The Musicians
Sharon Roffman, violin
Annaliesa Place, violin
Tai Murray, violin
Jesse Mills, violin
Nurit Pacht, violin
Jasmine Lin, violin
Ayano Ninomiya, violin
Maurycy Banaszek, viola
Jonathan Vinocour, viola
Max Mandel, viola
Amadi Azikiwe, viola
Clancy Newman, cello
Joel Noyes, cello
Alisa Weilerstein, cello
Caitlin Sullivan, cello
Amy Sue Barston, cello
Sumire Kudo, cello
Nathan Farrington, double bass
Alexander Fiterstein, clarinet
Melvin Chen, piano
Charles Mays, Jr., bass baritone
Sharon Roffman
Violinist Sharon Roffman, prizewinner in the 2003 Naumburg Foundation International Competition, made her solo debut with the New Jersey Symphony in 1996. Since then, Ms. Roffman has forged a unique career equally sought after as a soloist, chamber musician and music educator throughout the United States and abroad. Ms. Roffman made her Carnegie Hall debut as a soloist in Vivaldi’s Concerto for Four Violins with Itzhak Perlman playing and conducting in 2004; as a chamber musician, Ms. Roffman has collaborated with members of the Guarneri quartet, Juilliard Quartet, Brentano Quartet, Shanghai Quartet, Avalon Quartet, and Miami Quartet among others, has been a frequent guest of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center’s Meet the Music and Inside Chamber Music series, and spent several summers performing at the Marlboro Music Festival. Ms. Roffman was a member of the critically acclaimed contemporary music ensemble counter)induction from 2007-2009, and has performed all over the world as a guest member of the Australian Chamber Orchestra, the Orchestre National de France, and Die Deutche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen. Passionate about education, Ms. Roffman is the founder and artistic director of ClassNotes, a chamber music ensemble and non-profit organization dedicated to introducing public school students to classical music through interdisciplinary school residencies and performances. Ms. Roffman is a concert artist and professor of violin at Kean University, and a member of the faculty at the Thurnauer School of Music in New Jersey. Ms. Roffman is a graduate of the Juilliard School and the Cleveland Institute of Music; her former teachers include Itzhak Perlman, Donald Weilerstein, Peter Winograd, Robert Lipsett, Patinka Kopec and Nicole DiCecco. She currently resides in Paris, France.
Jesse Mills
Jesse Mills, violin, has performed as soloist with the Juilliard Pre-College Chamber Orchestra, the Teatro Argentino Orchestra in Buenos Aires, Argentina, the New Jersey Symphony, the Sarah Lawrence College Symphony, the Plainfield Symphony, the Hudson Valley Philharmonic, and Aspen Music Festival’s Sinfonia Orchestra as winner of the Festival’s E. Nakamichi Violin Concerto Competition. As a chamber musician, Mr. Mills has collaborated with such artists as Richard Goode, David Soyer, Donald Weilerstein, Anton Kuerti, Peter Wiley, Miriam Fried, Claude Frank, and Fred Sherry, and performed in such venues as Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall, New York City’s Merkin Concert Hall and Bargemusic, the Rising Stars series at Caramoor, the Ravinia Festival’s Bennett-Gordon Hall, and at the Marlboro Music Festival. Mr. Mills was featured on the opening night of The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center’s “A Great Day in New York” series with pianist/composer Peter Schickele, broadcast live on WNYC 93.9 FM in New York. A member of the FLUX Quartet from 2001-2003, he recently formed Nurse Kaya, an ensemble comprised of string quartet plus bass and drums which plays in traditional venues such as concert halls and clubs, as well as in schools, hospitals, and jails. Nurse Kaya was recently awarded a Residency Partnership Grant from Chamber Music America. Mills is also a member of the Denali Trio, with cellist Sarah Carter and pianist Ashley Wass. Mr. Mills received a Bachelor of Music degree from The Juilliard School as a student of Robert Mann in 2001. Other teachers include Christiane Pors, Naoko Tanaka and Itzhak Perlman.
Annaliesa Place
Annaliesa Place, violin, performs as soloist and chamber musician across the United States and abroad. She performs regularly with Jupiter Chamber Players, Thurnauer Chamber Music Society, Ikarus Ensemble, ACJW, and ECCO. Recent career highlights include performances at the Laguna Beach Chamber Music Festival with Claude Frank, Thomas Jefferson’s home at Monticello, the French Embassy in Madrid, and Juneau Jazz and Classics Festival. Ms. Place was featured on the Millennium Stage at the Kennedy Center as part of the National Symphony’s Beethoven Festival. This past year, she recorded albums with Absolute Ensemble for Sony Classical and ECCO for EOne. Ms. Place was featured in the Cleveland Orchestra’s first video conference with Alan Gilbert and was hailed by the Cleveland Plain Dealer as ‘the epitome of poise and intelligence.’ Ms. Place received a B.M. from Peabody Conservatory of the Johns Hopkins University and a M.M. from The Juilliard School. Her principal teachers have included Vasile Beluska, David Russell, David Updegraff, Victor Danchenko, and Robert Mann. Ms. Place is on the faculty of the Dwight-Englewood School and is the founding director of the music festival – String Society.
Nurit Pacht
Violinist Nurit Pacht has enjoyed a career as a chamber musician, recitalist and in concerto appearances worldwide, performing in such venues as London’s Wigmore Hall, Vienna’s Musikverein, Moscow’s Great Hall, Washington’s Kennedy Center, Carnegie’s Weill Hall, and The People’s Hall of China in Beijing. Nurit performed as soloist in collaboration with the dancer/choreographer Bill T. Jones, she serves as artistic director of the “Alliance Players,” a dynamic group of musicians who perform innovative programs in New York City and curates a series of concerts at the Morgan Library and Museum. Nurit has toured as soloist with the Israeli Chamber Orchestra. She has performed the world premiere of Noam Sheriff’s Violin Concerto Dibrot , a work dedicated to her, with the Israeli Contemporary Players in a radio broadcast from Jerusalem and in the Contemporary Music Festival in Tel-Aviv. Nurit resides in Brooklyn, NY with her husband, the guitarist and music educator Rami Vamos, and their two children. She is currently in the Masters Program in the Historical Performance department at Juilliard and performing with the ensemble “Juilliard 415.”
Jasmine Lin
Jasmine Lin began violin studies at age four. Since then she has appeared as soloist with orchestras including the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Illinois Philharmonic Orchestra, Singapore Symphony Orchestra, Symphony Orchestra of Brazil, Symphony Orchestra of Uruguay, Evergreen Symphony of Taiwan, and National Symphony Orchestra of Taiwan, and in recital in Chicago, New York, Nova Scotia, Rio de Janeiro, Montevideo, andTaipei. She was a prizewinner in the International Paganini Competition and took second prize in the International Naumburg Competition. The New York Times describes her as an “unusually individualistic player” with “electrifying assertiveness” and “virtuosic abandon”.
As a chamber musician Ms. Lin has been a participant of the Marlboro Music Festival and the Steans Institute for Young Artists at Ravinia, and has toured extensively in the United States as part of the Chicago String Quartet, in China as part of the Overseas Musicians, and in Taiwan as a member of Taiwan Connection Music Festival. She has been an adjunct faculty member at Northwestern University and DePaul University and was a faculty member of the Taos School of Music in New Mexico.
Ms. Lin is a founding and current member of the Formosa Quartet, which won first prize in the 10th London International String Quartet Competition. The Formosa’s recording of works by Mozart, Debussy, Wolf and Schubert on the EMI Debut Series has won critical acclaim from Gramophone and The Strad magazines, and the quartet performs in major venues around the world including the Chicago Cultural Center, the Library of Congress, Caramoor Festival, Cornell University, Maui Classical Music Festival, Taipei’s Novel Hall, BBC In Tune, and Wigmore Hall. Ms. Lin is a graduate of the Curtis Institute of Music. She gave her New York debut in Merkin Hall, where the program included her poetry set to music. Her poem “The night of h’s” received Editor’s Choice Award from the International Poetry Foundation, and her poetry/music presentations have been featured in Chicago, at Cornell University in Ithaca, and on radio in Taipei, and have resulted in collaborations with composers Dana Wilson, David Loeb, and Thomas Oboe Lee.
In the 1999-2000 season Ms. Lin was Second Assistant Concertmaster of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra. In addition to her activities with the Formosa Quartet, she is a member of Trio Voce with cellist Marina Hoover and pianist Patricia Tao; the Trio recently released its first CD of works by Shostakovich and Weinberg, Inscapes, on the Con Brio label. Ms. Lin is also a member of the Chicago Chamber Musicians, whose Composer Perspectives series won the ASCAP award for adventuresome programming. She received a Grammy nomination as part of CCM’s Grammy-nominated CD of works for winds and strings by Mozart. She is on the faculty at Roosevelt University and a proud native of Chicago.
Ayano Ninomiya
Second-prize winner of the 2003 Walter W. Naumburg Competition and winner of Astral Artists’ 2003 National Auditions, violinist Ayano Ninomiya gave her highly acclaimed New York recital debut at Carnegie Hall’s Weill Recital Hall under Naumburg’s auspices. Astral presented her on its “Rising Stars” series at Philadelphia’s Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts, and featured her in a performance of piano trios with Astral graduate cellist Clancy Newman and renowned pianist Claude Frank. Under Astral’s auspices, she also led The Haddonfield Symphony Chamber Orchestra in Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons and gave her Philadelphia recital and concerto debuts. Astral presents her this season in a program of violin masterworks and in recital in New York’s Merkin Concert Hall. Ms. Ninomiya has appeared extensively across the U.S. as a recitalist, chamber musician, and orchestral soloist. She made her Boston Pops debut under Keith Lockhart, and has been featured as soloist with the Boston, Zurich, Harrisburg, and Southwest Florida symphonies, among many others. She recorded the complete works for violin by Larry Bell; Philadelphia’s City Paper placed the CD on its list of “Top 10 Classical Recordings of 2003.” As a recipient of a 2005 Frank Huntington Beebe Fellowship, Ms. Ninomiya spent the 2005-2006 academic year in Budapest researching the Bartók Archives and studying at the Franz Liszt Academy. She received a Master of Music degree from The Juilliard School, where she studied with Robert Mann, and holds joint degrees in Music and French from Harvard College.
Tai Murray
Acclaimed as “superb” by The New York Times, violinist Tai Murray is a rising star of her generation, increasingly in demand for both recitals and orchestral engagements.Winner of an Avery Fisher Career Grant in 2004, Tai Murray was a BBC New Generation Artist from 2008 to 2010. Tai has performed on the stages of such halls as Berlin’s Konzerthaus, Wigmore Hall in London, Chicago’s Orchestra Hall, Copenhagen’s Tivoli Gardens, Shanghai’s Concert Hall, New York’s Carnegie Hall and hascollaborated with a wide range of conductors and instrumentalists including Marin Alsop, Richard Goode, Alan Gilbert, Kristian Järvi,Jaime Laredo, Dmitry Sitkovetsky, Benjamin Schwarz, Mitsuko Uchida, and Mihaela Ursuleasa. Other recent debuts include the Atlanta and Dallas Symphony Orchestras, the Danish National Symphony Orchestra as well as re-engagements with the Chicago, St. Louis, Cincinnati and BaltimoreSymphony Orchestras. A dedicated chamber musician, Tai Murray is a member of the conductor-less East Coast Chamber Orchestra (ECCO). She has been on tour numerous times with Musicians from the Marlboro Festival and was a member of Lincoln Center’s Chamber Music Society (2004-2006). End of March 2011 Tai Murray recorded her first CD with Harmonia Mundi US.
Joel Noyes
Joel Noyes, cello, a native of Maine, began his studies at the age of four. Most recently he won a coveted position as a member of the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra in 2002. An avid chamber musician, Mr. Noyes has performed at Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall, Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall, and Bargemusic, Ltd. Summer festival appearances include Marlboro Music, La Jolla Summerfest, Sarasota, Taos, and Music from Angel Fire. Mr. Noyes has collaborated with many of the world’s leading chamber musicians, including Gilbert Kalish, Kim Kashkashian, Ida Kavafian, David Soyer, Steven Tenenbom, and Peter Wiley. A graduate of the Curtis Institute of Music, he was a student of David Soyer. Other teachers included Richard Aaron at the Cleveland Institute of Music and Marc Johnson of the Vermeer Quartet.
Clancy Newman
Cellist Clancy Newman, first prize winner of the prestigious Walter W. Naumburg International Competition and recipient of an Avery Fisher Career Grant, has had the unusual career of a performer/composer. He received his first significant public recognition at the age of twelve, when he won a Gold Medal at the Dandenong Youth Festival in Australia, competing against instrumentalists twice his age. Since then, he has performed as soloist throughout the United States, as well as in France, Switzerland, Australia, Canada, and Korea. He can often be heard on NPR’s “Performance Today” and has been featured on A&E’s “Breakfast With the Arts”. A sought after chamber musician, he has been a member of Chamber Music Society Two of Lincoln Center and Musicians from Marlboro, and is a current member of the Chicago Chamber Musicians and the Weiss-Kaplan-Newman trio. As a composer, he has been featured on the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center’s “Double Exposure” series and the Chicago Chamber Musicians’ “Freshly Scored” series. He has received commissions from Astral Artists, the Barnett Foundation, the Carpe Diem String Quartet, the Weiss-Kaplan-Newman trio, and the UBS Chamber Music Festival of Lexington. Mr. Newman is a graduate of the five-year exchange program between Juilliard and Columbia University, receiving a M.M. from Juilliard and a B.A. in English from Columbia. His teachers have included David Gibson, Joel Krosnick and Harvey Shapiro.
Alisa Weilerstein
Alisa Weilerstein, cello, is internationally renowned as one of the premiere soloists and chamber musicians of her generation. Since her first public concert at the age of 4, Ms. Weilerstein has performed with the nation’s top orchestras, given recitals throughout the U.S., Europe, and Japan, and regularly participates in prestigious international festivals. Her highly praised debut disc, recorded with Vivian Hornik Weilerstein, was released on EMI Classics in 2000. That same year, she was awarded an Avery Fisher Career Grant. Ms. Weilerstein is already continually engaged by orchestras across the U.S. and abroad, and has performed as soloist with the New York Philharmonic, Cleveland Orchestra, National Symphony Orchestra, Orchestre National de France, Tonhalle Orchestra Zurich, Orchestra of St. Luke’s, Royal Scottish National Orchestra, and the symphony orchestras of Baltimore, Bournemouth, Cincinnati, Colorado, Dallas, Detroit, Houston, Minnesota, Pittsburgh, and San Francisco, among many others. Ms. Weilerstein was nominated by Carnegie Hall to be an “ECHO” Rising Star in 2001, and she is an alumna of Lincoln Center’s Chamber Music Society II. Born in 1982, she made her debut with the Cleveland Orchestra at age 13. She made her Carnegie Hall debut two years later. Ms. Weilerstein holds a B.A. in History from Columbia University.
Caitlin Sullivan
Cellist Caitlin Sullivan enjoys a versatile career as an international performer and as an educator in New York City and beyond. Ms. Sullivan has performed in a broad range of ensembles including Ensemble ACJW, The Knights, IRIS Orchestra and the New York Philharmonic. Most recently, Ms. Sullivan participated in a 5-week residency in South Africa where she taught string students, performed chamber music with fellow Ensemble ACJW colleagues, and was a guest principal cellist of the KZN Philharmonic Orchestra. An advocate for music education, Ms. Sullivan has given presentations in public schools for the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center and The Academy, among others. Ms. Sullivan completed her fellowship with The Academy in 2009, where she was given the unique opportunity to perform chamber music regularly at Carnegie Hall during the 2007-2009 seasons. Ms. Sullivan attended the Eastman School of Music and The Juilliard School.
Amy Sue Barston
Praised as “passionate and elegant” by The New York Times, cellist Amy Sue Barston has performed as a soloist and chamber musician on stages all over the world, including multiple appearances in Carnegie Hall, Alice Tully Hall, Ravinia, Bargemusic, Caramoor, Haan Hall (Jerusalem), The Power House (Sydney, Australia), The Banff Centre (Canada), The International Musicians’ Seminar (England), and Chicago’s Symphony Center. At age seventeen, she appeared as soloist with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra on live television. The same year she was the Grand Prize winner in the Society of American Musicians’ Competition, and won First Place and the Audience Prize in the Fischoff International Chamber Music Competition. Amy studied with Eleonore Schoenfeld at the University of Southern California, and Joel Krosnick at The Juilliard School, where she earned her Masters degree. She is the cellist of the Corigliano Quartet, which Strad Magazine hailed as having “abundant commitment and mastery” and whose new Naxos CD was ranked “One of the Top Ten Recordings of 2007″ by both The New Yorker and Gramophone Magazine. Amy is a devoted teacher: in her home, at the New York School for Strings, as an assisting teacher at The Juilliard School, and at numerious summer music festivals around the globe. Several of her students commute for lessons from hundreds of miles away, some from as far away as Alaska, Japan, and Brazil. Each year, Amy gives recitals, masterclasses, chamber music performances, and solo performances with orchestras throughout the US and abroad.
Sumire Kudo
Cellist Sumire Kudo is an active chamber musician and soloist, and a member of the New York Philharmonic and the new music group counter)induction. Hailing from Tokyo, Japan, Sumire was the recipient of the “Hideo Saito Memorial Fund Award” of Sony Music Foundation, and was chosen as the most promising cellist by Seiji Ozawa and Tsuyoshi Tsutsumi in 2005. Before arriving in the United States in 2000, Sumire had already established herself in Japan with widespread concertizing, a record deal, and professional management. She has appeared in solo performances with Toho Gakuen Orchestra, the New Japan Philharmonic, Tokyo City Philharmonic, Yomiuri Nippon Symphony Orchestra, Japan Philharmonic, Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra and many others. Sumire has participated in numerous music festivals including the Aspen Music Festival, the Santa Fe Music Festival, SummerFest La Jolla, the Miyazaki Music Festival, Music@Menlo Festival, and the Marlboro Music Festival. Before joining New York Philharmonic, Sumire was the cellist of Avalon String Quartet. She taught at Indiana University South Bend from 2004 to 2006 where the quartet is in residence. In 2001, Sumire’s second solo CD, “Love of Beauty” was released by the Philips Label and chosen for the Best Recording Award by Record Geijutsu magazine in Japan.
Maurycy Banaszek
Maurycy Banaszek was born in Warsaw, Poland where he began his violin studies at the age of 6. He continued his musical education at J. Elsner High School of Music and F. Chopin Academy of Music in Warsaw. He is a graduate of the Manhattan School of Music in New York where he studied with Michael Tree. He has appeared in recital and as a soloist with orchestras in Europe and in USA. He received numerous violin, viola and chamber music awards. As a founding member of The Elsner String Quartet he has played in such prestigious venues as the Carnegie Hall in New York, Wigmore Hall in London, Gewandhaus in Leipzig, among others. In August 1998 he was invited by the members of the legendary Amadeus String Quartet to perform at the Amadeus Quartet 50th Anniversary Gala Concert in London.
He has participated in many international music festivals (including Marlboro, Seattle, Santa Fe, Aldeburgh, Moritzburg, Mozart, Kingston, Martha’s Vineyard, Warsaw Autumn). He regularly tours with the Musicians from Marlboro and appears at the Bargemusic in New York. He has made numerous recordings and broadcasts for TV/Radio stations in Europe, Asia and America (including regular live appearances on WQXR New York). He acted as a guest Principal Violist of the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra and has been a guest artist with the American, Miro, Camerata, Szymanowski, Coolidge String Quartets.
He was recently invited to be the soloist with the National Symphony Orchestra of Mexico, the New Jersey Lyric Orchestra at their Carnegie Hall debut performance and with the Metamorphosen Chamber Orchestra inJordan Hall, Boston. He was also chosen by Gidon Kremer to participate in Chamber Music Connects the World Festival in Kronberg, Germany where he performed with the Guarneri String Quartet.
He is a Principal Violist of the New York Symphonic Ensemble, held a position of Principal Viola at the Metamorphosen Chamber Orchestra and is a member of Sejong Soloists and the Metropolis Ensemble. He is also a founding member of ECCO – the new conductor-less chamber orchestra.
He plays a viola made by Hiroshi Iizuka in Philadelphia in 1997.
Jonathan Vinocour
Jonathan Vinocour joined the San Francisco Symphony as Principal Violist in 2009, having previously served as principal violist of the Saint Louis Symphony and guest principal of the Gewandhaus Orchestra of Leipzig. A native of Rochester, New York, Mr. Vinocour graduated from Princeton University in 2001 with a degree in chemistry and was awarded the university’s Sudler Prize in the Arts. He completed his master’s degree in 2003 at the New England Conservatory of Music, where he studied with Kim Kashkashian. Mr. Vinocour received First Prize in the Holland America Music Society Competition, and his first solo album, featuring works of Britten and Shostakovich, was recorded with the support of the Holland America Music Society. He has appeared as soloist with the Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra under maestros Hans Graf and Nicholas McGegan. He recently made his solo debut with the San Francisco Symphony under Michael Tilson Thomas in Berlioz’s Harold in Italy and also performed Morton Feldman’s Rothko Chapel with the orchestra this past season to critical acclaim. Mr. Vinocour has been a regular participant at the Marlboro Music Festival and has toured extensively with Musicians from Marlboro in past seasons; he has also participated in numerous other festivals, including the Steans Institute at the Ravinia Festival, Open Chamber Music at Prussia Cove, the Aspen Music Festival, and the Tanglewood Music Center. Mr. Vinocour has been a guest of the Boston Chamber Music Society and International Sejong Soloists and collaborated with artists such as Paula Robison, Gilbert Kalish, Miriam Fried, Yo Yo Ma, Jaime Laredo, and members of the Amadeus, Arditti, Cleveland, Guarneri, Juilliard, Jupiter, Mendelssohn, and Orion string quartets. He is a founding member and regular performer with ECCO (East Coast Chamber Orchestra), a conductor-less chamber ensemble based in New York. Mr. Vinocour plays on a viola made by Lorenzo Storioni in 1784 on kind loan from the San Francisco Symphony.
Max Mandel
Canadian violist Max Mandel is one of the most acclaimed and active chamber musicians of his generation. Comfortable in many styles and genres, Mr. Mandel’s current group affiliations include the FLUX Quartet, The Knights, The Kirby String Quartet, The Silk Road Ensemble, The Metropolitan Museum Artists in Concert, The Jupiter Symphony Chamber Players, The Smithsonian Chamber Players, The Caramoor Virtuosi, Blarvuster, ClassNotes and I Furiosi Baroque Ensemble.
Early formative experiences include founding the Metro String Quartet, forging his dedication to chamber music through collaboration with his colleagues and teachers, such as Lorand Fenyves at the Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto and the Banff Center for the Arts. Private studies at the University of Toronto and the Juilliard School were with Steven Dann and Samuel Rhodes.
Mr. Mandel has been Guest Principal of The Chamber Orchestra of Europe, Camerata Nordica, Camerata Bern and The Canadian Opera Company Orchestra. He is also a frequent guest of Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra.
Mr. Mandel is a fan of all kinds of music from Mozart to Feldman to Ghostface and considers himself very fortunate to have collaborated with great artists in many genres from Vera Beths to Don Byron to Kirk Hammett of Metallica. Mr. Mandel plays on a 1973 Giovanni Battista Morassi generously loaned to him by Lesley Robertson of the St. Lawrence Quartet. He resides in Brooklyn, NY.
Amadi Azikiwe
Amadi Azikiwe, viola, has been heard in recital throughout the U.S. Israel, Canada, South America, Central America, India, Japan, Hong Kong, and the Caribbean. He has been a guest of the Lincoln Center Chamber Music Society and performed on the Kennedy Center and La Jolla “Discovery” series. Mr. Azikiwe has appeared as soloist with the Virginia, North Carolina, Roanoke, Winston-Salem, and Salisbury Symphonies. He has performed at the Marlboro, Tanglewood, Aspen, and Norfolk Festivals, and his performances have been broadcast on radio and television in the U.S., England, Israel and South America. Among his awards are those from the New York Philharmonic, Concert Artists Guild, North Carolina Symphony. Mr. Azikiwe is on the faculty of James Madison University, and has taught at Brevard Music Center. He is also the Director of Program Development for the Gateways Music Festival. He attended the North Carolina School of the Arts, New England Conservatory and Indiana University.
Alexander Fiterstein
Clarinetist Alexander Fiterstein is recognized for playing that combines flawless technique and consummate musicianship with graceful phrasing and a warm soulful tone. Winner of a 2009 Avery Fisher Career Grant Award, Mr. Fiterstein has been praised byThe New York Times for possessing a “beautiful liquid clarity,” and The Washington Post wrote, “Fiterstein treats his instrument as his own personal voice, dazzling in its spectrum of colors, agility and range. Every sound he makes is finely measure without inhibiting expressiveness.” Considered one of today’s most exceptional clarinet players, Mr. Fiterstein has performed with prestigious orchestras, in recital and with chamber music ensembles throughout the world. Mr. Fiterstein was a member of the prestigious Chamber Music Society II of Lincoln Center from 2004 to 2006, and continues to perform with the CMS each season. Highlights of the 2011-12 season include a debut with the St. Petersburg Philharmonic in Russia as well as concerts with the Boston Chamber Music Society and at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC. Mr. Fiterstein is a clarinet professor at the University of Minnesota in the Twin Cities.
Nathan Farrington
Nathan Farrington, bass, began studying bass at the age of ten with the assistant principal of the Columbus Symphony Orchestra, John Pellegrino. Nathan currently performs as associate with the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Iris Chamber Orchestra, the Columbus Symphony Orchestra, the Canton Symphony Orchestra, and the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra. During the summer of 2000, Nathan became the youngest bass player ever to be awarded a fellowship to the prestigious Aspen Music Festival. He was also winner of the Aspen Music Festival Bass Concerto Competition. In 2001, he appeared as a soloist with the Columbus Symphony Orchestra after having won the orchestra’s concerto competition. In 2003, Nathan attended the Tanglewood Music Center as a Fellow, and in January 2005 he won the Philadelphia Orchestra’s Albert M. Greenfield Competition. The only bass player to have done so, he will appear as a soloist with the Philadelphia Orchestra in November 2006. An avid chamber musician, Nathan attended the renowned Marlboro Music Festival during the summers of 2004-’05, and will return for the summer of 2006. Also, he has made a number of chamber music appearances in Carnegie Hall’s Zankel Hall, and appears regularly on Garrison Keillor’s “A Prairie Home Companion”. Nathan was a member of his high school’s golf, baseball, and tennis teams. A recent recipient of a Dublin-Worthington Rotary Academic Scholarship, as well as the Sodohex Marriott Scholarship, Mr. Farrington is currently in his final year at the Curtis Institute of Music where he studies with Hal Robinson and Edgar Meyer.
Melvin Chen
A native of Tennessee, pianist Melvin Chen is recognized as an important young artist, having received acclaim for performances throughout the United States and abroad. As a soloist and chamber musician Mr. Chen has performed at major venues in the United States, including Carnegie Hall, Alice Tully Hall, and the Kennedy Center, in addition to other appearances throughout the United States, Canada, and Asia. In recent seasons Mr. Chen’s concerts have included two solo recitals at Weill Recital Hall, concerto performances with the American Symphony Orchestra, and numerous solo and chamber music appearances. Recently released recordings include discs of the Shostakovich piano sonatas and Beethoven’s Diabelli Variations on the Bridge label as well as a recording of Joan Tower’s piano music on the Naxos label. An enthusiastic chamber musician, Mr. Chen has collaborated with such artists as Ida Kavafian, David Shifrin, Pamela Frank, and Peter Wiley, and with the Miami, Miro, Shanghai, and Tokyo quartets. A performer in numerous music festivals, he has performed at the Bravo! Vail Valley Music Festival, Chautauqua, Norfolk Chamber Music Festival, Bard Music Festival, and Music from Angel Fire, among others.
Mr. Chen completed a doctorate in chemistry from Harvard University and also holds a double master’s degree from The Juilliard School in piano and violin. Previously, he attended Yale University, receiving a bachelor of science degree in chemistry and physics. Mr. Chen is on the piano faculty of the Bard College Conservatory of Music, where he is associate director, and has previously served on the piano faculty at the Yale School of Music.
Charles May, Jr.
Charles Mays, Jr., bass-baritone, has been a featured soloist, recitalist, and chamber musician with many international orchestras, festivals, and galas, and has been heard in concert halls around the world. He has done post-graduate work at the University of Hartford, after completing a Master’s Degree at the Manhattan School of Music, and receiving his Bachelor of Arts in Performance from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. His teachers have included Neil Rosenshein, Mark Oswald, Jon Humphrey, and Irene Gubrud.
Mr. Mays has been seen in concert on the stages of the Metropolitan Opera, the Cairo Opera, and the Alexandria Opera in Egypt, singing operatic roles such as Colline in La Bohème, Caronte in Monteverdi’s L’Orfeo, and Leporello in Mozart’s Don Giovanni. In addition, Charles boasts orchestral and oratorio credits such as the title role in Elijah, the baritone soloist in Faure’s Requiem, the bass soloist in Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony and his Choral Fantasy, Mozart’s Requiem and Vespers, many Bach cantatas, Haydn’s Creation and in the role of Pilatus in his Johannespassion. This past season, Charles was the Bass Soloist with the Hartford Symphony in Händel’s Messiah, in Haydn’s Die Schöpfung with the Brattleboro Music Center, in addition to his other recital and concert appearances. This current season, Mr. Mays looks forward to singing several concerts in Germany, including the Sechs Monologe aus Jedermann for baritone and orchestra with the Göttingen Symphony Orchestra and Bach’s cantata, Ich Habe Genug.
Equally at home in the recital hall as the concert hall, Charles has given recitals in Vienna, New York, Hartford, Washington D.C., and Vermont, and his powerful and rich voice was showcased last season on tour with Musicians from Marlboro. Mr. Mays has been a Grand Finalist in the Metropolitan Opera Competition in 2004, and continues to receive prizes and accolades for his scholarship and artistry. In addition to singing, Charles Mays, Jr. is also a noted vocal instructor and coach. Although currently living in New York City, he is originally from Washington, D.C., where he returns to give recitals and talks to elementary students on the historic power of song in the Black-American community.