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Phyllis ClarkPhyllis Clark
Phyllis Clark lives in West Camp, NY with her husband Michael S. Brown and Corbie 2 Sox the Havanese (not in that order). She began making music and harmony with her family in Really Upstate, NY (northern Lake Ontario) before going to Boston University and to The Hague, the Netherlands to study opera and singing.
After returning to New York City to sing Bach, symphony choruses, and opera, Phyllis joined the Western Wind Vocal Ensemble and travelled the world performing their expansive repertoire. She further honed her craft as an a capella ensemble singer, arranger, teacher, song seeker and storyteller.
In 2001 Phyllis joined the faculty of the Saint David’s School in New York City to build the choral, theater, and liturgical music programs for K-8; incorporating methods from Kodaly, Dalcroze, and Starer with traditional music in her experiential curriculum.
Phyllis holds degrees in voice performance from the Royal Conservatory of The Hague and Boston University and she has studied the Kodaly method at NYU and Dalcroze at the Kaufman Center. A multi-instrumentalist, Phyllis has also taught piano and recorders, and continues her studies on viola and bagpipes.
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Francis Chung-Yang Huang
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Janara KhassenovaJanara Khassenova
Originally from Kazakhstan, pianist Janara Khassenova is a graduate of the Moscow State Conservatory where she completed undergraduate and postgraduate studies. While in United States, she completed an Artist Diploma Program in Chamber Music from the Longy School of Music. She has performed as a soloist and with chamber ensembles and orchestras in countries of the former Soviet Union, Italy, Greece as well as United States.
Janara collaborates frequently with various musicians in a variety of projects and regularly performs in a piano 4-hand duo with pianist Ellina Blinder.
In addition to the Bard Preparatory Division, Janara currently teaches piano at her studio in New York City, where she resides. -
Hiroko SasakiHiroko Sasaki
Hiroko Sasaki has established a successful career as recitalist, chamber musician, and concerto soloist. Ms. Sasaki’s concert debut in Carnegie Hall’s Weill Recital Hall prompted Harris Goldsmith of the New York Concert Review to declare her “a true artist at work.” Musical America praised the same concert for its “exquisite proportion and rare poetic understatement.” The Washington Post has acclaimed her “radiant playing,” and the 2004 Musical America singled her out as one of the world’s most outstanding young musicians. The Fedelio Magazine in Hungary quoted “this sensitive artist reminded me of the personality of the great Hungarian pianist, Annie Fischer - with her remarkable technical excellence, she gave us a perfect experience of the post-romantic voice.” in her performance at a Klassz pARTon Festival, summer 2019.
Ms. Sasaki continues to perform extensively as recitalist and chamber musician in England, Scotland, Taiwan, France, Hungary, Switzerland, Canada and the U.S. She gives annual recitals in Carnegie’s Weill Hall and makes frequent tours of Japan. She has regularly performed chamber music in festivals such as the Budapest Spring Festival, the Huddington Festival, the Yehudi Menuhin Festival, Tanglewood, Taos, Banff, Tel Hai, Richmond, and L'Academie Musicale de Villecroze, where she won a career- development grant. She is currently a member of the Amadeus Trio, which performs regularly throughout the United States. She has appeared as soloist with numerous orchestras, including the Philharmonia Orchestra in London, the Prague Symphony Orchestra, the Nagoya Philharmonic Orchestra, the Budapest Chamber Orchestra, and members of the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra.
Her recording of Debussy’s complete Preludes was recently released by Piano Classics, to much critical acclaim, including a four-star review from The Guardian (“her phrasing is perfectly polished . . . a beautiful sound Debussy would have recognized.”) Record Geijutsu awarded this record its second-highest honor, and noted "The performance is full of refined nuance . . . the Preludes in both books are performed with a sense of vivid imagery worthy of the music.” She has also recorded the complete sonatas for cello and piano by Frank Levy, for the Naxos label, with cellist Scott Ballantyne.
When Ms. Sasaki was 13, the celebrated pianist Mitsuko Uchida arranged for her to leave Japan and attend the Yehudi Menuhin School in England. Soon after, she made her European debut. At 16, she entered the Curtis Institute, where she studied with Leon Fleisher, graduating in 1994. She later earned a Master of Music degree with Mr. Fleisher from the Peabody Conservatory on full scholarship, and an Artist Diploma from the Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto. Her teachers have included Marc Durand, Yoheved Kaplisnky, Gilbert Kalish, and Sophia Rosoff. -
Victoria SchwartzmanVictoria Schwartzman
Born in St. Petersburg, Russia, Victoria Schwartzman (formerly Mazin) performs regularly as a soloist and chamber musician. Victoria has appeared at the Music Mountain Festival with the St. Petersburg String Quartet, in the New York Philharmonic Ensembles series at Merkin Hall, at Summit Music Festival with Dmitri Berlinsky, at Bargemusic, in the Gessner-Schocken concert series in Cambridge, WMP Concert Hall, and the Nicolas Roerich Museum concert series in New York City. As a member of the Yanvar Trio, she was a prizewinner in the Val-Tidone Chamber Music Competition and a finalist in the Zinotti International Chamber Music competition, both in Italy.
After graduating from Jerusalem Conservatory, Victoria continued her education at the Longy School of Music and New England Conservatory. While pursuing various degrees in solo and chamber music performance, she was selected to perform in masterclasses given by Dmitri Bashkirov, Menahem Pressler, and Richard Goode, among others. Her principal teachers include Irina Kivaiko, Issak Kossov, Victor Rosenbaum, Sally Pinkas, Eda Shlyam, and Eteri Andjaparidze.
As soloist with orchestra, Victoria has performed with the Jerusalem Chamber Orchestra, the Longy School of Music Chamber Orchestra, and the Riverside Orchestra. She has performed at the Quartet Program in Pennsylvania, and participated in the Tel-Hai International Piano Festival in Israel and the Lyrica Chamber Music Festival in New Jersey. Also active in the field of opera and art song, Victoria was vocal coach and accompanist at Boston Lyric Opera, Glimmerglass Opera, Bard Music Festival, the Brevard Music Center, the Westchester Summer Vocal Institute, and the American Institute of Musical Studies Festival in Graz, Austria.
Victoria is as committed to performance as she is to education. She recently gave a master class in Russian vocal repertoire at Queens College, NY. She is on the coaching faculty in the Vocal Department at Montclair State University and Long Island University Post. Victoria is also the co-founder of the Newburgh Music Festival, a week long immersive classical music program devoted to both solo performance and chamber music, located on the shore of the Hudson river, in Newburgh, NY.
Website: http://www.victoriaschwartzman.com -
Susanne Son, Preparatory Division Co-DirectorSusanne Son, Preparatory Division Co-Director
Canadian born pianist, Susanne Son made her debut with the Toronto Symphony at the age of 12. Since then, she has appeared as soloist with several orchestras including the Philadelphia and Minnesota Orchestras. In North America, she has performed at Carnegie Hall, Alice Tully Hall, Merkin Hall, Jordan Hall in Boston, Academy of Music, Kimmel Center, Kravis Center, Orchestra Hall in Minneapolis, and Roy Thomson Hall. She has also performed throughout Canada and Japan.
Festival appearances include the Tanglewood Music Center, Music Academy of the West, Kneisel Hall Summer Chamber Music Festival, and Banff Centre School of Fine Arts.
A two-time recipient of a Canada Council Grant, she is a graduate of the Curtis Institute of Music and The Juilliard School. Ms. Son is a top-prize winner of the Canadian Music Competition and has received the Chalmers Award from the Ontario Arts Council.
An avid chamber musician, Ms. Son has performed with members of the Philadelphia Orchestra, Boston Symphony Orchestra, New York Philharmonic, and in the Minnesota Orchestra's Sommerfest series.
Her principal teachers include Seymour Lipkin, Stephanie Brown, Paul Shaw, James Anagnoson, and Jerome Lowenthal. In masterclasses, she has worked with Leon Fleisher, Peter Serkin, Karl Ulrich Schnabel, Emanuel Ax, Jane Coop, Eugene List, and Misha Dichter.
Ms. Son currently resides in New York City. -
Sophia Shuhui ZhouSophia Shuhui Zhou
A native of Shanghai, classical pianist Shuhui (Sophia) Zhou has been performing as a soloist and chamber musician internationally in the USA, Europe and China. She is the winner of the V BPA International Piano Award of Barcelona, engaged for 5 solo recitals across Spain. Her recent concert appearances include the Royal Concertgebouw (Amsterdam), Carnegie Weill Concert Hall, National Sawdust (New York City), Kennedy Centre (Washington D.C.), Shanghai Concert Hall, National Library of Catalonia (Barcelona), etc. She has collaborated with members of the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, New York Philharmonic Orchestra, Metropolitan Opera House, HK Philharmonic, etc.
Ms. Zhou holds a Master of Music degree from Mannes College of Music in New York, Bachelor of Music in Piano Performance and Bachelor of Arts in German Literature from Oberlin College, OH. In 2018, Ms. Zhou was invited as a post-graduate piano fellow by the Bard College Conservatory, working with the Graduate Vocal Arts Program singer under the guidance of Dawn Upshaw and Stephanie Blythe and offering Secondary Piano lessons to college undergraduate students.
As one of the most dynamic and versatile young musicians of her generation, Sophia recorded and premiered music by renowned composers such as Andrew Norman (Pulitzer- Prize and Grammy-Award nominee) , Benjamin Broening (recipient of Guggenheim Award), Thomas Ades and Alexander Goehr.
Her recent projects include a multimedia concert of Bach’s Goldberg Variations and environmental photography, an interdisciplinary performance in the Nam June Paik retrospectives show in San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, chamber music concerts with members of Carnegie Ensemble Connect, debut recitals with American tenor Daniel McGrew (2021 YCA Winner) in Merkin Hall, New York City and Kennedy Center for the Arts in Washington D.C, and concert tours with ATL Piano Trio in Florence, Livorno, Sardegna in Italy, as well as appearances at the Mexican Republican Senate Hall to be broadcasted on national television for 2 consecutive weeks.
As a concert curator, Ms. Zhou is the founder and director of Chamber Music at The Stissing Center, NY. She created and produced critically-acclaimed concerts for three consecutive seasons, featuring renowned soloists such as violinist Bella Hristova and Miranda Cuckson, pianist Benjamin Hochman, Shai Wosner, Adam Golka as well rising-star artists such as Sterling Elliot, Julia Hamos, Mishka Rushdie Momen, Zhu Wang and the Carnegie Ensemble Connect musicians. In 2022, her concert series became one of the official presenting partners of the Young Artist Concert in New York City.
For more information, please visit: SophiaZhouPiano.com
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Phyllis ClarkPhyllis Clark
Phyllis Clark lives in West Camp, NY with her husband Michael S. Brown and Corbie 2 Sox the Havanese (not in that order). She began making music and harmony with her family in Really Upstate, NY (northern Lake Ontario) before going to Boston University and to The Hague, the Netherlands to study opera and singing.
After returning to New York City to sing Bach, symphony choruses, and opera, Phyllis joined the Western Wind Vocal Ensemble and travelled the world performing their expansive repertoire. She further honed her craft as an a capella ensemble singer, arranger, teacher, song seeker and storyteller.
In 2001 Phyllis joined the faculty of the Saint David’s School in New York City to build the choral, theater, and liturgical music programs for K-8; incorporating methods from Kodaly, Dalcroze, and Starer with traditional music in her experiential curriculum.
Phyllis holds degrees in voice performance from the Royal Conservatory of The Hague and Boston University and she has studied the Kodaly method at NYU and Dalcroze at the Kaufman Center. A multi-instrumentalist, Phyllis has also taught piano and recorders, and continues her studies on viola and bagpipes. -
Katherine Rossiter
Katherine Rossiter
Originally from Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania, soprano Katherine Rossiter, is a performer with diverse experience spanning from opera to musical theatre and oratorio to art song. In recent seasons she has been heard as the soprano soloist in Bach’s Coffee Cantata with the Broad Street Orchestra, the Grammy-award winning Albany Symphony Orchestra in Bach’s Jesu, der du meine Seele, in Handel’s Messiah with Classics on Hudson, in Requiem for Anna Poitkovskaya at Bard’s Fisher Center, and in recital with Concerts at Camphill Ghent and Saugerties Pro Musica.
Her operatic roles include Morgana in Alcina and Le Feu/Le Rossignol in L’enfant et les sortilèges with CCM Opera d’arte, Mabel in The Pirates of Penzance with the International Gilbert and Sullivan Festival, Drusilla in L’incoronazione di Poppea with the New York Lyric Opera Theatre, and Die Zweite Dame/Erste Knabe in Die Zauberflöte with the Bard Vocal Arts Program.
Katherine has been a Young Artist with Songfest, Opera on the Avalon, and the Berlin Opera Academy. She is also an alumna of the Academie Nationale d’été de Nice in France and the Accademia Vocale di Lorenzo Malfatti in Lucca, Italy. She holds degrees from the Graduate Vocal Arts Program at Bard College Conservatory of Music, as well as the University of Cincinnati, College-Conservatory of Music.
She currently lives in Tivoli, New York and is the director of admission for the Bard College Conservatory of Music.
Website: http://www.katherinerossiter.com
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Solomiya IvakhivSolomiya Ivakhiv
Violinist Solomiya Ivakhiv is praised for her “crystal clear and noble sound” (Culture and Life, Ukraine) and acclaimed for her “distinctive charm and subtle profundity” (Daily Freeman, New York). She is celebrated as a soloist, recitalist and chamber music collaborator, as a champion of new music and as a dedicated educator.
Solomiya Ivakhiv has performed in solo and chamber recitals at Carnegie Hall, Merkin Hall, CBC Glenn Gould Studio, Curtis Institute Field Concert Hall, Italian Academy in New York City, Pickman Hall in Cambridge, MA, San Jose Chamber Music Society, Old First Concerts in San Francisco, Astoria Music Festival (Portland), Tchaikovsky Hall in Kyiv, Concertgebouw Mirror Hall, and at UConn’s Jorgensen Center for the Performing Arts.
She has performed concertos with the Istanbul State Symphony, Charleston Symphony, National Symphony Orchestra of Ukraine, Lviv Philharmonic Orchestra, and the Hunan Symphony Orchestra in China, the AACC, and the Bach Festival Orchestra.
Featured appearances at prestigious national and international chamber music festivals include Tanglewood, The Embassy Series in Washington, Emerson Quartet Festival, Astoria Music Festival, San Jose Chamber Music Society, Newport Music Festival, Nevada Chamber Music Festival, Bach Festival of Philadelphia, The Banff Centre and Ottawa ChamberFest (Canada), Musique de Chambre à Giverny (France), Prussia Cove (England), Verbier Festival and Kammermusik Bodensee (Switzerland), AlpenKammerMusik (Austria), Modern Music “Contrasts” and KyivFest (Ukraine).
Ms. Ivakhiv is Artistic Director and frequent performer at the Institute (MATI) Concert Series in New York City, a position she has held since 2010. Highly sought after as a chamber musician, she frequently collaborates with Roberto Diaz, Steven Isserlis, Philip Setzer, Gilbert Kalish, Colin Carr, Marcy Rosen, Eugene Drucker and other renowned artists. Ms. Ivakhiv has premiered numerous new works for violin, including compositions by David Dzubay, Eli Marshall, David Ludwig, John B. Hedges, Bohdan Kryvopust, Yevhen Stankovych, Bruce Adolphe, and Oleksandr Shchetynsky, among others.
RECORDINGS AND BROADCASTS
In 2019 and 2020, Solomiya Ivakhiv releases three recordings featuring works for violin and orchestra, and violin and piano and orchestra, with the pianist Antonio Pompa-Baldi. The first of these albums, “Mendelssohn: Concerto for Violin, Piano, and Orchestra; Concerto for Violin and String Orchestra in D Minor” (Brilliant Classics 95733, released in fall, 2019) features two rarely heard early works by Mendelssohn with the Slovak National Symphony Orchestra, Theodore Kuchar, conductor.
“Concertos for Violin, Piano and Orchestra by Haydn and Hummel” (Centaur), released in spring 2020, pairs works by Franz Joseph Haydn (Concerto for Violin, Piano, and Strings in F major, Hob. XVIII: 6) and Johann Nepomuk Hummel (Concerto for Violin, Piano, and Orchestra in G major, Op. 17) also performed with pianist Antonio Pompa-Baldi and the Slovak National Symphony Orchestra and conductor Theodore Kuchar.
On “Poems and Rhapsodies” (Centaur, released in late 2020), Solomiya Ivakhiv is joined by the National Symphony of Ukraine, conducted by Volodymyr Sirenko. This collection of works includes American Rhapsody by Grammy-award winning composer Kenneth Fuchs, The Lark Ascending by Ralph Vaughan Williams, Poème symphonique by Ernest Chausson, La Muse et le poète by Camille Saint-Saëns, Carpathian Rhapsody by Myroslav Skoryk, and Poeme by Anatol Kos-Anatolsky.
Ms. Ivakhiv’s debut solo album, “Ukraine: Journey to Freedom – A Century of Classical Music for Violin and Piano”, with pianist Angelina Gadeliya (Labor Records, 2016) was featured in the Top 5 New Classical Releases on the iTunes billboard and was praised in Fanfare Magazine for its “superlative and consummate artistry.”
In addition to these studio recordings, Solomiya Ivakhiv’s performances are regularly broadcast on National Public Radio, Voice of America Radio, WRTI, KUNR, Ukrainian National Radio and Television, Netherland Public Radio and Chinese Hunan Television.
Solomiya Ivakhiv is the recipient of several international honors, including the Sergei Prokofiev and Yaroslav Kocian International Competitions, the Fritz Kreisler and Charles Miller Award from the Curtis Institute of Music, Award from the President of the Ukraine, 2019 Curtis Institute of Music Alumni Award and 2016 New Scholar Award from the University of Connecticut School of Fine Arts.
She is Assistant Professor of Violin and Viola and Head of Strings at the University of Connecticut and Professor of Violin at Longy School of Music of Bard College. A dedicated educator, Solomiya Ivakhiv has led master classes and coached chamber music at Yale, Columbia, Penn State, University of Hartford Hartt School of Music, Boston Conservatory, Curtis Summer Fest, University of Maryland, Bard College Prep, SUNY – Fredonia Universities, Oberlin, Guangzhou and Hunan Conservatories in China, and regularly collaborates with high schools in outreach programs throughout the United States. She is a member of the American String Teachers Association-Connecticut Chapter.
She graduated with honors from Curtis Institute of Music, where she was concertmaster of both the Curtis Symphony Orchestra and Tanglewood Music Center Orchestra, and studied with Joseph Silverstein, Pamela Frank and the late Rafael Druian. Ms. Ivakhiv received her Master of Music degree from M. Lysenko Music Academy in Lviv, Ukraine, studying with Oresta Kohut, and holds a Doctor of Musical Arts degree from Stony Brook University, where she studied with Pamela Frank and Philip Setzer. -
Jaram KimJaram Kim
A laureate of the 2000 Yehudi Menuhin International Young Violinists Competition, Jaram Kim made her debut at the age of six in GwangJu Namdo Art Concerto Hall. The following year Jaram won the Gold Medal in the GwangJu HoNam Art Competition and at the age of ten, she performed Wieniawski Second Violin Concerto with the Seoul Chamber Orchestra. After receiving the Keum Ho scholarship, Jaram came to the United States to study at the Juilliard PreCollege in the studio of Hyo Kang. While attending Juilliard, she won the Juilliard Concerto Competition and performed with the Juilliard PreCollege Chamber Orchestra. She then went on to study in the Precollege program in the Manhattan School of Music under the tutelage of Grigory Kalinovsky, and made her New York concerto debut performing with the Jupiter Symphony under the baton of Maestro Jens Nygaard.
Jaram graduated from the Curtis Institute of Music with a Bachelor of Music degree in 2007 from the studio of Ida Kavafian; while at Crutis she performed under the baton of conductors including Christoph Eschenbach, Michael Tilson Thomas, and Otto-Werner Mueller. Then in 2008, she began her graduate studies at the Yale School of Music under the direction of Ani Kavafian. In 2009, Jaram moved to Italy to continue her studies at the Scuola di Musica di Fiesole in Florence under the tutelage of M. Pavel Vernikov, and in 2010, Jaram joined the studio of M. Salvatore Accardo at the Accademia Walter Stauffer Fondazione in Cremona, Italy.
She has been an active performer while participating in numerous festivals in the United States of America, Canada and Europe, including Aspen Music Festival, Bowdoin International Music Festival and the Heifetz Institute. She was also one of the youngest participants of Pinchas Zukerman's National Arts Centre Orchestra Young Artists Program in Canada. Her festival engagements in Europe include the Kronberg Academy in Germany, Aurora Masterclasses in Sweden, International Summer Academy of Music and Performing Arts Vienna in Austria, Amiata Festival and Festival of Spoleto in Italy. Jaram also has an extensive teaching experience, a year of which she spent teaching the violinists of the Orchestra Giovanile Italiana. In 2011, Jaram accepted the position of Primo Violino of the orchestra La Verdi.
Besides the tours in Europe and Middle Asia with the La Verdi Orchestra, Jaram toured South America and India as a soloist with the Gracias Choir Orchestra under the sponsorship of the International Youth Foundation. She collaborated as a Guest Concertmaster with orchestras such as the Orquesta Clásica Santa Cecilia of Madrid under the direction of Maestro Kynan Johns.
For three consecutive years, she served as violin faculty member at the Music in the Mountains Conservatory in Durango, Colorado. Jaram was also invited to give masterclasses in La Coruña and as an associate faculty at the Indiana University Summer String Academy. She was an outside instructor at Columbia University and held a violin faculty position at Gracias Music and Mahanaim in Huntington, NY.
In 2019, she received the Doctoral of Music Arts degree from the Stony Brook University under the guidance of Hagai Shaham and Phil Setzer, where she also served as a Teaching Assistant. Currently, she holds a Violin Faculty position at the Bard College Conservatory of Music PreCollege in New York and is appointed Artistic Director of Manhattan in the Mountains Summer Music Festival.
Website: http://www.jaramkim.com
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Anneke Schaul-YoderAnneke Schaul-Yoder
Anneke Schaul-Yoder studied with Julia Lichten and Marcy Rosen at Yale, Purchase Conservatory, and Mannes College of Music. She performs in both period and modern styles at Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, BAM, the 92StY, and other venues in New York and beyond.
With Eudemonia, Anneke presents eclectic chamber music for piano, flute, and cello. She is solo continuo cellist and artistic director for SIREN Baroque, the acclaimed all-female early music ensemble. She is also a member of the Piano Music & Song Trio, a trumpet/cello/piano trio that improvises over art songs; Skid Rococo, a group with soprano and lute that performs derelict and touching songs of the 18th century; and the Queens Consort, the borough of Queens’s first early music ensemble. She is principal cellist with the Northern Dutchess Symphony, and also performs with the Atlanta Baroque Orchestra, Morningside Opera Company, BalletNext, La Fiocco, and Argento, among others.
As a teacher, Anneke is on faculty for cello lessons and chamber music at the Hudson River School of Music and the Bruderhof Schools. She has recordings on the System Dialing, Island, Naxos, Bridge, and 3rd Generation labels; she has recorded with the Lumineers, Sway Machinery, Jade Bird, Shawn Mendes, and members of Antibalas and Arcade Fire. She plays on a French cello from 1713 by Jacques Boquay.
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Ryan Kamm, Preparatory Division Co-DirectorRyan Kamm, Preparatory Division Co-Director
Ryan Kamm has taught double bass and musicianship in the Preparatory Division since 2008. In 2011, with Susanne Son, he founded the Bard Music Camp, a two-week summer program serving 80 students annually, which is now in its 10th year. He has been codirector of the Preparatory Division since 2012.
As a double bassist, Kamm held a tenured position with the Nashville Symphony, was a New World Symphony fellow, and had a one-year appointment in the Cleveland Orchestra. Other performance experience includes substitute work with the New York City Opera, American Ballet Theatre, New York City Ballet, Albany Symphony, Boston Pops Esplanade Orchestra, New Hampshire Symphony, and North Carolina Symphony.
Festival appearances include Tanglewood Music Center, Spoleto Festival USA, National Repertory Orchestra, Kent/Blossom Chamber Music Festival, and Eastern Music Festival.
A dedicated teacher, Kamm’s teaching experience includes Middle Tennessee State University, the Tennessee Governor’s School for the Arts, and, in the New York area, the Diller Quaile School of Music, St. David’s School, and the JCC Thurnauer School of Music.
Kamm holds a bachelor’s degree with distinction in double bass performance from Indiana University and a master’s degree from Boston University, and as a postgraduate studied with Harold Robinson. His primary teachers include Edwin Barker, Lawrence Hurst, and Craig Brown.
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Greg DingerGreg Dinger
Greg is the child of musical parents (his mom was a pianist and his father a cellist with the New York Philharmonic). In addition to Dalcroze/Eurythmy training as a child he studied the piano until his early teens (with Katerina Rado, Edgar Roberts and Jacqueline Marcault), and credits those early experiences for much of his strong musicianship. Greg began to play guitar as a youngster,
like so many others of his generation, inspired by The Beatles and others rock performers (though he began with a Joan Baez folk music songbook). He formed his first band in 7th grade and played in it throughout much of high school.
In 9th grade Greg became interested in the classical guitar, and began his study of it with the area’s leading teacher, Luis Garcia-Renart (also a prize-winning cellist & conductor). Greg studied with Garcia-Renart for 4 years and then went to Boston’s New England Conservatory of Music, from which he received his Bachelors of Music degree with honors in 1980. At NEC he studied with Robert Paul Sullivan and Frank Wallace, formed the Parnassus Guitar Duo, and gave the school’s first all-solo graduating guitar recital. At the start of his career in the 1980s Greg played in masterclasses of several of the world’s leading classical guitarists: Manuel Barrueco, Eliot Fisk, Frederic Hand, Sharon Isbin and Christopher Parkening.
After returning to Woodstock, N.Y., where he grew up, Greg began teaching the guitar, and soon was teaching various guitar styles several days a week at Allegro Music in Kingston. In the 1980s he also became the classical guitar instructor at SUNY New Paltz and Bard College and began teaching guitar & other music subjects (music theory & history) at Ulster County Community College in Stone Ridge (now called SUNY Ulster). In the 1990s he began teaching the Classical Guitar Seminar at Bard and Greg is still the classical guitar instructor for their Music Dept. Greg also plays each year in the Faculty Showcase concerts and often presents recitals at these schools. At present Greg teaches private lessons primarily at his home music studio in Woodstock, N.Y., and is also affiliated with Barcone’s Music, in Kingston, NY.
Greg has been involved with a large variety of music groups throughout his career, from chamber music ensembles to rock bands to orchestras. In the 1980s he played in a heavy-metal group called “Uncle Sam” as well as in the blues & originals “Ben Prevo Band.” In the 1990s he played Beatles & Eagles songs in “The Beagles” and a variety of guitars in a folk-pop-oldies group called “TimePieces.”
Lately Greg has played guitar & sung in “Decoy” (2015), the “West Saugerties Boys” (2016-18), and currently with “Fishbowl” and “Rare Bird.”
In the course of his performing career Greg has played electric guitar, steel-string & nylon-string guitars, banjo and mandolin
in a number of musical theater productions including “The Three-Penny Opera,” “Tommy,” “Little Shop of Horrors,” “Footloose,” “The Sound of Music,” “The Marvelous Wonderettes,” “Evita,” “8-Track: The Sounds of the 70s,” and “Honky Tonk Laundry.”
As a classical guitarist Greg has been a member of several chamber music ensembles, including the Arabesque Trio (flute, guitar & bassoon; formerly: Trio Con Brio), the Catskill Mountain Renaissance Consort (recorders, viola da gamba, guitar & hand percussion), Cantilena (flute & guitar; formerly: Interlude), and the SAGAD Trio (viola, guitar & cello). Greg’s talents as an arranger — taking music originally intended for one instrument or ensemble and creatively recasting it in a new setting — have produced most of the repertoire of these groups. Years ago he published through Music Arts Graphics; now his GDG Editions — music for solo guitar & guitar in ensemble — are available through this website.
With the Arabesque Trio he has recorded a CD of music by Debussy, Bach, Faure, Mozart, Granados, Handel, Joplin, Ligeti, de Falla, Bartok & Lennon/McCartney titled “Reverie.” Available from his website.
Many people in the Hudson Valley fondly remember his 15+ years providing live classical guitar music on weekends at Joshua’s Cafe in Woodstock. Greg has played over the years with many of the best instrumentalists and singers in the Hudson Valley: violinists Carole Cowan and Akiko Kamigawara, cellists Susan Seligman, Ling Kwan & Jean Vilkelis, violist Anastasia Solberg, flutists Marcia Gates, Pauline Mancuso, Lynn Peck, Sarah Plant, Melissa Sweet and Marisa Trees, oboist Joel Evans, clarinetists Tony Penz and Kay Sutka, classical guitarists Terry Champlin & Helen Avakian, David Temple and Richard Udell, fiddle & guitar duo Jay Ungar & Molly Mason,
and singers Harvey Boyer, Kimberly Kahan, Cecelia Keehn, Jonell Mosser, Anita Shamansky, and Danielle Woerner, among others. In the 1990s Greg was a member of the early music acapella group Woodstock Renaissance, and he has sung (bass) with Ars Choralis since the 1990s; he is currently that organization’s president too. He frequently accompanies them in music that involves various types of guitars, and has arranged a number of songs for them: several Beatles songs, The Beach Boys’ “Good Vibrations,” Springsteen’s “American Land,” and an ambitious setting of “Where Have All The Flowers Gone” (premiered in 2014). The chorus has gone on tour to Europe several times in the 21st century, always with Greg & his guitar! Greg also did the instrumental music arrangements for Ars Choralis’ “Music in Desperate Times” program which they performed in NYC’s Cathedral of St. John the Divine as well as their 2009 tour to Germany. Greg’s also been the curator of Ars Choralis’ “Artist Within” series of concerts at the Sheeley House in High Falls, NY, including Valentine’s Day-themed shows, a folk “jamboree,” the “Just For The Fun Of It!” show, several classical recitals, a Kung Fu martial arts (Greg’s hobby for 35+ years) demonstration, and 2017’s “A Night In Argentina."
Greg also programmed & hosted WDST radio’s innovative classical music show “Sunrise Concert” for over 25 years starting in the mid-1980s (and winning Hudson Valley Magazine’s Best Classical Music show award for 1996); and for a number of years he reviewed classical CD releases for the Kingston Daily Freeman’s “Preview” magazine.
More recently Greg helped form the Mid-Hudson Classical Guitar Society, presenting their first concert at the Morton Library in Rhinecliff in 2010, and closing their 8th season in May 2017.
Greg directs & arranges music for SUNY Ulster’s Guitar & Mixed Instrument Ensembles, producing new arrangements of music ranging from Renaissance pavanes to Haydn piano sonatas, solo guitar pieces expanded, and a variety of famous songs including:
“Tico Tico,” “Miserlou,” “Fever,” “Someone To Watch Over Me,” “Shenandoah,” “Down On The Corner,” “Billie Jean,” “Everybody Wants To Rule The World,” “Fragile” & several Beatles medleys, and an original minimalist piece: “Blip, Blop, Plink, Plunk, Ting & Bong.” Greg became involved with the Woodstock Chamber Orchestra soon after graduating from NEC and returning to Woodstock (when that orchestra was forming); he played the popular Vivaldi Concerto in D major with them in 1980. Since then he has performed works for guitar & orchestra with them several times: Herbert Haufrecht’s “Divertimento” in 1985, Heitor Villa-Lobos’ Guitar Concerto in 1993,
the “Fantasia para un Gentilhombre” by Joaquin Rodrigo in 1999, and his famed “Concierto de Aranjuez” in 2004 and again in January of 2018. In the fall of 2018 the orchestra became the Woodstock Symphony Orchestra. Greg has served as president of the WCO since 1995, seeing the orchestra through several Conductor Searches, and he’s organized & played in numerous fundraising concerts for the WCO over the years.
Greg also played with the Hudson Valley Philharmonic in their “New Wave” concerts in the 1990s, backing Sterling Morrison of The Velvet Underground, and providing support for singer Natalie Merchant. One of his toughest musical challenges was negotiating the guitar part for Frank Zappa’s “Alien Orifice” with the HVP when no other guitarist around could do it! Greg also played solo guitar as the “opening act” for that concert. He’s also opened for Leon Redbone and “3” (Emerson, Palmer & Berry) at The Chance in Poughkeepsie. Greg has also played with other top Hudson Valley music organizations including Cappella Festival, the Mendelssohn Club, the Gilbert & Sullivan Musical Theater Company, the Pone Ensemble and the Hudson Valley Recital Project.
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Leanna Ginsburg, fluteLeanna Ginsburg, flute
Leanna Ginsburg is a co-principal flutist and piccolo in The Orchestra Now (TON) based at the Fisher Center in upstate New York. She has performed with TON in venues such as Carnegie Hall, Jazz at Lincoln Center, and The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Since joining in September, Leanna has participated in two album recordings. Prior to The Orchestra Now, Leanna performed with the South Florida Symphony and Eugene Ballet Company, and in the Chautauqua Music School Festival Orchestra, National Music Festival, and Eastern Music Festival.
Leanna earned her Bachelor of Music degree from the State University of New York at Purchase where she studied with Dr. Tara Helen O’Connor and received both the Outstanding Junior and Outstanding Senior Awards in Classical Music Performance. She holds a Master of Music from Northwestern University where she was awarded the Walfrid Kujala Scholarship and studied with John Thorne and Richard Graef. She was a winner of the Chicago Musicians Club of Women 2018 Scholarship Competition. Leanna then moved to Boca Raton where she studied with Jeffrey Khaner, principal flutist of the Philadelphia Orchestra, at the Lynn Conservatory, and worked as a freelance flutist.
Leanna is passionate about teaching and has a private studio of in-person and online students. She has taught students at the Lynn Conservatory Preparatory School and non-major flute students at Northwestern University.
Leanna is extremely passionate about musical outreach and performing music of all genres. While in South Florida, she worked for the non-profit organization Mind and Melody, where she led sessions performing popular and classical music, and teaching music for people with Alzheimer’s and Dementia. She also performed as a part of the Beatles On The Beach festival in Delray Beach. In the summer of 2019, Leanna worked at Camp Jam in Chicago and Washington DC, where she coached rock bands, mentored young musicians, and gave private lessons. She also occasionally performs in Sound Baths in Woodstock, NY.
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Sangwon LeeSangwon Lee
Sangwon Lee, a clarinetist from Boston, Massachusetts, has recently graduated from the New England Conservatory with a Graduate Diploma. He performs with many groups in New England, which include the Hartford Symphony, Berkshire Opera Festival, New Bedford Symphony, amongst others.
As a chamber musician, he has shared the stage with the late Peter Serkin - performing the Beethoven and the Mozart Quintets for Piano with Winds. In addition to performing, Lee is passionate about music education. He has taught at the Bard Music Camp in the summers since 2016 and was an instructor of clarinet and saxophone at Simon’s Rock College.
His teachers include Daniel Gilbert, a former member of the Cleveland Orchestra, and Thomas Martin, a member of the Boston Symphony Orchestra.
He holds a BM in Clarinet Performance and a BA in Economics from the University of Michigan, and an MM in Critical, Curatorial, and Performance Studies from Bard College.
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Hsiao-Fang LinHsiao-Fang Lin
Hsiao-Fang Lin, trombone, was born and raised in Taipei, Taiwan. She completed her double degrees at Bard College: a bachelor of music degree in trombone performance, studied with John Rojak, Demian Austin, Weston Sprott, and Denson Paul Pollard, and a bachelor of arts degree in computer science.
In addition to working as an audio video engineer for Bard SummerScape for the past few years. Hsiao-Fang performed with America Symphony Orchestra for Le Roi Malgré Lui (The King in Spite of Himself) in The Richard B. Fisher Center for the Performing Arts in 2012. She has also participated in numerous music festivals including the Summer Trombone Workshop and the Asian Trombone Seminar, studied with Dietmar Küblböck, Haim Avitsur, David Taylor, James Olin, Ko-ichiro Yamamoto.
Hsiao-Fang is currently working as the Director of Music Programming at the US-China Music Institute and the orchestra manager at Bard Conservatory of Music.
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Petra ElekPetra Elek
Petra Elek received her Bachelor of Music from the Bard Conservatory in 2016 and her Master of Music degree at California State University, Long Beach in May 2018. She has studied with former principal percussionist of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Edward (Ted) Atkatz, members of So Percussion, and Géza Bánky at Secondary School of Arts in Pécs, Hungary. She has won first place in College Solo Division and College Ensembles division, as part of the University Percussion Group at Long Beach, at the CA Percussive Arts Society Solo and Ensemble Competition in 2017. She completed the Advanced Performance Studies Program as a Percussion Teaching Fellow at Bard and now she has started her first year in The Orchestra Now.
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Shawn JaegerShawn Jaeger
Described as “mournful” (New York Times), “luminous” (Washington Post), and having “a sound world of its own” (Pioneer Press), the music of composer Shawn Jaeger (b. 1985, Louisville, Kentucky) often engages Appalachian folksong, field recording, and creative placemaking.
He has worked with leading performers, including Dawn Upshaw and the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, JACK Quartet, Talea Ensemble, Dal Niente, Longleash, Contemporaneous, Alexi Kenney, Ryan Muncy, and Vicky Chow.
His music has been featured at venues including Carnegie Hall’s Zankel Hall and Weill Recital Hall, Merkin Concert Hall, the Morgan Library, (Le) Poisson Rouge, Roulette, Jordan Hall, and the Ordway Center for the Performing Arts, and on such festivals as Tanglewood, MATA, FERUS, and Resonant Bodies.
Jaeger has received commissions from Carnegie Hall’s Weill Music Institute, the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, the Bard College Conservatory of Music, the American Composers Forum/Jerome Fund for New Music (JFund), Roulette/Jerome Foundation, the BMI Foundation/Concert Artists Guild (Carlos Surinach Commission), and Chamber Music America.
His awards include the Claire Rosen and Samuel Edes Foundation Prize for Emerging Artists, Northwestern University’s M. William Karlins and William T. Faricy Awards, the ASCAP Foundation Morton Gould Young Composer Award, and two BMI Student Composer Awards. His opera, Payne Hollow, received coverage in Modern Farmer and a mention in Gene Logsdon’s Letters to a Young Farmer.
Jaeger holds a DMA from Northwestern University, and a BM from the University of Michigan. He has taught composition at Tufts University, Princeton University (as a 2016-18 Princeton Arts Fellow), and Brown University.
He lives in Brooklyn.
Website: https://www.shawnjaeger.com -
Martha SullivanMartha Sullivan
Composer Martha Sullivan creates music in various genres but is best known for her works for the human voice. She has earned accolades for her choral music and has won competitions sponsored by such organizations as the Dale Warland Singers and the Sorel Organization. Her music has been commissioned and performed by groups as far away as Glasgow, Tokyo, and Zurich, as well as by numerous choral groups in the United States.
She is also a professional singer, specializing in new music; she has recorded and premiered works by such avant-grade composers as Toby Twining and John Zorn. She currently sings with, conducts in, and composes music for C4: The Choral Composer/Conductor Collective in New York City. She has also sung in every opera staged at Bard Summerscape since 2009.
Her education includes a B.A. in Music from Yale and studies at Boston University's Opera Institute; she is currently finishing her Ph.D. in Music Composition at Rutgers. Her dissertation focuses on the semiotic implications of one particular musical gesture—the Siren topos—in music ranging from early 19th-century Lorelei songs to 20th-century operas to 1960s television theme songs. She has presented parts of this work at various international conferences on music theory.
She has taught for the Boston University Tanglewood Institute (as voice faculty and as coordinator of the Music Theory program for high-school singers); New York University/CAP21 (teaching music theory to music-theater students at NYU's Tisch School); the Gregg Smith Singers (teaching voice and composition to students in Gregg's summer workshops); Rutgers (Aural Skills, Intro to Music Technology, and Intro to Music); and Westminster Choir College (Musicianship I and Musicianship III, both of which combine music theory with hands-on aural skills work).
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Sean GallagherSean Gallagher
Sean Gallagher is a pianist and multi-instrumentalist with a broad musical range.
An industrious musician, Sean performs regularly with his jazz quartet Sean G
and the Downbeat and is the founding organist of the soul jazz ensemble The
Forefathers. Sean is an energetic teacher and band leader who also teaches
music theory and jazz harmony for all instruments. He has instructed kids and
adults of all ages for over 15 years and currently works as a teacher at the
Community Music Space in Red Hook NY. Sean plays and teaches Piano,
Accordion, Trombone, Trumpet, and even Bansuri Flute! Sean holds a BA in
Jazz Performance and Composition from SUNY New Paltz.
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Sindy YangSindy Yang
Sindy Yang is an actively performing pianist. Recent performances have included recitals at Bard Conservatory as well as performances at summer music festivals including Manhattan in the Mountains. Ms. Yang is also an enthusiastic collaborator of chamber music. She has been a participant of several chamber music festivals with scholarship awards including Manhattan in the Mountains in Hunter, New York; the Summit Music Festival in Pleasantville, New York; the EuroArts Music Festival in Halle, Germany; and the International Academy of Music in Castelnuovo di Garfagnana in Tuscany, Italy. In chamber music, she has collaborated with players such as Peter Wiley. Outside of solo and chamber performances, Ms. Yang has also performed as an orchestral pianist with The Orchestra Now at Bard College. As an orchestral pianist, she has worked with conductors such as Leon Botstein and Tan Dun and performed in venues including Carnegie Hall, Rose Hall at Jazz at Lincoln Center, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Ms. Yang began her musical studies at the age of six. As a young student, she was the recipient of numerous music awards and was a prizewinner of several competitions including the Renée B. Fisher Piano Competition and the Chaminade Music Club Scholarship Award. She continued her musical studies at the Manhattan School of Music Precollege Division, studying piano under the tutelage of Miyoko Nakaya Lotto.
Ms. Yang earned a BM in classical piano performance from the Manhattan School of Music and an Advanced Performance Certificate in solo piano performance from Bard Conservatory as a full scholarship recipient. Her instructors include Peter Serkin, Richard Goode, and Shai Wosner.
