Faculty News

Composition Department Chair Dan Becker just completed a new work for string quartet and soundtrack, commissioned by the Kronos Quartet and slated for a January premiere. He's also busy with a concert-length dance piece supported by a grant from New Music USA and commissioned by the San Francisco theater arts company Garrett+Moulton Productions. Later this season, several recordings of Becker's music will be released on CD, including a solo disc of his chamber music produced by Grammy-award winning engineer Judith Sherman.

Faculty composer David Conte gives a composition master class at The Juilliard School on September 17. Conte was recently commissioned to write a new work for two organs, soprano and violin for the �glise de la Sainte-Trinit� in Paris, the church where Olivier Messiaen served as organist for 60 years.

Mezzo-soprano Catherine Cook, chair of the voice department, sings at Opera Colorado's 30th Anniversary Gala this month and returns later in the season to sing the role of Mistress Hibbons in the premiere of Lori Laitman's The Scarlett Letter.

San Francisco Opera Director of Administration and Conservatory faculty Clifford "Kip" Cranna has been named 2012 winner of the Bernard Osher Cultural Award, which recognizes distinguished efforts by an individual to bring excellence to a particular cultural institution or m�tier. The award is sponsored by the Jewish Community Federation of San Francisco.

Spoon River Songs, a recent work by faculty composer David Garner (B.M., piano, '79), will be available on the web starting this fall. The recording features Catherine Cook and pianist Kristin Pankonin (M.M., piano, '89). Garner collaborated on another recording this summer with Raeeka Shehabi-Yaghmai (Postgraduate Diploma, voice, '04). The Persian Melody Project, also featuring Pankonin on piano, will be published this fall, along with the sheet music. Garner's German song cycle Chanson fuer Morgen receives its international premiere in Berlin in October in a performance by soprano Nanette McGuinness and pianist Dale Tsang-Hall.

Pianist and preparatory faculty Heidi Hau opens the Monterey Symphony's season next month as concert soloist in Haydn's Keyboard Concerto in D Major and Mozart's Double Piano Concerto with John O'Conor. Hau directs the Marilyn Mindell Piano Competition at Stanford University, which takes place in January.  

Unrestful Sleep by composer and electronic music faculty Alden Jenks receives its Japanese premiere in November as part of the Ogikubo (Tokyo) Music Festival. The performer will be Mikako Endo.

Piano trio MusicAEterna, founded by violinist, composer and preparatory faculty Aenea M. Keyes, premieres Monet's Waterlilies this month at Old First Concerts in San Francisco. The composition, by Keyes, is billed as "a musical dialogue with impressionist art." MusicAEterna includes Keyes, Conservatory accompanist Miles Graber and cellist Michael Graham.

Piano faculty Yoshikazu Nagai racked up the frequent-flyer miles this summer thanks to musical engagements around the globe. He judged the 2012 Gina Bachauer Junior and Young Artists International Piano Competitions in Salt Lake City, taught and performed a solo recital at the Amalfi Coast Music Festival in Italy and appeared as guest faculty and jury member at both the Shanghai International Piano Festival and the Chautauqua Institute Music Festival in New York.

Violin professor Axel Strauss has accepted a position teaching at McGill University's Schulich School of Music in Montreal. Strauss will teach at both the Conservatory and McGill during the 2012-13 school year.

Ian Swensen traveled to Korea this summer with the Lincoln Center Chamber Society to teach chamber music and perform. He also coached a quartet seminar at Tanglewood with his chamber music faculty colleague Mark Sokol and members of the Juilliard, Concord, American and Tak�cs quartets; performed and gave master classes at the Banff Center for the Performing Arts in Canada; and performed and coached at the Music@Menlo festival in Atherton. 

Student News

Last month, ten new students from China, Taiwan, Korea, and Japan pioneered the Conservatory's first-ever Intensive English Summer Program. Coached by faculty teachers Brian Neilson and Carol Pragides, the students studied grammar and vocabulary in preparation for this year's classes. They also explored corners of San Francisco in an effort to learn about and adjust to their new home. The Office of Student Life hopes to continue the program for summers to come.

Ryan Bradford, student of C�sar Ulloa, appears as baritone soloist in Handel's Messiah in December with the Rogue Valley Symphony in Ashland, Oregon.

Joseph Christianson, a student of Axel Strauss, recently performed La boh�me with the Castleton Festival Orchestra under the leadership of Lorin Maazel. Far from shivering in a Parisian garret, though, Christianson played at the Royal Opera House in Muscat, Oman.

Soprano Lora Libby sang the role of Zerlina in Mozart's Don Giovanni with the Bay Area Summer Opera Theater Institute (BASOTI) last July. Libby is a second-year graduate student in the studio of Pamela Fry.

First-year graduate student Tian Yang Liu won the Grand Prize for the Adult Group in the International Double Bass Competition in Singapore. Liu studies with Scott Pingel.

Alumni News

Mark Ackerley (M.M., composition, '10) has won notice from USA Today and numerous other publications for his ability to spin a person's DNA into a unique melodic signature. Ackerley created the project 'DNA Melody' for 23andMe. The Mountain View start-up sells genetic testing 'spit kits' that reveal all kinds of personal hereditary information - in addition to hummable tunes. Ackerley was a student of David Garner and Conrad Susa. 

Paul Bergel (M.M., composition, '09) has been spooking and serenading New York audiences all summer long as music director of Phantom Creep Theatre at the Coney Island Museum. Bergel writes that the show includes "silent films, morbid magicians and ghoulish puppetry...  I compose spooky sound designs, arrange old blues songs to be sung by a gigantic spider and improvise for the majority of the show on the organ, piano and theremin." The company received a write-up in The New York Times on Friday, July 13. Bergel studied under Conrad Susa.

Boston Percussion Group (BPeG), a chamber ensemble that includes Brian Calhoon (B.M., percussion, '07), was one of seven finalists at the 2012 International Chamber Ensemble Music Competition. BPeG performed John Cage's "Story" from Living Room Music and Steve Reich's Mallet Quartet at New England Conservatory's Jordan Hall in June.

Preparatory alumnus and composer Anthony Cheung recently won the Rome Prize in musical composition and was appointed assistant professor of music at the University of Chicago. He was a composition student of David Conte.

Robbie Cowan (M.M., voice, '09) tours nation-wide this winter with Shrek the Musical as assistant conductor and keys player. Cowan was hailed by San Francisco Classical Voice for creating a "luminous" reduction of the score to Sweeney Todd in a recent Ray of Light Theater production, and for crafting a "fascinating and rewarding musical performance" as the show's music director. Cowan was a student of Leroy Kromm.

Presto II by Miguel del Aguila (B.M., piano, '82) is in the running to win Best Classical Contemporary Composition at the Latin Grammy Awards. The piece appears on Latin Perspectives, the debut album by the UK-based Santiago Quartet. The record received five pre-nominations in all, including those for Record of the Year and Best Classical Album.

Sylvie Desouches (M.M., voice, '95) has accepted a position at the Chicago Waldorf School as grade school music teacher and overall music program coordinator for both its grade school and high school. She has been working as a professional singer in Chicago since 1997 and is a certified Waldorf teacher.

Harvey Milk: A Cantata by Jack Curtis Dubowsky (M.M., composition, '01) was performed at the GALA 2012 Choral Festival in Denver, Colorado. The cantata features unpublished texts by Harvey Milk, the first openly gay man to be elected to public office in California. It was jointly commissioned by the Lesbian/Gay Chorus of San Francisco and Lick Wilmerding high School. Dubowsky is currently composer-in-residence at Virginia Center for the Creative Arts.

Matthew Fish (M.M., guitar, '12) recently won First Prize in the 2012 Sierra Nevada Guitar Competition. Fish was a student of S�rgio Assad.

Joshua Fishbein (M.M., composition, '09) is one of three finalists in the Young New Yorkers Chorus Competition for Young Composers. He is commissioned to set poetry by women in an original a cappella work to be premiered by that chorus in March 2013. Fishbein was a student of David Conte.

Tenor A.J. Glueckert (M.M., voice, '10) joins the prestigious San Francisco Opera Adler Fellowship Program in January 2013. As a member of the company's Merola Opera Program this summer, Gluekert won an enthusiastic review from the San Francisco Chronicle for his "polished high notes and limber phrasing" in a performance of Postcard From Morocco. He continues to study with C�sar Ulloa.

San Francisco Giants fans enjoyed hearing Lauren Groff (M.M., voice, '08) sing the National Anthem at their game against the Atlanta Braves at AT&T Park on August 25. Witnesses reported that her performance far outshone the home team's lackluster showing that evening. Groff continues to study with Catherine Cook.

This month, Patrick Leveque (M.M., voice, '04) and fellow cast members closed the Las Vegas production of The Phantom of the Opera after a successful run of six years and 2600 performances. He plans to return to the Bay Area to continue performing and to teach voice.   

Christopher Lewis (M.M., harpsichord, '12) is recording a CD of contemporary music to be released on the Naxos Music label. It includes harpsichord concertos by Philip Glass and Jean Francaix and smaller works by Maurice Ohana and John Rutter. Lewis performs with the newly-formed West Side Chamber Orchestra under the baton of noted Irish conductor Kevin Mallon. He was a student of Corey Jamason.

Soprano Ann Moss (Postgraduate Diploma, voice, '05) sets up shop this month at Skywalker Sound to record a debut CD of music by contemporary composers called Currents. Performers include Conservatory pianist and vocal coach Steven Bailey, faculty guitarist Richard Savino, the Hausmann String Quartet, and jazz pianist Matt Berkeley and drummer Joe Bagale of San Francisco's Jazz Mafia, among others. Last month, Moss and Bailey celebrated the fifth anniversary of CMASH, a new-music repertory group which they co-founded, with a performance at Old First Concerts. Joining them were baritone Paul Murray (Postgraduate Diploma, voice, '06), mezzo soprano Alexis Lane Jensen and soprano Heidi Moss.

After collaborating on an alumni recital last year, Robin Sutherland (B.M., piano, '75) commissioned composer and 2011 Highsmith Award winner Nicholas Pavkovic (M.M., composition, '11) to write a piece for clarinet and piano. Volante, dedicated to Sutherland and clarinetist Carlos Ortega, premiered in August at the Breckenridge Music Festival in a performance by its dedicatees. The same duo will give the San Francisco premiere of the work at the Conservatory on April 24, 2013, as part of Sutherland's Alumni Series Recital. Pavkovic was a student of Elinor Armer.

Katie Rife (Professional Studies Diploma, percussion, '09) has founded a new music and improv sextet called the Ethos Collective based in Vancouver, Canada. Ethos opens its season this month with composer Bob Becker's Preludes for percussion quartet, string quartet and piano. The show features new commissions and improvisations and has received funding from the Canada Council for the Arts and the British Columbia Arts Council. Rife was a student of Jack Van Geem.

Two compositions by former theory and musicianship faculty Jonathan Russell (M.M., composition, '03) received premieres at ClarinetFest 2012 in Lincoln, Nebraska: Supra, for nine bass clarinets, and a new band version of his Bass Clarinet Double Concerto.

New York City's Trinity Choir performed Six Choral Settings by former preparatory faculty Laura Schwendinger (B.M., composition, '81) in May. The New York Times noted the piece for its "coolly beguiling" tone and "dense polyphonic webs." This month, the Cygnus Ensemble premieres Schwendinger's newest work, a piece inspired by Samuel Beckett's play Footfalls, as part of the production Sounding Beckett at the off-Broadway Classical Stage Company.

Zac Selissen (M.M., guitar, '08) and Mike Roberts (M.M., composition, '08) - a.k.a. the Judson-Tyler Guitar Duo - are about to finish work on their first CD, entitled The Portable Nutcracker. Their distinctive two-guitar arrangement of Tchaikovsky's classic premiered last holiday season. Selissen studied with Marc Teicholz and Roberts with David Garner.

Dr. Phillip W. Serna (B.M., double bass, '98) was featured on National Public Radio in a report about the 50th Annual Viola da Gamba Conclave held in July at the University of Delaware. Serna, who teaches at Valparaiso University, showed reporter Jeff Lunden how to wield a viol bow. Next month, Serna performs the US premiere of Rudolph Dolmetsch's Concertino for Viola da Gamba and Small Orchestra with the South Shore Orchestra in Valparaiso, Indiana.

Following a successful trial, David Southorn (B.M., violin,'07) was recently appointed concertmaster of the Delaware Symphony. Also this summer, Southorn's Amphion String Quartet played at the OK Mozart Festival, the La Jolla Music Society SummerFest and at Chamber Music Northwest, where they served as quartet-in-residence, performing Mendelssohn's Octet with the Tokyo String Quartet.

Staff Sergeant Jeffrey Strong (B.M., trumpet, '06) performed "Taps" at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C. on several recent occasions, including the Name Addition Ceremony in May and the Vietnam War 50th Anniversary Commemoration Ceremony on Labor Day, presided over by President Obama. Strong performs with the Marine Band, Marine Chamber Orchestra, and Marine Chamber Ensembles, playing at the White House, Arlington National Cemetery and in public concerts across the nation.

Julee Kim Walker (M.M., flute, '05) was recently appointed the new instructor of flute at Texas A&M University-Commerce starting this fall.

As Resident Composer and Acting Artistic Director of the Utah Music Festival, Winton Yuichiro White (M.M., composition, '08) had his works performed this summer by musicians from the Baltimore Symphony, National Symphony, Pittsburgh Symphony, Milwaukee Symphony, Cincinnati Symphony and Colorado Symphony. White was recently hired to conduct Carmen for LA's Beyond The Stage Opera Company and speaks this month at a composition seminar organized by Biola University and Point Loma Nazarene University. A documentary about mixed-race people in Japan featuring a soundtrack by White premieres in Tokyo this fall. And finally, Pavane Publishing just accepted White's choral work "Zui Zui Zukkorobashi" for publication in 2014.

Preparatory Student News

The Bouchaine Young Artists Concert at this summer's Napa Valley Festival del Sole featured the �chapp� String Quartet, a student ensemble coached by preparatory faculty Aenea M. Keyes. The quartet played Shostakovich's String Quartet No. 8 and Beethoven's String Quartet Op. 18 No. 4 and was awarded the 2012 Bouchaine Young Artists Prize after the concert. The students also enjoyed a master class by Alexi Bruni, concertmaster of the Russian National Orchestra. The quartet includes Da Eun Kim, violin, Alyssa Wang, violin, Hayaka Komatsu, viola and Tyler DeVigal, cello.

Preparatory guitarist Ashwin Krishna won third place in the Guitar Foundation of America International Youth Competition and was the only finalist from the United States. Ashwin is a student of Scott Cmiel.

Preparatory cellist Clark Pang recently won First Place Overall Academics in Latin at the National Junior Classical League Convention in North Carolina. He now ranks number one in the nation, besting his sixth place standing last year. Clark studies with Jonathan Koh. 

Preparatory guitarist Alexander Stroud was invited to give a solo recital at the Sierra Nevada Guitar Festival in July as a result of winning first place in the 2011 Young Guitarist Competition. Alexander is a student of Scott Cmiel. 

Preparatory violinist Alex Zhou won first prize in the Andrea Postacchni International Violin Competition for Category A (eleven-years-old or under). This year, the competition attracted 120 candidates from all over the world. Alex is a student of Zhao Wei.

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Conservatory eNews is an electronic newsletter published by the communications department of the San Francisco Conservatory of Music in consultation with the Faculty Executive Committee. Conservatory eNews aims to keep students, faculty and staff aware of exciting news and events related to the Conservatory. We rely on your submissions! Please send current news by the 15th of each month to jbischoff@sfcm.edu for consideration for the following month's newsletter. Students may only submit news through their teacher. Submissions are subject to editing.

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