Dance | Drama | Music

Dance

Anthony Bryant (BFA ’07) danced in Backchat, choreographed by Eliot Feld, in the opening-night gala of Feld’s Ballet Tech Mandance and Kids Dance performance at the Joyce Theater in April. Proceeds from the opening-night gala benefited the tuition-free Ballet Tech School.

Michelle Mola (BFA ’07) is scheduled to choreograph for the 2008 Juilliard Summer Dance Intensive. Mola is co-founder of Borderline Dance Circle, formerly Public Dance Theater.

In the fall, Zen Jefferson (BFA ’06), currently at Saarbrucken Ballett, will begin working with Wiesbaden Ballett in Wiesbaden, Germany, under the direction of German choreographer Stephan Thoss.

Austin McCormick (BFA ’06) choreographed a solo for Laura Careless (BFA ’07) to Poulenc’s Aubade: Concerto choréographique (1931) for James Conlon’s “Generative and Degenerate Music” concert at the Gerald W. Lynch Theater at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in Manhattan in April.

Marie Zvosec (BFA ’04) and Helen Hansen (BFA ’01) performed with Buglisi Dance Theater at the LaGuardia Performing Arts Center in Queens in April.

Shila Tirabassi (BFA ’99) performed with the Stephen Petronio Company in April at the Joyce Theater. The program included Bloom and two premieres: Beauty and the Brut and This Is the Story of a Girl in the World. Shila was featured in Time Out New York in April in Gia Kourlas’s article, “Hot Child in the City—Shila Tirabassi Heats Up the Stephen Petronio Company.”

Takehiro Ueyama (Diploma ’95) will celebrate his TAKE Dance Company’s third New York season with a three-night performance series at Columbia University’s Miller Theater on May 15-17.

Melanie Ríos Glaser (BFA ’94), artistic director of Saint Joseph Ballet, an afterschool program for disadvantaged children in Santa Ana, Calif., was named “Person of Influence” by The Los Angeles Times in February. She has just commissioned a new piece by Juilliard graduate Mark Haim (BFA ’83), to be premiered at the Irvine Barclay Theater in May. In February, Saint Joseph Ballet hosted a program of up-and-coming choreographers.

Vineland Regional Dance Company presented two pieces choreographed by co-artistic director Kimberly Chapman (BFA ’88) in its annual gala at Cumberland County College in Vineland, N.J., in April. Bruce McCormick (BFA ’98) returned to the company to choreograph The Power to Make War, about World War II and the bombing of Pearl Harbor.

Pascal Rioult Dance Theater—which is co-directed by associate artistic director Joyce Herring (BFA ’82) and includes Robert Robinson (BFA ’05) and Jane Sato (BFA ’03)—toured Italy in March; performed at the Kravis Center in West Palm Beach, Fla., in April; and was in residence at Kaatsbaan International Dance Center in Tivoli, N.Y., for three weeks in April and May.

In April, Ice Theater of New York premiered a new work for the ice by Susan Marshall (’78) on the ice stage at Rockefeller Plaza. Also on the program was Heart, choreographed by Juilliard dance faculty JoAnna Mendl Shaw.

The Juilliard School, in conjunction with the Antony Tudor Ballet Trust, hosted a weekend of events in March in celebration of the centennial of Tudor’s birth. Sylvia Yamada Brown (BFA ’71), Diana Byer (’68), Laura Glenn (BS ’67), Bonnie Mathis (’61), Yasuko Tokunaga (BFA ’70), Lance Westergard (’67), and Juilliard faculty member Andra Corvino served on the committee for the event. Ballet classes of Antony Tudor were reconstructed by Mathis, Tokunaga, and Westergard. Byer and Christina Paolucci (BFA’95) performed Tudor’s Judgment of Paris with Byer’s New York Theater Ballet as part of the celebration.

Drama

Stephen Bel Davies (Group 36) will appear this summer at Shakespeare Santa Cruz in its productions of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, directed by Kim Rubinstein, and Lanford Wilson’s Burn This, directed by Michael Barakiva (Directing ’00).

Yusef Miller’s (Playwrights ’07) latest play, The Master Shepherd(s) of Hookyjook, co-conceived with current fourth-year student Amari Cheatom (Group 37), will receive a workshop at the Lincoln Center Theater’s Director’s Lab this summer.

In March, Rebecca Brooksher (Group 34) appeared Off Off Broadway at Theaters at 45 Bleecker in a cycle of short plays called The Scariest, directed by Ari Edelson and Meredith McDonough.

Steve Harper’s (Playwrights ’04) play Actual Cost will be published by the Kenyon Review online in June. This summer, Harper returns to Yaddo to begin work on a new play.

In April, Michael Simpson (Group 33) appeared opposite Mare Winningham in a revival of Tennessee Williams’s The Glass Menagerie at the Old Globe Theater in San Diego, Calif.  The production was directed by Joe Calarco.

Ellen Melaver’s (Playwrights ’03) play Not Waving, written and developed in workshop at Juilliard, will receive its world premiere at the Williamstown Theater Festival in Massachusetts this summer. The production will be directed by Carolyn Cantor.

Dennis Butkus (Group 31) appeared in March at Vienna’s English Theater in Austria in a revival of Jon Marans’s play Old Wicked Songs.

In April, Jeffrey Carlson (Group 30) appeared in Theater for a New Audience’s Off-Broadway revival of Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra, directed by Darko Tresnjak.

In May, Nicole Lowrance (Group 30) will appear at American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco in a production of Sam Shepard’s Curse of the Starving Class. The production will be directed by Peter DuBois.

Lee Pace (Group 30) stars opposite Sarah Michelle Gellar in the feature film Possession, a remake of the South Korean thriller Jungdok. The film was directed by Joel Bergvall and Simon Sandquist.

Michael Chernus (Group 28) appeared in March at New York’s Public Theater in The Poor Itch, a new play written by John Belluso and directed by Lisa Peterson.

Anne Bates (Group 27) made her New York debut as a director in April at the American Globe Theater directing Kiss My Paczki, Mr. King of the World, part of its 15-minute play festival.

Carrie Preston (Group 23), Lynn Collins (Group 28), Nelsan Ellis (Group 33), and Rutina Wesley (Group 34) appear together in the new Alan Ball television series for HBO, True Blood.

In June, Michael Hayden (Group 21) will appear at American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco in a revival of John Ford’s ’Tis Pity She’s a Whore, directed by Carey Perloff.

Matt Servitto (Group 18) was recently awarded a 2008 SAG Award for best dramatic ensemble for his work in the HBO series The Sopranos. Servitto can also be seen in the Disney film Enchanted and the Dan Masterson independent film The Project, which won the Audience Award at the 2008 Slamdance Film Festival. Servitto returns to the Showtime series Brotherhood for its third season, which begins this month.

Andre Braugher (Group 17) and Michael Stuhlbarg (Group 21) will appear together in the Public Theater’s production of Hamlet this summer in Central Park. The play will be directed by Oskar Eustis.

Alan Gilmore (Group 11) and Jesse J. Perez (Group 29) appeared together in March at the McCarter Theater in Princeton, N.J., in Argonautika: The Voyage of Jason and the Argonauts, written and directed by Mary Zimmerman based on Apollonius of Rhodes and Gaius Valerius Flaccus and translated by Peter Green and David R. Slavitt. Gilmore will appear this summer at Shakespeare Santa Cruz in its revivals of All’s Well That Ends Well and Itamar Moses's Bach at Leipzig, which will also feature current second-year student Andrew L. Foster (Group 39).

Michael Genet (Group 9) won the 2008 N.A.A.C.P. Image Award for outstanding writing in a motion picture for the Focus Features feature film Talk to Me, starring Don Cheadle, Chewitel Ejiofor, and Martin Sheen.

James Harper (Group 3) recently completed a recurring guest role for six episodes of the new nighttime TV series GH: Night Shift. Harper also has a supporting role in the Providence Productions independent film Divided We Stand, directed by Bennett Stein.

Stephen McKinley Henderson (Group 1) and Group 30 classmates Anthony Mackie and Tracie Thoms appeared in March at the Kennedy Center in Washington, in a full month of staged readings of August Wilson’s 10-play cycle chronicling the lives of African-Americans in the last century.

David Schramm (Group 1), Michael Gill (Group 14), Samantha Soule (Group 31), and current fourth-year student Finn Wittrock (Group 37) will appear together in a revival of George Bernard Shaw’s Candida at the Berkshire Theater Festival in June. The production will be directed by Anders Cato.

Music

Maciej Bosak, (MM ’07, clarinet) became the principal clarinetist of the Macao Orchestra in April.

The Calder Quartet—whose members are violinists Andrew Bulbrook and Benjamin Jacobson, violist Jonathan Moerschel, and cellist Eric Byers—was presented on Merkin Concert Hall’s Tuesday Matinees series in New York in April. The Calder Quartet was the graduate string quartet-in-residence at the School from 2005 to 2007. Each of its members received an Artist Diploma last May.

Baritone Sidney Outlaw (MM ’07, voice) performed with pianist Warren Jones in March on the Music for a Great Space series at Christ United Methodist Church in Greensboro, N.C.

Chicago Opera Theater’s production of Mozart’s Don Giovanni, which runs from April 30 through May 11 at the Harris Theater for Music and Dance in Chicago’s Millenium Park, features Matt Boehler (Artist Diploma ’06, opera studies) in the role of Leporello, Andrew Funk (MM ’95, voice/opera) as the Commendatore, and Isabel Leonard (BM ’04, MM ’06, voice) as Zerlina. The production is conducted by Jane Glover and directed by Diane Paulus.

Soprano Sasha Cooke (MM ’06, voice) was one of three soloists featured in a performance of Karol Szymanowski’s Stabat Mater in April at the Church of St. Ignatius Loyola in New York, when Kent Tritle (BM ’85, MM ’88, organ; MM ’88, choral conducting) led the Choir and Orchestra of St. Ignatius Loyola in a concert on the Sacred Music in a Sacred Space series.

Eric Kutz (MM ’06, DMA ’02 cello) and Miko Kominami (BM ’95, MM ’96 piano) will perform as the Murasaki Duo in Weill Recital Hall on June 4. The duo—which has been ensemble-in-residence at Luther College in Decorah, Iowa, since 2002—will appear as part of a concert featuring Luther College Music faculty and will perform works by Martinu, Schumann, and David Vayo.

Chiu-Yuan Chen (MM ’05, clarinet) made her Weill Recital Hall debut along with Wei-En Hsu (MM ’06, collaborative piano) in March, in a program that featured a work by Wei-Chieh Lin (BM ’05, composition). Hsu also performed with soprano Chia-Fen Wu in de Rode Pomp, Belgium, in April.

In March, Aya Hamada (MM ’04, harpsichord) was invited to perform J.S. Bach’s “Brandenburg” Concerto No. 5 in the Baroque for the Ages chamber music series sponsored by Promusica Chamber Orchestra in Columbus, Ohio. The program also included J.S. Bach’s Musical Offering and music by Handel.

Nico Muhly (’04, composition) and Phillip Bimstein will be featured in a New Sounds Live program on May 8 at Merkin Concert Hall in New York, hosted by WNYC radio’s John Schaefer.

The Damascus Festival Chamber Orchestra and Ensemble was launched in March by Kinan Azmeh (MM ’03, Graduate Diploma ’04, clarinet). One of several development projects of the Syria Trust for Development, it aims to foster collaboration between Syrian musicians and their Arab counterparts. Beginning with a 10-day residency in Damascus in March that brought performers and composers together—among whom were cellist Hassan Moataz, Rami Khalife (Diploma ’03, piano), violist Wissem Ben-Ammar, and violinist Maias Yamani—the first phase of the project included two concerts by the ensemble (with four commissioned world premieres by Syrian composers), a recording session for a CD, and a series of master classes. In November, new commissioned works by Arab composers will be presented by the chamber orchestra, conducted by Azmeh.

Leena Chopra (BM ’03, MM ’05, voice) was featured in the Seattle Opera’s Young Artists Opera productions of Ravel’s L’enfant et les sortilèges and Puccini’s Gianni Schicchi, singing multiple roles in each. Six performances were presented in the theater at Meydenbauer Center in Bellevue, Wash.

In February, Gary L. Gatzke (BM ’02, MM ’04, double bass) played with the Martha Graham Dance Company in a performance of Appalachian Spring as part of the company’s residency at Interlochen Center for the Arts. Both the Martha Graham Dance Company and Interlochen are celebrating their 80th season this year. Janet Eilber (BFA ’73, dance), the artistic director of the Martha Graham Center of Contemporary Dance, serves on the board of trustees at Interlochen.

Su Jeon (BM ’02, MM ’04, piano) performed Beethoven’s Second Concerto with the Montreal Chamber Orchestra in March.

Three Lost Chords by Lance Horne (BM ’00, MM ’02, composition) was presented at the Zipper Factory in New York in March and April. The three musical monologues inspired by stories by Edgar Allan Poe, Franz Kafka, and Muriel Spark were performed by Nathan Lee Graham, Michael Slattery (MM ’02, voice), and Caroline Worra, with Horne at the piano.

William Ferguson (BM ’99, MM ’01, voice) was one of the singers featured in the American Opera Projects’ production of Lee Hoiby’s This Is the Rill Speaking—based on the play by Lanford Wilson, with a libretto by Mark Shulgasser—presented at the Purchase (N.Y.) College Conservatory of Music in April in association with Purchase College Opera. The opera was also performed at Symphony Space in Manhattan.

Jens Georg Bachmann (Advanced Certificate ’99, orchestral conducting) conducted the NDR Symphony (North German Radio Symphony Orchestra) in Hamburg, Germany, in January in two concerts with an all-Mendelssohn program.

Soprano N’Kenge (Advanced Certificate ’99, MM ’99, voice) performed a program titled “Last Diva Standing!” at the Metropolitan Room in New York in March, featuring songs from Puccini to Cole Porter.

The Borromeo String Quartet collaborated with the ProMusica Chamber Orchestra in the premiere of Lera Auerbach’s (BM ’98, MM ’99, composition) Fragile Solitudes: Shadowboxes for String Quartet and Orchestra in April at the Southern Theater in Columbus, Ohio. The work was commissioned by philanthropist Barbara Trueman, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Argosy Contemporary Music Fund.

Justine Chen (BM ’98, MM ’00, violin; DMA ’05, composition) joined violinist Rob Meyer, violist Brian Thompson, and cellist Chris Chorney for a performance of Beethoven’s String Quartet, Op. 29, No. 1, at the Taiwan Center in Flushing, Queens, in March.

Zuill Bailey (MM ’96, cello) made his Minnesota Orchestra debut in March under the baton of Andrew Litton, performing the Dvorak Cello Concerto in Orchestra Hall. He also played the work with the Orquesta Sinfonia de Peru in April.

Simone Dinnerstein (BM ’96, piano) will be presented in the final Sunday Morning Coffee Concert in the Walter Reade Theater in New York on May 4, as part of Lincoln Center’s Great Performers series.

Vadim Gluzman’s (Advanced Certificate ’96, violin) newest CD, of the Tchaikovsky and Glazunov Violin Concertos with the Bergen Philharmonic under Andrew Litton, was released in March on BIS. He makes his San Francisco Symphony debut in May, performing Shostakovich’s First Violin Concerto, conducted by James Gaffigan (Pre-College ’97, bassoon).

In January, Shawn Jones (BM ’96, bassoon) filled the post of acting second bassoon in the San Francisco Symphony, where he will serve until May.

The quartet Ethel—whose members are 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)—presented its second annual Ethel Fair at Symphony Space in New York in March. Other recent appearances included Chamber Music Alburquerque in March, and performances at the Flamingo Theater in Las Vegas, the Kitchen in New York, and the University of California San Diego in April.

The Musicians of Lenox Hill, under the artistic direction of Soo-Kyung Park (BM ’95, MM ’97, flute), performed a program titled “Chamber Music of Jewish Composers” at Temple Israel of the City of New York in April. Featured performers (in addition to Park) included Jae-Kyuck Cho (BM ’93, MM ’95 piano), Judy Kang (Professional Studies ’99 MM ’00, violin), Andy Lin (MM ’08, viola), Alberto Parrini (MM ’98, Advanced Certificate ’99 cello), and Jessica Zhou, (BM ’99, MM ’01, harp). The program included a world-premiere arrangement of Window for Viola and Piano by David Ludwig.

Tomoko Kanamaru (Advanced Certificate ’94, piano) performed Tchaikovsky’s First Piano Concerto with the Toledo Symphony Orchestra in Findlay, Ohio, in February, conducted by the orchestra’s resident conductor, Chelsea Tipton II.

John David Smith (MM ’94, DMA ’99, horn), assistant professor of music at the University of Delaware, was named principal horn of the Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia in February, as well as principal horn with the Opera Company of Philadelphia (where he made his debut with the company in a performance of Bellini’s Norma in April). He also performed as a soloist with the University of Delaware Symphony Orchestra in March in Britten’s Serenade for Tenor, Horn, and Strings.

Pianists Anthony Coleman and Stephen Gosling (BM ’93, MM ’94, DMA ’00, piano) will perform on Merkin Concert Hall’s Pianoply series in New York on May 22. The program will include Ligeti’s Musica Ricercata and Three Pieces for Two Pianos, as well as Steve Reich’s (’61, composition) Piano Phase.

Baritone Franco Pomponi (Juilliard Opera Center ’93) made his Italian debut as Nick Shadow in Stravinsky’s The Rake's Progress at Teatro Massimo in Palermo in February.

Aaron Flagg (BM ’92, MM ’93, trumpet) was the featured artist for a symposium titled “The Art of the Trumpet” at Jackson State University in Mississippi in March. In addition to master classes, he performed a recital with his wife, Cristina Stanescu (MM ’93, DMA ’99, collaborative piano), who gave a voice and piano master class on art song and opera. The Music Conservatory of Westchester, where Aaron serves as executive director, brought 180 students to perform at Zankel Hall in March. The performance included an adaptation of the musical Hair, a hip-hop ensemble, a chamber orchestra, and three world premieres, including a piano rhapsody composed by Flagg and performed by Stanescu. In February, Flagg was a panelist at Oberlin College’s symposium on “The Musician as Entrepreneur” and performed a trumpet-and-organ recital with organist Timothy Lewis at Grace Church in White Plains.

Viviana Guzman (MM ’90, flute) performed at the Raue Center for the Arts near Chicago with her quartet, Festival of Four, in April. Also in April, she performed with her group Viviana and Divas Latinas in Biloxi, Miss., and in Sioux Falls, SD. Earlier this year she participated in the Frutillar Chamber Music Festival in Frutillar, Chile.

William Hagenah (BM ’89, clarinet) played with four members of the Boston Symphony in March at Searles Castle in Great Barrington, Mass., in a program that included the Weber Clarinet Quintet. This can be seen on YouTube.com under ClarinetHagenah.

In April, The Inward Morning for baritone, flute, clarinet, and cello by Don Krishnaswami (BM ’84 composition, MM ’88 viola) received its world premiere in Seattle by the ensemble Simple Measures. The piece was commissioned by the ensemble, whose founder (and brother of the composer), Rajan Krishnaswami (BM ’86, MM ’87, cello), also performed the work.

In March, David Bernard (Pre-College ’82, conducting) conducted a performance of Beethoven’s Fourth Symphony with the Lawyers’ Orchestra at Fordham University’s Lincoln Center Auditorium. This performance marks the completion of Bernard’s cycle of all nine Beethoven symphonies performed over a six-year period with the two orchestras of which he is music director: the Lawyers’ Orchestra and the Park Avenue Chamber Symphony.

In January, Pendragon Press published Music Theory From Boethius to Zarlino: A Bibliography and Guide, by David Russell Williams and C. Matthew Balensuela (BM ’79, saxophone). The work is primarily designed for the non-specialist as a practical and basic introduction to the treatises, people, and scholarship of medieval and Renaissance theory. Balensuela is currently an associate professor of music at DePauw University.

Joel Feigin (MM ’77, DMA ’82, composition) has been awarded a commission from the Fromm Music Foundation of Harvard University to write a work for piano and chamber orchestra for American-Israeli pianist Yael Weiss. Feigin’s Four Meditations From Dogen for piano was performed by Margaret Mills in March at First Presbyterian Church in Greenwich, Conn. Feigin’s An Empty Boat Floating Adrift: Five Poems of Tu Fu was performed by the Ensemble for Contemporary Music at the University of California, Santa Barbara, in March, and his Lament With Ghosts for viola solo with a complement of six violas received its premiere there in April.

Jordan Rudess (Pre-College ’74) was featured on the cover of the March issue of Keyboard magazine, which included an extensive feature article/interview with the progressive rock keyboardist, along with four pages of lessons.

Trudy Kane (BM ’72, MM ’74, flute) is retiring as principal flutist of the Metropolitan Opera after 32 years. She will join the faculty of the Frost School of Music, University of Miami, beginning in August.

Madeleine Forte (BS ’70, MS ’71, piano) and her husband, Allen Forte, are the subjects of a film produced by Bassett Productions, based in San Francisco, titled Music Makes a Better Person: The Life and Work of Madeleine and Allen Forte, shown at Yale University’s William Harkness Hall in April, sponsored by the university’s department of music.

North/South Consonance presented a program devoted to the music of Max Lifchitz (BM ’70, MM ’71, composition) at the New York Public Library’s Donnell Library auditorium in March. The program featured vocal works composed between 1964 and 2006 and featured performers included narrator Norma Fire, Lisa Hansen (BM ’81, flute), Claudia Schaer (BM ’02, MM ’02, violin), and Lifchitz. The North/South Consonance Ensemble performed in April at Christ and St. Stephen’s Church in New York, presenting a program of premieres that featured soprano Lynn Owen (BS ’57, MS ’58, voice) and was conducted by Lifchitz.

Robert DeGaetano (BM ’69, MM ’70, piano) performed a recital at Merkin Concert Hall in New York in February. The program included the premiere of his work titled Forgiveness.

North River Music presented baritone Thomas Buckner in a concert at the Renee Weiler Concert Hall in New York in April that included the premiere of Noah Creshevsky’s (’68, composition) To Earth.

William Phemister (BS ’64, piano) gave the premiere of a new piano concerto by Jacob Bancks, Lumen de Lumine (which he co-commissioned with Soli Deo Gloria) in March in Sioux Falls with the South Dakota Symphony, conducted by David Gier. Having taught for 35 years at Wheaton College (in Illinois), Phemister was recently named professor emeritus of piano. For his retirement gala he performed the Rachmaninoff Second Concerto with the Wheaton College Symphony.

Stephen Schwartz (Pre-College ’64, piano), composer-lyricist of Wicked, was honored with the 2,359th star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in April in front of the Pantages Theater in Los Angeles, where the musical is now in its second year. The cast of Wicked performed a song from the show at the event. Schwartz also directed the 13th annual ASCAP Foundation/Disney Musical Theater Workshop in Los Angeles in April. Four new musical works were selected for presentation at the workshop, part of an ongoing series sponsored by the ASCAP Foundation to nurture new American musicals.

Peter Schickele (MS ’60, composition) was the featured guest on the Conversations series presented by Music for All Seasons at the National Arts Club in New York in April. The series interviewer/moderator is writer, broadcaster, and lecturer Nancy Shear.

Countertenor Russell Oberlin (Diploma ’51, voice) presented a concert-talk, “The High Male Voice: Castrato, Countertenor, and Male Alto,” at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Princeton, N.J., in March.

Herbert Handt (BS ’47, voice) will participate in the 150th anniversary celebrations of Puccini’s birth in Lucca, Italy, by conducting the Torre del Lago Puccini Festival Orchestra in performances of the composer’s first opera, Le Villi, at Lucca’s Teatro del Giglio in May. In June, Handt plans to present an unusual version of Tosca in the civic theater of Montecarlo (Lucca), in collaboration with Italian producer Beppe Menegatti. The production will be repeated in August at the Villa Olivia estate in Lucca, and in October at the newly restored Teatro Alfieri, the second largest opera house in the province of Lucca, situated in the Castelnuovo Garfagnana.