Biographies
Music
Director - Phillip Bush
Senior Composer-in-Residence - Donald Crockett
Violin Faculty - Joel Berman, Aaron
Berofsky, Diana Cohen, Phillip Coonce, Judith Eissenberg, Mayuki
Fukuhara, Shem Guibbory, Renée Jolles, Sheila
Reinhold, Eriko Sato, Andrea Schultz, Calvin
Wiersma
Viola Faculty -
Rebecca Albers, Nicholas Cords, Veronica Salas, Kate Vincent, Kathryn
Votapek, Lisa Whitfield
Violin/Viola Faculty - Masako Yanagita
Cello Faculty -
Nancy Baun, Michael Finckel, Kermit Moore, Maxine Neuman,
Nathaniel Parke, Lutz Rath, Ashima Scripp, James Wilson
Double Bass Faculty - Lewis Paer
Flute Faculty - Sue Ann Kahn,
Erin Lesser
Oboe Faculty - Jacqueline Leclair,
Matt Sullivan, Keve Wilson
Clarinet Faculty - Armand Ambrosini, Michael Dumouchel,
Diane Heffner, Meighan Stoops
Bassoon Faculty - Peter Kolkay, Lauren Goldstein Stubbs, Stephen Walt
Horn Faculty - Joseph Anderer, Daniel Grabois
Piano Faculty - Cynthia Adler, Abba Bogin,
Phillip Bush, James
Goldsworthy, Stephen Manes, David Oei, Elizabeth Wright
Composers-in-Residence -
Gabriela Lena Frank, Pierre Jalbert, Paul Moravec
Guest Faculty - Virginia Anderer,
Styra Avins, Joel Berman, Frank Daykin,
Michael Dumouchel, Erin Lesser, Jeffrey Means, Lutz Rath, Joseph Schor, others to be announced
Composition Fellows -
To be announced
Music Director
PHILLIP BUSH
Phillip Bush is a pianist of uncommon versatility, with a repertoire extending
from the sixteenth century to the twenty-first. His active and unconventional
career has taken him to many parts of the globe. Since his New York recital
debut at the Metropolitan Museum in 1984, Mr. Bush has appeared as recitalist
throughout North America, as well as in Europe, Asia, and the Caribbean. In 2001
he made his Carnegie Hall concerto debut with the London Sinfonietta to critical
acclaim, replacing an ailing Peter Serkin on short notice in concerti by
Stravinsky and Alexander Goehr. He has also appeared as soloist with the Osaka
Century Orchestra, Cincinnati Symphony, Houston Symphony, and several other
orchestras, in repertoire as far-ranging as the Beethoven concerti and the
American premiere of Michael Nyman’s Harpsichord Concerto.
A much sought-after chamber musician, Mr. Bush has performed and recorded
with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, appears frequently on New
York's Bargemusic series, and has performed at the Grand Canyon Music Festival,
Bridgehampton Chamber Music Festival, Strings in the Mountains (Colorado), Sitka
Music Festival (Alaska), St. Bart's Music Festival, Bahamas Music Festival,
Music at Blair Atholl (Scotland), Cape May Music Festival, and many other
festivals. He has also performed with the Kronos Quartet, the Miami String
Quartet, and members of the Emerson, Guarneri, Tokyo,
and St. Lawrence quartets. Between 1991 and 1999 he performed over 250 concerts
in Japan with the piano quartet "Typhoon," and recorded five CD's with the group
for Epic/Sony, all of which reached the top of the Japanese classical charts. In
1993 Mr. Bush founded “MayMusic in Charlotte,” a critically acclaimed and
innovative festival in North Carolina that annually presented chamber and
contemporary music, film screenings, and other cross-disciplinary
collaborations. He served as Artistic Director of that festival from 1993 to
1998. Mr. Bush can be heard frequently on public radio in the US, including
appearances on "Saint Paul Sunday," and has had live performances broadcast
frequently throughout the nation on television via the Classic Arts Showcase.
A fierce advocate for contemporary music, Phillip Bush has performed often
with many of the New York area's most renowned new music ensembles, including
Bang on a Can All-Stars, Philip Glass Ensemble, Steve Reich and Musicians, Group
for Contemporary Music, Newband, Sequitur, Parnassus, and New Music Consort.
Since 1995 he has been an artist-member of the Milwaukee-based new music group,
Present Music. Mr. Bush's efforts on behalf of contemporary music have earned
him grants and awards from the Mary Flagler Cary Charitable Trust, the Aaron
Copland Fund, ASCAP, Chamber Music America, and the National Endowment for the
Arts. His discography as soloist and chamber musician has now surpassed thirty
recordings, on labels such as Sony, Virgin Classics, Koch International, New
World Records, Denon, and many others.
Mr. Bush is a graduate of the Peabody Conservatory, where he studied with
Leon Fleisher. From 2000 to 2004 Mr. Bush taught piano and chamber music at the
University of Michigan. Today, in addition to his busy performing schedule, he
continues to give masterclasses, sharing his insights with young musicians in
venues throughout the nation. He makes his home in the Old Shandon neighborhood
of Columbia, South Carolina, with his wife, pianist Lynn Kompass, and their
part-Siberian-Husky, Ruby.
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Senior Composer-in-Residence
DONALD CROCKETT
Donald Crockett is currently Professor of Composition and Director of the
Contemporary Music Ensemble at the University of Southern California Thornton
School of Music. He has collaborated with such artists and ensembles as the
Kronos, Arditti and Stanford quartets, violinist Ida Kavafian, mezzo soprano
Janice Felty, Collage, Pacific Serenades, the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra,
oboist Allan Vogel, the Debussy Trio and the Core Ensemble. He has received
commissions from the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra (Composer in Residence, 1991-97), Los Angeles Philharmonic, Pittsburgh New Music Ensemble, and many others.
Crockett has also received grants and prizes from the American Academy of Arts
and Letters, American Music Center, Barlow Endowment, BMI, Composers Inc.,
Copland Fund, Meet the Composer/Arts Endowment Commissioning Music/USA, and the
National Endowment for the Arts. Most recently he received an Aaron Copland
Award from the Copland Society, and a California Arts Council Performing Arts
Fellowship. His music is published by MMB Music, St. Louis, and recorded on the
Albany, CRI, Laurel and Pro Arte/Fanfare labels.
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Violin
JOEL BERMAN
Joel Berman has concertized extensively in the United States and abroad, in
recital and as soloist with orchestras. He has given solo and chamber music
performances at venues including the Library of Congress, Town Hall, the
National Gallery of Art, the Kennedy Center, Juilliard School of Music, the
Corcoran Gallery, the Phillips Collection, the Smithsonian Institution, the
Renwick Gallery, and the National Academy of Sciences, and he has performed a
wide range of concerti with many orchestras. As a recording artist, he appears
on the AmCam, Smithsonian, Orion, Vox, Columbia, and CRI labels.
Since 2001, Dr. Berman has presented nine Beethoven string quartet cycles,
comprising performances with lectures of all sixteen quartets. He is currently
writing a book on the Beethoven string quartets, including a new theory about
the function of the Grosse Fuge. A new performance/lecture series on the Bartók string quartets will be launched in January 2006 at the National
Institutes of Health.
From 1957 to 1988, Dr. Berman was Professor of Violin and Chamber Music at
the University of Maryland, College Park. He founded the University of Maryland
Trio, which gave hundreds of performances from 1964 to 1980, commissioned and
premiered new works, received three Creative Performing Arts Awards, and made
recordings for Vox and Orion. He also performed with many other artists at the
University of Maryland, including members of the Guarneri String Quartet. He was
member of the American Camerata for New Music from 1974 to 2000 and was
concertmaster and soloist for the Camerata from its inception. The Camerata
attracted national attention, made numerous recordings, and has a subsidiary
recording label, AmCam.
Dr. Berman has coached and performed at the Chamber Music Conference and
Composers' Forum of the East since 1966. He studied at the Juilliard School of
Music, Columbia University, and the University of Michigan.
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AARON
BEROFSKY
Violinist Aaron Berofsky has toured extensively throughout the
United States and abroad, gaining wide recognition as a soloist and
chamber musician. As soloist, he has performed with orchestras in the
United States, Germany, Italy, Spain and Canada. He has performed the
complete cycle of Mozart violin sonatas at the International Festival
Deia in Spain and has appeared in such renowned venues as Carnegie Hall,
Alice Tully Hall, the 92nd Street Y, the Corocoran Gallery, Het Doelen,
L'Octogone, the Teatro San Jose and the Museo de Bellas Artes. Mr.
Berofsky has been featured on NPR's Performance Today and on the
Canadian Broadcasting Company. His acclaimed recordings can be found on
the Sony, New Albion, ECM, Audio Ideas, Blue Griffin and Chesky labels.
Mr. Berofsky has been the first violinist of the Chester
String Quartet since 1992. The quartet has been acclaimed as "one of the
country's best young string quartets" by the Boston Globe, and as
having "irrepressible energy and unflagging good taste" by the Los
Angeles Times. Tours have taken them throughout the Americas and
Europe and the quartet members have collaborated with such artists as
Robert Mann, Arnold Steinhardt, Franco Gulli, members of the Alban Berg
quartet, Andres Diaz, Eugene Istomin and Ruth Laredo. Some notable
projects over the years have included the complete cycles of the
quartets by Beethoven and Dvorak, and numerous recordings by such
composers as Mozart, Haydn, Barber, Porter, Piston, Kernis and Tenenbom.
The Chester Quartet has served as resident quartet at the University of
Michigan and at Indiana University South Bend.
An alumnus of the Juilliard School, Mr. Berofsky was a
scholarship student of Dorothy DeLay. Other important teachers have
included Robert Mann, Felix Galimir, Glenn Dicterow, Lorand Fenyves and
Elaine Richey. Mr. Berofsky is known for his commitment to teaching and
is Professor of Violin at the University of Michigan and visiting
Professor at the Hochschule fur Muisk in Detmold, Germany. He taught at
he Meadowmount School of Music for many summers and now teaches at the
Chautauqua Institution. He has also taught at Oberlin, Interlochen, the
Adriatic Chamber Music Festival and the Conservatorio Palma Mallorca.
Mr. Berofsky's interest in early music led him to
perform with the acclaimed chamber orchestra Tafelmusik on period
instruments, and he has recorded with them for the Sony label. With a
strong dedication to new music as well, he has worked extensively with
many leading composers of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries,
performing, commissioning and recording music by John Cage, William
Bolcom, Zhou Long, Michael Daugherty, Aaron Jay Kernis, Susan Botti and
Bright Sheng.
Aaron Berofsky is the concertmaster of the Ann
Arbor Symphony. He has served as concertmaster for the Orkestra
Sinfonica Bilbao, the Juilliard Orchestra and the Lansing Symphony as
well. He performs frequently with the Camerata Adriatica as soloist and
continues to appear regularly in recital and at festivals throughout
North America and Europe.
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DIANA COHEN
Praised by critics for her “incredible flair, maturity and insight,” violinist Diana Cohen was appointed concertmaster of the Kalamazoo Symphony Orchestra in 2007. She has also appeared as soloist and served as concertmaster of the Charleston Symphony Orchestra, Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra, The National Repertory Orchestra, and Red {an orchestra}, among others. Currently dividing her time between chamber music, solo performances, and orchestral work, Diana performs regularly in New York and across the globe with the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, The International Sejong Soloists, and as a substitute at the New York Philharmonic.
The 2007-2008 season includes solo appearances with the Hilton Head Symphony Orchestra, The Valdosta Symphony, Red {an orchestra}, and with orchestras in Bulgaria. Ms. Cohen was concertmaster of the Cleveland Institute of Music Orchestra, principal second of the New York String Orchestra at Carnegie Hall, and has been rotating principal and member of the IRIS chamber orchestra since its inaugural season.
As a chamber musician, Diana has performed at the Marlboro Music Festival, The Steans Institute at the Ravinia Festival, The Chamber Music Festival of Giverny, France, The Itzhak Perlman Chamber Music Festival, Taos, Sarasota, Music Academy of the West, Aspen and Piccolo Spoleto. She has appeared in chamber concerts with members of the Cleveland Orchestra at Cleveland’s Severance Hall and has performed as a guest artist on faculty concerts at the Cleveland Institute of Music. Ms. Cohen has regularly collaborated with members of the Guarneri, Juilliard and Cleveland Quartets, as well as with renowned artists including Mitsuko Uchida, Kim Kashkashian, Gilbert Kalish and many others. She has also played regularly with her family; Cleveland Orchestra principal clarinetist Franklin Cohen, Alexander Cohen, principal timpani of the San Diego Symphony, and her late mother, bassoonist Lynette Diers Cohen. Works have been commissioned for the Cohen family quartet.
Ms. Cohen is an honors graduate of the Cleveland Institute of Music where she was the recipient of the 2000 Jerome Gross Prize in violin and a winner of the Darius Milhaud competition. Her principal teachers were Donald Weilerstein, William Preucil and Paul Kantor.
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PHILLIP COONCE
(B Mus., University of New Mexico, M. Mus., SUNY at Stony Brook, and DMA, Manhattan school of Music) has studied with Leonard Felberg, Hiroko Yajima, Felix Galimir, Blanche Moyse and Raphael Bronstein. He has performed with the New Jersey Symphony, Brooklyn Philharmonic, The Hudson Chamber Players and the Martha Graham Ballet. A member of the New Mexico Symphony Orchestra and the Right as Rain Bluegrass Trio, Dr. Coonce is on the faculties of the Joiner Academy, Playweek and Summertrios. He is also the author of Toquemos el Violín, and is the inventor of the Don’t Fret Finger Position Indicator.
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JUDITH EISSENBERG
Judith Eissenberg is the second violinist and a founding member of The
Lydian String Quartet, in residence at Brandeis University since 1980. With the
quartet, she has won numerous international prizes, including the Naumburg Award
for Excellence in Chamber Music, recorded, commissioned new works, and has
toured extensively in the US and abroad. A performer on both modern and period
instruments, Ms. Eissenberg has been a member and soloist with the Handel and
Haydn Society Orchestra and has appeared with other performing organizations in
Boston, including the Boston Chamber Music Society, The Boston Conservatory
Chamber Players, Emmanuel Music, Boston Pops, and Boston Baroque. She is a
founding member and a co-director of Music From Salem, a chamber music festival
in upstate NY founded in 1987.
Ms. Eissenberg founded and is now the Director of MusicUnitesUs, an
innovative outreach program that brings public school students to the Brandeis
University campus for a series of diverse music performances that reflect social
studies lessons in the classroom. Ms. Eissenberg is also on the faculty at The Boston Conservatory,
coaching chamber music.
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MAYUKI FUKUHARA
Mayuki Fukuhara began his musical studies at age seven, and, by age twelve, he
had won the International Music Festival Grand Prix. He came to the United
States as a scholarship student at the Curtis Institute of Music, and later did
post-graduate work at Mannes College of Music, studying under Ivan Galamian,
Jaime Laredo, and Felix Galimir. He performs with several of the New York
metropolitan area’s most prestigious chamber orchestras (Orpheus, Orchestra of
St. Luke’s, where he is a principal player, and others) and is a participating
artist in such festivals as Marlboro, Caramoor, and the New England Bach
Festival.
Mr. Fukuhara spends his summers performing with the Saito Kinen
Festival of Japan under the direction of Seiji Ozawa. His recordings are
available on the Musical Heritage Society, Music Masters, and other labels.
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SHEM GUIBBORY
A graduate of the California Institute of the Arts, violinist Shem Guibbory has
studied with Broadus Erle and Syoko Aki at Yale University, Romuald Tecco, and
Sophie Feuermann. Since 1981, Mr. Guibbory has been on the faculty at the
Chamber Music Conference and Composer's Forum of the East (at Bennington
College) and was appointed its Music Director in 1997. He is a member of the
First Violin section of the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra. Mr. Guibbory has won
recognition as a soloist and as a chamber musician. In 1999, he was a featured
artist in “The Classical Hour at Steinway Hall” a joint production of NHK TV
(Japan) and D’Alessio Media (USA). His interpretations of 20th Century music
have received international acclaim. Mr. Guibbory has performed recitals and
chamber music throughout the United States, Canada, and Europe.
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RENEE JOLLES
Hailed as a “real star” by The New York Times for her New York concerto
debut, violinist Renée Jolles has enjoyed a varied career as a solo artist and
chamber musician. She has premiered hundreds of works, including the American
premiere of Schnittke’s Violin Concerto No. 2. Her concerto engagements have
included orchestras such as Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, The Cape May Festival
Orchestra, The Salisbury Symphony, and the Philharmonic Orchestra of New Jersey.
Ms. Jolles is a member of The Jolles Duo, The Roerich Quartet, continuum, New
York Chamber Ensemble, and she performs frequently with Orpheus Chamber
Orchestra and has served as that ensemble’s concertmaster. She has performed at
festivals such as Marlboro, Cape May, Bowdoin, Norfolk, Taos, Rockport (MA),
Riverrun, and The Chamber Music Conference and Composers' Forum of the East.
Ms. Jolles is on the faculty of The Juilliard School, Pre-College Division,
the Mannes College of Music, Preparatory Division, and Sarah Lawrence College.
Ms. Jolles received her Bachelor and Master of Music degrees from Juilliard and,
upon graduation, was presented with the school’s highest award, the William
Schuman Prize. While at Juilliard, she held teaching fellowships in chamber
music as an assistant to The Juilliard Quartet and in Ear-Training. Her teachers
have included Lewis Kaplan, Felix Galimir, and members of the Juilliard, Tokyo,
and American String Quartets.
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SHEILA REINHOLD
Sheila Reinhold gave her first performance as soloist with orchestra at the age
of nine in the 92nd Street Y's Kaufmann Concert Hall in her native New York
City. At fourteen, after seven years of study with the Russian violinist
Vladimir Graffman, she was invited by Jascha Heifetz to join his master class at
the University of Southern California, where she studied with him for five
years. She received her Bachelor of Music degree from USC, and studied
composition and theory with Leon Kirchner and Earl Kim at Harvard University.
Ms. Reinhold's solo engagements have included appearances with Zubin Mehta
and André Kostelanetz, and performances at the Chautauqua, ArtPark and Ives
festivals, and she has performed chamber music in concert with Heifetz, Gregor
Piatigorsky and Leon Kirchner. Her activities have reflected a wide range of
interests. She has premiered solo and chamber works for both violin and viola,
has worked on major films and Broadway productions, has performed in orchestras
such as the New York Philharmonic, and has appeared with popular artists such as
Tony Bennett. Her teaching positions have included Resident Musician at Harvard
University as well as appearances offering master classes and solo performances
at other universities, and she especially enjoys working with young people as
head of the string faculty at the Children's Orchestra Society. Ms. Reinhold has
recorded on the North/South Recordings label.
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ERIKO SATO
Violinist Eriko Sato has been a member and frequent concertmaster of the Orpheus
Chamber Orchestra and the Orchestra Of St. Luke's. She made her solo debut at
age 13 and has performed as soloist with orchestras in Louisville, San Francisco
and Tokyo. Ms. Sato was the winner of the Tibor Varga International Competition,
the Young Musicians Foundation Competition and three Japanese National
Competitions.
An active chamber musician, Ms. Sato has participated in the Mostly Mozart,
Aspen, Sitka, Angel Fire, Gretna and Kuhmo Music Festivals, and has appeared
regularly with Bargemusic, Chamber Music Northwest, Caramoor, Washington Square
and the Dobbs Ferry Music Festivals. A founding member of the Aspen Soloists,
Festival Chamber Music Society and Salon Chamber Soloists she is also a member
of the Elysium, Ecliptica and American Chamber Ensembles. As a concertmaster,
she has recorded for Deutsche Grammaphon and Sony Classics for the Orpheus
Chamber Orchestra and on Nonesuch, Telarc, Arabesque, and MusicMasters with the
St. Luke's Chamber Ensemble. Her latest release is Allen Shawn's string quartet
"Sleepless Night" on Albany Records. She has also recorded for Vanguard, Delos,
Elysium and Grenadilla labels and has been featured on CBS News Sunday Morning.
Ms. Sato has taught at Queens College and the Aspen Music Festival and is
currently a faculty member of Chamber Music Conference/Composers' Forum of the
East, Hoff-Barthelson Music School and the Mannes College Of Music Preparatory
Division, where she teaches violin and chamber music. She lives in New York City
with her husband, pianist David Oei, and their pit bull mix, Jazz.
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ANDREA SCHULTZ
Violinist Andrea Schultz currently performs and tours with a wide array of
groups, including the Cabrini Quartet, the new music ensemble Sequitur, the New
York Chamber Ensemble, Trio of the Americas, and several of New York City’s
leading orchestras, including the Orchestra of St. Luke’s and Brandenburg
Ensemble. Ms. Schultz was a member of the Mark Morris Dance Group Music Ensemble
for four years, touring the United Sates, Britain, Japan, and Australia,
including performances with Yo-Yo Ma of the Schumann Piano Quintet. She has also
appeared as guest with the Casssatt String Quartet, Apple Hill Chamber Players,
Da Capo Chamber Players, Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, Mostly Mozart, and the Limon
Dance Company and has recorded contemporary chamber music for the Albany, New
World, and Phoenix labels. Ms. Schultz has spent summers performing at the
Tanglewood, Aspen, Caramoor, Wintergreen, and Cape May Festivals as well as the
Pundakit International Chamber Music Festival in the Phillipines. A graduate of
Yale University, the Cleveland Institute of Music, and SUNY Stony Brook, Ms.
Schultz studied violin with Sydney Harth, Paul Kantor, Donald Weilerstein, and
Joyce Robbins. She currently resides in New York City with her husband, cellist
Michael Finckel, and their one-year-old daughter Talia.
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CALVIN WIERSMA
Calvin Wiersma, violinist, has appeared throughout the world as a soloist and
chamber musician. He has performed numerous solo recitals, including appearances
in Boston, New York, and Chicago, and has appeared with the Rochester
Philharmonic Orchestra, The Concerto Company of Boston, and the Lawrence
Symphony, among others. He was a founding member of the Meliora Quartet, winner
of the Naumberg, Fischoff, Coleman, and Cleveland Quartet competitions, and the
Quartet-in- Residence at the Spoleto Festivals of the U.S., Italy, and
Australia. Mr. Wiersma was also a founding member of the Figaro Trio and is
currently a member of the Manhattan String Quartet.
In addition to his worldwide touring with the Quartet and Trio, Mr. Wiersma
has been heard at the summer Chamber Music Festivals in Vancouver, Rockport,
Portland, Crested Butte, Bard, Interlochen, Caramoor, An Appalachian Summer,
June in Buffalo, and at Music Mountain, as well as the Aspen Music Festival. Mr.
Wiersma's wide range of musical activities have recently involved an
international tour soloing with Kathleen Battle, performances at Bargemusic and
with New York Philomusica, national and international tours with the Orpheus
Chamber Orchestra, appearances at the Berkshire Bach Festival performing the
complete Brandenburg concertos, and concerts at the Metropolitan Museum of Art
with flutist Paula Robison. His recently completed recordings include Jacob
Druckman's Third String Quartet for Philomusica, a recording of Elliott Carter's
Syringa, Swan Song by Milton Babbitt and an album of Chamber Music of Stephen
Foster with Ms. Robison for Telarc.
A noted performer of contemporary music, Mr. Wiersma is a member of Cygnus,
the Lochrian Chamber Ensemble, and the Ensemble Sospeso, and has appeared with
Speculum Musicae, Ensemble 21, Parnassus, and the New York New Music Ensemble.
He has recently completed European tours with Steve Reich and Ensemble 21, and
has been featured in solo performances for the International League of Composers
of Music. Mr. Wiersma was the creator of the Music program and initial Music
Department chair at the Bard High School Early College, an innovative new New
York City Public School for gifted students, and is a music education
coordinator for the American Symphony Orchestra.
An active teacher as well as performer, Mr. Wiersma recently joined the
faculty as an Assistant Professor of Violin and Chamber at the Purchase
Conservatory of Music, and has been on the faculties of the Lawrence
Conservatory of Music, Florida State University, Brandeis University, the New
England Conservatory, and the Longy School of Music. He has conducted clinics
and master classes throughout the world, and has been an artist in residence at
Middlebury College, the California Summer Arts Program, and the Institute for
Chamber Music in Khiryat Shemona, Israel.
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Faculty Page
Viola
REBECCA ALBERS
Violist Rebecca Albers has performed throughout North America, Asia and
Western Europe. Her performances have been seen on national television
in the United States and China and heard on National Public Radio and
French National Radio. Rebecca currently resides in Ann Arbor, MI as a
member of the Phoenix Quartet and a recent addition to the University of
Michigan’s viola faculty. She also tours extensively with the Albers
Trio, a string trio formed with her sisters Laura and Julie Albers, with
fiddler Mark O’Connor’s Appalachia Waltz Trio, and she recently joined
the NY–based East Coast Chamber Orchestra (ECCO) for its 2007 season.
Rebecca received her B.M. and M.M. degrees from the Juilliard School
where she studied with Heidi Castleman and Hsin–Yun Huang. While
studying at Juilliard, she frequently performed as a substitute with the
Philadelphia Orchestra, and also at times with the Pittsburgh Symphony,
the New York Philharmonic and the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra. A dedicated
teacher, Rebecca has been teaching since she was 12 years old. From
2005–2008 she taught in collaboration with Heidi Castleman in the
Juilliard School’s College and Pre–College Divisions. She is also on the
faculty of the North American Viola Institute in Orford, QC and was
recently the Featured Guest Artist at the Ohio Viola Society’s “OHH
Viola” masterclass day.
As the winner of the Juilliard School’s 2002/03 viola competition,
Rebecca made her New York solo debut with the Juilliard Orchestra
performing the New York premiere of Samuel Adler’s Viola Concerto in
Alice Tully Hall at Lincoln Center. She made her European recital debut
in 2008 at the Auditorium du Louvre in Paris, France. Rebecca has been a
participant at such festivals as the Marlboro Music Festival, the
International Musicians Seminar and Open Chamber Music at Prussia Cove
(UK), and the Perlman Music Program. As a chamber musician she has
performed across the United States and Europe, with such artists as
Richard Goode, Yo–Yo Ma, Itzhak Perlman and members of the Guarneri,
Juilliard and St. Lawrence String Quartets. In September of 2003, she
performed in the inaugural concert in Zankel Hall at Carnegie Hall.
Upcoming engagements include a west coast tour with Musicians from
Marlboro, a tour of England with the International Musician’s Seminar
and performances with the Albers Trio, the Appalachia Waltz Trio and the
Phoenix Quartet.
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NICHOLAS CORDS (on sabbatical)
Violist Nicholas Cords is a busy performer in a wide range of musical
genres. He has appeared as a chamber musician at Carnegie Hall, the
Concertgebouw, Alice Tully Hall, the Cologne Philharmonic, Seiji Ozawa Hall at
Tanglewood, and the Library of Congress. As a soloist, he has appeared with the
Philadelphia and Minnesota Orchestras, the New York String Seminar Orchestra,
the Queens Symphony, and numerous others. His chamber music credits include the
Verbier, Schleswig-Holstein, Santa Fe, Tanglewood, Piccolo Spoleto, Lincoln
Center, Evian, Four Seasons, Ravinia, Bargemusic, Smithsonian Folklife,
Charlottesville, and the Caramoor International festivals.
Mr. Cords is a regular member of Yo-Yo Ma’s Silk Road Ensemble, a chamber
group that combines Western instruments and the music and instruments of the
present-day countries along the ancient Silk Road trading route in newly
commissioned works by composers from those areas as well as in traditional
repertoire. Mr. Cords appears on the recently released album by Sony Classical
entitled “Silk Road Journeys” and has traveled worldwide with the ensemble. He
has appeared frequently on television and radio including a Chinese National
Television broadcast from the Great Wall, the David Letterman Show (with the
Silk Road Ensemble and with singer/songwriter David Bryne), numerous National
Public Radio broadcasts, Good Morning America, and for the last four years he
has been a resident commentator and performer on New York’s WQXR Radio’s On
A-I-R (Artists-in-Radio) program. Mr. Cords has appeared as a member of many
ensembles, including the Caramoor Virtuosi, An Die Musik, Richardson Chamber
Players, Metamorphosen Chamber Orchestra, Davidsbund Chamber Players, and the
Metropolitan Museum Artists in Concert.
Mr. Cords began his musical education at the Juilliard School, where he won top
honors in the viola competition and subsequently gave the New York premiere of
John Harbison’s Viola Concerto at Avery Fisher Hall. He completed his studies at
Philadelphia’s Curtis Institute of Music. His teachers have included Karen
Tuttle, Harvey Shapiro, Joseph Fuchs, and Felix Galamir. Already a committed
teacher, Mr. Cords teaches at Princeton University.
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VERONICA SALAS
Veronica Salas, violist, has won acclaim for her artistry in the U.S. and
abroad. The New York Times described her playing as "astringently
lyrical", The Los Angeles Times praised her for "presenting a strong case
for the viola as a solo instrument with formidable control and singing tone",
and Stradivarius Magazine found her performance of a solo work performed
at the Lillian Fuchs memorial concert to be "deeply moving". Ms. Salas has given
five New York recitals including her highly successful debut at Weill Recital
Hall in Carnegie Hall. She has traveled to Hong Kong, the Philippines, and
Taiwan, where she gave recitals and master classes under the auspices of the
State Department. Additional international venues include touring Athens and the
Greek Isles as violist of the Elysium String Quartet, Italy as principal violist
at the Spoleto Festival, and touring Japan with The Mostly Mozart Festival
Orchestra.
Ms. Salas, a native of Chile, has performed as soloist with the Aspen Music
Festival orchestra, Pro Arte Chamber Orchestra of New York, as duo soloist with
Heifetz protege Erick Friedman, University of Southern California Symphony, the
Colonial Symphony Orchestra, The Queens Chamber Band and in 2005 performed the
Bartók Concerto with the Long Island University
Orchestra at the Tilles Center. In 1999 Ms. Salas performed at the White House
for President and Mrs. Clinton as acting principal violist with the Eos
orchestra of New York.
An active chamber musician, Ms. Salas has collaborated in performances with
great artists such as Paul Neubauer, Stanley Drucker, Yo-Yo Ma, Erick Friedman,
Lukas Foss, Lawrence Dutton of the Emerson Quartet, Charles Castleman, and
Joseph Fuchs. Ms. Salas is a member of The Lyrica Chamber Players, The Elysium
Ensemble, The Pierrot Consort, The Modern Works String Quartet, The Bronx Arts
Ensemble, and The Queens Chamber Band, in which she plays concertos on viola and
viola d'amore. Presently Ms. Salas is principal violist of the Colonial
Symphony, Opera Orchestra of New York, and Manhattan Philharmonic. Ms. Salas has
recorded with The New Music Consort and New York Virtuosi ensembles under The
Musical Heritage and Vanguard labels and can be heard on two CDs released in
1999 under the Elysium label, an all-Mozart CD with clarinetist Stanley Drucker,
and the Bach Brandenburg concerti featuring Lukas Foss. Ms. Salas is also one of
the featured artists on a Virgil Thompson CD released on 2002.
Ms. Salas's love of the viola and teaching stems from her beloved teacher
Lillian Fuchs, who supported her in many ways while working towards the B.M.A.,
M.M.A., and D.M.A. degrees that she received from The Juilliard School. Dr.
Salas is presently on the faculty of New York University, Long Island
University, the Chamber Music Conference and Composers' Forum of the East, and
Brooklyn College.
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KATE VINCENT
Kate Vincent, originally from Perth, Western Australia, is the Artistic
Director and Violist of the Firebird Ensemble, a Boston-based new music
ensemble. In addition Kate is the Associate Principal Violist of the Boston
Modern Orchestra Project and has performed as both Principal and Associate
Principal violist with numerous groups including Emmanuel Music, Pro Arte
Chamber Orchestra, Opera Boston, Opera Aperta and Opera Unlimited. She was
violist of the Arden Quartet between 1999-2003 and has appeared as a guest
artist with numerous groups including Alea 3, Chameleon Ensemble, the Euclid
Quartet, Windsor Music, Callithumpian Ensemble, and the Benten Trio. Kate has
been featured on BMOP’s Club Café series, Emmanuel Music’s Chamber series, at
the Apple Hill Center for Chamber Music and the Bennington Composers Conference
of the East. As a chamber musician, Kate has performed throughout Australia,
Canada, US, Germany, Holland and Russia. Among other composers, Kate has
premiered chamber and solo works by Luciano Berio, John Harbison, John
MacDonald, Joe Maneri, and has recorded for the Tzadik, New World, Oxingale and
Steeplechase labels. In addition to performing in summer festivals throughout
the US and Canada, Kate has spent the last two summers traveling through
Central Asia photographing traditional musicians. Kate graduated from the New
England Conservatory of Music in 2001 where she studied with James Dunham and
Lenny Matcynzski. She holds Masters degrees in both viola performance and music
education.
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KATHRYN VOTAPEK
As a member of the Chester String Quartet since 1990, Kathryn
Votapek has performed throughout the country, as well as in Europe,
Canada, and Central America.
She has participated in numerous commissioning projects and premieres
and can be heard on the Koch, New Albion, and Audio Ideas labels. Ms.
Votapek also maintains an active career as soloist and as guest artist
at chamber music festivals in the U.S. and Canada. She has been on the
faculty of the Interlochen Arts Camp, the Madeline Island Music Camp,
the Las Vegas Music Festival, the Adriatic Chamber Music Festival
(Italy), and the International Deia Festival (Spain). She was Associate
Professor of Violin at Indiana University South Bend.
Ms. Votapek received her Bachelor and Master of Music degrees at
Indiana University and the Juilliard School. Her teachers were Robert
Mann, Franco Gulli, and Angel Reyes.
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LISA WHITFIELD
Lisa Whitfield is an active orchestral and chamber musician in the NYC
metropolitan area, having also performed as a vocalist and improvising violist.
She especially enjoys performing new works for the viola, either alone or with
unusual combinations (such as percussion); in 2003 she premiered Siddhartha’s
Dreams, written for her by composer Louis Fujinami Conti, and also performed
composer Keith Fitch’s Todestanzen. Ms. Whitfield has appeared with such
varied artists as Ray Charles, Shirley Horn, David Murray of the World Saxophone
Quartet, the Indigo Girls, and Sir Elton John. In 2005, Ms. Whitfield performed
with the Merce Cunningham Dance Company in the Lincoln Center production of Ocean, a Merce Cunningham/John Cage collaboration. She has also performed in
the orchestras of the Radio City Christmas Spectacular and Broadway productions
of Tommy, Big, Frogs, and Victor/Victoria; additionally she has performed with
the Orchestra of St. Luke’s, Philharmonic Orchestra of NJ, Connecticut Grand
Opera, and the Greenwich Symphony.
Ms. Whitfield is on the Solfege faculty of the Juilliard Pre-College, as well
as the faculty of the Chamber Music Conference and Composers’ Forum of the East,
where she currently serves as a faculty representative to the board of
directors. She is privileged to sit on the music panel of the NY State Council
on the Arts and she has taught at the Third Street Music School Settlement for
nearly twelve years.
In her spare time, Ms. Whitfield is the mother of two budding musicians, one
of whom studies violin at Third Street. She holds degrees from Oberlin
Conservatory and The Juilliard School and counts among her teachers Karen
Tuttle, Jeffrey Irvine, and Lynne Ramsey.
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Violin/Viola
MASAKO YANAGITA
Masako Yanagita began her violin studies in Tokyo at age six with Eijin Tanaka,
continuing there with Louis Graeler of the Kroll Quartet. In 1966 she was
awarded a Fulbright Scholarship and a J.D. Rockefeller III Grant, enabling her
to come to the U.S. to study with William Kroll at the Mannes College of Music
in New York. She was awarded the Silverstein Prize as leading violinist at the
Berkshire Music Center (Tanglewood) during her first summer in the US, while
studying there on a scholarship given by Jascha Heifetz. Subsequently, she won
top honors in a number of competitions, including the Paganini Competition
(Genoa), the Carl Flesch Competition (London) and the Munich International
Competition. She continues to perform in many festivals including Mostly Mozart,
Grand Canyon, Mohawk Trail Concerts and Caramoor. She is a member of the faculty
of Mannes College, Greenwood Chamber Music Camp (MA), the Princeton (NJ) Play
Week and the Chamber Music Conference at Bennington (VT) College. She appears
regularly in concerts with numerous colleagues as well as with her
pianist-husband, Abba Bogin. Their most recent CD recordings include the entire
repertoire for violin/viola and piano of Franz Schubert.
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Cello
NANCY BAUN
Cellist Nancy Baun has appeared as soloist with over a dozen orchestras
throughout her home state of Pennsylvania. She has won awards and
festival fellowships including to the Bach Aria Institute and the Aspen
Music Festival. As a chamber musician, she has performed across the
United States including three appearances at Carnegie's Weill Hall, the
Icelandic New Music Festival, and the Banff Centre for the Arts, and she
appears on recordings issued under the Naxos International and Catalpa
Classics labels. Producer of a Chamber Music America/WQXR award winning
record, Ms. Baun is also an arts and recording consultant - her clients
include The JoAnn Falletta International Guitar Competition, Cultural
Tourism at The Center for Regional Growth, numerous soloists,
conductors, and academic residencies, and currently a web based
classical music initiative.
Currently a member of the Ravel Trio, acclaimed by the Baltimore Sun
for an “ardent performance” in a recent review, Nancy’s love of chamber
music continues to be very active. The Ravel Trio has a wide range of
concert offerings and concentrates its playing along the East Coast as
well as annual appearances in Switzerland. The Ravel Trio also tours
with the Unsilenced Voices Project, a Pennsylvania Arts on Tour roster
program interweaving live chamber music with dance and poetry.
A life long educator, she offers workshops through the Young
Audiences of Western New York, and presents an art and classical music
improv program performed at art museums. Past faculty member of
Dickinson College, she now enjoys a private studio in Buffalo and serves
as faculty at summer festivals in Pennsylvania, New York, and Vermont.
Nancy resides in Buffalo with saxophonist Steve Rosenthal and their son
Max.
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MICHAEL FINCKEL
Cellist Michael Finckel is a founding member of the Cabrini Quartet and
performs regularly as a member of the Brooklyn Philharmonic and as a soloist and
chamber musician throughout the United States. He has been a member of the Ysaye
Quartet, the Eberli and Omega Ensembles and the Sextet Project and performs with
members of his family in the renowned Finckel Cello Quartet. His interest in
contemporary music has involved him in concerts with many of New York’s leading
new music ensembles including Speculum Musicae, Ensemble Sospeso, The Group for
Contemporary Music, The Contemporary Chamber Ensemble, Steve Reich and
Musicians, the SEM Ensemble, and the American Composer’s Orchestra. In the 1970s
he collaborated with Pierre Boulez in several of the New York Philharmonic's
"Rug Series" Concerts series. He is presently Music Director of the Sage City
Symphony in Bennington, Vermont, and oversees the orchestra’s extensive
commissioning program. Currently on the faculty of the Hoff-Barthelson Music
School in Scarsdale, New York, he has taught cello and chamber music at Cornell
and Princeton Universities and at Bennington College in Vermont. He is director
of the Kinhaven Adult Chamber Music Workshop in Weston, Vermont, is a performing
faculty member at the Composers Conference and Chamber Music Center at Wellesley
College in Massachusetts. He has recorded for the Dorian, Opus One, New World,
CRI, Vanguard, Vox/Candide and ECM/Warner Bros. labels.
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KERMIT MOORE
Kermit Moore is a cellist, conductor, and composer based in New York City.
As a cellist, Moore has performed throughout the United States and has been
heard with major European orchestras such as the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande,
the Concertgebouw of Amsterdam, the National Radio Symphony of Paris, and the
Belgium National Orchestra. A champion of contemporary music, particularly
American contemporary music, he has given recitals of modern music at Lincoln
Center, at Carnegie Recital Hall, and at universities throughout the United
States and Europe. As a composer, Moore has authored solo works for cello,
compositions for orchestra, a flute sonata, a timpani concerto, and two string
quartets. He also was a founder of the Society of Black Composers. He composed
the film score for a documentary on Ralph Bunche for PBS and also composed the
score for the made-for-television movie Solomon Northrup's Odyssey for
HBO. Moore makes frequent guest appearances as a conductor with symphony
orchestras around the world, including the Detroit Symphony, the Brooklyn
Philharmonic, and the Berkeley (CA) Symphony, as well as his own chamber
orchestra, Classical Heritage Ensemble. He performs and teaches at the Chamber
Music Conference of the East in Bennington (VT) and appears frequently at music
festivals across the United States.
Born in Akron, Ohio, Moore has an honors graduate of the Cleveland Institute
of Music and New York University. He was a pupil of Felix Salmond at the
Juilliard School and of Paul Bazelaire at the Paris Conservatory. His professors
include Georges Enesco, Pierre Pasquier, and Nadia Boulanger. Moore was on the
faculty of the Hartt School at the University of Hartford (CT) for three years.
There he taught the cello and was a member of the String Quartet in residence.
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MAXINE NEUMAN
Cellist Maxine Neuman’s solo and chamber music career spans North America,
South America, Europe, and Japan. A grant recipient from the Rockefeller and
Ford Foundations, and the National Endowment for the Arts, and a two-time Grammy
Award winner, her biography appears in “Who’s Who in the World.” She is a
founding member of the Claremont Duo, the Crescent String Quartet, the Vermont
Cello Quartet, Breve, and the Walden Trio, groups with which she has traveled
and recorded extensively. Her long list of recording credits includes Deutsche
Grammophon, Columbia, Angel, EMI, Nonesuch, Biddulph, CRI, Orion, Leonarda,
Argo, Opus One, SONY/Virgin, AMC, Vanguard, Musical Heritage, Albany,
Northeastern, and CBS World Records. She has appeared as soloist before a
sold-out audience in New York’s Town Hall in the American premiere of Giovanni
Battista Viotti’s only cello concerto, and for Austrophon, she recorded the
Schumann Cello Concerto in Count Esterhazy’s historic palace in Austria. She can
also be heard in such diverse settings as the Montreux Jazz Festival, the films
of Jim Jarmusch, and with the rock band Metallica. She has expanded the
repertoire for multiple celli, and cello and guitar, by arranging and
transcribing works from every period.
Distinguished as a teacher as well as performer, Ms. Neuman has served as a
judge for numerous international competitions. On the faculty at the New York’s
School for Strings, she has taught at Bennington College, Williams College, and
C.W. Post University. Her cello is a J.B. Guadagnini, dating from 1772.
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Faculty Page
NATHANIEL PARKE
Nathaniel Parke is a member of the Bennington String Quartet and is
principal cello of the Berkshire Symphony and co-principal cello of the
Berkshire Opera Orchestra. He has also been a member of the Boston
Composers String Quartet with whom he can be heard performing new works
by Boston composers on the MMC label. He is currently artist associate
in cello at Williams College, intructor of cello at Bennington College
and is a part-time lecturer at SUNY Albany in addition to maintaining a
studio of private students. He has served as a faculty member and
chamber music coach at the Longy School of Music, Skidmore College and
is currently on the faculty of the Chamber Music Conference and
Composer's Forum of the East. As a soloist, he has been heard with the
Wellesley, Berkshire and Sage City Symphonies. His free-lance work in
the Albany, N.Y. and Boston areas ranges from period instrument
performances to premieres of new works. He can be heard on Albany
records performing solo cello music by Ileana Perez-Velasquez. He
received his training at the Longy School of Music studying with George
Neikrug, and in London with William Pleeth. He holds an MFA from
Bennington College where he studied with Maxine Neuman. Mr. Parke
performs on an instrument made in 1721 by C.G. Testore.
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Faculty Page
LUTZ RATH
Born in Germany, cellist Lutz Rath is heard regularly with the Orchestra of
St. Luke’s and performs in solo and chamber music recitals. Over the years he
has been a regular performer in the Washington Square Music Festival, of which
he is currently music director. For the last 17 years he has participated in the
Chamber Music Conference of the East at Bennington College. Mr. Rath has been a
member of the Munich Philharmonic Orchestra and for 10 years was the cellist of
the International String Quartet, which won Grand Prix in the International
Chamber Music Competition, Evian, France. While with the Quartet, he toured
Europe, Asia, South America, and the US regularly, and recorded internationally.
From 1996 to 2000 Rath was the cellist of the Elysium Quartet and toured the USA
and Greece, recording with Lucas Foss and Stanley Drucker on the Elysium label.
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ASHIMA SCRIPP
Cellist Ashima Scripp has performed with orchestras, ensembles and
in recital in major concert halls around the world including New York's
Carnegie Hall, Tokyo’s Opera City, Boston's Symphony Hall, Chicago's
Symphony Center and Boston's Jordan Hall. Ms. Scripp has received top
prizes and distinctions at many prestigious competitions and has also
recently been featured on Los Angeles' KMozart, Boston's WGBH, Chicago’s
WFMT and in the Pioneer Press.
A sought-after chamber musician, Ms. Scripp is a member
of the critically acclaimed Walden Chamber Players based in Boston, MA.
With Walden, she performs a variety of chamber music repertoire at some
of the most distinguished series in the country. In addition to their
touring schedule, Walden Chamber Players also present outreach and
education programs across the country and hold the position of
Ensemble-in-Residence at several institutions including the
Massachusetts Academy of Math and Science, Concord Academy (MA) and
Trinity University (TX).
Ms. Scripp also performs in recital and as a member of
the Zefira Trio at venues across the country. In past seasons Ms. Scripp
has been invited to perform at the Phillips Collection’s Sunday Concert
Series, at the Faculty Performing Artist Recital Series at Longy School
of Music and as part of the live recital series run by Chicago’s WFMT.
In the summer Ms. Scripp serves on the faculty of the International
Music Festival in Regensburg, Germany and is co-director of Longy’s
Cellobration Festival. She is also a frequent guest artist with the
North Country Chamber Players in Franconia, NH, VentiCordi in Kennebunk,
ME and the New Hampshire Music Festival.
Ms. Scripp holds degrees from the Manhattan School of
Music and Northwestern University and is on the cello and chamber music
faculty of the Longy School of Music and Concord Academy in
Massachusetts. She has recently released a recording with jazz
pianist/composer Claire Ritter on Zoning Records and a recording of the
chamber music of Augusta Read Thomas with the Walden Chamber Players.
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JAMES WILSON
Cellist James Wilson performs throughout the world and is noted for his singing tone and intelligent but soulful approach to music. The Los Angeles Times has described him as a musician "with something to say and a commanding way of saying it," and he has appeared at Lincoln Center, Carnegie Hall, Kennedy Center, Casals Hall in Tokyo, and the Sydney Opera House, and at diverse music festivals that include those in Hong Kong, London, Bavaria, New York and Aspen. Wilson has collaborated with artists such as violinist Joshua Bell, flutist Eugenia Zukerman, pianist Christopher O'Riley, guitarist Eliot Fisk, actress Claire Bloom, and the Tokyo String Quartet, as well as with ensembles that include the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, the Richardson Chamber Players, the Music of the Spheres Society, and the Alliance Players. A former member of the Shanghai and Chester String Quartets, he recorded and toured extensively worldwide with both groups and is heard on the Delos and Music Masters labels. A champion of musical works from all periods, Mr. Wilson performs on Baroque as well as modern cello in repertoire ranging from the seventeenth century to new works written especially for him. He has served on the faculties of Princeton University, the University of Richmond, and Virginia Commonwealth University and is currently the Artistic Director of the Richmond Festival of Music (VA) and on the faculty at Columbia University.
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Double Bass
LEWIS PAER
Lewis Paer graduated from the Manhattan School of Music 1975. His studies
included associations with David Walter, Robert Brennand, Orin O'Brien, Robert
Gladstone and Jon Deak. He attended the Aspen Music Festival, playing under
Sergiu Comissiona, and participated in the New School's Christmas String
Seminar with Alexander and Sasha Schneider in 1978-9.
Lewis was a guest of the Detroit Symphony under Antal Dorati in 1982 and
served as the Assistant Principal Bass of the Phoenix Symphony under Theo
Alcantara from 1985-1988. He was Principal of the Long Island Philharmonic under
Christopher Keen from 1981-1985, and has been a guest player with the bass
sections of The New York Philharmonic and the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra. He
also has appeared with many contemporary music ensembles, including the Erik
Hawkins Dance Company, L'Ensemble of Temple University, The Philadelphia
Composers Forum, and the Steve Reich Ensemble, in whose original recordings
Lewis is included. Lewis has been a member of the Orchestra of St. Luke's since
1980, and has been a guest of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center as
well. He can be heard on many of their recordings on the Deutsche Grammophon,
ECM, Vox Candide, Sony and Nonesuch labels. Lewis' recording of Henry Brant's
bass concerto. which he commissioned, was premiered at the Chamber Music
Conference of the East in 1987, and was recorded with the American Camerata.
Lewis coached and performed in Japan, at the Affinis Seminar from 1990-1993,
and he has been a member of the Faculty of the Chamber Music Conference of the
East at Bennington College since 1981. Since 1981, Lewis has been a member of
the orchestra for American Ballet Theater, and since 1988 has been a member of
the New York City Opera Orchestra. He is the Principal Bass of both orchestras.
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Flute
SUE ANN KAHN
Sue Ann Kahn is acclaimed for her virtuosic and sensitive performances of
music of all styles. She was honored with one of the first Solo Recitalist
Fellowships from the National Endowment of the Arts in recognition of her
outstanding gifts as a flutist and received the American New Music Consortium
Award for distinguished performances of contemporary music. She won the coveted
Walter W. Naumburg Chamber Music Award as a member of the Jubal Trio, and she
performs with the Trio, the League-ISCM Chamber Players, and other ensembles in
major concert halls throughout the United States. Kahn presents recitals of
unusual interest with pianist and fortepianist Andrew Willis, and has received
consistent critical acclaim for her recordings for CRI, MMG, Vox-Candide, New
World, and Albany.
Active in the National Flute Association, Kahn is now President. She teaches
flute and chamber music at the Mannes College of Music, at New York University,
and in the Music Performance Program at Columbia University, and gives
master classes nationwide. She has performed and coached chamber music at the
Chamber Music Conference of the East for the past twenty-four summers.
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ERIN LESSER
Flutist Erin Lesser has performed as soloist and chamber musician
throughout Canada, Europe and the USA. Ms. Lesser is actively involved
in the contemporary music world, having worked with composers such as
Pierre Boulez, George Crumb, Mario Davidovsky, Tristan Murail, and Steve
Mackey. She has performed for Wet Ink Musics, Composer's Concordance,
and the Sounds French Festival, and has given the American premieres of
works by Tristan Murail, Philippe Hurel and Heinz Holliger. Ms. Lesser
has also appeared with the H.T. Chen Dance Company, the New York Vocal
Arts Ensemble, the SEM Ensemble and the Bronx Chamber and Opera
Orchestras. In 2004, Erin was a featured "rising star" for Classic
Chamber Concerts in Naples, Fl. This year she will return to play with
members of the Philadelphia Piano Quartet.
Erin is a member of the Argento Chamber Ensemble, who
performed at the NY Microtonal Festival in 2002 and 2003, and the
International Spectral Music Conference in Istanbul, 2003. Their first
CD (music by Tristan Murail) will be released by the AEON label in 2005.
Ms. Lesser also performs in the flute/percussion duo Due East. They have
appeared at Percussive Arts Society events in Tennessee and Ohio ,the
21st Century Schizoid Music Series in New York City, Music at Concordia
and the Columbia Composers Series.
Ms. Lesser has participated in numerous summer festivals
including the Woodwind Residency at the Banff Centre for the Arts, the
East-West International Music Academy in Altenburg, Germany, and the
Norfolk Chamber Music Festival. In 2002 and 2003, she attended the
Yellow Barn Festival. Erin also performed with Linda Chesis and the
Borromeo String Quartet at the Cooperstown Chamber Music Festival.
During the fall of 2002, Erin returned to the Banff Centre for the Arts,
this time as a long-term Artist-in Residence.
Born in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Erin was the recipient of
the National Arts Centre Orchestra of Canada scholarship for 1999/2000,
and won first prize at the Canadian Music Competition in 1999. Her
performances have been broadcast on CBC's French radio's "Jeunes
Artistes" series and New York's WQXR. Ms. Lesser studied with Robert
Cram at the University of Ottawa where she received her Bachelor of
Music Degree (summa cum laude) in 1999. In 2001, she received her Master
of Music Degree from the Manhattan School of Music, where she was a
student of Linda Chesis.
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Oboe
JACQUELINE LECLAIR
Oboist Jacqueline Leclair, one of the United States' foremost interpreters
of new music, resides in New York City and is a member of Alarm Will Sound and
Sequitur. She can frequently be heard performing with other New York City
ensembles such as Sospeso, Ensemble 21 and Carnegie Hall's Zankel Band.
Ms. Leclair specializes in the study and performance of new music. She has
premiered many works, and she regularly presents classes in contemporary music
and its techniques at schools such as UCLA, the Eastman School of Music, Brigham
Young University, The North Carolina School for the Arts and University of
California San Diego. She is faculty at Montclair State University, Hofstra
University and Mannes College.
Ms. Leclair has recorded for labels such as Nonesuch, CRI, Koch, Neuma, and
CBS Masterworks, receiving critical acclaim in particular for her premiere
recording of Roger Reynolds' Summer Island. Luciano Berio's Sequenza
VII Supplementary Edition by Jacqueline Leclair is published by Universal
Edition, Vienna, and Ms. Leclair's recording of the piece is on the 2006 Mode
collection of all the Sequenzas.
Ms. Leclair studied with Richard Killmer and Ronald Roseman at the Eastman
School of Music of the University of Rochester and SUNY Stony Brook, earning a
Bachelor of Music, Performer's Certificate, Masters Degree and Doctorate of
Musical Arts.
The New York Times has reviewed Ms. Leclair's performances as "astonishing"
and as having "electrifying agility," and the New Yorker has referred to Ms.
Leclair as "lively" and "wonderful."
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MATT SULLIVAN
Matt Sullivan has performed extensively on four continents and is recognized
internationally as both a virtuoso performer and teacher, as well as an
important advocate for the modern oboe. The New York Times has praised
his "gorgeously lyrical playing" and the New Yorker has called his
inventive programming the "cutting edge".
As composer, his innovative works created for oboe, English horn
and digital horn, along with his solo and chamber music performances and compact
discs, have been featured on National Public Radio and on Voice of America. In
addition to his active teaching and solo recital schedule, he is a member of
Musicians Accord, the Richardson Chamber Players (Princeton University), First
Avenue, and Quintet of the Americas. He serves on the faculties of Long Island
University C. W. Post, the Manhattan School of Music Prep Division, Rutgers
University, New York University and he teaches oboe at Princeton University
where serves as an Associate Professor.
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KEVE WILSON
Keve Wilson is originally from the Hudson Valley in upstate New York.
She received her Bachelor’s of Music degree from the Eastman School of
Music, where she studied oboe with Richard Killmer, piano with Patricia
Arden, and dance with Elizabeth Clark. She attended the Manhattan School
of Music for her Master’s degree, which was cut short when she was
offered a job with Quintet of the Americas, quintet-in-residence at
Northwestern University. In 1997, she was a winner of the Concert
Artists Guild competition in New York, and as a result obtained
management for three years with yet another quintet, Meliora Winds. The
quintet played Carnegie Hall in 1999 and performed on NPR’s “Performance
Today” and St. Paul Sunday Morning radio programs, and toured throughout
the United States. The award-winning quintet spent two summers
performing in Argentina and seven summers teaching high school musicians
at the American Festival for the Arts in Houston.
While living in New York City, Keve subbed in the pits
of four Broadway shows: Cats, Ragtime, Les Miserables,
Jekyll & Hyde, and the National Tour of Disney’s Beauty and
the Beast. She also created and/or hosted children’s music programs
for the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center and the Caramoor Center
to critical acclaim. In 2001, Keve moved out west to Los Angeles where
she was on the oboe faculty of the Pasadena Conservatory and taught
piano for the Heart of Los Angeles (HOLA) Foundation. Keve played oboe
on numerous TV commercials and independent films, including the film
soundtrack for the blockbuster Spiderman 3 for Sony Pictures.
Some of her highlights performing in Los Angeles include touring with
Ian Anderson of Jethro Tull, playing the World Premier of Peter
Schickele’s oboe quartet “After Hearing Bach”, co-founding the unique
performance series, Project Accidental, and most recently, playing with
lead singer of Styx, Dennis DeYoung.
As principal oboist of the Grammy-nominated group,
Kristjan Järvi’s Absolute Ensemble, Keve has performed in Italy,
Germany, Austria, England, Estonia, Finland, New Zealand, and much of
the United States. Keve can be heard on the group's many recordings:
“Absolution”, “Habanera” with Paquito D’Rivera, “Absolute Mix”, and as a
soloist on “Arcanum”. Soon to be released is the Zawinul collaboration,
with both recorded and live performances. She spends each September in
residence at the Bremen Music Festival in northern Germany.
She was a fellow at the Tanglewood Music Center in 1993,
and has taught master classes at Eastman School of Music, Northwestern
University, The Chautauqua Institute, University of Wisconsin, The
Bermuda Festival, among others. Keve also toured Europe as a dancer in
the Bernstein musical, “On the Town” in 1994.
Keve lived for the past two years in Breckenridge, CO
where her husband Kerry Farrell was the Executive Director of the
National Repertory Orchestra, and they hosted a radio show “A Couple of
Musicians” on Mountain Public Radio. They moved to New York in
mid-September to begin the next chapter of their lives with their
Portuguese water dogs, Stella, and Bolo.
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Clarinet
ARMAND AMBROSINI
Armand Ambrosini appears as recitalist, chamber musician and teacher
throughout the United States. He has been an Artist-in Residence at the Sequoia
Chamber Music Workshop, Arcata, California since 1991, the Humboldt State
University Adult Chamber Music Workshop, Arcata, California since 2004, the
Ashland Chamber Music Workshop, Ashland, Oregon since 1995, and the Chamber
Music Conference and Composer’s Forum of the East since 2000. He has served as principal clarinetist with the
Philharmonia Virtuosi, Stamford, Bridgeport, and New Haven Symphonies; and the
New York String Orchestra, under Alexander Schneider, in a special performance
at Carnegie Hall. He is a founding member of the Cordier Chamber Ensemble, which
has commissioned several new compositions and toured extensively throughout the
east coast, performing at Symphony Space and the Kitchen Center for Video, Music
and Dance, New York City; the Washington Project for the Arts, Washington, D.C.;
the Center for Chamber Music, Troy, New York; and Carnegie Recital Hall, under
the auspices of a Martha Baird Rockefeller Grant.
He has served on the faculty at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Humboldt
State University, and several music festivals, where he has taught award-winning
students from the United States and abroad. He is the recipient of many scholarships and awards, and holds a BFA
and MFA degree from California Institute of the Arts, a MM degree from Yale
University, and a DMA degree from the State University of New York at Stony
Brook.
In addition to an active performance schedule, he currently serves on the
faculty at the University of Oklahoma. The release of his first book and
accompanying CD, Ned Rorem’s Song Cycle Ariel: A Musical Dramatization of Five
Poems by Sylvia Plath, in December 2001 has
received high praise from Ned Rorem and is being sold on the Internet through amazon.com/books. He has co-authored a music textbook entitled Introduction to
Western Concert Music, packaged with four Sony CDs.
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MICHAEL DUMOUCHEL (on sabbatical;
attending as Guest Faculty)
A graduate of the Eastman School of Music, clarinetist Michael Dumouchel has
studied with Stanley Hasty, Robert Marcellus, and Harold Wright. Currently, Mr.
Dumouchel holds the posts of solo E-flat clarinet and second B-flat clarinet
with the Montreal Symphony Orchestra - posts he has held for more than 30 years.
As a chamber musician, Mr. Dumouchel has been performed with Musica Camerata
Montreal for the past 25 years. Mr. Dumouchel also teaches clarinet at McGill
University. He has recorded on London/Decca, Centredisc CBC, DGG, and CRI.
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DIANE HEFFNER
Diane Heffner is an active freelance clarinetist and teacher on both
modern and historical instruments. She also performs regularly with
Boston Baroque, Handel & Haydn Society, Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra
(San Francisco), the classical wind quartet “Killing Frost,” and has
appeared with The American Classical Orchestra (Connecticut), Rebel
Baroque Orchestra, Musicians of the Old Post Road, Chicago Opera
Theatre, the Classical Arts Orchestra (Chicago), the Dayton Bach
Society, Portland Baroque Orchestra (Oregon), the Connecticut Early
Music Festival, the Boston Early Music Festival, and the American Bach
Soloists (California). She has recorded with many of these ensembles on
the Telarc, Erato, Harmonia Mundi, Cedille, CRI, Arabesque, GM, Koch,
and Troy record labels. In April 2005, Ms. Heffner performed the Mozart
Clarinet Concerto on period basset clarinet at Dartmouth College with
Arcadia Players.
On modern clarinet, she is a founding member of Dinosaur
Annex Music Ensemble, and appears regularly with Alea III, Emmanuel
Music, Prism Opera, and has appeared with Boston Musica Viva, the
Vermont Symphony, and various other freelance ensembles. With her
jazz/blues/rock trio, Absolute Groove, Ms. Heffner blows her tenor sax
and clarinet at parties, weddings, and outdoor festivals.
Ms. Heffner is on the applied faculty at Tufts
University and the All-Newton Music School, where she enjoys jamming to
the blues with her sax students as well as shaping phrases of Mozart
with her clarinet students. She received both BM and MM degrees with
honors from the New England Conservatory where she studied clarinet with
Joseph Allard and chamber music with Rudolph Kolisch and Leonard Shure.
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MEIGHAN STOOPS
Clarinetist Meighan Stoops has distinguished herself in the
classical and new-music realms as a solo, chamber, and orchestral
performer. Recent highlights include: a Chamber Orchestra of Europe
performance for Mostly Mozart of Ligeti’s Chamber Concerto under Pierre-
Laurent Aimard, the premiere of Gunther Schuller’s Three Little
Expressions (Homage to Brahms), a Glass Farm Ensemble tour of
Switzerland, and Chinary Ung cd for Bridge Records with the Naumburg
Award–winning Da Capo Chamber Players, currently in residence at Bard
College and Conservatory (www.da-capo.org). A Da Capo member since 2002,
Stoops has appeared at the Moscow Forum and Autumn festivals; St.
Petersburg Sound Ways festival; the Fischer Center at Bard College;
Merkin Hall; the Knitting Factory, and other venues. Recent New York
Times reviews praised her "vibrant, richly shaded" solo performance of
Mario Davidovsky's Synchronisms No. 12, her “star turn" in Joan
Tower's Wings, and her “impressive agility and a supple sound on
bass clarinet” in Schuller’s Three Little Expressions. She holds
degrees from Northwestern and Yale, and is pursuing her doctorate at
SUNY Stony Brook.
Ms. Stoops routinely plays with several tri-state
orchestras, including Brooklyn Philharmonic, American Composers
Orchestra, New Haven, Westfield, Colonial and Princeton symphonies, and
teaches clarinet and piano privately and at the Rudolf Steiner School in
New York City. She has recorded for Bridge, CRI, Naxos, Albany, and
Chesky Records (Grammy nominated Area 31), Martin Bresnick’s soundtrack
for the PBS documentary Muhammed: Legacy of a Prophet, Richard
Carrick’s accompaniment for Nancy Kiang’s short film Solidarity,
and as soloist in Jeff Grace’s score for Glen McQuaid’s feature length
“zomcom” I Sell the Dead. Stoops is a founding member of the
American Modern Ensemble and Walden School Players, and can be heard
with Gotham Sinfonietta, Wet Ink, the Talea Ensemble, the Washington
Square Chamber Music Society, the Colorado and Cassatt quartets,
Sequitur, ISCM, Newband, Ensemble Sospeso, and Sylvan Winds. She had the
great honor of performing with Quintet of the Americas for the second
commemorative ceremony of September 11th at ground zero.
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Bassoon
PETER KOLKAY
A gifted performer who consistently displays both extraordinary musicality and virtuosic artistry, Peter Kolkay was awarded First Prize at the 2002 Concert Artists Guild International Competition, making him the first solo bassoonist ever to be so honored in the 51 years since the inception of the CAG Competition. Having quickly earned a reputation as one of the most outstanding musicians of his generation, Mr. Kolkay was recognized in May 2004 as the first artist on his instrument to be awarded the prestigious Avery Fisher Career Grant.
Mr. Kolkay's current itinerary is a well balanced mix of recital, concerto and chamber music engagements, in addition to a variety of educational activities. Highlights of Mr. Kolkay's 2004-05 season included a special quintet version of "Peter and the Wolf" at New York's 92nd Street Y, recitals presented by Chicago's Dame Myra Hess Memorial Concert Series, and the Munson-Williams-Proctor Arts Institute in Utica, NY, as well as a guest appearance on The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center's CMS Two residency program and a tour of the west coast with the chamber ensemble Concertante.
Also, Mr. Kolkay will gave the world premiere performances of Concerto for Two Bassoons and Orchestra, written by American composer and recent Rome Prize recipient Harold Meltzer, with the San Francisco Chamber Orchestra and bassoonist Rufus Oliver under the direction of Ben Simon. This piece was commissioned by CAG to encourage orchestras internationally to feature Mr. Kolkay as a guest soloist in collaboration with their principal bassoonists. The San Francisco Chamber Orchestra joined in partnership with the Brooklyn Friends of Chamber Music and the Westchester Philharmonic as co-commissioners, with the latter two organizations presenting the work in 2005-06.
Mr. Kolkay opened the 2003-2004 season in New York City as a member of the "Zankel Band," a select group of musicians chosen to work with John Adams for the opening of Carnegie Hall's new performance space, Zankel Hall. Other recent featured engagements include concerto performances with the Rochester Symphony (at the Bravo! Vail Valley Music Festival) and the Green Bay Symphony, collaborative concerts at the Bravo! Vail Valley Music Festival and the Bridgehampton, Cooperstown, and Newport Chamber Music Festivals, as well as concerts with the chamber ensemble (and fellow CAG Competition First Prize Winners) Antares at Wesleyan University and Market Square Concerts, and his New York recital debut on the CAG series at Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall.
Mr. Kolkay's recording of Carter's Au Quai (for bassoon and viola, featuring Maureen Gallagher) was recently released by Bridge Records as part of a critically acclaimed CD of the composer's chamber music. His performances have been broadcast on National Public Radio's Performance Today and on New York's WQXR-FM, and on July 4, 2004, he appeared nationally on A & E's "Breakfast with the Arts," hosted by Elliott Forrest.
Peter Kolkay has appeared as guest soloist with numerous orchestras, including the Rochester Philharmonic, Green Bay Symphony, Flint Symphony, Lawrence Symphony, Southwest Michigan Symphony, Wartburg Symphony, Bay View Festival Orchestra, the Musica Nova Ensemble at Eastman, and the Eastman School Symphony Orchestra. Having performed recently as a guest member of the renowned Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, he is currently a member of the Wheeling Symphony and the IRIS Chamber Orchestra, and he has also played with orchestras in Rochester, New Haven, and Mexico City.
Mr. Kolkay is an avid performer of contemporary chamber music, and has recently appeared as a collaborative artist as part of the Stefan Wolpe Centennial celebration, on the American Composer's Alliance series at Christ & St. Stephen's Church in New York City. He is also an advocate of Elliott Carter's music, having included both a World premiere (Retracing for solo bassoon) and a New York premiere (Au Quai for bassoon and viola) on his New York recital debut program at Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall, and, in that same hall, he collaborated recently with pianist Ursula Oppens at in a performance of Carter's Quintet for Piano and Winds as part of special concert celebrating Mr. Carter's distinguished career.
In addition to his First Prize at the 2002 CAG Competition, which included the Victor and Sono Elmaleh Award and numerous performance prizes, Mr. Kolkay's other competition awards include top prizes from the William C. Byrd and WAMSO Competitions.
In August 2002, Peter Kolkay was named Visiting Assistant Professor of Bassoon at West Virginia University. He recently completed his doctoral studies at Yale University with Frank Morelli, and he earned a master's degree from the Eastman School of Music, where he studied with John Hunt and Jean Barr. A native of Naperville, Illinois, Mr. Kolkay also holds a Bachelor's degree from Lawrence University in Appleton, WI.
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LAUREN GOLDSTEIN STUBBS
Lauren Goldstein Stubbs received her Bachelors and Master of Music Degrees from the
Juilliard School. Upon graduating, she became the Principal Bassoonist of the
New Jersey Symphony and the Joffrey Ballet Orchestra. Currently, she is
Principal Bassoonist in the Opera Orchestra of New York, the Riverside Symphony,
and the PDQ Bach Orchestra. She has been co-principal and contra bassoonist in
the American Composers Orchestra since its inception and is the co-principal and
contra bassoonist with the Westchester Philharmonic. A member of the American
Ballet Theatre Orchestra, Lauren also performs with the Brooklyn Philharmonic,
the New York Philharmonic, the San Francisco Ballet, and for twenty five years
was Principal Bassoonist with the Paul Taylor Dance Company. She has performed
extensively as a soloist and chamber performer with the Group for Contemporary
Music, the New Music Consort, Speculum Musicae, the Aspen Chamber Orchestra,
Parnassus, and the Contemporary Chamber Ensemble.
Ms. Stubbs has been a chamber music coach and performer at the Chamber Music
Conference and Composers’ Forum of the East at Bennington College since 1982.
She has recorded for CBS, Columbia, Vanguard, Telarc, CRI, Musical Heritage, and
Leonarda.
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STEPHEN WALT
Stephen Walt is principal bassoonist with the Albany (NY) Symphony Orchestra
and the Berkshire Bach Ensemble. He is a member of the Avanti Wind Quintet. Mr.
Walt is Artist-Teacher of Bassoon at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst,
where he became a member of the woodwind faculty in 1999, and is Director of
Woodwind Chamber Music at Williams College. As a free-lance musician he has
performed with orchestras, opera companies and chamber music ensembles
throughout the eastern United States, including performances with the Leontovych,
Muir, Shanghai and Borromeo String Quartets. Mr. Walt has been guest artist at
the Monadnock Festival, Musicorda, Music Festival of the Hamptons (NY), and
Music From Greer (AZ) and has appeared on the Mohawk Trail Concerts and
Williamstown Chamber Concerts series. His primary teachers were Sherman Walt and
Arthur Weisberg. He has recorded for CRI, Decca, Gasparo, Nonesuch and Albany
Records. Mr. Walt was founder and Co-Director of Williamstown Chamber Concerts
for nineteen seasons.
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Horn
JOSEPH ANDERER
Joseph Anderer is principal horn and a founding member of St. Luke's Chamber
Ensemble and the Orchestra of St. Luke's. He has also been a member of the
Metropolitan Opera Orchestra's horn section since 1984, when he served as acting
Principal Horn for season 1984-5, and is serving in this capacity once again for
the 2003-4 season. Before joining the Met Orchestra, he was a frequent performer
with the New York Philharmonic for 14 seasons, and participated in many
concerts, recordings and tours in the USA and to over 20 countries in Europe,
Asia, Australia and South America, under such conductors as Leonard Bernstein,
Pierre Boulez, Bernard Haitink, Eugen Jochum, Erich Leinsdorf, Thomas Schippers,
Carlo Maria Giulini, Klaus Tennstedt, and Zubin Mehta.
He was also a member of the Boehm Quintette for many years, and premiered
many works composed for that ensemble, including compositions by Ralph Shapey,
Charles Wuorinen, Ben Weber, Norman Dello Joio, John Lewis, Don Stewart, Lucia
Dlugoszewski and Irwin Bazelon. As soloist, he has appeared with the Orchestra
of St. Luke's in Carnegie Hall and at the Caramoor Festival, Bargemusic, Inc.,
the Mt. Desert Island Festival, the New York Chamber Soloists, the Seacliff
Chamber Players, and many others. He was heard in Schubert's “Auf dem Strom”
with Hermann Prey and James Levine at Herr Prey's last New York recital prior to
his death. He was also soloist in the American premier of Benjamin Britten's
"Now Sleeps the Crimson Petal" at Carnegie Hall with the Orchestra of St.
Luke's. Recent New York performances included the Britten “Serenade” with tenor
Matthew Polenzani and an ensemble from the Met Orchestra conducted by James
Levine.
He holds degrees from the Juilliard School, where he was a student of Ranier
DeIntinis. Orchestral credits include the American Symphony, Brooklyn
Philharmonic, Opera Orchestra of New York, New York Chamber Symphony, New York
Pops, Long Island Philharmonic, Philharmonia Virtuosi, Orpheus and many others,
including the Vienna Philharmonic for about 10 minutes. Mr. Anderer is active in
the recording studio, with a range that encompasses chamber music, countless
operas, symphonic works, solo works, TV commercials and films. He has also
performed for albums by Dawn Upshaw, Billy Joel, Mandy Patinkin, Grover
Washington, Jr., Marcus Roberts, and Tony Bennett & K.D. Lang.
Recordings include Brahms' Trio, Op. 40 with violinist Krista Bennion Feeney
and pianist John Browning, the Beethoven Sextet Opus 81b, and the Hindemith
Sonata for Four Horns (all on the Musical Heritage Society label), Michael
Whalen's “Montana” for horn and 2 harps (Helicon), Hindemith’s Horn Sonata
(Kleos Classics), Irwin Bazelon's Wind Quintet (on CRI, the CD release of a 1977
LP recording), and, most recently, J.S. Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto #1 with St.
Luke’s Chamber Ensemble (St. Luke’s Collection).
Mr. Anderer recently joined the faculty of the Steinhardt School at New York
University.
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DANIEL GRABOIS
Hornist Daniel Grabois is a member of the Meridian Arts Ensemble, a brass
and percussion sextet specializing in the performance of contemporary works. He
has recorded eight CDs with Meridian. A member as well of the Curiously Strong
Winds and of Sequitur, with whom he premiered and recorded David Rakowski’s
“Locking Horns” horn concerto, Grabois also performs frequently throughout New
York and on tour with the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, St. Luke’s Chamber
Orchestra, Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, Metropolitan Opera
Orchestra, and New York City Opera Orchestra. An instructor of French horn at
the Hartt School of Music and at Princeton University, Grabois has also played
with many rock and jazz ensembles including Duran Duran. He lives in New York
with his wife and son.
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Piano
CYNTHIA ADLER
Cynthia Adler, a native New Yorker, began studying at the age of four and
completed her early studies at the Juilliard Preparatory Division. She received
her Bachelors Degree in Art History from Mt. Holyoke College, where she
continued to perform, and returned to The Juilliard School for her Masters
Degree. Her teachers have included Irwin Freundlich, William Masselos, Guido
Agosti and Ernst Oster in Analysis (Schenkerian).
Ms. Adler has appeared as soloist and chamber musician in the United States,
Europe and Israel. Since the mid 1980's she has been based in Tel Aviv and is a
member of The Yarden Ensemble formed in 1991 whose members work both in Israel
and Europe. It is known for finding and performing rarely heard works from the
19th and 20th centuries and has commissioned new music from Israeli and European
composers. Recent performances include concerts in Zurich, Geneva (salle Frank
Martin), The Hindemith Foundation (Blonay), Levin Hall in Tel Aviv, The Henry
Crown Hall in Jerusalem, and festivals at Clermont-Ferrand (France) and Luzerne-Weggis
(Switzerland). The group has recorded for Kol Israel.
Ms. Adler is an active teacher, coach, and lecturer and has helped foster the
development of amateur chamber music study in Israel. She has been a performer
and coach at The Chamber Music Conference (at Bennington) since 1973 and is on
the faculty of The Composer's Forum and Chamber Music Center at Wellesley
College.
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ABBA BOGIN
Abba Bogin is a native New Yorker. He is a graduate of the Curtis Institute of
Music in Philadelphia, where he studied piano with Isabella Vengerova,
orchestration with Gian-Carlo Menotti and Samuel Barber, and conducting with
Alexander Hilsberg. He is a winner of the prestigious Naumburg Award, the
Philadelphia Orchestra Youth Competition and numerous other prizes. Mr. Bogin
has appeared throughout the world, both in recital and as soloist with major
orchestras and conductors, and has recorded extensively. After further
conducting studies with Pierre Monteux, he found himself equally at home on the
podium, and has conducted the Boston Symphony Orchestra, the American Symphony,
the Hudson Valley Symphony, the Queens Symphony Orchestra, the Springfield (MA)
Symphony, Lake George Opera, the New York City Light Opera and numerous
theatrical productions, radio, television, film and record performances. He
continues to perform in many Chamber Music Festivals, including Music Mountain,
L'Ensemble Concerts, Grand Canyon, Mohawk Trail Concerts and the Bennington (VT)
Chamber Music Conference.
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PHILLIP BUSH
See biography above.
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JAMES GOLDSWORTHY
James Goldsworthy has performed in Europe, Israel, Japan, Canada, and the
United States, including broadcasts on Austrian National Television, the
California cable television show Grand Piano, Vermont Public Television,
BBC radio, and Minnesota Public Radio. While a Fulbright scholar in Vienna,
Goldsworthy participated in German Lieder master classes with Hans Hotter
and studied vocal coaching and accompanying with Erik Werba, Walter Moore, and
Roman Ortner. He performed in one of the Musikverein 175th anniversary
celebration concerts given in the Brahms Saal, and concertized in Vienna, Baden,
and Spital am Semmering, Austria. More recently, he performed at the Hôtel de
Ville in Paris, and in Le Sax concert hall in Achère, France, and at the White
House. He has appeared in chamber music concerts including celebrations of
Milton Babbitt at The Juilliard School, Carnegie Recital Hall, and Cooper Union,
James Levine’s Met Chamber Ensemble, and in the Works & Process series at
the Guggenheim Museum. He has accompanied the singers Judith Bettina, Lindsey
Christiansen, Véronique Dubois, Elem Eley, Marion Kilcher, Benjamin Luxon,
Sharon Sweet, and Edith Zitelli in recital, and performed in concerts with
violinists Jorja Fleezanis, Lilo Kantorowicz-Glick, Rolf Schulte, and violist
Jacob Glick. He has premiered works by Milton Babbitt, Christopher Berg, Chester
Biscardi, David Olan, Tobias Picker, Mel Powell, David Rakowski, Cheng Yong
Wang, and Amnon Wolman. Goldsworthy is currently the Director of the New
Works for Young Pianists Commissioning Project. He has taught at Goshen
College, Stanford University, and the University of St. Thomas, and is presently
on the piano faculty at Westminster Choir College of Rider University. His
recordings with Judith Bettina of Chester Biscardi’s The Gift of Life,
David Rakowski’s Three Songs on Poems of Louise Bogan, and songs of Otto
Luening are on CRI label. Most recently, he recorded works written for Judith
Bettina with Bridge Records.
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JUDITH GORDON
Judith Gordon gave her New York-recital debut at the Metropolitan Museum
of Art's Introductions series and in 1996 was named Boston Globe
Musician of the year. She has been presented in recital frequently by
the Boston Celebrity Series and participated in Emmanuel Music's
multi-season series of music by Schubert, Schumann, and Harbison. As
soloist with the Boston Pops she performed Mozart, Saint-Saëns, and
Ravel concertos, and with groups including the Boston Modern Orchestra
Project, the Pro Arte Chamber Orchestra, and the MIT Symphony she has
appeared in repertoire from Bach, Beethoven, and Hindemith to Gorecki,
Harbison, and Hyla.
The wide range of composers with whom she has worked or
who have written music for her includes Martin Brody, Peter Child, Alan
Fletcher, John Harbison, David Horne, Lee Hyla, Libby Larsen, and Peter
Lieberson. She has appeared in concert with artists and ensembles
including vocalists Lisa Saffer, Janice Felty, Lorraine Hunt Lieberson,
William Hite, and James Maddalena; cellists Andres Diaz, Rhonda Rider,
and Yo-Yo Ma; violists James Dunham, Cynthia Phelps, Marcus Thompson,
and Roger Tapping; violinists Rose Mary Harbison and Andrew Kohji
Taylor; oboist Douglas Boyd; Imani Winds; the Jacques Thibaud String
Trio; the Arianna, Borromeo, Lydian, and St. Lawrence string quartets;
the Boston Chamber Music Society, Collage New Music, and Santa Fe New
Music.
She has been an instructor of piano at MIT and served on
the jury at the Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition. Ms. Gordon
performs and teaches at chamber music festivals including Cape Cod and
Rockport (MA), Charlottesville (VA), Innsbrook (Missouri), Portland
(ME), Santa Fe (NM), Spoleto USA (SC), Token Creek (WI), and Music from
Salem (New York), where she is an Artistic Co-Director. She is Assistant
Professor of Music at Smith College.
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STEPHEN MANES
Pianist Stephen Manes is equally distinguished for his formidable technique and
interpretive refinement. A native of Vermont, where he received his early
training with Lionel Nowak, he has appeared numerous times with the Buffalo
Philharmonic Orchestra over the last 35 years and has performed with the
Pittsburgh, National, Detroit, Baltimore and Denver Symphonies and at the Boston
Esplanade, under conductors including Michael Tilson Thomas, Sergiu Comissiona,
Brian Priestman, Neville Marriner, Arthur Fiedler, Christopher Keene, Semyon
Bychkov, and Maximiano Valdes. In 1997 he made his concert debut in Chicago with
the Ars Viva Symphony Orchestra under Alan Heatherington. John von Rhein,
reviewing this concert for the Chicago Tribune wrote about Manes’ “robust and
spontaneous reading of the ‘Emperor’.” He further wrote: “. . . the pianist
brought firm rhythm, a resilient attack and a largeness of vision to Beethoven’s
most brilliant piano concerto.”
Mr. Manes has concertized in most major U.S. cities as well as in such
European centers as London, West Berlin, Amsterdam, the Hague, and Vienna. He is
Professor of Music and former Chair of the Music Department at the University at
Buffalo, where during the 2006-07 season he is presenting, for the third time, the complete cycle of Beethoven Piano
Sonatas in a series of eight recitals. His affinity for chamber music has led to
performances with the Cleveland, Tokyo, Kronos, Rowe, and Cassatt String
Quartets, and to appearances at the Marlboro and Chautauqua Music Festivals. He
is on the faculty of the Chamber Music Conference and Composers' Forum of the
East held each summer on the campus of Bennington College in Vermont, and he is
resident pianist at the Sebago-Long Lake Region Chamber Music Festival in Maine
where he also served as co-Music Director from 1982-85. He is a member of the
Baird Piano Trio in residence at University of Buffalo, which is
giving its second Carnegie (Weil) Hall recital in April, 2007.
A graduate of the Juilliard School, where he was a student of Irwin
Freundlich, Mr. Manes has been a prize winner in the Leventritt, Kosciuszko, and
Michaels Competitions. He has recorded works of Tchaikovsky and Busoni for Orion
Master Recordings and has made frequent radio appearances both in this county
and abroad. With his late wife, pianist Frieda Manes, he performed regularly in
programs of four-hand and two-piano music. Together, they performed
throughout the United States, including Puerto Rico. They recorded the complete
piano four-hand music of Beethoven for Spectrum Records.
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DAVID OEI
David Oei, pianist, was a soloist with the Hong Kong Philharmonic at the age of
nine and has since performed with major orchestras including the New York
Philharmonic, Pittsburgh, and Baltimore Symphonies. Mr. Oei is the winner of
five Interlochen Concerto Competitions and the WQXR, Concert Artists Guild,
Young Musicians Foundation and Paul Ulanowsky Chamber Pianist Awards. He has
made guest appearances with the Audubon Quartet, Claring Chamber Players, Da
Capo Chamber Players, St. Luke's and Orpheus Chamber Ensembles and the Chamber
Music Society of Lincoln Center.
Founding director of the Salon Chamber Soloists and a founding member of the
Aspen Soloists, Festival Chamber Music and the Intimate P.D.Q. Bach he is also
currently a member of the Friends Of Mozart and the Elysium and Ecliptica
Chamber Ensembles besides enjoying a longtime collaboration with violinist Chin
Kim. A former regular participant at Bargemusic and Chamber Music Northwest he
has performed at various festivals including Caramoor, Sitka, Bard, Gretna,
Seattle, Chestnut Hill, Dobbs Ferry, OK Mozart, Washington Square and Kuhmo
(Finland). His television credits include Leonard Bernstein's Young People's
Concerts, CBS News Sunday Morning and the Today Show.. He has recorded a wide
range of chamber works for Delos, ADDA, Vanguard, CRI, Pro Arte, Arabesque,
Grenadilla and New World Records, a recent release being Donald Crockett's piano
quartet Ceiling Of Heaven for Albany Records. Mr. Oei was the Music Director and
Production Advisor for Music-Theatre Group's productions of Stanley Silverman
and Richard Foreman's Africanis Instructus and Love and Science. He was also the
Music Director for the Sundance Theater Workshop production of the
Wallace/Foreman opera Yiddisha Teddy Bears. In the summer of '07 he conducted
the Washington Square Festival Chamber Orchestra in a Gershwin/Weill concert
titled Music as Political Statement. He also recently recorded the Strauss and
Rachmaninoff Sonatas for cello and piano to help launch the Festival Chamber
Music label using CD-60, the Steinway Grand featured in James Barron's
bestseller Piano.
A former affiliated teacher at SUNY Purchase and the Volunteers Coordinator
and Head Coach for Manhattan Special Olympics, Mr. Oei is a faculty member of
Summertrios, Bennington Chamber Music Conference, Hoff-Barthelson Music School
and the Mannes College Of Music Preparatory Division. Mr. Oei lives in New York
City with his wife, violinist Eriko Sato, and their pit bull mix, Jazz.
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ELIZABETH WRIGHT
Elizabeth Wright has performed extensively throughout the United States,
Europe, the USSR, and Japan. She has appeared in recital with many distinguished
artists and was awarded the prize of Outstanding Accompanist at the Fourth
International Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow. Ms. Wright premiered and
recorded many new works, performing in such groups as the American Composers
Orchestra, the Aspen Contemporary Festival and Orpheus. She is principal pianist
with the American Symphony Orchestra and was for many years piano soloist for
both the Martha Graham Dance Company and the Paul Taylor Dance Company. She has
been an artist-teacher for the Lincoln Center Institute and has served on the
faculties of the Mannes College of Music, Bennington College, and Princeton
University. Appearing frequently on PBS, Ms. Wright has recorded on the Gasparo,
Opus One, and CRI labels.
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Composers-in-Residence
GABRIELA LENA FRANK
Identity has always been at the center of Gabriela Lena Frank's
music. Born in Berkeley, California, to a mother of mixed
Peruvian/Chinese ancestry and a father of Lithuanian/Jewish descent,
Frank explores her multicultural heritage most ardently through her
compositions. Inspired by the works of Bela Bartók and Alberto Ginastera,
Frank is something of a musical anthropologist. She has traveled
extensively throughout South America and her pieces reflect and refract
her studies of Latin-American folklore, incorporating poetry, mythology,
and native musical styles into a western classical framework that is
uniquely her own. She writes challenging idiomatic parts for solo
instrumentalists, vocalists, chamber ensembles, and orchestras.
Moreover, she writes, "There's usually a story line behind my music; a
scenario or character." While the enjoyment of her works can be obtained
solely from her music, the composer's program notes enhance the listener's
experience, for they describe how a piano part mimics a marimba or
pan-pipes, or how a movement is based on a particular type of folk song,
where the singer is mockingly crying. Even a brief glance at her titles
evokes specific imagery: Leyendas: An Andean Walkabout; Cuatro
Canciones Andinas; and Ríos Profundos. Frank's compositions also
reflect her virtuosity as a pianist — when not composing, she is a
sought-after performer, specializing in contemporary repertoire.
A 2009 recipient of a prestigious John Simon Guggenheim Memorial
Foundation Fellowship to assist in research and artistic creation, Frank’s
upcoming premieres include a new work for the King’s Singers, a concert
opener for the Huntsville Symphony Orchestra and additional works for
guitarist Sharon Isbin, the Silk Road Ensemble with Yo-Yo Ma, the Chiara
Quartet, and the San Francisco Chamber Orchestra. A frequent collaborator
with artists in other disciplines, Frank is developing a number of
projects with the Pulitzer Prize winning Cuban playwright Nilo Cruz.
Recent premieres include Inca Dances (2008) for Manuel Barrueco
and Cuarteto Latinoamericano which received a Latin Grammy for Best
Classical Contemporary Composition in 2009; New Andean Songs for
the Los Angeles Philharmonic's Green Umbrella new music series; Inca
Dance for guitarist Manuel Barrueco and the Cuarteto Latinoamericano;
Peregrinos for the Indianapolis Symphony; and additional works for
guitarist Sharon Isbin, the Chiara Quartet, the Concertante sextet,
American Portraits? for the Modesto Symphony, and Two Mountain
Songs for a consortium comprising the Young People's Chorus of New
York, the San Francisco Girl's Choir, and the Glen Ellyn Children's Choir.
Having collaborated with a broad range of artists, Frank's other works
include Quijotadas (2007) by the Brentano String Quartet;
Jalapeño Blues (2006) for Chanticleer based on the Spanglish poetry of
renowned Chicano poet Trinidad Sánchez; Compadrazgo (2007), a
double concerto for David Finckel and Wu Han with the ProMusica Orchestra;
La Llorona: Tone Poem for Viola and Orchestra (2007) for the
Houston Symphony with principal Wayne Brooks under the baton of Hans Graf;
Dos Canciones de Cifar (2007) for baritone and piano commissioned
by the Marilyn Horne Foundation with Carnegie Hall; Ritmos Anchinos
(2006) for the Silk Road Project; Cinco Danzas de Chambi (2006) for
viola and piano commissioned by the Aspen Summer Music Festival; Canto
de Harawi (2006) for the Da Camera Society of Houston; Manchay
Tiempo (2005) for the Seattle Symphony under the baton of Jun Märkl;
Inkarrí (2005) for the Kronos Quartet; Illapa: Tone Poem for Flute and
Orchestra (2004) for flautist Leone Buyse and the Shepherd Symphony
Orchestra; and Three Latin-American Dances (2004) for the Utah
Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Keith Lockhart.
Three Latin-American Dances was subsequently recorded by the
Utah Symphony for the Reference Recording Label and has been hailed as
"dazzling" and exhibiting "wit, brilliance, atmosphere, and poetry
(Classics Today), and "a rare treasure of modern orchestral music" (Hong
Kong/China Hi Fi Review). Leyendas: An Andean Walkabout (2001),
performed by its commissioner, the Chiara String Quartet, was released in
early 2007 on the New Voice Singles label. In reference to this recording,
the American Record Guide called Gabriela "a remarkable composer." Recent
recordings include Compadrazgo with soloists David Finckel and Wu
Han with the ProMusica Orchestra; Inca Dance with guitarist Manuel
Barrueco and the Cuarteto Latinoamericano released on the Tonar Music
Label; and several chamber/orchestral works for the Filarmonika label as
part of the groundbreaking Caminos del Inka project under the directorship
of conductor Miguel Harth-Bedoya.
Frank attended Rice University in Houston, Texas, where she earned both
a BA (1994) and MA (1996). She studied composition with Paul Cooper,
Ellsworth Milburn, and Sam Jones, and piano with Jeanne Kierman Fischer.
Frank credits Fischer with introducing her to the music of Ginastera,
Bartók, and other composers who utilized folk elements in their work. At
the University of Michigan, from which she received a DMA in composition
in 2001, Frank studied composition with William Albright, William Bolcom,
Leslie Bassett, and Michael Daugherty, and piano with Logan Skelton.
Gabriela Lena Frank's music is published exclusively by G. Schirmer.
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PIERRE JALBERT
Pierre Jalbert (b. 1967) is one of the most highly regarded American
composers of his generation, earning widespread notice for his richly
colored and superbly crafted scores. Focusing primarily on instrumental
works, Jalbert has developed a musical language that is engaging,
expressive, and deeply personal. Among his many honors are the Rome
Prize, the BBC Masterprize, and most recently, the Chamber Music Society
of Lincoln Center's 2007 Stoeger Award, given biennially "in recognition
of significant contributions to the chamber music repertory."
Born in Manchester, New Hampshire, Jalbert (pronounced "JAL-burt") grew
up in northern Vermont; his family originally came from Quebec. He began
piano lessons at the age of five, immersing himself in the classical
repertoire. Growing up, he also heard French and English folk songs and
Catholic liturgical music, gaining a deep respect for music that
communicates powerfully with an economy of means.
Following undergraduate studies in piano and composition at Oberlin
Conservatory, Jalbert earned a PhD in Composition at the University of
Pennsylvania under principal teacher George Crumb. He won the Rome Prize
in 2000-2001, and earned the BBC Masterprize in 2001 for his orchestral
work In Aeternam, selected from among more than 1,100 scores by a
jury that included Marin Alsop, Sir John Eliot Gardiner, and Sir Charles
Mackerras. In Aeternam has been performed by the London Symphony
Orchestra, the Budapest Symphony, the Seattle Symphony, the California and
Hartford Symphonies, and the Orlando Philharmonic.
Other major works for orchestra include big sky (2005),
commissioned by the Houston Symphony and performed by the ensemble at
Carnegie Hall; Symphonia Sacra (2001), written for the California
Symphony; Chamber Symphony (2004), commissioned by the Los Angeles
Chamber Orchestra, and Fire and Ice (2006), commissioned for the
Oakland East Bay, Marin, and Santa Rosa Symphonies through Meet the
Composer Foundation's Magnum Opus Project.
Jalbert has served as Composer-in-Residence with the Los Angeles
Chamber Orchestra (2002-05), Chicago's Music in the Loft Chamber Music
Series (2003), and the California Symphony (1999-2002). Forthcoming are
works for the Vermont Symphony, conducted by Jaime Laredo in Fall 2008,
and the East Coast Chamber Orchestra, commissioned by the Brooklyn Friends
of Chamber Music.
Jalbert's compositions have been warmly embraced by the chamber music
world as well, with performances by the Borromeo, Chiara, Enso, Jasper,
Maia, and Ying String Quartets, and the violinist Midori. Upcoming chamber
music commissions include pieces for the Emerson String Quartet, the
Escher String Quartet (commissioned by the Caramoor Festival), the duo of
David Finckel and Wu Han, the Janaki String Trio, and the piano/percussion
ensemble Quattro Mani.
Jalbert's music is tonally centered, incorporating modal, tonal, and
sometimes quite dissonant harmonies while retaining a sense of harmonic
motion and arrival. He is particularly noted for his mastery of
instrumental color: in both chamber works and orchestral scores, he
creates timbres that are vivid yet refined. His rhythmic shapes are
cogent, often with an unmistakable sense of underlying pulsation. Driving
rhythms often alternate with slow sections in which time seems to be
suspended.
Although his music is not programmatic, Jalbert has drawn inspiration
from a variety of sources, including natural phenomena. He composed big
sky after visiting Big Bend National Park in Texas, a place of starkly
contrasting mountain, desert, and river environments. In Icefield
Sonnets for string quartet, Jalbert created transparent, glassy
textures in response to poems by Anthony Hawley about life in northern
latitudes. The Baltimore Sun called Icefield Sonnets "fresh
[and] dynamic," praising its "luminous colors and propulsive rhythms."
Jalbert also set Hawley's texts directly in a 2005 song cycle of the same
title, scored for soprano, baritone, and piano trio with percussion.
In Aeternam incorporates a fast, steady pulse that stems from
Jalbert's experience of hearing his son's heartbeat for the first time
during a pre-natal examination. In Aeternam is simultaneously a
memorial for a niece who died at birth and a celebration of his son's
arrival, mixing grief with hope in a compelling reflection on the
fragility of existence. Wrote the San Francisco Chronicle, "The
piece revealed powerful command of the orchestra and a vivid emotional
range. In Aeternam made a listener eager to hear more."
Spiritual concerns are also central to Jalbert's work. Symphonia
Sacra (2001), inspired by the splendor of Roman churches and
cathedrals, incorporates plainchant melodies. Les espaces infinis,
another orchestral score from 2001, is described by the composer as "a
quiet meditation on the nature of time and space." The Los Angeles
Times observed that "the piece, which begins and ends quietly, but
achieves a resonant climax at its center, holds the listener through a
canny blend of instrumental colors and combinations, chromatic but not
dissonant, and ultimately pleasing."
Pierre Jalbert is Associate Professor of Composition and Theory at Rice
University's Shepherd School of Music in Houston, where he has taught
since 1996. His music is published by the Theodore Presser Co.
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PAUL MORAVEC
Paul Moravec, winner of the 2004 Pulitzer Prize in Music, has
composed over one hundred orchestral, chamber, choral, lyric, film, and
electro-acoustic compositions. His music has been described as "tuneful,
ebullient and wonderfully energetic" (San Francisco Chronicle),
"riveting and fascinating" (NPR), and "assured, virtuosic" (Wall
Street Journal). The New York Times recently praised his
quartet, Vince & Jan: 1945, with, "This masterly miniature
conveyed warm nostalgia, buoyant swing and wartime unease."
He is University Professor at Adelphi University and recently also
served as the Artist-in-Residence with the Institute for Advanced Study.
Both positions are unique to their respective institutions.
Mr. Moravec's first opera, The Letter, commissioned by the Santa
Fe Opera, with libretto by Terry Teachout, premieres July 25, and runs
till August 18, 2009. Also in the 2008-9 season, his evening-length
oratorio, The Blizzard Voices, about the Great Plains blizzard of
1888, with text by Ted Kooser, was premiered by Opera Omaha, and his
Brandenburg Gate was premiered by the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra at
Carnegie Hall.
Among Paul Moravec's numerous awards are the Rome Prize Fellowship from
the American Academy in Rome, a Fellowship in Music Composition from the
National Endowment for the Arts, a Rockefeller Foundation Fellowship, a
Camargo Foundation Residency Fellowship, two fellowships from the American
Academy of Arts & Letters, as well as many commissions. A graduate of
Harvard University and Columbia University, he has taught at Harvard,
Columbia, Dartmouth, and Hunter College, as well as Adelphi University.
Mr. Moravec is regularly sought out by leading performing artists and
ensembles. Recent performance highlights include Songs of Love and War
with the Oratorio Society of New York at Carnegie Hall, The Time
Gallery at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC, and Tempest
Fantasy with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. Recent world
premieres include Anniversary Dances with the Ying Quartet;
Atmosfera a Villa Aurelia with the Lark Quartet; Mark Twain Sez
with cellist Matt Haimovitz; Cornopean Airs with the American Brass
Quintet; The Time Gallery with eighth blackbird at the Metropolitan
Museum of Art; Morph with the String Orchestra of New York (SONYC);
Cool Fire and Chamber Symphony for the Bridgehampton Chamber
Music Festival; Capital Unknowns for the Albany Symphony;
Everyone Sang for Troy Cook and the Marilyn Horne Foundation;
Parables for the New York Festival of Song, Vita Brevis, a song
cycle for tenor Paul Sperry; Useful Knowledge, a cantata
commissioned by the American Philosophical Society for Ben Franklin's
tercentenary; No Words, commissioned by Concert Artist Guild for
pianist James Lent and the Gay Gotham Chorus; and two works for the
Elements String Quartet.
Paul Moravec's discography includes Tempest Fantasy, performed
by Trio Solisti with clarinetist David Krakauer, on Naxos American
Classics; The Time Gallery, performed by eighth blackbird also on
Naxos; Cool Fire, with the Bridgehampton Chamber Festival on Naxos;
Songs of Love and War for Chorus and Orchestra on a CD featuring
The Dessoff Choirs & Orchestra; Sonata for Violin and Piano
performed by the Bachmann/Klibonoff Duo for BMG/RCA Red Seal; Double
Action, Evermore, and Ariel Fantasy, performed by the Bachmann/Klibonoff
Duo on an Endeavour Classics CD entitled "The Red Violin."; Atmosfera a
Villa Aurelia and Vince & Jan, performed by the Lark Quartet on
an Endeavour Classics CD entitled "Klap Ur Handz"; Morph, performed
by the String Orchestra of New York on an Albany disc, Spiritdance,
an orchestral work on the Vienna Modern Masters label; an album of chamber
compositions titled Circular Dreams on CRI; and Vita Brevis,
with Paul Sperry, tenor, and the composer at the piano, on Albany Records.
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Guest Faculty
VIRGINIA ANDERER
Biography to be supplied.
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STYRA AVINS
Styra Avins has attended the CMC as Guest Faculty since 1999. A New Yorker,
she earned a B.A. in Social Studies from the City College of New York, then went
on to cello studies at the Juilliard School and a Master of Music degree from
the Manhattan School of Music. As cellist she has played with the Seoul
Symphony, the American Symphony, and the New York City Opera Orchestra, and has
been the cellist of several chamber music groups. For much of her adult life she
has taught cello, including a ten-year appointment to the music faculty of the
United Nations International School.
Avins now divides time between performing and writing. She is
author of Johannes Brahms, Life and Letters (Oxford University Press,
1997) and a chapter contributed to the just-released Performing Brahms (Cambridge University Press, 2003). She is a member of the Queens Symphony in
New York and Adjunct Professor of Music History at Drew University, where she
lectures on a variety of historical topics.
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JOEL BERMAN
See biography above.
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FRANK DAYKIN
Pianist Frank Daykin is equally known as soloist, collaborative pianist, teacher, and writer. He is particularly identified with the French piano and chamber music repertoire, having performed the complete solo piano works of Ravel on Ravel’s own piano at the Ravel house-museum in France. He was the first non-French winner of the Ravel prize in 1983. His 30-year partnership with Millette Alexander in piano-duo performance has produced two award-winning recordings and a host of performances in the US and abroad, always to rave reviews. The Toronto Citizen named them “surely the finest duo in the world today” and the New York Times proclaimed “they make music as one.” He is pianist in the Ambrosia Trio, the Gotham Trio, Music of the Spheres (pianist and artistic advisor), Apollo Muses Festival (NJ, music director for seven years), and he co-founded the Sing! art song recital and master class project. In addition, Mr. Daykin is sought after to adjudicate piano competitions, notably at the Juilliard School, where he taught the “Singer and Accompanist” performance class. Currently, he is on the faculty of the Chamber Music Conference/Composers Forum of the East at Bennington, VT, where his musical discussion-seminars have consistently been the most popular events. He also teaches at the Chamber Music Central summer camp for children in Bridgeport, CT. Daykin is the author of the music blog “Before and After Silence.” He is writing an encyclopedia of classical French song, and has had two volumes of poetry published, numerous selections having been set to music by contemporary composers.
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MICHAEL DUMOUCHEL
See biography above.
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ERIN LESSER
See biography above.
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JEFFREY MEANS
Jeffrey Means has been hailed as a musician demonstrating “outstanding
gifts and accomplishments” by the Boston Globe, and as an “intrepid
conductor, his sure hand seemingly unfazed” by Bruce Hodges for Seen and
Heard International. He is in the midst of a burgeoning career that
encapsulates both a dedication to the best of the Contemporary Era, and
a passion for music of the Common Era.
As a proponent of contemporary music, Means regularly
leads many of Boston’s finest new music ensembles, including the Xanthos
Ensemble, Firebird Ensemble, the Ludovico Ensemble, and the
Callithumpian Consort. He has led numerous world premieres, and has had
the pleasure of working with some of today’s esteemed composers,
including Lee Hyla, the late Donald Martino, Tamar Diesendruck, and Lori
Dobbins. Early in the ‘08/’09 season, Means will conduct the opening
concert of the Ditson Festival of New Music, a four-day festival
showcasing Boston’s premiere new music ensembles. Means has also
frequently led concerts of contemporary music in New York, most recently
at Symphony Space, Roulette, and the Tenri Cultural Institute.
Means has served as assistant or guest conductor for
numerous ensembles in the New England area. This past season, Means
prepared the chorus for performances of Tosca with the Raylynmor Opera
of New Hampshire. Recently, Means was invited to guest conduct the
Boston Civic Symphony in a performance of music by Boston composer Larry
Bell. Additional performances include concerts with the Parkway Concert
Orchestra of Norwood, MA, and with many of ensembles of New England
Conservatory. With these and other experiences, Means has gained a
reputation as a reliable interpreter of music ranging from Bach to
Britten.
Jeffrey's background is in percussion performance, and
he continues to perform professionally in Boston. He recently played on
New England Conservatory’s First Monday series – a chamber music series
for distinguished faculty and alumni. This season, Means performed music
of Karlheinz Stockhausen in recital with Stephen Drury. In recent years,
Means performed with many of Boston’s finest ensembles, including the
Boston Philharmonic, the Hingham Symphony, the Harvard Group for New
Music, the Back Bay Chorale and many others.
Means has taken part in numerous summer festivals,
including the Casals Festival (Puerto Rico), the Tanglewood Music
Center, and the Institute for Contemporary Performance in Manhattan.
This summer, he will study with Pierre Boulez at the Lucerne festival.
Jeffrey holds a BM in percussion from New England Conservatory with
distinction in performance, and a MM in conducting from the same
institution with honors. At NEC, Means was awarded the 2005 John Cage
Award, the 2006 Tourjee Alumni Award, and the 2008 Gunther Schuller
Medal. He has recorded for Mode and Albany records.
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LUTZ RATH
See biography above.
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JOSEPH SCHOR
Joseph Schor, violinist and former Music Director of the Chamber Music
Conference, is currently a member of the American Composers Orchestra and first
violinist of the Bennington String Quartet. He is also a member of the
Silvermine String Quartet, and formerly of the Tonart and Franklin String
Quartets. He is former concertmaster of the New York City Opera, as well as
concertmaster and soloist with the Denver and Vermont Symphony Orchestras. For
more than 20 years he was principal second violinist of the Casals Festival
Orchestra in San Juan, Puerto Rico. He has toured throughout the world with the
Brandenburg Ensemble, Little Orchestra Society, New York Philharmonic and The
Robert Shaw Chorale. For many years he was a member of the New York City Ballet
Orchestra. He has taught at Middlebury College, Bennington College, Windham
College and the Hartt School of Music. He has been a member of the Chamber Music
Conference faculty for many years.
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Others to be announced.
Composition Fellows
To be announced.
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