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Violinist Keyreel Raskolenko grew up in sunny Uzbekistan, and was interested in music from the age of two, playing vinyl records over and over. At the age of six, it was discovered that Keyreel had perfect pitch, and he entered the V.A. Uspensky Republican Central Special Music School to study violin and, later, composition and symphony conducting. He wrote his first composition at the age of eight, and four years later, he gave a local radio interview and performed his first work. At seventeen, he earned the highest score on entrance exams to Gnesin’s Russian Academy of Music and was accepted to study violin under Professor Kh. Akhtyamova. He also attended the class for quartets under the tutelage of Professor V. Berlinsky, the founder and soul of the Borodin String Quartet. He finished Uspensky school in 2000 (Tashkent, Uzbekistan) with diplomas in violin performance, composition, and symphony conducting. KeyReel graduated from the Gnesin’s Russian Academy of Music in 2005 (Moscow, Russia) with bachelor’s and master’s degrees in violin performance and pedagogy and from TCU School of Music in 2018 (Fort Worth, TX) with an artist diploma in violin performance. Keyreel was eager to learn as much as he possibly could, and attended festivals and workshops in France, Belgium, Holland, and other places throughout Europe. During this time, he never stopped writing music, and his works have been performed and recorded in the Great Hall of the Gnesin’s Academy, The Moscow House of Composers, McKinney Performance hall and at Texas Christian University.
He has performed with the State Symphony Cinema Orchestra, Pavel Slobodkin’s Center Chamber Orchestra, and also arranged music for the Sonore chamber music ensemble and the Just Enjoy String Band. KeyReel is an active member of several orchestras around DFW, including Las Colinas, Plano, Irving symphony and a core member of Chaverim chamber music ensemble with Boriana Savova. Keyreel is extremely versatile in his playing styles, mastering classical playing and Celtic tradition. Keyreel is the first-ever Russian finalist in the prestigious All-Ireland Fleadh in Tullamore. He has attended many folk music festivals as a student, including Alasdair Fraser’s Fiddle Courses on the Isle of Skye (Scotland) in 2010 and 2012. In 2013, he was one of the creators of Celtic-Music.ru, a website about Celtic Music life in Russia, and that summer, he gave an interview to the Celtic Life Magazine. Cape Breton Fiddler Association annual festival invited KeyReel as a special guest in 2013. In Moscow, he was a member of four different bands playing traditional Celtic music and bluegrass. The Glasach Trio, one of his projects, was Moscow-based and toured concerts in the U.K. in 2014. He was also a guest artist at the Celtic Colours Festival in the Fall of 2016. As a fiddle player, he played with the Reel Treble band at the North Texas Irish Festival in 2018 and 2019. Also, as a core member of Three Pints and a Glass, he played at the same festival in 2019. Currently, he is a member of the Celtic Standard Time duo with Alex Hand on guitar. Traditional Celtic fiddle is not KeyReel’s only interest other than classical violin. He has an award in the Bob Wills Texas fiddle competition in 2015, Greenville, TX. Occasionally, he plays swing and jazz music in DFW with Glen McLaughlin Band, Two-bit swing band, Kim Platko, Jason Jones, Alex Hand, Ben Katzen, and others. Currently, KeyReel has his own company, KeyReel Music, which provides music entertainment for events and other music services, including education in DFW. He is the founder and director of North Texas Celtic Strings, a learn-by-ear program. Moreover, he is the founder, arranger, and 5-string violin player for a new project that will be announced soon.
Emily Klophaus is a violinist and violist in the DFW area. She graduated in Violin Performance from Baylor University, with additional studies at Boston University, where she studied with renowned violinist Roman Totenberg. She has taught privately for almost 30 years, teaches 5th and 6th-grade strings at AISD elementary schools, and is the Upper Strings Specialist at the Corey Foreign Language and Fine Arts Academy for AISD. She has directed the orchestra and various instrumental and vocal ensembles at First Baptist Church Arlington for the past 26 years. She continues to play with regional symphony orchestras and theater companies and enjoys chamber music with Chenoweth Musicians. In her free time, Emily loves to read, spend time with her grown children, travel, and serve in community organizations such as the Friends and Foundation of the Arlington Public Library, where she serves as Vice Chair of the Board.
Claire Garza Ross, originally from Houston, studied at the Cleveland Institute of Music and received her Bachelor’s and Master’s in Viola Performance. She moved to Dallas in 2008 and has performed with Texas Winds, the Dallas Symphony, the Dallas Opera, the Fort Worth Symphony, and the Richardson Symphony. Claire teaches for the Dallas Symphony’s Young Strings program. She enjoys hiking, skiing, biking, swimming, and watching movies with her husband and 3 kids.
Cellist Creed Miller holds a M.M. and a B.M. in Cello Performance, the former from Texas Christian University and the latter from Florida State University. He performs often with the Plano Symphony Orchestra and the Richardson Symphony Orchestra. Currently the Director of Music at St. Alban’s Anglican Church in Arlington, Creed also enjoys music composition and will relish the opportunity to write for the choir of St. Alban’s from time to time. His composition skills are also valuable for Chenoweth Musicians and Timeless Concerts, as special music arrangements are often needed. Creed began performing with Chenoweth Musicians in early 2023. He is married to violinist Allie Miller.
Allie Miller is a section violinist in the Richardson Symphony Orchestra and Plano Symphony Orchestra and is the concertmaster, orchestra manager, and orchestra librarian at First Baptist Dallas. A Nationally Certified Teacher of Music in Violin (NCTM) of the Music Teachers National Association (MTNA), Allie is also an active violin instructor, freelance performer, and studio records in the Dallas / Fort Worth area. Previous work experiences include being an adjunct music professor at Tarrant County College, serving as the orchestra librarian at the Blair School of Music, and interning with the Dallas Symphony Orchestra, among others.
Allie graduated with a Bachelor of Music degree in violin performance and music history and literature from Vanderbilt University in 2017 and then went on to receive a Master of Music degree in violin performance from Texas Christian University in 2019, where she was a graduate teaching assistant to Dr. Elisabeth Adkins, and was invited to join the Gamma Epsilon chapter of the national music honors society, Pi Kappa Lambda. A native Texan, Allie graduated with honors from Booker T. Washington High School for the Performing and Visual Arts in 2013 and currently lives in Dallas with her husband, a cellist, composer, and church music director. Allie began working with Chenoweth Musicians in 2023. You can learn more about Allie by visiting her professional website, www.allieviolin.com.
CELLIST Drew Johnson has played professionally with the Las Colinas Symphony since 2002. He is also a founding member of the 440 Alliance, and performs and records with many local bands. As well as performing, Mr. Johnson teaches a full award-winning private studio in Arlington where he resides. Mr. Johnson has studied chamber music throughout his life at many festivals and schools, including the Chamber Music Festival of Nebraska, Mimir Chamber Music Festival, Heifitz Institute, and the Credomatic Music Festival in Costa Rica. Mr. Johnson holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Music Performance from the University of Texas at Arlington.
Harpist Laura Logan received her Master’s and Doctorate of musical arts degree in harp performance from Texas Tech University. A native of New Orleans, she earned her bachelor of music in harp performance from Louisiana State University.
She is the founder and director of the Octavia Harp Ensemble, a performing group of 8 professional harpists. They have released two recordings on the Traditional Sounds Label.
Laura Logan Brandenburg, DMA, served as harp instructor on the Texas Christian University School of Music faculty from 2001-2020. In addition, she maintained an active pre-college studio through the TCU Music Prep Department, teaching Suzuki harp students ages five through young adult.
She currently teaches and coaches private students of all ages in her home studio. A highly regarded freelance harpist with four decades of professional experience, Laura enjoys a wide variety of collaborative performance opportunities in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. Whether harp solo, in a duo with violin or flute, or in a trio setting including cello, she specializes in providing elegant classical music for your special event.
Cellist Oliver Bennett Schlaffer joined Timeless Concerts again in 2021, after having performed with Timeless earlier in its development. Having pursued performance work, Oliver has now created a business that not only involves teaching cello lessons, but coaching other teachers of music instruments in teaching techniques, and other forms of mentoring that help aspiring artists gain success in the performing arts and beyond, using simple strategies for mastery. His website is oliverandcello.com.
An expert in teaching the science of achievement through the study of excellence in the performing arts, Oliver helps ambitious young people transform their unique gifts and vision into extraordinary achievement and mastery, through his lessons on life, leadership, and excellence. As a mentor to youth, Oliver’s students learn the true skills for achievement and mastery, consistently ranking within the top 1% of students in the state of Texas for music as well as the top 10% academically, and are regularly accepted into many of the nation’s top learning institutions such as Harvard, Stanford, and MIT.
From conformity to Carnegie Hall, Oliver discovered that the journey to mastery in the performing arts reveals the true secrets of living a purposeful life through passion and excellence, which often requires one to become a “non-conformist” in order to be truly exceptional.
He has performed in over a dozen orchestras across the United States, including the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and the Dallas Symphony Orchestra, and on stages around the United States, Europe, and Asia, including seven appearances at Carnegie Hall in New York City. A versatile performer, he has collaborated with a variety of genres and mainstream artists including live concerts with Josh Groban and Andrea Bocelli, in addition to nationally televised appearances with rappers P. Diddy and Snoop Dogg on MTV’s Video Music Awards.
Oliver was honored with a distinguished award in 2017 from the National Academy of Bestselling Authors for his contribution to the recently published book, Mastering the Art of Success, which he co-authored with the legendary New York Times best-selling author Jack Canfield. A champion for excellence, Oliver has captured the imagination of over fifty-thousand students through his live presentations. On a mission to inspire and empower the next generation to master their passions in order to design a life true to themselves.
Oliver holds degrees in cello performance from Southern Methodist University and Northwestern University, and he has studied under the principal cellists of seven major symphony orchestras, including the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, New York Philharmonic Orchestra, and the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra. Several of his primary teachers include Orlando Cole of the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, Japanese cello soloist Ko Iwasaki, and Danish cello pedagogue Hans Jørgen Jensen, who was highlighted in the book, The Talent Code, by Daniel Coyle in 2009.
This talented artist was born in New York, NY, and raised in Dallas. TX. He and his wife, harpist Yumiko Endo Schlaffer, live in Plano,TX, with their young son.
Don O’Neal LeBlanc, tenor, hails from San Benito, Texas, where his love of singing first began. His high school choir director, Hugh Ellison, introduced Don to the world of opera and directed him to his alma mater – The University of North Texas.
Don subsequently studied vocal performance at the University of North Texas. A 1990 regional finalist in the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions, Don performed leading operatic tenor roles at the University of North Texas, along with numerous regional opera companies. Don has been a frequent featured soloist with the UNT orchestra and chorus, Arlington-based Timeless Concerts, and various churches and arts organizations around the DFW area, including Opera on Tap, a non-profit which he previously managed as “co-managing Divo.”
Ms. Chenoweth first heard Don sing at Opera On Tap in the summer of 2013 and hired him for the very next Timeless Concerts event.
In 2015, in addition to joining the Dallas Opera Chorus, Don was selected as a semi-finalist in the Professional Men’s Division of the American Prize in Vocal Performance. He made his solo debut with the Dallas Opera in December 2015 as a featured soloist for the first annual Linda and Mitch Hart International Institute for Women Conductors at the Winspear Opera House. He has continued to sing with the Dallas Opera IWC program as a featured soloist over the last few years. He sang the full season with the Dallas Opera chorus in 2016-2017, including character roles in Tchaikovsky’s “Eugene Onegin” and Puccini’s “Madama Butterfly”.
Don was a featured soloist with the Dallas Opera Orchestra at the Winspear Opera House for two “Viva Verdi” concerts in November 2016 and March 2017. Don performed with the Dallas Opera and sang as the character role of “Parpignol” in the opera La Boheme In March 2019. He continues to collaborate with the Dallas Opera.
Don and his wife, Davene, have two grown children, Joshua and Kaitlin, and two granddaughters whom they love to dote on, Danielle and Elswyth.
Amela Koci is a member of the East Texas Symphony Orchestra as well as a substitute for the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra. She has been playing violin for twenty-five years. Amela received a Bachelor of Music degree from the University of Texas at Arlington and a master’s degree from the Cleveland Institute of Music.
In 2002, she was the Concerto Competition winner at the University of Texas at Arlington as well as the winner of several prizes and scholarships. She has been a member of various orchestras such as San Angelo Symphony, Garland Symphony, Texas Chamber Orchestra, Akron Symphony, and principal second violin of the Mansfield Orchestra in Ohio.
Apart from her orchestra playing, Amela teaches violin for Young Strings, a program of the Dallas Symphony as well as her private studio in Arlington.
She and her husband are the parents of twin boys.
Violinist LeeAnne Chenoweth began taking violin and piano lessons at age 5, in her hometown of Enid, Oklahoma. By age 12, her father was taking her to Tulsa, weekly, for violin lessons with the concertmaster of the Tulsa Philharmonic. At age 16, she spent a summer studying violin at the Meadowmount School of Music in upper New York state. At age 17, she went to the University of Houston to study with artist-in-resident Fredell Lack for one year. She graduated from the SMU Meadows School of Arts with a bachelor’s degree in violin performance, having been a recipient of the Meadows Artistic Achievement Award Scholarship.
Soon after receiving her degree, she began working with the Dallas Opera Orchestra violin section; two seasons later, she won a violin audition in Ft. Worth Symphony Orchestra, working in FWSO until 2007. In early 2007, she imagined a chamber music series like Timeless Concerts and began planning. She produced her first concert in the summer of 2007.
During her orchestral career in Ft. Worth, she shared the stage with great classical artists such as Itzhak Perlman, Yo-Yo Ma, Pavoratti, Van Cliburn, Joshua Bell, and others. Plus, pops artists as diverse as Natalie Cole, Marvin Hamlisch, Wynona Judd, Pink Martini, The Beatles tribute band “Classical Mystery Tour,” and more. She has also shared the stage with artists like Ricky Martin and Depeche Mode, even accompanying members of Cirque du Soleil.
Ms. Chenoweth currently works as a substitute violinist for the Dallas Symphony Orchestra and is regular with the Waco Symphony, where in 2017 she collaborated with superstar soprano Renee Fleming.
In addition to concert performance work, Ms. Chenoweth contracts ensembles for special events throughout Texas; some examples are wine tastings at the Anatole, Christmas parties at the Ft. Worth Club, and weddings in a variety of locations from the Ritz Hotel to a family ranch.
Ms. Chenoweth plays on a French violin (Nicolas Vuillaume), made approximately in 1848. Her passion is to keep beautiful music alive to be heard by future generations. She frequently performs free educational programs in elementary schools, encouraging children to appreciate music of all eras, pointing out that composers of movie music they enjoy were influenced by the classics. Hear more about Ms. Chenoweth’s mission in the promotional video on the home page of Timeless Concerts.
Chenoweth is the president and artistic director of a nonprofit organization; Timeless Concerts. Her concerts offer an evening of beautiful music of strings and piano, often joined by a vocalist. Audience members enjoy a relaxed atmosphere while sipping complimentary beverages. Interesting stories are told about the history of music and composers. A post-concert party offers time to mingle with the musicians, take photos of great memories, and enjoy the comradery with other music lovers.
She married Richard Lawson while still attending SMU. They live in north Arlington and have two grown daughters, Cayla and Jessica.