Dr. Barry Coutinho Benefit Concert

As a teenager, Dr. Coutinho appeared in the final rounds of the UK BBC Young Musician of the year National Music Competition and won several awards at the Guildhall School of Music in London. He passed the Associate Diploma in piano performance with Honors from the London Royal College of Music, and was later a double prize winner in both the 2011 Van Cliburn International Piano Competition for Outstanding Amateurs, and the 2013 Washington D.C. International Piano Artists competition. Now, Dr. Coutinho is a full-time family physician and teaching faculty at the UPMC Shadyside Family Medicine program as well as Vice Chief of the Department of Family Medicine at Shadyside.

Charlie Powers’ playing has been described by The Washington Post as “poised, elegant, supple of phrasing and mellow of tone.” He joined the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra cello section during the 2013-2014 season. He previously served as assistant principal of “The President’s Own” U.S. Marine Chamber Orchestra in Washington, D.C., and performed regularly at the White House, the State Department, the Library of Congress, the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, and the Vice President’s residence. nnSince making his solo debut at age 17, Charlie Powers has appeared with orchestras throughout the United States and abroad, including the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, the U.S. Marine Chamber Orchestra and the Kaohsiung City Symphony Orchestra in Taiwan. A proponent of new music, Powers has performed works for cello and orchestra by Aulis Sallinen and Jennifer Higdon. nnCharlie Powers is a founding member of three critically acclaimed chamber ensembles: the Pittsburgh Cello Quartet, the Teiber String Trio, and The Phillips Camerata. He has collaborated with renowned artists such as Yo-Yo Ma, Ricardo Morales and Peter Wiley. He received the Karl Zeise Memorial Cello Award at Tanglewood, where he served as principal cellist of the Tanglewood Music Center orchestra. Other festival appearances include Banff, Heifetz, Aria, Icicle Creek and the 2000 World Cello Congress. nnCharlie Powers comes from a long line of music educators. He has taught cello for three decades and serves on the faculty of the City Music Center of Duquesne University. nnA native of Tacoma, Washington, Charlie Powers began his cello studies at age three with Jeannette Chapman. He graduated with honors from the New England Conservatory of Music, where he was a Piatigorsky Scholarship recipient and studied with Colin Carr. nnCharlie Powers plays a 2014 Montagnana model cello made for him by Wolfgang Schnabl.

Irene Cheng  joined the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra's first violin section at the beginning of the 2009-2010 season. She has held many tenured positions, including second in the Pacific Northwest Ballet Orchestra; principal second position, then assistant concertmaster of the Metropolitan Orchestra of Lisbon in Portugal; first violin in the Barcelona Symphony Orchestra in Spain; assistant concertmaster in the Malaysian Philharmonic Orchestra in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia; associate concertmaster of the Erie Philharmonic; and concertmaster of the Camarata di Sant’Antonio in Buffalo, New York. She has also performed with the Seattle Symphony, New Haven Symphony, Buffalo Philharmonic, Cincinnati Symphony, and Philadelphia Orchestra.  nnAn avid chamber musician and recitalist, Irene Cheng has played numerous solo recitals and chamber concerts in western Europe, both coasts of the United States, and in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. As soloist, she has performed with the Pittsburgh Symphony, Camarata di Sant'Antonio, Seattle Philharmonic, Bellevue Philharmonic, Northwest Chamber Orchestra, Central Washington University Orchestra, and the Pacific Lutheran University Orchestra. Cheng has been the winner of the Seattle Young Artist Competition, the Washington State Concerto Competition, and the McGraw Hill Young Artists Showcase, which featured her on WQXR in New York City. nnOriginally from the Seattle area, Irene Cheng received her Master of Music degree from the Yale School of Music and her Bachelor of Arts degree in communications and marketing from the University of Washington. While at Yale she studied with Sidney Harth, and chamber music with the Tokyo String Quartet and Claude Frank. She spent her most influential years studying with Marjorie Kransberg-Talvi, Ilkka Talvi, Vilem Sokol, Denes Zsigmondy and Erich Eichhorn, as well as several summers of study at the Aspen and Waterloo Music Festivals. nnPassionate about teaching the next generation of violinists, Irene Cheng teaches privately and coaches young violinists with the Three Rivers Young Peoples Orchestra (TRYPO). She has held teaching positions in the Lisbon Superior Academy of Music, Mercyhurst College Prep department, and at the Edinboro University Extension Program. In her free time, Irene has a great passion for interior design and loves to refinish furniture and reupholster chairs and sofas. She lives in Mount Lebanon with her husband and two daughters.