2012 Guest Artists
Aeolus Quartet
Praised by Strad Magazine for their "high-octane" performance, the Aeolus Quartet is among the finest young string quartets performing today. Violinists Nicholas Tavani and Rachel Shapiro, violist Gregory Luce, and cellist Alan Richardson formed the Aeolus Quartet in 2008 at the Cleveland Institute of Music. Since its inception, the all-American quartet has been awarded prizes at nearly every major competition in the United States, and performed across the globe to great acclaim. Luke Quinton of the Austin-American Statesman writes, "The Aeolus Quartet is a powerful and thoughtful group of young musicians who are plotting an ascending course...this vibrant group shows great promise."
The Aeolus Quartet are Grand Prize winners of the 2011 Plowman Chamber Music Competition and 2011 Yellow Springs Chamber Music Competition. They were also awarded First Prize at the 2009 Coleman International Chamber Music Competition, a Silver Medal at the 2011 Fischoff International Chamber Music Competition, and a Bronze Medal at the 2010 International Chamber Music Ensemble Competition in New England. The 16th Annual Austin Critics' Table also named the Aeolus Quartet their 2010-2011 "Best Ensemble." The Quartet's 2010-2011 season highlights include a two-week tour of China, a summer residency at the Austin Chamber Music Center, and concerts featuring the music of American composers across the United States made possible by a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts. The Quartet has collaborated on stage with such artists as Eugenia Zukerman, Brian Lewis, DaXun Zhang, Zuill Bailey, Peter Salaff, and the Miro Quartet.
In the summer of 2010, the Aeolus Quartet was the Young Quartet-in-Residence at the Bravo! Vail Valley Music Festival in Vail, CO. Summer 2010 also included performances at Carnegie Hall's Weill Recital Hall, the Perlman Music Program, the Juilliard String Quartet Seminar, the St. Lawrence String Quartet Seminar, and the Sunflower Music Festival. The Quartet has participated in the Aspen Music Festival's Center for Advanced Quartet Studies, the Young Quartet-in-Residence Program at the Pine Mountain Music Festival, and the Jeunesses Musicales International Chamber Course in Weikersheim, Germany.
Dedicated to bringing music into the community, the Aeolus Quartet designed and performed a program for elementary students in the Cleveland Public School system in an April 2009 project made possible by the Frances E. Sykora Outreach Performance Fund. The significant impact of this program has led to its becoming an ongoing project in the Cleveland Public School system. Working in collaboration with the University of Texas through the Rural Chamber Music Outreach Initiative, the Quartet has presented educational programs and performances in communities throughout the state of Texas.
The Aeolus Quartet has studied extensively with the Miro, Juilliard, Takacs, Artemis, and Cavani Quartets. The Quartet's other mentors include artists such as Peter Salaff, William Preucil, Donald Weilerstein, James Dunham, Roger Tapping, Heime Muller, and Itzhak Perlman. The members of the Quartet hold degrees from the Peabody Conservatory, the Cleveland Institute of Music, and the University of Texas at Austin, where they served as the first Graduate String Quartet in Residence. The Aeolus Quartet is currently the Graduate Fellowship String Quartet at the University of Maryland, where they are pursuing Doctoral degrees.
Lina Bahn
Described as “brilliant” and “lyrical” by the Washington Post, Lina Bahn is a highly acclaimed champion of new music, and is established as a versatile performer of many styles. Appointed to the faculty at the University of Colorado in Boulder in 2008, she has taught masterclasses throughout the world, including those at the Yong Siew Toh Conservatory in Singapore, the Sydney Conservatory, Hong Kong University, Renmin University (Beijing), the Curtis Institute of Music, among others. She has been on the faculty of the Sierra Summer Academy of Music since 2001, and is on the faculty of The Institute of the Palazzo Rucellai in Florence, Italy. She was a member of the award-winning Corigliano Quartet, which performed in Alice Tully Hall, Merkin Hall, Bargemusic, Ravinia, Carnegie Hall, and The Library of Congress, and has appeared as soloist with the Chicago Chamber Orchestra and The Chicago Symphony Orchestra. She is currently also the Executive Director and Violinist of the VERGE ensemble, resident ensemble of the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, DC. Lina Bahn received her DM from Indiana University, her MM from The University of Michigan, and her BM from the Juilliard School, where she studied with Dorothy DeLay.
Baroque Band
Garry Clarke, Artistic Director
Founded in 2007 by British conductor and baroque violinist Garry Clarke, Baroque Band has rapidly established itself as an important member of Chicago’s cultural community and as a touring and recording ensemble of international distinction. As Chicago’s period-instrument orchestra, the Band has been hailed by critics and audiences and has gained a reputation as one of the most exciting period-instrument ensembles in the United States through broadcasts, concert tours, and a recently released debut CD featuring the music of Biber, produced by the Grammy Award-winning Cedille Records and distributed internationally by Naxos.
Alongside its own subscription series, including performances at Chicago’s Symphony Center, home of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra (CSO), Baroque Band has been featured at the Ravinia Festival, Madison Early Music Festival, American Bach Society conference, Grinnell College, Purdue University, International Viola d’amore Conference, Dame Myra Hess Concert Series, in collaboration with Chicago Opera Theater at the Harris Theater in Chicago’s Millennium Park, and in Palo Alto, Berkeley and San Francisco, presented by the San Francisco Early Music Society.
The list of renowned international soloists who have appeared with Baroque Band include sopranos Dame Emma Kirkby and Lucy Crowe, the acclaimed young countertenor Iestyn Davies, and equally-renowned, Grammy-nominated violinist Monica Huggett. In 2009, NewCity chose Baroque Band performances of Handel’s Messiah as among Chicago’s top five classical concerts of the year, alongside concerts by Simon Rattle directing the Berlin Philharmonic and Riccardo Muti leading the CSO. Rounding up the year in 2009, the Chicago Tribune hailed Baroque Band as one of the top ten most important developments in Chicago’s classical music scene of the past decade.
Baroque Band, under Artistic Director Garry Clarke, has earned high praise from audiences and the press for performances that take a fresh look at the baroque era. The Chicago Tribune proclaimed that: “Baroque Band’s programs of unusual Baroque instrumental and vocal literature continue to make its concerts unmissable.”
For more information visit: www.baroqueband.org.
Phillip Bush
Phillip Bush’s active and unconventional pianistic 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 and Asia. 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 ranging from the Beethoven concerti to 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, and appears frequently at numerous chamber music festivals from Sitka (Alaska) to St. Bart’s in the Caribbean. 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. Since 2007 he has served as Music Director of the Bennington Chamber Music Conference, a summer music program at Bennington College.
A committed advocate for contemporary music, Phillip Bush has toured often with many renowned new music ensembles, including Bang on a Can All-Stars, Philip Glass Ensemble, and Steve Reich and Musicians. From 1995 until 2010 he was a 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 forty discs. Mr. Bush is a graduate of the Peabody Conservatory, where he studied with Leon Fleisher. Mr. Bush has served on the faculties of the University of Michigan and the University of North Carolina, and in 2012 was appointed Associate Professor of Piano and Chamber Music at the University of South Carolina.
Alberto E. Colla
Trained at the conservatories of Alessandria and Parma and the Santa Cecilia Academy in Rome, Alberto Colla has won many prizes for his compositions, which include two piano concertos, sonatas for piano and for guitar, and the opera Il processo, to his own libretto based on The Trial by Franz Kafka. Colla has received commissions from Juilliard and the Sonic Boom Festival in New York, the Salzburg Festival, the Bergen International Festival, and Bavarian Radio's Musica Viva. Luciano Berio recently commissioned a new work for chorus and orchestra from Colla to inaugurate a new theater designed by Roman architect Renzo Piano. Colla's eclectic style draws on music from many times and places. He has taught composition at the "G. Donizetti" Conservatory in Bergamo, Italy since 1998.
James Dunham
James Dunham is an internationally known soloist, chamber musician and teacher. Formerly violist of the Grammy Award winning Cleveland Quartet, he has collaborated with such renowned artists as Emmanuel Ax, Joshua Bell, Richard Goode, Lynne Harrell, Cho-Liang Lin, Sabine Meyer, Bernard Greenhouse and members of the American, Guarneri, Juilliard, Takacs and Tokyo Quartets. He has also worked with such composers as Milton Babbitt, Elliott Carter, Paul Chihara, John Corigliano, Osvaldo Golijov, Libby Larsen, Stephen Paulus, Mel Powell, Bernard Rands, Christopher Rouse, Gunther Schuller and Joan Tower. Ms. Larsen has written a sonata for Mr. Dunham (2001) which he premiered at the Aspen Music Festival in July 2001 and has recorded for an upcoming Naxos CD release.
Mr. Dunham is a frequent guest artist with groups such as Houston Friends of Music, Da Camera of Houston, Musicians from Marlboro, the Boston Chamber Music Society and the Borromeo, Cassatt, Cavani, Colorado, Fine Arts, Mendelssohn, Miami, Pacifica and Ying Quartets. In addition to his chamber music activities, Mr. Dunham has given concerto and recital performances throughout the U.S. and served as guest principal viola with the Boston Symphony under Seiji Ozawa and the Dallas Symphony under Andrew Litton in their home cities as well as at Carnegie Hall.
Currently Professor of Viola and Chamber Music at Rice University’s Shepherd School of Music, he directs their Advanced Quartet Studies Program. Mr. Dunham formerly taught at the New England Conservatory where he also Chaired the String Department. A devoted teacher, he frequently presents viola and chamber music master classes at leading schools and universities including Tokyo’s Toho School, Freiburg’s Hochschule für Musik, Beijing’s Central Conservatory, Boston and Northwestern Universities, USC, UCLA and the Royal Conservatory in Toronto.
Mr. Dunham was violist of the renowned Cleveland Quartet from 1987 through its final recordings and concerts in December 1995. The Quartet won the 1996 Grammy for “Best Chamber Music Performance” for their Telarc recording of John Corigliano’s String Quartet, written for their final tour. As a member of the Cleveland Quartet he also served as Professor of Viola at the prestigious Eastman School of Music. An Honors graduate of the Interlochen Arts Academy, Mr. Dunham studied liberal arts at Carleton College before receiving his Bachelor and Master of Fine Arts degrees from California Institute of the Arts. While at Cal-Arts, he was a founding member of the Sequoia Quartet, winners of the 1978 Naumburg International Chamber Music Award, and in 1991 he received the Cal-Arts Music School’s first Distinguished Alumni Award.
Mr. Dunham is much sought after as a jurist for events such as the Fischoff, Coleman and William Primrose Competitions, and has also been a featured soloist at the International Viola Congress. His summer activities include teaching and performing at many festivals, including those of Marlboro, Domaine Forget, Aspen, Sarasota, Amelia Island (FL), Yale at Norfolk and Musicorda. He served as principal violist of the San Diego Mainly Mozart Festival for ten seasons, and is a regular participant in the Festival der Zukunft in Ernen, Switzerland. He is featured on an album of recent music for viola and winds on the Crystal Records label, and has recorded with the Sequoia Quartet for Nonesuch and Delos, and with the Cleveland Quartet exclusively for Telarc.
Russell Fallstead
Noted for his “glorious strength” and “elegance” by the New York Concert Review for a performance at Carnegie Hall, Russell began violin lessons at age five in the public schools, and has blazed a unique trail as both performer and recording artist. A founding member of the critically acclaimed Fry Street String Quartet which began touring internationally in 1997, Russell performed his swan song with the quartet in 2009 with a marathon cycle of all 17 Beethoven String Quartets in one week’s time. His new band, TDF (The Dueling Fiddlers), presents a bold new genre: Violin Rock-Pop-Hiphop, where classical training combines with sizzling energy and a raw improvisational creativity that appeals to a wide and diverse audience.
Richard Faria
Clarinetist Richard Faria pursues an active career as soloist, chamber musician, and educator. He has been a participant in such festivals as the Bard Music Festival of the Hamptons, Skaneateles Festival, and has collaborated with the Zephyros and Sylvan Wind Quintets, Atlantic and Arianna String Quartets. He has performed in Weill Hall, Carnegie Hall, Spivey Hall, the Smithsonian Institution, as well as at the American Academies in Rome and Berlin, and Glinka Hall in St. Petersburg, Russia.
A fervent advocate of new music, Richard premiered the Clarinet Sonata by Roberto Sierra at the International ClarinetFest 2007 in Vancouver, BC, as well as the premiere of Pyrrhic Suite by Kevin Gray at the ClarinetFest 2010 in Austin, Texas. His first solo CD, Roberto Sierra: Clarinet Works, was described as “a superb recording that belongs on every clarinetist’s shelf” by the American Record Guide. His newest recording of Stephen Hartke's The Horse with the Lavender Eye is out on the Chandos label.
Richard is a contributing author to The Clarinet magazine, and studied at Ithaca College, Michigan State University, and SUNY Stony Brook, as well as the Aspen Music Festival, National Repertory Orchestra and the Stockhausen Courses Kürten. His teachers have included Joaquin Valdepeñas, Dr. Elsa Ludewig-Verdehr and Charles Neidich.
Joel Fuller
Joel Fuller received his Bachelor of Music in Violin Performance from the University of Wisconsin, and a Master of Music in Violin Performance and Chamber Music from the University of Michigan. His teachers include the late Vartan Manoogian and Paul Kantor. He has performed in master classes with some of the world’s leading teachers and musicians, such as Donald Weilerstein, Mark Steinberg, William Preucil, and Pamela Frank, among others. Mr. Fuller has won numerous awards and competitions, including the American String Teachers Association Competition and both the University of Wisconsin and the University of Michigan Concerto Competitions. As a student, he was awarded a three-year orchestral fellowship to attend the Aspen Music Festival; he was one of only two musicians to receive that honor in 2001.
Before his appointment with the National Symphony, Joel held the position of Assistant Principal Second Violin of the Washington National Opera Orchestra and previous to that appointment he spent three seasons as the Assistant Concertmaster of the Naples (FL) Philharmonic.
As a chamber musician, Mr. Fuller was the first violinist of the University of Michigan Graduate String Quartet and a founding member of the Sonare and Vanderbilt Currently, Joel is a founding member of the !Kari Quartet in Washington, D.C. which performs regularly at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. Joel plays on a violin made by Omobono Stradivari in 1724 named the “ex-Powell”
Kelly Hall-Tompkins
One of New York City’s most in-demand violinists, Kelly Hall-Tompkins’ dynamic career spans solo, chamber, and orchestral performance. In 2010 Ms. Hall-Tompkins signed with Columbia Artists Management and is a collaborator with violinist/composer and fellow roster artist Mark O’Connor in his Double Violin Concerto and first violinist of the O’Connor String Quartet. Ms. Hall-Tompkins was winner of a 2003 Naumburg International Violin Competition Honorarium Prize and a Concert Artists Guild Career Grant. Kelly Hall-Tompkins is a concertmaster of the Black Pearl Chamber Orchestra, Chamber Orchestra of New York and was soloist for the debut concert in Zankel Hall in ‘07. She has also been soloist with Dallas Symphony, Evansville Philharmonic, Greenville Symphony, Philharmonic of Uruguay, W. Piedmont Symphony among others. As recitalist she was featured at the National Academy of Sciences and Phillips Collection in Washington DC, Dame Myra Hess in Chicago, WFMT radio, and New York’s WQXR. In 2008 Ms. Hall-Tompkins released her second CD, “In My Own Voice” which has been critically acclaimed in BBC Music Magazine, Fanfare Magazine and the American Record Guide. Ms. Hall-Tompkins is a member of the Ritz Chamber Players, featured internationally on BBC/WNYC and Ravinia Chicago. Ms. Hall-Tompkins’ distinguished orchestral career has included extensive touring in the US and internationally with the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, over 150 performances with the New York Philharmonic and as first violinist with NJ Symphony. Ms. Hall-Tompkins is founder of charity series ‘Music Kitchen-Food for the Soul’, bringing over 50 concerts to NYC homeless, including Emanuel Ax and 100 other artists since 2005.
Juliette Kang
A native of Edmonton, Canada, Juliette Kang is the first associate concertmaster of the Philadelphia Orchestra. She came to Philadelphia from the Boston Symphony Orchestra where she served as assistant concertmaster from 2003 to 2005. Prior to that, she was a member of the first violin section of the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra from 2001 to 2003. During the 1999-2000 season, she was principal second violin with the Kennedy Center Opera Orchestra.
Ms. Kang was the gold medalist in the 1994 International Violin Competition of Indianapolis. In 1989, at age 13, she was a Young Concert Artists Audition winner, leading to recitals at New York City’s 92nd Street Y and at the Kennedy Center’s Terrace Theater in Washington, D.C. She won the Grand Prize at the Menuhin Violin Competition in Paris in 1992. Ms. Kang has been awarded numerous Canadian prizes and grants, including the Sylva Gelber Award of the Canada Council for the Arts, given annually to the most talented Canadian artist under age 30. In 1994 she was profiled in the New York Times Sunday Magazine as one of 30 people under 30 “most likely to change the culture over the next 30 years.”
Ms. Kang holds a Master of Music degree from the Juilliard School, where she studied with Dorothy DeLay and Robert Mann. She began violin studies at the age of four, and six years later she entered the Curtis Institute of Music as a student of Jascha Brodsky.
Ms. Kang has performed chamber music at summer festivals including Marlboro, SpoletoUSA, Skaneateles, Great Lakes Chamber Music, and Mostly Mozart at Lincoln Center, where she performed the Ravel duo with her husband, cellist Thomas Kraines. She is a frequent visitor with Mr. Kraines to the Moab Music Festival, the Next Generation Festival with Awadagin Pratt, and the Portland Chamber Music Festival.
Her solo engagements have included appearances with the orchestras of San Francisco, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Detroit, and Indianapolis, as well as with the Boston Pops, Hong Kong Philharmonic, the Singapore Symphony, the Vienna Chamber Orchestra, the Czech Philharmonic, and the Orchestre National de France. In her native Canada, she has soloed with the orchestras of Toronto, Winnipeg, Montreal, Quebec City, Calgary, Edmonton, and the National Arts Centre Orchestra of Ottawa.
An accomplished recitalist, Ms. Kang has performed in Paris at the Théâtre du Châtelet, in Tokyo at Suntory Hall, in Boston at the Gardner Museum, and in New York at the Frick Museum. In 1996 her recital at Carnegie Hall was recorded and released on the Samsung/Nices label. She has also recorded on the CBC label.
Thomas Kraines
Thomas Kraines, a graduate of the Curtis Institute of Music and the Juilliard School, is gaining recognition worldwide as a cellist, composer, and teacher. He frequently performs as a duo with his wife, violinist Juliette Kang, as well as with the Boston based chamber ensemble Mistral, the free improvisation duo Dithyramb, and the children’s musical troupe Auricolae. His chamber compositions have been performed across the country. In January of 2008 he was featured as guest composer/performer at the Jubilus Music Festival in Florida, and his "Songs and Games" for violin and piano was premiered in March as part of the Mani Chamber Music Series in Brooklyn, NY. He currently teaches at Princeton University and Temple University Prep, as well as at the Killington Music Festival. Recent festival appearances include the Moab Music Festival, Spoleto’s Festival dei Due Mondi (Italy), the Sebago/Long Lake Music Festival, Caramoor NY, the Next Generation Festival, and the Cape Cod Chamber Music Festival. Mr Kraines and Ms Kang live in Philadelphia with their two terriers and their daughter Rosalie.
Anthony Manzo
Anthony Manzo enjoys performing in a broad variety of musical forums - despite the complications of airline travel with a double bass! A sought-after chamber musician who performs regularly at such noted venues as Charleston's Spoleto Festival, the Chesapeake Chamber Music Festival on Maryland's Eastern Shore, and the Garth Newel Music Center in Virginia, Mr. Manzo is also the Solo Bassist of San Francisco’s New Century Chamber Orchestra, and a regular guest artist with the National Symphony and the Smithsonian Chamber Players near his home in Washington DC. He also performs frequently with Camerata Salzburg in Austria, where recent collaborations included their summer residency at the Salzburg Festival, and two tours as soloist in Mozart's “Per questa bella mano” alongside bass/baritone Thomas Quasthoff, with performances in Salzburg, Paris, Vienna, Budapest, and Istanbul. Other recent highlights include chamber music performances with the St. Lawrence Quartet on the Stanford Lively Arts Series, with Menachem Pressler and the Auryn Quartet at Georgetown University, and a critically-acclaimed US tour with the New Century Chamber Orchestra. He is also an active performer on period instruments, with groups including The Handel & Haydn Society of Boston and Opera Lafayette in Washington, DC. Additionally, Mr. Manzo is a member of the double bass and chamber music faculty of the University of Maryland.
Mr. Manzo performs on a double bass made around 1890 by Jerome Thibouville Lamy in Paris (which now has a removable neck for travel!).
Robert Merfeld
Pianist Robert Merfeld began piano studies at an early age in New York City with Leonid Hambro. He graduated from the Oberlin Conservatory as a student of Emil Danenberg and received a Master’s degree from The Juilliard School as a scholarship student of Beveridge Webster. While at Juilliard, he pursued art song accompaniment with Viennese tenor Hanz Heinz and also worked in the studios of Jennie Tourel, Oscar Shumsky, and Leonard Rose. Mr. Merfeld was a founding member of the Apple Hill Chamber Players, with whom he toured nationally and internationally for over twenty years. He is a frequent participant on the Emmanuel Music Chamber Music series and has been a guest artist with many chamber ensembles such as the Mendelssohn, Philadelphia and Muir Quartets. Mr.
Merfeld has recorded on the Centaur and Sine Qua Non record labels and is currently on the piano and chamber music faculties of Boston University, Dartmouth College and the Longy School of Music. Cellist Jan Müller-Szeraws’ musical journey has taken him over three continents as a soloist, chamber musician and teacher. Recent performances have included solo engagements with the New England Philharmonic, the Concord Orchestra, the Boston Landmarks Orchestra and the Moscow Symphony Orchestra. His recording of the Allende cello concerto with the Orquesta Sinfónica de Chile has been recently released. Müller-Szeraws has been a guest artist at many festivals, such as the Cape & Islands, Rockport, El Paso Pro-Musica, Music at Gretna and Kingston Chamber Music Festivals. He is a member of Mistral, the resident and touring ensemble of the Andover Chamber Music Series, and QX String Quartet. He regularly performs with contemporary music ensemble Boston Musica Viva. A guest lecturer at the Universidad Católica de Chile for the last two years, he is currently on the faculty at the Phillips Academy Andover, College of the Holy Cross and Clark University. He is a grant recipient of the Saul and Naomi Cohen Foundation.
Paul Moravec
Paul Moravec, winner of the 2004 Pulitzer Prize in Music, has composed over one hundred works for the orchestral, chamber, choral, lyric, film, and operatic genres. He is University Professor at Adelphi University, recently served as the Artist-in-Residence with the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, NJ., and in 2010 he was recently elected to the American Philosophical Society.
Mr. Moravec’s first opera, The Letter, commissioned by Santa Fe Opera, with libretto by Terry Teachout, premiered in the 2009 season. Other recent premieres include Danse Russe, a one-act comic opera for the 2011 Philadelphia International Festival of the Arts; The Blizzard Voices, an evening-length oratorio for Opera Omaha; Brandenburg Gate, for Orpheus Chamber Orchestra at Carnegie Hall; Piano Quintet, for Jeremy Denk and the Lark Quartet; Anniversary Dances, for the Ying Quartet; Cornopean Airs, for the American Brass Quintet; The Time Gallery with eighth blackbird at the Metropolitan Museum of Art; Morph with the String Orchestra of New York (SONYC); Cool Fire and Chamber Symphony for the Bridgehampton Chamber Music Festival; Capital Unknowns for the Albany Symphony; Everyone Sang for the Marilyn Horne Foundation; Parables for the New York Festival of Song; Vita Brevis, for tenor Paul Sperry; Useful Knowledge, a cantata commissioned by the American Philosophical Society for Benjamin Franklin’s tercentenary; No Words, commissioned by Concert Artist Guild for pianist James Lent and the Empire City Men’s Chorus.
Paul Moravec’s discography includes Tempest Fantasy, performed by Trio Solisti with clarinetist David Krakauer, on Naxos American Classics; The Time Gallery, performed by eighth blackbird, also on Naxos; Cool Fire, with the Bridgehampton Chamber Festival on Naxos; Songs of Love and War for Chorus and Orchestra on a CD featuring The Dessoff Choirs & Orchestra; Sonata for Violin and Piano performed by the Bachmann/Klibonoff Duo for BMG/RCA Red Seal; Double Action, Evermore, and Ariel Fantasy, performed by the Bachmann/Klibonoff Duo on an Endeavour Classics CD entitled “The Red Violin.”; Atmosfera a Villa Aurelia and Vince & Jan, performed by the Lark Quartet on an Endeavour Classics CD entitled “Klap Ur Handz”; Morph, performed by the String Orchestra of New York on an Albany disc, Spiritdance, an orchestral work on the Vienna Modern Masters label; an album of chamber compositions titled Circular Dreams on CRI; and Vita Brevis, with Paul Sperry, tenor, and the composer at the piano, on Albany Records. Upcoming releases include an orchestral album with Boston Modern Orchestra Project, and Useful Knowledge, on Naxos.
Among Paul Moravec’s numerous awards include the Rome Prize Fellowship from the American Academy in Rome, a Fellowship in Music Composition from the National Endowment for the Arts, a Rockefeller Foundation Fellowship, a Camargo Foundation Residency Fellowship, two fellowships from the American Academy of Arts & Letters, as well as many commissions. A graduate of Harvard University and Columbia University, he has taught at Columbia, Dartmouth, and Hunter College, as well as Adelphi University.
Scott Rawls
Scott Rawls has appeared as soloist and chamber musician in the United States, Canada, Mexico, Japan, and Europe. Chamber music endeavors include performances with the Diaz Trio, Kandinsky Trio and Ciompi Quartet as well as with members of the Cleveland, Audubon and Cassatt String Quartets. His most recent CD recording, released on the Centaur label, features the chamber music of Samuel Coleridge-Taylor and was released summer 2004. His recording of chamber works for viola and clarinet was released spring 2003 on the same label. The ensemble, Middle Voices, will record another disc for Centaur featuring the chamber music of American composer, Eddie Bass. Additional chamber music recordings can be heard on the CRI, Nonesuch, Capstone, and Philips labels. Also a champion of new music, Rawls has toured extensively as a member of Steve Reich and Musicians since 1991. As the violist in this ensemble, he has performed the numerous premieres of The Cave and Three Tales, multimedia operas by Steve Reich and Beryl Korot, videographer. And under the auspices of presenting organizations such as the Wiener Festwochen, Festival d'Automne a Paris, Holland Festival, Berlin Festival, Spoleto Festival USA and the Lincoln Center Festival, he has performed in major music centers around the world including London, Vienna, Rome, Milan, Tokyo, Prague, Amsterdam, Brussels, Los Angeles, Chicago and New York. He is a founding member of the Locrian Chamber Players, a New York City based group dedicated to performing new music. Dr. Rawls currently serves as Associate Professor of Viola and Chair of the Instrumental Division in the School of Music at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. Under the baton of maestro Dmitry Sitkovetsky, he plays principal viola in the Greensboro Symphony Orchestra. He is very active as guest clinician, adjudicator, and master class teacher at universities and festivals in America and Europe. During the summers, Rawls plays principal viola in the festival orchestra at Brevard Music Center where he also coordinates the viola program. He holds a BM degree from Indiana University and a MM and DMA from State University of New York at Stony Brook. His major mentors include Abraham Skernick, Georges Janzer, and John Graham.
Gaëlle Solal
One of the highlights of the 2011 GFA Convention, Gaëlle Solal was born
in Marseilles (France) and began the guitar at 6 with René Bartoli. At 14, she won three gold medals at the Conservatoire de Marseilles and as best student of all instruments, was awarded the Prix de la Ville de Marseille.
A winner of 1st Grand Prix at Alessandria Competition, 1st Prize in Locquémeau, 1st Prize in Savona, 1st Prize in Sernancehle, Finalist at Concert Artists Guild New York, Honor Diplom at Accademia Chigiana and 2nd Prize at Guitar Foundation of America, Gaëlle has performed in more than 30 countries including Germany, Myanmar, Bulgaria, Canada, Denmark, Israel, Spain, France, Gabon, India, Iceland, Italy, Laos, Malaysia, Morocco, Mexico, Palestina, Philippines, Puerto Rico, Portugal, Serbia, Switzerland, Tunisia, USA and Japan.
She has performed in Festival dIle de France, Noches en los Reales Alcázares in Sevilla, Festival dAvignon, Festival Montpellier-Radio France and at Salle Cortot (Paris), Zellerbach Hall (Berkeley), Tsuda Hall, Nikkei Hall, Oji Hall in Tokyo, Merkin Concert Hall (NY) and with the Berkeley Symphony, the Garde Républicaine Orchestra and the Philharmonic Turin Orchestra.
Having a passion for contemporary music, Gaëlle has premiered many new works including the new Concerto of Maurice Ohana, the Double Concerto by Naomi Sekiya with Kent Nagano in Berkeley and three new compositions at Cordoba Guitar Festival 2006.
Kathryn Votapek
A member of the Chester String Quartet for fifteen years, violinist/violist Kathryn Votapek now maintains an active career as soloist and as guest artist at chamber music festivals throughout the U.S., Canada and Europe. She has participated in numerous commissioning projects and premieres and can be heard with the Chester Quartet on the Koch International Classics, New Albion, and Audio Ideas labels. Along with pianist Ralph Votapek and clarinetist Paul Votapek, she performs with the Votapek Trio and she also performs regularly with her husband, violinist Aaron Berofsky.
Ms. Votapek has been on the faculty of the Meadowmount School of Music, the Interlochen Arts Camp, the Las Vegas Music Festival, the Madeline Island Music Camp, the Quartet Program, the Banff Inernational Festival, and the Adriatic Chamber Music Festival (Italy), as well as performing at the Speedside Festival (Canada), the International Deia Festival (Spain), the Garth Newel Festival, the Fontana Festival, and with the Chicago Chamber Musicians.
Ms. Votapek is currently on the faculty at University of Michigan and is the Associate Concertmaster of the Ann Arbor Symphony Orchestra. She was Associate Professor of Violin and Artist in Residence at Indiana University South Bend.
Ms. Votapek received her Bachelor of Music degree at Indiana University and Masters degree from the Juilliard School. Her teachers were Robert Mann, Franco Gulli, and Angel Reyes.
Rachel Young
Rachel Young, a Washington native, is a cellist with the National Symphony Orchestra, a member of the 21st Century Consort and of the cello quartet 4in Correspondence, representative of a varied career of orchestral, chamber and solo playing. Young began cello studies at the age of four and immediately wanted to become a cellist. Prior to her appointment to the National Symphony Orchestra, she was the Principal Cellist of the Kennedy Center Opera House Orchestra. Her solo and chamber playing have taken her across the country and abroad to Europe and the Middle East. She has appeared as a soloist with the National Philharmonic, the Peabody Symphony Orchestra, the New England Conservatory Chamber Orchestra, and the National Symphony Orchestra’s Summer Music Institute Orchestra. Solo performances in the Washington area include concerts at the Corcoran Gallery of Art, the Eisenhower Theater and Millennium Stages at the Kennedy Center, as well as recitals at the Strathmore Recital Hall, the German Embassy, the Austrian Embassy and the Anderson House Museum. Young has performed as a guest artist with the Kennedy Center Chamber Players, the Smithsonian Chamber Players, the Embassy Series, the Contemporary Music Forum, on WGBH and WGMS Radio and at the White House. In addition, Young has added her sound to a short film, a CD of bluegrass music, and a DVD of music of Schoenberg. She also serves on the Board of the Kindler Cello Society. Ms. Young received her Bachelor of Music degree from the New England Conservatory of Music, where she studied with Laurence Lesser, and her Master’s degree in cello performance with Stephen Kates at the Peabody Conservatory. She spent two summers as a Fellow at the Tanglewood Music Center and attended courses for two summers at the Britten-Pears School for Advanced Musical Studies in England, where she studied with William Pleeth and participated in chamber music courses.