Dance | Drama | Music

Dance

Hanan Misko (BFA ’10) danced with the Buglisi Dance Theater during the company’s residency in Utica, N.Y., this summer. In addition, he accepted two contracts with the Metropolitan Opera, where he is scheduled to dance in this season’s productions of John Adams’s Nixon in China and Gluck’s Orfeo ed Euridice. 

Carlye Eckert’s (BFA ’09) short film Circumstance, Chance, Situation, featuring dancers Troy Ogilvie (BFA ’07), Esme Boyce (BFA ’09), and Arika Yamada (BFA ’09), along with work by composer Daniel Newman and filmmaker Yara Travieso (BFA ’09), was shown in May at the Center for Performance Research in Brooklyn as part of its Open Studios Series. 

Yara Travieso (BFA ’09) and Andrew Murdock (BFA ’07) danced in a new production, performed in English, of Hans Werner Henze’s The Runaway Slave (El Cimarron), co-directed and choreographed by current Juilliard student Isaac Winokur. The production was presented by the Greenwich Music Festival at the Theater at St. Catherine’s in Riverside, Conn., in June.  

Andrea Miller (BFA ’04), artistic director of Gallim Dance, premiered Wonderland at the Joyce Theater in New York City in August. Dancers included Troy Ogilvie (BFA ’07), Arika Yamada (BFA ’09), Bret Easterling (BFA ’10), Caroline Fermin (BFA ’07), and current Juilliard student William Barry. 

Shannon Gillen (BFA ’03) and Elisabeth Motley (BFA ’03), co-founders and directors of Doorknob Company, performed We Are Here After, with dancers Janna Diamond and Xan Burley, as finalists in the AWARD (Artists With Audiences Responding to Dance) Show in May at Joyce SoHo in New York City. 

Justin Leaf (BFA ’01) premiered a solo work, choreographed for him by New York-based performance artist John Kelly, in July at the Southern Theater in Minneapolis, as part of the program Solo: Premiere Performances by the 2008 and 2009 McKnight Artist Fellowships for Dancers. Leaf was awarded the 2009 fellowship, funded by the McKnight Foundation and administered by the Southern Theater, which allows recipients the opportunity to commission a solo work. In August, Leaf’s company, Junkyard Theater, presented Bedroom Eyes at the Jungle Theater in Minneapolis. 

Darrell Grand Moultrie (BFA ’00) paid tribute to the music of Sammy Davis Jr. in his work Simply Sammy, performed by BalletMet Columbus at the Capitol Theater in Columbus, Ohio, April 23-May 1. Moultrie shared the program, titled American Legends: Johnny, Sammy, Stevie, with James Kudelka, who set a piece to the music of Johnny Cash, and Maurice Hines, who set a piece to the music of Stevie Wonder. In May, the Cincinnati Ballet performed Simply Sammy at the Cincinnati Ballet Center. 

Nicholas Villeneuve (’00) served as guest choreographer for the 13th annual Perry-Mansfield New Works Festival. His new work was presented in June in the Main Studio of the Perry-Mansfield complex in Steamboat Springs, Colo. 

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Robyn Cohen (BFA ’98) played the role of Carla in season one of Gravity, a Starz Network series about a support group for people who have attempted suicide.   

In July, Alexandra Itacarambi (BFA ’98) was nominated for the position of director of the curatorial division of Centro Cultural São Paulo, a cultural center in Brazil that receives projects from around the world for dance, music, drama, performance, visual arts, and films. In addition to directing the center’s curatorial division, Itacarambi will continue to serve as head of dance curators and dance projects, overseeing such events as Semanas de Dança (Dance Weeks) and Novos Coreógrafos-Novas Criações: Site Specific (New Coreographers-New Creations: Site Specific). 

Christina May (BFA ’98) was appointed artistic director of the modern aerial dance company Braided Light Dance Project in Jacksonville, Fla., in January. The company hosted its annual show in a 6,000-square-foot abandoned space in downtown Jacksonville, June 4-5. 

Takehiro Ueyama (Diploma ’95), artistic director and choreographer of TAKE Dance, presented two programs in May at Dance Theater Workshop in New York City. The programs included the premiere of Ueyama’s Flight, with dancers Stephanie Amurao (BFA ’10), Marie Zvosec (BFA ’04), and Amy Young (BFA ’96), among others. 

In April, Robert Battle (BFA ’94) was announced to succeed Judith Jamison as artistic director of Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater upon her retirement in June 2011. (See Q&A .)

Mara Kurotschka (BFA ’92) co-directed and choreographed Wagner’s Rienzi, which opened in January at Deutsche Oper Berlin.

Ranardo-Domeico Grays (BFA ’92), artistic director and choreographer of Visions Contemporary Ballet, presented Dust on April 17 at Harlem Stage’s Aaron Davis Hall in New York City. The performance was presented as part of New York Sports Club’s first Dance Crews Showcase.

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Sylvia Waters (BS ’62) served as visiting professor at Harvard University for a dramatic arts course titled The Ailey Legacy: A Celebration of the African-American Heritage and the Modern Dance Tradition, in the spring 2010 semester. Waters worked under the direction of Elizabeth Bergmann, dance director at Harvard’s Office for the Arts. 

Drama

Plays written by Nick Jones (Playwrights ’10) and Nathan Jackson (Playwrights ’08) will be performed at the Duke Theater in New York City as part of LCT3, Lincoln Center Theater’s program that produces new work by emerging artists. Jones’s The Coward, directed by Sam Gold (Directing ’06), will run November 8-December 4, and Jackson’s When I Come to Die, directed by Thomas Kail, will run January 31-February 26. 

Adam Driver (Group 38) was featured in the premiere of Dan Klores’s Little Doc at the Rattlestick Playwrights Theater in New York City. Directed by John Gould Rubin, the play ran from June 17 through July 18. 

Katori Hall’s (Playwrights ’08) The Mountaintop, which won the 2010 Olivier Award for best new play, is schedule to open on Broadway this fall, in a production starring Samuel L. Jackson and Halle Berry. Performance dates and the theater have not yet been released.

The premiere of Beau Willimon’s (Playwrights ’07) play Spirit Control will be presented by the Manhattan Theater Club this fall. The production will be directed by Henry Wishcamper.

Seth Numrich (Group 36) and Amari Cheatom (Group 37) were featured in Marcus Gardley’s On the Levee, directed by Lear deBessonet. The play, which ran from June 28 through July 11, was presented by Lincoln Center Theater at the Duke Theater in New York City. 

Kara Lee Corthron (Playwrights ’06) received the Vineyard Theater’s third annual Paula Vogel Playwriting Award at a luncheon at the National Arts Club in New York City in June. The event was hosted by Colman Domingo.

In May, Sam Gold (Directing ’06) won an Obie Award for directing two plays by Annie Baker at venues in New York City last season. Circle Mirror Transformation was presented at Playwrights Horizons and The Aliens was performed at Rattlestick Playwrights Theater. This winter, Gold will direct the premiere of Bathesheba Doran’s (Playwrights ’04) Kin at Playwrights Horizon.

This summer, François Battiste (Group 35) appeared in the Public Theater’s productions of A Winter’s Tale, directed by Michael Greif, and The Merchant of Venice, directed by Daniel Sullivan, at Shakespeare in the Park in New York City. Liza J. Bennett (Group 39) and Shalita Grant (Group 39) also appeared in both productions. In addition, Bethany Heinrich (Group 39) performed in A Winter’s Tale and Kelsey Kurz (Group 39) was in The Merchant of Venice. 

Nick Westrate (Group 35) was nominated for a Drama Desk Award for outstanding featured actor in a play for his performance in Transit Group’s The Boys in the Band, which was directed by Jack Cummings III and ran February 12-March 28. This fall, Westrate and Elizabeth Marvel (Group 21) will appear in New York Theater Workshop’s production of Lillian Hellman’s The Little Foxes, directed by Ivo Van Hove. Previews begin September 10. Westrate will also be appearing in the forthcoming HBO miniseries Mildred Pierce, directed by Todd Haynes and starring Kate Winslet. 

Tommy Smith (Playwrights ’05) has been named the 2010-11 recipient of the Playwrights of New York Fellowship, the Lark Play Development Center’s annual award that provides financial support and housing for one year to an emerging playwright, as well as creative support from the Lark’s Playwrights’ Workshop.

In July and August, Jenny Schwartz’s (Playwrights ‘04) play God’s Ear was presented at Echo Theater Company in St. Louis. The production, directed by Eric Little, marked the regional premiere of the work.

Elizabeth Bartley (Group 29) is producing and starring in Tennessee Williams’s Orpheus Descending, presented by the Infinite Theater at the Provincetown Tennessee Williams Theater Festival in Cape Cod, Mass. Directed by Nick Potenzieri, the production will run September 23-25.

In July, Jesse Perez (Group 29) was featured in Shakespeare on the Sound’s production of Othello. The play, which ran at Pinkney Park in Rowayton, Conn., and at Roger Sherman Baldwin Park in Greenwich, Conn., was directed by Joanna Settle (Directing ’97)

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Adam Rapp’s (Playwrights ’99) Hallway Trilogy will open at Rattlestick Playwrights Theater in New York City on January 27, 2011.

The premiere of David Lindsay-Abaire’s (Playwrights ’97) Good People will be presented at the Manhattan Theater Club’s Samuel J. Friedman Theater, February 8-March 3, 2011. The production, which stars Frances McDormand, will be directed by Daniel Sullivan.

Reuben Jackson (Group 26) was recently awarded a certificate of recognition from the Jersey City Board of Education Parent Teachers Partnership Organization for his work in drama instruction and as a contributing teacher at Academy 1 middle school. Academy 1 is a magnet school in the Jersey City Public School District.

The Hollywood Fringe Festival presented Face the City, written and performed by Jesse Wilson (Group 24), at the Complex in Santa Monica, Calif., June 17-19. 

In June, Viola Davis (Group 22) received a Tony Award for best performance by a leading actress in a play for her role in August Wilson’s Fences. Directed by Kenny Leon, the show ran from April 26 through July 11 at the Cort Theater in New York City. Davis has also been cast in Tate Taylor’s film adaptation of Kathryn Stockett’s novel, The Help. The film is scheduled to be released in 2011.

In May, Stephen Kunken (Group 22) was nominated for a Tony Award for best performance by a featured actor in a play for his role in Lucy Prebble’s Enron.

In May, Laura Linney (Group 19) was nominated for a Tony Award for best performance by a leading actress in a play for her role in Donald Margulies’s Time Stands Still. Directed by Daniel Sullivan, the show ran at the Manhattan Theater Club January 28-March 14 and will return to Broadway at the Cort Theater on September 23.  

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Kathleen McNenny (Group 17) appeared in Peter Shaffer’s Equus at the John Drew Theater at Guild Hall in East Hampton, N.Y. Directed by Tony Walton, the show ran from June 8 through July 3. 

David Rainey (Group 16) was recently appointed as artistic director of the Landing Theater Company at the University of Houston-Downtown. Rainey directed company’s first production, Tennessee Williams’s The Glass Menagerie, which was performed June 23-July 11. 

Bradley Whitford (Group 14) stars in the new television comedy The Good Guys, which premiered in May on Fox.

Kevin Spacey (Group 12) stars in Margin Call, an independent film written and directed by J.C. Chandor. The movie, which revolves around a group of traders during the recent financial crisis, is slated for release this month.

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Boyd Gaines (Group 8) appeared in the premiere of A.R. Gurney’s The Grand Manner at the Mitzi E. Newhouse Theater at Lincoln Center. The production, directed by Mark Lamos, ran June 2-August 1. 

In May, Kelsey Grammer (Group 6) was nominated for a Tony Award for best performance by a leading actor in a musical for his role in La Cage aux Folles, music and lyrics by Jerry Herman, book by Harvey Fierstein. The production was directed by Terry Johnson and is currently playing at the Longacre Theater in New York City. 

Harriet Harris (Group 6) appeared in Stephen Sondheim’s Sweeney Todd at the Barrington Stage Company in Pittsfield, Mass. Directed by Julianne Boyd, the production ran from June 23 through July 17. 

In May, Stephen McKinley Henderson (Group 1) was nominated for a Tony Award for best performance by a featured actor in a play for his role in August Wilson’s Fences. Directed by Kenny Leon, the show ran April 26-July 11 at the Cort Theater in New York City. Henderson will direct Bruce Norris’s Clybourne Park at The Juilliard School in February 2011.

Music

In June, the Mike Cottone (MM ’10, jazz studies) Quintet performed at the Blue Note as part of the jazz club’s Emerging Artist series. The ensemble, which opened for singer Dee Dee Bridgewater, features Cottone on trumpet; Paul Sikivie (MM ’09, jazz studies) on bass; Juilliard Jazz master’s students Lucas Pino on tenor saxophone and Kris Bowers on piano; and Jared Schonig on drums.   

Donald Vega (Artist Diploma ’09, jazz studies) won first place in the 2010 Great American Jazz Piano Competition in Jacksonville, Fla., in May.  

In May, the American Pianists Association announced Aaron Diehl (BM ’07, jazz studies) as one of five finalists in its Jazz Fellowship Awards competition next season. The Jazz Fellowship Awards are produced every four years by the A.P.A. and the finalists are invited to Indianapolis to perform community outreach concerts, other public engagements, and the semifinals and finals rounds of the competition. The winner—named the Cole Porter Fellow of the A.P.A.—receives a two-year fellowship worth $75,000, a $50,000 cash award, career assistance, publicity, and professional fees.

Christopher DeVage (Artist Diploma ’06, voice) was the baritone soloist in Ned Rorem’s Evidence of Things Not Seen at the Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center’s Gildenhorn Recital Hall at the University of Maryland in May. The concert was sponsored by the Washington Vocal Arts Society in conjunction with its America Sings Festival 2010. That same month, DeVage performed as a soloist with the Academy Chorale and Chamber Society in Haydn’s The Seasons at the Germantown Academy Arts Center Theater in Ft. Washington, Pa. In April, DeVage was a soloist with the Choral Chameleon in the premiere of Jeffrey Parola’s oratorio Such Beautiful Things at Fourth Universalist Society in New York City.

In May, Henry Wong Doe (DMA ’06, piano) was appointed tenure track assistant professor of piano at Indiana University of Pennsylvania. He has been working as a temporary assistant professor at the school since August 2009. In April, he performed the Mozart Concerto No. 21 with the Adelphi Symphony at Adelphi University Performing Arts Center in Garden City, N.Y., and in June he performed with Eugenia Choi (BM ’00, MM ’01, DMA ’07, violin) in a program of works by Lukas Foss, Fauré, and Ravel at the Chicago Cultural Center as part of the Dame Myra Hess Memorial Concerts series. 

Kenneth Bryson (MM ’04, voice) performed as a soloist in a benefit concert for the Greater New York Chapter of the Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis Association at St. John’s Lutheran Church in Summit, N.J., in April. The performance was part of the Singing for a Cure concert series, which Bryson founded. 

Nico Muhly’s (MM ’04, composition) work Stabat Mater was premiered in May by the new-music chamber orchestra Signal at Merkin Concert Hall in New York City. The concert also included the premiere of Sir Harrison Birtwistle’s The Corridor. The Kaufman Center’s teen new-music ensemble, Face the Music, gave a preconcert performance of Muhly’s Honest Music and How About Now.

Josh Frank’s (BM ’04, trumpet) Parking Lot, a motion media piece with original music, was accepted into Art of the Northeast, an art competition and exhibition. Frank’s work was on view at the Silvermine Guild Arts Center in New Canaan, Conn., from April 30 to June 11. 

Susanna Phillips (BM ’03, MM ’04, voice) received the fifth annual Beverly Sills Artist Award for young singers at the Metropolitan Opera in April. The $50,000 prize is designated for singers between the ages of 25 and 40 who have already appeared in featured solo roles at the Met. The award was presented by Agnes Varis, a managing director on the Met’s board who endowed the award with her husband, Karl Leichtman, and Muffy Greenough, daughter of Beverly Sills.

In April, Jeremy Denk (DMA ’01, piano) performed as a special guest artist with the Lark Quartet, comprising Deborah Buck (BM ’93, violin), Harumi Rhodes (Diploma ’97, BM ’02, violin), Kathryn Lockwood (viola), and Caroline Stinson (MM ’08, cello), at Merkin Concert Hall in New York City. The program included the premiere of Paul Moravec’s Piano Quintet, as well as works by Jennifer Higdon, Mendelssohn, and Schumann.

Soyeon Lee (BM ’01, MM ’03, Artist Diploma ’05, piano) and Ran Dank (MM ’07, Artist Diploma ’09, piano) were among the winners of the Walter W. Naumburg Foundation’s annual piano competition in New York City in June. Lee took first prize, which includes two fully subsidized concerts in New York City, one of which will be held on March 29 in Carnegie Hall’s Weill Recital Hall; recitals and performances with orchestras throughout the United States; and a cash award of $10,000. Dank and Russian pianist Alexandre Moutouzkine received the two second prizes, each of which came with a cash award of $4,000. 

In March, Paul Stetsenko (DMA ’00, organ) performed J.S. Bach’s Clavier Concerto in D Minor under the baton of Tim Foley at Westminster Presbyterian Church in Alexandria, Va., where Stetsenko is music director. In the same concert, Stetsenko conducted Bach’s Cantata No. 182 with soloists, choir, and orchestra.

In April, Daniel Alfred Wachs (MM ’00, piano, MM ’03, orchestral conducting), director of instrumental studies and conductor of university orchestras at Chapman University in Orange, Calif., led several performances of Opera Chapman’s production of Mozart’s Così fan tutte at the school’s Memorial Hall. That same month, he conducted the Spartanburg Philharmonic Orchestra at Twichell Auditorium in Spartanburg, S.C., and led a daylong clinic as a guest lecturer and conductor at Hunter College in New York City. 

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Arash Amini (MM ’99, Professional Studies ’00, cello) performed with violinist and composer Mark O’Connor and pianist Melissa Marse (’99, accompanying) at Duke University in April and at the Music Center at Strathmore in Bethesda, Md., in May. The trio performed O’Connor’s Piano Trio No. 1 (Poets and Prophets), and several selections with singer-songwriter Rosanne Cash. In April, Amini performed with America’s Dream Chamber Artists at Montgomery County Community College in Blue Bell, Pa., as part of the National Endowment for the Arts’s American Masterpieces: Chamber Music series. The program featured Arthur Foote’s At Dusk for flute, cello, and harp; Aaron Copland’s Sextet for clarinet, string quartet, and piano; Charles Ives’s Piano Trio; and Samuel Barber’s String Quartet, Op. 11. Other Juilliard alumni who performed on the concert included Erin Keefe (MM ’05, violin), Cyrus Beroukhim (MM ’01, DMA ’07, violin), Dov Scheindlin (BM ’92, MM ’94, viola), Alexander Fiterstein (BM ’00, Graduate Diploma ’02, clarinet), Bridget Kibbey (BM ’01, MM ’03, harp), and Jennifer Lim (MM ’00, piano).  

Joyce Yang (BM ’99, MM ’01, DMA ’10, piano) was named an Avery Fisher Career Grant recipient in April. The $25,000 award recognizes outstanding talent and is meant to provide career assistance. Yang performed along with several other Career Grant recipients at the announcement ceremony, held at Lincoln Center’s Stanley H. Kaplan Penthouse. The concert was recorded by WQXR radio and broadcast in May. 

Inbal Segev (BM ’98, Professional Studies ’99, cello) performed with the Amerigo Trio, which includes violin faculty member Glenn Dicterow (BM ’71, violin) and violist Karen Dreyfus, at the Castleton Festival in Virginia in July. The group played the Beethoven Serenade in D Major, Op. 8, and the Leo Weiner Trio, Op. 6. In August, the trio performed works by Kodaly, Beethoven, Weiner, and Gideon Klein at the Chappaquiddick Summer Musical Festival. That same month, Segev performed a program of works by Schumann and Chopin with William Wolfram (BM ’78, piano) and flutist Linda Chesis at the Cooperstown Chamber Music Festival. Also in August, Segev performed the Schumann Piano Quintet and other works with Dmitri Berlinsky (Professional Studies ’93, violin) and Elena Baksht (MM ’00, piano) at the South Hampton Festival.  

Zuill Bailey’s (MM ’96, cello) new CD, Bach Cello Suites (Telarc), reached No. 1 on the classical Billboard charts in June and remained in that spot for several weeks. That same month he was heard on National Public Radio’s Morning Edition and also gave a Bach presentation on the NPR series Tiny Desk Concerts. In addition, he performed under the baton of faculty member Itzhak Perlman (’68, violin) with the Israel Philharmonic and the Westchester Philharmonic in April and May, respectively.    

Shawn Jones (BM ’96, bassoon) played with the San Francisco Ballet Orchestra from December through May, during the company’s 2009-10 season.  

Hyung Joon Won (’95, violin), founder of the Lindenbaum Music Company, hosted the second annual Lindenbaum Music Festival in Seoul, from June 28 through July 5. The event featured the Lindenbaum Festival Orchestra, conducted by Charles Dutoit, performing Beethoven’s “Leonore” Overture No. 3; Liszt’s Piano Concerto No. 2 with soloist Kun Woo Paik (’72, piano); and Strauss’s Ein Heldenleben, Op. 40.  

The quartet Ethel, comprised of Cornelius Dufallo (BM ’95, MM ’97, DMA ’02, violin), Ralph Farris (BM ’93, MM ’94, viola), Dorothy Lawson (MM ’84, DMA ’90, cello), and Mary Rowell (BM ’80, MM ’81, violin), released a CD, titled Oshtali, on the Thunderbird Records label in June. The album features original music by 11 American Indian student composers, ages 13 to 21, from the Chickasaw Summer Arts Academy in Ada, Okla. The CD, whose title translates as “divided into four parts,” was sponsored by Chickasaw Nation, a federally recognized tribe of American Indians originally from the Southeastern United States.   

In April, Miranda Cuckson (BM ’94, MM ’01, DMA ’06, violin) performed as a member of the Argento Chamber Ensemble at Columbia University’s Miller Theater. The concert included new multimedia works by Daniel Iglesia, Victor Adán, and Michel Galante, as well as Stravinsky’s Les Noces. 

The Beethoven Project Trio, comprising Sang Mee Lee (BM ’93, MM ’94, violin), Wendy Warner, cello, and George Lepauw, piano, performed at Alice Tully Hall in May. The program included the New York premiere of three recently rediscovered works by Beethoven: Piano Trio in E-flat Major, Hess 47; Piano Trio in E-flat Major, Op. 63; and Piano Trio in D Major, Kinsky/Halm Anhang 3. Later that month, the group’s recording of these trios, produced by Max Wilcox, was released on Cedille Records and distributed by Naxos. 

Audra McDonald (BM ’93, voice) and Marvin Hamlisch (’63, piano) performed for President Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama at a concert at the White House on July 19. The event, “Broadway Celebration,” was introduced by the president and was part of the White House’s In Performance concert series. Other performers included Nathan Lane, Tonya Pinkins, Idina Menzel, and Brian d’Arcy. The concert will be broadcast on PBS on October 20.  

In April, Keith Calmes (MM ’92, guitar) received an outstanding educator award from the College of New Jersey for his work as a guitar teacher at Wall (N.J.) High School. 

In April, Michael Hosford (BM ’91, MM ’93, trombone) performed his own compositions at the Friday Musicale auditorium in Jacksonville, Fla., with Corinne Stillwell (BM ’93, MM ’95, violin), Karen Pommerich, violin, Ellen Caruso Olson, viola, and Gregory Sauer, cello.

Organist, composer, and conductor Trent Johnson (Advanced Certificate ’91, organ) led the Oratorio Singers of Westfield in the premiere of his Celebration Overture for orchestra at the ensemble’s 30th anniversary concert in Westfield, N.J., in March. During the concert Johnson also led the chorus and orchestra in Bach’s “Easter” Oratorio and Handel’s Coronation Anthems. In May, Johnson played an organ recital on the von Beckerath organ of St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church in Millburn, N.J. The program, which celebrated 40 years of organ concerts on that instrument, included the premiere of Johnson’s Concert Variations on The Carnival of Venice for organ and as an encore he played his own arrangement of the bluegrass fiddle tune “The Orange Blossom Special.”  

Viviana Guzman (MM ’90, flute) performed her own compositions at California’s Esalen Institute in Big Sur in July. That same month, she played with Argentine guitarist/composer Máximo Diego Pujol in a performance presented by the Sierra Nevada Guitar Society at the Cal Neva Resort in Crystal Springs, Nev.; the duo performed again in July at the Carson Valley Arts Council in Minden, Nev. Also in July, Guzman performed with her quartet, Festival of Four, for the Festival Mozaic at the Vina Robles Winery in Paso Robles, Calif. 

Christian McBride (’90, double bass) was featured on guitarist Yotam Silberstein’s album Resonance, released in May by Jazz Legacy Productions. 

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The Shanghai Quartet, which includes Weigang Li (’89, resident quartet) and Honggang Li (’89, resident quartet), and the Eroica Trio, which includes Sara Sant’Ambrogio (’84, cello) and Erika Nickrenz (BM ’85, MM ’86, piano), are featured—along with the Orchestra of St. Luke’s—in Resonating Light, a new concert series that responds to current exhibitions at the Rubin Museum of Art in New York City. In May, the Shanghai Quartet performed works by Beethoven, Bright Sheng, and Joaquín Turina, and the Eroica Trio performed works by Shostakovich, Astor Piazzolla, Mark O’Connor, and Dvorak. 

Nadia Weintraub (BM ’88, MM ’92, piano) played Dvorak’s Piano Concerto with the Zagreb Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Stefan Lano, at Lisinski Concert Hall in Zagreb, Croatia, in January. Under the patronage of the Polish ambassador to Israel, Weintraub produced and performed in a concert at the Performing Arts Center in Ra’anana, Israel, in March that celebrated the 200th birthdays of Schumann and Chopin. As a member of the piano quartet Philomusica, Weintraub performed chamber works by Schumann and the chamber version of Chopin’s Piano Concerto No. 2 in F Minor. In addition, Weintraub was a guest artist at Israel’s International Spring Festival at the Rishon Lezion Performing Arts Center in May and at the Israel Festival at Henry Crown Symphony Hall in Jerusalem in June. 

In February, Maria Andriasova-Esparza (BM ’87, piano) was elected to the board of directors of Highbridge Voices, a children’s choral program that is part of the Highbridge Community Development Corporation, a collective effort to revitalize the South Bronx. Andriasova-Esparza coordinated and raised funds for the group’s April tour in Washington, which included an appearance at the White House. 

In February, conductor Rick Benjamin (’87, tuba) directed his 600th performance accompanying silent films with live orchestra, leading the Paragon Ragtime Orchestra underscoring three films at the American Cinematheque in Hollywood. In May, Benjamin conducted the P.R.O.—which he founded at Juilliard in 1985—in the premiere recording of original orchestrations from the Ziegfeld Follies, produced by Judith Sherman for New World Records. The disc, slated for release in November, will be part of Benjamin’s continuing series of historic American musical theater recordings for the New World label. In June, the San Francisco Symphony performed Benjamin’s reconstruction/orchestration of the Overture to Scott Joplin’s 1911 opera, Treemonisha.

Nina Kennedy (MM ’84, piano) produced and directed a documentary film about the life of her father, Matthew Kennedy (Diploma ’40, MS ’50, piano), a renowned concert pianist and former director of the Fisk Jubilee Singers. The film, titled Matthew Kennedy: One Man’s Journey, won the prize for best film by a black filmmaker at the Nashville Film Festival. 

Randy Max’s (MM ’83, percussion) book, Orchestral Excerpts for Timpani, was published by the Theodore Presser Company in June. The tome includes a CD that features 57 popular audition excerpts for timpani with orchestral accompaniment. 

Producer David Frost (BM ’82, MM ’83, piano) received two Grammy Awards at the 52nd annual awards ceremony in January for Renée Fleming’s (’86, voice) album Verismo Arias (Decca), which won in the best classical vocal performance category, and for guitar faculty member Sharon Isbin’s album Journey to the New World (Sony Classical), which won in the best instrumental soloist performance (without orchestra) category. In addition, his recording of the Korngold Violin Concerto with Philippe Quint (BM ’96, MM ’98, violin) was nominated in the best instrumental soloist performance (with orchestra) category. Frost was also nominated again for classical producer of the year; he has received six Grammy Awards to date.

Chin Kim (BM ’82, MM ’83, DMA ’89, violin) played Handel-Halvorsen’s Passacaglia, with violist Joung Hoon Song (BM ’93, violin), and J.S. Bach’s Ciaconna in the “Water for Haiti” benefit concert presented by the World Water Organization at Alice Tully Hall in March. In June, Kim performed Franz Waxman’s Carmen Fantasie with the Ureuk Symphony Orchestra at Merkin Concert Hall in New York City.

In April, Katherine Thomas (Diploma ’82, violin), a.k.a. the Great Kat, was featured in Milenio, a Mexican newspaper and Web site, and on New York magazine’s Web site, nymag.com.  

Wynton Marsalis (’81, trumpet) premiered his Swing Symphony (Symphony No. 3) with the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra and the Berliner Philharmoniker, led by Sir Simon Rattle, at the Berliner Philharmonie on June 9 and 10. The symphony was commissioned by the Berliner Philharmoniker, the New York Philharmonic, the Los Angeles Philharmonic Association, and the Barbican Centre in London. The piece was also the basis for a new dance work choreographed by Rhys Martin and performed by 170 Berlin schoolchildren at the Arena Berlin on June 12 and 13.  

In June, James Scott (BM ’80, MM ’81, trombone) performed Launy Grondahl’s Trombone Concerto with the Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra at the Esplanade Theater in Medicine Hat, Alberta, Canada. The orchestra’s resident conductor, Melanie Leonard, led the performance. The 2010-11 season marks Scott’s 30th anniversary as principal trombonist of the C.P.O.

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Kenneth Frazelle’s (BM ’78, composition) song cycle Songs in the Rear View Mirror was premiered in May by tenor Anthony Dean Griffey (Advanced Certificate ’95, voice) and pianist Warren Jones at the Kennedy Center in Washington. The concert was presented by the Vocal Arts Society. 

David Deveau (MM ’77, piano) performed Bartok’s Piano Quintet with the Boston Symphony Chamber Players in January at New England Conservatory’s Jordan Hall. In March, he gave a solo recital at the Michael C. Carlos Museum in Atlanta. That same month, he performed Beethoven sonatas with violinist Andres Cardenes at the Boston Conservatory. 

Larry Spivack’s (MM ’77, percussion) Space, commissioned by the Oak Ridge Civic Music Association for the Isotone Chamber Music series, was premiered in February by Spivack, Scott Eddlemon (BM ’77, percussion), Susan Eddlemon (BM ’71, MM ’72, DMA ’80, violin) on electric violin, and Katy Wolfe Zahn, soprano, at the American Museum of Science and Energy in Oak Ridge, Tenn. 

In February, Anthony Scelba (DMA ’76, double bass) was appointed artistic director of the Festival Internacional de Música de Campina Grande, a new chamber music festival that took place in Paraíba, Brazil, in May and June. Scelba gave a keynote address on chamber music and pedagogy and also served as a member of the festival faculty, which included Victoria Stewart (’70, violin). 

Victoria Bond (MM ’75, DMA ’77, orchestral conducting) was awarded a stipend to live and work at Brahmshaus in Baden-Baden, Germany, for the month of May. Bond is composing an opera with librettist Barbara Zinn Krieger about Clara Schumann. During their stay in Germany, Krieger and Bond attended a concert performance of excerpts from the opera, Clara: The Life and Loves of Clara Schumann, in Vienna. In June, Bond gave three New York Philharmonic preconcert lectures on Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis and Magnus Lindberg’s Al Largo in Avery Fisher Hall. That same month, her composition There Isn’t Time was premiered by the Harry Partch Ensemble—a group that specializes in the instruments of composer and instrument inventor Harry Partch—at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art’s Bing Auditorium. Commissioned by the museum, the piece was presented in conjunction with an exhibit of works by artist John Baldessari.  

Works by artist David Tobey (BM ’75, violin) were featured in an exhibit at the home of art collector Yvonne Wynter in New Rochelle, N.Y. The show, which ran from March 1 to June 13, included paintings, welded steel sculptures, and prints. The exhibit closed with a “Brunch and Browse” reception for collectors, gallery owners, and the general public.  

Douglas Riva’s (BM ’74, MM ’75, piano) new CD, Danzas españolas, the final recording in a 10-volume series of the complete piano works by Enrique Granados, was released by Naxos in May. 

Craig Sheppard (BM ’70, MS ’71, piano) performed Schubert’s last three sonatas—C minor, D. 958; A major, D. 959; and B-flat major, D. 960—at the University of Washington’s Meany Theater in Seattle in May. A recording of that performance will be released by Romeo Records in November. Sheppard performed in the Minnesota Beethoven Festival in June, playing Beethoven’s Variations on a Waltz by Diabelli, Op. 120, among other works, at Cotter High School in Winona, Minn. Yo-Yo Ma (’72, cello) and Midori (’87, violin) were also featured in the festival, performing at Winona State University’s Somsen Auditorium in June and July, respectively. In July, Sheppard co-hosted the first Piano Institute at the University of Washington in Seattle with Robin McCabe (MM ’73, DMA ’78, piano). 

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In celebration of J.S. Bach’s birthday, Albinas Prizgintas (BM ’69, MS ’70, organ) produced the 13th annual Bach Around the Clock festival, presented by the Trinity Artist Series at Trinity Episcopal Church in New Orleans, in March. The 29-hour continuous performance featured works by Bach and also included theater, dance, yoga, and poetry. Prizgintas gave the final performance, playing Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in D Minor. 

Christina Petrowska Quilico (BM ’68, MS ’69, piano) and composer Constantine Caravassilis received the inaugural Harry Freedman Recording Award, in honor of the late composer Harry Freedman, from the Canadian Music Center and the Harry Freedman Fund, in April. Quilico and Caravassilis will use the award money to record a two-CD set of Caravassilis’s work—they also received a grant for the project from the Ontario Arts Council in January. In March, Centrediscs released Quilico’s 23rd CD in the label. The album includes works by Alexina Louie, Violet Archer, and Larysa Kuzmenko. 

In May, Leonard Slatkin (BM ’67, orchestral conducting) was named music director of the Orchestre Nationale de Lyon. He will begin the appointment in the 2011-12 season, succeeding German conductor Jun Märkl. Slatkin is also the music director of the Detroit Symphony and principal guest conductor of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra. He last conducted the Lyon orchestra in April in three performances of an all-Rachmaninoff program.  

Susan Alexander-Max’s (BS ’65, MS ’66, piano) third volume of Clementi’s early piano sonatas, released by Naxos, became available in the U.K. in April and the U.S. in May.

Fernando Raudales-Navarra (Diploma ’65, violin) and Roman Rudnytsky (BS ’64, MS ’65, piano) participated in the International Music Festival in Tegucigalpa, Honduras, in May. The festival consisted of a cycle of four concerts. In the first concert Raudales-Navarra performed as soloist and conductor of the Honduran National Symphony Orchestra. The program included Bach’s Violin Concerto No. 2 in E Major, Mozart’s Symphony No. 35 (“Haffner”), and one of Raudales-Navarra’s original compositions. The second concert featured Raudales-Navarra in a recital performing his original compositions and other works; the third was a recital by Rudnytsky; and the fourth was a combined recital by both artists.  

Stephen Crosby’s (BS ’62, MS ’63 piano) work Lux Orbis Perpetua for choir and organ was premiered by the Philharmonic Center Chorale in Naples, Fla., in March. In January, Crosby gave an audio/video lecture titled “Diaghilev: Visionary Iconoclast and Godfather to a Creative Revolution” at the Naples Philharmonic Center for the Arts. 

The premiere recording of Philip Glass’s (Diploma ’60, MS ’62, composition) opera Orphée was released by the Orange Mountain Music label in July. Conducted by Anne Manson with the Portland Opera, the production features soprano Georgia Jarman as Eurydice, baritone Philip Cutlip as Orphée, soprano Lisa Saffer as La Princesse, and tenor Ryan MacPherson as Heurtebise. 

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Kenneth Bennett Lane (’51, voice) will give a concert titled “Romance in Ballads and Opera Arias” at the New Life Expo at the New Yorker Hotel on October 16. He will sing a wide variety of arias and songs, from works by opera composers such as Rossini, Verdi, and Wagner to Broadway ballads and popular songs. 

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Jacklin Bolton Stopp (BS ’49, music education) wrote an article tilted James C. Johnson and the American Secular Cantata for the summer 2010 issue of the journal American Music.