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2010 Placement Audition Repertoire Information (PDF)
2010 AMFS Students—Instrumentalists (including AACA Conductors) & AOTC Singers—Sign up for your audition here.
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Click here to see the most up-to-date Artist Faculty list for 2010.
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LISTING OF ARTIST FACULTY
 Artist Faculty Listing Artist Faculty 2010 Media Policy (PDF) President and CEO Dean French Horn Harp Classical Guitar (Half session II only) Susan and Ford Schumann Center for Composition Individual Studies Program (Half session II only) (In Alphabetical Order) (A)(B)(C)(D)(E)(F)(G)(H)(I)(J)(K)(L)(M)(N)(O)(P)(R)(S)(T)(V)(W)(Y)(Z) Richard Aaron (cello artist-faculty), professor of cello at the University of Michigan, will also begin teaching at the Juilliard School next fall. From 1992 to 2007 he was a faculty member at the Cleveland Institute of Music and a visiting professor at the New England Conservatory in 1998. Mr. Aaron, a member of several major orchestras in Israel, Switzerland, and the U.S., founded the Seattle-based Tre Voce Piano Trio and the Moore Cello Quartet. He is currently a member of the Elysian Trio, based at Baldwin Wallace College. Mr. Aaron's summer festival appearances include ENCORE School for Strings, Marrowstone, Chautauqua, Indiana String Academy, Heifetz Institute, Aria, Insbrook Institute, and Bowdoin. He has taught in cello pedagogy workshops at numerous universities and music schools throughout the U.S., Asia, and Europe. Mr. Aaron's students have won numerous national and international competitions and have appeared as soloists with the Cleveland, Philadelphia, San Francisco, and Seattle symphonies, among others. His students have also held principal positions in major orchestras, including those of Chicago, Seattle, Utah, Portland, St. Louis, and New York's Metropolitan Opera. Mr. Aaron has been a faculty member of the Aspen Music Festival and School since 2002. Martha Aarons (flute artist-faculty) Martha Aarons’ professional career began with her appointment as principal flute of the North Carolina Symphony, after which she played with the Cleveland Orchestra for twenty-five years. Ms. Aarons serves as artist-faculty with the Aspen Music Festival and School every summer. Since becoming a freelancer in 2006, she has been performing with the Philadelphia Orchestra on a regular basis, as well as Iris Orchestra. Other orchestral activities have included appearances as guest principal flute with the Metropolitan Opera, Minnesota Orchestra, Milwaukee Symphony, Baltimore Symphony and Mostly Mozart Festival. She has performed as soloist with Cleveland Orchestra, North Carolina Symphony, Aspen Chamber Symphony, and Ohio Chamber Orchestra, and currently she is a regular guest artist at Rancho la Puerta in Tecate, Mexico. Among her teaching credits are the Cleveland Institute of Music, Duke University, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and Oberlin College. She was Filene Visiting-Artist-in-Residence at Skidmore College and taught and performed as a visiting artist at the Shanghai Conservatory. In 2002 she served as assistant professor at the Eastman School of Music. In 2003 Ms. Aarons performed the Aspen Music Festival premiere of the Flute Concerto by Christopher Rouse. Her CD, The History of the Tango, is recorded on the Azica label.
Darrett Adkins (cello artist-faculty) has appeared as soloist with the Tokyo Philharmonic, Tochio Soloisten, National Symphony of Rio de Janeiro, Seoul’s Prime Orchestra, and the New Hampshire, North Carolina, Greenwich, and Monadnock music festival orchestras. Other performances include his New York concerto debut with the Orchestra of St. Luke's at Lincoln Center and the American premiere of Donatoni's Cello Concerto with the Tanglewood Music Center Orchestra, with whom he also performed Birtwistle's Meridian. Mr. Adkins made his Aspen debut in 2002 in Boulez’s Messagesquisse under James Conlon. He gave the world premiere of Andrew Mead's Concerto with the Oberlin Contemporary Ensemble and the first New York performance of Berio's Sequenza XIV, which he has recorded for Naxos. From 1997 to 2002 Mr. Adkins was a member of the Flux Quartet, which gave a historical first complete performance and recording of Morton Feldman's Second String Quartet, a continuous six-hour work. As a chamber musician he has recorded on the Mode, KOCH, RCA, Tzadik, MMC, and CRI labels. He tours regularly with the Zephyr Trio, featuring flutist Jeanne Galway and pianist Jonathan Feldman. Mr. Adkins joined The Juilliard School faculty in 2002 and the Oberlin Conservatory faculty in 2003. Nancy Allen (harp artist-faculty) made her New York recital debut in 1975. She became principal harp of the New York Philharmonic in 1999. In 2000 Ms. Allen was featured in the Philharmonic's American premiere of Siegfried Matthus's Concerto for flute, harp, and orchestra. Ms. Allen also appears regularly with the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra and the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. She has appeared with the Chamber Music Society on PBS's Live From Lincoln Center and has performed as recitalist for Music at the Supreme Court in Washington, D.C. Ms. Allen maintains a busy international concert schedule, making solo appearances at major international festivals and collaborating with numerous artists. A recording artist for Sony Classical, Deutsche Grammophon, and CRI, her recording of Ravel's Introduction and Allegro received a Grammy nomination. A native of New York, Ms. Allen studied with Pearl Chertok spent the summer of 1972 in Paris with Lily Laskine, then entered Juilliard to study with Marcel Grandjany. In 1973 she won Israel's Fifth International Harp Competition and was later awarded a National Endowment for the Arts Solo Recitalist Award. Ms. Allen and heads the harp departments of the Juilliard School and the Aspen Music Festival and School. Her students hold positions in prominent orchestras worldwide. The American Brass Quintet (Raymond Mase, Kevin Cobb, trumpets; David Wakefield, horn; Michael Powell, trombone; John Rojak, bass trombone), currently in its forty-ninth season, has been internationally recognized as one of today's premiere chamber music ensembles. The ABQ's rich history includes performances in Europe, Central and South America, the Middle East, Asia, Australia, and all fifty of the United States; a discography of over fifty recordings; the premieres of over one hundred contemporary brass works; and in the last decade, mini-residencies that have brought the ABQ's chamber music expertise to countless young musicians and institutions worldwide. ABQ commissions by Robert Beaser, William Bolcom, Elliott Carter, Jacob Druckman, Eric Ewazen, Anthony Plog, Huang Ruo, Steven Sacco, David Sampson, Gunther Schuller, Joan Tower, Melinda Wagner, and Charles Whittenberg, are considered among the most significant contributions to the modern brass quintet repertoire. This season's premieres include works by Gordon Beeferman, Justin Dello Joio, Shafer Mahoney, and David Sampson. Equally committed to the promotion of brass chamber music through education, the ABQ has been in residence at The Juilliard School since 1987 and at the Aspen Music Festival and School since 1970. The members of the American Brass Quintet are Raymond Mase and Kevin Cobb, trumpets; David Wakefield, horn; Michael Powell, tenor trombone; and John D. Rojak, bass trombone. Renata Arado (violin artist-faculty) has been principal second violin of Norway's Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra, a position she recently left after twelve years to pursue new musical opportunities and devote more time to her three children. She has appeared with chamber groups around the globe collaborating with Isaac Stern, Robert Mann, Yefim Bronfman, Joshua Bell, Gil Shaham, Sylvia Rosenberg, Anton Kuerti, and Camilla Wicks. Ms. Adado performs in recitals and chamber series in the U.S. and Norway as a duo with her husband violinist/violist Espen Lilleslåtten. Ms. Arado has been an active recitalist, presenting solo and chamber concerts at Troldsalen, the recital hall at the historic home of Edvard Grieg, and at Lysøen, home of legendary violinist Ole Bull. She has been a soloist with the Bergen Philharmonic, the University of Bergen Symphony, and the orchestras of the San Francisco Conservatory and Rice University's Shepherd School of Music. Ms. Arado was born in Chicago, where she began violin instruction in a Suzuki program at age two-and-a-half. She continued her violin studies at the University of Michigan and Rice University where she studied with Camilla Wicks. Ms. Arado holds a master's degree in violin performance and chamber music from the San Francisco Conservatory. Nadine Asin (flute artist-faculty) is critically acclaimed for her remarkable versatility as a soloist, chamber musician, and orchestral performer. She performs with many of the world's finest ensembles, including the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, the Great Performers series of Lincoln Center, the Metropolitan Opera, and the New York Philharmonic. An advocate of new music, she commissioned and premiered Enchanted Orbits, a concerto by Augusta Read Thomas, and After Hours, a suite for flute and piano by David Schiff. She recorded Aaron Avshalomov's Flute Concerto for the Naxos label. A member of the artist-faculty of the Aspen Music Festival and School since 1978, Ms. Asin served as head of the flute department at the College Conservatory of Music at University of Cincinnati. She has taught at The Juilliard School and Bard College Conservatory of Music and has given master classes at universities throughout the U.S. and Japan. She is a founding member of the Aspen Ensemble. She made her debut with the Baltimore Symphony at age sixteen and received her Bachelor of Music and Master and Music degrees from The Juilliard School as a student of Julius Baker. A winner of the Concert Artists Guild competition, she subsequently served on their board, as well as the boards of the Aspen Music Festival and School and Chamber Music America. Daniel Avshalomov (viola artist-faculty) is the violist of the internationally acclaimed American String Quartet, now in its fourth decade. He also performs concertos, recitals, and in collaborative concerts; he is a featured performer in festivals across the country. Before joining the Quartet, Mr. Avshalomov served as principal violist of the Aspen, Tanglewood, and Spoleto festival orchestras and with the Brooklyn Philharmonic, Opera Orchestra of New York, and American Composers Orchestra and as solo violist with the Bolshoi Ballet. He was a founding member of the Orpheus Chamber Ensemble. His articles appear in Notes and Strings. He has edited several viola works for publication and contributed to ASTA's Playing and Teaching the Viola. The subject of articles in Strad and Classical Pulse, Mr. Avshalomov developed Inside Passages, first presented to the New York Viola Society in 2000, and gave the premiere of Bracali's Concerto per Viola. His recording, Three Generations Avshalomov, was featured on NPR's All Things Considered. He has been a faculty member of the Manhattan School of Music since 1984 and of the Aspen Music Festival and School since 1976. This season he makes appearances throughout the country. His instrument is an Andrea Amati, from 1568. Richard Bado (Aspen Opera Theater Center) made his professional conducting debut in 1989 leading Houston Grand Opera's acclaimed production of Show Boat at Egypt's newly restored Cairo Opera House. He has since conducted at Teatro alla Scala, Opéra National de Paris, New York City Opera, Wolf Trap Opera, Houston Ballet, Montreal Symphony Orchestra. Mr. Bado also conducted the Robert Wilson production of Virgil Thomson's Four Saints in Three Acts at the Edinburgh Festival. He has accompanied Renée Fleming, Cecilia Bartoli, Frederica von Stade, Denyce Graves, and Susan Graham. Mr. Bado holds music degrees from the Eastman School of Music, where he received the 2000 Alumni Achievement Award, and West Virginia University. Mr. Bado studied advanced choral conducting with Robert Shaw. As chorus master for Houston Grand Opera he has prepared choruses for over twenty seasons. Mr. Bado is currently director of the opera studies program at Rice University's Shepherd School of Music. He has been a faculty member of the Aspen Music Festival and School for many summers and has served on the staff of the Metropolitan, Seattle, Chautauqua, and Wolf Trap operas, Opera Australia, and Opera Theater of St. Louis. Mr. Bado has also served as Houston Grand Opera's head of music staff for fourteen seasons. Joan Balter (luthier) was born in New York City. She studied violin at the Manhattan School of Music preparatory division at the High School of Music and Art with Rachmael Weinstock. She received her bachelor's degree in music and psychology from Bennington College and was a member of the Vermont Symphony from 1970 to 1974. Ms. Balter taught violin, viola, and cello in the public schools and conducted the Essex Junction Educational Center Orchestra (Vermont) from 1972 to 1974. From 1974 to 1977 she attended the Violin-Making School of America in Salt Lake City and apprenticed at Cremona Violin Makers and Dealers in San Francisco from 1978 to 1982. Since 1982 she has been the sole proprietor of Balter Violins in Berkeley, California. She currently serves on the board of directors of the Crowden School and of several youth orchestras. She has given numerous workshops and seminars on violin-making, repair, and buying instruments and bows. Ms. Balter has been the official luthier of the Aspen Music Festival and School since 1979. Edward Berkeley (director, Aspen Opera Theater Center) is Director of Undergraduate Opera Studies at The Juilliard School and teaches Shakespeare at Circle in the Square Theater School. He is artistic director of New York's Willow Cabin Theater Company where he directed the Tony Award and Drama Desk-nominated Wilder, Wilder, Wilder and productions for which he received numerous awards. Mr. Berkeley's New York Shakespeare Festival productions include Pericles and best revival winner The Tempest. He directed Beatrice and Benedict at the New York Philharmonic and John Adams's El Niño with the Atlanta Symphony and at Ravinia. Mr. Berkeley has also directed at the Library of Congress, Williamstown Theater Festival, and Old Globe Theater. As director of the Aspen Opera Theater Center, he has directed classics as well as new operas by Bright Sheng, Augusta Read Thomas, Michael Torke, Mark-Anthony Turnage, and Bernard Rands. In New York Mr. Berkeley directed the premiere of Ned Rorem's Our Town, Thomas Adès' Powder Her Face and The Kaiser from Atlantis (which he also directed in L.A., Miami, Houston, Spoleto, and at Ravinia). Mr. Berkeley was an acting consultant for the Metropolitan Opera's Lindemann Young Artists Program, on guest faculty at Princeton University and Williams College, and a Dayton-Hudson and Benedict Distinguished Professor at Carleton College. He directed his own adaptation of Mendelssohn's A Midsummer Night's Dream at the New York Philharmonic, Two Faces of Romeo and Juliet, a combining of Bernstein and Gounod and Madama Butterfly for Houston Grand Opera, and most recently John Adams's The Death of Klinghoffer and Cavalli's La Doriclea at Juilliard. Jeannette Bittar (oboe artist-faculty) was born in Cambridge, England and raised in Madison, Wisconsin. At age fifteen she made her solo debut with the Milwaukee Symphony. Since then she has appeared as soloist with ensembles including the Franz Liszt Chamber Orchestra (Budapest), Florida Orchestra, and Aspen Chamber Symphony. In 1992 Ms. Bittar made her European solo debut with the English Chamber Orchestra at Finland's Naantali Festival and in 2000 made her Carnegie Hall solo debut with the New York String Orchestra. She has toured Europe and the Far East as soloist and chamber musician and across America with Yo-Yo Ma and the Silk Road Ensemble. Ms. Bittar has also served as principal oboe of the Florida Orchestra, the San Diego Symphony and assistant principal of the Chicago Symphony as well as holding guest principal positions with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Orpheus, the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, the Atlanta Symphony, and Cincinnati Symphony. An Aspen Music Festival and School artist-faculty member since 1998, she has participated in the Marlboro Music Festival and toured with Musicians from Marlboro. Ms. Bittar is a graduate of the Cleveland Institute of Music, where she studied with John Mack. She enjoys biking, swimming, and practicing jnana yoga. Florence B. Blager (voice workshop), Ph.D., voice consultant, developed and directs workshops on the impact of the speaking voice on the singing voice. Professor emeritus at the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center and National Jewish Medical and Research center, she is consultant to the Speech Pathology Section, Army Audiology and Speech Center at Walter Reed Army Medical Center. She developed the Relaxed-Throat breathing techniques to treat Paradoxical Vocal Cord Cysfunction, based on the conceptual model used in voice - starting with the breath, focusing sound in the "mask" of the face, and avoiding any effort in the laryngeal area. She was on the clinical team that reported on this disorder in the New England Journal of Medicine. She has also developed and published information on using breathing techniques to control chronic cough. Dr. Blager lectures at numerous conferences, including Performing Arts Medicine Association; Pacific Voice Conference, where she was presented the conference's Achievement Award; and Voice Foundation's Annual Symposium: Care of the Professional Voice. Between undergraduate and graduate school Dr. Blager performed and wrote for the theater in New York, where she studied voice at the Herbert Berghof Studio and was a member of the Broadcast Music, Inc., a workshop for lyricists and composers. Bonita Boyd (flute artist-faculty) is professor of flute at the Eastman School of Music and an active concert soloist throughout the world. She began her professional career at age twenty-one with appointments as principal flutist of the Rochester Philharmonic and the Chautauqua Symphony, making her the youngest principal flutist in a major U.S. orchestra at that time. She has served as performer and/or artist-teacher at various festivals including Marlboro, Bowdoin, Grand Teton, Johannesen, Eastern, Masterworks, Filarmonica de las Americas, and the Hamamatsu Seminar. She has been president of the National Flute Association, a 5000-member worldwide organization of flutists. Ms. Boyd's premieres and recordings of new works include those of Adler, Benson, Rozsa, Rands, Augusta Read Thomas, and most recently, Eric Sessler. Her Flute Music of Les Six won a Stereo Review Record of the Year Award. Recent CDs include Bernstein's Halil and a debut CD with guitarist Nicholas Goluses. She recently gave the National Flute Association's first performance of the Pulitzer Prize-winning Flute Concerto of Melinda Wagner at the National Convention. She has been co-principal flute of the Aspen Festival Orchestra and Aspen artist-faculty member since 1997. Bruce Bransby (bass artist-faculty) has been professor of bass at Indiana University since 1986. He has performed throughout the world as soloist and chamber player and has premiered a number of works for solo bass, including the American premier of the Frantisek Hertl Bass Concerto. Previously Mr. Bransby served as principal bass of the Los Angeles Philharmonic and the Kansas City Symphony. In Los Angeles he played in Philharmonic chamber groups and with their New Music Ensemble, worked frequently as principal bass in major motion picture studios, and performed and recorded as both jazz bassist and pianist. Mr. Bransby was recently a featured recitalist at the convention of the International Society of Bassists. Before his appointment to Indiana University, Mr. Bransby served on the faculties of California State University in Northridge, the University of Missouri at Kansas City, the California Music Center, and the Los Angeles Philharmonic Institute. A native of Los Angeles, Mr. Bransby studied there with Nat Gangursky and Peter Mercurio. He spent several summers in Aspen as a student of Stuart Sankey and served as principal bass of the Aspen Chamber Symphony. In 1987 Mr. Bransby became an artist-faculty member of the Aspen Music Festival and School. Per Brevig (trombone artist-faculty) received his Doctor of Musical Arts degree from The Juilliard School. He was principal trombone of the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra from 1968 to 1994 and is currently music director and conductor of the East Texas Symphony Orchestra. He has conducted artists such as Lynn Harrell, Hilary Hahn, Lang Lang, Christine Brewer, Cho-Liang Lin, Ralph Kirshbaum, the Eroica Trio, Mark O'Connor, Pepe Romero, and Randy Owen, the lead singer of the country and western band Alabama. Since 1994 he has conducted acclaimed concerts and operas internationally. He has appeared extensively as soloist and his numerous awards include Prague's XIV International Music Competition, Koussevitzky Fellowship, and the Henry B. Cabot, Naumburg, and Neill Humfeldt awards. He is currently a faculty member of the Juilliard School, Manhattan School of Music, and Mannes College of Music. The founder and president of the Edvard Grieg Society, Inc., Mr. Brevig has received the Royal Medal of St. Olaf given by King Olaf V of Norway for promoting Norwegian music and culture in America. He has performed, conducted, and taught at the Aspen Music Festival and School annually since 1970. His students have won major competitions, and many hold positions in prominent orchestras worldwide. Elizabeth Buccheri (Aspen Opera Theater Center) is a native of South Carolina. She supervises the collaborative piano program at Northwestern University's School of Music. Ms. Buccheri is founder and music director of Chamber Music at North Park and received an honorary Doctor of Fine Arts degree from North Park University in 2004. She studied with Brooks Smith at the Eastman School of Music and has spent twenty-eight seasons as accompanist of the Chicago Symphony Chorus. Ms. Buccheri has also served as pianist-coach for Rochester's Opera Under the Stars and the Brevard Music Festival, and accompanist-coach for numerous conductors, including Georg Solti, Daniel Barenboim, Pierre Boulez, and Andrew Davis, among others. She has made concert appearances with Susanne Mentzer, Samuel Ramey, Susan Graham, Thomas Hampson and the Shanghai and Vermeer string quartets. Ms. Buccheri prepared Schoenberg's Moses und Aron, Wagner's Die Meistersinger, and Verdi's Otello with soloists and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and Chorus under Solti for release by London Decca. This work earned Ms. Buccheri the Solti Foundation Award. Recently she assisted Pierre Boulez and the Cleveland Orchestra and soloists with preparations for performances in Cleveland and New York. Earl Carlyss (violin artist-faculty; director, Center for Advanced Quartet Studies) has been the director of the Aspen Center for Advanced Quartet Studies since 1984. He currently teaches violin and chamber music at The Juilliard School. From 1986-2001 Mr. Carlyss held the first Sidney M. Friedberg chair in chamber music at the Peabody Conservatory. He was a member of the Juilliard String Quartet from 1966-86, during which time he performed over 2,100 concerts and recorded more than one hundred works. Three of the quartet's recordings, of the Debussy and Ravel, Schoenberg, and Beethoven quartets, received Grammy Awards for best chamber music recording of the year. Since 1960 the quartet has been in residence at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. Mr. Carlyss, born in Chicago, began violin studies at age ten and at twelve won a grant from the Epstein Fine Arts Fund, administered by the Boys Club of America. From 1955-1957 he attended the Paris Conservatory, studying violin with Roland Charmy and chamber music with Jacques Fevrier. Returning to the United States in 1957, Mr. Carlyss entered The Juilliard School as a pupil of Ivan Galamian, and in 1962 he made his recital debut in New York. Mr. Carlyss is married to pianist Ann Schein, with whom he plays frequent concerts and duo recitals. Laurie Carney (violin artist-faculty) is a founding member of the American String Quartet. She began to study piano and violin at home and, at age eight, was admitted to the preparatory division of The Juilliard School; at fifteen she was the youngest person to be accepted into the college. Ms. Carney studied with Dorothy DeLay and received her Bachelor and Master of Music degrees from Juilliard. As a member of the American String Quartet she appears in more than eighty concerts annually. Recent engagements have included concerts in the major halls of Berlin, London, Los Angeles, New York, Paris, Rome, and Zurich. Summer festival appearances include Aspen, Blossom, Taos, Spoleto, San Miguel, and Lincoln Center's Mostly Mozart Festival. Ms. Carney is currently professor of violin at the Manhattan School of Music. Ms. Carney is also in demand as a visiting teacher, presenting master classes recently in California, Colorado, Indiana, Michigan, and New Mexico. She performs duo repertory regularly with her husband, cellist William Grubb. Her interests include animal and environmental rights. Ms. Carney plays a Carlo Tononi violin, Venice 1763. Catharine Carroll (viola artist-faculty) is active as recitalist, chamber musician, teacher, and is Host Chair of the 2010 International Viola Congress. She has collaborated in chamber music with many of today's most prominent musicians. Recent solo appearances include Wired and Cincinnati Chamber Players. Coordinator of the Cincinnati Chamber Circle, she presents concerts in which students perform with faculty and guest artists. She is also founder and director of the CCM Viola Ensemble, principal viola of the Aspen Chamber Symphony, a frequent guest principal of the Cincinnati Chamber and Cincinnati Ballet orchestras, and has performed extensively with the Cincinnati and Columbus symphonies. Her passion for pedagogy resulted in collaboration with Masao Kawasaki and Dorothy DeLay on Essential Basics for Viola, a book on basic technique. Other publications include A Comprehensive Overview of Left Hand Technique for Violin and Viola and Dounis Daily Dozen transcribed for viola. In an effort to help musicians combat performance anxiety, she developed a relaxation tape to be released this year. After earning her bachelor's, master's, and doctoral degrees as a student of Masao Kawasaki, she joined the faculty of the University of Cincinnati in 1993 and the Aspen Music Festival and School in 1994. Victoria Chiang (viola artist-faculty) is an artist-faculty member of the Peabody Conservatory of Music where she serves as coordinator of the viola department. Her recording of the sonatas for viola and piano by Roslavets and Shostakovich was awarded a strong recommendation by Fanfare magazine. Her recording of Pleyel's Sinfonia concertante for violin and viola with David Perry and the Baltimore Chamber Orchestra for Naxos is scheduled for later release. Career highlights include appearances with the Romanian State Philharmonics of Constantsa and Tirgu Muresh, the Duluth Superior Symphony, and the Acadiana Symphony and solo performances at Carnegie Hall's Weill Recital Hall and at the XXV International Viola Congress. Ms. Chiang has appeared as guest artist with the Guarneri, Takacs, Tokyo, American, and Pro Arte string quartets and is a founding member of the Aspen Ensemble, an internationally touring quintet of flute, piano, and strings. She earned a Bachelor of Music degree from the Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music and a Master of Music degree and Performers Certificate from the Eastman School of Music. Her principal teachers include Heidi Castleman and Masao Kawasaki, viola, and Dorothy DeLay and Kurt Sassmannshaus, violin. Ms. Chiang first came to Aspen as a student in 1985. Kevin Cobb (trumpet artist-faculty) joined the American Brass Quintet in the fall of 1998, at the same time becoming a faculty member of the Juilliard School and the Aspen Music Festival and School. A dedicated and active teacher, he also serves on the faculties of the Hartt School, SUNY Stony Brook, and the Mason Gross School of the Arts at Rutgers University. A native of Ohio, Mr. Cobb made his first solo appearance at age fifteen with the Toledo Symphony. After attending the Interlochen Arts Academy, he received his Bachelor of Music degree from the Curtis Institute of Music, where he studied with Frank Kaderabek. Continuing his studies at the Juilliard School, Mr. Cobb earned his Master of Music degree as a student of Mark Gould. Since his days at Curtis he has enjoyed touring and performing not only in the U.S., but also in Europe, Central America, and Asia. Mr. Cobb leads a diverse performing career and is regularly active with many of New York's top musical organizations. Having recorded over ten CDs with the ABQ alone, his first solo CD, entitled One and released by Summit Records, features an all American program of unaccompanied trumpet solos. Vinson Cole (voice artist-faculty, tenor) has enjoyed an international career that has taken him to all of the major opera houses across the globe, including the Metropolitan Opera, Opera National de Paris, Teatro alla Scala, Berlin State Opera, Deutsche Oper Berlin, Bavarian State Opera, San Francisco Opera, Hamburg State Opera, Opera Australia, and the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden. He sang for nine consecutive seasons at the Salzburg Festival, seven seasons performing with the legendary conductor Herbert von Karajan, whom he considered his musical mentor. Recently Mr. Cole sang the Verdi Requiem with the San Diego Symphony and with the Tros Radio Orchestra at the Royal Concertgebouw in Amsterdam. He sang the title role in Offenbach's Les contes d'Hoffmann at the Seattle Opera, repeating that role with the Cincinnati Opera. Mr. Cole also appeared in a new production of Berlioz's Damnation de Faust with the Dresden State Opera, a role he will also be performing on tour with the Orchestre Philharmonique du Luxembourg in Lyon and at the Berlioz Festival. In concert appearances Mr. Cole performs regularly with the most prestigious orchestras throughout the world and has appeared with such eminent conductors as Georg Solti, Claudio Abbado, Carlo Maria Giulini, James Levine, Lorin Maazel, Kurt Masur, Zubin Mehta, Riccardo Muti, Seiji Ozawa, Gerard Schwarz, and Giuseppe Sinopoli. Carole Cowan (violin artist-faculty) has been concertmaster of the Hudson Valley Philharmonic since 1978 and is an active chamber musician, soloist, and teacher. First violinist of the HVP String Quartet, the quartet-in-residence at the State University of New York, New Paltz, Ms. Cowan has also performed with many chamber musicians, including the Emerson and Alexander string quartets. She performed for ten summers at the Festival Casals in Puerto Rico and served as concertmaster and soloist of festivals in Spain and Italy. Ms. Cowan is a full professor and chair of the department of music at State University of New York, New Paltz, where she is conductor of the College/Youth Symphony of the Hudson Valley. Her private students have won scholarships and competitions at festivals and conservatories in the U.S. and abroad. An alumna of the Aspen Music Festival and School, Ms. Cowan has spent thirty-five summers in Aspen, where she is assistant concertmaster of the Aspen Festival Orchestra. She has recorded the works of Meyer Kupferman on Soundspells records, and the music of Robert Starer and Henry Martin for Albany Records. Ms. Cowan holds a Doctor of Musical Arts degree from the Yale University School of Music. Warren Deck (tuba artist-faculty) was principal tuba of the New York Philharmonic from 1979-2002 and the Houston Symphony from 1977-79. He attended the University of Michigan and the Aspen Music Festival and School for four years, where he studied with Abe Torchinsky, former tubist of the Philadelphia Orchestra. Mr. Deck made his solo debut with the New York Philharmonic in 1989, performing the world premiere of Roger Kellaway's Songs of Ascent for tuba and orchestra. Besides his orchestral recordings with the Philharmonic, he can be heard on four recordings of the Canadian Brass as well as Tuba!, a recording of leading tuba and euphonium players from Germany and the U.S. on EMI Angel Records. An active teacher and clinician, Mr. Deck has given master classes in many regions of the world including the former Soviet Union, Asia, and South America. He was a member of The Juilliard School faculty from 1989-2002, and before Juilliard, taught at Rice University for two years. Mr. Deck is currently on the faculty of the University of Denver's Lamont School of Music. Pedro Diaz (English horn artist-faculty), named solo English horn with the Orchestra of the Metropolitan Opera in 2005, has performed extensively on five continents. He has served extended tenures as oboe and/or English horn with the Filarmonica Jalisco (Mexico), the Orquesta Sinfonica de Galicia (Spain), the Natal Philharmonic (South Africa) and the Pittsburgh Opera. Mr. Diaz's appearances as soloist include those with the Spoleto Festival (Italy), New York Symphonic Ensemble (Japan tour), and Chamber Orchestra of Puerto Rico. He has collaborated as performer/teacher at numerous festivals, including Aspen, Le Domaine Forget (Quebec), and FOSJA (Puerto Rico). Mr. Diaz studied with James Gorton and John Mack and earned a Bachelor of Music degree from the Juilliard School, where he received oboe tutelage in the studio of Elaine Douvas. Mr. Diaz has also studied English horn with specialists Louis Rosenblatt, Harold Smoliar, and Felix Kraus. A native of Puerto Rico, he received his early musical training there in the Escuela Libre de Musica, an esteemed public school for the performing arts. Along with his current duties at the Met, Mr. Díaz is a member of the faculty of the Juilliard School. Pedro Diaz lives in New York City with his wife Lucie. Misha Dichter (piano artist-faculty) performs worldwide in recitals and with the world's great orchestras in repertoire that spans the Russian Romantic School, the German Classical style, and the great works of our time. An avid chamber musician, he collaborates with many of the world's finest players, including duo-piano and concerto performances with his wife, pianist Cipa Dichter, and upcoming concerts with the Harlem Quartet, First Place Laureates of the Sphinx Competition. Mr. Dichter has recorded for Philips, RCA, MusicMasters, and Koch. PentaTone Classics recently reissued two albums of Mr. Dichter's previously recorded music on SACD: Beethoven's Pathetique Sonata and Brahms's Piano Concerto No. 2, Op. 83 with the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra conducted by Kurt Masur and a recording of Beethoven's "Moonlight" Sonata and Brahms's First Piano Concerto, also with Mr. Masur and the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, a performance which Audiophile Audition said "ranks among the best, and that means the versions by Rubinstein (and Reiner), Serkin (and Szell), and Arrau (and Haitink)". While still enrolled at Juilliard, where he studied with Rosina Lhevinne, Mr. Dichter's triumph at the 1966 Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow launched his international career. Elaine Douvas (oboe artist-faculty) has been principal oboe of the Metropolitan Opera since 1977. Her career highlights include the Strauss Oboe Concerto at Carnegie Hall with James Levine in 2004 and Dutilleux's Les Citations with the MET Chamber Ensemble and here at Aspen in 2006. She has issued two new CDs this year, Oboe Divas and Pleasure is the Law. Ms. Douvas has served as oboe instructor at The Juilliard School since 1982 and was appointed chairman of the woodwind department in 1997. She teaches three intensive one-week oboe camps at the Interlochen Center for the Arts, Le Domaine Forget Academie in Quebec, and the Hidden Valley Music Seminars in Carmel, California. Her students hold positions in more than a dozen major orchestras and university faculties, and her three albums of demonstration and written commentary for Music Minus One are used by teachers and students throughout the country. Douvas trained at the Cleveland Institute of Music under John Mack and at the Interlochen Arts Academy. Her first job was principal oboe of the Atlanta Symphony under Robert Shaw. For many years, she has devoted her spare time to figure skating, earning her Gold Medal for Adult Moves in the Field in 2006. Eugene Drucker (violin artist-faculty) is a founding member of the Emerson String Quartet and an active soloist. He has appeared with the orchestras of Montreal, Brussels, Antwerp, Liege, Austin, Hartford, Richmond, Toledo, and the Rhineland-Palatinate as well as with the New Mexico Symphony, the American Symphony Orchestra and the Aspen Chamber Symphony. A graduate of Columbia University and the Juilliard School, where he studied with Oscar Shumsky, Mr. Drucker was concertmaster of the Juilliard Orchestra, with which he appeared as soloist several times. He made his New York debut in 1976 as a Concert Artists Guild winner, after winning prizes at the Montreal Competition and the Queen Elisabeth Competition in Brussels. Mr. Drucker has recorded the complete unaccompanied works of Bach, recently reissued by Parnassus Records, and the complete Sonatas and Duos of Bartok for Biddulph Recordings. His novel, The Savior, was published by Simon & Schuster in July 2007. Christopher Dudley (trombone artist-faculty) is principal trombone of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, the Aspen Festival Orchestra, and the Baltimore Chamber Orchestra. He graduated from the Interlochen Arts Academy with the school's highest artistic honors and received his bachelor's degree from The Curtis Institute of Music. As a teacher Mr. Dudley carries on the traditions of his teachers, Glenn Dodson and Joe Alessi. Mr. Dudley has performed and recorded with the New York Philharmonic, the Philadelphia and Atlanta Symphony Orchestras, the Cleveland Orchestra, the Iris Chamber Orchestra, the Washington Symphonic Brass, the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, the Monarch Brass, and with his own jazz ensemble, Mythology. As a soloist, Mr. Dudley recently premiered Jonathan Leshnoff's Concerto for Trombone winning acclaim in both the Baltimore Sun and the New York Times. He is currently recording transcriptions of the Shostakovich string quartets with the Mir Brass Quintet. Mr. Dudley is an active studio musician on trombone and the Akai Wind Synthesizer and has composed and produced jingles for radio and television. In addition, he has released a recording of original jazz/fusion compositions entitled Lovely Daze. Mr. Dudley is a member of the trombone faculty at the University of Maryland. James Dunham (viola artist-faculty), international recitalist and guest artist, was violist of the Grammy Award-winning Cleveland Quartet (1987-95) and Naumburg Award-winning Sequoia Quartet. He has collaborated with numerous renowned artists and members of the Guarneri, Juilliard, and Tokyo quartets. Mr. Dunham has also served as guest principal viola with the Boston and Dallas symphonies. An advocate of new music, Mr. Dunham has worked with many prominent composers and recently premiered and recorded Libby Larsen's Viola Sonata (2001) and "Sifting Through the Ruins" (2005) for viola, mezzo soprano (Susanne Mentzer) and piano. Mr. Dunham was guest violist on the Ying Quartet's Grammy-nominated CD of Tchaikovsky's Souvenir de Florence, and also recorded Glyph (for solo viola and piano quintet) by Judith Shatin and Bach's Gamba Sonatas with harpsichordist John Gibbons. The Cleveland Quartet's Telarc recording of John Corigliano's String Quartet, written for their final tour, won the 1996 Grammy for Best Chamber Music Performance. Currently Professor of Viola at Rice University's Shepherd School of Music, Mr. Dunham has taught at the New England Conservatory and the Eastman School of Music. Summer activities include teaching and performing at numerous festivals, including Aspen, Sarasota, Amelia Island, and le Domaine Forget in Quebec. Lawrence Dutton (viola artist-faculty) has collaborated with many of the worlds great artists, including Isaac Stern, Mstislav Rostropovich, Oscar Shumsky, Walter Trampler, Menahem Pressler, Lynn Harrell, Joshua Bell, Yefim Bronfman, Joseph Kalichstein, Misha Dichter, Jan DeGaetani, and Edgar Meyer, among others. As violist of the Emerson String Quartet, he performs over 100 concerts each season. With the quartet, he has won eight Grammy Awards, most recently the 2006 Best Chamber Music Performance for Intimate Voices on Deutsche Grammophon, for whom the Quartet records exclusively. Mr. Dutton has performed as guest artist with numerous chamber music ensembles, including the Juilliard and Guarneri quartets and the Beaux Arts and Kalichstein-Laredo-Robinson trios. Mr. Dutton has appeared as soloist with many American and European orchestras, including those of Germany, Belgium, New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Colorado, and Virginia. He has also appeared as guest artist at the music festivals of Santa Fe, Ravinia, La Jolla, and Chamber Music Northwest and has collaborated with the late Isaac Stern in the International Chamber Music Encounters both at Carnegie Hall and in Jerusalem. Mr. Dutton is professor of viola and chamber music at Stony Brook State University of New York and the Manhattan School of Music. The Emerson String Quartet (Eugene Drucker, Philip Setzer, violins; Lawrence Dutton, viola; David Finckel, cello) lists achievements including recordings as exclusive Deutsche Grammophon artists (since 1987), eight Grammy Awards (two for Best Classical Album), and three Gramophone awards. They recently celebrated their thirtieth anniversary season with an eight-concert Perspectives Series, titled Beethoven In Context, in Carnegie Hall's Isaac Stern Auditorium, a series juxtaposing Beethoven's quartet repertoire with compositions spanning three centuries. For this series Carnegie Hall commissioned a quartet from Kaija Saariaho to honor both the project and the anniversary. Other anniversary season performances were a Shostakovich cycle at Washington's Kennedy Center and an extensive tour of major European cities, with complete Beethoven cycles in Valencia and Badenweiler. The Emerson serves as quartet-in-residence at Stony Brook University and has just concluded its twenty-seventh season of residency at Washington's Smithsonian Institution. The past season marked their third educational collaboration with Carnegie Hall. In 2004 the Quartet became the first chamber music ensemble to receive the Avery Fisher Prize. Deutsche Grammophon has recently released their CD of the three Brahms Quartets and the Piano Quintet with Leon Fleisher. Formed in 1976, the Quartet took its name from American poet and philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson. Eli Epstein (horn artist-faculty) is an orchestral performer, soloist, chamber musician, educator, author and conductor. Mr. Epstein joined the Cleveland Orchestra in 1987, and became Horn Instructor at the Cleveland Institute of Music in 1989. He has appeared several times as soloist with the Philadelphia Orchestra and the Cleveland Orchestra. An active chamber musician, Mr. Epstein has performed at Severance Hall, Tanglewood, Philadelphia's Academy of Music, Aspen Music Festival, the Kennedy Center, and Music Academy of the West. Mr. Epstein is on the faculties of The Boston Conservatory, Music Academy of the West, and the Aspen Music Festival and School, where he has served as principal horn of the Aspen Chamber Symphony since 2000. Many of his former students hold positions in major orchestras throughout the United States and Canada. Mr. Epstein left the Cleveland Orchestra in 2005 and moved to Boston to devote more time and energy toward educational and creative endeavors. Advocating the idea that music can be a healing force in society, Mr. Epstein has created and presented many Inside Out programs designed to help people actualize their own potential to enjoy music by accessing their memories and activating their imaginations. Alan Fletcher is President and CEO of the Aspen Music Festival and School and a respected composer. He holds doctoral and masters degrees from The Juilliard School and a bachelor's degree from Princeton University, and has studied with distinguished composers such as Roger Sessions, Milton Babbitt, Edward T. Cone, and Paul Lansky, and pianists Robert Helps and Jacob Lateiner. He has won numerous composing awards and commissions, including recent commissions for the Pittsburgh Symphony and the National Gallery of Art. He lectures nationally and internationally on music, and is published widely on musical and cultural issues. He has a blog for Gramophone magazine, at www.gramophone.co.uk/onlinejournals. Mr. Fletcher gives frequent seminars for the Aspen Institute on a wide range of musical and cultural topics. He chaired the 1997 Salzburg Seminar Music for a New Millennium: The Classical Genre in Contemporary Society. David Finckel (cello artist-faculty) enjoys a multifaceted career as concert performer, recording artist, educator, arts administrator, and cultural entrepreneur, which places him in the ranks of today's most influential classical musicians. His concert appearances as orchestral soloist, duo recitalist with pianist Wu Han, and cellist of the Grammy Award-winning Emerson String Quartet, take him to the world's most prestigious concert series and festivals. Mr. Finckel's wide-ranging musical activities also include the launch of ArtistLed, classical music's first musician-directed, Internet-based recording company. Mr. Finckel and Wu Han serve as artistic directors of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. They are also the founders and artistic directors of Music@Menlo, a chamber music festival in the San Francisco Bay Area. Nancy Goeres (bassoon artist-faculty), principal bassoon of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, is active as soloist, chamber musician, and teacher. She has appeared at the Tanglewood, Marlboro, Sarasota, LaJolla, Santa Fe Chamber, and Mainly Mozart festivals, New York's 92nd Street Y series, Music in the Vineyards (Napa, California), and Instrumenta Verano (Puebla, Mexico), and she has toured with Musicians from Marlboro. Ms. Goeres premiered the Ellen Taaffe Zwilich Bassoon Concerto with Lorin Maazel and the Pittsburgh Symphony, which commissioned the work for her and with whom she recorded it for the New World label. She has also performed this work in Aspen, New York, Jacksonville, and Havana. Ms. Goeres has presented master classes in North and South America, Europe, and Asia and coaches regularly with the musicians of the New World Symphony. An artist-faculty member of the Aspen Music Festival and School since 1991, she is also a faculty member of Carnegie-Mellon University. Ms. Goeres serves on the board of directors of the Woodlands Foundation, whose mission is to enrich the lives of children and adults with disability and chronic illness. Joan Gordon (dean) has been in this position since 2002, after serving as assistant dean and manager of student services at the Aspen Music Festival and School for a year. Prior to that she was admission officer of the San Francisco Conservatory of Music from 1994 to 2000. She has been active in NACAC and NASM serving on various admissions committees. Before becoming involved in music admissions and administration, she worked in many different fields in San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Washington, D.C. while maintaining an active career as a freelance musician. The most fulfilling of those positions was assistant crisis line director and volunteer coordinator of San Francisco Suicide Prevention. Ms. Gordon received her Bachelor of Music degree in cello performance from San Francisco State University. She studied cello with Irving Klein, Irene Sharp, Peter Rejto, and Bonnie Hampton. John Graham (viola artist-faculty). Mr. Graham's multi-faceted career as a soloist, chamber music ensemble artist, and teacher has taken him throughout the U.S. and to Canada, Europe, China, Taiwan, Korea, and Japan. During his twenty-five years as a top freelance violist in New York, he performed as a soloist, in chamber music ensembles, new music groups, symphony, ballet, and Broadway orchestras, and in film, TV, and commercial recordings. He is professor emeritus of viola at the Eastman School of Music of the University of Rochester, where he taught for nineteen years. Mr. Graham has appeared as guest artist with the American, Guarneri, Juilliard, Mendelssohn, Tokyo, and Ying quartets. His recordings include a solo four-CD series entitled Music for the Viola, as well as issues of contemporary and conventional ensemble repertoire, including the string quartets of Debussy, Ravel and Berg with the Galimir Quartet and the complete viola quintets of Mozart with the Juilliard Quartet. Mr. Graham was a student of William Primrose at the Aspen Music Festival and School in 1958 and 1959, and was appointed to the artist-faculty from 1987 through 1990 and again in 2001. His web site is http://www.grahamviola.com. Herbert Greenberg (violin artist-faculty) has appeared throughout the world as concertmaster, soloist, and chamber musician. A student of Josef Gingold, he is concertmaster of the Aspen Festival Orchestra and has served as guest concertmaster of the Houston, St. Louis, Oregon, and San Diego symphonies, and the Japan Virtuosi, and Bergen Philharmonic orchestras. He was a member of the Minnesota Orchestra and associate concertmaster of the Pittsburgh Symphony. For twenty years Mr. Greenberg served as concertmaster of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, and he was featured in Strauss's Ein Heldenleben during the nationally telecast opening concert at Baltimore's Meyerhoff Hall. Mr. Greenberg has performed over fifty works as soloist, from Bach to Rouse. He has toured as soloist with Denmark's Aalborg Symphony Orchestra and led the New Arts Ensemble of Taipei as violinist-conductor. An avid chamber musician, Mr. Greenberg was a founding member of the Previn-Greenberg-Williams Trio and the Baltimore String Quartet and has collaborated with many notable musicians, including William Primrose, Yo-Yo Ma, and Pinchas Zukerman. Mr. Greenberg serves as string chair at the Peabody Conservatory. Many of his former students hold positions with major symphonies worldwide. Mr. Greenberg has recorded for Argo, Telarc, and Delos and performs on the "Jean Becker" Stradivarius (1685). William Grubb (cello artist-faculty) holds teaching posts at four premier musical institutions: the University of Cincinnati, College Conservatory of Music, the Jordan College of Fine Arts at Butler University, the Aspen Music Festival and School, and the Great Wall International Music Academy in Beijing. Educated at The Juilliard School where he earned three degrees, he became only the fourth cellist in Juilliard's history to earn the Doctor of Musical Arts degree. His cello teachers included his father, Cassel Grubb at DePauw University, Fritz Magg at Indiana University, Ronald Leonard at the Eastman School of Music, and Harvey Shapiro at Juilliard. Upon graduating from Juilliard, he won both the school's Alumni Award and the Victor Herbert Prize for outstanding cello performance. Mr. Grubb made his professional debut as soloist with the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra at the age of seventeen. While at Juilliard, he won the Concert Artists Guild auditions in New York and was presented in his New York recital debut at Carnegie Recital Hall. Mr. Grubb has been a member of chamber ensembles including the Cincinnati Chamber Circle, the Concorde Trio, and the New York Chamber Soloists. He resides in Indianapolis and New York, and is married to violinist Laurie Carney. Jonathan Haas (percussion artist-faculty) is the director of the New York University classical percussion department, chair of The Juilliard Pre-College percussion studio, and he has been a artist-faculty for twenty-four years at the Aspen Music Festival and School. Mr. Haas has created innovative programs including the NYU Broadway Percussion Seminar and Summit, NYU/Frank Zappa Orchestral Laboratory, and CoMotion, the first off-off-Broadway percussion and theater collaboration showcasing this new and exciting art form. Mr. Haas is recognized worldwide for his performances of the Glass Concerto Fantasy for two timpanists and orchestra with the American Symphony, BBC, Bergen Philharmonic, Chicago, Iris, Longbeach, Louisville, Milwaukee, New York Pops, Orquesta Filarmonica de la Ciudad de Mexico, Pasadena, Prague, Seattle, St. Louis, Sydney, Croatian Radio and Television, and Radio France orchestras. Mr. Haas is the principal percussionist of the American Symphony, timpanist of the Aspen Chamber Orchestra, and is a member of the American Composers Orchestra. He has performed with virtually every major ensemble in New York City. Mr. Haas is the president of Gemini Music Productions, Kettles and Company, and Sunset Records. He graduated from Washington University in St. Louis, and received his master's degree at The Juilliard School studying with Saul Goodman. Thomas Haines (director, Susan and Ford Schumann Film Scoring Program) is associate professor at the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music. He earned his Bachelor of Music and Master of Music degrees from Butler University and remains active in composition, performance, and producing music for CD, film, video, and multimedia productions. His extensive experience in orchestral and chamber recording and electronic/acoustic music productions includes winning first prize in the drama category from the Broadcast Educators Association for producing The Holy Chest, an interactive storybook audio drama. He also received second prize in the multimedia category from the BEA for the interactive multimedia project Sound Foundations: Mechanics of Sound. Mr. Haines has created film scoring and sound design courses for film and multimedia applications for various institutions. Currently he is composing, arranging, and recording music for publication and conducting research in sound design production aesthetics. David Halen (violin artist-faculty) is concertmaster of the Saint Louis Symphony, and previously served as assistant concertmaster with the Houston Symphony Orchestra. He has performed more than two dozen concerto appearances with the Saint Louis, Houston, and San Francisco symphonies. Mr. Halen came from a musical family: his father was also his violin professor at Central Missouri State University; his mother was a member of the Kansas City Symphony; and his older brother is currently acting concertmaster of the Houston Symphony. In 1979 Mr. Halen won a Fulbright Scholarship to the Freiburg Hochschule für Musik in Germany. He holds a master's degree from the University of Illinois, studying with Sergio Luca. He is a visiting distinguished artist at Yale University and the Robert McDuffie Center for Strings. As artistic director of the Innsbrook Institute, Mr. Halen coordinates a weeklong festival in June, and in August he is artistic director of the Missouri River Festival in Boonville, Missouri. Mr. Halen's numerous accolades include appointment to the Missouri Arts Council in 2008. He holds honorary doctorates from Central Missouri State University and the University of Missouri, Saint Louis. Mr. Halen plays a 1753 Johannes Baptiste Guadagnini violin, made in Milan, Italy. Wu Han (piano artist-faculty) ranks among the most esteemed and influential classical musicians in the world today. She appears regularly in many prestigious venues across the United States, Europe, and the Far East as both soloist and chamber musician, and has toured extensively as duo pianist with cellist David Finckel. Wu Han's wide-ranging musical activities include the founding of ArtistLed, classical music's first musician-directed and Internet-based recording company. Wu Han and David Finckel serve as Artistic Directors of The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. They are also Artistic Directors of Music@Menlo, a chamber music festival in Silicon Valley that has garnered international acclaim since its inception in 2003. Prior to launching Music@Menlo, Wu Han and David Finckel served for three seasons as Artistic Directors of SummerFest La Jolla. Per Hannevold (bassoon artist-faculty) has been principal bassoon of the Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra since 1979. His repertoire includes all of the standard bassoon concerto and chamber music works, and Ruth Bakke's Illuminations, John Williams's The Five Sacred Trees,and Jean Françaix's Concerto. Worldwide appearances include performances in Taiwan, Lithuania, and the Lincoln Center concert honoring the 50th Anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Mr. Hannevold has presented master classes internationally and has served as a juror at bassoon competitions in Finland, France, Lithuania, and the U.S. He tours extensively throughout Europe and the U.S. with the prizewinning Bergen Woodwind Quintet, the visiting quintet-in-residence at the University of Minnesota since 1995. An artist-faculty member of the Aspen Music Festival and School since 1993, Mr. Hannevold is a professor at the Grieg Academy, University of Bergen. This spring he celebrated the 50th jubilee anniversary of the Nordic Bassoon Symposium in Bergen. Mr. Hannevold studied in Oslo and Stockholm, and later in the U.S. with Harold Goltzer and Lou Skinner. Mr. Hannevold's latest CD, the highly acclaimed Music for Per includes Lassen's Strange Interlude No. 3 in which he imitates rock-guitar riffs, as well as works by David Maslanka and Oivind Westby. Christopher Hanulik (bass artist-faculty) joined the Los Angeles Philharmonic in 1984 and was appointed principal bass in 1987. He has also served as principal bass of the Cleveland Orchestra. During his tenure in Cleveland, he made numerous recordings, including Histoire du Soldat, conducted by Pierre Boulez for Deutsche Grammophon. Mr. Hanulik appears regularly on the Los Angeles Philharmonic Chamber Music Society and Green Umbrella new music concerts. He has performed with the Miami String Quartet and Jacques Thibaud String Trio, and with the Chicago String Quartet at the Sedona Chamber Music Festival. Mr. Hanulik has served on the faculty of the Cleveland Institute of Music, Kent-Blossom Music Festival, Pepperdine University, and California State University, Northridge. He has given master classes at the Juilliard School, Eastern Music Festival in Greensboro (North Carolina), Colburn School for the Performing Arts, University of Southern California, and the Corwin Seminars. He is currently a faculty member of the Idyllwild Arts Academy. Mr. Hanulik attended the Juilliard School, where he studied with Homer R. Mensch. Burt Hara (clarinet artist-faculty) is concluding his twenty-second season as principal clarinet of the Minnesota Orchestra. A regular soloist with the Orchestra, he will be featured next season in a concerto by Bernhard Crusell. Hara has also soloed with the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and orchestras in Alabama, Tucson, Cedar Rapids, Monterey, Fargo-Moorhead, and Duluth, among others. He was Principal Clarinet of the Philadelphia Orchestra, and the Alabama Symphony, and has also performed with the Saint Louis Symphony, and the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra. Hara is on the faculty at the University of Minnesota, and regularly teaches master classes at institutions around the country. He earned a Bachelor of Music degree from the Curtis Institute of Music in 1984. His principal teachers include Donald Montanaro, Yehuda Gilad, and Mitchell Lurie. Alan Harris (cello artist-faculty) is distinguished professor of cello at the Eastman School of Music. He has been an artist-faculty member the Aspen Music Festival and School since 1974, and has performed with Claus Adam, the Cleveland Quartet, Gidon Kremer, Malcolm Frager, Brooks Smith, Pinchas Zukerman, and others. Mr. Harris held the post of Kulas professor of music, chair of the string department, and coordinator of chamber music at the Cleveland Institute of Music, and was director of the Cleveland Chamber Music Seminar. Other previous faculty appointments include the Inter-American University of Puerto Rico, Ohio Wesleyan and Northwestern universities, visiting professor and faculty member at the Eastman School of Music, and visiting professor at Northern Illinois University. Mr. Harris studied with Raymond Stuhl at the University of Kansas and with Janos Starker at Indiana University. An active recitalist, soloist, and chamber musician, he served as cellist with the Eastman Quartet, was a first-desk player with the Rochester Philharmonic, and was principal cellist of the Eastman and Rochester chamber orchestras. During his distinguished teaching career Mr. Harris has given numerous solo and chamber music master classes and has been active as a panelist and lecturer. His students occupy prestigious positions throughout the music world. Cornelia Heard (violin artist-faculty) is currently the Valere Blair Potter Professor of Violin at Blair School of Music, Vanderbilt University. A member of the Blair String Quartet, she has presented concerts and master classes throughout the United States, recorded for the Naxos, Warner Bros., New World and Pantheon labels and performed frequently on public radio. She holds degrees from The Juilliard School, where she studied violin with Dorothy DeLay and coached chamber music with Robert Mann, Earl Carlyss, Felix Galimir, and Samuel Rhodes. Concert appearances have included Lincoln Center, the Kennedy Center, the Library of Congress, and New York's 92nd Street Y, as well as Chamber Music Northwest, the Skaneateles Festival, Colorado Music Festival, Sedona Chamber Music Festival, Kapalua Festival, the Meadowmount School of Music, Roycroft Chamber Music Festival, Music Mountain Summer Music Festival in Connecticut and Maverick Concerts in Woodstock, New York. She has performed in Italy and Iceland and has served on the artist faculty of the Killington Music Festival and Sewanee Music Festival, as well as the Aspen Festival and School since 2005. David Herbert (timpani artist-faculty) is currently principal timpanist of the San Francisco Symphony, a title he has held since 1994. He is widely considered a leader in the advancement of solo timpani repertoire, accomplishing many commissions and world premiere performances every year. Mr. Herbert made his professional solo debut after winning the Saint Louis Symphony Young Artist Competition in 1991. Since then, he has appeared as timpani concerto soloist with five different major orchestras worldwide including his Lincoln Center debut with Michael Tilson Thomas conducting. Mr. Herbert also performed the world premiere of William Kraft's Timpani Concerto No. 2 in 2005 with the San Francisco Symphony. Mr. Herbert is sought after as a chamber musician and clinician around the world and has conducted master classes throughout North America, Japan, China, and Europe. He was a featured artist at the Percussive Arts Society International Convention in 2001, 2003,2005-07. Mr. Herbert was international principal percussion instructor and soloist of the Pacific Music Festival in Sapporo, Japan from 2004-07 and teaches at the San Francisco Conservatory and The Boston Conservatory. Sydney Hodkinson (Susan and Ford Schumann Center for Composition Studies; conductor, Aspen Contemporary Ensemble), a native of Winnipeg, Manitoba, received his Bachelor and Master of Music degrees from the Eastman School of Music, studying with Bernard Rogers, and at Princeton University with Elliott Carter, Roger Sessions, and Milton Babbitt. He earned his Doctor of Musical Arts degree from the University of Michigan, studying with Ross Lee Finney. Mr. Hodkinson has taught at the universities of Virginia, Ohio, Michigan, Southern Methodist, Western Ontario, and Rochester (Eastman School of Music), where he conducted the Eastman Musica Nova Ensemble and the Kilbourn Orchestra while chairing the conducting-ensemble department. He has also taught at Indiana and Duke universities. Since 2004 he has held the Almand Chair of Composition at Stetson University's School of Music, Deland, Florida. Recent compositions include Piano Concerto No. 1, commissioned by the Hanson Institute for American Music for pianist Barry Snyder; three instrumental trios, Short Cuts, Shredded Postcards, and Rogatio gravis;and the Fourth and Fifth Quartets for the Amion and Corigliano quartets, respectively. The Jupiter String Quartet will premiere his Fifth String Quartet this summer in Aspen on July 25. Mr. Hodkinson's awards include those from the National Institute of Arts and Letters, Guggenheim Foundation, Canada Council, and National Endowment for the Arts. His recordings are available on the Albany, Centaur, CRI, Louisville, Innova, Mark, Novisse, and New World labels. He has been a member of the Aspen Music Festival and School artist-faculty since 1998. Deborah Hoffman (harp) has been principal harpist with the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra since 1986. Ms. Hoffman is chairperson of the harp department at Manhattan School of Music and has been a faculty member since 1997. She has appeared as soloist with the Pittsburgh Symphony, Jupiter Symphony, Orchestra of St. Luke's, and the MET Orchestra in Carnegie Hall under the baton of James Levine. Ms. Hoffman has also toured extensively in Latin America as soloist with the symphony orchestras of Santiago, Costa Rica, Caracas, and Colombia. Ms. Hoffman was the first-prize winner of the 1981 American Harp Society Competition, and in 1978 was a top-prize winner in the Seventh International Harp Competition in Israel. In 1983 she was chosen to represent the United States at the First World Harp Congress in the Netherlands. Ms. Hoffman has performed throughout Canada and the United States as a member of the Hoffman Chamber Soloists, an ensemble comprised of her parents and three brothers. She received both Bachelor and Master of Music degrees from the Juilliard School, where she was a student of Susann McDonald. Ms. Hoffman records for Arabesque Records and has recently completed a Grammy-nominated recording of original transcriptions of Chopin works. Douglas Howard (percussion artist-faculty) serves the Dallas Symphony Orchestra as principal percussionist and assistant timpanist, and is professor of percussion at Southern Methodist University. He was principal percussionist of the Louisville Orchestra for one season. From 1971 to 1974 Mr. Howard served as timpanist and percussionist with the United States Air Force Concert Band in Washington, D.C. He also served on the faculty of the 1983 Ludwig International Percussion Symposium and the 1991 Oberlin Percussion Institute. Mr. Howard was a fellowship student of Charles Owen at the Aspen Music Festival and School in 1974, returning to become an artist-faculty member in 1982. Principal percussionist of the Aspen Festival Orchestra, he has also performed as timpanist with the Aspen Festival Orchestra and the Aspen Chamber Symphony. Mr. Howard has toured extensively with the Dallas Symphony Orchestra and has recorded with that orchestra on the Angel/EMI, Dorian, Delos, RCA, Pro Arte, and Telarc labels and with the Louisville Orchestra on First Edition Records. Elizabeth Hynes (voice artist-faculty, soprano) a native of Michigan, has been a faculty member of the University of Southern California Thornton School of Music since 1995, and has recently been named chair of the vocal arts department. Ms. Hynes adjudicates regularly for the Metropolitan Opera Auditions and is in demand around the country as a master class presenter. Her students, consistently among the winners of important competitions, appear frequently with professional opera companies and orchestras throughout the U.S. Ms. Hynes's recent performances have included Britten's Les illuminations and War Requiem and Gorecki's Third Symphony with the composer conducting. Ms. Hynes has performed in major opera houses around the world in some of opera's most demanding roles, including Cio-Cio-San in Madama Butterfly, Mimi in La boheme, Marguerite in Faust, and the Marschallin in Der Rosenkavalier. Performances of Mozart roles such as Susanna, Pamina, and the Countess in the PBS Live from Lincoln Center broadcast of Le nozze di Figaro gained public and critical acclaim. Her European debut at the English National Opera was as Donna Elvira in Don Giovanni. A sought-after concert artist, Ms. Hynes has appeared with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra under Georg Solti and with the symphonies of Cleveland, San Francisco, Philadelphia, Seattle, and Los Angeles, among others. She has sung with the orchestras of Madrid, Barcelona, Vancouver, and New Zealand and with the Tonkunstler Orkester of Vienna on two American tours. Miah Im (Aspen Opera Theater Center) currently holds the music director position for the Maryland Opera Studio at the University of Maryland. Previously, Ms. Im was on the music staff at the Juilliard School as a vocal coach and pianist. Currently, she is also a member of the music staff at the Opera Theatre of Saint Louis and Wolf Trap Opera. She is the winner of several awards and fellowships and was the inaugural recipient of the Marilyn Horne Foundation Award for Excellence in Vocal Accompanying. Recent production highlights for the Opera Studio include Cosi fan tutte, Tranformations, Don Giovanni, Werther, La boheme, and Giulio Cesare. Under the auspices of the Houston Grand Opera, Los Angeles Philharmonic, and the Chicago Symphony, Ms. Im performed as pianist and harpsichordist for Viktor Ullmann's Der Kaiser von Atlantis under the baton of James Conlon and directed by Edward Berkeley. Her performances have been featured on WQXR in New York City, NPR, and on the CBC Radio National Competition for Young Performers. She has worked with esteemed conductors such as James Conlon, Stephen Lord, George Manahan, Edoardo Müller, and Julius Rudel. In the fall, Ms. Im looks forward to joining the opera faculty at the University of Toronto. Jeffrey Irvine (viola artist-faculty), teacher, soloist, and chamber musician, has appeared throughout the U.S. and Europe as violist of the New World String Quartet. He is also Fynette H. Kulas Professor of Viola at Cleveland Institute of Music. Mr. Irvine was principal violist of the Wichita Symphony from 1977-81. In Aspen from 1981-91 he played in the Festival Orchestra and Chamber Symphony, and performed in the Fromm Week of New Music. Mr. Irvine taught at Oberlin from 1983-99, chairing the string division from 1992-99. He joined the faculty of the ENCORE School for Strings in 1999 and rejoined the Aspen Music Festival and School in 2000. Mr. Irvine, whose students have won major prizes, presents master classes worldwide and has taught and performed at Meadowmount and the Killington and Park City Chamber music festivals, Idyllwild School of Music and the Arts, and Bucknell's quartet program. He has published numerous articles in the Journal of the American Viola Society and American String Teacher. Mr. Irvine received his bachelor's degree from the Philadelphia Musical Academy and his master's degree from Eastman. His teachers have included Heidi Castleman, Dorothy DeLay, Martha Katz, William Primrose, Karen Tuttle, and Donald Weilerstein. Mr. Irvine plays a 1993 Hiroshi Iizuka viola. Sharon Isbin (director, Classical Guitar Program), Grammy Award-winning guitarist and winner of the Toronto, Munich, and Madrid competitions, gives up to one hundred performances a season. Her 2001 Grammy for Dreams of a World was the first awarded to a classical guitarist in twenty-eight years. Ms. Isbin's CD of concertos written for her by Christopher Rouse and Tan Dun won a 2002 Grammy. She received a Latin Grammy nomination for her concerti by Rodrigo/Villa-Lobos/Ponce with the New York Philharmonic, their first ever guitar recording. Other honors include Germany's Echo Klassik Award, Gramophone's Recording of the Year, and Guitar Player's Best Guitarist award. Ms. Isbin’s twenty-five CDs include Bach's complete lute suites, and concertos composed for her by Corigliano, Foss, and Schwantner. Her latest CD, Journey to the New World (SONY Classical) includes performances with Joan Baez and Mark O'Connor. Ms. Isbin has been featured on Showtime's The L Word, and she was the featured soloist on Howard Shore's soundtrack to Martin Scorsese's Academy Award-winning film The Departed. Ms. Isbin has been artistic director-soloist of festivals she created for Carnegie Hall, New York's 92nd Street Y, and NPR. Author of the Classical Guitar Answer Book, she directs Juilliard's guitar department. Her website is www.sharonisbin.com. Bil Jackson (clarinet artist-faculty), principal clarinet of the Colorado and Aspen Chamber symphonies, has also served as principal clarinet of the Pittsburgh, Minnesota, Cincinnati, St. Louis, and Honolulu orchestras. He has appeared as soloist with numerous other orchestras. An artist-faculty member of the Aspen Music Festival and School since 1983, he teaches at the University of Northern Colorado. He has taught at the University of Colorado, University of Texas at Austin, and Duquesne University. The only clarinetist to win the International Clarinet Competition twice, he was also a finalist in the Prague International Clarinet Competition. Mr. Jackson commissioned, premiered, and recorded for the Marco Polo label Dan Welcher's Pulitzer Prize-nominated Clarinet Concerto. In April of this year he appeared as soloist with the CSO performing the world premiere of Kevin Puts' Clarinet Concerto with Jeffrey Kahane conducting. A recording will be released on Naxos. With pianist Bill Douglas he presents concerts that synthesize jazz, classical, and contemporary formats, and they record for the Hearts of Space label. Mr. Jackson appears with numerous artists and festivals, including the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, Music from Angel Fire, Chamber Music Northwest, Bravo! Vail Valley, Sunflower Music Festival, and Camerata Pacifica. Joseph Kalichstein (piano artist-faculty) is widely acclaimed for the heartfelt intensity and technical mastery of his playing. Mr. Kalichstein performs regularly throughout the US, Europe, Japan, and Australia as orchestral soloist, recitalist, and chamber musician. He serves as chamber music advisor to the Kennedy Center and is artistic director of the Fortas concerts, their chamber music series. His famed Kalichstein-Laredo-Robinson Trio celebrated its 30th anniversary in 2008 with commissions, a Carnegie Hall appearance, and a Beethoven marathon at New York's 92nd Street Y. 2008 also marked the 40th Anniversary of Mr. Kalichstein's first appearance at the Aspen Music Festival in 1968, which he celebrated with a four piano extravaganza including friends and colleagues Emanuel Ax, Yefim Bronfman, and Misha Dichter as well as a performance of Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 2 under the baton of Leonard Slatkin. Prior to his 1969 Leventritt Award victory, he won the Young Concert Artists auditions and was invited by Leonard Bernstein to perform with the New York Philharmonic in a nationally televised concert. Mr. Kalichstein is a member of Juilliard's piano faculty and holds the school’s first chamber music chair. His latest CD, solo music by Brahms and the Schumanns, has just been released by KOCH International. Paul Kantor (violin artist-faculty) is currently the Eleanor H. Biggs Distinguished Professor of Violin at the Cleveland Institute of Music. A graduate of The Juilliard School, he studied violin with Dorothy DeLay and chamber music with Robert Mann. Mr. Kantor has performed as soloist with numerous symphony orchestras and was a member of the Berkshire Chamber Players and the New York, Lenox, and New Haven string quartets. He has served as concertmaster of six ensembles, including the Aspen Chamber Symphony, New Haven Symphony, and Lausanne Chamber Orchestra. In 1994 Mr. Kantor gave the world premiere of Dan Welcher's Violin Concerto, commissioned by the Aspen Music Festival and School in honor of Dorothy DeLay. Mr. Kantor has presented master classes at the Eastman School of Music, Indiana University, and the New World Symphony, among others. For several years he held concurrent appointments at the Yale University School of Music, New England Conservatory, Juilliard, and the University of Michigan School of Music. In 2008 Mr. Kantor was appointed artist-in-residence at the Glenn Gould School. He has recorded for CRI, Mark Records, Delos, and Equilibrium. Mr. Kantor has been an artist-faculty member of the Aspen Music Festival and School since 1980. Yoheved Kaplinsky (piano artist-faculty), chair of the Juilliard School piano department, began her musical career as a prizewinner in the J. S. Bach International Competition in Washington, D.C. Born in Israel, she studied at the Tel Aviv Music Academy before entering Juilliard as a scholarship student of Irwin Freundlich. She holds master's and doctoral degrees from Juilliard, and awards for scholastic and pianistic achievements. She continued studies with Dorothy Taubman in New York. Ms. Kaplinsky has appeared throughout the U.S. as recitalist, chamber musician, and with orchestras. She has given lectures and master classes in the U.S., Israel, and the Far East. She joined Juilliard's piano faculty in 1993 and has served on the faculties of Baltimore's Peabody Conservatory and the Manhattan School of Music. She teaches regularly at summer festivals, including Maine's Bowdoin, Tel Hai International Master Classes in Israel, Texas Conservatory for Young Artists, the Cliburn Institute, and Long Island's Pianofest. Ms. Kaplinsky adjudicates international competitions, including the Cleveland, Rubinstein, Dublin, Cliburn, and Tchaikovsky competitions. In 2003 she received the Presidential Scholars Teacher Recognition Award. In 2006 she was appointed visiting professor at Texas Christian University, and in 2007 she was appointed artistic director of the Pre-college Division of the Juilliard School. Fumiko Kawasaki (woodwind chamber music faculty) earned her bachelor's degree at the Toho School of Music, subsequently continuing her studies in the United States at the Juilliard School as a scholarship student of Julius Baker. She has won prizes in numerous international competitions, including the NHK Broadcasting Competition, Montreux International Competition, and New York Flute Club Competition. She has appeared as soloist and recitalist in Japan and New York and has recorded on the CBS Sony and Nonesuch labels. An active chamber musician, Ms. Kawasaki has been a frequent guest of the Chamber Music of the Northwest and Aspen music festivals. She has also been a member of the Japan Philharmonic and has toured with the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra and the Saito-Kinen Orchestra under the direction of Seiji Ozawa. Ms. Kawasaki has been an artist-faculty member of the Aspen Music Festival and School since 1990. Masao Kawasaki (violin and viola artist-faculty), leads an exciting and versatile international career as soloist, recitalist, chamber musician, orchestral musician, and pedagogue of violin and viola. His excellence in teaching was acknowledged in 2004 when he received the prestigious Presidential Scholars Program Teacher Recognition Award.Mr. Kawasaki performs extensively as soloist with numerous orchestras throughout Europe, Asia, and North America including appearances with NHK Symphony Orchestra, Tokyo Metropolitan Orchestra, Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra, Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra, Aspen Festival Orchestra, Miyazaki International Music Festival Orchestra, Mito Chamber Orchestra, and in Carnegie Hall with the Cincinnati Philharmonia Orchestra.He has recorded for CBS/Sony, EMI, Nonesuch, and Phillips labels. Mr. Kawasaki is frequently invited to serve on juries of international competitions including Yehudi Menuhin International Violin Competition, Tertis International Viola Competition, and national violin and viola competitions in Japan and China.Mr. Kawasaki is a member of the violin/viola faculty of The Juilliard School, holds the Geraldine B. Gee Chair for viola at the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music, is Chairman of the String Department at the Conservatory of Music at Brooklyn College, and is a member of the violin/viola faculty of the Aspen Music Festival and School. Alexander Kerr (violin artist-faculty) is a versatile and expressive performer. In 1996, at age twenty-six, he was appointed to the prestigious position of concertmaster of Amsterdam's Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra. After nine successful years in that post he left to assume the endowed Linda and Jack Gill Chair in Music as professor of violin at the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music. At thirty-six he became the string department's youngest violin professor. In addition to his teaching responsibilities, Mr. Kerr maintains a busy concert schedule, appearing with orchestras and in recital and chamber music performances throughout the U.S., Asia, and Europe. Mr. Kerr has enjoyed numerous successful appearances as soloist with such conductors as Mariss Jansons, Riccardo Chailly, Bernard Haitink, David Zinman, Alan Gilbert, and Robert Spano. He was raised in Alexandria, Virginia, where he began violin studies at age seven with members of the National Symphony Orchestra. Mr. Kerr continued to study with Sally Thomas at the Juilliard School and with Aaron Rosand at the Curtis Institute of Music, where he received his Bachelor of Music degree. Eric Kim (cello artist-faculty) has a diverse career performing throughout the United States, Europe, South America, and Middle and Far East as a recitalist, chamber musician, and soloist with orchestra.
Having made his solo debut at age fifteen with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Mr. Kim was the featured soloist with the Juilliard Orchestra on its critically acclaimed tour of the Far East, and has appeared as soloist with the symphony orchestras of Cincinnati, Denver, and San Diego. Mr. Kim served as principal cello of the Cincinnati Symphony from 1989-2009, and has held principal cello positions with the San Diego and Denver symphonies. Mr. Kim has also made several recordings for the RCA, EMI, Telarc, and Koch labels. Mr. Kim received his Bachelor and Master of Music degrees from The Juilliard School where he studied with Leonard Rose, Lynn Harrell, and Channing Robbins. Upon graduation, Mr. Kim received the first William Schuman Prize, awarded for outstanding leadership and achievement in music. Mr. Kim is newly appointed Professor of Music at the Jacobs School of Music, Indiana University. He is also a Valade Program teacher at the Interlochen Center for the Arts and an artist-faculty member at the Aspen Music Festival and School. Stephen King (voice artist-faculty, baritone) is professor of voice and chair of vocal studies at the Shepherd School of Music at Rice University. Additionally, he holds the Blanton Chair at Houston Grand Opera, where he teaches the singers of the Opera Studio. Mr. King has enjoyed a diverse singing career with performances ranging from opera in Rome to song recitals in China and throughout the U.S. Particularly noted for his ability in the high baritone repertory, Mr. King was winner of the Anne Marie Gerts Prize in the NATS Artist Awards and has appeared as soloist with more than twenty orchestras, including the Louisville Orchestra, the West Virginia Symphony, Rochester Symphony, the Charlotte Symphony, the Jacksonville Symphony, the Lexington Philharmonic, the Cayuga Chamber Orchestra, and the Bach Aria Festival at Stony Brook. An internationally recognized teacher, Mr. King has taught students in Rome, Beijing, and Xiamen (China) and was recently guest teacher for Moscow's International School of Vocal Arts. In June 2007, Mr. King was a master teacher for the NATS Foundation Teacher Intern Program. His students have been invited to sing in some of this country's most prestigious programs for young artists including Chicago, Houston, Merola, Marilyn Horne's Wings of Song, Wolftrap, the Ravinia Festival, and Glimmerglass. His students appear with opera companies that include the Metropolitan Opera, Chicago Lyric, San Francisco, Houston Grand, Los Angeles, Boston Lyric, Seattle, Madrid, Tel Aviv, Cincinnati, Santa Fe, Montreal, and Toronto. Mr. King lives in Houston, Texas with wife, Amy, and sons Matthew and Stewart. Wolfram Koessel (cello artist-faculty), since his critically acclaimed Carnegie Hall debut in 1994, has embarked on a diverse career as a soloist, recitalist and chamber musician, performing internationally in the world's most distinguished concert halls. In 2006 Mr. Koessel joined the American String Quartet, internationally recognized as one of the world's finest quartets. He is on the cello and chamber music faculty at the Manhattan School of Music. Appointed as musical director of the Mark Morris Dance Group in 2004 Mr. Koessel has toured extensively with the company, performing hundreds of concerts with the company worldwide. His collaborations include performances with legendary tabla virtuoso Zakir Hussain, Jazz pianist Ethan Iverson, dancer Mikhail Baryshnikov, among many others. Based in New York City, Mr. Koessel appears with a wide range of ensembles and chamber music groups, most notably and frequently with the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra. Upcoming performances in the 2008/09 season will lead Mr. Koessel to Germany, South America, China, Japan and many cities in the United States. Mr. Koessel resides with his wife, pianist, and writer J. Mae Barizo, in Manhattan. Albert Laszlo (bass artist-faulty) is associate professor of bass at the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music. Born of Hungarian parents, he received his early training on the violin and began bass studies at the age of twelve. He later studied cello with George Neikrug and Stephen Kates. A scholarship student of Homer Mensch at The Juilliard School, Mr. Laszlo received Bachelor and Master of Music degrees in bass. He was a fellowship student of Eugene Levinson at the Aspen Music Festival and School. Mr. Laszlo has served as principal bass of both the National Chamber Orchestra of New York and I Solisti New York. In 1985 he became the principal bass of the Columbus Symphony Orchestra and has appeared as a featured soloist with the CSO. Since joining the CCM faculty in 1992, Mr. Laszlo has performed chamber music with members of the faculty both in Cincinnati and in New York's Merkin Hall. An artist-faculty member of the Aspen Music Festival and School since 1994, he serves as principal bass of the Aspen Chamber Symphony and performs chamber music. Mr. Laszlo joined the Juilliard faculty in 2006. Eugene Levinson (bass artist-faculty), principal bass of the New York Philharmonic, enjoys a worldwide career as soloist and teacher. Born in Kiev, he graduated from the Leningrad Conservatory with a D.M.A., and became its youngest faculty member. Mr. Levinson's recordings are available on the Cala label; earlier recordings, remastered for CD, were released in 2004. A member of the Juilliard School bass faculty since 1985, he was co-chair of the bass department of the Sarasota Music Festival from 1992-2002 and has been co-chair of the bass faculty of the Aspen Music Festival and School since 1979. Many of his students are members of the world's prestigious orchestras. Mr. Levinson has led master classes and workshops at Tokyo's Toho School of Music, Hague State Conservatory, Madrid's Reina Sofia Superior, and Lausanne's Conservatory of Music. Mr. Levinson joined the New York Philharmonic in 1985 and has appeared frequently as soloist. He has performed the Koussevitzky and Tubin concertos and appeared in a PBS Live from Lincoln Center broadcast of Per questa bel a mano with Thomas Quasthoff. Mr. Levinson received the 2003 Special Recognition Award in Orchestral Performance from the International Society of Bassists. He has written a technical method book entitled The School of Agility. Gary Levinson (violin artist-faculty), senior associate concertmaster of the Dallas Symphony Orchestra, was chosen at age twenty-one by Zubin Mehta to join the New York Philharmonic. Mr. Levinson made his New York Philharmonic solo debut in 1991, the same year he earned his Master of Music degree at the Juilliard School. His teachers included Dorothy DeLay, Masao Kawasaki, Glenn Dicterow, and Felix Galimir. A laureate of the Jacques Thibaud and Romano Romanini International Violin competitions, Mr. Levinson toured Italy last spring, opening the chamber music season of the Fondazione di Romano Romanini Recital Series with a solo recital at Teatro San Carlo. Mr. Levinson's chamber music collaborators have included renowned artists Yo-Yo Ma, Lukas Foss, Lynn Harrell, Eugenia Zukerman, and Christopher O'Riley. As first violin of the Elysium String Quartet, he recorded two critically acclaimed CDs and toured Greece as part of the first annual Mykonos International Music Festival. His recordings have been released on the Cala, New World, and Elysium Records labels. As a member of Trio Virtuosi with Eugenia Zukerman and Adam Neiman, Mr. Levinson tours extensively in the U.S. and Europe. Espen Lilleslatten (violin artist-faculty) is currently concertmaster of the Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra, a post to which he was appointed in 1994. He began studying the violin at age five with his father, then violist with the Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra. He received his Bachelor of Music degree from the Norwegian State Academy of Music; his Master of Music degree from Rice University's Shepherd School of Music, where he studied with Camilla Wicks; and an Artist Diploma in chamber music from the San Francisco Conservatory of Music as a student of Ian Swensen. Mr. Lilleslåtten, who also performs as a chamber musician, has participated in music festivals worldwide, among them Finland's Kuhmo Festival, the Lapland Festival in Sweden, the Banff Festival for the Arts in Canada and the Aspen Music Festival. Among the artists with whom he has performed chamber music are the late Isaac Stern, Menahem Pressler, Sylvia Rosenberg, Bonnie Hampton, Natalia Gutman, Lynn Harrell, Joshua Bell, and Joel Krosnick. Mr. Lilleslåtten appears frequently as soloist with the Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra. He also performs regularly in recitals at the historic homes of Edvard Grieg and legendary violinist Ole Bull. Cho-Liang Lin (violin artist-faculty) is renowned for appearances as a soloist with major orchestras, as well as in recital and chamber music peformances. Musical America named Mr. Lin its Instrumentalist of the Year in 2000. Apart from conventional repertoire, Mr. Lin continues his advocacy for contemporary music by presenting the world premiere of Taiwanese composer Gordon Chin's Double Concerto with cellist Felix Fan and the San Diego Symphony conducted by Jahja Ling, as well as Chinese composer Bright Sheng's Three Fantasies at the Library of Congress with pianist Andre-Michel Schub. He is also Music Director of La Jolla Music Society's SummerFest, where he has helped commission and premiere works by Chen Yi, Chick Corea, Philip Glass, John Harbison, Mark O'Connor, and Esa-Pekka Salonen among others. Mr. Lin's recordings have won such awards as Gramophone's Record of the Year, as well as two Grammy Award nominations. Mr. Lin studied with Dorothy DeLay at The Juilliard School. Within two years of his enrollment, Mr. Lin won the first Queen Sofia Violin Competition in Madrid. He has been a member of the Juilliard faculty since 1991 and in addition has recently joined the faculty of Rice University's Shepherd School of Music. Raymond Mase (trumpet and brass chamber music artist-faculty) is a distinguished soloist, chamber artist, orchestral player, and teacher. A member of the American Brass Quintet since 1973, he has performed worldwide, premiered over 100 new brass works, and contributed countless editions of sixteenth, seventeenth, and nineteenth-century brass music to the ABQ library and their highly acclaimed recordings. He has appeared as soloist with the American Composers Orchestra, Boston Pops, Moscow Soloists, New York Virtuosi, Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, Summit Brass, at the Bethlehem Bach and Aspen Music Festivals, and in recitals with the popular trumpet and organ duo Toccatas & Flourishes.Mr. Mase is principal trumpet of the New York City Ballet Orchestra and chair of the brass department at The Juilliard School. He has served on the board of directors of Chamber Music America and has been an Aspen Music Festival and School artist-faculty member since 1973. He can be heard on more than 100 recordings and appears as soloist on the Albany, Deutsche Grammophon, Summit, Koch, Troy, Cambria, MHS, and Furious Artisans labels. Kathleen Mattis (viola artist-faculty) has been associate principal viola of the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra since the age of twenty-one. Ms. Mattis has appeared frequently as soloist under such conductors as Leonard Slatkin, Raymond Leppard, David Robertson, and Bernard Klee and has received critical acclaim for her premieres of many works for viola. She was a winner of the Musical Merit Foundation award and has appeared as soloist in the U. S. and Europe on the NPR and BBC radio networks. Ms. Mattis, an avid chamber musician, was a founding member of the Trio Cassatt and the Amabile Piano Quartet, with whom she toured nationally for many years. In addition to her association with the Aspen Music Festival and School, she has also participated in the festivals of Adamant (Vermont), Ouray (Colorado), and Santa Barbara. She has recorded chamber music for the Vox, Laurel, and Summit labels. Ms. Mattis, a soloist on the touring roster of the Missouri Arts Council, recently commissioned and premiered a suite for viola and percussion by Christian Woehr. She graduated magna cum laude from the University of Southern California and was principal violist of the New York String Seminar under Alexander Schneider. Robert McDuffie (violin master class artist-faculty) has appeared with most of the major orchestras of the world, including the New York and Los Angeles philharmonics, the Chicago, San Francisco, and Atlanta symphonies, and the Philadelphia, Cleveland, Leipzig Gewandhaus, and the Santa Cecilia orchestras. His 2008-09 season includes performances of the Rozsa Concerto and the Bernstein Serenade with the Jerusalem Symphony in Jerusalem and the U.S. Future engagements include the premiere of The American Four Seasons, a new work by Philip Glass written for Mr. McDuffie. He will tour in Europe, North America, and Asia with the Amsterdam Sinfonietta, pairing the new work with Vivaldi's Four Seasons. Mr. McDuffie will record both works for Telarc. Mr. McDuffie is a distinguished university professor of music at Mercer University in his hometown of Macon, Georgia. The Robert McDuffie Center for Strings at Mercer University had its official opening at the beginning of the 2007-08 academic year. He is the founder and artistic director of the Rome Chamber Music Festival and returns there each year. The mayor of Rome recently awarded Robert McDuffie the prestigious Premio Simpatia in recognition of his contribution to the cultural life of that city. Michael Mermagen (cello artist-faculty) made his debut at the age of sixteen with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra after being the recipient of its Young Soloist’s Award. He began his studies at the Peabody Preparatory where he studied with Paula Skolnick-Childress and Mihaly Virizlay. Principal teachers in college were Stephen Kates at The Peabody Conservatory and Zara Nelsova at The Juilliard School. He was a soloist with the National Orchestra of New York, where he held the prestigious Emanuel Feuermann principal cello chair. He also performed in the Violoncello Society of New York Master Classes lead by Yo-Yo Ma, Janos Starker, and Bernard Greenhouse. His chamber music appearances have included tours with the Aspen Ensemble, the American Chamber Players, and the Arista Piano Trio. As an artist-faculty member at the Aspen Music Festival and School, he has been principal cellist of the Aspen Chamber Symphony for nearly twenty seasons. He has been heard on WQXR’s Concerts Plus, WNYC’s Around New York, APM’s Performance Today, and A Prairie Home Companion with Garrison Keillor. He is currently assistant professor of cello at the Catholic University of America. He performs on a Nicolo Gagliano cello, Naples, 1774. Kenneth Merrill (Aspen Opera Theater Center) is currently on the coaching faculty of the Juilliard Vocal Arts Department and often acts as musical director of the Juilliard Opera Center and Juilliard Opera Theater productions. He is a faculty member of the Manhattan School of Music, where he teaches song repertoire, accompanying, and vocal-instrumental ensemble. He has conducted productions of Britten's The Burning Fiery Furnace, John Gay's The Beggar's Opera, Mozart's The Impresario, Handel's Acis and Galatea, Monteverdi's L'incoronazione di Poppea, Cavalli's Calisto, and Rossini's La Cenerentola with the Juilliard Opera Center. Mr. Merrill has collaborated in concert with such artists as Gerard Souzay, Anna Moffo, Robert Merrill, Eleanor Steber, James King, Jan DeGaetani, John Aler, Neil Rosenshein, Paul Groves, Charlotte Hellekant, Faith Esham, Ruth Golden, and Jeanette Thompson. He is associated with Regina Resnik Presents, presenting recitals built around specific composers or themes, accompanied with narrations by Mme. Resnik. As harpsichordist and organist, he has appeared in many early music concerts, particularly with Baroque ensemble Affetti Musicali, which he helped found in 1992. He has performed continuo in nearly all Mozart and Rossini operas and in many Handel operas. He has been associated with the Aspen Music Festival and School since 1980. Edgar Meyer (bass artist-faculty) enjoys an active career as both performer and composer. Mr. Meyer's technique and musicianship in combination with his gift for composition have brought him to the fore, where he is appreciated by a vast, varied audience.  His collaborations include performance and recording projects with numerous artists such as Yo-Yo Ma, Sam Bush, Jerry Douglas, Mark O'Connor, Béla Fleck, Mike Marshall, Chris Thile, Joshua Bell, Hilary Hahn, and the Emerson String Quartet. Mr. Meyer's newest recording, a CD and DVD of original material written and recorded with mandolinist Chris Thile, was released this fall. Other recent recordings include a self-titled solo recording, for which he wrote and played all of the instruments himself, and a compilation recording drawn from his previous recordings, including several pieces that were included in Ken Burn's new series The War. In the 2006–07 season, he premiered a triple concerto for bass, banjo, and tabla with Béla Fleck and Zakir Hussain for the opening of Nashville's Schermerhorn Symphony Center and a piece for bass and piano performed with Emanuel Ax. Mr. Meyer began studying bass at age five with his father and then continued with Stuart Sankey. His awards include multiple Grammys, the Avery Fisher prize, and a 2002 MacArthur Grant. Anton Nel (piano artist-faculty), winner of the 1987 Naumburg International Piano Competition, continues to enjoy a remarkable career that has taken him throughout the Americas, Europe, Asia, and South Africa since his debut at age twelve with Beethoven’s C major Concerto after only two years of study. Highlights in the U.S. include performances with the Cleveland Orchestra, and the Chicago, San Francisco, Seattle, and Detroit symphonies, as well as recitals in major venues coast to coast. Recent highlights overseas include debuts at London’s Wigmore Hall, Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw, and Tokyo’s Suntory Hall. Mr. Nel has appeared at a number of festivals, including Ravinia, Mostly Mozart, and Blossom. Other engagements this summer include several performances under the auspices of the San Francisco Symphony, the Seattle Chamber Music Festival, the Mainly Mozart Festival in San Diego, and the Britt Festival in Oregon where he will be featured in Mozart’s Piano Concerto in C major, K. 503. Mr. Nel has recorded 15 CDs, and is professor of piano and chamber music at the University of Texas at Austin where he heads the division of keyboard studies. Mr. Nel made his Aspen Music Festival debut in 1988 and joined the faculty in 1997. His website is www.antonnel.com. Beth Newdome (violin artist-faculty), associate professor of violin at Florida State University, joined the faculty in 2002 following a seventeen-year association with major symphony orchestras in the United States, culminating in her position as associate concertmaster of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra. Ms. Newdome studied with Charles Castleman and earned her bachelor's degree and performer's certificate at the Eastman School of Music. She became assistant concertmaster of the Jacksonville Symphony Orchestra, followed by full-time positions in the Columbus (Ohio) and Dallas symphony orchestras. Since 2002 Ms. Newdome has been invited to tour with the Israel Philharmonic, Dallas Symphony, and the World Orchestra for Peace. As a member of the Georgian Chamber Players with Atlanta Symphony string principals, she collaborates with nationally and internationally acclaimed soloists in their series in Atlanta and at Spivey Hall in Georgia's Clayton State College and University. She also appears in concerts throughout the U.S. as a member of the Inman Piano Trio. In addition to frequent solo performances with orchestras, Ms. Newdome has appeared numerous times at Carnegie Hall as a chamber musician and as a member of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra. In summers she is a guest artist with the Amelia Island Chamber Music Festival. David Newman has scored over 100 films in the twenty years of his career, ranging from films such as War of the Roses, Hoffa, Bowfinger, and Heathers, to the more recent The Spirit, Serenity, and Ice Age. He has an Academy Award nomination for his score to the animated feature, Anastasia and was also the first composer to have his piece, 1001 Nights, performed in the Los Angeles Philharmonic's FILMHARMONIC Series, conducted by Esa-Pekka Salonen. In 1987, Robert Redford selected Mr. Newman as musical director of the Sundance Institute. During his tenure he wrote an original score and conducted the Utah Symphony Orchestra for the classic silent motion picture, Sunrise, which opened the Sundance Film Festival in 1989. As a benefit for the Film Music Preservation Program at Sundance, he began to conduct a series of concerts with orchestras including the Utah Symphony, The Los Angeles Philharmonic at the Hollywood Bowl, and the American Symphony in New York. In 2005, Mr. Newman conducted the Los Angeles Philharmonic in a subscription series of concerts at the Walt Disney Concert Hall. Mr. Newman has conducted at the Hollywood Bowl for the last three seasons and will conduct again this year. Mr. Newman composed a Woodwind Quintet Concerto for the Long Beach Symphony Orchestra all during their 2006-07 season. There was a single movement performed at each concert, and the entire piece was performed 2007 in Long Beach and at the Spoleto Festival, USA in 2008 with the Inami Winds, Emmanuel Villaume conducting. Mr. Newman also composed and conducted Yoko and the Tooth Fairy, a children's melodrama, at the Crossroads School where his daughter attended high school. In 2005, the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra performed his composition Songs of My Father. It was also performed at the Grant Park Festival and the Spoleto Festival, USA that same year. Mr. Newman is also President of the American Youth Symphony, a forty-three year-old pre-professional orchestra based in Los Angeles. Gayletha Nichols (Aspen Opera Theater Center) joined the artistic staff of the Metropolitan Opera in the fall of 2000 as executive director of the National Council Auditions. She has brought to the Met more than two decades of experience as singer, teacher, and career advisor. From 1992 to 2000 she was director of Houston Opera Studio, the young artist development program at Houston Grand Opera, where she created and individualized the training for both singers and pianists. During the 2001-02 and 2002-03 seasons, she was director of both the Lindemann Young Artist Development Program and MONC. Ms. Nichols auditions hundreds of singers across North America every year and in her travels addresses many universities, conservatories, and festivals on developing the next generation of opera singers. She is a frequent adjudicator in national and international competitions and consults for other young artist programs across the country. Barli Nugent (director of chamber music), flutist, is the Assistant Dean of the Juilliard School, where she oversees Juilliard's chamber music, faculty mentoring, scholastic distinction, and colloquium programs, teaches secondary flute in the jazz division and teaches the graduate career development seminar. Ms. Nugent is also the Program Director for the 2008 Emerson Quartet International Chamber Music Workshop. Receiving bachelor's and master's degrees from Juilliard, and a PhD from the State University of New York at Stony Brook, she studied with Julius Baker, Samuel Baron, Harold Bennett, Marcel Moyse, and Jean Whiton. A founding member of the Aspen Wind Quintet, winners of the 1984 Naumburg Chamber Music Award, Ms. Nugent performed over 1,000 concerts with the quintet throughout the United States, Europe, the former Soviet Union, and North Africa. Principal flute of the Concordia Orchestra under conductor Marin Alsop for eighteen years, she taught at the Bennington Chamber Music Conference and gave master classes at the Chautauqua Institution, Beijing's Central Conservatory, Xinghai Conservatory, Shenzhen Conservatory, National Conservatory of Algiers, Vilnius Conservatory, and the Aarhus Conservatory. Ms. Nugent is director of chamber music for the Aspen Music Festival and School. John O'Conor (piano artist-faculty) has earned a reputation as a masterful interpreter of the Classic and early-Romantic repertoires. Following initial studies in his native Dublin he studied in Vienna with the renowned pedagogue Dieter Weber, won first prize at the Beethoven International Piano Competition in Vienna in 1973 and made a special study of Beethoven with the legendary German pianist Wilhelm Kempff. Since then Mr. O'Conor has toured the world playing recitals and concertos and makes regular visits to Europe, the U.S., Japan, Korea, and China. Mr. O'Conor's recordings on the Telarc label have brought him particular renown. CD Review described his box set of the complete Beethoven sonatas as "Beethoven playing at its best." The New York Times named his recording of the Beethoven bagatelles the best available. Mr. O'Conor's recording of the John Field nocturnes spent many weeks on the Billboard charts, and recently he recorded the complete Beethoven piano concertos with the London Symphony Orchestra conducted by Andreas Delfs. For his services to music Mr. O'Conor has been decorated with L'ordre des arts et des lettres by the French government, the Ehrenkreuz für Wissenschaft und Kunst by the Austrian government, and many other awards. Theodore Oien (clarinet artist-faculty) has been principal clarinetist of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra since 1988. After studies with Richard Waller and Robert Marcellus, he received Bachelor and Master of Music degrees from the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music. A concerto soloist with the Detroit Symphony at Orchestra Hall and Meadow Brook, Mr. Oien has performed Copland's Clarinet Concerto under the composer and participated in the 1999 Lincoln Center concert featuring principal players from major orchestras of fifty nations, honoring the 50th Anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. He has recorded extensively for Chandos with the Detroit Symphony and appeared as featured artist at the 1994 and 1998 International Clarinet Association's ClarinetFests. Mr. Oien has taught at the universities of Manitoba, Denver, Michigan, Michigan State, and Wayne State; presented master classes in Ohio, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Louisiana, Florida and Ontario; and adjudicated competitions across the U.S. and Canada. A founding member of CutTime Players and a Buffet Crampon and Pyne/Clarion Artist, he is a long-standing artist-faculty member of Wayne State University and the Aspen Music Festival and School. John Perry (piano artist-faculty) earned his bachelor's and master's degrees at the Eastman School of Music as a student of Cecile Genhard; during those summers he worked with Frank Mannheimer. Recipient of a Fulbright scholarship, he worked with Wladyslav Kendra in Vienna and Carol Zecchi in Rome. Winner of numerous prizes in international competitions, Mr. Perry has performed extensively throughout Europe and North America. As a chamber musician he has collaborated with some of the world's finest instrumentalists and enjoys an international reputation as a teacher, presenting master classes throughout the world. His students have been first-prize winners in major competitions, including the Rubinstein, Naumburg, and Chopin National, and those of the Music Teachers' National Association, Beethoven Foundation, Federated Music Clubs, Young Keyboard Artists Association, American Music Society, and the Young Musicians Foundation; they have also been finalists in the Chopin International, Van Cliburn, and Queen Elisabeth competitions. Mr. Perry is a member of the faculty of the Thornton School of Music at the University of Southern California, the Colburn School for Performing Arts in Los Angeles, and the Idyllwild Arts Academy in Idyllwild, California. He also serves as a visiting artist-faculty member at the Toronto Royal Conservatory of Music, a guest faculty member at the Banff Centre, and an artist-faculty member at the Aspen Music Festival, the Sarasota Festival, and the Holland Music Sessions. He records on the Telefunken, Musical Heritage Society, CBC, Fox, ADA, and Academy Records labels. Michael Powell (trombone artist-faculty) is one of the most sought after trombonists in New York City. For twenty-seven years Mr. Powell has been a member of the celebrated American Brass Quintet. He performs and records regularly with the Orchestra of St. Luke's, the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, Little Orchestra Society, and Aspen Festival Orchestra. Mr. Powell has performed as soloist with the Orchestra of St. Luke's, Kansas City Philharmonic, the Aspen Music Festival, and the New Hampshire Music Festival. He also performs on Broadway, records for radio, television, and cinema, and appears on over sixty recordings as trombonist. He frequently appears with such diverse ensembles as the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, Speculum Musicae, The New York Chamber Symphony, the Zankel Band of Carnegie Hall, Music Today, Musical Elements, the Classical Band, Professor Peter Schickele's New York Pick-Up Ensemble, and Tidewater Quintet. From 1978 to 1982 he was principal trombonist of the Kansas City Philharmonic. Mr. Powell has commissioned, premiered, and recorded solo works by Eric Ewazen, Steven Sacco, and Robert Martin. He is on the faculties of The Juilliard School, SUNY at Stony Brook, Mason Gross School of the Arts at Rutgers University, and the Aspen Music School. Lynne Ramsey (viola artist-faculty) has served as first assistant principal viola of the Cleveland Orchestra since 1989. A graduate of the Juilliard School, where she earned her bachelor's and master's degrees, she has also served as principal violist with the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra and the Rochester Philharmonic. Ms. Ramsey has appeared as soloist with several ensembles throughout the United States and she was the first foreigner to perform the Walton Viola Concerto in Beijing's Concert Hall. She has served on the faculties of the Oberlin Conservatory, Cleveland Institute of Music, and Duquesne University and in summer she teaches at the Aspen Music Festival and School and the Encore School for Strings. Louis Ranger (trumpet artist-faculty) began his professional career at age twenty when he joined the American Brass Quintet. Later in that same season Leopold Stokowski invited him to join the American Symphony Orchestra. He soon became principal trumpet of the Musica Aeterna Orchestra, which performed regularly at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and later joined the New York Philharmonic as co-principal trumpet. He currently maintains a busy schedule as performer and teacher. He is professor of trumpet at the University of Victoria School of Music in Victoria, British Columbia, and has been a guest lecturer at the orchestral training program maintained by L'Orchestre de Paris. His solo and chamber music performances are frequently broadcast by the CBC network. Mr. Ranger has performed with such diverse ensembles as the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, Boston Symphony Orchestra, Orchestre de la Suisse Romande in Geneva, Switzerland, Speculum Musicae, Berlin Philharmonic, Casals Festival Orchestra, New York City Opera Orchestra, Bach Aria Group, and Contemporary Chamber Ensemble. He studied at Boston University with Armando Ghitalla and received his bachelor's degree from The Juilliard School, where he studied with William Vacchiano. Jack Renner (Edgar Stanton Audio Recording Institute) is an active recording engineering consultant and free-lance recording engineer, educator, and public speaker, who has received 23 Grammy nominations and won 11 Grammy awards for recording engineering in both classical and jazz. The retired Chairman, CEO, and Chief Recording Engineer of Telarc Records, he is an internationally recognized exponent and practitioner of minimal microphone technique and a pioneer in using the digital recording process to commercially record jazz and classical music. He received his bachelor's degree and completed graduate studies at the Ohio State University School of Music, where he was named an outstanding alumnus in 1990. Appointed to the faculty of the Cleveland Institute of Music in 1986 as an adjunct professor of recording engineering, he was awarded an honorary Doctor of Musical Arts by that institution in 1997. He also is active as a teacher at the Aspen Music Festival and School where he is co-chair of the Edwin Stanton Audio Recording Institute. In 2004, the American Bandmasters Association awarded Renner the Edwin Franko Goldman Citation for his longtime work in the promotion and encouragement of concert band music in America, and in 2007, Mix Magazine named him as one of the thirty people who shaped sound in the previous thirty years. John D. Rojak (bass trombone and brass chamber music artist-faculty) is bass trombonist of the American Brass Quintet. A member of the Orchestra of St. Luke's, New York Pops, IRIS, Little Orchestra Society, and Stamford Symphony, he has also performed as a substitute with the Cleveland Orchestra and Los Angeles Philharmonic. He has performed and recorded with the New York Philharmonic, Orpheus, New York Chamber Symphony, and Solisti New York. Mr. Rojak was the first bass trombonist to be artist-in-residence at Quad City Arts. He has been featured at the International Trombone Federation workshops in Champaign-Urbana, Boulder, and Salt Lake City and has given master classes and recitals in the U.S., Japan, and Mexico. He also played for the hit Broadway shows Les Misérables, The Producers,and Sugar Babies. Solo recordings include The Romantic Bass Trombone for MMC Records and Rhapsody for bass trombone by Eric Ewazen for Albany Records. He is an adjudicator for competitions, including Concert Artists Guild, Fischoff, and Coleman. Mr. Rojak is a faculty member of Juilliard, Mason Gross School of the Arts at Rutgers, Bard College, NYU, and an artist-faculty member of the Aspen Music Festival and School since 1991. Jeff Rona (Susan and Ford Schumann Film Scoring Program) composes music and scores for films and television series in many styles, from heavy electronics and groove to ambient sound and thematic orchestral works. A student of photography, art, and music, Mr. Rona has composed for dance companies, theater productions, art galleries, and contemporary concert venues in Los Angeles, New York, and worldwide. A member of Jon Hassell's group, he co-composed and produced City-Works of Fiction for Opal/Warner Records. He has designed new electronic instruments and musical software, and was a leading figure in making MIDI a groundbreaking musical phenomenon. His first solo composing project was for the television series Homicide: Life On The Street. Other TV projects have included the enormously successful Chicago Hope, Profiler, Brotherhood, and many films. Mr. Rona worked closely with Steven Spielberg, scoring Dreamworks's first TV series High Incident, and with Robert Altman on his award-winning Gun anthology. Mr. Rona's film work includes work with Ridley Scott, Mark Pellington, Steven Soderbergh, and many others. He has composed the music for the Smithsonian Museum and has begun work for the 2008 Beijing Olympics. Mr. Rona grew up in Culver City, California, the birthplace of America's movie industry, and began studying flute in grade school. Later he composed experimentally with everything from bands and orchestra to sophisticated electronic instruments, and was among the first American musicians to compose and create music with computers and digital synthesizers. His website is www.jeffrona.com. Sylvia Rosenberg (violin artist-faculty) has performed throughout the U.S. and abroad with major orchestras and at the most prestigious summer festivals. A graduate of The Juilliard School, she studied with Ivan Galamian. Ms. Rosenberg worked with Szymon Goldberg, and she received a Fulbright scholarship for study with Nadia Boulanger. Ms. Rosenberg has been professor of violin at the Eastman School of Music, Peabody Conservatory of Music, Indiana University, and Stony Brook State University, and an artist-faculty member at the Aspen Music Festival and School since 1980. She has given numerous master classes worldwide at conservatories, music schools, and universities, and she frequently serves as juror for international competitions. Currently a faculty member of the Manhattan School of Music, Ms. Rosenberg gives annual master classes at London's Royal Academy of Music, from which she recently received an honorary degree. During the spring of 2000 Ms. Rosenberg was invited to give a series of three recitals in Carnegie Hall’s Weill Recital Hall; she has been reengaged for every subsequent season. In the fall of 2007 Ms. Rosenberg joined the faculty of The Juilliard School. Christopher Rouse (Susan and Ford Schumann Center for Composition Studies), winner of the 1993 Pulitzer Prize in music, is one of America's most prominent composers. He was born in Baltimore and graduated from Oberlin Conservatory and Cornell University, having studied with George Crumb and Karel Husa. His music has been programmed by every major U.S. orchestra and many overseas ensembles under the world's most distinguished conductors. David Zinman, Marin Alsop, and Leonard Slatkin number among his consistent champions. Although he has composed a number of chamber works, he is best known for his orchestral scores. Most of Rouse's works have been recorded and appear on labels such as Sony/BMG, Nonesuch, Ondine, BIS, Koch, and Naxos. The Telarc recording of his Symphony No. 2, Flute Concerto, and "Phaethon" was a winner of the Diapason d'Or, and the Teldec recording of his "Concert de Gaudi," a guitar concerto composed for Sharon Isbin, was awarded the 2001 Grammy for Best Contemporary Composition. For two decades Rouse taught composition at the Eastman School of Music; he now serves in the same capacity at the Juilliard School. In Aspen he heads the Susan and Ford Schumann Center for Composition Studies. Lauren Schiff (Alexander Technique) is currently on the faculty of the Juilliard School and Juilliard Opera Center. She served on the faculty of the Metropolitan Opera's Lindemann Young Artist Program from 1998-2004. She has recently been a guest teaching artist at the University of Maryland in the Maryland Opera Studio and Piano Department. Ms. Schiff has given Master classes at Manhattan School of Music, Catholic University, the Metropolitan Opera, the Juilliard School, the International Women's Brass Conference and for many other performing arts and athletic organizations. She has a Bachelor of Music (trumpet) from Northwestern University, a Masters of Music (trumpet) from Manhattan School of Music, and Teacher Certification from the American Center for the Alexander Technique. She is a current member of the American Society for the Alexander Technique. In Aspen, Ms. Schiff teaches classes for the Aspen Opera Theatre Center, for instrumentalists, and for young performers. Additionally she co-directs the Peak Performers Program, a series of seminars for AMFS students. Philip Setzer (violin artist-faculty) was born in Cleveland and began violin studies at age five with his parents, both violinists in the Cleveland Orchestra. He continued his studies with Josef Gingold and Rafael Druian, and then at the Juilliard School with Oscar Shumsky. He won second prize at the 1967 Meriwether Post Competition in Washington, D.C., and in 1976 received a bronze medal at the Queen Elisabeth International Competition in Brussels. He has appeared with the National Symphony, Aspen Chamber Symphony, Memphis Symphony, and the Cleveland Orchestra. Mr. Setzer has also participated in the Marlboro Music Festival and performed with the orchestras of Brussels, Omaha, Anchorage, Richmond, Hartford, and Westchester. He has been a regular faculty member of the Isaac Stern Chamber Music Workshops at Carnegie Hall and the Jerusalem Music Center. His article about those workshops appeared in The New York Times on the occasion of Isaac Stern's eightieth birthday celebration. He is visiting professor of violin and chamber music at State University of New York, Stony Brook, and has given master classes at schools around the world, including the Curtis Institute, London's Royal Academy of Music, San Francisco Conservatory, University of California at Los Angeles, Cleveland Institute of Music, and the Mannes School. In 1989 Mr. Setzer premiered Paul Epstein's Matinee Concerto, written for and dedicated to him. He has since performed the piece in Hartford, New York, Cleveland, Boston, and Aspen. In his spare time he plays the viola and composes. His violin is by Samuel Zygmuntowicz (Brooklyn, 1999). Andrew Shulman (cello) is currently principal cello of the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra. He is the former principal of the Philharmonia, the Academy of St. Martin's and the Los Angeles Philharmonic. The first British winner of the 'Piatigorsky Artist Award', he has performed concertos with the Philharmonia, ASMF, CBSO, LA Philharmonic, Utah Symphony, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, BBC Scottish, Singapore Symphony and many others, accompanied by Sir Simon Rattle, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Franz Welser-Most, Semyon Bychkov, Iona Brown and Giuseppe Sinopoli. He has given recitals at the Wigmore Hall, Buckingham Palace and the Royal Palace in Stockholm, performed the Haydn D, Tchaikovsky 'Rococo' and Strauss' 'Don Quixote at the Royal Festival Hall (with Rattle) and the 'Don' at the Hollywood Bowl (with Salonen). At 21 he was appointed principal of the RLPO, followed by Muti appointing him principal of the Philharmonia at the age of 22. He recorded 26 CD's with the Britten Quartet (EMI and Collins) and solos for Virgin, EMI and Continuum. He was solo 'cello on Elton John's 'Candle in the Wind 1997', the highest selling single ever! Shulman received an 'Honorary RCM' from The Queen Mother in 1986, and subsequently became a professor at the RCM. He has given masterclasses in Europe, Scandinavia, Russia, South America and The Far East. After winning the 'Piatigorsky Artist Award' he returned to the US on numerous occasions to teach and give concerts. Now residing in LA, he has given masterclasses at The Corwin Awards, USC and UCLA. He is a regular guest artist at the Ojai, Aspen and Mainly Mozart summer music festivals, and last season recorded three new cello concertos written for him. As conductor, he has performed extensively in Europe, including world premieres of several major works (he was invited by the Britten-Pears Foundation to conduct the first ever performance of an early work by Britten, with the BPO at the historic 'Snape Maltings'). Shulman also composes, and recently premiered his own 'Smaller Music For Strings' in the UK, as well as collaborating with the legendary Scorpions guitarist Uli Jon Roth in performances in Hollywood, California. His website is www.andrewshulman.com. Murry Sidlin (AACA Associate Director and Program Coordinator) celebrated his thirtieth artist-faculty year at the Aspen Music Festival and School in 2008 where he serves as associate director and program coordinator of the American Academy of Conducting. He has completed his sixth year as dean of the School of Music at Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C., and later this summer will complete thirteen years as artistic director of the Cascade Festival in Oregon. Mr. Sidlin is known for his creative orchestral presentations, Illuminations, concert dramas he writes and conducts often utilizing actors and video. The best known of his twenty-five creations is Defiant Requiem, which will be the subject of a forthcoming documentary film he is developing for PBS. The story focuses on a chorus of prisoners who perform Verdi's Requieum sixteen times at the Terezin concentration camp in 1943-44. In recent seasons Mr. Sidlin has conducted the major orchestras in Bucharest, Monte Carlo, Lithuania, Jerusalem, Madrid, Vancouver, Victoria, Quebec, St. Louis, Minnesota, Seattle, San Francisco, Houston, Baltimore, and numerous others. He has conducted thirteen consecutive New Year's Eve Galas with the National Symphony at the Kennedy Center. Mr. Sidlin has recorded his composer authorized arrangement of Copland's The Tender Land, and more recently Piazzolla's tango opera, Maria de Beunos Aires. He has been featured on the Today Show, Good Morning America, and CBS Sunday Morning and was host and writer-conductor of Music Is on PBS. In 1997 he was named educator of the year by the American Association of Independent Schools of Music. Rita Sloan (piano artist-faculty; director, Collaborative Artists Program) is recognized internationally as soloist, accompanist, chamber musician, and leading teacher of piano and collaborative piano. In 1999 she became a piano faculty member and director of the collaborative piano program at the University of Maryland. At the Aspen Music Festival and School, Ms. Sloan founded and heads the collaborative artists program and was an artist-faculty recipient of one of Aspen's prestigious New Horizons fellowships. During the past year Ms. Sloan presented master classes in universities throughout the U.S. as well as in Seoul, Korea. She is often a guest at such chamber music venues as New York's Bargemusic and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra chamber music series and is also a founding member of the Aspen Ensemble, which has been featured on NPR's Performance Today. A graduate of The Juilliard School, she studied under Martin Canin and Rosina Lhévinne, and coached with Leon Fleisher, Aube Tzerko, and Vladimir Ashkenázy. Jack Smalley (film scoring) studied classical composition at the Paris Conservatory of Music with Edmond Marc and Darius Milhaud—1948-1951. Studied Serial techniques in
W. Stephen Smith (voice artist-faculty, baritone) has been an Dennis Smylie (bass clarinet artist-faculty) received his bachelor's and master's degrees from the Juilliard School, where he studied with Joseph Allard. His other teachers have included Alfred Zetzer, Stephan Freeman, Kalmen Opperman, and Bill Street. He is a member of the American Symphony and the Brooklyn Philharmonic, and has performed with the New York Philharmonic, Metropolitan Opera, New York City Ballet and Opera, Buffalo Philharmonic, Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, St. Louis and Montreal symphonies, and Speculum Musicae. Mr. Smylie was the bass clarinet soloist in the premiere performance and recording of Donald Martino's Triple Concerto. He has given recitals and presentations at Juilliard, Oberlin, Yale, Princeton, Kent State University, Florida State University, and the University of Washington in Seattle, as well as in Salida, Aspen, Weill Recital Hall, and Symphony Space in New York, and the Cleveland Museum of Art. Mr. Smylie has recorded for Deutsche Grammophon, Nonesuch, New World Records, CRI, RCA, and Virgin Classics. Mark Sparks (flute artist-faculty) has firmly established himself as a leading American orchestral flutist and teacher. He was appointed principal flutist of the Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra in 2000. He has performed in both solo and ensemble roles in the U.S., Europe, South America, and Asia with numerous orchestras, including the New York Philharmonic, the Cincinnati Symphony, and the Detroit Symphony, and was associate principal flutist with the Baltimore Symphony under David Zinman. Earlier, he was principal flutist of the San Antonio Symphony, the Memphis Symphony, and the Canton Symphony. He began his career in Venezuela with the Caracas Philharmonic. An alumnus of the Aspen Festival and School, Mr. Sparks is a former student of Nadine Asin. He has been an artist-faculty member and co-principal flute of the Aspen Chamber Symphony and Festival Orchestra since 1993. An enthusiastic teacher, Mr. Sparks maintains a private studio in St. Louis. He is a former full-time faculty member of The Peabody Institute, and has presented master classes and recitals in the U.S. and abroad. Mr. Sparks can be heard on a solo album for the Summit label, as well as the SLSO's recent releases, and with other orchestras on the Telarc, Decca, and Sony labels. Thomas Stubbs (percussion artist-faculty) is currently cymbal specialist and assistant timpanist with the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra, which he joined in 1970. He has been an artist-faculty member of the Aspen Music Festival and School since 1989 and is a member of the percussion faculty at St. Louis University. He is also extensively involved as a clinician for the Zildjian Cymbal Company. Mr. Stubbs graduated in 1970 from the Juilliard School, where he studied with Saul Goodman and was a private student of Buster Bailey. He also studied with Morris Goldenberg at the National Orchestral Association and with George Gaber, Roland Kohloff, Gary Weidersheim, and Rick Holmes in Aspen. He served as principal timpanist during the St. Louis Symphony's 1985 tour and with the orchestra he has recorded extensively for the RCA, Angel/EMI, Telarc, Nonesuch, and Vox labels. He is featured on the premiere recording of Michael Colgrass's Deja vu, a concerto for percussion quartet and orchestra. Several of his former students are now playing professionally with orchestras in Johannesburg and Barcelona; the Florida Philharmonic; the San Francisco, National, Seattle, New Jersey, North Carolina, Detroit, New World, and Birmingham symphonies; and the Army and Marine bands in Washington, D.C. The Takacs Quartet (Edward Dusinberre and Karoly Schranz, violins; Geraldine Walther, viola; Andras Fejer, cello) has been in residence at the University of Colorado, Boulder, since 1983. Now entering its thirtieth-fourth season, the Quartet was formed in 1975 at Budapest's Franz Liszt Academy and has performed repertoire ranging from Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, and Schubert to Bartók, Britten, Dutilleux, Jancek, and Sheng in virtually every music capital in North America, Europe, Australia, and Japan as well as at prestigious festivals, including Aspen, Berlin, Cheltenham, City of London, Mostly Mozart, Ravinia, Salzburg, Schleswig-Holstein, and Tanglewood. The Quartet has made award-winning Decca recordings, including the complete Beethoven Quartets, winner of a Grammy, two Gramophone awards, and three Japan Record Academy chamber music awards. Recent recordings on the Hyperion Records label include Brahms Opus 51 and Opus 67 Quartets and a disc featuring the Schumann Piano Quintet with Marc-André Hamelin. Other highlights of the past season include the world premiere and performances throughout Europe of a quartet written for them by Wolfgang Rihm, three concerts to celebrate the re-opening of New York's Alice Tully Hall, featuring the complete Bartók cycle and a tour to Japan and Korea in June 2009. Naoko Tanaka (violin artist-faculty) was born in Tokyo and began her studies at the Toho School, where she won several prizes and competitions, including the Mainichi Young Musicians Competition. She began her career in the United States at The Juilliard School, where she studied with Dorothy DeLay. Ms. Tanaka is a founding member of the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, an ensemble she has led as concertmaster in performances in Carnegie Hall, throughout North and South America, Europe, and Asia, and on over thirty Deutsche Grammophon recordings. She is also concertmaster of St. Luke's Chamber Ensemble, with whom she has frequently appeared as soloist. She regularly performs as soloist and concertmaster at the Caramoor Festival and has appeared at the Sitka, Ravinia, and Marlboro festivals. Ms. Tanaka has made many recordings for the Columbia, Nonesuch, Musical Heritage, and Deutsche Grammophon labels. She is one of the concertmasters under Seiji Ozawa at the Saito Kinen Festival in Matsumoto, Japan. She is currently a faculty member of The Juilliard School and Brooklyn College. Sabina Thatcher (viola artist-faculty) began her tenure as principal viola of The Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra in 1989. She has been a soloist with The Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra on numerous occasions, performing a wide variety of repertoire including Penderecki's Viola Concerto, Mozart's Sinfonia Concertante, John Harbison's Viola Concerto, and Lachrymae by Benjamin Britten. Thatcher was a member of the Rosalyra String Quartet, which gave their New York debut in 1996, and has released recordings of Bartók, Beethoven, Shostakovich, and Brahms. She has also recorded both Fauré Piano Quartets and the Brahms A major Piano Quartet. Ms. Thatcher is an artist-faculty member at the Aspen Music Festival and School and a distinguished artist and teacher at the Robert McDuffie Center for Strings at Mercer University. Ms. Thatcher was a finalist in the Naumberg International Viola Competition, and has performed solo recitals locally and nationally. Before coming to St. Paul, she graduated from the Eastman School of Music with a Performer's Certificate and distinction and went on to study with Lillian Fuchs at The Juilliard School. During that time she toured with the Brandenburg Ensemble under the direction of Alexander Schneider and was a prize winner in the Hudson Valley Competition. George Tsontakis (Susan and Ford Schumann Center for Composition Studies) has been awarded the Charles Ives Living, given by the American Academy of Arts and Letters and considered the world's richest prize to a composer, within two years of receiving the Grawemeyer Award, widely recognized internationally as the most prestigious composition prize, awarded for his Violin Concerto No. 2. Last season featured over 100 performances of Tsontakis's major works, including numerous performance in Europe and premieres of his Naumburg-commissioned Midnight Rain song cycle for Sari Gruber and Clair de Lune by the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra. His works were scheduled by the Chicago, American, Albany, and Portland symphonies and the St. Paul Chamber and Athens State orchestras. Stephen Hough performed his epic Ghost Variations (Grammy-nominated for Best Composition and Time Magazine's Top Classical Recording of 1999) at the Salzburg Festival and on the Paris-Louvre Series. Continuing his three-year Meet The Composer residency with the Albany Symphony, Tsontakis is also composer-in-residence with the Aspen Music Festival and School. In 2008-09 he will be featured composer-in-residence for the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, writing a work to commemorate the reopening of Alice Tully Hall. His Cathedral was the inaugural work in Aspen's Benedict Music Tent. His music is recorded on Hyperion, Koch, New World, INNOVA, and CRI. Koch issued his monumental Four Symphonic Quartets and recently released two discs of chamber music to great critical acclaim. Three all-Tsontakis orchestral CDs have been or shortly will be released: Man of Sorrows on the Hyperion label and his piano concerto and performances by the St. Paul Chamber and Albany symphonies on Koch. Tsontakis, distinguished composer-in-residence at Bard College Conservatory, has received honors including Kennedy Center Friedheim Awards in both chamber and orchestral music, the 2002 Berlin Prize, and the American Academy Award for lifetime achievement. He studied at the Juilliard School with Roger Sessions and has taught at Aspen since 1976. He founded the Aspen Contemporary Ensemble, which he directed from 1991 to 1999. Joaquin Valdepenas (clarinet artist-faculty) has been a Grammy nominee for the last two years in the chamber music category, the latest nomination featuring the music of Julius Rontgen on the Sony-BMG label. Winner of the 2004 Juno award for best classical recording (Jacques Hetu Concerto), he is principal clarinet of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra. Mr. Valdepeñas appears as soloist, chamber musician, and conductor internationally and has performed at international festivals including Banff, Casals, Curitiba Brazil, Marlboro, Nagano, and Korea's Great Mountains Music Festival. He has collaborated with the American, Calder, Emerson, Muir, Orion, St. Lawrence, Takács, Ying, and Zemlinsky string quartets, and the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. Mr. Valdepeñas made his European debut with the BBC Welsh Symphony on BBC television and has recorded the Mozart Clarinet Concerto with the English Chamber Orchestra. He has recorded extensively as clarinetist and conductor for CBC, Centrediscs, Naxos, RCA, Sony, and Summit and was featured in a PBS documentary about the Aspen Music Festival and School. His next project is a recording of Armenian composers with his chamber music group "Amici". Mr. Valdepeñas is a faculty member of the Glenn Gould School at the Royal Conservatory of Music and the University of Toronto. Juergen Wahl, Ph.D (Edgar Stanton Audio Recording Institute), holds degrees in electronic engineering and economics. He received his early education in Germany and studied at UC Redlands, UCLA Extension, and CSUN (Northridge) in California. He has been principal applications engineer for Neumann and Sennheiser microphones in the USA for many years. From early youth his interest focused on electronics and music, which later determined his professional career. For several years, he worked at Thomas Organ on basic research of electronic keyboard instruments. Later he joined the engineering team at UREI where he was involved in the development of audio signal processing equipment, some with now legendary reputation. After additional years with JBL as applications engineer, he joined Gotham Audio. It was in this capacity that he also specialized on the use of microphones. Mr. Wahl is a Fellow and Life Member of the AES and, until recently, served on the Board of Governors and Membership Committee. He is past chairperson, vice-chair, and committee member of the Los Angeles chapter, and acted as paper session and workshop chair during many AES conventions. As a visiting lecturer, he has presented numerous papers, has given many technical seminars, and conducted workshops for AES chapters and interest groups of diverse backgrounds in the USA, Canada, Latin America, Europe, and the Far East. In 2009 he was awarded a PhD (Doctor Honoris causa) for his life-long dedication to teaching. He has been with the Aspen Music Festival and School since he joined the faculty of their Edgar Stanton Recording Institute in 1989. His lecture tours and master classes included most music conservatories, universities, schools for audio engineers, and selected audiences, such as NARAS, the US Air Force, and the Voice of America. Mr. Wahl is a Life Member of the Society of Broadcast Engineers. David Wakefield (horn artist-faculty), an Aspen Music Festival and School student in 1969 and 1970, joined the American Brass Quintet while at The Juilliard School. He became an Aspen artist-faculty member in 1976. In 1987 he joined the Juilliard faculty and from 1995-2000 was Associate Dean. With the Quintet, Mr. Wakefield has toured worldwide and was one of the first American musicians invited to teach and perform in the People's Republic of China after the Cultural Revolution. As principal horn of the Little Orchestra Society he has performed with the New York and Vienna philharmonics, New York City Ballet, New York City and Metropolitan Opera Orchestras, Orchestra of St. Luke's, and the Opera Orchestra of New York. He has premiered more than 250 new works with the American Composers Orchestra, Parnassus, New Music Consort, and the American Brass Quintet working with composers Robert Beaser, Luciano Berio, Elliott Carter, John Corigliano, Mario Davidovsky, Jacob Druckman, Eric Ewazen, David Sampson, Joan Tower, Virgil Thomson, and Melinda Wagner. Mr. Wakefield presented master classes at Rome's Academy of St. Cecilia from 1991-93 and is the author of A Comprehensive Survey of Orchestral Excerpt Books for Horn. He is on the horn and chamber music faculties at Juilliard. Robert Walters (English horn artist-faculty), solo English horn of the Cleveland Orchestra, made his solo debut with the orchestra in 2006 performing Ned Rorem's English Horn Concerto. He was previously solo English horn with the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra (2000-04) and with the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra. He has performed and recorded with the Philadelphia Orchestra and has appeared in solo engagements with American orchestras including the Chicago and Cincinnati symphony orchestras, and with the Beijing Radio Symphony. Mr. Walters was an active free-lance musician, appearing with numerous ensembles; he performed frequently with James Levine and the Met Chamber Ensemble at Carnegie Hall. He spent five summers at the Marlboro Music Festival and has toured with Musicians from Marlboro. He is a graduate of the Curtis Institute of Music where he was a student of Richard Woodhams; he also studied with John Mack at the Blossom Festival. Mr. Walters has a Master of Fine Arts degree from the graduate writing division of Columbia University. An Aspen Music Festival and School artist faculty member since 2005, he is associate professor of oboe and English horn at the Oberlin College-Conservatory of Music. Bing Wang (violin artist-faculty) joined the Los Angeles Philharmonic as associate concertmaster in 1994 at the age of twenty-six. As a soloist, she has won critical praise for her many appearances with the Philharmonic during the winter season and at the Hollywood Bowl. Recently, Ms. Wang was the soloist at the annual gala concert in collaboration with John Williams. In April 2002, she made her first appearance in China since emigrating to the U.S., performing as soloist with her hometown ensemble, the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra. Active as a chamber musician, Ms. Wang has collaborated with Yefim Bronfman, Emmanuel Ax, Lang Lang, and Jean-Yves Thibaudet, among others. She also performs regularly on the Philharmonic's Green Umbrella and Chamber Music Society series. Ms. Wang began studying the violin with her parents at the age of six. After coming to the United States she studied at The Peabody Conservatory with Berl Senofsky and received her master's degree from the Manhattan School of Music as a student of Glenn Dicterow. In 1991, Ms. Wang joined the Cincinnati Symphony and became principal second violin of that orchestra in January 1993. Virginia Weckstrom (piano, keyboard studies, and chamber music artist-faculty) is a member of the chamber music and collaborative piano faculties at the Cleveland Institute of Music. In September 2008, she began teaching at the Glenn Gould School. Ms. Weckstrom served on the faculty at the Residential College of the University of Michigan for fourteen years, teaching piano and directing the chamber music program there. She also chaired the piano department at the Neighborhood Music School in New Haven and was a founder of the School for Performing Arts in Ann Arbor, creating successful educational programs and concert series at both institutions. Active in both solo and chamber music performances, Ms. Weckstrom has appeared on NPR with the Wall Street Chamber Players, was pianist-harpsichordist with the New Haven Symphony for ten years, and has performed with Michigan's Ann Arbor and Flint symphony orchestras. Ms. Weckstrom received her Bachelor of Arts degree with honors from Western College for Women and her Master of Music degree from the Yale School of Music. Her teachers have included Eleanore Vail, John Kirkpatrick, John Perry, Jacqueline Marcault, and Lilian Kallir. An alumna of the Aspen Music Festival and School, this is Ms. Weckstrom’s thirtieth season as an artist-faculty member. Peter Winograd (violin and string chamber music artist-faculty) as born into a musical family and began his studies with his parents. His father was the founding cellist of the Juilliard Quartet; his mother a professional pianist. Mr. Winograd gave his first public solo performance at age eleven; at seventeen he became a scholarship student of Dorothy DeLay at the Juilliard School. He was a top prizewinner in the 1988 Naumburg International Violin Competition. Since his acclaimed New York debut, he has appeared with orchestras and in recital across the country. Mr. Winograd joined the American String Quartet in 1990; he continues his appearances as soloist in the U.S. and abroad. Recent solo highlights include performances in Brussels, Helsinki, Parma, and the Great Hall at the Moscow Conservatory. This season he performed the Sibelius Violin Concerto with the Hartford Symphony under his father, Arthur Winograd, as featured guest conductor. Mr. Winograd is a member of the violin and chamber music faculties of the Manhattan School of Music and the Aspen Music Festival and School. His wife, violinist Caterina Szepes, participates regularly at the Marlboro Festival and is a member of the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra. His instrument is by Giovanni Maria del Bussetto (Cremona, 1675). Richard Woodhams (oboe artist-faculty) an Aspen Music Festival and School artist-faculty member since 2000, has appeared as a soloist with the Philadelphia Orchestra, where he is principal oboist, on numerous occasions throughout the United States and in Asia. In the last decade he has given premieres of chamber works by William Bolcom, Chuck Holdeman, Thea Musgrave, Ned Rorem, Adam Wernick, and Ellen Taafe Zwilich. He has also collaborated in chamber music with many notable musicians including Christoph Eschenbach, Itzhak Perlman, Jean-Yves Thibaudet, and the Guarneri, Shaghai, and Tokyo string quartets. He participates regularly in La Jolla's Sommerfest Music Festival. Mr. Woodhams is a graduate of the Curtis Institute where he studied with John de Lancie, and has been on its faculty since 1985 teaching both the oboe and woodwind orchestral repertoire. His former students occupy prominent positions in orchestras both in the U.S. and abroad. He began his career with the Saint Louis Symphony, appointed by Walter Susskind, and first appeared as a soloist at the Aspen Music Festival in 1977 performing the Richard Strauss's Oboe Concerto with James Conlon conducting. Stephen Wyrczynski (viola artist-faculty) has been a member of the Philadelphia Orchestra since 1992. He began violin studies at age eight and viola studies in 1983. His teachers include Robert de Pasquale, Kim Kashkashian, Karen Tuttle, and Joseph de Pasquale. In 1998 Mr. Wyrczynski received a bachelor's degree from The Juilliard School, where he was a teaching assistant to Ms. Tuttle, and then returned to Philadelphia to earn a performance diploma from the Curtis Institute of Music. Active as a chamber musician, Mr. Wyrczynski has performed with members of the Tokyo, Brentano, and St. Lawrence string quartets and has participated in the Casals Festival, Newport Music Festival, El Paso Pro Musica, Grand Teton Music Festival, and Tanglewood. His solo appearances include the Delius Society, Philadelphia Viola Society, New York Viola Society, Mozart Society of Philadelphia, National Repertory Orchestra, and the Apollo Chamber Players. Mr. Wyrczynski has taught orchestral studies at the Curtis Institute of Music, Mannes College of Music, New York School for Orchestral Studies, National Orchestral Institute, and Le Domaine Forget. Mr. Wyrczynski is on the faculties of the Peabody Conservatory and the Aspen Music Festival and School, where he also leads an orchestral repertoire class for viola focusing on audition techniques. Won-Bin Yim (violin artist-faculty) is associate professor of violin at the Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music where he received the Glover Award for teaching. He has been a violin faculty member of the Juilliard School Pre-College division and with the Juilliard School's college division as an assistant member of the violin faculty. Mr. Yim served as concertmaster of the Wichita Symphony Orchestra and the Reno Philharmonic, and he was first violinist of the Fairmount String Quartet and violinist of the Argenta Trio. His students have won prizes at national competitions; some former students are playing in the major symphony orchestras, some are teaching at universities in the United States and abroad, and others have their own string schools. Mr. Yim, born in Korea, studied at the Peabody Conservatory, Juilliard, and at the Aspen Music Festival and School. He assisted Dorothy Delay at the Juilliard School and in Aspen, where he has been an artist-faculty member since 1990. John Zirbel (horn artist-faculty) has been principal horn of the Montreal Symphony since 1979. During that time he has performed as soloist in numerous concerto performances with the orchestra and has participated in more than seventy recordings on the London Decca label with conductor Charles Dutoit. He also has presented the premiere of Sérénade héroïque,a concerto written for him by Quebec composer Jacques Hétu, and the Canadian premiere of John Williams's Horn Concerto. He has also served as guest principal horn of the Milwaukee Symphony, the St. Louis Symphony, the NHK Symphony of Japan, the San Francisco Symphony, the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, and the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, in addition to appearances at the Banff Centre, the New World Symphony, and international horn conventions. Mr. Zirbel, now in his tenth summer as an artist-faculty member of the Aspen Music Festival and School, is a professor at the Schulich School of Music at McGill University. He released a recording of the Brahms and Ligeti trios for horn, violin, and piano. He holds a Bachelor of Music degree from the University of Wisconsin, studying with John Barrows and Douglas Hill, and spent three seasons as a member of the Denver Symphony before moving to Montreal. |