Alumni News
The Cleveland Clinic has invited Mark Ackerley (M.M., composition, '10) to speak at a May conference on personalized healthcare. The musical connection? Ackerley's software project "DNA Melody," which spins genetic data into short tunes. A composer can't get much more personalized than that. Ackerley studied with Conrad Susa and David Garner.
Harana, a style of serenade from the Philippines, is the subject and title of a new film by Florante Aguilar (B.M., guitar, '96). A champion of music from his native country, Aguilar conceived of and produced the film, which depicts "the search for the last practitioners of this dying art and custom." CAAMFest (formerly called the San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival) will screen Harana on March 16 and 17. Aguilar studied with David Tanenbaum.
Megan Cullen (M.M., voice, '10) was invited back to Des Moines Metro Opera as an Apprentice Artist, where she will sing the role of the Overseer and cover the title role in Strauss' Elektra. She will also confront her first Br�nnhilde in Wagner's Die Walk�re with Verismo Opera this fall. Cullen studied with C�sar Ulloa.
The Del Sol String Quartet, featuring alumni Kate Stenberg (B.M., violin, '84), Rick Shinozaki (Preparatory Division, violin, '86), Charlton Lee (M.M., viola, '93) and Kathryn Bates Williams (M.M., chamber music, '07), has just released its latest CD Zia on the Sono Luminus label. This album of world folk music channeled by contemporary composers "offers a geographically extensive and stimulating listening experience" according to The Examiner.
This spring, Jack Curtis Dubowsky (M.M., composition, '01) presents his research on Virgil Thomson's Pulitzer-prize winning score to Robert Flaherty's 1948 film Louisiana Story at Chicago's Society for Cinema and Media Studies and at the New York University conference on Music and the Moving Image. Dubowski's ensemble has also added a San Francisco performance to their calendar: May 23 at the Luggage Store Gallery.
Julio Elizalde (B.M., piano 2005) recently performed Beethoven's Cello Sonata cycle in New York City with former Conservatory faculty member Bonnie Hampton. Elizalde's next star turn will involve recording music by Lord of the Rings soundtrack composer Howard Shore for an upcoming film directed by Martin Scorsese.
Devin Farney (M.M., composition, '09) is one of three winners of the 2012 Bassoon Chamber Music Composition Competition. The BCMCC Chamber Players will premiere and record his work "Fire And Ice" for soprano, bassoon and piano. The score will be published by Imagine Music. Farney's principal instructor was Dan Becker.
Fireworks will come from the pit as well as the stage at the San Francisco Ballet this spring. Krista Feeney (B.M., violin, '81) and her Loma Mar Quartet perform as soloists in the ballets Ibsen's House and Criss-Cross, playing Dvorak's beloved Quintet for piano and strings, concerti grossi by Scarlatti and selected movements from Schoenberg's rarely-heard Concerto for String Quartet and Orchestra.
Joshua Fishbein (M.M. Composition, '09) received two awards in Boston Metro Opera's International Composers' Competition. As winner of a Festival Award, his English Romantic Songs will be performed at the fourth annual Boston Contempo Festival in May. His setting of the hymn Adon Olam, which won a Merit Award, will be performed during BMO's regular season. Fishbein was a student of David Conte.
As an Adler Fellow with San Francisco Opera Center, AJ Glueckert (M.M., voice, '10) has his work cut out for him this season. The tenor will create the role of Knox in the world premiere of Dolores Claiborne by Tobias Picker while covering the title role in Tales Of Hoffmann and Peter in the world premiere of Mark Adamo's The Gospel of Mary Magdalene. Recently, Glueckert appeared with Opera Philadelphia as the Kronprinz in the Pulitzer Prize-winning opera Silent Night. He continues to study with C�sar Ulloa.
Joan Harrison (B.M., cello, '85) has added the prefix Dr. to her name. She completed her Ph.D. in education at the University of Ottawa with an emphasis in citizenship and arts education.
Mezzo-soprano Wendy Hillhouse (B.M., voice, '80) already has return engagements planned at Stanford's new Bing Concert Hall - as a soloist in Beethoven's Mass in C on March 15 and as part of a Stanford faculty trio performing Beethoven's Scottish Folk Songs on May 11. She sang John Duke's Lewis Carroll Songs during the hall's opening week in January. Hillhouse is also directing a current Stanford Opera Theater production of Henry Cowell's unpublished opera The Commission, using a score she edited for performance after unearthing it at the Library of Congress and the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts.
Mezzo-soprano Molly Mahoney (M.M., voice, '10) sings Zerlina in Pocket Opera's upcoming performances of Don Giovanni in Napa, Berkeley and San Francisco. The production is directed by Ted Zoldan (B.M., voice, '11), former voice student of Leroy Kromm. Mahoney studies with Catherine Cook.
Ari Micich (Professional Studies Diploma, trumpet, '12) was recently appointed co-principal trumpet of the KwaZulu Natal Philharmonic Orchestra in Durban South Africa. Micich was a student of Mark Inouye and Dave Burkhart.
Preparatory alumnus and Menuhin Competition winner Kenneth Renshaw recently debuted with the Lithuanian Philharmonic in Vilnius, playing the Saint-Sa�ns Violin Concerto No. 3 in B minor. This summer Kenneth will perform Mozart concerti in visits to Switzerland and Germany. Kenneth is a former student of Li Lin.
Gary Ruschman (M.M., voice, '99) kicked off his ninth season with the acclaimed vocal ensemble Cantus by releasing a new recording On the Shoulders of Giants, his twelfth CD with the group. Gary tours Oman and Dubai with Cantus this spring. He recently served on a teaching artist panel at the University of Minnesota and as a judge for the 2013 Classical Singer Magazine competition.
Fielding a deep bench of Conservatory talent in its genre-bending lineup of ensembles, the sixth annual Switchboard Music Festival comes to the Brava Theater in San Francisco's Mission District on March 24. Participating alumni groups include ZOFO duet, Ignition Duo, Areon Flutes and Sqwonk, the bass clarinet duo of faculty member Jeff Anderle (M.M., clarinet, '06) and Jon Russell (M.M., composition, '03) who, along with Ryan Brown (M.M., composition, '05), co-founded the festival.
Ross Thompson (M.M., guitar, '04) is "over the moon" about having the Conservatory Guitar Ensemble premiere the first movement to his First Symphony. The performance, to be conducted by ensemble director David Tanenbaum, takes place Wednesday, March 13.
The Trinity Alps Chamber Music Festival presented a concert of Italian, Swiss and American fare at San Francisco's Italian Cultural Institute on March 2 before heading to its home turf in Trinity County for spring preview shows and educational programs. Performers include faculty member Indre Viskontas (M.M., voice, '08), Charles Akert (M.M.,cello, '08) and Ian Scarfe (Artist Certificate, chamber music, '10), who founded the festival in 2011 to bring classical music to remote communities in northwest California.
Soprano Laura Decher Wayte (M.M., voice,'96) sings the role of Kitty Hart in Dead Man Walking with Eugene Opera this month before returning to the Bay Area for an April 6 recital with piano and bass clarinet at Stanford University. Wayte teaches voice at the University of Oregon.