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Artist
Bios
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2008 Season Performers Praised for their technical command and interpretative subtleties, the Johannes Quartet is rapidly becoming an audience favorite. The Johannes brings together the principal cellist of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Peter Stumpf; the Associate Principal viola of the Philadelphia Orchestra, C.J. Chang; the first American to win the Paganini Violin Competition in 24 years, Soovin Kim; and an Avery Fisher Career Grant winner violinist, Jessica Lee. Each member has spent numerous summers at the renowned Marlboro Music Festival. Performance highlights include concerts in Boston, Chicago, Philadelphia, Phoenix, Los Angeles, Santa Fe, New York and Washington DC, among others. The Johannes has also been heard on public radio’s Performance Today and St. Paul Sunday. Robert Penny, Gerald Elias, Cynthia Huard, Marilyn Taggart, Beth Thompson
2007 Season Performers Devin Arrington, Choong-Jin (C.J.) Chang, Simon Chaussé, Sara Doncaster, Larry Hamberlin, Vanessa Holroyd, Cynthia Huard, Yumi Hwang-Williams, Soovin Kim, Elisabeth LeBlanc, Yuri Meyrowitz, Erik Nielsen, Robert Penny, Daniel Santelices, Peter Stumpf, Sara Traficante, Daniel Williams, Katherine Winterstein
At age eighteen, Devin taught violin and conducted the youth orchestra at Woodstock International School in India, where he also acted as assistant concertmaster with the Delhi Symphony. He studied composition with Su Lian Tan and Evan Bennett at Middlebury College, where he also played in a bluegrass band. Upon graduating summa cum laude in 2001, Devin directed the Quintown Community Strings Program in conjunction with the RCMS. He studied violin with Masao Kawasaki, Yehonatan Berick, and Salvatore Princiotti, and participated in the Aspen, Bowdoin, Masterworks, and Torroella de Montgri summer music festivals as a violinist or composer. Devin received his Master's degree in Composition from Carnegie Mellon University, where he was a student of Leonardo Balada. He also studied conducting with Dr. Robert Page. Mr. Arrington performs regularly with the Westmoreland Symphony and teaches privately in Pittsburgh.
Choong-Jin (C.J.) Chang was appointed Principal Viola of the Philadelphia Orchestra in April 2006. He previously served as Associate Principal Viola in Philadelphia for twelve years. He was a double major in violin and viola at the Curtis Institute of Music, studying with the late Jascha Brodsky and Joseph dePasquale. Mr. Chang was born in Korea and immigrated with his family to the Philadelphia area when he was thirteen. His solo appearances have included those with the Curtis Symphony, Temple University Symphony Orchestra, and the KBS Symphony Orchestra at the Seoul Arts Center. He has participated in chamber music festivals around the world such as Caramoor, Las Vegas, Mostly Mozart, and Marlboro in the U.S., and Evian and Moritzburg in Europe. He has toured throughout the United States with the Musicians from Marlboro program. Mr. Chang devotes much of his time to teaching younger violinists and violists as a faculty member of the Temple University's Esther Boyer College of Music and Preparatory Division.
Simon Chaussé has sung with opera companies in Canada and United States including McGill Opera Studio, L'Opéra-Francais de New York, Amato Opera, Delaware Valley Opera, Vermont Opera Theater, and Echo Valley Arts. In 2000 he created the role of Antoine in Erik Nielsen's opera A Fleeting Animal. In 2003 at the Barre Opera House Simon sang the role of Papageno in Mozart's Magic Flute to great acclaim. Since then he has concentrated his soloist activities in Vermont, singing with the Vermont Philharmonic Orchestra, Capital City Concerts series with Artistic Director Karen Kevra, pianists Mary-Jane Austin and Michael Arnowitt, and the Rutland Area Chorus and Orchestra under Rip Jackson. Last April he sang the bass solos in Haydn's Creation with the Northeast Kingdom Chorus. Simon has sung in recital in Europe, Japan, Canada, and the USA. He often collaborates with pianist Dalton Baldwin, who invited him for a recital tour of Japan in November 2000. In 2001 Mr. Baldwin also invited him to Iceland to participate in a gala concert alongside Elly Ameling, among others. Simon has won several prizes in International Art Song Competitions in France, Spain, Canada, and the USA. He has studied interpretation with such artists as Frederica Von Stade, José Van Dam, Gérard Souzay, and Dalton Baldwin. In the last year he has sung recitals in Montreal, New York City, Middlebury College, and Montpelier, Vermont. More recently he was the Pirate King in The Pirates of Penzance conducted by William Metcalfe at the Vergennes Opera House.
Sara Doncaster earned her Ph.D. in Theory and Composition from Brandeis University. She has received awards and commissions for her compositions from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Vermont Arts Council, the Hungarian Chamber Symphony Orchestra, the Corporation of Yaddo, the MacDowell Colony, the Ragale Foundation, and the Vermont Symphony Orchestra, among others. A resident of Irasburg, Vermont, Dr. Doncaster has been an elementary and middle-school music teacher in the Orleans Essex North Supervisory Union and a private piano teacher for six years. She is the director of the Warebrook Contemporary Music Festival, a three-day celebration of modern music taking place every three years in the Northeast Kingdom of Vermont. Current projects include an opera, an orchestral work for the Vermont Symphony Orchestra, a choral work for Social Band (Burlington), and a new work for tenor and six instruments for the Empyrean Ensemble in California.
Larry Hamberlin, an assistant professor of music history at Middlebury College, earned his Ph.D. from Brandeis University in 2004 and has previously taught at Tufts University and Williams College. His articles have appeared in American Music and the Journal of the American Musicological Society. Currently he is writing a book about opera and Tin Pan Alley for Oxford University Press. An essay on Schubert, to be published by Ashgate Press next year, began life as a pre-concert talk for the RCMS. Formerly the music director of the Randolph Singers, he has composed the official march of the Rochester Town Band, which he directs, and with Dorothy Robson wrote incidental music for the White River Valley Players' production of A Midsummer Night's Dream. He and actor Ethan Bowen perform as Piano Stories, presenting classic short fiction in dramatic readings with musical accompaniment. Larry and his wife, Cynthia Huard, have two children, David and Sarabeth.
Vanessa Holroyd holds a Bachelors degree in Literature from Yale University, a Master's degree in Flute Performance from McGill University, and an Artist Diploma from the Longy School of Music. In August 2002 Vanessa was one of the top prizewinners in the Young Artist Competition sponsored by the National Flute Association. Her awards included a special prize for the best performance of Dan Welcher's "Florestan's Falcon," commissioned specifically for the competition. An active freelancer and solo performer, Vanessa is also a member of the Arcadian Winds, a Boston-based wind quintet dedicated to new music and educational outreach. She is on the music faculty of Philips Academy Exeter and on the chamber music faculty of the Boston Youth Symphony. Her principal teachers include Robert Willoughby, Timothy Hutchins, Michael Parloff, and Ransom Wilson. She currently lives in Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts, with her husband and two-year-old daughter.
Cynthia Huard has appeared as a pianist and harpsichordist throughout the United States and Europe. Her versatile musicianship is a key element of the summer concert series of the Rochester Chamber Music Society, where as artistic director she performs with internationally known artists. Devoted to collaborative music making, she has performed with the Lark Quartet, the Aston Magna soloists, cellist Nathaniel Rosen, and chamber players from the Philadelphia Orchestra, the National Symphony, the Toronto Symphony, and the Savannah Symphony. In addition to playing chamber music repertoire, she frequently performs in recital with vocalists Beth Kaiser and Francois Clemmons, and as a featured performer with the Vermont Symphony Orchestra Chorus. With Mr. Clemmons she toured Spain in spring 2002 and performed at a ceremony in Pittsburgh honoring the late Fred Rogers and Barbara Bush. She has recorded with the Robert de Cormier Singers and the vocal ensemble Counterpoint and performed on both public radio and television. After undergraduate studies in Austria, Ms. Huard returned to the United States to earn advanced degrees in piano and harpsichord at Indiana University. Cynthia is an adjunct faculty member at Middlebury College.
Yumi Hwang-Williams began violin studies at the age of ten in Philadelphia, one year after emigrating from South Korea. At fifteen she appeared as soloist with the Philadelphia Orchestra and was accepted as a student of Jascha Brodsky and Yumi Ninomiya-Scott at the Curtis Institute of Music. She has served as concertmaster of the Colorado Symphony Orchestra since 2000 and is concertmaster for the Cabrillo Music Festival. She is a faculty member of the Lamont School of Music, University of Denver. Her interpretations of Aaron Jay Kernis's Lament and Prayer, Michael Daugherty's Fire and Blood and Christopher Rouse's Violin Concerto have earned approval from the composers as well as critical acclaim. Yumi has performed with the symphony orchestras of Cincinnati, Indianapolis, Santa Rosa, and Fort Collins, and has made numerous solo appearances with the Colorado Symphony Orchestra. The past season she performed Isang Yun's Violin Concerto No. 1 with the Basel Symphony Orchestra. She was also soloist with the Colorado Symphony Orchestra in performances of Mozart and Barber. The current season sees her perform Dvorak with the CSO, Brahms with the Denver Philharmonic, and Thomas Adès' new violin concerto at the Cabrillo Festival in Santa Cruz. An avid chamber musician and recitalist, Yumi has collaborated with such artists as Gary Graffman, Ida Kavafian, Joanna MacGregor, Christopher O'Riley, John Kimura Parker, and Robert Koenig, and has performed Lou Harrison's Grand Duo with Dennis Russell Davies as pianist. She is also a member of the piano trio Tre Voce, which made a triumphant Carnegie Hall debut in February 2006.
American violinist Soovin Kim is increasingly sought after for the character, nuance, and excitement of his performances as concerto soloist, chamber musician, and recitalist, both in the U.S. and abroad. Particularly known for his breadth of repertoire, Mr. Kim typically takes on everything from Bach to Paganini to the big romantic concertos to new commissions within a single season. He has performed in the U.S. with orchestras such as the Philadelphia Orchestra and the Baltimore, San Francisco, and Indianapolis Symphonies, in Europe with the Stuttgart Radio Symphony and the Prague Chamber and Salzburg Mozarteum Orchestras, and in Asia with the Hong Kong Philharmonic and KBS Symphony. His CD of the 24 Paganini Caprices was released to critical acclaim by Azica Records in 2006, and a recording of the Fauré A Major Sonata and the Chausson Concerto for Violin, Piano, and Quartet will be released in early 2007. Mr. Kim won first prize in the 1996 Paganini International Competition and was also awarded the Henryk Szeryng Career Award, the Avery Fisher Career Grant, and most recently the Borletti-Buitoni Trust Award. He plays on the 1709 "ex-Kempner" Stradivarius, which is on temporary loan to him.
Clarinetist Elisabeth LeBlanc was born in Quebec and raised in Vermont. In 1999 she received her Bachelor of Music from the Juilliard School as a student of Ayako Oshima. From 2002 to 2004 she attended McGill University, earning her Master of Music in the Orchestral Training Program.Currently Elisabeth resides in Vermont, where she plays chamber music regularly with pianist Annemieke Spoelstra and bassoonist Rachel Elliott while continuing to work with Simon Aldrich in Montreal. This past summer Elisabeth returned to Canada to perform in the 2006 season of the Boris Brott Music Festival in Hamilton, Ontario. In her spare time Elisabeth enjoys long-distance running and hiking the Green Mountains.
Toronto-based conductor and pianist Yuri Meyrowitz has been gaining recognition for his musical abilities since his earliest years. Winning an award from the America-Israel Cultural Foundation at the age of nine prompted his family's move to New York, and soon afterward his musical development came under the guiding influence of the legendary Rosina Lhevinne, who, granting him a full scholarship, continued to oversee his musical progress until shortly before her death fifteen years later. His teachers at the Juilliard School and Mannes College of Music, in addition to Mme. Lhevinne, include Edward Steuermann, Nadia Reisenberg, Jan Gorbaty, Olga Strumillo, Jacob Lateiner, and Stefan Wolpe. Later on, he was a conducting student of Otto Werner Mueller at Yale University. He has appeared numerous times in broadcasts for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, has concertized extensively throughout North America and Europe, and currently devotes most of his time to musicological research, chamber music, and teaching. His piano playing has been hailed for its "great intensity and sensitivity, lyricism," and "exceptional artistry" (Frank Hruby, Cleveland Press), as well as its "breathtaking pianistic power" (Claude Gingras, La Presse, Montreal). The Ottawa Citizen's Jacob Siskind has said of him: "He is obviously a musician rather than [simply] a pianist," and the New York Times' Will Crutchfield, after praising his "transparent textures," his "shading [of] the dynamic spectrum with a fine hand," and his "brilliant virtuosic command of rhythm," concluded: "He is a pianist of decided profile; one would like to hear more."
Erik Nielsen's catalog includes music for chorus, orchestra, wind ensemble, solo instruments, chamber music, and electronic music. His works have been performed in Canada, Europe, and Australia as well as the United States, by ensembles including the Amabile, Chiara, Emerson, and Ying String Quartets; the National Symphony Orchestra; the Killington and Manchester Chamber Players; Bread and Puppet Theater; the Vermont Contemporary Music Ensemble; the Vermont Symphony; the Vermont Youth Orchestra; and Village and Northern Harmony. He has won awards from ASCAP and the Vermont Arts Council, and in 1991 was chosen Vermont Composer of the Year by the Vermont Music Teachers Association. His most recent commissions include chamber works to be premiered by the Chiara Quartet in March 2008 and by the Vermont Contemporary Music Ensemble in April 2008, in addition to the song cycle premiered this summer by the RCMS. He has also recently received commissions from the Vermont All-State Music Festival and the Vermont Youth Orchestra. His new work The Crane Maiden will be toured by the Vermont Contemporary Music Ensemble during the 2008-9 season. Erik's Clarinet Quintet was premiered at the Kennedy Center in 2004, and in 1995 his Piano Quintet was performed at Carnegie Hall by the Manchester Chamber Players. In 2000 his opera A Fleeting Animal, a collaboration with David Budbill, was premiered to great acclaim at several locations in Vermont. Erik is Composer-in-Residence at East Hartford, Glastonbury, Rocky Hill, and Simsbury High Schools in Connecticut, composition mentor at BFA-St. Albans High School in Vermont, and composition mentor with the Vermont Midi Project. He also teaches music theory and composition with the Vermont Youth Orchestra. Erik lives in Brookfield, Vermont.
Robert Penny was born in Singapore and grew up in Australia. At Indiana University he studied with Helga Winold and Janos Starker and baroque performance practice with Stanley Ritchie. Robert is a software developer and an active musician in the Boston area folk dance community. He performs regularly at the New England Folk Festival, and plays for English country dances around Boston as a member of the Shandy Hall String Quartet. Formerly a frequent performer in chamber music recitals in the Boston area, Mr. Penny has played on WGBH's "Morning Pro Musica" program as a member of the Tamarak Piano Trio, and has played with many Eastern Massachusetts groups, including Boston Baroque, Emmanuel Music, and the Handel and Haydn Society. His recordings include Boston Baroque's CD of Handel's Concerti Grossi, op. 3, for the Telarc label. This fall Robert will present the world premiere of Tom Pixton's "Concerto Moldovanesc" at the Folk Arts Center of New England.
Daniel Santelices is a member of the Shreveport Symphony Orchestra and the Baroque Artists of Shreveport, and was formerly the Instructor of Violin & Chamber Music at Northwestern State University of Louisiana in Natchitoches. "Mr. Dan" has been on the faculty of the Centenary College Suzuki School in Shreveport since 1991, where he teaches violin and conducts the Chamber Orchestra. Mr. Santelices has twice been the recipient of Suzuki Association of America Grants for short-term teacher training and has been a clinician at Suzuki summer and weekend institutes in Texas, Michigan, Vermont, and New Hampshire. He was President of the Ark-La-Tex Youth Symphony Orchestra Board and is Director/Founder of their Chamber Music Program. Mr. Santelices also has been a regular Guest Conductor-Clinician for the area's parish-wide Honor Orchestras. He was named to Who's Who Among America's Teachers 2003-2004, 2004-2005, and 2005-2006. In his spare time, Mr. Santelices enjoys playing racquet sports, in-line skating, and collecting thoroughbred racing memorabilia.
Peter Stumpf enjoys as multifaceted a career as any cellist. After serving 12 years as the Associate Principal Cellist of the Philadelphia Orchestra, Peter Stumpf became the Principal Cellist of the Los Angeles Philharmonic at the beginning of the 2002/2003 season. He is in great demand as a chamber musician around the world, performing on series at Carnegie Hall, the Kennedy Center, Walt Disney Concert Hall, the Concertgebouw, and Casals Hall in Tokyo with some of the greatest living artists such as Emmanuel Ax, Yefim Bronfman, Andras Schiff, Wolfgang Sawallisch, Radu Lupu, Mitsuko Uchida, and Jean-Yves Thibaudet. Mr. Stumpf has performed concertos with the Boston Symphony, the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Boston Philharmonic, and the Virginia Symphony. He has also been heard in recital at Jordan Hall in Boston, at the Philips and Corcoran Galleries in Washington, D.C., and at the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society. As a member of the Boston Musica Viva he has explored extended techniques including microtonal compositions and numerous premieres. Mr. Stumpf served on the cello faculty of the Hartt School of Music at the University of Hartford, the New England Conservatory, and guest artist faculty at the Curtis Institute of Music, as well as at the Yellow Barn Music Festival and the Musicorda Summer String Program. He received a bachelors degree from the Curtis Institute of Music and an Artist Diploma from the New England Conservatory.
Since early childhood, Sara Traficante has been captivated by musical expression. She began flute study at age seven in her hometown of Dundas, Ontario, with David Gerry through the Suzuki approach and continued further studies with Suzanne Shulman. She received her Bachelor of Music degree from Eastman School of Music and was awarded the Performer's Certificate. She studied flute with Bonita Boyd, piccolo with Anne Harrow, and baroque flute with Kristian Bezuidenhout. While at Eastman Sara achieved honors in the chamber music department for her wind quintet and flute, cello, and piano trio. She completed her Master of Music degree from McGill University, studying flute with Timothy Hutchins. During her studies, she performed with the McGill Symphony Orchestra, McGill Contemporary Music Ensemble, and the Group of the Electronic Music Studio. In March 2004 Sara was awarded a debut recital in Montreal for Radio-Canada CBC and was broadcast on the series "Jeunes Artistes de la Chaîne Culturelle." She has performed as soloist with orchestras on several occasions, and in recitals in Canada, USA, Ireland, and Taiwan. Newly appointed to the faculty of SuzukiMusic in Ottawa, Sara teaches flute and early childhood music. She maintains an active performing schedule with particular interest in commissioning and performing new works by young Canadian composers. Her other musical interests include singing, songwriting, and creating innovative arts education projects.
A native Philadelphian, Daniel Williams serves as the Philadelphia Orchestra's second horn player. He began his horn studies at the age of nine in the Philadelphia public school system and then went on to attend Temple University and the Curtis Institute of Music. While at Curtis, Dan performed with the Concerto Soloists of Philadelphia (now the Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia) and with the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra in its summer season. In 1975, during his senior year at Curtis, he became a member of the Philadelphia Orchestra. His primary teachers have been F. Mason Jones, John Simonelli, Ward Fearn, and Glenn Janson, all former members of the Philadelphia Orchestra horn section. Dan currently serves on the faculty of Temple University.
Violinist Katherine Winterstein holds a Bachelor of Music degree from the Eastman School of Music, where she studied with Charles Castleman, and a Master of Music degree from Boston University's School for the Arts, where she studied with Peter Zazofsky. She was a member of the Seneca String Quartet and has collaborated in chamber music settings with Andres Diaz, Ida Kavafian, Ann-Marie McDermott, Steven Tenenbom, and Peter Zazofsky. In addition, she has performed in Washington DC's Embassy Series, Boston's Ashmont Hill Chamber Music Series, the Staunton Music Festival, and the McIntire Chamber Music Series at the University of Virginia. She appears regularly with the Craftsbury Chamber Players, the Boston-based Chameleon Arts Ensemble, the Firebird Ensemble, the Art of Music Chamber Players, and Musicians of the Old Post Road. She has appeared as soloist with the Blue Ridge Chamber Orchestra, the Boston Virtuosi, and other orchestras. Katherine is concertmaster of the Vermont Symphony, assistant concertmaster of the Portland Symphony, and the acting assistant concertmaster of the Rhode Island Philharmonic, and she performs regularly with the Handel and Haydn Society and Boston Baroque. Currently she is on the performance faculty of Middlebury College.
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