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RICE Unconventional Wisdom Welcome to The Shepherd School of Music
Dear Careers Forum Participants:
The Shepherd School of Music extends a warm welcome to all those participating in our Careers Forum, Careers in Music Performance: Convening Student Perspectives and Creating New Models for the 21st Century. Our purpose is to provide a supportive environment in which our carefully selected participants can discuss current trends and explore new pathways for developing musical careers. The ideas you generate might have the potential to influence the way schools of music deliver instruction and offer guidance to young career-minded musicians.
We are confident the outcome from this forum will have significant educational and pedagogical value. Sharing your unique perspective on important career-related issues will be essential to the success of this forum. Once again thank you for your participation and welcome to The Shepherd School of Music at Rice University.
Robert Yekovich, Dean
A Message to the Student Participants
Welcome to Houston! And congratulations on being chosen to participate in this exciting and innovative opportunity. Your nomination reflects the high level of enthusiasm and creativity you've demonstrated at your own school. We look forward to seeing what great things will happen when those qualities are combined with those of other students, like you from the nation's top schools, with whom you are about to begin working.
Joining you and your fellow students will be several distinguished and exciting guests: Eric Booth, eighth blackbird, the Chiara String Quartet, Shoshana Dobrow, and Sarah Rothenberg, and all the teachers and advisers that have accompanied you here. They each have unique and insightful ideas to share and to help guide you in your discoveries this weekend.
As students at The Shepherd School ourselves, we are particularly excited to get to know you and to see what kinds of experiences and ideas you create, since it is our generation that needs to pave the way for the future of classical music. We look forward to sharing a fun and ground breaking weekend. Thank you for coming!
Rachael Young and David Gerstein - Graduate Student Coordinators Careers in Music Performance: Convening Student Perspectives and Creating New Models for the 21st Century
October 12, Friday Evening 5:00 PM Arrival and Registration 5:30 Conference Welcome 6:00 Buffet Dinner at the Shepherd School 7:00 Chiara Quartet Showcase Performance Program: A Club Date First Set 8:00-9:15 Interactive Workshop with Eric Booth, Chiara Quartet and Student Participants: Faculty/Staff observe
October 13, Saturday 8:00 AM Breakfast Buffet at the Shepherd School 8:45-9:45 Interactive Rehearsal: Chiara Quartet and Eric Booth (all forum participants) 10:00-11:10 Student Participants meet in four discussion breakout groups, with members of the Chiara Quartet Faculty/Staff discussion session led by Eric Booth
11:15-12:00 Report sessions (all forum participants) 12:00-1:00 Lunch Buffet at the Shepherd School 1:00-2:00 Shoshana Dobrow Research Presentation. Young Musicians and Their Careers: Highlights from the Longitudinal Study of Music Involvement, 200T-2007 Open to the public 2:15-3:15 Sarah Rothenberg—Discussion Session 3:30-5:00 Afternoon sessions: student groups begin creating Sunday afternoon "lab" performances Faculty/Staff Meetings in small breakout groups 5:00 Dinner Buffet at the Shepherd School 6:30 eighth blackbird Showcase Performance Program: fe/from Powerless by Dennis DeSantis Pocket Symphony (selected movements) by Frederic Rzewski VIII from Thirteen Ways by Thomas Albert 7:30-8:15 Interactive Workshop with Eric Booth, eighth blackbird and Student Participants: Faculty/Staff observe
8:30 Evening out in Rice Village (nearby restaurant area)
October 14, Sunday 8:00 AM Breakfast Buffet at the Shepherd School 9:00-11:15 (with 15-minute break at 10:15) Students: sessions to finish preparing "Lab" Performances, Faculty/Staff: Large group with report sessions and brainstorming 11:30-12:30 Lunch Buffet at the Shepherd School 12:30-2:30 Student "Lab" Performances: informal performances, each session running about 20 minutes in four classrooms. Open to the public. 2:45-4:00 Convening follow-up session with all participants: how can the outcome of the forum be put together to forge pathways for this generation? Faculty/Staff reports: what new resources and support systems will be needed? Room Schedule
Event Time Location Friday, October 12 Arrival and Registration 5:00 PM Foyer Conference Welcome 5:30 PM Foyer Buffet Dinner 6:00 PM Foyer Chiara Performance 7:00 PM Duncan Recital Hall Eric Booth/Chiara Workshop 8:00 PM Hirsch Rehearsal Room
Saturday, October 13 Instrument Storage 1131 Breakfast 8:00 AM Foyer Interactive Rehearsal (EB/Chiara and All) 8:45 AM Hirsch Breakout Groups (Students) 10:00 AM 1400 rooms Discussion Session (EB and F/S) 10:00 AM Hirsch Report Sessions 11:15AM Hirsch Lunch Buffet 12:00 PM Foyer Dobrow Presentation 1:00 PM Duncan Rothenberg Discussion 2:15 PM Hirsch Afternoon Sessions (S) 3:30 PM 1400s, 1131 & 1133 Afternoon Sessions (F/S) 3:30 PM Hirsch Dinner Buffet 5:00 PM Foyer eighth blackbird Performance 6:30 PM Duncan EB/eighth blackbird Workshop 7:30 PM Hirsch Evening Out 8:30 PM Rice Village
Sunday, October 14 Luggage Storage 1403 Breakfast 8:00 AM Foyer Finish Prep for Lab Performances (S) 9:00 AM 1401, 1402, 1404 and 1133 Report Sessions (F/S) 9:00 AM Hirsch Lunch Buffet 11:30 AM Foyer Lab Performances 12:30 PM 1401, 1402, 1404 and 1133 Follow-up Session 2:45 PM Hirsch Conference Ends 4:00 PM Hotel and Shuttle Information
Hotel Information
Hilton [Houston Plaza/Medical Center 6633 Travis Street Houston, Texas 77030
Front Desk Number: 713-313-4000 Fax Number: 713-313-4660
Shuttle Transportation from the Hilton to The Shepherd School of Music
We will provide shuttle service for you at the following times:
Friday, October 12, from 4:00 to 5:00 PM (Hilton to Shepherd School) Friday, October 12, at 9:30 PM (Shepherd School to Hilton)
Saturday, October 13, from 7:45 to 8:30 AM (Hilton to Shepherd School) Saturday, October 13, at 8:30 PM (drop off at Rice Village and Hilton) Saturday, October 13, from 10:30 to 11:30 PM (Rice Village to Hilton)
Sunday, October 14, from 7:45 to 8:30 AM (Hilton to Shepherd School)
Important:
Please note that we are using two different shuttle services for the weekend. The first service on Friday from 4:00 to 5:00 and the late night service on Saturday will be provided by a Hilton Hotel shuttle. This van holds only 15 people per trip, and will need to make several trips to accommodate our riders.
The other trips will be served by a Rice University shuttle which accommodates 30 people per trip. Eric Booth Moderator for the Forum
Eric Booth has been an award-winning actor (six plays on Broadway), producer, and small businessman. He founded the company Alert Publishing, which became the largest company of its kind in America in seven years, and launched him as a trend analyst with three books, a nationally syndicated radio program on the Business Radio Network; regular appearances on CNN and NBC. He has published over 80 articles and was the Founding Editor of the Teaching Artist Journal—the first peer-reviewed professional journal for the field. He writes the regular Edifications column for Chamber Music Magazine, and his last book, The Everyday Work of Art (Sourcebooks, 1997), won two awards and was a Book of the Month Club Selection. It is still used as a course textbook at over 20 universities. He has lectured and been a visiting scholar at over 40 universities, and gives over 60 workshops and lectures a year at major arts organizations. He is an active consultant, with current clients including seven of the nation's ten largest orchestras, Americans for the Arts, Opera America, Chamber Music America, Chorus America, Sundance, The Kennedy Center, and many others. Mr. Booth serves on the Mellon Foundation Orchestra Forum faculty and also mentors young conductors who are engaged by major symphony orchestras as a part of the American Symphony Orchestra League's Conducting Fellows Program. He coaches young musical ensembles at music conservatories across the U.S. on their audience interaction, and education programs.
He has taught at Stanford and N.Y.U., served as Faculty Chair of the Empire State Partnership program (the largest arts in education experiment in the U.S.); held one of six chairs on the College Board's Arts Advisory Committee for seven years. Former director, Teacher Center of the Leonard Bernstein Center, he is currently on their Board of Directors. He has taught for The Kennedy Center (11 years), Tanglewood (5 years), and Lincoln Center Institute (25 years).
At Juilliard, Eric Booth founded the Art and Education program and became the Artistic Director of the Mentoring Program at the Juilliard School. He was the 2006 closing keynote speaker at UNESCO's first-ever worldwide arts education conference in Lisbon, and the closing keynote speaker at the European Union's first-ever worldwide conference on orchestras and their community relations in Glasgow. Showcase Performance The Chiara Quartet
Duncan Recital Hall The Shepherd School of Music Rice University
Program: A Club Date First Set (to be announced from the stage)
The Chiara Quartet (Rebecca Fischer, Julie Yoon, violin; Jonah Sirota, viola; Gregory Beaver, cello) has forged a new path for the string quartet medium. In the concert hall and in intimate galleries and clubs, the Chiara embraces a "no-holds-barred" approach (The Strad). The group presents exhilarating contemporary works—through their club tours and New Voice Singles recordings—to a growing circle of newcomers and committed chamber music fans alike, while exploring more established repertoire with fresh ears. The Chiara Quartet has been praised for a range that encompasses "glowing warmth to hard-edged acerbity" (The New York Times), and for possessing a "potent collective force" (Strings Magazine).
The Chiara Quartet was recently named the Blodgett Artists-in-Residence at Harvard University, a post they will begin in the fall of 2008, in addition to their ongoing artist residency at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Recently awarded with the Guarneri Quartet Residency Award for artistic excellence by Chamber Music America, the Quartet's other honors include a top prize at the Paolo Borciani International Competition, winning the Astral Artistic Services National Audition, and winning First Prize at the Fischoff Chamber Music Competition.
In addition to performing in concert halls such as Lincoln Center's Alice Tully Hall, Carnegie Hall's Weill Recital Hall, the American Academy in Rome, Philadelphia's Kimmel Center, and Harris Hall in Aspen, Colorado, the Chiara devotes much of its performance season to reaching new audiences through concerts in non-classical venues. The Quartet has performed at Caffe Vivaldi in New York's West Village, Kansas City's The Brick, Houston's Mucky Duck, Lincoln's The Chatterbox, Wichita's The Artichoke, and Chicago's The Hideout, among many others.
The Chiara Quartet's recent special programs include Mestizaje: Harmony of Differences, which they premiered at New York's Merkin Hall in January 2007. The program features composers whose music spans multiple cultures, including Gabriela Lena Frank, Zhou Long, Bela Bartok, and Osvaldo Golijov. Recent collaborators include Dawn Upshaw, Joel Krosnick, Roger Tapping, Todd Palmer, Simone Dinnerstein, Norman Fischer, and Paul Katz, as well as members of the Orion, Ying, Cavani, and Pacifica Quartets. The Chiara has premiered works by Gabriela Lena Frank, Jefferson Friedman, Michael Wittgraf, Randall Snyder, and Nico Muhly, among others.
In 2007 the Chiara released a recording of the Mozart and Brahms clarinet quintets with clarinetist Hakan Rosengren for Round Top Records. The group is currently recording the complete string quartets of Brahms for SMS Classical. The Chiara Quartet has released world premiere recordings of new masterworks on their own New Voice Singles label, including Robert Sirota's Triptych and Gabriela Lena Frank's Leyendas: An Andean Walkabout, and in 2008 they will record Jefferson Friedman's Second and Third Quartets.
The Chiara Quartet has taught at The Juilliard School, and has been artists-in-residence at the University of Nebraska- Lincoln since 2005. In the summer, the quartet is in residence at Greenwood Music Camp, the University of Nebraska-Lincoln's Chamber Music Institute and the Red River Chamber Music Festival, a summer study and performance festival founded by the Chiara Quartet in Grand Forks, North Dakota. Currently, the Quartet is developing a program in music entrepreneurship at the School of Music of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.
The Chiara trained at The Juilliard School, mentoring for two years with the Juilliard Quartet as recipients of the Lisa Arnhold Quartet Residency, at the Yellow Barn Music School and Festival, and at the Aspen Music Festival, working with some of the most inspiring luminaries in the chamber music world.
Chiara (key-ARE-uh) is an Italian word, meaning "clear, pure, or light." More information about the Chiara Quartet can be found online at chiaraquartet.net and on MySpace at myspace.com/chiarastringquartet. Young Musicians and Their Careers: Highlights from the Longitudinal Study of Music Involvement, 2001-2007
Research Presentation by Dr. Shoshana Dobrow Duncan Recital Hall The Shepherd School of Music
Shoshana Dobrow is an Assistant Professor of Management Systems at Fordham University's Business School and a professional bassoonist. She earned her A.B. in Biological Anthropology, A.M. in Social Psychology, and Ph.D. in Organizational Behavior from Harvard University.
Dr. Dobrow's research aims to understand the longitudinal dynamics of career phenomena. She studies individuals' careers, particularly the subjective side of careers, across professional and organizational boundaries and over the course of time. Her research addresses the question of why people make seemingly irrational decisions to pursue extraordinarily competitive, challenging career paths. Specifically, she investigates the nature of a subjective orientation—the sense of calling—that may compel some people to pursue paradoxical career paths. She is conducting an ongoing longitudinal study (begun in 2001) of hundreds of young musicians in which she develops a conceptual definition, surveys measure of calling, as well as investigating the antecedents and consequences of calling. She is also engaged in research on the dynamics of developmental mentoring networks over time.
Shasa currently teaches Principles of Management in Fordham's College of Business Administration. She is also a professional bassoonist, a former student at The Shepherd School of Music, and is currently a member of the Rhode Island Philharmonic. She has performed with numerous other orchestras in the Boston area and in New York, including on Broadway and at Carnegie Hall.
This presentation is offered with the generous support of Rice University's Humanities Research Center. Sarah Rothenberg
Noted for her "power and introspection" (The New York Times) and "heart, intellect and fabulous technical resources" (Fanfare), pianist Sarah Rothenberg has served as artistic director of Da Camera of Houston since 1994. Ms. Rothenberg has one of the most distinguished and creative careers of her generation. She has received international acclaim as solo recitalist and chamber musician, and her innovative programs have been enthusiastically received by audiences across America and in Europe. She has been a frequent performer on Lincoln Center's Great Performers series in New York, as well as appearing at London's Barbican Centre, The Aldeburgh Festival (England), The Cervantino Festival (Mexico), Teatro Municipale (Santiago, Chile) and the Library of Congress. Solo recital appearances include The Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, Palais des Beaux-Arts in Brussels, Washington's Kennedy Center, The Music Academy of Cracow, The Getty Museum in Los Angeles and New York's 92nd Street Y and Miller Theater. Ms. Rothenberg received the Medal of Chevalier in the Order of Arts and Letters from the French government in 2000.
Ms. Rothenberg has conceived and directed numerous original performance works, including the celebrated Music and the Literary Imagination series linking music to the works of Proust, Kafka, Mann, Akhmatova, Baudelaire and others. Following their premieres on Da Camera of Houston's subscription series, these programs have been presented across the United States and in Europe, and have been the subject of feature articles in the national press and arts publications, establishing Da Camera as one of the nation's leaders in innovative programming. In addition, she has created and performed concerts linking music to the visual arts for exhibits at The Menil Collection, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, The Jewish Museum of New York and The Guggenheim Museum. Ms. Rothenberg also conceived and performed in the Da Camera production Moondrunk, a chamber music/dance theatre piece with performance artist John Kelly, featuring Schoenberg's Pierrot lunaire, that inaugurated Lincoln Center's New Vision series in January 1999 and was hailed by American Theatre magazine as "the birth of a new genre." In 2006, Ms. Rothenberg made her debut at the Gilmore Piano Festival and performed her latest project, Epigraph for a Condemned Book, a solo recital interweaving the music of Chopin with poetry, video, and recorded voices, at La Jolla Music Society, the Hancher Auditorium series at University of Iowa and Kravis Center in West Palm Beach.
Prior to coming to Houston, Ms. Rothenberg was co-founding artistic director of the Bard Music Festival in New York. She was member pianist of the Da Capo Chamber Players from 1985-94, with whom she made numerous recordings, including the "The New York Times, Choice CD" of Schoenberg's Pierrot lunaire (Bridge), and she has premiered over 75 new works. As a chamber musician she has collaborated with members of the American, Brentano, Emerson, Schoenberg, St. Lawrence and Juilliard String Quartets, among others. A popular public speaker on musical, literary and cultural issues, Ms. Rothenberg's writings have appeared in The Musical Quarterly, Chamber Music, The Crisis of Criticism (New Press), Keyboard Magazine, World Policy Journal, Nexus (The Netherlands) and the literary journal Conjunctions. She studied at The Curtis Institute of Music with Seymour Lipkin and Mieczeslaw Horszowski, and in Paris with Yvonne Loriod-Messiaen. Other important coaches were Artur Balsam, Felix Galimir and Leon Fleisher. Showcase Performance eighth blackbird
Tim Munro, flutes Michael J.Maccaferri, clarinets Matt Albert, violin and viola Nicholas Photinos, cello Matthew Duvall, percussion Lisa Kaplan, piano fe/from Powerless by Dennis DeSantis Pocket Symphony (selected movements) by Frederic Rzewski VIII from Thirteen Ways by Thomas Albert
Described by The New Yorker as "friendly, unpretentious, idealistic and highly skilled," eighth blackbird promises its ever-increasing audiences provocative and engaging performances. It is widely lauded for its performing style - often playing from memory with virtuosic and theatrical flair - and its efforts to make new music accessible to wide audiences. A New York Times reviewer raved, "eighth blackbird's performances are the picture of polish and precision, and they seem to be thoroughly engaged...by music in a broad range of contemporary styles." The sextet has been the subject of profiles in the New York Times and on NPR's All Things Considered; it has also been featured on Bloomberg TV's Muse, CBS's Sunday Morning, St. Paul Sunday, Weekend America and The Next Big Thing, among others. The ensemble is in residence at the University of Richmond in Virginia and at the University of Chicago. The centerpiece of eighth blackbird's 2007-2008 season is its kinetic program "The Only Moving Thing", featuring new commissions by Steve Reich, and maverick composers David Lang, Michael Gordon and Julia Wolfe. The group is also premiering Mirrors, a ground-breaking new multimedia work by composer Tamar Muskal and interactive digital artist Danny Rozin, as well as a new work by Stephen Hartke as part of the group's "Sound Mirror" program. This season, eighth blackbird makes their debut at Carnegie's Zankel Hall and the Pittsburgh Chamber Music Society, returns to the Kennedy Center, and is in residence at DePauw University and the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, eighth blackbird also inaugurates its hometown series at the Harris Theater at Millennium Park. In previous seasons the sextet has appeared in South Korea, Mexico, Canada, Amsterdam, and throughout North America, including performances at Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center's Alice Tully Hall, the Metropolitan Museum, the Kennedy Center, the Library of Congress, the Cleveland Museum of Art, and the La Jolla Chamber Music Society, and has performed as soloist with the Utah Symphony and the American Composers Orchestra. During the summer the group has appeared several times at Cincinnati's Music X, the Great Lakes Music Festival, Caramoor International Music Festival, and Norfolk Chamber Music Festival. They have also appeared at the Tanglewood Music Center, the Bravo! Vail Valley Music Festival, and in 2006 made their debut at the Ojai Music Festival, where the group was named Music Director for the 2009 season. Since its founding in 1996, eighth blackbird has been active in commissioning new works from eminent composers such as George Perle, Frederic Rzewski, Joseph Schwantner, Paul Moravec, and Stephen Hartke, as well as ground-breaking works from Jennifer Higdon, Derek Bermel, David Schober, Daniel Kellogg, Carlos Sanchez-Gutierrez, and the Minimum Security Composers Collective. The group received the first BMI/Boudleaux-Bryant Fund Commission and the 2007 American Music Center Trailblazer Award and has received grants from BMI, Meet the Composer, the Greenwall Foundation, and Chamber Music America, among others. The ensemble is enjoying acclaim for its four CDs released to date on Cedille Records. The first, Thirteen Ways, was selected as a Top 10 CD of 2003 by Billboard magazine, beginnings, their second disc, was summed up by The New York Times: "The performances have all the sparkle, energy and precision of the earlier outings...It is their superb musicality and interpretive vigor that bring these pieces to life." About fred, featuring the music of Frederic Rzewski, The San Francisco Chronicle reported: "The music covers all kinds of moods and approaches, from dreamy surrealism to caffeinated unison melodies, and the members of eighth blackbird deliver it all with their trademark panache." Their fourth CD, titled strange imaginary animals, was released in November 2006. In 2006 the group debuted on the Naxos label in a performance of The Time Gallery, commissioned by eighth blackbird from 2004 Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Paul Moravec. The members of eighth blackbird hold degrees in music performance from Oberlin Conservatory, among other institutions. The group derives its name from the Wallace Stevens poem "Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird." The eighth stanza reads:
I know noble accents And lucid, inescapable rhythms; But I know, too, That the blackbird is involved In what I know Visit the ensemble's official website at www.eighthblackbird.com for more information. Matthew Duvall endorses Pearl Drums and Adams Musical Instruments. Thomas Albert: Suite from Thirteen Ways (1997)
Thomas Albert was born in 1948 in Lebanon, Pennsylvania and was educated at Barton College and the University of Illinois. His music has been performed throughout the United States as well as in Europe, Brazil, Japan and Korea. Two of his works, A Maze (With Grace), and Devil's Rain, have been a part of the repertoire of Relache Ensemble for many years, and are included on the group's CD, On Edge. Other recent commissions include incidental music for the University of Cincinnati's production of Angels in America: Millennium Approaches, The Devil's Handyman for The 20th Century Consort, and a new work for The Folger Consort. He has received grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Charles Ives Center for American Music, and ASCAP. He is Associate Dean of the Conservatory and Professor of Music in composition and music theatre at Shenandoah University.
The original Thirteen Ways, commissioned and premiered by eighth blackbird in 1997, is a set of thirteen musical miniatures inspired by Wallace Stevens' poem, "Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird." The piece is not a song cycle, for the poems are not actually set to music; the music is more like underscoring, or accompaniment, for a textless film of the poem's images. A transcribed bird song is included as an obligato in the last part of movement VIII. -Thomas Albert Dennis DeSantis: fe/from Powerless (2001)
Dennis DeSantis is a composer, sound designer, and percussionist. He received a Doctor of Musical Arts degree from the Eastman School of Music. His electronic music appears on labels such as Global Underground, Cocoon, and Kanzleramt, and he has performed throughout North America, Europe, and at SONAR Tokyo. He is also a percussionist for Alarm Will Sound, a leading contemporary music ensemble based in New York. His concert music is widely performed and includes a 2007 Carnegie Hall commission to arrange the music of Autechre for chamber orchestra. DeSantis is in charge of documentation for Ableton, and previously worked for Native Instruments. About his work, the composer writes:
Powerless takes its title from Stravinsky's infamous quote about music being powerless to express anything. Each of the work's four movements shares material with the others, and each movement progresses to a point where it becomes "powerless" to continue without intervention. At these points, I introduce the deus ex machina of the piece - the woodblock. In "Eel," the woodblock simply serves to end the movements. -Dennis DeSantis Frederic Rzewski: Pocket Symphony (2000)
Born in Westfield, Massachusetts in 1938, Frederic Rzewski studied with Charles Mackey, Walter Piston, Roger Sessions, Milton Babbitt and Luigi Dallapiccola. His compositional career has had many phases; his music from the late sixties and early seventies (Les Moutons de Panurge, Coming Together) combine elements of written and improvised music, which in the seventies led to a greater experimentation with forms in which style and language are treated as structural elements (The People United Will Never Be Defeated). He briefly returned to experimental and graphic notation (Le Silence des Espaces Infinis, The Price of Oil), before exploring new uses of the twelve-tone technique in the eighties (Antigone-Legend, The Persians). His more recent work (Whangdoodles, Sonata) adopts a more free and spontaneous approach. About Pocket Symphony, the composer writes:
Pocket Symphony, for six instruments (flute, clarinet, violin, cello, piano, and percussion), was written in 1999-2000 for the (then) Cincinnati-based group eighth blackbird. I sketched it out, without a very clear idea of the instrumentation, in a couple of weeks at the end of the summer in 1999, but didn't look at it again until several months later, when some other projects were finished. Only then I realized that it was actually symphonic, although, unlike other pieces I had done for orchestra, this one was lighter and could travel, and thus had some chance of actually getting performed.
It's in six movements, in each of which one of the band has a more or less leading role (the fifth movement is a piano solo). Mostly the six players use their instruments in traditional ways (although they had asked me to include some vocalizing, I thought this was too risky); but occasionally the percussionist is asked to perform some odd jobs, playing things like trash can lid, rain-stick, Jews' harp or bull-roarer. Like many of my pieces, this one seems to contain a number of classical references, although it would be hard to say exactly what they are; and there are no literal quotes. If I had to name a single source, or rather a guardian spirit for this music, I would invoke Shostakovich, who has always been one of my favorite composers. -Nicholas Photinos Student Biographies
Teddy Abrams performs as a conductor, clarinetist, and pianist in addition to composing. He has studied conducting with Michael Tilson Thomas, David Zinman, and Otto-Werner Mueller and is currently a student at the Curtis Institute of Music. Teddy was a Conducting Fellow at the Aspen Music Festival in 2006 and 2007, and he has also conducted the New World Symphony several times in both Miami and Carnegie Hall. Teddy has soloed as both a clarinetist and pianist with many orchestras including the San Francisco Symphony, Oakland East Bay Symphony, and Berkeley Symphony, and has performed chamber music with artists such as the St. Petersburg String Quartet, Menahem Pressler, Gilbert Kalish, Susan Naruki, and John Adams.
Violinist Daniel Andai has shared his versatile artistry as concert soloist with orchestras, recitalist, orchestral and chamber musician on five continents including the Middle East, Caribbean and twenty United States. An award recipient & winner/laureate of numerous national and international competitions, and he has had over three-dozen appearances as soloist with the Moscow State Symphony, Welsh Chamber Orchestra, Florida Philharmonic, and the Miami Symphony among others. He has collaborated with the New York Philharmonic, Florida Philharmonic, New World Symphony, Verbier Orchestra and is the first violinist of the Vols String Quartet. Mr. Andai has appeared on TV & radio stations in both North and South Americas, was solo violinist on the PBS Award-winning film "Sugihara" and is a recording artist for AMZ Records in Miami.
A beautiful voice, soprano Nichole Annis instils her music with passion and a rich sonorous sound. A practicing Registered Nurse in her home country of Canada, she just recently has turned her focus towards her passion, music. She began her musical studies at the University of Victoria under Alexandra Browning. She graduated with honors in 2005 and is currently enrolled as a fellow at the North Carolina School of the Arts' A.J. Fletcher Opera Institute where she is pursing her Masters of Music under the tutelage of Dr. Marilyn Taylor. Ms. Annis has been awarded the Johann Strauss Scholarship twice, which allowed her the opportunity to study with renowned teachers Richard Miller and Edith Wiens at the Mozarteum in Salzburg Austria.
Cellist Philip Lawrence Borter is currently pursuing a Master of Music degree in Performance at the Eastman School of Music, where he studies with professor Steven Doane. He sits as a principal cellist in the Eastman Philharmonia and is enrolled in the Catherine Filene Shouse Arts Leadership Program. Philip's undergraduate education took place at the Cleveland Institute of Music, under the tutelage of Richard Aaron. In 2006, he completed his Bachelor of Music degree in Cello Performance, graduating with Honors and was recipient of the Dean's Award. Intensive chamber music studies led to opportunities to work with members of the Cavani, Cleveland, Emerson, Juilliard, Miami, Takacs, and Vermeer String Quartets.
Cellist Claire Bryant has appeared as a soloist with the Kuopion Symphony Orchestra of Finland, the National Symphony of Honduras in Tegucigalpa, the San Francisco Conservatory Orchestra, and the South Carolina Philharmonic Orchestra. She is a fellow of The Academy: A Program of Carnegie Hall, the Juilliard School, and The Weill Music Institute. As an active chamber musician, she is also a founding member of the TETRAS Quartet, and a member of Ensemble ACJW, the resident ensemble at Weill Hall, She is the founder, producer, and artistic director of the acclaimed chamber music series With Strings Attached, which has raised over $10,000 for arts education in her native state of South Carolina. Claire received her Bachelor of Music degree from the San Francisco Conservatory of Music and her Master of Music degree from The Juilliard School. She now serves as assistant faculty to Bonnie Hampton at The Juilliard School.
Michelle Cann, hailed as a "colorist who can charm" began her piano studies at the age of 7 and since then has placed in various national and international competitions including the Blount Young Artists National Concerto Competition, International Russian Piano Music Competition, Clara Wells National Piano Competition, Gilmore Foundation Competition, and Music Teachers National Association Competition. She has also been invited to perform with various orchestras, including the Florida Orchestra, Tampa Bay Symphony, Central Florida Symphony Orchestra, and the Florida Symphony Youth Orchestra. Other performances include Washington's Kennedy Center, Southampton Cultural Center, and an appearance on From the Top, a nationally broadcast radio show on NPR. In November of this year, she will be traveling to Bermuda where she was invited to perform for an event in honor of the Premier. Eric Chi, clarinet, is currently pursuing an undergraduate degree at the New England Conservatory of Music. This past summer, Mr. Chi was invited to participate in the Pacific Music Festival in Japan. Other festivals include a Fellowship at the Tanglewood Music Center, Principal Clarinetist in the New York String Orchestra Seminar, and offers from the National Repertory Orchestra and the National Orchestral Institute. Mr. Chi has also taken first prize in the Virtuosi of Houston Concerto Competition and been a finalist in the Houston Symphony League Concerto Competition. Influential teachers include Thomas Legrand, William Wrzesien, Donald Montanaro, and Thomas Martin.
Shawn Conley was a recent prizewinner in the International Society of Bassists Scott LaFaro Jazz Competition. In addition he was a winner of both the State and Southwest divisions of the MTNA solo string competition. In 1999 Shawn was offered a position in the Honolulu Symphony and played with the orchestra until coming to Texas, where he received his Bachelors of Music from Rice University. Recently, Shawn was awarded a Wagoner Fellowship to study in Paris, and received both performance and teaching diplomas from Francois Rabbath.. He is currently working on his masters degree with Paul Ellison at The Shepherd School of Music. You can hear him on the CD "Abe Loves Uke," released on Universal Japan earlier this year.
After receiving his B.M. in vocal performance from CSU at Sacramento, California, Ace Edewards moved back to France where he spent two years of postgraduate study at the Centre d'Etudes Superieures de Musique et Dance in the city of Toulouse. He then received a M.M. in Opera from the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama, in Glasgow, Scotland. Ace is now a Vocal and Choral graduate student at the Lamont School of Music in Denver, Colorado.
Born in St. Louis, Missouri, Paul Florek is currently a junior in trumpet performance and arts administration at Northwestern University. Besides playing in many orchestras, has has played as a soloist with ensembles such as the Chesterfield Orchestra and the Lincoln Orchestra. He has attended programs such as the Rafael Mendez Brass Institute and most recently attended the Norfolk Chamber Music Festival with the Midnight Brass.
A doctoral student in choral music at the University of Southern California's Thornton School of Music, Chris Eans currently serves as the artistic director of the Chamber Opera of USC and as the chorus master and assistant conductor of the USC Thornton Opera. Chris completed his undergraduate degree at Occidental College, which included a year of study in Milan, Italy. From 2000-2005 Chris headed the music department at Blair Academy in New Jersey, and currently works as director of music at Sherman Oaks Presbyterian Church.
Patricia Franceschy, a top prize winner at the 2004 Xalapa Marimba Competition, was one of 7 finalists chosen from 100 participants in the Cynthia Woods Mitchell Young Artist Competition in Houston, Texas a year earlier. At The Curtis Institute of Music her teachers include Don Liuzzi, Rolando Morales-Matos and Scott Robinson. In her native Mexico, Ms. Franceschy served as timpanist of the ISMEV Symphony Orchestra in Veracruz, and has served as a percussionist and assistant timpanist of the Xalapa Symphony Orchestra. In the U.S. she has appeared with the Philadelphia Orchestra, Philadelphia Orchestra Percussion Group and with the Youth Orchestra of the Americas. In 2004 Ms. Franceschy was selected among several Curtis students to be featured in recital on National Public Radio. In addition to classical percussion her musical pursuits extend to jazz and improvisation and included an invitation to participate in the 2007 summer intensive workshop at the Center of Improvisational Music in Brooklyn, New York.
Australian pianist David Fung was on his way to becoming a medical doctor after accepting a scholarship to study medicine at the University of New South Wales, Sydney. Later that year, David won the prestigious Symphony Australia Young Performer of the Year Award, which culminated in the concerto finals with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra at the Sydney Opera House after four rounds of competition. David's fascination with other art forms has led him to explore relationships between visual art and music with audiences. He has presented music in tandem with exhibitions at numerous galleries and art spaces, including the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney. Chenny Gan was born in 1981 in Guangxi Province, China, and immigrated to the United States in 1989. She graduated from Wesleyan College (Macon, GA) in 2002, earning double degrees in Music and Studio Art. She then completed two Masters Degrees in Music at the University of North Carolina, Greensboro (Piano Performance and Piano Accompanying). Currently she is pursuing her doctoral degree in Piano at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles. Ms. Gan has performed and taught in China, Canada, Austria, Germany, and the United States. She continues to strive for musical collaboration in all genres and styles. For her myriad accomplishments, Ms. Gan's biography may be found in the 2006 Edition of Who's Who in America as well as the 2007 Edition of Who's Who in the World.
Brandon Patrick George. Winner of the 2007 Tuesday Music Club competition, Brandon is the recipient of many scholarships including the Oberlin Conservatory Dean's Award, and awards from the Gemeinhardt Flute Company, Lorenz Music Publishing Company, the Dayton Philharmonic Orchestra and many others. In 2004, at the age of 17, he performed as principal flutist with the National Festival Orchestra at Carnegie Hall under the direction of Lukas Foss. Currently principal flute of the Oberlin Orchestra, Brandon has performed with the Oberlin Chamber Orchestra and Wind Ensemble. At Oberlin, Brandon is chair of the Black Musicians Guild (OCBMG) and has transcribed and performed the music of Afro-French 18th Century violinist and composer Joseph Boulogne (Le Chevalier de Saint-Georges). He has attended the Symphony Orchestra Academy of the Pacific (Powell River, B.C), and the Festival de Musica de Santa Catarina in Brazil. Brandon is a student of Kathleen Chastain, and has also studied with Michel Debost. Recently, Brandon had the honor of studying flute with Sophie Cherrier at the Conservatoire National Superieur de Musique et Danse de Paris.
Originally from Chicago, Illinois, Ryan Glick, tenor, is currently a senior at the Eastman School of Music where he studies with Ms. Rita Shane. In addition to his degree studies (BM Voice Performance), Ryan is an Arts Leadership Program Certificate Candidate. Ryan has recently been featured as the tenor soloist in Felix Mendelssohn's Elijah as part of the Eastman Summer Sings series. This series of concerts provides the opportunity for all members of the community to perform a wide variety of choral repertoire. Upon graduation from Eastman, Ryan wishes to attend graduate school and pursue a career in arts administration.
Leah Greenfield is currently a senior violin performance major at The Peabody Institute where she studies with Herbert Greenberg. Leah's orchestral travels have most recently taken her to The Aspen Music Festival and Symphony Orchestra Academy of the Pacific (Vancouver), where she was principal second violin. Leah also enjoys playing in unique chamber groups, and recently performed Evan Chamber's Come Down Heavy! for violin, piano and saxophone and Piazzolla's Histoire du Tango for violin and guitar. An active member of the Peabody community, Leah is the co-chair of her school's student council, and in her free time enjoys hiking and taking pictures.
Cellist Brian Hatton is a graduate student in the Orchestral performance program at Manhattan School of Music, where he studies with Alan Stepansky. At MSM he performs as cellist of the Claremont Ensemble, a contemporary ensemble led by Richard Danielpour. In addition, he has served as principal cellist of each of the schools performing ensembles. Brian attended Music Academy of the West for three summers, played principal cello with the festival orchestra and was a finalist in the concerto competition. Brian was recently featured by MTV with Christina Aguilera at the Video Music Awards. Also a photographer, he covers performing arts events and concerts in New York City.
Craig Hauschildt is currently pursuing his D.M.A. in percussion performance with Richard Brown at Rice University. He has performed with the Houston Grand Opera, Houston Ballet and the Houston Symphony. During the summers he has performed in the Grand Teton, Aspen, and Spoleto Music Festivals. He completed his undergraduate studies at the Lawrence University Conservatory of Music in Appleton, Wl where he studied with Dane Richeson. In addition to his work in a concert hall, he has been found playing with the Space City Gamelan in warehouse concerts, playing bata drums along the waters of the San Francisco Bay, and in bars on the contemporary music series, barmusic. The Jasper String Quartet (J Freivogel and Sae Niwa, violins, Sam Quintal, viola, and Rachel Henderson, cello) is the graduate quartet-in-residence at Rice University, where they study with James Dunham, Norman Fischer and Kenneth Goldsmith. Formed at Oberlin Conservatory in 2003, recent highlights include appearances at the Aspen Music Festival, the Banff Centre, the Juilliard Quartet Seminar, Norfolk Chamber Music Festival, and on the Brooklyn Friends of Chamber Music and Santa Fe Pro Musica Series. Most recently, they represented the 9th Banff International Quartet Competition in Alberta, performing "guerrilla chamber music" in unusual places. For more information, please see www.jasperquartet.com.
Brett Johnson is a sophomore at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois. Raised in Wichita, Kansas, Brett began his trombone and piano studies at the age of 9. Currently a jazz studies and trombone performance major, Brett has been a part of the Midnight Brass for nearly a year. This past summer, Brett attended the Norfolk Chamber Music Festival with the Midnight Brass for six weeks.
Originally from Grand Rapids, Michigan, Grace Johnson is currently a second year masters student in the Orchestral Oboe Performance program at the Manhattan School of Music where she is studying under Liang Wang. She received her bachelor's degree in Oboe Performance from The Peabody Conservatory of Music in 2006. Grace has performed with The Baltimore Symphony, The Richmond Symphony, and the Summer Opera Theater in Washington, D.C. In the Washington Post, she was credited as being "an incredible English Horn player." In addition to performances within the United States, Grace has also performed in Italy, Luxembourg, France, and Germany.
An avid recitalist and chamber musician, violist Edward Klorman performs regularly at music festivals throughout the United States and Europe. Since 2005, he has been co-artistic director of the Canandaigua Lake Chamber Music Festival in upstate New York, and this past summer he was invited by David Finckel and Wu Han to participate in the International Program at Music@Menlo. In Canandaigua, he has played an integral role in developing Classical Blue Jeans, a series of interactive programs geared toward audiences who are new to classical music. Mr. Klorman is also an active musical scholar. As director of Juilliard's Historical Performance Project, he lectures regularly on performance practice and music theory at Juilliard, as well as at the Aspen Music Festival, Salzburg Mozarteum, and the University of Montreal. Mr. Klorman's major teachers at Juilliard were Heidi Castleman, Hsin-Yun Huang, and Steven Tenenbom.
Violinist David McCarroll has been described by the Indie LONDON as "a great talent" who plays "with an impressive depth of feeling." David has performed internationally as a recitalist, soloist and chamber musician and is the silver medal winner of the 2007 Klein Competition. David has participated in many music festivals including Ravinia's Steans Institute, the Yellow Barn Festival, the Gstaad (Switzerland), Gower (Wales), Manchester Quartetfest (England), Wyastone (Wales), and Spittalfields (London) festivals. He has studied violin with Helen Payne Sloat, Anne Crowden, and Simon Fischer and is currently studying with Donald Weilerstein at the New England Conservatory. "My most innovative and interactive performances came about through working with Tanya Maggi on preparing performances given in Boston's community as part of New England Conservatory's Outreach Fellowship. My quartet brought music to school children, care homes for the elderly, as well as homes for developmentally disabled adults, thus sharing music with people who would not ordinarily get to hear classical music. "
Lindsey Mitchell is a senior at the University of Denver, studying horn performance with Susan McCullough. During her time at DU, Lindsey has enjoyed playing in the Lamont Symphony Orchestra, the Lamont Wind Ensemble, and several chamber ensembles. One unique performance experience she had occurred last year when the Lamont Symphony Orchestra performed with the London Symphony Chorus. It was an amazing experience to be able to perform with such a fabulous group. Lindsey looks forward to the International Horn Symposium that is taking place at DU next July!
Colin Oldberg is a trumpet player from Northwestern University. He has been playing for 10 years, and thoroughly enjoys all kinds of playing. This past summer, he attended the Norfolk Chamber Music Festival, and has, on separate occasions, toured Europe, Australia, and Japan with the Colorado Springs Youth Symphony Orchestra. Colin has performed with the Northwestern University Symphonic Wind Ensemble, Chamber Orchestra, Brass Ensemble, and currently plays lead in the NU Jazz Ensemble. Always an avid lover of musical theatre, Colin has performed many times with NU pit orchestras, including the past two Waa-Mu Shows. Danielle Belen Nesmith, a California native and recent graduate of the USC Thornton School of Music, completed her Bachelor of Music Degree in violin as a scholarship student of Robert Lipsett. She continues her studies with Mr. Lipsett at the Colburn School. Danielle has appeared as soloist with orchestras across the country. Recent highlights include performances of the Brahms Violin Concerto with the National Repertory Orchestra in Breckenridge, Colorado, and with the Colburn Symphony Orchestra in Pasadena, California. In 2006, as the winner of the USC Concerto Competition, Danielle performed Bruch's Violin Concerto with the USC Symphony under the direction of Carl St. Clair. In addition to performing, Danielle is an enthusiastic teacher and chamber music coach in Los Angeles and Orange County. After participating in the Gold Coast Chamber Music Festival in Tarzana for two years as a student, she was offered a faculty position which she has held for the past three years. For more information, please visit her website at www.belenviolin.com.
Jung Eun Oh recently performed as a soloist at the Terrace Theater of the Kennedy Center. She has made appearances as the soprano soloist in Mahler's Fourth Symphony and Robert Beaser's The Heavenly Feast. She has also performed the role of Mademoiselle Silberklang in Mozart's Der Schauspieldirektor and in the title roles of Stravinsky's Le Rossignol and Mozart's La finta giardiniera. The Plain Dealer of Cleveland praised her "silvery-timbre, crystal-clear sense of pitch, and vocal agility" in Stravinsky's Nightingale. For Mozart's La finta giardiniera, the paper lauded her "expressive enchantment" and "exceptional accuracy and taste." She is a student of Mary Schiller.
Benjamin Peck is a student who is currently studying bassoon performance and music education at The Peabody Conservatory of Music at Johns Hopkins University. He studies with the principal bassoonist of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, Mr. Phillip Kolker. Benjamin is the co-chair of the Peabody student advocacy group, OASIS. This group serves as a liason between faculty, administration, and students and hosts a number of social activities. He is also a RA (Resident Assistant) at the Peabody Elderhostel. One of his most unique performing experiences was playing at a dinner party in which the guest of honor was Andrew Wyeth, a world famous American artist.
Steuart Pincombe is a third year performance major at the Oberlin Conservatory where he studies cello with Darrett Adkins and baroque cello/viola da gamba with Catharina Meints. He is also a member of the Oberlin Contemporary Music Ensemble with which he will perform as soloist this December. He has performed as soloist with four different orchestras, and has collaborated in chamber concerts with several renowned artists including violinist Mark Peskanov, pianist Jeffrey Beigel, organist Matti Pesonen, and guitarist Dusan Bogdanovich. Steuart has appeared in solo and chamber music performances in such venues as Sheldon Concert Hall in St. Louis; BargeMusic, Riverside Cathedral, and Avery Fischer Hall, and most recently in a performance of Marcelle Peirson's "Ignatius" for solo cello at the Kennedy Center in D.C. Steuart is currently preparing a project of performing the complete cello suites by Bach in different venues across the U.S.
Christina Sjoquist is a candidate for the master's degree in flute performance at the Rice University, studying with Leone Buyse, and currently plays with The Shepherd School Symphony Orchestra and Chamber Orchestra. She graduated in 2006 from the Manhattan School of Music where she studied with Linda Chesis. Her most unique performance featured Ugandan Justinian Tamusuza's "Okwanjula Kw'Endere" for solo flute. Christina performed the piece in a darkened recital hall, walking throughout the hall barefoot in an indigenous silk dress and employing techniques like whistling, quarter tones, singing while playing, and irregular rhythms to evoke the feel of traditional African music.
Hailing from Seattle, Brian Stone holds first prize as the winner of The 2006 Northwest Guitar Festival Competition and has performed as a featured soloist in Pepe Romero's 2005 Guitarrada at The San Francisco Conservatory of Music (SFCM). The guitarist has also participated in master classes with Manuel Barrueco and Pavel Steidl. During the summer, he enjoys his work as a staff member at The National Guitar Workshop; a nation-wide music school that specializes in the fostering of young guitar talent. Brian Stone currently studies at SFCM under the tutelage of David Tanenbaum. Stanford Thompson attends The Curtis Institute of Music where he holds the William A. Loeb Fellowship and studies with the Philadelphia Orchestra's principal trumpeter, David Bilger. He made his solo debut with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra in 2005, performing Hummel's Trumpet Concerto in E-flat Major. His orchestral experience includes performances with the Symphony in C, Lancaster Symphony, Endless Mountain Music Festival Orchestra and Gateways Music Festival Orchestra and as a chamber musician, he performs with the Conservatory Brass. Additional teachers have included Christopher Martin of the Chicago Symphony and Joseph Walthall of the Atlanta Symphony.
Violinist Erica Ward is currently pursuing her MM with Paul Kantor at the Cleveland Insitute of Music, having received her BM at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music with Camilla Wicks and Wei He. Erica served as Artist in Residence at Appalachian State University and Guest Lecturer at Western Kentucky University, while a guest of the Degas Quartet. She is the founder and Director of the Conservatory Summer Series in her native city of Portland, Oregon. Outside of classical music, Erica has performed with the San Francisco-Based Urban-alternative rock band MOVE, and is featured on their album, All of the Above.
Oboist Shane Wedel Is currently a senior at the University of Cincinnati's College-Conservatory of Music. Shane hails from Spokane, Washington and is a student of Dr. Mark Ostoich. Other influences include David Dutton, Russ Deluna, and Robert Atherholt. As a performer he is convinced of the importance of music of living composers and decided to give a recital of music where all the composers were living except for one who had passed in 2000.
Laura Weiner is a junior at Northwestern University where she studies horn with Gail Williams. She recently attended the Norfolk Chamber Music Festival with the Midnight Brass Quintet. She has also attended the Colorado College Summer Music Festival and Kendall Betts Horn Camp. Laura has performed the Gliere and Rosetti horn concerti with orchestras in Colorado Springs, CO. At Northwestern, she has played in the Symphony Orchestra, Chamber Orchestra, and Symphonic Band and has actively performed with several chamber ensembles.
Born in New York and raised in Japan, Winton Yuichiro White is currently working on his MM in Composition at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, studying under David Conte. He received his Bachelor of Music degree in tuba performance and in compostion at Biola University and has attended summer programs such as California Summer Music and Conservatoire Americain de Fontainebleau. Winton performed with various brass groups and orchestras in Mexico, Romania, Hong Kong and Southern China. Winton was a freelance tuba player and bass guitarist in Los Angeles and continues to be active in the Bay Area of California
Canadian Soprano Ellen Wieser has been described by the Winnipeg Free Press as "... a breath of fresh air, with her delicate voice and peaceful countenance." Paula Citron of the Globe and Mail wrote that "she is someone to watch" in response to her Glimmerglass Opera debut as Diana in Offenbach's Orpheus in the Underworld. Equally comfortable on concert and operatic stages, Ms. Wieser has appeared as a soloist with the Cincinnati Chamber Orchestra, the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra, the Dayton Philharmonic Orchestra, the National Arts Centre Orchestra, the Manitoba Chamber Orchestra, and the CCM Philharmonia Orchestra. She has appeared in operatic roles with Glimmerglass Opera, Chautauqua Opera, Opera NUOVA, and the University of Cincinnati, College- Conservatory of Music. Upcoming concert engagements include Orff's Carmina Burana with the October Festival Choir in Cincinnati, Barber's Prayers of Kierkegaard and Grieg's incidental music to Peer Gynt with the Baton Rouge Symphony Orchestra, and Mahler's Symphony No. 4 with the CCM Philharmonia Orchestra. Ms. Wieser is currently pursuing an Artist Diploma in Voice at the University of Cincinnati, College-Conservatory of Music. This degree will emphasize the performance of contemporary Canadian song literature, and will include several chamber music collaborations in that genre. Percussionist Rick Williams is originally from Centreville, Va., a suburb of Washington, D.C. Rick has performed with ensembles on both local and international television, and he has recorded for an independent movie soundtrack. Rick recently recorded with the Eastman Wind Ensemble and the Canadian Brass, and he is booked to travel and perform with the Eastman Percussion Ensemble at the International Percussion Ensemble Festival in Bjelovar, Croatia. Rick is perhaps most notoriously known as the percussionist of the classical-pop fusion group NeoCollage, which has performed in venues ranging from the Glimmerglass Opera House in Cooperstown, N.Y, to the Lion's Den in Manhattan's legendary Greenwich Village.
Stanley Wolfersberger has enjoyed the collaborative spirit since the earliest days of his piano training. Through high school, he played with the Columbus Symphony Youth Orchestra, touring the USA, Canada, Germany, Austria and the Czech Republic. Though his undergraduate degree is in International Business Administration, he maintained an active role in the music world, performing in 150 recitals over a six-year period. After working for Apple, Inc., Stanley has come back to his first love and is pursuing a Master's degree in Collaborative Piano with Dr. Allison Gagnon at the North Carolina School of the Arts. Previous teachers include Dr. Caroline J. Hong and Seymour Fink. Stanley's most memorable performance experience was performing Rachmaninoff's Second Piano Concerto with the Columbus Symphony Youth Orchestra during his senior year of high school.
Faculty/Staff Biographies
Angela Myles Beeching directs the New England Conservatory Career Services Center, a comprehensive career resource office for musicians, internationally recognized as a model of its kind. Ms. Beeching has been a guest speaker for the Eastman School of Music, the Oberlin, Colburn, and Peabody Conservatories, and conferences for the National Association of Schools of Music and Chamber Music America. Ms. Beeching's articles on music and careers have appeared in Inside Arts, Classical Singer, the Music and Entertainment Industry Educators Assoc. Journal, and Chamber Music magazine. Her book, Beyond Talent: Creating a Successful Career in Music, is published by Oxford University Press.
Richard Beene, Associate Dean of Students, Professor of Bassoon, Colburn Conservatory. Mr Beene was formerly the Professor of Bassoon at the University of Michigan, a post he held since 1989. In addition to chamber music, masterclasses, and music festival performances, other activities have included work with the New York Philharmonic, Pittsburgh Symphony, and Detroit Symphony. While at The University of Michigan, Mr. Beene also performed as the Principal Bassoonist of the Toledo Symphony.
Kathleen Chastain, French and American flutist, has appeared in solo and recital performances in the United States, Europe, South America and Asia. Kathleen has performed as soloist with chamber orchestras of Toulouse, France, Paris Chamber Orchestra and Versailles Chamber Orchestra, among others, as guest principal flutist with the Orchestre de Paris under the direction of Daniel Barenboim. Kathleen Chastain has been on the faculties of the Conservatoire National Superieur de Paris, the University of North Texas and Baldwin-Wallace College. She is currently Clinical Assistant Professor of Flute and Professional Development for Musicians at the Oberlin Conservatory.
Susan Helfter is an artist-educator known for her community engagement work through music. At the USC Thornton School of Music, Susan is the Director of Outreach Programs, Co-Director of the Midori Center for Community Engagement and Clinical Assistant Professor in Music Education with continuing research involving the performer as educator. Beyond USC, Susan is called upon regularly for interactive pre-concert lectures and to lead teaching-artist training sessions for arts organizations including the New World Symphony and the Da Camera Society. Susan is a past winner of the Canadian National Music Competition and performs regularly as a free-lance horn player and teaching artist in southern California. Catherine Jarjisian is Interim Dean at the Cleveland Institute of Music. She held prior positions as Director of the Conservatory of Music at Baldwin-Wallace College and Director of the Music Education Division at Oberlin Conservatory, as well as faculty positions at Oberlin, Iowa State University, and the University of Wisconsin- Whitewater. She is serving a second term on the NASM Commission on Accreditation and was a recent president of the Ohio Association of Schools of Music. Her undergraduate degree is from Susquehanna University, with graduate degrees from Temple University.
Since entering the world of professional music in 1972, Benjamin Kamins has enjoyed a distinguished career as an orchestral musician, chamber and solo performer, and educator. During his tenure as Associate Principal Bassoon with the Minnesota Orchestra, Mr. Kamins taught at St. Olaf and Macalester Colleges. In 1981 he was appointed Principal Bassoon of the Houston Symphony and has served as a guest principal with the New York Philharmonic as well as the Boston and Pittsburgh Symphonies. As a founding member of both the Epicurean Wind Quintet and the Houston Symphony Chamber Players, his life in Houston remained diverse and his artistic presence deepened in the community. Now as a Professor at Rice University's Shepherd School, Mr. Kamins continues his commitment to our young musicians and to the future of live music performance. In all of his professional activities, Mr. Kamins has been active in the vitality of institutional systems. During his orchestral years, he served on numerous committees, searches and planning groups that worked toward the long-term success of these orchestras. As a member of the Rice Faculty Senate, he enjoys creating partnerships between The Shepherd School and other areas of Rice University.
Gloria Kim was appointed Assistant Dean for Artistic Programming and Operations of Oberlin Conservatory of Music in July 2007. Kim is responsible for overseeing and administrating Oberlin's Artist Recital Series, the Conservatory's national and international tours, and all other special performance projects. Prior to joining Oberlin, Kim was the Manager of Annual Fund at the Los Angeles Philharmonic. Raising nearly $5 million annually for the Philharmonic, Kim brought the annual fund programs to a new level of professionalism and productivity. Previously, Kim was a recipient of the 2003 American Symphony Orchestra League's Orchestra Management Fellowship. Kim's assignments included residencies at the Aspen Music Festival and School, the Indianapolis, Greenville, and Chicago Symphonies. Kim received her B.A. in Arts Administration and B.M. in Piano Performance from Oberlin College and Conservatory of Music.
A co-founder and cellist of the Da Vinci Quartet from 1980 to 2005, Katharine Knight performed across the United States, in Russia, England and Canada. She has recorded extensively, has abundant teaching credits to her name, and is a veteran of many international competitions. Ms. Knight is a member of the performance faculty of the Colorado College and University of Denver's Lamont School of Music. This year she was named Lamont's Career Coordinator, and is responsible for initiating its career development program.
Steven LaCosse has sung and acted in over 80 productions. As a stage director, he has directed more than 40 productions including, , Don Giovanni, Eugene Onegin, Don Pasquale, Le nozze di Figaro, Carousel, The Fantasticks, Die Fledermaus, La fille du Regiment, Candide, Carmen, Disney's Beauty and the Beast, Madama Butterfly, and the southeastern premiere of Ned Rorem's Our Town. Mr. LaCosse holds a bachelor's degree in voice from Indiana University at South Bend, a master's degree in voice from the University of North Texas, a master's degree in opera stage direction from Indiana University, where he is also a doctoral candidate. He is the Managing Director for the A.J. Fletcher Opera Institute at the North Carolina School of the Arts.
Mary Kinder Loiselle is Director of Community Engagement and Career Development Services for The Curtis Institute of Music, where she also is a member of the Career Studies faculty. She has served as Director of Public Relations for the Philadelphia, Minnesota and Detroit orchestras; Assistant Director of Public Affairs at Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, Inc.; and Director of Education and Community Partnerships for the Philadelphia Orchestra. She has taught at Drexel and West Chester Universities and at the Eastman School of Music. Also a trained executive and personal coach, she works with clients and groups, and leads seminars on a variety of subjects, including a seminar for Curtis students, "Composing Your Life." She earned a B.S. in music education at West Chester University, where she continued with a Master's program in music history. She did further graduate work at Temple University and Ph.D. studies in music theory at Eastman, and is a graduate of the Pennsylvania Gestalt Center for Psychotherapy and Training. A native of greater Washington, D.C, saxophonist Gary Louie has earned an admired niche in American Concert life for his dedication to championing the artistic possibilities and expanding the repertoire of his instrument. Today, critics regularly compare him to Richard Stoltzman and Heinz Holliger for popularizing the artistic expressiveness of the saxophone as they did the clarinet and oboe, respectively. Recent seasons have heard performances with the Baltimore Symphony, Ohio Chamber Orchestra, and with the Washington Chamber Symphony and National Chamber Orchestra. An avid supporter and interpreter of contemporary music,Gary Louie is actively in involved the commissioning and performing of new scores for the saxophone, including works by William Albright and John Harbison.
Tanya Maggi is the director of New England Conservatory's Community Performances and Partnerships Program, a nationally recognized community outreach program that trains and connects New England Conservatory students with the Boston community. Ms. Maggi has previously worked for the Saint Louis Symphony as the orchestra's Education Programs Manager, and the Tulsa Philharmonic as both Director of Education and a violist in the orchestra. Extensively involved with arts advocacy initiatives across the country and abroad, Ms. Maggi serves on numerous advisory boards and has recently worked on projects with the London Symphony, the New York Philharmonic, the Youth Orchestra of the Americas, and Showa University in Tokyo.
Janet Rarick is currently on the faculty of The Shepherd School of Music at Rice University, where she teaches Wind Chamber Music, classes in professional development and performance skills, and directs the outreach program. A former member of the Houston Grand Opera and Houston Ballet Orchestras, she has also been an active recitalist in Houston since 1981. Ms. Rarick is the creator of The Shepherd School of Music website Navigating Music Careers. This site explores many aspects of building and sustaining a career in music performance, and is an ongoing resource for students and professional musicians all over the world. She was a pioneer in the use of distance learning at the school through her webcast program Navigating Music Careers Interactive. Most recently she developed a prototypical course for the school titled Music and Performance: The Mind/Body Connection.
Leslie Scatterday is Operations Manager for the Institute for Music Leadership and Assistant Director of the Catherine Filene Shouse Arts Leadership Program (ALP) at the Eastman School of Music. She manages all aspects of the ALP including the curriculum, guest speaker series, internship program, certificate programs and ALP student advising. She is also responsible for overseeing operations in the IML and the Office of Careers and Professional Development. Prior to joining Eastman in 2002, she had 13 years of higher education experience in various administrative positions at Cornell University, the last being Associate Director of the Purchasing Department. She holds a degree in Business Education from the University of Akron.
Jennifer Seaman joined the staff at San Francisco Conservatory of Music in 2006 as the Assistant to the Associate Dean of Students. As a liaison between students and administration, she aides in coordinating social activities, facilitating focus groups, collaborating in career development, and programming for health and wellness awareness. Jennifer began her studies at Baldwin-Wallace College where she received a BME as well as a BM in Vocal Performance. Jennifer continued her musical endeavors at SFCM where she went on to earn both a MM and a Post- Graduate Diploma in Vocal Performance. Pursuing her love of singing through an eclectic array of vocal repertoire, Jennifer has found enjoyment in exploring roles such as: "Nora" in Riders to the Sea, "Dorothee" in Cendrillon, "Lisa" in Pique Dame, "Susannah" in Susannah, "Sarah Brown" in Guys & Dolls, "Anna" in The King and I, and "Clara" in The Light in the Piazza.
Robert H. Smith completed his bachelor of music degree in piano performance at Florida State University as a student of the late Edward Kilenyi, Jr. Soon afterwards, Mr. Smith changed careers and pursued dance studies in New York City where he was subsequently invited to join the Alvin Ailey Repertory Ensemble. For a decade, Mr. Smith toured the United States and Caribbean performing the masterworks of African-American choreographers. He returned to his keyboard studies and attained a master's degree in accompanying and chamber music at the Eastman School of Music as a scholarship student. Mr. Smith serves as the assistant dean of the graduate program in Orchestral Performance, Community Outreach and the summer Professional Musical Theater Workshop at Manhattan School of Music. Additionally, he is the artistic coordinator for MSM's renowned chamber music group, the Claremont Ensemble. I P J Woolston manages undergraduate admissions and scholarships at the University of Cincinnati College Conservatory of Music. He also plays the bassoon and is no stranger to unique opportunities to create music.With his wife he has worked assiduously to expand the bassoon/soprano repertoire. Through his teaching and research he strives to bridge the gap between "classical" and (cough) "popular" music by making them equally accessible. P J earned an MM in Bassoon Performance at the University of Michigan and a BA in French from Brigham Young University.
Dorothy Wyandt directs the Career Services Office in the School of Music at Northwestern University. She has been at Northwestern since 1975 and assisted the director until taking full responsibility in 1992. She has been a participant in The Network of Career Development Officers since it's inception in 1995. Before coming to Northwestern, she was a caseworker for the Cook County Department of Public Aid. A graduate of DePauw University, she majored in psychology and sociology.
Robert Alan Yekovich became the fifth dean of The Shepherd School of Music at Rice University in 2003 and is also the Elma Schneider Professor of Music. He holds bachelor's and master's of music degrees from the University of Denver Lamont School of Music and a doctorate from Columbia University. From 1991 to 2003 he was dean of music at the North Carolina School of the Arts at the University of North Carolina. As Dean of The Shepherd School of Music at Rice University, Yekovich has significantly increased the visibility and enhanced the reputation of the school and its students. Yekovich is a composer whose works have been performed and broadcast throughout the United States and South America. He serves on several boards including the New York chapter of the League of Composers/International Society for Contemporary Music, Shepherd Society, Houston Symphony Orchestra, Houston Friends of Music, Eastern Shore Chamber Music Festival, Wellesley Composers Conference, Speculum Musicae, and the Lamont School of Music.
Yunny Yip joined the San Francisco Conservatory of Music as Associate Dean for Student Life in August 2005. As Associate Dean, Yunny coordinates career development, health & wellness programs, housing support, student government, disability services, and other co-curricular activities. An economist by training, Yunny received a B.S. in economics & business administration from Carnegie Mellon University and an M.A. in economics from the University of Virginia. Prior, she worked as class dean & coordinator of transfer programs at Columbia University and as special assistant to the dean at Carnegie Mellon University. Careers Forum Program Development and Production: Shepherd School Graduate Students
David Gerstein, a devoted performer of chamber and contemporary music has played concerts all over the world, from the stage of Carnegie Hall to the Great Wall of China. David has participated in the prestigious New York String Orchestra Seminar in New York City, presenting concerts in Carnegie Hall under the direction of Jaime Laredo. He was a founding member of the Cape Cod Experiment, a consistently multi-faceted chamber ensemble. CCE was invited to attend the Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition as Semi-Finalists and has appeared in concert with the Ying Quartet on the stage of Kilbourn Hall. Mr. Gerstein maintains a musical life during the summers outside of school as well. This past summer he was a fellow at the Tanglewood Music Center for the second time and was chosen to play New York Notes by Charles Wuorinen working closely with the composer as well as James Levine. Past summers include residencies at the Banff Centre in Alberta, CA and the Colorado Quartet's Chamber Music Institute on Cape Cod. Mr. Gerstein has maintained an active relationship with performing and promoting new works by little known composers. He has received grants from the Howard Hanson Institute for American Music and has performed actively with groups such as the Eastman Musica Nova Ensemble and Ossia: New Music. David played principal cello on a performance of Blood on the Floor by Mark Anthony Turnage atTanglewood's Ozawa Hall with the composer in attendance.
Pianist Eugene Joubert, serving as accompanist for the forum, has performed in Switzerland, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, the U.S. and South Africa as a soloist and chamber musician. He is currently pursuing a Master's degree in Chamber Music at Rice University's Shepherd School of Music as a student of Brian Connelly. In 2006, he graduated from the University of Pretoria (South Africa) as a student of Joseph Stanford, where he received a Master's degree in Piano Performance with distinction. He has won numerous awards, including first prizes at the National Chamber Music Competition (2000), the Advanced Piano Workshop Concerto Competition (Czech Republic, 2002), the Unisa South African Scholarship Competition (2002), as well as prizes in the International Jeunesses Musicales Competition (Romania, 2000) and the Unisa National Piano Competition (2003).
From Carnegie Hall to classrooms in the mountains, bassoonist Rachael Young has a career that spans a wide variety of venues, styles, and genres not limited to the concert stage. As an orchestral musician, she has performed with the Rochester Philharmonic and is currently the Assistant Principal of the Symphony of Southeast Texas. She has also held principal positions with the Equinox Symphony of Rochester and the Classical Symphony of Chicago, her hometown. As a Lois Rogers Scholar at the Eastman School of Music, she participated in the Eastman Wind Ensemble's Carnegie Hall tour and performed many times with the faculty ensemble "Virtuosi". A recipient of an Arts Leadership Certificate through her work as an intern with the Artistic Operations Department of the Rochester Philharmonic, she is also active in chamber music. Her woodwind quintet, the Destino Winds, was a three-time finalist at the Coleman Chamber Music Competition, served as Fellows at the Norfolk Chamber Music Festival, and was awarded Eastman's John Celentano award for excellence in Chamber Music. As educators, they were invited to be the first group to hold an annual residency in the isolated Adirondack school systems. A committed teacher on her own, Rachael served as a mentor for the MERIT program at the Music Academy of the West where she was the recipient of the bassoon fellowship award. Other summer study includes the International Festival- Institute at Round Top and the Sarasota Music festival. As a student of John Hunt, she received her Bachelor's degree with Highest Distinction from Eastman. Rachael is now pursuing her Master's degree as a student of Benjamin Kamins at Rice University. THANKYOU!
We wish to offer heartfelt thanks to the following for their support of the Forum:
Rice University's Faculty Initiatives Fund for a generous award. These grants provide funding for creative endeavors to promote Rice University's Vision for the Second Century.
Rice University's Humanities Research Center for sponsoring Dr. Shoshana Dobrow's presentation at the Forum.
Dean Robert Yekovich for his encouragement and advocacy of this project.
The Staff of The Shepherd School of Music:
Kristin Johnson, Fran Schmidt, Mandy Billings, and Josh Applebee (Production Staff) Tom Littman and Kristi Blair (Concert Office) David Long (Webmaster) Stephanie Jones (Development) Marty Merritt (Facilities Manager)
Eric Booth and Angela Beeching for their insight and expertise in developing this project.
NETMCDO (Network of Music Career Development Officers) for providing ongoing discussions which helped to inspire the idea for the Forum.
Professor Benjamin Kamins for his constant support in development and production of the Forum.
Shepherd School student coordinators David Gerstein and Rachael Young and the student production team:
Stanley Chyi Madeleine Kabat Andrew Cuneo Eva Liebhaber Sonja Harasim Evy Pinto Pamela Harris Angelique Poteat Eugene Joubert Catherine Ramirez
All of the faculty and staff members from the participating schools, for their help in facilitating the connections between our schools.
Our talented and energetic students, who are a constant inspiration to us all!