Conservatory eNews February 2013

Conservatory eNews February 2013

Faculty News

The Kronos Quartet brings "Carrying the Past" by composition faculty Dan Becker to San Francisco this month, following a January premiere in Cleveland. The score weaves string parts together with 1920s big band recordings that feature Becker's grandfather on trumpet. Kronos holds open rehearsals of the piece before performances at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts on February 21 and 22.

"Sinfonietta," a 14-minute piece for orchestra by composition faculty David Conte, received its premiere last month in a performance by the Atlantic Classical Orchestra. Another of Conte's works, "The Homecoming: In Memoriam Martin Luther King, Jr.," will be sung by the St. Olaf Choir at St. Ignatius Church in San Francisco on February 5.

Pianist, coach and Conservatory Opera Program Assistant Director Darryl Cooper attended the National Opera Association Convention in Portland last month, where he adjudicated a competition of new one-act operas. Meanwhile, Opera Program Director Rick Harrell just returned from teaching master classes for the Polish National Opera in Warsaw and for the Orfeo Foundation in Amsterdam.

Vocal Physiology faculty Krzysztof Izdebski presented four lectures at a recent conference in Copenhagen in which he explained how the human voice communicates emotion consciously and unconsciously. This month, he co-presents a master class in San Francisco on how classical singers can improve vocal precision through study and assessment of their posture.

Bryan Nies, music director of the Conservatory Musical Theatre Workshop, conducted the Stanislaus County Honors Orchestra at the SCMEA Music Festival in January. He leads the Oakland East Bay Symphony in performances of Britten's "Four Sea Interludes" and "Passacaglia" from Peter Grimes on March 15.

Opera Parallèle won top honors in the Opera Production Competition held annually by the National Opera Association. The company's 2012 production of The Great Gatsby clinched First Prize in the professional division. The opera featured a chamber re-orchestration of John Harbison's original score by musicianship and theory faculty Jacques Desjardins. Opera Parallèle is led by Artistic Director Nicole Paiement, who also directs the Conservatory's New Music Ensemble. Productions frequently feature Conservatory alumni and students.

Last fall, guitar faculty Richard Savino took a last-minute call from Joyce DiDonato inviting him to join her "Drama Queens" tour. Not one to deny a diva, Savino jumped at the chance and performed with the star mezzo-soprano to sell-out crowds in Kansas City, at Carnegie Hall and at the new Green Music Center in Sonoma.

Pianist and preparatory division faculty Robert Schwartz performs a solo recital of Bach, Chopin and Debussy on February 8 at Old First Church in San Francisco.

Piano pedagogy faculty William Wellborn gives a master class this month for the Los Altos branch of the Music Teachers Association of California.

Preparatory Division faculty Daniel Wood, Luba Kravchenko, Scott Cmiel, Corey McVicar and Director Joan Gordon recently attended a training session in Toronto held by the Royal Conservatory Music Development Program (formerly called the Achievement Program). They join a growing number of teachers nationwide able to evaluate music students of any age and background according to national standard. Canada has used its system of independent evaluations for more than 100 years to classify students by skill level and to provide feedback and credentials that help further their education.

Student News

Second-year grad student Sahba Aminikia is writing a piece for Kronos Quartet named "Tar o Pood" (or "Warp and Weft"). The piece is inspired by poems Persian carpet-weavers recite to help synchronize their patterns when working in pairs and incorporates field recordings made by Aminikia during a trip to Iran. Aminikia studies with Dan Becker.

The Cello Street Quartet spent four days in residence last fall at Fresco Arts High School in Boise, Idaho, teaching theory, composition, career planning and performance styles including jazz and pop. After returning, they performed two benefit concerts raising $1,000 for MagnetSF, a local gay men's health center. Then, on Christmas day, they celebrated the release of a new DVD recorded with singer/songwriter Matt Alber. The quartet's all-cello lineup includes senior Matthew Linaman and junior Adam Young, both students of Jean-Michel Fonteneau, and grad student Andres Vera and alum Gretchen Claassen (Artist Certificate, chamber music, '12), both students of Jennifer Culp.

Composition student Danny Clay is collaborating on a new musical drama with alumni group Nonsemble 6 and the San Francisco youth writing center 826 Valencia. Children between the ages of 8 and 12 are writing the libretti. Nonsemble will premiere a staged version of the work at Clay's Conservatory recital on May 9. Clay is pursuing an M.M. under the tutelage of Dan Becker.

SFCM Concerts in Marin has named two students and a recent grad as Artists in Residence for its spring season. One Great City, the guitar duo of Alexandra Iranfar and Timothy Sherren, is featured in a performance on April 5. Both are graduate students in the studio of Sérgio Assad. Joshua Romatowski (M.M., flute, '12) is producing and performing in no fewer than four series concerts this spring. The first was a recent show with Lyle Sheffler (M.M., guitar, '12). Romatowski studies with Timothy Day and Sheffler studied with Marc Teicholz.

Plucked string practitioner Adam Cockerham and alumna mezzo-soprano Danielle Reutter-Harrah (M.M., voice, '11) appear as the duo Jarring Sounds in a Valentine-themed concert at San Francisco's Seventh Avenue Performances on February 9. Cockerham returns in March with Sunset Baroque for a concert of rarities from the seventeenth century. Cockerham is an M.M. candidate studying with Sérgio Assad. Reutter-Harrah studied with Ruby Pleasure.

San Francisco Contemporary Music Players recently invited Conservatory students to perform in concerts celebrating composer Steve Reich. The Percussion Ensemble and several Conservatory singers participated in Music for 18 Musicians while the Conservatory Guitar Ensemble played Electric Counterpoint, an influential piece written for 15 guitars. The Guitar Ensemble, directed by faculty David Tanenbaum, also performs the piece in a concert hosted by the Pacific Guitar Ensemble on February 1 at the Berkeley Art Museum.

A series of photographs by graduate piano student Carlin Ma accompanied a performance of Osvaldo Golijov's Tenebrae by the New Music Ensemble last fall. San Francisco Examiner critic Stephen Smoliar said the images were "strikingly effective" and "may even sensitize the listener to some of the more subtle features of Golijov's score." Ma uploaded a recording of the performance and her photos to YouTube. She studies with Yoshi Nagai.

Preparatory Student News

Hilda Huang is one of six pianists nationwide to be named a finalist in the 2012 YoungArts Awards. Winners receive mentoring, scholarships and recognition to help them pursue artistic careers. Hilda recently performed at "YoungArts Week" in Miami where she participated in master classes with renowned artists including Michael Tilson Thomas and Placido Domingo. Hilda is a student of John McCarthy.

Hanna Li preformed at the Chinese New Year Youth Gala Concert, hosted and recorded by China Central Television (CCTV) in Beijing. One of nine Chinese American youth appearing on the program, Hanna sang the song "I Love you, China." The concert will be broadcast during the Chinese New Year holidays. Hanna studies voice with Eun-Mee Ko.

Guitarist Wu Love, student of Scott Cmiel, has been chosen as a finalist in the 2013 National American String Teachers Association Solo Competition, to be held April 6 through 8 at Merkin Hall in New York City.

Cellist Ila Shon won First Place in the Senior Division of the Diablo Valley College and Holy Names University Youth String Competition and was also named Overall Competition Winner. She will perform as a soloist with the Diablo Valley College Philharmonic Orchestra this fall. Ila studies with Sieun Lin.

Alumni News

After a month-long tour of Denmark and Sweden with more dates this month in British Columbia, the Afiara Quartet heads for gentler climes with shows booked in Mexico and Hawaii. Later this spring, the Toronto-based ensemble debuts at Stanford's new Bing Concert Hall. Afiara includes violinist Yuri Cho (Artist Certificate, chamber music, '06), violist David Samuel (Artist Certificate, chamber music, '06) and Adrian Fung (B.M., cello, '08).

In its first concerts of 2013, the Marin Symphony featured preparatory alumnus and International Tchaikovsky Competition winner Nigel Armstrong. The Sonoma native performed the Bruch Violin Concerto No. 1 in G Minor under the baton of Music Director Alasdair Neale, principal guest conductor of the Conservatory Orchestra. Armstrong is a former student of Li Lin.

Recent graduate Leonie Bot (M.M., violin, '09) scored an illustrious achievement by winning a seat in the second violin section of the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, one of the world's great symphony orchestras. Bot was a student of Axel Strauss.

In two recent appearances, Theodore Buchholz (B.M., cello, '04) performed piano trios by Shostakovich and Daniel Asia as a guest artist at the University of Arizona, and the Saint-Saens Cello Concerto as a featured artist with the Tucson Repertory Orchestra. Buchholz is on faculty at Pima College and is president-elect of American String Teachers Association of Arizona.

"The Illusionist" by Stefan Cwik (B.M. composition, '10) won the Juilliard Orchestral Composition Competition for the second year in a row. The Juilliard Orchestra performs his work on February 25. Cwik was a student of David Conte.

With a $15,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, San Francisco's Cypress String Quartet is commissioning a work by award-winning composer Jennifer Higdon. In the Shadow of Sirius features voice faculty Christine Brandes as guest soprano soloist and premieres April 19 at San Francisco's Herbst Theater. The quartet will also perform a set of twelve love songs by Dvořák scored for string quartet called Cypresses, the title work of their new CD. Cypress includes violinists and Conservatory grads Cecily Ward and Tom Stone (both Artist Certificate, chamber music, '96).

Derek David (B.M., composition, '08) is a 2012 winner of the ASCAP Foundation Morton Gould Young Composer Award, a competition for composers of concert music under age thirty. The American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers chose David's work from a field of 750 entries.

Jack Curtis Dubowsky (M.M., composition, '01) brings his eponymous new music ensemble to the Berkeley Arts Festival in April. The Jack Curtis Dubowski Ensemble features alum Fred Morgan (Professional Studies Diploma, percussion, '08) in its mix of "acoustic instruments, electronic hardware, composed material, and structured improvisation." Later this month, Dubowski hosts a screening of his documentary Submerged Queer Spaces at San Francisco's GLBT History Museum and leads a walking tour of historical sites in the Castro, some now lost to changes in the urban landscape.

Soprano Coco Harris (M.M., voice, '11) wrote an article featured in the January issue of Classical Singer about her experience at the Vancouver International Song Institute last June. Harris studied with Patricia Craig.

Riding the wave of its 20th anniversary season, Left Coast Chamber Ensemble returns to the Conservatory on February 4 for a concert featuring George Crumb's Voice of the Whale, Debussy's Images and new works written on nautical themes by emerging composers. The program features three Conservatory alumni: cellist Leighton Fong (M.M., chamber music, '91), flutist Stacey Pelinka (M.M. flute, '92) and guitarist Michael Goldberg (M.M., guitar, '90). The ensemble is led by Artistic Director Anna Presler (M.M., violin, '93).

After completing his Symphony of the Holocaust, Toby Lurie (composition, '48) re-conceived the work as a 6' x 8' painting encased in barbed wire. The musical version premiered last fall in Evanston, Illinois. Lurie is frequently commissioned to translate music into visual artwork. He also continues to perform his "sound pieces," some of which premiered at the Conservatory, with his group the Lost Coast Word-Music Ensemble.

Soprano Emma McNairy (B.M., voice, '11) is currently singing the title role in L'incoronazione di Poppea with West Edge Opera in El Cerrito. The cast also features voice faculty Christine Brandes as Nero. Later this spring, McNairy joins the Internationales Bach Akademie Stuttgart to sing Bach's St. Matthew Passion under the direction of Helmuth Rilling with performances in Germany and Chile. This summer, she covers the role of Papagena in Die Zauberflöte as a Vocal Fellow at Music Academy of the West in Santa Barbara. McNairy studied with Pamela Fry.

Congratulations to Paul Binkley (B.M., guitar, '79) and Adam Roszkiewicz (M.M., guitar, '03) for netting three Grammy nominations with their band the Modern Mandolin Quartet. The ensemble's CD Americana, featuring music by Dvořák, Copland, Gershwin, Glass and others, is in the running for Best Chamber Music/Small Ensemble Performance; Best Engineered Album, Classical; and Producer of the Year, Classical, at the 55th Grammy Awards ceremony on February 10.

The very first CD released by ZOFO Duet, the inimitable duo of Conservatory pianist Keisuke Nakagoshi (M.M., piano, '06) and Eva-Maria Zimmerman, has garnered two Grammy nominations. Mind Meld features four-hand arrangements of works by Bernstein, Shapero, Debussy and Stravinksy. It's up for Best Chamber Music/Small Ensemble Performance and Producer of the Year, Classical. ZOFO recently performed a program of commissioned works at San Francisco's Old First Concerts and is already looking forward to the release of their second CD Mosh Pit this spring.

The 2013 Hot Air Music Festival blows through the Conservatory on March 3, and with it, an eclectic selection of ensembles. Among them are the New Keys, a performance collective featuring Regina Schaffer (B.M., piano, '05) and Anthony Porter (M.M., composition, '11). They'll play new works by Joseph Colombo, a second year grad student of Dan Becker, by Ian Dicke (B.M., composition, '04) and by Porter himself. Porter studied with Dan Becker and Schaffer with Mack McCray.

Soprano Lang Michelle Nixon (M.M., voice, '08) debuted at the Teatro Comunale di Ferrara last month in a concert of Mozart arias and duets. She performs with the company again in April, delivering her role debut as Zerlina in Don Giovanni. Also in April, Nixon sings Musetta in La bohème with Associazione MUSICARTE in the region of Puglia, Italy.

After performing Lucia di Lammermoor and Madama Butterfly last fall with Orchestra Victoria, Australia's leading opera and ballet orchestra, Ben Opie (M.M., oboe, '09) is turning to works of a different flavor, performing and recording French oboe and piano sonatas. When not busy as associate principal oboe with the West Australian Symphony, Opie spent much of last year collaborating on projects like radio documentaries, performance art installations and opera tours.

The Long Valley, an orchestral work by Jeffrey Parola (M.M., composition, '05), was selected from among 130 entries as winner of the 2012 EAMA Prize. The European American Musical Alliance chooses a work each year that expresses a "profound artistic message." A Salinas native, Parola writes "The Long Valley is an intensely personal work, dedicated to my place of birth, wrapped up in the nostalgia of my youth and sense of my homeland." The piece won the 2009 Jim Highsmith Award and was premiered by the Conservatory Orchestra.

Jason Pyszkowski (M.M., viola, '10) is one of 30 participants from around the world invited to attend this month's Essentials of Orchestra Management seminar hosted by the League of American Orchestras in New York City. Informally called "orchestra management boot-camp," the ten-day course is taught by forty of the country's leading orchestral administrators, arts advocates, music directors, and concert performers.

Eugene Rodriguez (M.M., guitar, '88) was awarded a prestigious United States Artists Fellowship in December for his work promoting the revival of Mexican folk music. The Los Cenzontles Mexican Arts Center founded by Rodriguez in 1989 now supports an Academy where faculty and guest artists teach Bay Area youth traditional Mexican music, dance and arts. As a member of the professional touring group Los Cenzontles, Rodriguez has collaborated with Los Lobos, Lalo Guerrero and Linda Ronstadt and recorded some 20 CDs.

Uri Wassertzug (M.M., chamber music, '89) will perform and teach this summer at the Foulger International Music Festival at Weber State University in Ogden, Utah. He continues to teach viola, violin and chamber music at George Washington University and to perform with the National Chamber Ensemble.

Soprano Laura Decher Wayte (M.M., voice, '96) is inviting the world to listen to her faculty recital on February 6 at the University of Oregon by streaming it live on the web. She'll present works by Debussy, Falla, Mozart and Chabrier in collaboration with fellow UO faculty members performing on oboe and bassoon.

When Esa-Pekka Salonen and the Philharmonia Orchestra took Berg's opera Wozzeck on the road last fall, Michael Williams (B.M., flute, '09) jumped in for the ride. Williams played the work's tortuous marching band sections in concert performances at Zellerbach Hall in Berkeley, Disney Hall in L.A., and New York's Avery Fisher Hall.

Jillian Yu (M.M., flute, '08) helped lead 18,000 students in musical worship at the Urbana Christian Conference, a stadium-sized event held every three years at the Edward Jones Dome in St Louis.

New Music USA awarded former preparatory faculty member Laura Schwendinger (B.M., composition, '81) a composer assistance grant for a recording project with the JACK Quartet. The CD will feature two of her string quartets, a vocal work and a musical memorial to her teacher and former Conservatory faculty member Andrew Imbrie. In April, Schwendinger receives her Alice Tully Hall debut when the New Juilliard Ensemble premieres her piece Sinfonietta.

Anne Suda (Jennifer Culp, MM '10, PSD '11) will perform Tchaikovsky's Rococo Variations with the American Philharmonic February 23 and 24.

Valinor Winds recently performed their first full-length Bay Area concert at Seventh Avenue Performances in San Francisco with a program of works by Barber, Berio, Grieg, Reicha and Rota. The quintet also presented a memorial concert at the Conservatory on January 29 honoring the late Gregory Barber, bassoon faculty and woodwind chamber coach. Valinor consists of Sasha Launer (M.M., flute, '11) who studied with Timothy Day, Jessie Huntsman (M.M., oboe, '12), a former student of James Moore, Brenden Guy (M.M., clarinet, '10), former student of Luis Baez, Caitlyn Smith (Professional Studies Diploma, french horn, '12), who studied with Robert Ward, and Conservatory senior Alexis Luque, a student of Greg Barber and Stephen Paulson.

Winning as much notoriety and respect for her committed performance as for her shaved head, Elza van den Heever (M.M., voice, '04) made a triumphant New Year's debut at the Metropolitan Opera. New York Times critic Anthony Tommasini praised her "vocally burnished and emotionally tempestuous" portrayal of Elisabetta in Donizetti's Maria Stuarda, which she performed opposite Joyce DiDonato in a run that lasted through January.

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 submit news with approval from their teacher. Submissions are subject to editing.