Conservatory eNews March 2013
Faculty News
 
A delegation of faculty members is preparing to cross the Pacific for the third annual Shanghai-San Francisco International Chamber Music Festival from April 1-4 in Shanghai. In addition to offering master classes and coachings, they'll perform jointly with students and faculty from both schools. Representing San Francisco: composer Elinor Armer, whose Piano Quintet will receive its China premiere; violist Jodi Levitz, chair of strings and co-chair of the Conservatory chamber music program; Jean-Michel Fonteneau, cello; Ian Swensen, Isaac Stern Chair in Violin; Mark Sokol, chamber music coach; Mack McCray, chair of piano and co-chair of the chamber music program; and violinist Wei He, the festival's artistic co-director.

Preparatory and Adult Extension faculty member Christine Abraham (B.M., voice, '87) recently sang the lead role in the American premiere of James MacMillan's opera Clemency with Boston Lyric Opera. Abraham won warm praise in the Boston Globe for her portrayal of Sarah, spouse of Abraham (no relation), in this biblically-inspired work.

Composition faculty David Conte made a pilgrimage to Philadelphia last month for a performance of American Triptych, a work for chorus and chamber ensemble, at West Chester University. He also led a master class at Temple University.

The 28th Jewish Music Festival closes March 9 with the world premiere of Vilna Poems by composition faculty member David Garner in a concert at the Berkeley Repertory Theater. Garner set texts by the great Yiddish poet Avrom Sutzkever and wrote the work in memory of Conservatory graduate and well-known Bay Area Yiddish singer Sylvie Braitman (B.M., voice, '94). Performers include Lisa Delan (B.M., voice, '89) and Kristin Pankonin (M.M., piano, '89).

Bryan Nies, musical director of the Conservatory's Musical Theatre Workshop, recently conducted the Northern Arizona University Symphony Orchestra in a program of Mozart, Wagner, Verdi and Beethoven. On the Ides of March, he conducts Britten's Four Sea Interludes and Passacaglia with the Oakland East Bay Symphony.
Student News

Five students will concertize side by side with their faculty counterparts during April's Shanghai-San Francisco International Chamber Music Festival. While demonstrating close artistic collaboration across countries and cultures, concerts in Shanghai on April 3 and 4 will draw some interesting contrasts, as well:

*   Composer Nathan Campbell, a first year graduate student of Dan Becker, is looking forward to the premiere of Alpine Scenes, a piano trio inspired by his treks across Washington's Cascade range. Campbell is interested to hear how "musicians who live on the other side of the world" interpret the work.

*   Charles Ives' playful, ditty-packed Piano Trio gets a go-round from cellist Emanuel Evans, student of Jean-Michel Fonteneau, violinist Noemy Gagnon-Lafrenais, student of Axel Strauss, and pianist Allegra Chapman, student of Sharon Mann. The following night, Conservatory students will premiere a Piano Trio by Shanghai Conservatory student Junhao Liu. Chapman says "I'm excited to be representing both sides of this cultural exchange by performing music of one of the great American composers alongside a new Chinese work."

*   Violinist Shanshan "Maggie" Zeng, a student of Wei He, will perform as well. She's looking forward to returning to her home country in the company of her San Francisco teachers and colleagues.


Seven student composers were among 45 musical visionaries whose works rang out at the fourth annual Hot Air Music Festival. The day-long new music blowout at the Conservatory featured 15 world-premieres, including pieces by Joseph Colombo, student of Dan Becker, Renaud C�t�-Gigu�re, student of S�rgio Assad, and Nick Benavides, student of David Conte. Justin Ralls and Danny Clay, students of Dan Becker, and Katsunari Nakahori, student of Conrad Susa, all enjoyed hearing their compositions in local premieres.

Pianist Sofia Nedic, student of Mack McCray, recently won the 2012 Los Angeles International Liszt Competition in the age 17-20 category.

Earlier this year, Qinqing Qian, a conducting student of Michael Morgan, recruited an 18-piece student orchestra and conducted the soundtrack recording for an animated film. Breaking Limit, to be released in 2014, is a project of the Digital Audio Technology Department at Cogswell Polytechnical College in Sunnyvale. Previous Cogswell films have won awards and received showings at almost 30 international film festivals.


Preparatory Student News

Pianist Lavinia Ding won Third Prize at the Bay Area Music Association's Music Legacy Open Competition for piano, strings and voice. Lavinia is a student of Chia-Lin Yang.

Cellist Irene Jeong, student of Jonathan Koh, won First Prize at the VOCE Competition in the Intermediate Division - San Francisco Branch. Another of Koh's students, cellist Michael Minku Lee, won First Prize in the competition's Senior Division.

Pianist Hanson Tam won Second Prize and Best Sonata Award at the Marilyn Mindell competition. Hanson is a student of William Wellborn.

Violinist Lily Tsai has been invited to join the National Youth Orchestra of the United States of America in a summer tour that includes concerts in Washington, D.C., Moscow, St. Petersburg and London. She will have the chance to work with conductor and teacher James Ross, maestro Valery Gergiev and acclaimed violinist Joshua Bell. Lily is a student of Li Lin.

Violinist Kevin Zhu, student of Li Lin, had a successful debut with the Philharmonia Orchestra before a full house at London's Royal Festival Hall on February 14. During his trip, Kevin also appeared on the BBC Radio 3 program In Tune.
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 Brnnhilde 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-Sans 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.

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 20th of each month to [email protected] for consideration for the following month's newsletter. Students may submit news with approval from their teacher. Submissions are subject to editing.

 

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