Symphony Orchestra in Wooster, OH.
In the summer of 2002 Lillian attended the Oberlin in Italy program where she was the oboist for Verdi's La Traviata. Also that summer she studied with the renowned German oboist Ingo Goritzki at the Internationalen Sommerakademie der Universitat Mozarteum in Salzburg.
This past fall while Mr. Caldwell was on sabbatical Lillian studied with the members of the Cleveland Orchestra. Lillian says that she has been inspired by her principal teachers, Kirsten Lipkens and Daniel Stolper, and her recent studies with Ingo Goritzki and the Cleveland Orchestra section. James Caldwell, now returned from his sabbatical, has had a phenomenal influence on her playing and Lillian considers him to be integral to her musical growth. "Mr. Caldwell works with our basic foundations and is therefore able to help us create our own unique and persuasive vocabulary for musical communication and expression." Lillian is returning to Italy this summer to be the oboist for Mozart's Don Giovanni, and plans to continue her studies with Ingo Goritzki in Salzburg.