Biographies
Music
Director - Phillip Bush
Senior Composer-in-Residence -
Donald Crockett
Violin Faculty - Joel Berman, Aaron Berofsky, Judith Eissenberg, Mayuki
Fukuhara, Shem Guibbory, Renée Jolles, Sunghae Anna Lim, Joel Pitchon, Sheila
Reinhold, Eriko Sato, Joseph Schor, Andrea Schultz, Stephanie Schweigart, Calvin
Wiersma
Viola Faculty - Nicholas Cords, Joseph Gottesman,
Danielle Farina, Marka Gustavsson, Veronica Salas, Kate Vincent, Lisa Whitfield
Violin/Viola Faculty - Stephanie Schweigart, Masako Yanagita
Cello Faculty - Michael Finckel, Matthew Herren, Eric
Jacobsen, Kermit Moore, Maxine Neuman, Lutz Rath
Double Bass Faculty - Salvatore Macchia, Lewis Paer
Flute Faculty - David Fedele, Mary Fukushima, Sue Ann Kahn
Oboe Faculty - Cheng-Wen Winnie Lai, Jacqueline Leclair,
Matt Sullivan
Clarinet Faculty - Armand Ambrosini, Michael Dumouchel,
Jo-Ann Sternberg
Bassoon Faculty - John Steinmetz, Lauren Goldstein Stubbs, Stephen Walt
Horn Faculty - Joseph Anderer, Daniel Grabois
Piano Faculty - Cynthia Adler, Abba Bogin, Phillip Bush, James
Goldsworthy, Judith Gordon, Jon Klibonoff, Stephen Manes, David Oei, Sonia Rubinsky, Elizabeth Wright
Composers-in-Residence - Evan
Chambers, Jeffrey Mumford and Dan Welcher
Guest Faculty - Virginia Anderer, Styra
Avins, Joel Berman, Frank Daykin,
Janet Horvath, Lutz Rath, Joseph Schor
Composition Fellows - Lambit Beecher,
Hermes Camacho, Chia-Ya Hsu
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. 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. 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. 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 Professor of
Violin at the University of Michigan and the Meadowmount School of Music. He has
also taught at Oberlin, Interlochen, the Adriatic Chamber Music Festival and the
Conservatorio Palma Mallorca. Mr. Berofsky 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 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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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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SUNGHAE ANNA LIM
Sunghae Anna Lim, violin, has concertized extensively throughout the United
States, Europe and Asia. She is a founding member of the Laurel Trio, which won
both the ProPiano and Concert Artists Guild Competition in New York. The Trio
has performed to critical acclaim across the country and has served as
ensemble-in residence at numerous music festivals and organizations, including
WQXR and the Tanglewood Music Festival. As violinist of New Millennium Ensemble,
Ms. Lim won the Naumburg Chamber Music. Last season she premiered the Second
Violin Sonata of the late Pulitzer Prize-winning composer, Donald Martino, and
continues to commission and record new works.
Ms. Lim has participated in music festivals such as Marlboro,
Ravinia, Prussia Cove, the Portland Chamber Music Festival and the Laurel
Festival of the Arts. Ms. Lim has taught chamber music at the Yale School of
Music and currently teaches violin at Princeton University. She has recorded for
Koch International, CRI, Bridge and Centaur Records, Newport Classics and Naxos.
She received a B.A. from Harvard University in German History and Literature and
completed her “Diplom” at the Mozarteum in Salzburg.
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JOEL PITCHON
Joel Pitchon is active as a soloist, concertmaster, and chamber music
player. He has received acclaim for his performances with nationally and
internationally renowned ensembles.
Mr. Pitchon received his BA and MA in Music from The Juilliard School, where
he studied with Oscar Shumsky and Joseph Fuchs. He has served as the
concertmaster of numerous orchestras, including the Orquestra Ciutat de
Barcelona (Spain), the New York Virtuosi Chamber Orchestra, the Colorado Music
Festival Orchestra, the New Zealand Symphony (guest), the National Arts Centre
Orchestra (Ottawa, Canada, guest) and the EOS Orchestra (NY). He has
participated in many concerts in the US and abroad with the Orpheus Chamber
Orchestra.
Mr. Pitchon also works extensively in chamber ensembles. He has been a member
of the Wave Hill Piano Trio, the Andiamo Chamber Players, and the Kinor String
Quartet. He frequently performs with the Boston based Walden Chamber Players,
and at the Monadnock Music Festival. Currently Mr. Pitchon is a member of the
Forster String Trio and the Smith Chamber Ensemble. As a soloist he has
performed with the Orquestra Ciutat de Barcelona, Philharmonia Virtuosi, and the
EOS Orchestra among others. The New York Times wrote of his playing in the EOS
production of Stravinsky’s L’Histoire du Soldat “…superb playing by Joel Pitchon…”
He has appeared on numerous radio and television broadcasts including WGBH,
WNYC, and PBS. Mr. Pitchon was featured on the TV3 Catalunya program Cadencia,
and has been interviewed about his work for STRAD Magazine. He has recorded for
Deutsche Grammophon, CBS Masterworks, and Vox Cum Laude among others. Mr.
Pitchon has recently made a CD of four Sonatas for violin and piano by Clifton
J. Noble with the composer at the piano for the Gasparo label. His latest CD,
New England Legacy, is of works by Quincy Porter, Walter Piston, and Amy Beach
also recorded for the Gasparo label with pianist Jonathan Bass.
Mr. Pitchon is an Associate Professor of Violin and Chamber Music at Smith
College in Northampton, MA. His violin is a 1686 Andreas Guarnerius.
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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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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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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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Viola
NICHOLAS CORDS
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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DANIELLE FARINA
Violist Danielle Farina is a graduate of the Curtis Institute of Music where she
studied with Karen Tuttle. She was the recipient of several awards while a
student, most notably Grand Prize, First Prize, and prize for "most beautiful
sound" at the 1996 American String Teacher's Association Competition. Upon
graduation, she joined the renowned Lark Quartet, of which she was a member for
three years. Touring extensively with the Lark in North America, Europe, and
Scandinavia, Ms. Farina performed at some of the most prestigious venues and
festivals including the Great Performers Series and the Mostly Mozart Festival
at Lincoln Center, Library of Congress, Smithsonian Institution, Schleswig
Holstein Festival, and the International Istanbul Music Festival.
Ms. Farina collaborated with numerous performing artists, namely pianists
Gary Graffman, Grant Johannesen, Joanne Polk, Jerome Lowenthal, violist Joseph
DePasquale, and cellist/composer Giovanni Sollima. Composer collaborations
involved Peter Schickele, Aaron J. Kernis, and Jennifer Higdon.
Ms. Farina can be heard in a recording of Mr. Sollima's Viaggio in Italia
on the Agora label, as well as on the Arabesque label in the string quartets of
Aaron J. Kernis commissioned by the Quartet, and with pianist Joanne Polk in
works of Amy Beach.
Ms. Farina's other artistic pursuits include performances at Weill Recital
Hall as part of Carnegie Hall's Making Music Series and at the 92nd Street Y
with pianist Maurizio Pollini as part of the Perspectives Series. Ms. Farina has
also performed as guest artist with the Bachmann-Klibonoff-Fridman Trio on their
series at the Morgan Library and with pianist Michael Boriskin and Music from
the Copland House.
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JOSEPH GOTTESMAN (on sabbatical)
“. . . A formidable violist with a huge tone and musical charisma” (The
Stamford Advocate), Joseph Gottesman performs and teaches in a wide variety
of musical arenas. He served as violist for the Broadway productions of Aida
and Bombay Dreams, and for the national production of Phantom of the
Opera. Mr. Gottesman joined the faculty of The Chamber Music and Composers'
Forum of the East in 1996. He has served as Professor of Viola at Western
Washington University, where he also coached chamber music and conducted
performances of the WWU Chamber and Symphony Orchestras.
The Winner of the 1986 Kahn Award for the Arts, Mr. Gottesman has been a
member of The American String Project since 2003 and also has performed in the
Seattle Symphony, Mostly Mozart Orchestra at Lincoln Center, The New York Pops
and Musica Viva. He has served as Principal Violist of the Little Orchestra
Society and was Assistant Principal Violist of the Memphis Symphony Orchestra
and the Music Festival of the Hamptons. A frequent guest artist of the Seattle
Chamber Players and the Omni Ensemble, Joseph Gottesman has recorded chamber
music for the International Franz Schubert Institute of Vienna and Albany
Records. He has appeared on NHK-TV's (Tokyo) The Classical Hour "Live from
Steinway Hall." In addition to having performed in 40 of the United States,
Mr. Gottesman has toured Japan (seven times) and Central America in an array of
capacities ranging from orchestral and chamber musician to giving clinics and
master classes.
Joseph Gottesman was a scholarship student of Berl Senofsky at the Peabody
Conservatory. He received his Masters from the Boston University School of Fine
Arts as a Teaching Assistant and full scholarship student of Raphael Hillyer,
and he also has studied chamber music with Eugene Lehner of the legendary Pro
Arte and Kolisch Quartets.
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MARKA GUSTAVSSON
As violist of the award winning Colorado Quartet, Marka Gustavsson has been
invited for several seasons to the Bard Festival, has performed twelve Haydn
quartets for the Mostly Mozart Festival at Lincoln Center, and has presented the
entire Beethoven Quartet cycle internationally and in the United States. The
Colorado Quartet has recently released their recordings of the three Beethoven
Quartets Opus 59, and Opus 74 "the Harp" on the Parnassus label.
As violinist and violist, Ms. Gustavsson has appeared as guest artist of the
Lincoln Center Chamber Music Society on their "Meet the Music" series, and has
been featured on Robert Sherman's WQXR's Young Artists' Showcase, as well as the
ABC Sports documentary "Passion to Play". Internationally she has performed as
soloist at the Banff Centre with the Calgary Philharmonic, in Amsterdam for the
Queen of the Netherlands, and as chamber musician in the Festival Presence de
Ligeti in Paris, at Pundquit in the Philippines, and at Takemitsu's memorial in
Tokyo. Ms. Gustavsson has worked with composers Martin Bresnick, Tan Dun, John
Halle, Joan Tower, and Richard Wernick and has performed with such artists as
David Sawyer, Michael Tree, Marc Johnson, Karl Leister, and Anton Kuerti. Marka
currently serves on the faculties of Bard College and Soundfest with the
Colorado Quartet. Additionally she performs with the Blue Elm Trio, Invention!,
and pianist/composer/husband John Halle.
She has earned degrees from Indiana University, Mannes College, and CUNY,
where her teachers have included Mimi Zweig, Josef Gingold, Felix Galimir, and
Daniel Phillips.
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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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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
STEPHANIE SCHWEIGART
Stephanie Schweigart, born in Johannesburg, South Africa, studied with
Rebecca Burchfield, Fredell Lack, Sylvia Rosenberg, and James Buswell. Stephanie
graduated from the New England Conservatory, receiving an M.M. in violin
performance with the highest distinction and completing her Doctoral degree in
2000. Having performed as a soloist with orchestras in France, Germany, Austria,
and the U.S., Stephanie also enjoys new music, and has premiered several works.
She presented lecture/recitals on the Bartók sonata for solo violin and Rochberg
Caprices at the International Conference of Arts and Humanities in Hawaii and
has given lectures on pedagogical techniques at conferences and festivals in
Maine, Colorado, Boston, and Texas.
A former member of the Portland Symphony, Boston Modern Orchestra Project,
Atlantic Chamber Orchestra, and Symphony Pro Musica, Stephanie is currently
concertmaster/associate concertmaster of the Las Cruces Symphony and El Paso
Opera. Additionally, she is principal second violin of the El Paso Symphony and
performs on viola in the Key West Symphony in Florida. An avid chamber music
enthusiast, Stephanie is a member of two quartets that perform outreach concerts
in Juarez, Mexico; El Paso, Texas; and Las Cruces, New Mexico. She has
participated in chamber music festivals in the United States, Canada, and
Europe. As a violinist and violist, Stephanie performs in the El Paso
International Chamber Music Festival, collaborating with artists that include
Lynn Harrell, Zuill Bailey, Awadagin Pratt, Jennifer Frautschi, Joel Smirnoff,
and others. Stephanie also performs regularly at the Casa Rondena Music Festival
in Albuquerque, New Mexico, with artistic director Guillermo Figueroa. She is
currently Associate Professor of Violin, Viola and Chamber Music at the
University of Texas at El Paso, and has been a faculty member at the Texas Music
Festival and Encore-Coda. She is on faculty at the American Festival for the
Arts in Houston, Texas, and the Chamber Music Conference and Composers’ Forum of
the East in Bennington, Vermont.
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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
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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MATTHEW HERREN
Cellist Matthew Herren has appeared as chamber musician, recitalist and
concerto soloist throughout the United States, Puerto Rico, Europe, and Asia. He
has performed at the Norfolk, Ravinia, Red Lodge, Sarasota, Rutgers' Summerfest,
and Caramoor festivals, as well as the Vermont Mozart Festival, where he is
Principal Cellist. Mr. Herren has also been featured at Philadelphia's Mozart on
the Square Series, Alice Tully Hall at Lincoln Center and The National Gallery
in Washington. He has worked in collaboration with such distinguished artists as
Menahem Pressler, Dawn Upshaw, Albert Fuller, Robert White, and The American
String Quartet. Mr. Herren has received many awards, notably First Prize in
Vienna Modern Masters' International Performers' Award Competition, resulting in
the release of a compact disc recording, and the Louise Oberne Award from the
National Federation of Music Clubs. His performances have frequently been
broadcast on NPR's Performance Today and he has recorded for the Deutsche
Grammophon, Sony, Atlantic, Archetype and London Decca Labels.
Mr. Herren performs regularly with The Orchestra of St. Luke's, The New York
Virtuosi, The American Composers Orchestra, The New York Oratorio Society, The
New York Concert Singers and the New Jersey Chamber Music Society. He has been
heard with Metamorphosen Chamber Ensemble, and as guest cellist of The Eaken
Piano Trio and The Strathmere Ensemble. He is a founding member of Concertante
Chamber Players, The Boston Modern Orchestra Project and The Yellowstone Music
Festival. Recent activities include premieres at The 92nd Street "Y" (with
Regina Resnick) and Merkin Hall, recitals at The Helicon Foundation and St.
Paul's Chapel in New York, and the premiere of Bright Sheng's chamber opera The
Silver River in Singapore, as well as chamber music concerts throughout the
country with The New York Chamber Soloists.
Mr. Herren was Chair of the String Department at the inaugural season of the
Performing Arts Institute of Wyoming Seminary in Kingston, PA, and has been
Acting Principal Cello of the Harrisburg Symphony. He has been artist in
residence at both The University of Montana and Montana State University and has
served on the faculty of The Pennsylvania Academy of Music in Lancaster, PA. He
is a graduate of The Juilliard School.
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ERIC JACOBSEN
In the fall of 2003, cellist Eric Jacobsen appeared with Renee Fleming at
the opening of Zankel Hall, at Carnegie Hall and on the Late Show with David
Letterman.
Mr. Jacobsen is a regular presenter and performer at Bargemusic, often
working with Mark Peskanov and Steven Beck. He has recently been appointed
curator and musical director of the 92nd street Y’s Makor Center for Classical
Café. Mr. Jacobsen has appeared as soloist with the Chamber Soloists of Austin
in Texas , the Riverside Orchestra, the New Hampshire Music Festival Orchestra,
the Greenwich Village Orchestra and the Lake George Chamber Orchestra. He has
been heard on NPR programs such as ‘Sound Check’ and ‘Performance Today’, where
he performed in four live chamber music concerts this November. Before his
graduation, Mr. Jacobsen performed a tour of the northeast with Dutch violinist
Vera Beths.
In a wonderful collision of cultures, Mr. Jacobsen has worked with Yo-Yo Ma’s
Silk Road Project. Last year he traveled to Japan where the ensemble had
residencies in Japan’s National Museums in Nara and Fukuoka and in early 2007 he
traveled to Baku, Azerbaijan. Mr. Jacobsen has also collaborated at The Tenri
Cultural Institute and The Angel Orensanz Foundation in performances with
musicians from Armenia and Iran; Gevorg Dabaghyan on the Duduk, and kemancheh
player, Kayhan Kalhor.
Mr. Jacobsen organizes the chamber ensemble The Knights, which performs as a
chamber orchestra and smaller ensembles. The Knights recently presented a series
of concerts at New York 's Bargemusic, in collaboration with flutist Paula
Robison. Working with Ms. Robison, Mr. Jacobsen kicked off a Sol Lewitt exhibit
at the Gardner Museum in Boston, performing the Mozart D major flute quartet in
a room designed around that piece.
Mr. Jacobsen has studied at The School for Strings and The Juilliard School,
where he received his Bachelor of Music, under the guidance of David Soyer and
Shapiro. He has spent summers in Salzburg, Austria with Julius Berger; Villars ,
Switzerland with Ardyth Alton; and with Harvey Shapiro in Engelberg, Switzerland
and Florence, Italy. Mr. Jacobsen plays a Bernardus Calcanius cello crafted in
1744.
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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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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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Double Bass
SALVATORE MACCHIA
Soloist, Berkshire Choral Festival Orchestra, Dinosaur Annex Chamber Orchestra,
Springfield Symphony Orchesta, Jazz Composers' Orchestra (Boston); Ancora
Chamber Ensemble; Duo Cambiata; Jury, International Composer Competition Citta
di Udine; Faculty, University of Massachusetts/Amherst.
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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
DAVID FEDELE
Nearly every superlative has been used to describe flutist David Fedele. He
is a seasoned, dazzling, impressive and accomplished performer who plays with
fluency, feeling, grace and vigor, critics say. After presenting his New York
recital debut at the 92nd Street "Y" as winner of the Young Concert Artists
International Audition Award, he was described by the New York Times as "the
most impressive debut artist, whose virtues begin with a firm tone that is
especially beautiful, mechanical facility, and a feeling for the rise and fall
of a phrase."
Mr. Fedele has appeared as concerto soloist with the National Chamber
Orchestra, the New York Symphonic Ensemble, The String Orchestra of the Rockies,
the New Jersey, Charlotte, Knoxville, Green Bay and Cosmopolitan Symphony
Orchestras, and in recital throughout the United States and abroad. Engagements
have included performances at the Kennedy Center, Lincoln Center, Stanford
University, Dartmouth College, the Krannert Center for Performing Arts,
Philadelphia's Free Library and Academy Ballroom, and numerous other
universities and concert series from Alaska to Florida.
An active international career has taken Mr. Fedele to Japan, where he made a
critically acclaimed debut at Suntory Hall in Tokyo, and to France, South
America, and Spain. He has also performed recitals at the Rieti International
Festival in Italy and the Festival de San Miguel de Allende in Mexico.
Mr. Fedele has performed as guest artist with the Chamber Music Society of
Lincoln Center, The Group for Contemporary Music, Ensemble 21, The Steve Reich
Ensemble, Bang on a Can, The Bronx Arts Ensemble, and The New Music Consort. He
has performed at the Vermont Mozart Festival, the Elan International Music
Festival, Grand Canyon Music Festival, Chattanooga Riverbend Festival, May Music
Festival in Charlotte, NC, the Columbia Festival for the Arts in Maryland, and
the Spoleto Festival. Mr. Fedele frequently performs with his trio, Trio Fedele,
with Robert Koenig, piano, and Matthew Herren, cello. He also performs in duo
recitals with harpist Victoria Drake.
A native of Charlotte, North Carolina, Mr. Fedele is a graduate of The Curtis
Institute of Music and The Juilliard School where he studied with Julius Baker.
He has also studied with Jeffrey Khaner and contemporary flute specialist Robert
Dick. Mr. Fedele has served on the faculties of Columbia University, Franklin
and Marshall College, and The Pennsylvania Academy of Music. Currently, Mr.
Fedele serves as Assistant Professor of Flute at The University of Kansas. He is
featured on Koch International Classics' recording of Charles Wuorinen's New
York Notes, a recording of the works of Oliver Knussen for Virgin Classics, a
recent release of the works of Steve Reich for Nonesuch Records, and the works
of Zhou Long on Calla Records.
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MARY FUKUSHIMA
A flutist for the twenty-first century, Mary Fukushima has established
herself as a leading ambassador for the music of today’s composers. Her 2006
Carnegie Hall Debut featuring music composed since 1945 was praised as a
“powerhouse performance” by critics from New York Concert Review, and led to
performances at the Cortona Contemporary Music Festival in Italy. In the months
following her debut, Mary has concertized across the U.S. and in Singapore where
she will return several times during 2007-2008. Her devotion to expanding the
repertoire for flute has resulted in several unique commissions, including a
work for flute and two pianos by Pulitzer-Prize nominated composer David
Rakowski (Gli Uccelli di Bogliasco), a piece for alto flute and piano by Forrest
Pierce (The Ruin of the Cypress), and a work by Kansas composer Brian Bondari
for flute and piano-four-hands (Div). Mary has also commissioned and premiered a
new multi-movement work for flute and piano from award-winning Singaporean
composer Zechariah Toh Chai Goh (Images my dream saw). While devoted to the
music of living composers, Mary is equally at home in the classical flute
repertoire and has been a featured soloist with numerous orchestras, including
the Los Angeles Philharmonic.
In addition to her activity as a performer, Mary is a devoted educator with a
passion for bringing music to elementary-age children. She was the co-founder
and director of both the Brooklyn Band Academy (New York) and the Maui World
Music Workshops (Hawaii). The students of the Brooklyn Band Academy have since
entered some of New York City’s most competitive and selective high schools, and
are performing with many of the city’s best youth orchestras.
Mary has studied with many of the world’s best flute pedagogues, including
David Fedele, Linda Chesis, and Bradley Garner. She will receive her Doctor of
Musical Arts Degree in 2007 from the University of Kansas. Mary holds a Master
of Music degree from the Manhattan School of Music (NY) and a Bachelor of Fine
Arts degree from Long Island University (NY).
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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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Oboe
CHENG-WEN WINNIE LAI
Cheng-Wen Winnie Lai maintains a varied chamber music and orchestra career
in New York City, having performed with the Juilliard Orchestra, the
Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, the Seattle Symphony Orchestra, the IRIS Chamber
Orchestra, National Repertory Orchestra, and the Pacific Music Festival
Orchestra. She has also collaborated with the Aspen Festival Orchestra and the
Music Academy of the West. As a chamber musician, Ms. Lai has played with the
Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, the Jupiter Symphony Chamber Players,
and Marlboro Music Festival.
Ms. Lai joined the oboe faculty at the Idyllwild Arts Academy Summer Program
from 1999 to 2003. She is currently a member of the Carnegie Academy (Ensemble
ACJW), and is on the woodwind faculty of the Chinese Youth Orchestra of New
York. Born in Kaohsiung, Taiwan, Ms. Lai received Bachelor of Music and Master
of Music degrees from The Juilliard School, where she studied with Elaine Douvas
and John Mack.
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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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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
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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JO-ANN STERNBERG
Clarinetist Jo-Ann Sternberg lives a varied musical life in New York, as a
member of the Riverside Symphony, the Greenleaf
Chamber Players and Sequitur, and performing regularly with such ensembles as
Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, St. Luke's Chamber Orchestra, the Chamber Music
Society of Lincoln Center, Musicians from Marlboro and New York Philomusica. Her
summer festivals have included Marlboro, Tanglewood and Schleswig-Holstein.
After receiving a B.A. in English from Tufts University and a B.M. in Clarinet
Performance from the New England Conservatory, Sternberg continued her studies
at Yale University with David Shifrin and at The Juilliard School with Charles
Neidich, receiving an M.M. from Juilliard in 1991. In addition to several
recordings with Orpheus for Deutsch-Grammophon, Sternberg's discography includes
recordings on the Nonesuch, Troy, CRI, Archetype and St. Cyprien labels. Ms.
Sternberg has a clarinet studio and coaches chamber music at Princeton
University and Western Connecticut State University, and resides on the Upper
West Side of Manhattan with her husband Bill and their children Joshua and
Rebecca.
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Bassoon
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 (on sabbatical)
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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JON KLIBONOFF
Jon Klibonoff has appeared as orchestra soloist, solo recitalist and chamber
musician throughout the U.S. and abroad. His numerous awards include the Silver
Medal of the Gina Bachauer International Piano Competition, the Affiliate
Artists Xerox Pianists Award, the Pro Musicis Foundation Award, First Prize at
the Kosciuszko Chopin Competition, The Concert Artists Guild Competition, and a
Solo Recitalists Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts. Mr.
Klibonoff has performed as guest artist with numerous chamber groups, including
the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center and the Shanghai, Miami and Lark
String Quartets. For three seasons he was artist-in-residence for the “On Air”
radio series produced by WQXR classical radio in New York City. Mr. Klibonoff
has been heard in recital at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Carnegie Hall’s
Weill Recital Hall, the 92nd Street Y, and the National Gallery and the
Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. He has collaborated with many
instrumentalists including flutist Carol Wincenc, clarinetist David Shifrin and
cellist Yo-Yo Ma. His many orchestral engagements include the Baltimore, Utah,
Buffalo, Denver and North Carolina Symphonies. Mr. Klibonoff has several CD
recordings to his credit including two discs of twentieth century violin and
piano music with violinist Maria Bachmann on the BMG/Catalyst label. The first
of these, “Fratres,” was reissued on RCA Red Seal in 2005. A graduate of the
Juilliard School and the Manhattan School of Music, Mr. Klibonoff has been on
the faculty of Hunter College and Concordia College and is currently on the
faculty of SUNY Purchase 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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SONIA RUBINSKY
Sonia Rubinsky exemplifies the great tradition of virtuoso pianists; profound
and serious musical commitment combined with an exciting and refined technical
gift. Her ongoing drive to learn new repertoire has resulted in an active body
of works that includes numerous concertos and countless solo works encompassing
all periods from the Baroque to the present day. Ms. Rubinsky began musical
studies in her native Campinas, Brazil at the age of five. At age six, she gave
her first solo recital and, at age 12, her first performance as soloist with
orchestra. Thereafter, she moved to Jerusalem where she continued studies at the
Rubin Academy. In Israel, she was selected to play in a master class taught by
Artur Rubinstein and her performance is documented in a film entitled
"Rubinstein in Jerusalem." Ms. Rubinsky holds a Doctor of Music Arts degree from
The Juilliard School. She has studied with Olga Normanha, Benjamin Oren, Irma
Wolpe, Vlado Perlemuter, Beveridge Webster, William Daghlian and Jacob Lateiner.
Ms. Rubinsky is a recipient of the prestigious William Petschek Award as well
as a "Best Recitalist of the Year" award of the São Paulo Association of Music
Critics. She is the 1984 first prize winner of the Artists International
Competition in New York. Ms. Rubinsky has appeared as soloist with the Orchestra
of St. Luke's, the Richmond Symphony, the Syracuse Symphony, the Springfield
Symphony, and the Phoenix Symphony, among others. As recitalist, she has
performed in New York, Boston, Chicago, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Toronto,
Paris, Amsterdam, Rome, Tel-Aviv and Montevideo. Ms. Rubinsky has toured
Brazil extensively, appearing with its most notable orchestras including the
Orchestra of the Theatro Municipal of Rio de Janeiro and of São Paulo, the
Brazilian Symphony Orchestra, the Campinas Symphony, and the São Paulo State
Symphony.Together with her widely acclaimed solo CD recording of Villa-Lobos
Piano Works Vol. I for Naxos ("One of the best five recordings of 1999", Bryce
Morrison, Gramophone Magazine; also nominated for a GRAMMY, 1999) which was
recently released worldwide, Ms. Rubinsky has recorded for Nonesuch/Elektra
(John Adams) and Daghlian label (Debussy, Villa-Lobos and Messiaen). Vol. II of
the Villa-Lobos project was released in the US in January of 2002.
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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
EVAN CHAMBERS
Evan Chambers (born 1963, Alexandria, Louisiana) is currently Associate
Professor of Composition at the University of Michigan. He serves as resident
composer with the new-music ensemble Quorum.
Chambers' compositions have been performed by the Cincinnati, Kansas City,
Memphis, New Hampshire, and Albany Symphonies; he won first prize in the
Cincinnati Symphony Competition, and in 1998 was awarded the Walter Beeler Prize
by Ithaca College. His work has been recognized by the American Academy of Arts
and Letters, the Luigi Russolo Competition, Vienna Modern Masters, NACUSA, the
American Composers Forum, and the Tampa Bay Composers Forum. He has been a
resident of the MacDowell Colony, and been awarded individual artist grants from
Meet the Composer, the Arts Foundation of Michigan and ArtServe Michigan. His
composition teachers include William Albright, Leslie Bassett, Nicholas Thorne,
and Marilyn Shrude, with studies in electronic music with George Wilson and
Burton Beerman. Recordings have been released by Albany Records, the Foundation
Russolo-Pratella, Cambria, Clarinet Classics, Equillibrium, and Centaur. His
solo chamber music disk (Cold Water, Dry Stone) is available on Albany records.
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JEFFREY MUMFORD
Born in Washington, D.C. in 1955, composer Jeffrey Mumford has received
numerous fellowships, grants, awards and commissions.
Awards include the "Academy Award in Music" from the American Academy of Arts
& Letters, a Fellowship from the Guggenheim Foundation, a Fellowship to the
Composers' Conference (Johnson, VT) and an ASCAP Aaron Copland Scholarship. He
was also the winner of the inaugural National Black Arts Festival / Atlanta
Symphony Orchestra Composition Competition.
Other grants have been awarded by the Ohio Arts Council, Oberlin College, the
D.C. Commission on the Arts & Humanities Technical Assistance Program, (funded
through the NEA), the Minnesota Composers' Forum, the American Music Center, the
Alice M. Ditson Fund of Columbia University, Meet the Composer, the Martha Baird
Rockefeller Fund for Music Inc., the ASCAP Foundation, and the University of
California.
Mumford's most notable commissions include those from a consortium of
presenters consisting of the Krannert Center for the Performing Arts at the
University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, Chamber Music Columbus (OH), and Omus
Hirshbein (New York) (for the Pacifica Quartet and pianist Amy Dissanayake),
Cleveland radio station WCLV, violist Wendy Richman, the Nancy Ruyle Dodge
Charitable Trust (for the Corigliano Quartet), a consortium of presenters
consisting of the Phillips Collection (Washington, D.C.), Miller Theatre (New
York) and the Schubert Club (St. Paul, MN.) (for pianist Margaret Kampmeier),
the Contemporary Music Forum of Washington, D.C. and Philip Berlin, Sonia and
Louis Rothschild (for the Opus 3 Trio), the Theatre Chamber Players , the Reston
Prelude Festival (for the Audubon Quartet), Meet the Composer/Arts Endowment
Commissioning Music / USA program (for the CORE Ensemble), the National Symphony
Orchestra, Cincinnati radio station WGUC, 'cellist Joshua Gordon, the Walter W.
Naumburg Foundation, the Roanoke Symphony Orchestra, the Fromm Music Foundation,
the Amphion Foundation for the Da Capo Chamber Players, the New York New Music
Ensemble, the McKim Fund in the Library of Congress, the Aspen Wind Quintet,
cellist Fred Sherry, and the Robert Evett Fund of Washington, D.C.
Mumford's works have been extensively performed both in the United States and
abroad, including Miller Theatre, the Library of Congress, the Aspen Music
Festival, the Bang On A Can Festival, the Seattle Chamber Music Festival, San
Migel de Allende, Guanajuato, MEXICO, London's Purcell Room, Finland's
prestigious Helsinki Festival, and the Musica nel Nostro Tempo Festival, in
Milan. His works have been performed by such major orchestras as the National
Symphony Orchestra, Minnesota Orchestra, Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, the Saint
Paul Chamber Orchestra, and the American Composers' Orchestra. His chamber works
have been performed by major ensembles such as the Corigliano, Maia and Borromeo
Quartets, the Mann Duo, the CORE Ensemble, the Amelia Piano Trio, the Los
Angeles Philharmonic New Music Ensemble, Voices of Change, the New Music
Consort, the New York New Music Ensemble, the Aspen Wind Quintet, the Group for
Contemporary Music, the Da Capo Chamber Players. Among the prominent soloists
who have performed his music have been cellist Fred Sherry, violist Misha Amory,
and pianists Eliza Garth, Margaret Kampmeier and Sarah Cahill. Mumford has also
been among the composer-members of the Washington, D.C. based Contemporary Music
Forum, which has performed his music many times.
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DAN WELCHER
Writing in High Fidelity in 1974, critic Royal S. Brown said "on the basis
of this work (Concerto for Flute and Orchestra), I would say that Welcher is one
of the most promising American composers I have ever heard". Born in Rochester,
New York, in 1948, composer-conductor Dan Welcher has been fulfilling that
promise ever since, gradually creating a body of compositions in almost every
imaginable genre including opera, concerto, symphony, vocal literature, piano
solos, and various kinds of chamber music. With over one hundred works to his
credit, Welcher is one of the most-played composers of his generation.
Dan Welcher first trained as a pianist and bassoonist, earning degrees from
the Eastman School of Music and the Manhattan School of Music. He joined the
Louisville Orchestra as its Principal Bassoonist in 1972, and remained there
until 1978, concurrently teaching composition and theory at the University of
Louisville. He joined the Artist Faculty of the Aspen Music Festival in the
summer of 1976, teaching bassoon and composition, and remained there for
fourteen years. He accepted a position on the faculty at the University of Texas
in 1978, creating the New Music Ensemble there and serving as Assistant
Conductor of the Austin Symphony Orchestra from 1980 to 1990. It was in Texas
that his career as a conductor began to flourish, and he has led the premieres
of more than 120 new works since 1980. He now holds the Lee Hage Jamail Regents
Professorship in Composition at the School of Music at UT/Austin, teaching
Composition and serving as Director of the New Music Ensemble.
In 1990, Mr. Welcher was named Composer in Residence with the Honolulu
Symphony Orchestra through the Meet the Composer Orchestra Residencies Program.
During his three-year residency, he distinguished himself with a weekly radio
series entitled Knowing the Score (which has had a second life on KMFA-FM in
Austin, winning the 1999 ASCAP-Deems Taylor Broadcast Award), a statewide
program teaching elementary school children the basics of musical composition,
conducting more than thirty concerts with the Honolulu Symphony and inaugurating
a series of new music concerts entitled Discoveries. He also wrote two works for
the Symphony: a work for the children's concert series entitled
Haleakala: How Maui Snared the Sun for narrator and orchestra, and an
ambitious 38-minute Symphony No. 1. After leaving Honolulu, he returned
to his position at the University of Texas, continuing to write orchestral works
on commission, such as Bright Wings: Valediction for Large Orchestra,
commissioned by the Dallas Symphony Orchestra, and premiered in Dallas under the
baton of Music Director Andrew Litton in March, 1997, Spumante, a festive
overture commissioned by the Boston Pops, premiered in Symphony Hall on May 6,
1998, under Keith Lockhart, and Beyond Sight, a tone poem for orchestra
commissioned by George Mason University for its 2000 commencement celebration.
Among his larger works of recent years are Venti Di Mare: Fantasy-Concerto
for Oboe and Small Orchestra, commissioned by the Guggenheim Foundation for
the Rochester Philharmonic and premiered in February 1999; JFK: The Voice of
Peace, a 55-minute oratorio for chorus, orchestra, narrator, solo cello, and
soloists, premiered in March 1999 by the Handel and Haydn Society of Boston;
Concerto for Timpani and Orchestra, commissioned by the Utah Symphony and
premiered in October, 2004 by timpanist George Brown, with Keith Lockhart
conducting, and Jackpot: A Celebratory Overture, commissioned by the City
of Las Vegas on the occasion of its 100th anniversary and premiered by the Las
Vegas Philharmonic under the baton of Harold Leighton Weller in September of
2005.
His works for symphonic wind ensemble, notably Zion (which won the
ABA/Ostwald Prize in 1996) and Symphony No. 3 ("Shaker Life") have earned
him new accolades in non-orchestral venues. Newer works for the wind band
include Perpetual Song (2000), commissioned by the West Point Band,
Songs Without Words (2001), commissioned by the College Band Directors'
National Association, and Minstrels of the Kells (2002), commissioned by
the bands of the Big Twelve Universities. His most recent work for wind ensemble
is Symphony #4 ("American Visionary"), commissioned in honor of George
Kozmetsky by the College of Fine Arts at the University of Texas, which will
premiere in November of 2005. Dan Welcher has won numerous awards and prizes
from institutions such as the Guggenheim Foundation (a Fellowship in 1997),
National Endowment for the Arts, The Reader’s Digest/Lila Wallace Foundation,
the Rockefeller Foundation, the MacDowell Colony, Yaddo, The Bellagio Center in
Bellagio, Italy, the Ligurian Study Center in Bogliasco, Italy, the American
Music Center, and ASCAP. His orchestral music has been performed by more than
fifty orchestras, including the Chicago Symphony, the St. Louis Symphony, and
the Atlanta Symphony. He lives in Bastrop, Texas, and travels widely to conduct
and to teach.
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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 25-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 was the
pianist in the Ambrosia Trio for seven years, and continues with Ambrosia and
Friends, Music of the Spheres (pianist and artistic advisor), the Gotham Trio,
the Wild Ballroom, 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 guest faculty of the Chamber Music
Conference/Composers Forum of the East at Bennington, VT, and the Chamber Music
Central summer camp for children in Bridgeport, CT. 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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JANET HORVATH
Canada native Janet Horvath joined the Minnesota Orchestra in 1980 as associate
principal cello. Her recent solo engagements with the Orchestra include Stephen
Paulus’ Concerto for String Quartet and Orchestra and Bruch’s Kol Nidre,
the latter of which she will reprise in February 2008.
Horvath made her international recital debut in London’s Wigmore
Hall in 1986; she has subsequently performed in recitals throughout the United
States, Canada, Europe and Asia. In addition to her frequent solo performances
with the Minnesota Orchestra, she has appeared with the Milwaukee, Indianapolis,
Fargo-Moorhead Symphonies and the Twin Cities' Metropolitan Symphony. An active
chamber musician, Horvath has performed at the Mainly Mozart Festival and has
appeared at the Marlboro and Blossom festivals. In the Twin Cities, she plays in
a trio with Minnesota Orchestra Principal Harp Kathy Kienzle and Julia Bogorad,
principal flute of the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra. Additional chamber
performances have included appearances with pianist André Watts, William Preucil,
concertmaster of the Cleveland Orchestra, Orchestra Music Director Osmo Vänskä
and Sommerfest Artistic Director Andrew Litton. At Sommerfest 2007 she played
Elgar’s Piano Quintet as well as Astor Piazzola’s Grand Tango for Cello and
Piano.
Horvath is a recognized authority and pioneer in the area of
medical problems of performing artists. A recipient of the Richard J. Lederman
Lecture Award presented by the Performing Arts Medicine Association, she founded
the “Playing (less) Hurt” conference series. She has published numerous articles
in professional journals. Her 2002 book, Playing (less) Hurt—an Injury
Prevention Guide for Musicians, garners critical acclaim and to date has sold
more than 6,000 copies. Revised in 2006, it is available at
playinglesshurt.com.
Horvath is also a noted clinician, presenting for orchestras
including the Minnesota Orchestra, San Francisco Symphony and Boston Symphony
Orchestra, and at conservatories, conferences and workshops from coast to coast.
During the 2007-08 season she presents seminars at the Minnesota Music Educators
Association Midwinter In-service Clinic, Bennington (Vermont) Chamber Music
Conference and League of American Orchestras National Conference.
Horvath received a bachelor’s degree from the University of
Toronto and a master’s degree from Indiana University. Her teachers have
included George Horvath (her father), Vladimir Orloff and Janos Starker.
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LUTZ RATH
See biography above.
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JOSEPH SCHOR
See biography above.
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Composition Fellows
LEMBIT BEECHER
Lembit Beecher is a composer, conductor and pianist currently working on his DMA
at the University of Michigan. His teachers have included Evan Chambers, Bright
Sheng, Karim Al-Zand, Pierre Jalbert, Kurt Stallmann and Bernard Rands.
Continually trying to expand his musical and artistic vocabulary, Lembit has
studied jazz piano, modern dance, and ethnomusicology and participated in
workshops and master classes with Stephen Schwartz, Evelyn Glennie, Bobby
McFerrin and Paul Berliner. Born of Estonian and American parents, Lembit grew
up under the redwoods in Santa Cruz, California, a few miles from the wild
Pacific. Since then he has lived in Boston, Houston, Ann Arbor and Berlin. This
varied background has made him particularly sensitive to place, ecology and the
strong emotional relationships that people forge with patterns in nature. He is
also interested in the way people tell stories, through songs, sounds, gestures
and words. His new work for percussion and orchestra, Faded, Manic, Black and
White will be premiered by percussionist James Deitz and the New York Youth
Symphony in May of 2008.
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HERMES CAMACHO
A native of northern California, Hermes Camacho currently lives with his wife in
Austin, Texas, studying composition at the University of Texas at Austin with
Dan Welcher and Yevgeniy Sharlat. Recent notables include awards from SCI/ASCAP,
a residency with the Boulder Youth Symphony, selection for Music06, Music08, and
GAMMA-UT, and a premiere at the Sydney Conservatorium. Hermes previously studied
music at the University of Colorado at Boulder and the Cole Conservatory of
Music (Cal State Long Beach) and spends every summer on the faculty of the
Sacramento Youth Symphony Chamber Music Workshop. In his spare time, Hermes
enjoys following the ups and downs of his San Francisco Giants and 49ers.
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CHIA-YU HSU
Chia-Yu Hsu began her studies with Pan-Yen Chen at the National Taiwan Academy
of Art. Her music was played in festivals there before she entered Curtis
Institute in 1996 to study with Jennifer Higdon and David Loeb. After further
study with Roberto Sierra, Ezra Laderman and Martin Bresnick at Yale, she
entered the doctoral program at Duke University. There she works with Stephen
Jaffe, Scott Lindroth and Anthony Kelley. She has been commissioned to write for
the Prism saxophone quartet, the Fisher Foundation, Milestones Festival, and
Evergreen Symphony Orchestra. Her Dinkey Bird won the 1999 Maxfield
Parrish Composition Contest. Her Shui Diao Ge To won the ASCAP Young
Composer’s Award in 2005. Her Zhi for violin and piano won the 2005
William Klenz prize, and in 2006 her Huan won the 7th USA International
Harp Competition. Her music has been performed by American Composers Orchestra,
Cabrillo Festival Orchestra, Detroit Symphony, San Francisco Symphony, Aspen
Music Festival Contemporary Ensemble, the Curtis Orchestra, eighth blackbird,
and Prism Quartet.
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