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Crested Butte, CO 81224
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Kids Go Free
With purchase of one regularly priced adult ticket a free entrance ticket for children and students 7-17 (with a valid student ID) is available at all MainStage performances. Evening performances are not appropriate for children under 6 years of age. Fundraising events and galas are not included in the Kids Go Free program. More info.
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Eugenia Zukerman is a true Renaissance woman. While maintaining an international concert calendar with more than thirty performances annually, her multi-faceted career also includes distinguished work as an arts administrator, author, educator, internet entrepreneur, and journalist.
In demand from New York to China as an orchestral soloist, chamber musician and recitalist, Eugenia Zukerman has been praised by The New York Times for her performances — “Her musicianship is consummate, her taste immaculate and her stage presence a sheer pleasure.” She has enjoyed musical collaborations with Emmanuel Ax, Yo-Yo Ma, Jean-Yves Thibaudet, the Shanghai String Quartet and fellow flutists Jean- Pierre Rampal and James Galway. This season, she made her heralded debut at the prestigious Verbier Festival in Switzerland, performing challenging chamber works by Hanns Eisler, Arnold Schönberg, Andreas Jakob Romberg and Behzad Ranjbaran. She partnered with some of the world’s finest musicians, including violinist Dimitry Sitkovetsky, violist Nobuko Imai, cellist Frans Helmerson, and pianist Elena Bashkirova, among others. This season she will perform with the Manhattan Piano Trio in Pennsylvania, with the Symphony Space All-Stars in New York City in a festive concert of Brandenburg Concerti, and with the Princeton Symphony Orchestra in a performance of Lowell Liebermann’s Concerto for Flute and Orchestra Op.39 conducted by Rossen Milanov, Music Director and Conductor.
As a recitalist, Eugenia Zukerman has been lauded not only for her playing, but also for her adventurous programming. As The Sunday Telegram observed, “Few major instrumentalists offer anything comparable to the intelligence and breadth of programming that she brings to her concerts, and this one was no exception.” The Capital Times concurred, “What made this concert so noteworthy was not only the unusual music that Zukerman played with world-class virtuosity and musicality, but also her presentation and stage presence.” For twenty years she performed a yearly three concert series of thematic programs at the New York Public Library with harpsichordist. Organist and pianist Anthony Newman. This season she will collaborate with Mr. Newman in a flute and organ performance in Amarillo, Texas, and in over twenty recitals nationwide with pianist Milana Strezeva.
Eugenia Zukerman has performed as soloist with many of the world’s finest orchestras. Her numerous guest appearances have included engagements with the Tokyo Philharmonic, the Royal Philharmonic, the China Philharmonic, and the Israel, Moscow, Prague and Scottish Chamber Orchestras. The breadth of her appearances in North America is remarkable – with more than eighty orchestras nationwide, including the Los Angeles Philharmonic, National Symphony in Washington DC, the Montreal and Vancouver Symphonies and the National Symphony Orchestra of Mexico. Performances and a recording of Lowell Liebermann’s Concerto for Flute and Orchestra Op.39 with the Dallas Symphony Orchestra conducted by Andrew Litton (Delos) led to a rewarding connection between Eugenia Zukerman and the orchestra. Last summer, the relationship continued to flourish with her performance of Mozart’s concerto for Flute and Harp (with Yolanda Kondonassis) in the opening concert of the Vail Valley Music Festival, conducted by Music Director Jaap van Zweden.
A creative and dynamic administrator, Eugenia Zukerman enjoyed thirteen distinguished years as Artistic Director of the Bravo! Vail Valley Music Festival. During her tenure, the festival in Vail developed an international profile through the annual residencies of the New York Philharmonic, the Philadelphia Orchestra, and the Dallas Symphony. Yo-Yo Ma, Lang-Lang, Yefim Bromfman and Jean-Yves Thibaudet were among the many internationally renowned artists who appeared during her directorship, further elevating the reputation of the Festival.
Recognized with an Emmy nomination as an important broadcast journalist, Eugenia Zukerman interviewed and created more than three hundred portraits as an Arts Correspondent for CBS Sunday Morning. Her interview subjects included James Levine, Seiji Ozawa, Leontyne Price, Marilyn Horne, Helen Frankenthaler, Al Hirshfeld, Julie Taymor, Dame Maggie Smith, David Hyde Pierce, Mikhail Barishnikov, Savion Glover, Peter Martins, Daniel Barenboim and Isaac Stern. For more than twenty-five years she introduced viewers to the most outstanding creators in fine art, music, dance and theater. It is through her lens that a generation of viewers came to appreciate the arts. She has also been the invited guest on NBC’s Today Show, CBS’s Morning Show, the Charlie Rose Show and appeared in numerous specials on PBS.
An innovator, she embraced the internet early on and founded ClassicalGenie, an internet company that provides video content to music schools, artist, managers, orchestras and other institutions for use on their websites. The video material helps promote reputation, attendance, interest and fundraising. Recent clients include the Manhattan School of Music’s Fiftieth Anniversary celebration and The Harlem School of the Arts million dollar fundraising appeal.
She continued her role as an arts journalist in the summer of 2011, creating the first vlog (video blog) for the MusicalAmerica website. Thousands of internet viewers tuned in to Eugenia Zukerman’s Verbier Vlog as she introduced the world to the Verbier Festival from her inside perspective as a performer. Festival participants, from Founder and Executive Director Martin Engstroem to performers Gautier and Renaud Capuçon, Julian Rachlin, David Garrett, as well as local merchants and audience-members, responded to Eugenia Zukeman’s warm invitation to share their insight and experience on the Verbier Vlog. She has the rare ability to make the foreign feel familiar.
In 2012 the Boston Symphony Orchestra hired her to create The Tanglewood Vlog, celebrating the 75th anniversary of the BSO’s summer residencies in the Berkshires. And in the summer of 2013, she returned to the Verbier Festival in Switzerland to create another Verbier Vlog for the festival and to perform with artists such as clarinetist Martin Frost, violinist Ilya Girngolts, pianists Yuja Wang and Michel Beroff, the great German actress Barbara Sukowa, and other extraordinary artists.
In addition to her television appearances and on-line presence, Eugenia Zukerman’s discography is impressive. She has over two dozen discs to her credit, including releases on the Delos, SONY Classical, Pro Arte, Vox Cum Laude and Newport Classic labels. Her most recent recording, Flesh & Stone: The Songs of Jake Heggie was released on the Americus label with all proceeds benefitting Classical Action; Performing Arts Against AIDS.
The author of the New York Public Library’s Award-winning non-fiction book In My Mother’s Closet, and also Coping with Prednisone (which she co-authored with her sister Dr. Julie R. Ingelfinger), Eugenia Zukerman has enjoyed success in the humanities as well as the arts. The release of Coping with Prednisone resulted in an invitation to appear on The Discovery Health Channel. Her first two novels were well received: Deceptive Cadence was published by Viking Press and Taking The Heat was published by Simon and Schuster. Today, Miss Zukerman is a regular contributor to The Washington Post book review and continues her journalist assignment for Musical America, which was begun with the Verbier Vlog, writing a signature article for the 2012 edition of the annual directory.
Eugenia Zukerman has a generous spirit and has given benefit performances for causes close to her heart. In summer 2011, she performed with her singer-songwriter daughter Natalia Zukerman, and percussionist Mona Tavakoli, in a benefit concert for Roundup River Ranch, an organization which was founded by Paul Newman and “provides camp experiences to children with life-threatening illnesses.” She also performed and served as host for Young Concert Artists’ 50th Anniversary musical marathon at Symphony Space in New York, showing her gratitude to the organization that launched her career with their coveted award.
Not only was Eugenia Zukerman a Young Concert Artists Award-winning flutist, but in addition, she received their Lifetime Honor Award in 2006. In 2009, she also received Concert Artists Guild Virtuoso Award for Dedication to the Arts – one of a handful of artists to be so honored by both organizations. Other honors include a Lifetime Achievement Award from The Open University of Israel in NYC, a Woman of Achievement Award from the National Hadassah Organization, and she is a recipient of the Exceptional Achievement Award from The Women’s Project.
Miss Zukerman studied English at Barnard College and received a B.M. from The Juilliard School where she studied with the renowned flutist Julius Baker. She received an Honorary Doctorate from Knox College in Illinois and was elected to the New York Institute for the Humanities. Her genuine curiosity and ability to connect with others has made her a desired teacher. She is an adjunct faculty member at New York University’s Steinhardt School of Music and a frequent guest teacher at conservatories nationwide. Most recently she created and taught a multi-disciplinary two week residency at The Hartt School which was unprecedented in the breadth of its scope. The 2010-2011 academic program spanned the disciplines of creative writing, music, education and health sciences.
A Massachusetts native, Miss Zukerman makes her home in New York City and in upstate New York where she shares a small farm with her husband, broadcaster Richard Novik, two horses, two dogs, and a cat named Lulu.
Renowned for her pure, luminous, rich soprano, persuasive performances and dramatic ability, Arianna Zukerman is considered one of the premiere vocal artists of her generation. An international artist known for concert and opera performances, Ms. Zukerman is also an avid chamber musician, and regularly collaborates with some of today’s foremost chamber players. The Washington Post says “Arianna Zukerman possesses a remarkable voice that combines the range, warmth and facility of a Rossini mezzo with shimmering, round high notes and exquisite pianissimos that would make any soprano jealous.”
Ms. Zukerman is the featured soloist on the critically acclaimed, GRAMMY nominated 2013 Naxos recording of James Whitbourn’s oratorio, Annelies: the first major choral setting of the Diary of Anne Frank. The Guardian (UK) praised her performance on the CD¸ stating, “Arianna Zukerman sings with subdued beauty.” She sings the work often including recent performances in Dallas, TX and Cleveland, OH and notably, the New York City premiere of the work at Alice Tully Hall in Lincoln Center in Spring of 2014.
The 2017 –’18 season includes concerts with the Defiant Requiem Foundation singing the concert, Hours of Freedom and a staged reading of the new play Mass Appeal, 1943; the Mozart C Minor Mass with the Richmond Symphony, the Verdi Requiem with the True Concord Choir and Orchestra (AZ), Così fan tutte with the National Philharmonic, a concert for the Coalition for African Americans in the Performing Arts at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC and performances at the Wintergreen Music Festival in Wintergreen, VA and at the Crested Butte Music Festival in Colorado.
Recent performance highlights include performances of Beethoven Symphony No. 9 with the National Arts Centre Orchestra in Ottawa with her father, Pinchas Zukerman conducting, and Barber’s Knoxville Summer of 1915 and orchestrated Schubert songs at the Wintergreen Music Festival and Academy where she was the master teacher in a weeklong vocal intensive focusing on Schubert lieder. She sang the soprano solo in a performance of the multimedia concert drama, the Defiant Requiem at the Music Center at Strathmore with The Orchestra of Terezin Remembrance; concerts with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra in Reading, Salisbury and at London’s Cadogan and Royal Festival Halls again with Pinchas Zukerman conducting; Whitbourn’s Annelies with the Lincoln Trio, clarinetist Bharat Chandra, The Chicago Children’s Choir, Josephine Lee conducting, at Chicago’s Harris Theatre (presented under the auspices of the US Holocaust Museum’s 20th anniversary year); a 15-concert engagement with the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra in Tel Aviv, Haifa and Jerusalem; a performance of Jake Heggie’s At the Statue of Venus for Urban Arias at the Strathmore Center for the Arts’s Strathmore Mansion; concerts with Chicago’s Music of the Baroque under Jane Glover singing Mozart’s “Exsultate Jubilate” and “Ch’io mi scordi di te,” with Vladimir Feltsman at the piano; and a return to the Colorado Symphony as soloist in Fauré’s Requiem under conductor Jose Luis Gomez.
Ms. Zukerman’s extensive career includes performances with an impressive group of conductors including James Levine, Charles Dutoit, Leonard Slatkin, Lorin Maazel, Ivor Bolton, Constantine Orbelian, Julian Wachner, Jane Glover, Lawrence Foster, Rossen Milanov, Marin Alsop, Pinchas Zukerman, Jose Luis Gomez, and Andrew Litton. She has worked with major orchestras worldwide, including the orchestras of Boston, Chicago, Minnesota, Dallas, Colorado, Cincinnati, Pittsburgh, and Philadelphia, the Rochester Philharmonic and National Arts Centre Orchestra in North America, and with the English String Orchestra, Royal Philharmonic (UK), the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, the Gulbenkian Foundation Orchestra and the Moscow Chamber Orchestra abroad. Among the opera companies with which she has performed are the New York City Opera, Chicago Opera Theater, Arizona Opera, the Berkshire Opera Company, and the Castleton Festival. In her chamber music collaborations, she has worked with such esteemed artists as violinist Daniel Hope; pianists Benjamin Hochman, Ken Noda, Navah Perlman, Joy Schreier, and Brian Zeger; clarinetists Bharat Chandra, Alex Fiterstein, Patrick Messina, and Anthony McGill; flutist Eugenia Zukerman; the Miami String Quartet, and The Lincoln Trio.
Arianna Zukerman was born in New York City into a musical family. Her father is violinist/violist/conductor Pinchas Zukerman, her mother is flutist, writer and arts broadcaster, Eugenia Zukerman, and her sister Natalia Zukerman is an accomplished singer/songwriter and visual artist. In addition to her performance schedule, Ms. Zukerman is the Chair of Vocal Studies at the Wintergreen Music Festival and Academy and is the Festival’s Advisor for Vocal Programming she is also an Associate Director and faculty member at the Potomac Vocal Institute in Washington, D.C. This summer she will run the senior level voice program at the Summer Music Institue in Ottawa, Canada.
A past recipient of the Sullivan Foundation Award, Ms. Zukerman was a member of the Bavarian State Opera’s Junges Ensemble. She studied theatre at Brown University and received her Bachelor of Music from the Juilliard School. She resides with her family in Greater Washington, DC.
Musician, painter and educator Natalia Zukerman grew up in New York City, studied art at Oberlin, started her mural business Off The Wall in San Francisco, began her songwriting career in Boston, and now resides, writes, plays, teaches and paints in Brooklyn, NY. Having released seven independent albums on Weasel Records and her own label Talisman Records, Zukerman has toured internationally as a solo performer since 2005. She has also accompanied and opened for some of acoustic music’s greats such as Janis Ian, Willy Porter, Susan Werner, Erin McKeown, Shawn Colvin, Ani DiFranco, Richard Thompson, Tom Paxton and many others. Alongside her touring career, Zukerman continues to paint private and public murals as well as illustrate children’s books, design and paint sets for plays in New York City and paint private portrait commissions. Natalia teaches private songwriting lessons and has taught at Sisters Song School, Red Rocks Womens Music Festival, Winnipeg Folk Festival, Interlochen Summer Music Program and other festivals and locations throughout the US and in Canada. In February, 2017, Natalia became a Cultural Diplomat for the US Department of State, playing concerts and conducting workshops with her group The Northern Lights throughout Africa.
Described by the Boston Globe as one who “plays classical violin with the charisma of a rock star”, Juilliard graduate Charles Yang began his violin studies with his mother in Austin, Texas, and has since studied with world-renowned pedagogues Kurt Sassmanshaus, Paul Kantor, Brian Lewis and Glenn Dicterow. He has performed as a soloist with orchestras and in recitals in the United States, Europe, Brazil, Russia, China, and Taiwan, and is the recipient of numerous awards and honors. On June 9th of 2005, the Mayor of Austin presented Mr. Yang with his own “Charles Yang Day”. In 2016 Mr. Yang joined the crossover string-band, Time for Three.
Not only confined to classical violin, Mr. Yang’s improvisational crossover abilities as a violinist, electric violinist, and vocalist have led him to featured performances with a variety of artists in such festivals as The Aspen Music Festival, The Cayman Arts Festival, The YouTube Music Awards, The Moab Music Festival, TED, Caramoor, The EG Conference, Oncue Conference, Google Zeitgeist, YouTube Space Los Angeles, Interlochen, and onstage at venues such as Carnegie Hall, Alice Tully Hall, Lincoln Center’s Metropolitan Opera House, David H. Koch Theater, Dizzy’s and David Rubinstein Atrium; The Long Center, The Royal Danish Theatre, Le Poisson Rouge, Highline Ballroom, Ars Nova, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, and The Forbidden City in Beijing among many others. He has performed in the presence of two former US Presidents, the Queen of Denmark and has recently shared the stage in collaborations with artists including Peter Dugan, CDZA, Steve Miller, Jesse Colin Young, Jake Shimabukuro, Ray Benson, Michael Gordon, Bang on a Can All-Stars, Marcelo Gomes, Twyla Tharp, Misty Copeland and Jon Batiste. His career has been followed by various news media including The New York Times, The New York Post, The Wall Street Journal, The Huffington Post, Playbill, The Boston Globe, Fortissimo, The Financial Times, The Austin-American Statesman, The Austin Chronicle, Shenzhen Daily, The Strad, Dallas Daily, Cincinnati Enquirer, and Juilliard Journal. Mr. Yang is featured in Nick Romeo’s book, Driven as well as Discovery Channel’s Curiosity.
Regarding Mr. Yang, The Texas Observer has noted, “Mr. Yang is a true crossover artist, a pioneer who can hop between classical and popular music and bring fresh ideas to fans of both genres. Rather than maintaining an insular focus and simply assuming that an audience for classical music will always exist, he wants to actively create that audience, to persuade and seduce others into enjoying a type of music as passionately as he does.”
Ian Wisekal, a native of Long Island, NY, joined the faculty at the University of Denver’s Lamont School of Music in 2013. In addition to Crested Butte, he serves as Principal Oboe of the Greeley Philharmonic Orchestra and previously held the position of Associate Principal Oboe with the Puerto Rico Symphony Orchestra. He played principal oboe on that orchestra’s recording of Cofresí, which was nominated for a Latin Grammy. He also appears on recordings with the Colorado Symphony and as soloist with the Lamont Symphony.
Ian has given master classes and performed at festivals throughout the U.S. and abroad. He received his bachelor’s from the Eastman School of Music and his master’s from Southern Methodist University. Additionally, Ian studied at the Paris Conservatory in summer 2012.
Baritone Nicholas Ward has been hailed as a performer of “effortless voice and agile presence” (Houston Press). The young performer is quickly becoming known for his versatility, swift comic timing, and his warm and expressive voice. In the fall of 2017, he made his debut as Papageno in Die Zauberflöte at Opera in the Heights. He also made a return to Thompson Street Opera, premiering the role of Nick in a new version of Eric Lindsay’s Cosmic Ray and the Amazing Chris. In 2018, he joins Opera MODO in Detroit as Le Mari in Poulenc’s Les Mamelles de Tirésias. This summer, he will return to the Crested Butte Music Festival in an exciting role debut as Ford in Verdi’s Falstaff.
In the summer of 2017, he joined the Crested Butte Music Festival in multiple performances. He was featured in a double bill of Gianni Schicchi as Marco, and as Duke Cacatois XXII in Offenbach’s L’Ile de Tulipatan. He also appeared in the annual Cabaret and song recital. He then traveled to Montréal, Québéc, where he joined the Canadian Vocal Arts Institute. He reprised his role as Marco in Gianni Schicchi, and also sang the role of Mr. Gobineau in Menotti’s The Medium.
Nicholas made his debut with Florida Grand Opera as a member of their prestigious Young Artist Program, where he was in residence for the 2015-16 and 2016-17 seasons. He appeared in roles such as Moralès in Carmen, Cristiano in Un Ballo in Maschera, and Fiorello in Il Barbiere di Siviglia. In addition, he covered the roles of Le Dancaïro in Carmen, Figaro in Barbiere, and Tadeusz in Weinberg’s resurrected masterpiece The Passenger. He also participated in FGO’s recital series, SongFest Miami, in which he sang a variety of repertoire ranging from Mussorgsky’s Songs and Dances of Death to Gabriel Kahane’s Craigslistlieder.
His 2016 summer season included performances with the Thompson Street Opera Company in Louisville, KY and Union Avenue Opera in Saint Louis, MO. At TSOC, He premiered the role of professional wrestler Bob Noxious in The Final Battle for Love by Philip Thompson, and sang the roles of Charlie and President Nixon in Chappell Kingsland’s Intoxication: America’s Love Affair With Oil. He debuted with UAO as Pish-Tush in an updated production of Gilbert & Sullivan’s The Mikado.
He is a three-time alumnus of Central City Opera’s Bonfils-Stanton Young Artist Program. Highlights of his performances in Central City include The Elder Son in Benjamin Britten’s The Prodigal Son, Marquis D’Obigny in La Traviata, the trio baritone in Bernstein’s Trouble in Tahiti, and a recital in the Teller House recital series. He has also participated in the young artist programs of Toledo Opera, Opera Saratoga, and the Seagle Music Colony.
Musical theater and operetta are a significant part of his budding career. He has been seen in entertaining roles such as The Major General in The Pirates of Penzance, Ko-Ko in The Mikado, The Usher in Trial By Jury, The Backwoodsman in Show Boat, Mr. Jones in Street Scene, Max Detweiler (cover) in The Sound of Music and Horace Vandergelder in Hello, Dolly! Operatic highlights include Il Conte in Le Nozze di Figaro, Don Alfonso in Così Fan Tutte, Papageno in Die Zauberflöte and Friedrich Bhaer in Little Women.
Nicholas is a graduate of the University of Michigan and the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music. He has been distinguished as an award winner from the Opera Guild of Dayton, FAVA’s Grand Concours de Chant, Central City Opera (Outstanding Apprentice and Garwood Memorial Awards), and the Ohio and Wisconsin Districts of the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions. He grew up in Pontiac, Michigan, where he fell in love with music at a young age.
Lucie Vítková is a composer, improviser and performer (accordion, hichiriki, harmonica, voice and tap dance) from the Czech Republic, 2017 Herb Alpert Awards in Arts nominee in category of Music.
In Spring 2016, she was awarded as an emerging artist of Thomas M. Messer Bohemian Creative Hub at the Czech Center New York and has been commissioned by Roulette Emerging Artist Commission Program with support of the Jerome Foundation in New York in 2017. This year, she received the 2018 Roulette Residency.
Her compositions focus on sonification (compositions based on abstract models derived from physical objects), while in her improvisation practice explores characteristics of discrete spaces through the interaction between sound and movement. In her recent work, she is interested in the musical legacy of Morse Code and the social-political aspects of music and art in relation to everyday life.
She graduated in accordion performance at Brno Conservatory in 2010 and composition at Janáček Academy of Music and Performing Arts in Brno (CZ) in 2013. During her Master Degree, she studied at Royal Conservatory in The Hague (NL) and at California Institute of the Arts in Valencia (USA). She has studied with Martin Smolka, Jaroslav Šťastný, Martijn Padding, Gillius van Bergijk and Michael Pisaro.
As a student of JAMU Brno, she was realizing her PhD. research at Universität der Künste in Berlin (partly on DAAD scholarship) under the supervision of Marc Sabat (2014-2015). Since 2016, she has been based in the City of New York, where she´s done her research as a Visiting Scholar at Columbia University with Prof. George Lewis (2016-2018) and most recently she continues at the New York University.
In her PhD. studies, she is analyzing music of Christian Wolff, researching on his compositional techniques which he uses to change relationships between players and to reform established hiearchies in music. She has put together two ensembles – NYC Constellation Ensemble (focused on musical behavior) and OPERA ensemble (for singing instrumentalists).
During the Mentor/Protégé Residency in Tokyo (JP), she studied hichiriki with Hitomi Nakamura and has been a member of the Columbia University Gagaku Ensemble and CU Raaga ensemble.
As an accordion player, she collaborated with New York-based TAK Ensemble, Kamraton, S.E.M. ensemble, String Noise, Du.0 , Argento Ensemble, Ghost Ensemble and Wet Ink.
JEREMY VAN HOY is presently bass trombonist with the Colorado Springs Philharmonic, Boulder Philharmonic, Opera Colorado and the Denver Brass. After growing up in Detroit, he received music performance degrees from the University of Michigan (B.M.) and Northwestern University (M.M.). His teachers were Fritz Kaenzig and Frank Crisafulli, respectively. As euphonium soloist, Mr. Van Hoy has performed with the Denver Municipal Band, Denver Brass, Ann Arbor Chamber Brass, Boulder Brass, Pikes Peak Brass Band, Little London Winds and the Livonia (MI) Symphony. In 1996, he was the 1st Prize winner at the Leonard Falcone International Euphonium Competition. Other accomplishments include being the first bass trombonist selected to the Tanglewood Music Center twice, and selection to the Sir Georg Solti Orchestral Project at Carnegie Hall. Mr. Van Hoy is an active free-lancer, having performed frequently with the Detroit, St. Louis, New Mexico and Colorado Symphonies. An active proponent of new music, Mr. Van Hoy gave his New York recital debut on April 5, 1998 in Merkin Concert Hall. This program featured five works written especially for the soloist. During the 2004-05 school year, he was instructor of euphonium at the University of Colorado-Boulder, holding a one-year position. In September 2008, Jeremy became the director of the Colorado College Concert Band. You can also hear him play horns and keyboard with the indie-folk band, Edith Makes A Paperchain.
Kaori Uno-Jack performs with Colorado Ballet and the Boulder Chamber Orchestra. She has been the instructor of bassoon at the University of Wyoming since 2012.
Kaori has performed nationally and internationally as soloist, chamber musician, and orchestra player.
She is a member of the award-winning woodwind quintet Antero Winds. They are based in the Colorado front range area and play recitals and outreach concerts across the country. Antero won first prize at the Plowman Chamber Music Competition and a silver medal at the prestigious Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition. In 2008, they were the only US-based semi-finalists at the International Chamber Music Competition in Lyon, France.
She has earned many awards and much recognition. She won the Honor Competition at the University of Colorado twice (2004 and 2007), placed fifth of 137 bassoonists at the 24th Japan Wind and Percussion Competition in 2007, and was a finalist in the Tsuyama Japan International Double Reed Competition in 2003.
Kaori participated in the National Repertory Orchestra, Aspen Music Festival and School, and Kyoto International Music Student Festival. She was the bassoon instructor at Rocky Ridge Music Center for nine years.
She performed the Japanese premiere of Trace III for Solo Bassoon by Dr. Rica Narimoto at the 2015 conference of the International Double Reed Society in Tokyo. She also performed at the 2001 IDRS conference in West Virginia.
Mrs. Uno-Jack graduated with her Artist Diploma in bassoon performance at the University of Colorado at Boulder in 2009 after receiving her Master of Music degree at CU in 2008. Kaori graduated from the Aichi Prefecture University of Fine Arts and Music in Japan as one of four outstanding graduating seniors in the class of 2003. Her principal teachers include Yoshiyuki Ishikawa, Per Hannevold, Kim Laskowski, Ryohei Nakagawa, Yoshiaki Aotani and Yoshiyuki Nakanishi.
Kaori actively freelances with orchestras along the Front Range such as the Colorado Symphony, Colorado Springs Philharmonic, and Colorado Music Festival.
Recognized by opera companies and critics alike as one of the true Verdi baritones gracing stages today, Todd Thomas continues his reign as one of America’s most sought after artists. At The Lyric Opera of Chicago’s 2013-14 season opening performance of Verdi’s Otello, Mr. Thomas heroically stepped in for an indisposed colleague at the top of the second act. The thrilling and historic performance at The Lyric “earned him deservedly the largest ovation at the end of the night from the glittery opening night audience.”
-The Chicago Classical
In the latest few seasons the American baritone has enjoyed great success in the Wagner repertoire as well.
2018-2019 Season Highlights
Crested Butte Music festival will host Mr Thomas as Artist in Residence as he sings the title role of Verd’s Falstaff. In the fall of 2018, he will sing the title role of Fliegende Holländer for the Shanghai Opera. He was additionally invited to be a featured artist in a Wagner Gala Concert, also with the Shanghai Opera Orchestra. In October he bows once again with Opera Omaha as Tonio in I Pagliacci.
2017-2018 Season Highlights
The 2017-2018 seasons promises to be another exciting and season for Todd Thomas. As a highly sought after Verdi Baritone, he made yet another appearance with the Lyrics Opera of Chicago earlier this season with a production of Rigoletto. In early 2018 he continues with Verdi, with Syracuse Opera in La Traviata. Most exciting will be his role debut as the title role in Fliegende Holländer by Richard Wagner at Theater Erfurt. He is particularly eager to return to Thüringen following his triumph last summer in the Domstuffen Festspiel production of Il Trovatore.
It is clear to see the baritone continues to thrill and move audiences throughout his international operatic career.
Off the Stage
Todd, originally from Elmira, New York makes his home in Philadelphia, PA with his wife of 26 years, Lisa Helmel Thomas. They have four children, Lydia, Gabriela, Samuel and Noah. He earned a Bachelor of Music degree in Vocal Performance and a Master of Music degree in Opera Theatre for the Oberlin Conservatory of Music.
Mr. Thomas encourages young singers to find a connection with their endowed musical gifts as a guest master teacher and clinician. In addition to his active singing career, in 2013 he formed the Todd Thomas Music Scholarship. The scholarship awards cash prizes to deserving graduating high school seniors from Chemung County embarking on their college careers in the full time study of music based curriculum.
Originally from the San Francisco Bay Area, Glenn is a stalwart veteran of the Colorado music scene. Since moving to Denver in 1980, he has played with numerous bands including Slim Cessna’s Auto Club, The Railbenders, Monkey Siren, Cowboy Dave Band, The Matt Skellenger Band, and others.
He recently performed and recorded with Hickory Wind in Montevideo, Uruguay.
He brings 30+ years of professional experience playing pedal steel guitar to the band, and he has more hats than anyone else in the band.
Taylor is an accomplished guitar player and songwriter in his own right, is the lead guitar player and other lead vocalist in Bonnie & the Clydes. He also contributes many of the original songs that define Bonnie & the Clydes’ unique sound.
His first project, Spring Creek, saw national success with the simultaneous winning of BOTH the Rocky Grass & Telluride Band Competitions. They became Rebel Records youngest artists ever signed, as well as the first band to be signed west of the Mississippi.
After 10 years with Spring Creek, Taylor joined forces with his wife to form the core of Bonnie & The Clydes.
Bonnie Sims began singing as soon as she could walk, and has been at home onstage nearly as long. Her father, Mike Cruciger, is a banjo player, songwriter and career musician, and gave Bonnie her first Martin guitar at age twelve. She picked up the mandolin at fourteen and toured for the next five years with her father, playing in and around Texas.
She then attended South Plains College where she earned a double major in Mandolin and Vocals as well as Best Female Vocalist in 2006 and 2007 and Best Female Instrumentalist in 2007.
In 2010, after moving to Colorado, Bonnie continued her life-long pursuit of singing and making music by starting Bonnie & the Clydes.
Grand Master James Nyoraku Schlefer is a virtuoso performer of traditional and contemporary shakuhachi music, an esteemed teacher in the Kinko school, and a ground-breaking composer. Honored by Musical America International as one of their “30 Top Professionals and Influencers,” Nyoraku Sensei’s efforts promote and sustain traditional shakuhachi music through performances, lecture/demonstrations, residencies, and concert programming. His original compositions forge new ground with contemporary works for both Japanese and Western instruments and ensembles.
Sir David Mark Rylance Waters (born 18 January 1960), known professionally as Mark Rylance, is an English actor, theatre director, and playwright. He was the first artistic director of Shakespeare’s Globe in London, between 1995 and 2005. His film appearances include Prospero’s Books (1991), Angels and Insects (1995), Institute Benjamenta (1996), and Intimacy (2001). Rylance won the Academy Award and BAFTA Award for Best Supporting Actor for his portrayal of Rudolf Abel in Bridge of Spies (2015). Rylance played the title role in Steven Spielberg’s The BFG (2016), a live-action film adaptation of the children’s book by Roald Dahl, and appeared in Christopher Nolan’s Dunkirk (2017), based on the British evacuation in World War II. He appeared as James Halliday in Spielberg’s 2018 film Ready Player One, based on the novel of the same name.
After training at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London, Rylance made his professional debut at the Citizens Theatre, Glasgow in 1980. He appeared in the West End productions of Much Ado About Nothing in 1994 and Jerusalem in 2010, winning the Olivier Award for Best Actor for both. He has also appeared on Broadway, winning three Tony Awards: two for Best Actor for Boeing Boeing in 2008 and Jerusalem in 2011, and one for Best Featured Actor for Twelfth Night in 2014.
On television, he won the BAFTA TV Award for Best Actor for his role as David Kelly in the 2005 Channel 4 drama The Government Inspector and for playing Thomas Cromwell in the 2015 BBC Two mini-series Wolf Hall. For Wolf Hall, he also received Emmy and Golden Globe Award nominations. Rylance is a patron of the London International Festival of Theatre. He is also a patron of the London-based charity Peace Direct, which supports peace-builders in areas of conflict, and of the British Stop the War Coalition. In 2016, he was named in the Time 100 list of the most influential people in the world.
Daniel Bernard Roumain (known by his initials, DBR; born 1970[1]) is a classically trained composer, performer, violinist, and band-leader noted for blending funk, rock, hip-hop and classical music into an energetic and experiential sonic form. DBR is of Haitian-American heritage and he attended Dillard Center for the Arts in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. He received his undergraduate degree from Vanderbilt University’s Blair School of Music and earned a doctorate in musical composition from the University of Michigan. He combines his classical music roots with a multicolored spectrum of contemporary black popular music. DBR’s exploration of musical rhythms and pulsing sounds is frequently peppered by cultural references. His dramatic pieces range from orchestral scores and energetic chamber works to rock songs and electronica. He recently contributed a chapter to Sound Unbound: Sampling Digital Music and Culture (The MIT Press, 2008) edited by Paul D. Miller a.k.a. DJ Spooky.
Caleb, originally from Columbia, SC, first learned about show business when he played mandolin and bass with the Denver-born alternative country & western band Slim Cessna’s Auto Club in 1994 while a student at the University of Colorado.
Drawn back to the bluegrass he grew up listening to from his father’s record collection, he founded Open Road in 1999 with Bradford Folk and was recognized for his deep heartfelt classic style of mandolin playing. Open Road was recruited by Rounder, recorded three CDs with the label, and toured heavily for five years until retiring in 2006. Open Road reunited for a Rockygrass performance in 2011.
Caleb began playing electric guitar and building tube amplifiers in his garage in Lyons, CO, and he played with the Billy Pilgrims from 2006-2008. He also occasionally subbed as a Clyde when Taylor was unavailable.
He joined the Clyde family on bass in August 2014.
Nina Revering is the Founding Artistic Director of the Conspirare Youth Choirs in Austin, Texas, an outreach program of the Grammy®-winning, six-time Grammy®-nominated vocal ensemble Conspirare. As a performer, Nina has performed widely as a soloist and chorister throughout the Southwest and around the country. Her educational background includes work at the Youth Performing Arts School and Boston University. A soloist at St. Mary’s Cathedral from 1994 to 1997, she was also Victoria Bach Festival’s New Young Artist in 1994. Nina studied baroque recorder with John Tyson of the New England Conservatory and performed with the Tanglewood Festival Chorus under conductors Seiji Ozawa, John Williams, and John Oliver. She has been with Conspirare since 1995 and founded the Conspirare Youth Choirs in 2005. Nina also teaches music in Austin area schools.
As a touring guitar musician, performer, and educator, Vinny Raniolo is best known for his accompanying skills and is a very high demand rhythm guitarist. His dynamic playing has brought him to 14 countries on three continents – and still growing – having performed in some of the world’s most illustrious venues, including the Sydney Opera House in Australia, The Palace of Fine Arts in San Francisco, New York’s Lincoln Center and the world’s oldest indoor concert hall, Teatro Olimpico in Vicenza, Italy.
While keeping a busy touring schedule in a variety of musical settings, Vinny has also become a familiar figure on Public Television. Featured previously on three popular shows, including the heavily programmed Tommy Emmanuel and Friends, in Frank Vignola’s Four Generations of Guitar as the youngest generation in the lineage of jazz guitarists with veteran Bucky Pizzarelli and in the Music Gone Public series.
Recording credits include soundtracks for HBO’s Boardwalk Empire and Woody Allen’s film Café Society.
Violist Erik Christian Peterson explores multiple areas of interest including musicology, technology, aesthetics, and education. He started playing viola at age ten in his native Chicago and has since performed on the world’s leading stages. With Voxare, Dr. Peterson has performed as soloist the New York Philharmonic and received Chamber Music America’s ASCAP Award for Adventurous Programming. He has become a leading advocate for contemporary art music, premiering and recording numerous works by living composers. As an orchestral musician, Dr. Peterson has performed with the Cleveland Orchestra, and the Milwaukee and New World Symphonies. With wife Emily Ondracek-Peterson, Dr. Peterson was named Co-Artistic Director of the Crested Butte Music Festival.
As a musicologist and theorist, Dr. Peterson’s full lecture schedule includes appearances at Princeton University, the British Library, and New York University, among others. He is currently on the musicology faculty at MSU Denver, splitting his time between Denver and New York City. Academic areas of interest include the composer Paul Hindemith, twentieth/ twenty-first-century music, and music aesthetics.
Dr. Peterson works in technology as a recording engineer, producer, and editor. He soon will be launching a new record label featuring cutting-edge technology in the music’s recording, editing, and distribution. Dr. Peterson employs technology to progress learning in arts education; as a founding member of Noted Endeavors with Eugenia Zukerman and Emily Ondracek-Peterson he creates video content that helps emerging musicians to develop sustainable successful careers in the arts. Additionally, Dr. Peterson works with arts organizations and educational institutions in researching both educational and marketing strategies, for which he then provides video content along with web and graphic design.
Outside of the musical and academic realms, Dr. Peterson is a serious photographer whose works have appeared in The New York Times and other leading publications. Favorite leisure activities include skiing, tennis, fly fishing, and cooking.
Dr. Peterson received his Bachelor’s degree from the Juilliard School, where he studied with Heidi Castleman and Misha Amory, and his Master’s and Doctoral degrees from the Cleveland Institute of Music and Case Western Reserve University, where he studied with Stanley Konopka. Additionally, he studied astronomy at Columbia University. Dr. Peterson plays on a viola made by Franz Kinberg.
Born in Newcastle, Australia, Nicki started her musical training at age four with the piano, followed by the flute, soon after. Nicki switched to double bass at the age of 15.
After graduating high school she moved to Sydney to study jazz at the New South Wales Conservatorium of Music where she began to play with Australian musicians such as Mike Nock, Dale Barlow, Paul Grabowsky, Bernie McGann, and Ten Part Invention. She also toured Australia with Russian musicians Daniel Kramer and Alexander Fischer and American trumpeters Bobby Shew and Chuck Findley. She continued her studies with various bassists including visiting artists Ray Brown and John Clayton.
Nicki was the recipient of two awards, a scholarship to Pan Pacific Music Camps at the age of 16, and first place in the 1992 Jazz Action Society’s Annual Song Competition for her composition “Come and Get It,” which is the opening track of Nicki and her sister Lisa’s debut CD, “Awabakal Suite”. She was also nominated for the annual Australian Young Achievers Award by the Arts Council of Australia who granted her the funds to come to New York to study with Rufus Reid. Nicki came to New York in May 1994.
In June 2000, Nicki began performing on Monday nights at the Iridium Jazz Club with the legendary guitarist and inventor, Les Paul. As part of the Les Paul Trio, Nicki worked side-by-side with guitar greats from Paul McCartney, Slash, Steve Miller to fellow Aussie, Tommy Emmanuel.
Since then she has performed with such notable musicians as Michel Legrand, Joe Wilder, Randy Brecker, Clark Terry, Jose Feliciano, Bucky Pizzarelli, John Pizzarelli, Dick Hyman, Patti Labelle & the New York Pops Orchestra, Harry Allen, Marlena Shaw, David Krakauer, Ken Peplowski, Ann Hampton Callaway, Bill Mays, Scott Hamilton, Lillian Boutte, Larry Carlton and Houston Person, just to name a few.
Nicki has also performed in several Broadway shows such as Avenue Q, Imaginary Friends, You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown, Summer of ’42 and Jekyll and Hyde and has made several television and documentary appearances including The Gossip Girls, Chasing Sound and Thank You Les, which recently debuted on PBS.
In 2007 and 2008, Nicki received back to back honors for Swing Journal’s Best Jazz Vocal Album (Moon River and Fly Me to The Moon, respectively).
In 2010 her album Black Coffee (Venus) received Swing Journal’s Gold Disc award.
In 2012, Nicki headlined the Fujitsu Concorde Jazz festival after the release of her eighth CD from Venus Records, Sakura Sakura. She is currently recording her 16th release for the label.
Nicki has performed at most major festivals around the globe including the Mary Lou Williams Jazz Festival, Newport Jazz Festival, Jazz in July at the 92nd Street Y, Litchfield Jazz Festival, Detroit Jazz Festival, the Lionel Hampton Jazz Festival and the Newport Beach Jazz Party, Jazz Ascona and Bern Jazz Festival in Switzerland and many others.
“…A rarity, a first-class bassist whose playing is as sublime as her vocals.” – LIMELIGHT 2012
Nicki actively participates in continuing musical education for women, helping them further their careers and remain active in music well beyond their teen years. She takes pride in teaching music to inner-city children, giving them opportunities to express creativity, encouraging them to stay actively involved with school, and opening up brighter options for the future. Nicki involvement has included programs such as: Women in Jazz, New York Pops: Create A Symphony and Musical Mentors, WBGO-FM & NJPAC’s Jazz for Teens and Litchfield Jazz Camp.
Lauren Peacock just completed her second year as a fellow in The Orchestra Now (TŌN) program at Bard College working on her MM in Curatorial, Critical, and Performances Studies. Before moving to New York, Lauren received a MM in Cello Performance from The University of Texas at Austin and a BM in Cello Performance from The University of Michigan. She has attended festivals all over the country including Aspen Music Festival, Colorado College Music Festival, Music Mountain Chamber Masterclasses, and Meadowmount School of Music. Her previous teachers include Bion Tsang and Richard Aaron. In addition to performing, she enjoys teaching cello to all ages and was part of the String Project program at The University of Texas at Austin.
Recent performances for violinist Yuri Namkung include with Cantata Profana at National Sawdust, on viola at I/O Festival at Williams College and ChamberFest Vero Beach in Florida, Pierrot Lunaire with Talea at Zipper Hall in L.A., regular appearances with Ensemble LPR, Long Island Baroque Ensemble, and Brandeis Composers Conference. Major solo appearances include with the Tonhalle-Orchestra Zurich, in Brazil and Colombia with Filarmonica Joven de Colombia, the Seattle Symphony, Northwest Chamber Orchestra, Spokane Bach Festival Orchestra with Gunther Schuller. She has taught throughout the country and Latin America and is director and creator of the classical music program of the Panama Jazz Festival. Born in Seattle, Washington, Yuri is a graduate of Columbia University, Juilliard, and New England Conservatory.
Jooeun is a highly versatile and intellectual pianist. After gainig recognitions in major national and international competitions including Gold Medal in Korean National Piano Competition, Grand Prize in Kyung Hyang Piano Competition, Second prize in Chautauqua International Competition, Grand Prize in Latin American Music Recording Competition, University Concerto Competition, and Bradshaw and Buono competition since the age of 10, Jooeun has been appearing as a celebrated soloist and a demanded collaborative pianist in major performance venues. Her recent concerts were held in Weill Recital Hall in Carnegie Hall, Terrace Theatre in Kennedy Center in D.C, BGH in Ravinia Steans Institute, James R. Armstrong Theatre in Torrance, Theatre Vipiteno/ Sterzing, Italy, Landmark Concerthall in Indianapolis, Honeywell Center in Wabash, Chicago Cultural Center, Auer Hall in Bloomington, Ruth Taylor Hall in San Antonio and Schneebeck Concert Hall in University of Puget Sound, Tacoma. Recently Jooeun’s collaborations with vocalists and her solo performance were heard on WFMT, Chicago Classical Music Station, as one of the featured artists of Ravinia Steans Music Institute.
As an Artistic Director of Musik in Progress, Jooeun is a zealous advocate of contemporary music and creative projects that are representative of modern culture. Jooeun was an active advocate and a member of IU New Music Ensemble under David Dzbay, and has been sought after by renowned and young composers of our time. In the year 2014 Season, Jooeun gave the World Premier Performance of Rabble Rouser..for Jooeun Pak, written by a renowned composer and the IU composition faculty, Don Freund, in Auer Hall, Bloomington, IN, March 2014.
Upon winning Grand Prize in IU Latin American Music Competition with the violinist Colin Sorgi, Jooeun had released “Eco de violin….”a set of contemporary Latin American Music with the sponsorships from LAMC and IU Jacobs School of Music.
Jooeun has appeared as a substantially experienced collaborative pianist in IU String Academy and the Studio of a legendary Baritone, Timothy Noble. Jooeun has also featured collaborations with young promising artists and the top-prize Laureates of the renowned competitions such as the Met Competition and the Internationa Tchaikowsky Competition.
In summer 2014, Jooeun was invited to join Ravinia Steans Music Institute as a collaborative pianist, where she has returned in summer 2015. Jooeun has formerly appeared in Atlantic Music Festival as an Opera Accompanist/ Coach/ New Music Collaborator. As an orchestral pianist, Jooeun has performed major orchestral repertoires under legendary conductors including Lorin Maazel, Arthur Fagen and Robert Abaddo.
Jooeun holds Doctor of Music in Piano Performance and Literature, with minors in theory and chamber music from Indiana University Jacobs School of Music under the mentorship of the Distinguished Professor and the co-founder of legendary Beaux Arts Trio, Menahem Pressler for whom she also served as an assistant. Beginning her doctoral study, Jooeun was awarded Doctoral Fellowship for her outstanding performance/ academic achievements by the Jacbos School of Music, Indiana University.
Actively involved in initiating and spurring outreach performances and projects for the community, Jooeun has given concerts in affiliation with various non-profit organizations- the World Vision, and the Youth Orchestra in Torrance, California to name her favorites. In Summer 2016, she will be concertizing in Amman and Zarqa, Jordan as a featured pianist in Love Jordan Concert Series.
In the past, Jooeun’s artistic growth was nurtured and deeply inspired by Edmund Battersby, Jean-Louis Haguenauer, Craig Sheppard, Arnaldo Cohen and Tanya Stambuk.
During her years in Indiana University Jacobs School of Music, Jooeun held Associate Instructor position in Piano Secondary Department, and was a faculty in IU Young Pianist Program.
As an active educator, Pask given masterclasses and juried competitions/ auditions in major institutions in various levels including in Towson University, Uiversity of Baltimore, Maryland, MD, Biola University, La Mirada, CA, South River High School, Ellicott City, MD, and Old Mills High School, Millersville, MD. Jooeun has been invited to join Alaska Musiksylvester Celebration, and Orfeo Music Festival in Vipiteno, Italy as a performing artist/ piano faculty. Formerly, Jooeun has served University of Puget Sound as a Visiting Assistant Professor of Piano, and Towson University Department of Music as a piano faculty and a member of Baltimore Trio. Jooeun is newly appointed as an Assistant Professor of Piano in the Metropolitan State University of Denver in Fall, 2016.
Pianist, violist, and composer Aruán Ortiz – born in Santiago de Cuba, and resident of Brooklyn, NY – has been an active figure in the progressive jazz and avant-garde scene in the US for more than 15 years.
Named “one of the most creative and original composers in the world” (Lynn René Bayley, The Art Music Lounge), he has written music for jazz ensembles, orchestras, dance companies, chamber groups, and feature films, incorporating influences from contemporary classical music, Cuban Haitian rhythms, and avant-garde improvisation. Aruán consistently strives to break stylistic musical boundaries.
He has received multiple accolades including Mid-Atlantic Foundation US Artists International (2017), Composer Fellowship Award at Vermont College of Fine Arts (2016); the Doris Duke Impact Award (2014); the Composers Now Creative Residency at Pocantico Center of the Rockefeller Brothers Fund (2014).
His unique musical vision has been covered in magazines and newspapers in Europe and the US including Jazz ‘n’ More (Switzerland), The Guardian (UK), Expresso (Portugal), The New York Times, DownBeat, JazzTimes, Jazziz, The Boston Globe, Chicago Jazz Magazine, San Diego Union Tribune, and All About Jazz (US), Jazzpodium (Germany), Musica Jazz, Il Muro Magazine, Il Corriere della Sera and Jazz Convention (Italy), The Ottawa Citizen (Canada), The Irish Times (Ireland), and Way Out West (Japan), among many others.
His recent albums have received five stars from prestigious jazz magazines around the world. Hidden Voices (Intakt 2016) was lauded as “a solid and unique new sound in today’s jazz world,” by Matthew Fiander in PopMatters, and his solo piano effort Cub(an)ism (2017) was called “a genius exercise in the exploration of depth and perception that reveals a bright new wrinkle in the relationship between music and mathematics, reimagining Afro-Haitian Gaga rhythms, Afro-Cuban rumba and Yambú into heavily improvised meditations on modernism that recall John Cage and Paul Bley,” (Ron Hart, The Observer).
Aruán has played, toured, or recorded with jazz luminaries such as Wadada Leo Smith, Don Byron, Greg Osby, Wallace Roney, Nicole Mitchell, William Parker, Adam Rudolph, Andrew Cyrille, Henry Grimes, Oliver Lake, Rufus Reid, Terri Lyne Carrington, and collaborated with choreographer José Mateo; filmmaker Ben Chace; poet Abiodun Oyewole from The Last Poets; DJ Logic and Val Jeanty; and German writers Angelika Hentschel and Anna Breitenbach.
He holds an MFA in Music Composition by Vermont College of Fine Arts focus in 20th Century Contemporary Classical Music, and his growing portfolio includes recent works for string quartet, percussion trio and piano, brass quintet, piano trio, and symphony orchestra, among others.
Dr. Emily Ondracek-Peterson is a leader in numerous fields: performance, artistic direction, arts advocacy, administration, education, career research, entrepreneurship, and academia.
Praised by The New York Times for her “elegant solowork,” and by Strad magazine for her “dazzling passagework,” Dr. Ondracek is a rising star of violin performance.Dr. Ondracek is a native of Chicago and began playing the violin at the age of 4. When sixteen she gave her solo debut with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, playing Vivaldi’s Four Seasons Concertos. Dr. Ondracek has performed solo and chamber music performances at all of the major venues in New York City including as soloist at Avery Fisher Hall with the New York Philharmonic, Carnegie Hall, the Guggenheim, MoMA, {le} poisson rouge, the Apollo Theatre, Bargemusic, Merkin Hall, Alvin Ailey Dance Center, Trinity Wall Street, Steinway Hall, and Symphony Space. She has also performed at festivals such as the Aspen, Sarasota, Italy’s Festival de Due Mondi, and the Cleveland Orchestra’s Blossom Summer Music Festival, where she was presented the Joseph Gingold Award for most outstanding instrumentalist. Currently, she is Co-Artistic Director of the Crested Butte Music Festival, a summer-long festival presenting the world’s best opera, symphony, chamber music, bluegrass, rock, electronica, and more. Dr. Ondracek has recorded for Naxos, Albany, and Toccata labels.
As first violinist of the acclaimed Voxare String Quartet, Dr. Ondracek has been awarded Chamber Music America’s ASCAP Award for Adventurous Programming. With Voxare she tours nationally and abroad. She has also performed and recorded with the Talea Ensemble; the Wordless Orchestra with Johnny Greenwood (Radiohead); Axiom; Classical Jam; the Japanese band, Mono. Taking pride in contemporary-music advocacy, she has worked with composers both young and established, including Pulitzer Prize-winning composers Ned Rorem and David Del Tredici, both of which has requested recordings of their works. Dr. Ondracek has studied chamber music with Robert Mann, founder of the Juilliard String Quartet, David Harrington of the Kronos Quartet, and members of the Juilliard, Kronos, American, and Vermeer Quartets.
Education plays a large role in Dr. Ondracek’s professional activities. Currently, Dr. Ondracek is the director of string studies and full-time professor of violin at the Metropolitan State University of Denver and is on faculty at Teachers College, Columbia University. Dr. Ondracek has held residencies at Dartmouth College, the University of Leeds (UK), University of Virginia, and others. She is a two-time Morse Fellow and was a New York Philharmonic Teaching Artist, bringing creative music instruction to a wide range of K-12 schools including those in Harlem and the Bronx. Currently, she sits on the Educational Board of the Colorado Symphony. Dr. Ondracek’s research has been presented throughout the United States; she delivered the keynote seminar at the College Music Society’s National Conference. Dr. Ondracek is certified as a Suzuki instructor and teaches at Suzuki institutes and workshops throughout the country.
Dr. Ondracek received both her Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees from The Juilliard School, where she studied with Masao Kawasaki under a Morse Scholarship. At Teachers College, Columbia University, Dr. Ondracek received her doctorate in Music and Music Education; her research into the careers of classically-trained musicians culminated in a 500-page doctoral thesis.
Violinist Brett Omara, is the founder of Spinphony and writes all the arrangements and compositions for the group. When she is not rocking out with Spinphony, Brett maintains a busy performance and teaching schedule. She performs regularly with Opera Colorado, CO Ballet, Colorado Springs Philharmonic, Central City Opera, Boulder Philharmonic, Fort Collins Philharmonic, Sphere Ensemble and the Santa Fe Concert Association Orchestra. Brett has toured with Kanye West, taught violin and doubled for Jessica Alba in feature-film ‘The Eye’, and was a member of DBR & the mission who toured with Phillip Glass and Bill T. Jones Dance Company. Brett has performed at Carnegie Hall, SNL, MTV, and Madison Square Garden on numerous occasions and toured Europe and Africa with the World Youth Symphony. She has also performed with the Trans-Siberian Orchestra, Il Divo, il Volo, Burt Bacharach, Itzhak Perlman, Kurt Masur, and Lorin Mazel, to name a few. Brett also loves writing string arrangements for local Denver singer-songwriters and performing her own music with many loop pedals. Brett teaches privately and for the non-profit program ‘City Strings’. Brett received her BA degree in violin performance from the Manhattan School of Music.
Hailing from Brooklyn, Marissa Olegario performs in the US and internationally as a soloist, chamber, and orchestral musician. She has worked under conductors including Fabio Luisi, Peter Oundjin, and Rafael Payere and has collaborated with artists from Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, New York Philharmonic and Berlin Philharmoniker. Marissa has performed at the Phoenix Chamber Society, ClasClas Festival in Spain, and with the acclaimed Breaking Winds Bassoon Quartet. She will appear on a Naxos album featuring Beethoven’s wind serenades (2020 release) and is currently the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra Fellow.
Marissa is Assistant Professor of Bassoon at the University of Arizona and bassoonist of the Arizona Wind Quintet.
She studied with Frank Morelli, Christopher Millard, and Lewis Kirk and enjoys traveling and yoga.
Guitarist, composer, and arranger Max O’Rourke was born and raised in West Rutland, Vermont. His interest in guitar began when he was six and has since progressed into a lifelong journey. While touring around the world with other bands, he has built up a significant amount of original work and is now leading his own project. His debut album Disquiet draws from his roots in gypsy jazz and also marks the start of his love for the electric guitar.
The album is influenced by a broad variety of genres including gypsy and traditional jazz, blues, pop, rock, and impressionism. What ties this stylistically diverse collection of tracks together is their inspiration. As the title suggests, the music is inspired by anxiety, loss, and depression. Through the musical resolution of these feelings, one finds ease and ultimately lays the disquiet to rest.
Praised for his versatility, technical clarity, and keen musical insight, Tito Muñoz is internationally recognized as one of the most gifted conductors on the podium today. Now in his fourth season as Music Director of the Phoenix Symphony, Mr. Muñoz previously served as Music Director of the Opéra National de Lorraine and the Orchestre symphonique et lyrique de Nancy in France. Prior appointments include Assistant Conductor positions with the Cleveland Orchestra, Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, Cincinnati Chamber Orchestra and the Aspen Music Festival.
Mr. Muñoz has appeared with many of the most prominent orchestras in North America, including those of Atlanta, Baltimore, Boston, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Dallas, Detroit, Houston, Indianapolis, and Milwaukee, as well as the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, Orchestra of St. Luke’s, and the National Symphony Orchestra. Mr. Muñoz also maintains a strong international conducting presence, including recent engagements with the Frankfurt Radio Symphony, SWR Sinfonieorchester, Deutsche Radio Philharmonie Saarbrücken, Orchestre Philharmonique de Marseille, Sao Paolo State Symphony, Lausanne Chamber Orchestra, Danish National Chamber Orchestra, Luxembourg Philharmonic, Orchestre National de Lorraine, Opéra de Rennes, Auckland Philharmonia, and Sydney Symphony.
As a proponent of new music, Mr. Muñoz champions the composers of our time through expanded programming, commissions, premieres, and recordings. He has conducted important premieres of works by Christopher Cerrone, Kenneth Fuchs, Dai Fujikura, Michael Hersch, Adam Schoenberg, and Mauricio Sotelo. During his tenure as Music Director of the Opéra National de Lorraine, Mr. Muñoz led the critically-acclaimed staged premiere of Gerald Barry’s opera The Importance of Being Earnest. A frequent advocate of the music of Michael Hersch, Mr. Muñoz led the world premiere of Hersch’s monodrama On the Threshold of Winter at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in 2014, followed by the premiere of his Violin Concerto with Patricia Kopatchinskaja and the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra in 2015. Mr. Muñoz recently led the International Contemporary Ensemble and Kopatchinskaja in a recording of Hersch’s Violin Concerto, and, in June 2018, he will again collaborate with Kopatchinskaja and the Mahler Chamber Orchestra, performing the music of Michael Hersch at the Ojai and Aldeburgh Festivals.
Mr. Muñoz’s relationship with the Cleveland Orchestra since his tenure as Assistant Conductor has been consistently critically-acclaimed, most notably in 2012 when he was engaged to replace the late Pierre Boulez for subscription performances. Mr. Muñoz led joint performances with the Joffrey Ballet and the Cleveland Orchestra in the summer of 2009, marking the first collaboration between these two organizations in three decades. This successful partnership led to further performances in the summer of 2010 as well as an invitation to tour with the Joffrey Ballet in the 2010-11 season. In the 2012-13 season, he conducted the Cleveland Orchestra’s first complete performances of Tchaikovsky’s The Nutcracker, a program he repeated in 2014-15, and, in summer 2013, led the orchestra’s first staged performances of Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring in the reconstructed original choreography of Vaslav Nijinsky, both with the Joffrey Ballet.
A passionate educator, Mr. Muñoz regularly visits North America’s top conservatories/universities, summer music festivals, and youth orchestras. He has led performances at the Aspen Music Festival, Boston University Tanglewood Institute, Cleveland Institute of Music, Indiana University, Kent/Blossom Music Festival, Music Academy of the West, New England Conservatory, New World Symphony, Oberlin Conservatory, Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto, University of Texas at Austin, and National Repertory Orchestra, as well as a nine-city tour with the St. Olaf College Orchestra. He maintains a close relationship with the Kinhaven Music School, which he attended as a young musician, and now guest conducts there annually. Mr. Muñoz also enjoys a regular partnership with Arizona State University where he has held a faculty position and is a frequent guest teacher and conductor.
Born in Queens, New York, Mr. Muñoz began his musical training as a violinist in New York City public schools. He attended the LaGuardia High School of the Performing Arts, the Juilliard School’s Music Advancement Program, and the Manhattan School of Music Pre-College Division. He furthered his training at Queens College (CUNY) as a violin student of Daniel Phillips. Mr. Muñoz received conducting training at the American Academy of Conducting at Aspen where he studied with David Zinman and Murry Sidlin. He is the winner of the Aspen Music Festival’s 2005 Robert J. Harth Conductor Prize and the 2006 Aspen Conducting Prize, returning to Aspen as the festival’s Assistant Conductor in the summer of 2007, and later as a guest conductor. Mr. Muñoz made his professional conducting debut in 2006 with the National Symphony Orchestra at the Kennedy Center, invited by Leonard Slatkin as a participant of the National Conducting Institute. That same year, he made his Cleveland Orchestra debut at the Blossom Music Festival. He was awarded the 2009 Mendelssohn Scholarship sponsored by Kurt Masur and the Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy Foundation in Leipzig, and was a prizewinner in the 2010 Sir Georg Solti International Conducting Competition in Frankfurt.
Having the privilege to grow up in a musical family, Anna Morris has always had an intense passion for music and loves sharing her joy of music through teaching and performing. Her love for performing has brought Anna across the country and the world, playing in musical festivals in Tennessee, Oregon, California and Italy. As an ensemble player, Morris has performed in the Tuscia Opera festival orchestra and the Tuscia Opera festival chamber orchestra (Viterbo, Italy), l’orchestra giovanile della Fondazione Pergolesi Spontini (Pescara, Italy), the Littleton Symphony Orchestra (CO), Colorado Young Symphonia, Musica Sacra Chamber Orchestra, and recently appeared as a soloist with the Eureka Symphony playing Tchaikovsky’s violin concerto in D. Anna is currently on the faculty of Boulder Suzuki Strings, where she teaches private and group lessons to violinists and violists of all ages. She also teaches at the Broadway Music School, the Community College of Denver, and performs with The Playground and Sphere Ensemble.
Michael Miller is a Violin Performance and Pedagogy Master’s Student at the University of Colorado Boulder, studying under Harumi Rhodes. His undergraduate studies occurred at Concordia College in Moorhead, Minnesota, where Miller studied with Sonja Harasim. Throughout his life, Miller has been quite involved in the music making of the Fargo-Moorhead Community through both performance and education. He has appeared as a substitute in the Fargo-Moorhead Symphony for three years and is a founding member of the Campanile String Quartet. Miller has also taught at the Trollwood Performing Arts school for two years, was one of the first teachers involved with the Concordia String Preparatory program, was a string mentor for the first year of the North Star Chamber Music Festival, and has taught many students privately in the area.
Toronto-born Joshua Major began his opera stage directing career at the age of 23 with La Cenerentola for Opera Omaha. Soon after, Mr. Major worked as an assistant to Rhoda Levine at Juilliard, Cynthia Auerbach at both Chautauqua Opera and New York City Opera and William Gaskill at the Welsh National Opera. Mr. Major has worked as a stage director for over 30 years throughout the United States and Canada developing an impressive and diverse repertoire of productions. Recent productions include the North American premiere of Rossini’s La Gazzetta, La Perichole (Offenbach), Dido and Aeneus (Purcell), Ariadne auf Naxos (Strauss), The Cunning Little Vixen (Janacek), Lucia di Lamermoor (Donizetti), The Turn of the Screw (Britten), Les Mamaelles de Tiresias (Poulenc), L’Impressions de Pelleas (Brook/Debussy), Le Tragedie du Carmen (Brook/Bizet). In August 2012 Mr. Major joined the faculty of the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston as Chair of Opera Studies. Prior to joining NEC, he spent 20 years on the faculty of the University of Michigan where he oversaw the Opera Program, both teaching and directing. Recent productions at the University of Michigan include, Falstaff, Armide, A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Eugene Onegin. Joshua Major has been the Artistic Director of the Pine Mountain Music Festival, located in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan on the shores of Lake Superior, since 2003. He continues to be a stage director and faculty member with the International Vocal Arts Institute in both Montreal and Tel Aviv, where he has directed annually, since 1993.
After freelancing in New York for 10 years, Jeremy Lamb has become a member of the Charlotte Symphony Orchestra in his home state of North Carolina. He is also the Assistant Principal of NE Pennsylvania Philharmonic and is a substitute on the Broadway musical Aladdin. In New York, he was a member of the New Haven Symphony, the Eastern Connecticut Symphony, and the Sonos Chamber Orchestra. He also performed regularly with the Harrisburg Symphony, The Orchestra Now, and was a regular guest musician in the Charleston Symphony Orchestra in SC.
As a chamber musician, Mr. Lamb has performed around Charlotte, New York, and Boston with numerous groups including the Elsewhere Ensemble, the Aaron Teitelbaum Ensemble, and Opus 9. He has performed with pianists Spencer Myer, Andrew Goodridge, and Wei-En Hsu in recitals for various events including the a feature at the Metropolitan International Musical Festival, the Providence Chamber Music Series, and a new chamber series formed by CSO concertmaster Calin Lupanu. Jeremy is also the Artistic Advisor and a frequent performer on the NE Pennsylvania Philharmonic Chamber Music Series. From 2010-17, he was a member of Open Work, an improvisational group mixing drama, music, and martial arts in new and creative ways. In addition to other classical ensembles, Jeremy was a member of Cachaça De Grasa, a New York-based Bossa nova trio.
Lamb received his B.M. from the Peabody Conservatory with Alan Stepansky, former Associate Principal of the New York Philharmonic. He has performed in masterclasses with David Finckel, Lynn Harrell, Rafael Wallfisch, Philippe Muller, Matt Haimovitz, Clive Greensmith, David Geber, Alan Harris, Michael Mermeggen, Brian Manker, and many others. He has attended music festivals in the U.S. and abroad, including Tanglewood, Pacific, Aspen, Brevard, Bowdoin, International Musical Arts Institute, and spent four summers at the beautiful Domaine Forget International Music Festival in Quebec, Canada. In 2005, he was the principal cellist of the Oaxaca International Festival Orchestra in Mexico. In 2006, he toured with Jeunesses Musicales World Orchestra on their summer and winter tours of Spain, Germany, and The Netherlands.
Jeremy has worked as a luthier at numerous violin shops including DZ Strad Violins in White Plains, Johnson String Instruments, the Potter Violin Company, and currently runs his own bow-rehairing business, Lamb’s Rehair.
Alex Komodore is a Denver-based virtuoso guitarist. His powerful interpretations, formidable technique, and natural musicianship have won unanimous praise from critics, audiences, and many of the world’s finest guitarists. First Prize National winner in the Music Teachers National Association 1985 guitar category, his subsequent appearances on NPR and PBS broadcasts brought swift national acclaim. John Dileberto of PBS Echoes, gave his collaborative 1990 CD Redstone with flutist Rod Garnett a rare highest rating, which also earned the coveted “Best of Westword” best classical recording of 1990. His 1994 solo debut recording Passport won praises from several of the world’s most prominent guitarists, including Christopher Parkening and Sharon Isbin, both who hailed his interpretation of Carlo Domeniconi’s Koyunbaba as “Terrific!” Of his cd, David Russell, remarked, “Played with beautiful atmosphere, and great skill.”
Violist Jeremy Kienbaum plays regularly with the Charleston Symphony Orchestra and Washington Heights Chamber Orchestra, and recently performed at Tanglewood, Bargemusic, and in the Chelsea Music Festival. He has worked with composers such as Thomas Ades and Aaron Jay Kernis, and in 2016, he performed the world premiere of “Tragedy No. 2,” a string quartet concerto by Theo Chandler in Alice Tully Hall. Mr. Kienbaum maintains a private studio in New York and has taught at The Juilliard School Music Advancement Program, Opportunity Music Project, and Wisconsin Youth Symphony Orchestras. Mr. Kienbaum studied with David Perry and Sally Chisholm at the University of Wisconsin and received his Master of Music under the tutelage of Samuel Rhodes at The Juilliard School.
Deborah Katz is an Earth tourist and intercontinental freelance violinist. She has fancy performance degrees in violin from Indiana University and New England Conservatory. She has played with numerous orchestras and chamber groups around the United States, Europe, Mexico, and Israel and at times… she even plays viola.
From 2011-2013, Tania was the singer and accordionist of five piece freak-folk band, The Marrow, and from 2014-2016, was the singer and synth player of three piece art-rock band Taeogi. Tania began pursuing a solo career in 2013: she has sung and performed in several styles, including rock, jazz, and folk. Her performances are generally delivered with melancholy, ambient, and avant-garde undertones.
She currently sings and plays the synthesizer with her band Echoverse (Dave Devine-guitar, Shawn King-drums, and Julia Mendiolea-bass). Her band combines elements of experimental, avant-garde rock, folk, pop, and jazz. Tania is also currently writing her first solo album. She has performed and/or recorded with fantastic musicians such as Dave Devine, Greg Garrison, members of Devotchka, Chris Pandolfi, Adam Bartczak Republic, Moon Atomizer, and Freaky North.
In 2008, I was sitting in the lobby of the Juilliard School checking my email on a school computer and I ran into a trumpet colleague of mine. I asked him what he was up to and he told me that he was on his way to audition for the Malaysian Philharmonic Orchestra.
The MPO was touring around the world looking for new talent to join their orchestra in Kuala Lumpur. I had taken several auditions that year and after looking at the required repertoire to audition I realized I was prepared to play everything. I ran home to grab some extra trumpets that I didn’t have with me and returned to the Upper West Side to audition at Merkin Hall. I didn’t realize it at the time, but this would turn out to be the beginning of one of the most rewarding adventures of my life. I was awarded the position with the Malaysian Philharmonic Orchestra and in 2009 I moved to Malaysia for the start of a 7-year tenure with the Malaysian Philharmonic Orchestra.
As a member of the MPO I was busy performing and recording not only in Kuala Lumpur, but also with solo and orchestral engagements around the world. I was proud to announce the release of the MPO’s recording of Dvorak’s 9th Symphony in 2010. The recording was part of a the complete works of Dvorak we recorded in partnership with the BIS recording label. Check out a review on www.classicstoday.com. In August of 2012, I represented the MPO on a European tour with Bertrand De-Billy with the orchestra of the Alliance of Asia-Pacific Region, performing in Vienna, Bratislava, Prague, Tallinn and Helsinki. In 2011, I went on a solo recital tour of Southeast Asia with pianist Conor Hanick, including stops in Bangkok, Singapore and Kuala Lumpur. In 2014, I was a featured soloist at the Melbourne International Trumpet Festival and in 2016 I was proud to lead the Malaysian Philharmonic Orchestra Brass Quintet in concert alongside my colleagues in the MPO.
In 2016 I left Kuala Lumpur to return to my home in New York City. It was such a pleasure to join the New York Philharmonic as acting second trumpet for six months. During that time we played memorable concerts at Lincoln Center including Mahler’s 9th Symphony with Bernard Haitink and Turangallila Symphony with Essa-Pekka Salonen. I joined the NYPhil for a residency in Shanghai, China, as well as their annual residency in Vail, Colorado.
Before my time in Malaysia I was a member of Carnegie Hall’s Ensemble ACJW, as part of The Academy program of Carnegie Hall, The Juilliard School and The Weill Music Institute. Before playing at Carnegie Hall, I played with the New Mexico Symphony Orchestra as Associate Principal Trumpet, and was principal trumpet of CityMusic Cleveland (Cleveland’s premier chamber orchestra). Throughout my career, I have performed at many of the world’s most prestigious festivals, including Tanglewood, Aspen, Verbier, Spoleto USA and the Pacific Music Festival, Japan.
I have a Master of Music degree in trumpet from The Juilliard School, 2007 and was the recipient of the Frieda and Harry Aronson Scholarship. I graduated with a Bachelor of Music degree from the Cleveland Institute of Music, 2005 with the Bernard Adelstein Award for Excellence in Trumpet. While in Cleveland, I was a founding member of the Helios Brass Quintet and the group received a New Horizon fellowship to perform at the Aspen Music Festival, 2003.
Stephanie Izaguirre is from Laredo, Texas and is currently attending Texas A&M University-Kingsville under the direction of Dr. Elizabeth Janzen. During her years in the university, she has had the honor to have won the University’s Concerto Competition in 2017, and has been selected to participate in the National Flute Association Collegiate Flute Choir for two consecutive year playing piccolo and alto flute. In addition, Ms. Izaguirre has been selected to perform as TAMUK’s representative in several master classes with international flutists including Marianne Gedigian, Ransom Wilson, and Linda Chesis. Ms. Izaguirre has also been a participant in various small ensembles which include trio, quartets, quintets, and much more. Ms. Izaguirre plans to attend graduate school with a focus on chamber ensembles, orchestral performance, and marketing.
John Jorgenson born July 6, 1956 in Madison, Wisconsin, is perhaps best known for his guitar work with bands such as the Desert Rose Band and The Hellecasters. Jorgenson is also proficient in the mandolin, mandocello, Dobro, pedal steel, piano, upright bass, clarinet, bassoon, and saxophone. John Jorgenson, known for his blistering guitar and mandolin licks and mastery of a broad musical palette, has earned a reputation as a world-class musician, as evidenced by his collaborations with Earl Scruggs, Bonnie Raitt, Elton John, Luciano Pavarotti, Bob Dylan and many others.
First coming to national attention in the mid ‘80s as co-founder of successful country-rock act The Desert Rose Band, an eclectic array of artists such as Bonnie Raitt, Bob Seger and Barbra were drawn to add Jorgenson’s artistry to their own recordings. While a member of the Desert Rose Band, Jorgenson won the Academy of Country Music’s “Guitarist of the Year” award two consecutive years.
In the ‘90s The Hellecasters gave audiences a chance to experience John’s fretboard fireworks in an unrestrained venue and the trio’s three original albums remain favorites of guitarists everywhere. Having been a fan of the Desert Rose Band, Elton John invited Jorgenson to join his band in 1994 for an 18 month tour that stretched into a six-year stint of touring, recording and TV appearances with the British superstar, in addition to collaborations with other artists including Sting and Billy Joel.
2010 marked the 100th birthday of the great gypsy guitarist Django Reinhardt. Since discovering Django in 1979, Jorgenson has become “the US Ambassador of Gypsy Jazz” which is quite an honor given the distinctly European slant of the music’s heritage. Over the years Jorgenson has continued to honor the legacy of Reinhardt by bringing his unique brand of Gypsy Jazz to the masses with his John Jorgenson Quintet.
Jorgenson continues to expand his dynamic range of musical offerings, exploring new elements of world music, bluegrass, rock and classical as he captivates and enlightens fellow musicians and listeners along the way. Touring with multiple musical configurations such as the John Jorgenson Quintet, the John Jorgenson Electric Band, the John Jorgenson Bluegrass Band and the Desert Rose Band. Jorgenson annually plays dates across the U.S. and Europe. Each permutation allows him to make prodigious use of his mastery of many instruments; no matter which band Jorgenson is playing with, his brilliant guitar work leads the way with music that is a combination of groundbreaking playing full of soaring melodies and driving rhythms.
His contribution is utterly one of a kind by not only Jorgenson’s skillful guitar playing, but also his solo clarinet, bouzouki, and vocal performances as well.
At performances of the John Jorgenson Quintet, audiences are awestruck by not only Jorgenson’s skillful guitar playing, but the solo clarinet and bouzouki as well. Djangobooks perfectly articulates, “If he comes around, don’t miss him. The show is golden. The music soars.”
Legends like Elton John, Earl Scruggs and Duane Eddy along with fellow guitarists such as Tommy Emmanuel, Peter Frampton and Brad Paisley have sung Jorgenson’s praises, and the best way to find out what they already know is to check out this artist who is leaving a lasting legacy in the art of guitar performance.
Owen completed his undergraduate degree in Music and Human learning at the University of Texas at Austin. He received his masters in trombone performance at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. He currently plays in the Colorado Springs Philharmonic, the Boulder Philharmonic, and the Austin Opera.
Kaden Henderson is a professional double bassist born in New Albany, Indiana. At the age of 13, he began his studies with Karl Olsen of the Louisville Orchestra and a year later with Bruce Bransby, of Indiana University. For his Bachelor’s Degree, Kaden continued his studies with Bruce Bransby at the Jacobs School of Music at Indiana University. Since graduating from Indiana University, Kaden has completed a Master’s Degree and a Master of Musical Arts degree at Yale University under the tutelage of Don Palma of the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra. Kaden has participated as a fellow with the Aspen Music Festival where he participated in the Contemporary Ensemble, as well as the Festival Orchestra. Most recently, Kaden participated in the Chelsea Music Festival in New York City as Principal bass under the baton of Ken-David Masur. In his spare time, Kaden enjoys watching basketball (Go Hoosiers & Warriors) with his wife, Mariya, and their two cats, Curry and Klay.
Gergana Haralampieva is a passionate chamber musician, soloist, teacher, and social entrepreneur. She is a member of the Boston-based Ravos Quartet, an advocate of new music, a community engagement presenter, and educator.
Born in Bulgaria to a musical family, Gergana began violin lessons at the age of six in the Czech Republic, where her family lived at the time. In 2005, the eleven-year old Gergana moved to Boston and continued her education at the New England Conservatory’s Preparatory School and the Walnut Hill School for the Arts in Natick, Massachusetts. In May 2016, Gergana received her Bachelor’s Degree from the Curtis Institute of Music where she studied with Ida Kavafian and Pamela Frank. She is currently a student of Miriam Fried at the New England Conservatory where she is in the process of completing her Master’s Degree.
As a chamber musician, Gergana has attended programs such as the Norfolk Chamber Music Festival, Verbier Academy, and the Ravinia Steans Music Institute for Piano and Strings. As a soloist, she has appeared with the Boston Pops and has appeared on NPR’s From the Top as well as the Czech National Radio. She was a recipient of the Jack Kent Cooke Young Artist Award and prize recipient of numerous international competitions such as the Cooper International Violin Competition in Oberlin, Ohio.
Gergana’s goal as a musician is to be an educator, a collaborator, and preserver of tradition while presenting it in new mediums. Her long-term ambitions include improvisation, learning the viola and piano, as well as learning more about historical performance practices such as early music interpretation.
Seattle native, Mickey Hansen, is second oboist of the Wichita Symphony Orchestra and woodwind specialist at Wichita Collegiate School. Prior to her position in Kansas, Ms. Hansen resided in San Antonio, Texas, where she frequently performed with the San Antonio Symphony, Mid-Texas Symphony, Alamo City Opera, and was on faculty at Saint Mary’s Hall. She has also appeared with orchestras including the Omaha Symphony, Tulsa Symphony, and Thunder Bay Symphony Orchestra. As a soloist, Ms. Hansen has performed with the Spokane Symphony, Arizona ProMusica Orchestra, and in 2011, won second place at the Boston Oboe Competition. Orchestral fellowships have taken her throughout Europe, including the Britten-Pears Young Artist Programme (England), Zoltan Kodaly World Youth Orchestra (Hungary), and International Orchestral Institute Attergau (Austria), where she was a featured speaker and performer on German public radio, Deutschlandfunk. For three years, Ms. Hansen resided in Germany and taught music and English in the public schools. Ms. Hansen holds degrees from The Boston Conservatory and Wichita State University; teachers include Robert Sheena, David Weber, Andrea Banke, and Mark Ackerman.
Cody Halquist is a versatile freelance musician in New York and Connecticut. He enjoys an active career as an orchestral musician, and has performed with the Richmond, Hudson Valley, and New Haven Symphonies, among others. A dedicated chamber musician, he has performed with groups such as the North Country Chamber Players and the Frisson Ensemble, and at various venues including the Kennedy Center, Norfolk Chamber Music Festival, and as a semifinalist at the 2016 Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition. Cody has spent his summers at the Crested Butte, Sarasota, and Lake George Music Festivals. He received his BM at the University of Michigan studying under Adam Unsworth, and his MM at the Yale School of Music under William Purvis.
Opera, operetta, musical theater; mezzo-soprano Edith Grossman does it all. This past summer she performed with Merola Opera Program as Tisbe in La Cenerentola, and in the Merola Grand Finale as Mignon in a scene from Mignon.
Her opera experiences include La Cenerentola (Tisbe) with Merola Opera Company, Le Nozze di Figaro (Cover: Marcellina) with Opera Saratoga, Falstaff (Mrs. Quickly) with Seagle Music Colony, Suor Angelica (The Abbess/Monitor) and the world premiere performance of In a Mirror, Darkly (Elaine) both with the Crane Opera Ensemble. With an expertise in the annals of classical musical theatre, her roles have ranged from Eliza Doolittle to Julie Jordan. Edith is equally adept at contemporary material, including Cats (Grizabella) and most recently, Ordinary Days (Claire). This winter, Edith will be a guest soloist with St. Lawrence University Chorus in Respighi’s Lauda per la Nativitá del Signore.
Edith is a graduate of the Crane School of Music at SUNY Potsdam with a B.M. in Vocal Performance.
JOHNNY DYNELL is the New York City DJ, producer, songwriter, remixer and impresario who has been practicing his art and craft for over three decades. His DJ style is infectious and inclusive, and he is a long-time favorite of New York’s art and fashion crowds as well as generations of Club Kids. He is equally at home spinning black tie galas like the annual Elton John Academy Awards Viewing Party and the AMFAR party at the Cannes Film Festival or underground club events like the Saint at Large Black Party.
His NYC DJ residencies read like a nightclub history of the 1980s, 1990s and beyond. They include The Mudd Club, Danceteria, The Pyramid Club, Area, BoyBar, Susanne Bartsch parties, The Palladium, The Tunnel, The Limelight, The Roxy, Jackie 60, Crobar, Mr. Black, Greenhouse, Le Bain, The Ice Palace, Fire Island and Club Cumming.
Known for his quirky records like the 1983 classic “Jam Hot” and his 1989 pioneering Vogue (dance) anthem “Elements Of Vogue” he brings an impressive knowledge of diverse musical genres to everything he does. He has collaborated with artists including Malcolm McLaren and Pink Martini and is a frequent commentator on NYC music and cultural subjects. A founding producer of the NYC performing arts collective The Jackie Factory, he also serves as the Musical Director for the fashion house Max Mara World.
Danny Goldman is the clarinetist in Trio Kavanah. Recent performances include The Winspear Opera House and The AT&T Performing Arts Center. Their 2018-19 season includes a Steinway Hall tour and performances at The Eisemann Center, Bank of America Hall, Reunion Tower, and ArtSpace 111. Danny recently collaborated with The Amaryllis Quartet in NYC, The New Fromm Players at Tanglewood, and performed in The Basically Beethoven Festival. He is a member of The Dallas Opera Orchestra and is the liaison to the Board of Directors. Other orchestral performances include The Philadelphia Orchestra, Las Vegas Philharmonic, Louisville Orchestra, Louisiana Philharmonic, and The IRIS Orchestra. He holds a Bachelor’s Degree from Juilliard and a Master’s Degree from Rice University.
Maestro Brian Garman joins CBMF in 2018 as Music Director of Opera, leading Falstaff. He also is the Artistic Director and Co-Founder of Berkshire Opera Festival, having conducted their inaugural production of “Madama Butterfly,” last summer’s “Ariadne auf Naxos,” and returning to the podium for this summer’s “Rigoletto.” He recently opened Seattle Opera’s season with “La traviata,” and the preceding fall was appointed the inaugural Music Director of the Seattle Opera Young Artists Program. He led that program in a Verdi concert and productions of “Don Pasquale,” “Don Giovanni,” “Ariadne auf Naxos,” and “A Midsummer Night’s Dream, “among others. Prior to that, he was on the conducting roster at New York City Opera. Concurrently, he led runs of “Un Giorno di Regno” and “L’Étoile” at the Wolf Trap Opera Company.
Maestro Garman was also the Resident Conductor at Pittsburgh Opera for ten years, leading productions of “Roméo et Juliette,” “Rigoletto,” “Le nozze di Figaro,” “Die Zauberflöte,” “Werther,” and more to unanimous acclaim. Additionally, as Music Director of the Pittsburgh Opera Center, he conducted several productions with that company. On the music staff of The Santa Fe Opera for six years, he was associate conductor and assisted in the musical preparation of dozens of operas.
Born and raised in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, Fung Chern Hwei absorbed a large amount of musical information since young in his surroundings that is filled with Chinese, Malay, South Indian, and of course, “Western” culture. After a long search for violin teacher since he was 4 years old, he finally found one when he was 8 and since then thrusted himself into the world of violin and never looked back.
Upon finishing his masters studies at the Aaron Copland School of Music in New York, Chern Hwei chose to stay back to pursue his musical career, playing different genres of music, absorbing yet even more musical languages and expressions. Styles that he plays frequently includes western classical, jazz, Middle Eastern music, tango, early music, rock, and hip hop. He recently self-released his debut album, “From The Heart”.
Artists that he was fortunate to work with include Uri Caine, Ryuichi Sakamoto, Stanley Clarke, Tony Bennet, Bobby McFerrin, Steve Wilson, Elliot Sharp, Billy Martin, Roberta Piket, Dave Taylor, Helen Sung, Linda Oh, Jenny Lin, Mikael Karlsson, Dana Leong, Makoto Ozone, Paquito d’Rivera, Anna Chong, among others.
Chern Hwei is currently the first violinist of Sirius Quartet, a string quartet based in New York City that performs and teach actively in the U.S, Europe and Asia. He is also a member of the Malaysian indie rock group, Platform 11, and FUGU, Malaysia-based violin-theremin experimental duo.
Murat started photography as an apprentice to Josephine Powell in Istanbul. After attending the Academy of Fine Arts, School of Photography (Istanbul), he transferred to Bennington College, Vermont. He lived in Paris and returned to New York to pursue studies in music history. His dissertation was on the utopian aspects of Gustav Mahler’s works. Since 2000 he has focused mainly on portraiture and collaborative projects. In 2007, he participated in the documentary Claude Lévi-Strauss: Return to the Amazon as assistant director. He directed, filmed and co-authored the script of The Colorado (2016), a music-based documentary to which five composers contributed original music. His photographs have been published by the French edition of the National Geographic Magazine and his music videos have been released by various independent labels. He lives in New York City.
Shane Endsley resides in Brooklyn, NY, where he is steadily building his reputation as one of the most unique voices on the trumpet today. Shane studied trumpet, percussion and composition at the Eastman School of Music.
DownBeat magazine named him as one of the “Top 25″ trumpeters of his generation and he was cited as a Rising Star in the 2013 Critics Poll and in 2013,JazzTimes readers voted him the “Best Trumpet Player under 40.” A truly modern and dynamic musician, he can be found on recordings ranging from modern instrumentalists Steve Coleman, Dave Binney, and Donny McCaslin, to folk and rock icons like Ani DiFranco, Erin McKeown, and Pearl Jam.
Shane is a founding member of the Grammy-nominated group Kneebody, with their debut recording on Concord Records, The Line, to be released in September 2013. Kneebody was also nominated in 2010 and 2013 for “Best Jazz Group” in DownBeat Reader’s Poll.
In 2011, Shane released his second recording as a leader, debuting on Low Electrical Records (owned and operated by Kneebody) with Then The Other by Shane Endsley and The Music Band. This album was named one of the 10 Best Jazz Albums of 2010 by The Los Angeles Times. Additional recent projects include working with Chris Speed, Charlie Hunter and Ben Allison. Shane has also toured, performed, or recorded with Ravi Coltrane, John Hollenbeck, Tim Berne, and Jason Mraz.
An accomplished drummer and composer, Shane is constantly expanding his musical vocabulary with the rich experiences offered by New York City. He dove into the intricate ornamental style of the Balkan brass bands with the powerhouse 10-piece group, Slavic Soul Party, and has ventured into the lilting rhythms of Brazilian Forro and Maracatu with Scott Kettner of Nation Beat and Maracatu NY.
A 32-year-old classically trained pianist and composer, Aaron Diehl has made an indelible mark on the jazz world over the last 15 years. Showing an affinity for early jazz and mid-20th century “third-stream” music, his latest evolution comes as he begins to tackle modern classical works, recently performing Gershwin with the New York Philharmonic, Cleveland Orchestra and Los Angeles Philharmonic.
Diehl has collaborated with living masters ranging from from NEA Jazz Master Benny Golson to 20th century classical titan Philip Glass, while establishing himself as one of the preeminent interpreters of the Great American Songbook in his own trio and with the vocalist Cécile McLorin Salvant.
Critics from The New York Times jazz critics have have extolled Mr. Diehl’s “melodic precision, harmonic erudition, and elegant restraint,” while the same paper’s classical critics have noted, “Mr. Diehl play[s] magnificently.” His meticulously conceived performances, collaborations, and compositions are refreshing as his highly personal aesthetic spearheads a union of tradition and original artistry, while bounding ahead on an uncharted course.
Born in 1985 in Columbus, Ohio to a funeral director and a former Olympian turned education administrator, Aaron Diehl grew up in a nurturing musical environment. His grandfather, Arthur Baskerville, a pianist and trombonist was an early influence. He began studying classical piano at age 7, while his passion for jazz was further fueled while attending the Interlochen Arts Camp as a pre-teen, where he met the pianist Eldar, who exposed him to Oscar Peterson and Art Tatum recordings.
At age 17, Diehl was a finalist in Jazz at Lincoln Center’s Essentially Ellington competition, where he was noticed by Wynton Marsalis. Soon after, Diehl was invited to tour Europe with the Wynton Marsalis Septet (Marsalis has famously referred to him as “The Real Diehl.”) That Fall he would matriculate to the Juilliard School, studying with jazz pianists Kenny Barron and Eric Reed and classical pianist Oxana Yablonskaya. Diehl came to wider recognition in 2011 as winner of the American Pianists Association’s Cole Porter Fellowship, which included $50,000 in career development and a recording contract with the esteemed Mack Avenue Records.
Aaron has been a staple of the New York jazz scene since 2007. His role as pianist and musical director for vocalist Cécile McLorin Salvant, the most arresting and authentic jazz vocalist to emerge in three decades, has enhanced his profile well beyond the jazz world. Diehl & Salvant’s musical partnership is one of the most fruitful in recent memory.
Shortly before Salvant released her highly acclaimed WomanChild, which featured Diehl and his trio, the pianist released his Mack Avenue debut, The Bespoke Man’s Narrative, a tribute of to the sophisticated classicism of the Modern Jazz Quartet; particularly the pianist John Lewis. At the time, the New York Daily News wrote, “Diehl, a rising star of jazz piano, has an individual talent so huge that one day he may extend the jazz tradition,” The Financial Times commented, “as sharp, opulent and stylish as the title might suggest. [Diehl]’s fluency is remarkable and his light-but-sensuous touch oozes class without breaking boundaries.”
Upon the release of his 2015 Mack Avenue album, Space, Time, Continuum —featuring special guests Golson and Joe Temperley — in some ways a reaction to the classicism of Bespoke, the New York Times reframed its prior appraisal. “Mr. Diehl, who once might have suggested an emissary from another time himself, has brilliantly advanced his art under current conditions.” The Irish Times noted, “his second studio album…hints at new horizons.” Golson told the Wall Street Journal, “He’s going to go the distance. He’s going to be one of the important ones.”
Diehl’s first solo album, Live at Caramoor (2008), was a concert recorded at the Caramoor Festival. Live at the Players (2010) featured two of his trios: Quincy Davis and David Wong, and Paul Sikivie and Lawrence Leathers. He won the 2012 Prix du Jazz Classique from the Académie du Jazz for Live at the Players; the 2013 Jazz Journalists Award for Up-And-Coming Artist, and in 2014 was the Monterey Jazz Festival Commission Artist, becoming one of the youngest artists to receive that honor. For Monterey, he composed “Three Streams of Expression,” dedicated to Lewis.
Diehl served in 2014-2015 as Music Director for Jazz at Lincoln Center’s New Orleans Songbook series, performed in the 2014 New York premiere of Philip Glass’ complete Etudes at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, collaborated with the flamenco guitarist Dani De Morón in Flamenco Meets Jazz (produced by Savannah Music Festival and Flamenco Festival). He served as the inaugural Artistic Director of the Catskill Jazz Factory in Tannersville, NY.
In 2017, Diehl embarked on a new venture. He would play with the New York Philharmonic and the Cleveland Orchestra as featured soloist on George Gershwin’s Piano Concerto in F. Diehl played on the NY Phil’s opening gala performance of their 2016-2017 season in conductor Alan Gilbert’s final season. The chief classical critic of the New York Times wrote, “Mr. Diehl…had brilliance when called for, during jazz-tinged passages of Lisztian runs and octaves. The roomy freedom of [his] playing in bluesy episodes was especially affecting. He folded short improvised sections into the score, and it’s hard to imagine that Gershwin would not have been impressed.” Of the same piece, the Cleveland Plain Dealer wrote “In his Cleveland debut, [Diehl]…was right on the money, a responsive and virtuosic interpretation marked by keen vitality and intimate communication with his peers.”
In addition to Salvant and Marsalis, Diehl has toured or recorded with Wycliffe Gordon, Warren Wolf, Lew Tabackin, Matt Wilson, and the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra. When Diehl performed the music of Philip Glass at Brooklyn Academy of Music, he was exposed to the work of pianist and composer Timo Andres, with whom he plans to collaborate in the future. He has performed Gershwin’s Rhapsodies with the Amarillo Symphony and will perform Glass’ Works for Piano and The Complete Piano Etudes in Aarhus, Denmark in Fall 2017.
When he isn’t on tour or recording, Diehl enjoys spending time in the sky. As a licensed pilot, one of his favorite planes to fly is the Beechcraft Bonanza. One can follow Diehl’s travels, as well as fascinating practice sessions at the piano and much diverse concert-going via his instagram account.
Equally comfortable on the stages of Carnegie Hall and the set of Saturday Night Live, Keats Dieffenbach has established herself as a unique artist with infinitely varied interests and abilities. Lauded by the New York Times as an “impressive performer,” Keats’ dual specialization in contemporary and historical performance on multiple instruments keeps her in demand with many leading ensembles. Keats is a member of Orchestra of St. Luke’s, Mark Morris Dance Group Music Ensemble, Juilliard415, and The Serenade Quartet, and she has appeared frequently with The Knights, A Far Cry chamber orchestra, and Carnegie Hall’s Ensemble Connect with whom she held a prestigious two-year fellowship position. An avid chamber musician, Keats’ collaborators have ranged from Emanuel Ax and Christian Tetzlaff to indie rock sensation Vampire Weekend. She has served as concertmaster under many of the world’s leading conductors and has worked closely with composers Steve Reich, Shulamit Ran, Nico Muhly, and numerous others. Keats studied with Robert Mann at The Juilliard School and served as Donald Weilerstein’s teaching assistant at New England Conservatory. She is currently a student of Cynthia Roberts and Elizabeth Blumenstock in Juilliard’s Historical Performance Program.
Hailed as “Denver’s Guitar Guru” by Westword magazine, guitarist, composer, and educator Dave Devine is known throughout the Denver jazz and rock scene for his virtuosity as a performer, his versatility as an artist, and his keen ability to connect with and inspire his students. A self-admitted tone-obsessed pedal geek, his signature sound is one of dense layers, ambient washes, and lush sonic landscapes, all serving his goal of redefining the role of guitar in modern jazz.
Originally from Indianapolis, Devine moved to Denver in 2001 where he soon joined legendary Denver band The Czars. He toured across Europe with the group, including performances on the BBC London and Birmingham, and in 2006, he and singer John Grant toured the US in the Czars’ final incarnation as a duo.
Devine has performed with friends and artists across a wide span of genres, including Art Lande, Ron Miles, The Barr Brothers, Don Byron, Chuck Prophet, Marc Broussard, Janet Feder, Elliott Sharp, Matt Wilson, Ben Goldberg, Neil Halstead, and Sun Kil Moon. He also performs with national touring productions at the Denver Center for the Performing Arts.
Most recently, Devine joined Brian Blade and the Fellowship Band at Eyeland Studios in Providence, RI for the recording of their fifth album Body and Shadow, out November 2017 on Blue Note Records.
His own projects have ranged in styles from experimental jazz (momenterra, Static Trio), and chamber pop (Greybird), to jazz metal (Hate Camels) and alternative rock (Delby L, who recorded their album Nine Skies with producer/engineer Steve Albini). Devine combines his diverse passions and influences into the music of his quartet, Dave Devine Relay, blending effect-heavy guitars, ambient noise, layered synths, and shifting meters into texturally rich instrumental pop songs.
Devine can be heard regularly around Denver with his group the Dave Devine Trio, performing instrumental versions of songs from every era and genre: jazz standards, surf rock, outlaw country, hip-hop, metal, folk, krautrock, grunge, disco, glam, and more. The Dave Devine Trio plays every first and last Friday of the month at Dazzle Jazz.
For the past five years, Devine has presented his chamber arrangements of Ennio Morricone’s spaghetti western scores annually in conjunction with the Denver Western Stock Show. The Good, The Bad, and the Devine is a show as much educational as it is entertaining, and currently features Tania Katz (vocals), Shane Endsley (trumpet), Patrick Lee (keyboards), and DeVotchKa members Tom Hagerman (violin), Jeanie Schroder (bass), and Shawn King (drums).
New projects in the works include Mountain Coast, a synth/guitar collaboration with ambient electronic artist Michael Bailey, and Invisible Bird, a modern jazz trio with trumpeter Shane Endsley and drummer Scott Amendola. Both groups expect to release debut albums later this year.
Dave Devine earned his undergrad in classical guitar performance at Butler University in Indianapolis. He earned a Performer’s Diploma in classical guitar performance and completed graduate work in jazz studies at Indiana University, where he was teaching assistant to David Baker. An educator at heart, Devine is Co-Director of the Jazz and American Improvised Music program at Metropolitan State University of Denver, where he has taught for the past 15 years.
Baritone Ron Earl was educated at the University of North Texas in Denton. He studied voice under world-renowned professor and voice teacher, Dr. Arthur Schoep, who directed the university’s opera program and taught choral conducting, voice, and diction. Earl also received vocal coaching from Harold Heiberg and currently studies with Brenda Boozer in New York City. He recently appeared with the St. Petersburg Opera Company and also performed as one of the Wright brothers in a new piece written by local artist Enid Holden and composer Joseph Reisner. A native Texan, Earl has lived in the Gunnison Valley for 20 years. His repertoire includes opera, spirituals, oratorios, and the Great American Songbook. Beyond his musical activities, he is passionate about acting and directing plays that allow him to reach new audiences.
Susan Caldwell has been a member of the opera and vocal coaching faculty at Mannes College The New School for Music since 1998. Director of the opera workshop in Mannes’s extension division from 2011-2013, she has also served as music director of the opera workshops at New York University and Kean University. Her operatic experience includes many years with the New York City Opera, work with the Netherlands Opera, including the world premiere of Alfred Schnittke’s “Life with an Idiot”, conducted by Mstislav Rostropovich. She assisted Robert Craft in the preparation of “The Rake’s Progress,” and is the harpsichordist on his recording with the Orchestra of St. Luke’s. In addition to her professional affiliations, she is active as a vocal coach and collaborative. Ms. Caldwell holds a Doctor of Musical Arts degree from the University of Michigan, and bachelor’s and master’s degrees in piano performance from St. Olaf College and the University of Georgia.
An inspired eclectic, Byron has performed an array of musical styles with great success. Byron first attained a measure of notoriety for playing Klezmer, specifically the music of the late Mickey Katz. While the novelty of a black man playing Jewish music was enough to grab the attention of critics, it was Byron’s jazz-related work that ultimately made him a major figure. Byron is an exceptional clarinetist from a technical perspective; he also possesses a profound imagination that best manifests itself in his multifarious compositions. At heart, Byron is a conceptualist. Each succeeding album seems based on a different stylistic approach, from the free jazz/classical leanings of his first album, Tuskegee Experiments (Nonesuch, 1992), to the hip-hop/funk of Nu Blaxpoitation (Blue Note, 1998). Byron’s composition “There Goes the Neighborhood” was commissioned by the Kronos Quartet and premiered in London in 1994. He’s also composed for silent film, served as the director of jazz for the Brooklyn Academy of Music, and scored for television. Byron was born and raised in New York City, the son of a mailman who also occasionally played bass in calypso bands, and a mother who dabbled on piano. As a child, Byron developed asthma; his doctor suggested he take up a wind instrument as therapy. Byron chose clarinet. His South Bronx neighborhood had a sizeable Jewish population, which partly explains his fascination with Klezmer. Byron was encouraged by his parents to learn about all different kinds of music, from Leonard Bernstein to Dizzy Gillespie. Byron’s models on clarinet included Tony Scott, Artie Shaw, and especially Jimmy Hamilton. As an improviser, Joe Henderson was a prominent influence. As a teenager, Byron studied clarinet with Joe Allard. Byron attended the New England Conservatory of Music, where he studied with George Russell. While at NEC, Byron was recruited to play in Hankus Netsky’s Klezmer Conservatory Band. Byron moved from Boston back to New York in the mid-’80s, where he began playing with several of the city’s more prominent jazz avant-gardists, including David Murray, Craig Harris, and Hamiet Bluiett. A year after recording Tuskegee Experiments, Byron made Plays the Music of Mickey Katz(Nonesuch), which put something of an end to his Klezmer career (at least in terms of recording). Byron’s career built steadily over the course of the ’90s. By the end of the decade he had signed with Blue Note records. While hardly a radical, Byron is an original voice within the bounds of whatever style he happens to embrace.
Caleb Burhans (b. 1980) is an established, multifaceted presence in the New York contemporary music scene who is active as both a performer (strings, voice) and composer. Hailed by the New York Times as, “animated and versatile,” and, “New York’s mohawked Mozart” by Time Out New York, Mr. Burhans specializes in baroque performance practice, contemporary music, rock/pop music, electronica and free improv. He has been commissioned by Lincoln Center, Carnegie Hall, Library of Congress and the Kronos Quartet, to name a few.. In 2009 Caleb was awarded the prestigious Annenberg Fellowship.
You can hear Caleb’s music around the world at events like the Bang on a Can Marathon, Look and Listen Festival, Tribeca New Music Festival, Darmstadt Internationale Ferienkurse für Neue Musik, Open Days Festival (Denmark) and the Aspen Music Festival.
Burhans is a founding member of Alarm Will Sound, itsnotyouitsme, Signal and the Wordless Music Orchestra and he is also a member of ACME, Newspeak and the disco band Escort. Caleb has also worked with the BBC Symphony Orchestra, Charleston Symphony, LA Philharmonic, Madison Symphony, Milwaukee Symphony, Philadelphia Chamber Orchestra, Princeton Symphony, Rochester Philharmonic, St. Louis Symphony, the New York New Music Ensemble, Nexus, SO Percussion, Ethel, Flux, JACK, Wild Up!, Roomful of Teeth, St. Thomas Choir of Men and Boys, Trinity Wall Street Choir, Arcade Fire, The Hold Steady, Grizzly Bear, Deep Purple, tUnE-yArDs, Bruce Springsteen, John Legend, Jonsi (Sigur Ros), Paul McCartney, fun., The National, Jonny Greenwood (Radiohead) and Björk.
Caleb has worked with and premiered numerous works by such composers as Philip Glass, Steve Reich, John Adams, La Monte Young, Lou Harrison, Meredith Monk, David Lang, John Zorn, George Crumb and Brian Ferneyhough.
As a conductor Burhans has worked with the London Sinfonietta and the Wordless Music Orchestra and he has done choral preparation for John Adams, Brad Lubman and David Robertson.
Caleb Burhans attended the Eastman School of Music where he received degrees in composition and viola performance. He resides in Brooklyn, NY with his wife, Martha Cluver, and their daughter.
Praised as “an artist with an already expanding reputation and great future” (The Well-Tempered Ear); cellist Andrew Briggs is a world traveler. Performances include recitals in the Netherlands and France; collaborations with the principal cellist of the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra (Amsterdam, NL); performances in Paul Hall, NYC; with Axiom Contemporary Ensemble in Alice Tully Hall, NYC; and concerto appearances in Colorado and Wisconsin. For the 2017-18 season, Andrew is a section cellist with the Colorado Symphony. Completing his Masters Degree at The Juilliard School, he graduated with his Doctorate from the University of Wisconsin. As a recipient of the Harriet Hale Woolley Scholarship, Andrew will reside in Paris beginning fall 2018 to study and perform the works of JL Duport.
The music of Michael Bratt has been described as “traveling through a circuit board at the speed of light,” “well-crafted… colorfully orchestrated and totally engaging,”(Cleveland Classical) and “bursting with inventive, energetic spirit” (The Plain Dealer). Composer, Conductor, Digital Artist – Michael Bratt has received numerous honorsincluding official selection at the Foro Internacional De Música Nueva Manuel Enríquez 2013, Composer/Fellow for the Canton Symphony Orchestra 2008-2009, regional finalist for the 2008 SCI Student Composer Commission, 2007 Verdehr Trio Composition Contest, honorable mention at the 2007 Minnesota Orchestra Institute, and the 2005 Bain Murray Composition Award among others. He has been commissioned by many organizations including The Cleveland Museum of Natural History, The Cleveland Clinic, The Cleveland Public Theatre, The Cleveland Shakespeare Festival, and others.
His compositional output is diverse, having written for orchestra, chamber groups, solo instruments, and electronic media. His music has been premiered throughout the United States and internationally in cities such as Stockholm and Vienna among others. Nationally recognized groups such as the Verdehr Trio, Cleveland Chamber Symphony, Zeitgeist, and the Bugallo-Williams Piano Duo have premiered his compositions. His music has also been featured on Public Radios’ Around Noon with Dee Perry as well as WVIZs’ television show, Applause.
Dr. Bratt was the conductor of the Ursinus College Wind Ensemble and the Ursinus College String Ensemble for three years. During this time, Dr. Bratt has been active in supporting new works. He led the Ursinus College Wind Ensemble in their first commission from internationally renown composer Mark Nowakowski as well as world premieres from noted composers Eric Sessler, John HC Thompson, and others.
Having attended Kent State University, Berklee College of Music, Cleveland State University (BM, MM), and the Cleveland Institute of Music (DMA), Dr. Bratt has an extensive background in modern music. He has studied with many award-winning composers such as Keith Fitch, Margaret Brouwer, Paul Schoenfield, Andrew Rindfleisch, and Greg D’Alessio. He has also taken master classes with Pulitzer Prize winning composers Bernard Rands, Michael Colgrass, Melinda Wagner and the late Donald Martino.
An immense advocate and supporter of modern music, Dr. Bratt is the co-founder and Board Chair of FiveOne Experimental Orchestra, a Cleveland-based new music ensemble. FiveOne Experimental Orchestra is one of sixteen organizations chosen nationally for a SEED grant by the Robert Rauschenberg Society and has been hailed as a “fascinating mix of musical styles,” (Cleveland Classical). Dr. Bratt has also collaborated with award winning composers Mark Nowakowski and Jeremy Allen, in founding Multimode Filter, an electronic composer ensemble dedicated to producing cutting edge electronic music and sound design for concert halls, audio books, video games, and film.
During his tenure at Ursinus College, Dr. Bratt founded the Robot Bears – the Ursinus College Society for Electronic Music. The Robot Bears have explored many topics in contemporary electronic music including spatialization, audio diffusion, circuit-bending, live-coding, analog synthesis and HID control. He has significant experience with sequencing programs Digital Performer, ProTools, Audacity, and Logic as well as music programming environments Max/MSP/Jitter, Super Collider, Pure Data and Csound. Dr. Bratt has worked in the recording studios of Kent State and The Cleveland Institute of Music. His film music can be heard in the independent movies Holiday Lie, Catching Salinger, All That You Love Will Be Carried Away and Guys (the former was shown at the Montreal World Film Festival and the latter won best in show at the Ohio Indie Gathering)
Dr. Bratt has taught at Ursinus College, the Cleveland Institute of Music, Oberlin College Conservatory of Music (TIMARA Department, Technology Music and Related Arts), the Northeast Ohio branch of Indiana Wesleyan University, and is currently Visiting Assistant Professor of Music at the University of Mary Washington where he teaches Music Composition and Electronic Music.
Michaela Borth leads an active performing life playing extensively along Colorado’s front range orchestras including the Boulder Chamber Orchestra, Fort Collins Symphony, Greeley Philharmonic, and Cheyenne Symphony. She has performed across the country as well as abroad in Europe playing with the AIMS Festival in Graz, Austria focusing on operatic genres. Other engagements include New York City’s Symphony Space “Wall to Wall” Stravinsky Festival, “Stravinsky Fest” in Kansas City, MO, Boulder’s “Mahler Fest”, and the historical Gem Theatre in Kansas City, MO. As a chamber player, she has performed with the Sphere Ensemble, as well as kicking off Colorado’s Haydn Slam 2012-13 with Mondrian string quartet. Michaela earned her masters degree in violin performance from SUNY Purchase College Conservatory in New York, and bachelors at the Conservatory of Music at the University of Missouri in Kansas City
Rachel Blumenthal was appointed Principal Flute of the Sarasota Opera in 2017. Prior to her position in Sarasota, Ms. Blumenthal held positions in the Des Moines and Battle Creek Symphony Orchestras. When not in Sarasota, she maintains an active freelance career in Chicago, where she performs with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the Lyric Opera of Chicago, the Grant Park Orchestra, the Chicago Philharmonic, and other ensembles as a frequent substitute. Ms. Blumenthal has spent summers at the Tanglewood Music Center, the National Repertory Orchestra, the Aspen Music Festival, and the Brevard Music Center. She received her bachelor’s degree from the University of Michigan and her master’s degree from Carnegie Mellon University. Her primary teachers were Amy Porter and Jeanne Baxtresser.
Danielle is a Professional Studies Student in Opera at Mannes College The New School For Music where she recently earned her Master’s Degree in Voice. She received her Bachelors Degree in vocal performance from SUNY Fredonia.
Danielle was named a Grand Finalist in the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions where she performing “In quali ecessi… Mi Tradi” and Anna Bolena’s mad scene aria, “Piangete voi… Al dolce guidami” with the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra under the baton of Maestro Bertrand de Billy. Future engagements include Anne Trulove in The Rake’s Progress with Mannes Opera and her Carnegie Hall Mainstage Debut as the soprano soloist in Mozart’s Requiem with the Cecilia Chorus of New York. Her summer plans include traveling to Crested Butte Colorado to sing Alice in Falstaff with The Crested Butte Opera Studio.
Most recently Danielle portrayed the role of Madeline Usher at Mannes. Last summer she sang Donna Elvira with the Hawaii Performing Arts Festival and was also a Professional Fellow at SongFest in Los Angeles.
Danielle has placed and advanced in several competitions. Last year Danielle was the Jacklyn Elyn Award winner in The George London Foundation for Singers Annual Competition, First Place Winner in the Classical Singer Online Competition and also First Prize Winner in the Civic Morning Musicals Competition. Additionally, Danielle was also named a finalist in the Mannes Concerto Competition Previously she received an Encouragement Award for the Buffalo-Toronto District awarded in January 2014. Danielle was a finalist in the Benjamin Matthew’s Vocal Competition and a semi-finalist in the Classical Singer Competition, both in 2016. She has also won the SUNY Fredonia Concerto Competition and performed with the Fredonia Chamber Orchestra in December of 2013.
In 2014 Danielle was the apprentice soprano soloist for Western New York Chamber Orchestras performances of Mozart’s Dominican Vespers and Handel’s Messiah with the Advent Chorale of Western New York.
Danielle’s full operatic roles include Fiordiligi in Cosi fan tutte and Beth in Mark Adamo’s Opera Little Women with the Mannes Opera, Donna Anna in Don Giovanni and Magda Sorell in Menotti’s The Consul with the Western New York Orchestra, And the title role is Floyd’s Susannah and also Suor Genovieffa in Puccini’s Suor Angelica with the Hillman Opera.
Danielle attended the Chautauqua Institute Summer Festival for two summers and was an Apprentice Artist at Ashlawn Opera. Ms. Beckvermit is a proud student of Amy Burton.
Lynn Baker is a vocal coach, English diction specialist and collaborative pianist. She was an assistant conductor and English diction coach at New York City Opera until its closing in 2013. She is currently vocal coach and casting consultant for New York City Ballet, teaches song classes at The New School, and, most recently, has been English diction coach for multiple productions at Opera Philadelphia and the Curtis Institute of Music. Other coaching and performing credits include The Philadelphia Orchestra, Seattle Opera, Atlanta Opera, Washington National Opera, Cincinnati Conservatory of Music, Bard Summerscapes Festival, Spoleto Festival USA, Baltimore Symphony Orchestra and the Juilliard Opera Center. Lynn is a frequent vocal recital pianist and an avid performer of contemporary opera and art song. She holds a Master of Music degree in accompanying from The Juilliard School.
Talk to the abundantly gifted violinist and mandolin player Jason Anick and the phrase “jazz without borders” will invariably come up. What the axiom means to Anick is a contemporary jazz that is stylistically inclusive in nature, a jazz that brings whatever it can to the party, unwilling to cut something out of the mix for fear of it not fitting prescribed boundaries. An inviting demonstration of the maxim in action can be found on Anick’s recent release, United, which was picked by Downbeat Magazine as one of the top jazz albums of 2017.
One of the youngest violin professors at Boston’s Berklee College of Music, Anick is considered “a rising star in the world of jazz violin and mandolin” (Downbeat Magazine). In addition to leading his own contemporary jazz ensemble and performing with the Rhythm Future Quartet, Anick has been touring and recording with Grammy award-winning Nashville guitar virtuoso John Jorgenson since 2008 when he was recruited while still a senior at the Hartt Conservatory.
Over the past few years, Jason has been focusing on arranging and composing for the Rhythm Future Quartet, which he started with Finnish guitarist Olli Soikkeli. With performances all over the U.S. and Europe, the Rhythm Future Quartet is rapidly becoming one of the preeminent Gypsy jazz groups in the country.
A versatile musician and sought after side-man, Anick has also shared the stage with an array of artist like Stevie Wonder, Tommy Emmanuel, The Jim Kweskin Jug Band, John Sebastian, Delta Rae, and Girls, Guns and Glory. With performances all over the world from China, Europe, and Japan and renowned venues like the Montreal Jazz Festival, Blue Note, Smalls Jazz Club, Scullers Jazz Club, Yoshi’s, Iridium, TD Garden, Regattabar, NPR, and The Late Night Show, Jason has proven himself to be a leader in the ever-growing contemporary string world.
Jason is also a sought-after educator and has taught jazz violin and mandolin to students of all ages at string camps, workshops, and clinics around the world. Jason regularly contributes educational columns to Fiddler Magazine and instructional videos to DC Music and Christian Howes’ Creative Strings Academy.
Born in Plovdiv, Bulgaria, Mariya-Andoniya Andonova came to the United States at age 16 to study at the Idyllwild Arts Academy in Southern California with principal bassist of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Christopher Hanulik. Ms. Andonova received her Bachelor’s Degree and a Performance Certificate in Double Bass Performance from The Colburn Conservatory in Los Angeles, and completed her Master’s degree at the Yale School of Music. She has participated in The Perlman Music Program, Music Academy of the West, Tanglewood Music Center, The Aspen Music Festival, Verbier Orchestra, and The Chelsea Music Festival. Ms. Andonova was also a tenured section bassist with the Santa Barbara Symphony in Southern California and frequently performs with the Hartford Symphony in Connecticut.
Dynamic yet lyrical imagination… whether on her leader projects, as a side musician, at a Sunday service in African-American church, Yayoi always speaks to the soul directly through her music with a huge range of emotions. Yayoi’s source of imagination comes from living everyday to the full each day. Yayoi is energetic, passionate for creativity, curious to collaborate with fellow musicians and people from other fields that involve her mission, and most of all loves her musical family.
Yayoi has performed locally in New York area, and toured nationally as well as internationally. When appearing in Ford del jazz festival in Italy with her trio, Yayoi surprised the audience with her neo-jazz New York sound. Born in Tokyo, Japan, but raised musically in New York, Yayoi can be defined as a pure expression of New York modern jazz, not only has she lived in the metropolis for eight years, but also because her taste, sound, and energy are rooted in that area.
When her trio and quartet was aired on a historic nation-wide Japanese radio program Session 2008 and featured for the monthly program twice on the leading Internet radio station jjazz.net (which recorded the number of accesses exceeded over other programs of the month), Yayoi expressed her sincere feeling for her roots in Japan and Asia by intergrading Japanese Folk melodies into her liberating performance style on her pieces “Motherland” and “Folk Song”. Yayoi also dedicated compositions “Peace Requiem” to a Japanese journalist killed in Myanmar 2007 and “Dear Asia” to the tragic earthquake happened in Sumatera 2004.
Yayoi’s latest recording “Color Of Dreams” (2005) displays original compositions that reflect her visions through life. As much involved as their rhythmic and harmonic senses tend to be, the main focus of the trio is to reach the listeners’ soul on a spiritual level as a united positive vibration. Legendary jazz drummer Carl Allen and the renowned producer Makoto Kimata produced the 2004 Nippon Crown records release “Angel Eyes” with Three Angels featuring Yayoi Ikawa. The trio features three New York based young female musicians, and their lyrical and modern approach to jazz standard was evaluated in the leading magazine Swing Journal as “post Bill Evans”.
In 2008, Yayoi started “The Bridge Project” with the sold-out concert at “Jazz House Alfie” in Roppongi, Tokyo, Japan. Central to this project’s mission is to promote fellowship and create a musical dialogue between up coming New York musicians and Japan musicians in an experimental environment. The goal for this project is to create a Japanese-American jazz scene in New York and Japan that can be compared to what Israel and South/Central American have brought to the New York jazz scene in the past fifteen years.
Yayoi performs regularly with the world famous jazz musicians: Reggie Workman, Victor Jones, Howard Johnson, Charlie Persip, Richard Bona, Billy Hart, Sonny Fortune, Billy Harper, Lenny Picket, Butch Morris, Frank Lacy, Charles Fambrough, Jimmy Vass, Salim Washington, Harlem Renaissance Jazz Orchestra etc. She was the only Japanese musician in World Music Concert “One Voice, One World” at Town Hall in 2002. Yayoi participated on Teo Macero’s last recording as a pianist/soloist with the NYU jazz orchestra in 2007. Yayoi has been the house pianist for “Jazz at Shabazz” in Harlem NYC since 2005. Yayoi has been a member of Billy Fox’s Kitsune Ensemble, Jazz/Hip-hop group “Rogue State”, Jonathan Powell’s electronic jazz group. Yayoi has toured with Electronic-classical/Hip-hop band “DBR and Mission” nationally.
As a composer, Yayoi received a commission from Modern Music Society of Tokyo, Japan to write for their eighteen piece jazz orchestra in 2008. Yayoi’s first orchestral work for film was premiered in the Film society of Lincoln center at the Walter Reade Theater in 2007. She also received a full-ride scholarship from the Film Music Museum in California to study and record with a full orchestra at the 2007 NYU/ASCAP Film Scoring workshop in Memory of Buddy Baker.
Yayoi holds a bachelor’s degree from The New School University Jazz and Contemporary Music Studies department. She was the recipient of the Henry and Gill Block Scholarship in 2002, and was often selected as an outstanding student. Her performance for “Jazz Now! A Showcase of New Talent” at Birdland in 2002 was mentioned in Down Beat magazine. She also holds a bachelor degree from International Christian University in Tokyo, Japan. Yayoi is currently working on her Master’s degree at New York University studying Jazz Performance/composition, Synthesis, and Film Scoring.
Yayoi has studied Jazz piano with Geri Allen, Jean-Michel Pilc, Vijay Iyer, Gerald D’Angelo, Lee-Ann Lidgerwood, and Kenich Yoshida. Yayoi also studied with Norite Tiles and Kazuko Shirai for classical piano, Gil Goldstein for composition, and Ron Sadoff for film scoring.
Michael Acosta hails from Los Angeles, where he was born in 1991 into a very musical family. His parents are both professional musicians who teach and perform in LA and as a result, Michael began his violin career early on at the age of 3. In high school, Mr. Acosta became more serious about pursuing a career in music, and began attending the Los Angeles County High School for the Arts (LACHSA) where he served as concertmaster and principal second violin of the school’s symphony orchestra. Mr. Acosta was also an assistant instructor at the family operated Evergreen Music Conservatory during group workshop classes, he performed at weddings and other events with the La Folia Chamber Ensemble, and served as a member of the American Youth Symphony.
Mr. Acosta began his undergraduate degree at the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music in 2009, where he studied with the accomplished concertmaster Alexander Kerr. While completing his undergraduate, Michael taught for the IU string department pre-college program in addition to performing with numerous local orchestras including the Bloomington, Carmel, and Columbus Symphony Orchestras. After completing his undergraduate in 2013, Mr. Acosta returned to Los Angeles where he performed as a member of the New West and Tulsa Symphony Orchestras, and returned to LACHSA as an instructor to coach chamber music groups and teach private lessons.
Michael began pursuing his Master’s Degree at the University of Michigan School of Music in 2015, where he studied with Professor Danielle Belen. During his graduate degree, Mr. Acosta served as the concertmaster of the University Symphony Orchestra until he graduated in 2017.
While not in school, Mr. Acosta attended numerous summer music festivals, most notably of which include the Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival in Rendsburg, Germany (2013/2015), National Orchestral Institute (2016, concertmaster), Marrowstone Music Festival (2014/2016, concertmaster), Aspen Music Festival (2008), and Interlochen Summer Festival (2004-2006).
Most recently, Michael has been performing as a section violinist for the Toledo Symphony Orchestra, was appointed assistant concertmaster of Kalamazoo Symphony, and has joined the Knoxville Symphony Orchestra first violin section.
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