Faculty

Double bass faculty member Eugene Levinson gave a series of master classes at the Scuola di Musica di Fiesole in Italy in March. Students participating in the Orchestra Giovanile and members of the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino Orchestra came to Fiesole to participate in the master classes, portions of which will be available for viewing at www.xbass.org.

Evening Division faculty member Henning Rübsam (BFA ’91, dance) was the speaker on the topic of dance at the international GEL conference at the Equitable Center in New York in April. Now in its fifth year, GEL (Good Experience Live) features leaders of the technology, science, business, design, and art worlds. Rübsam also taught in February and March in California. This summer he will be on the faculty at various festivals in Europe as well as at the Texas Academy of Ballet in Austin and at Bearnstow in Maine.

In June, filmmaker Lisa Russell will shoot a documentary on dance faculty member JoAnna Mendl Shaw’s Equus Projects. On June 9-10, Mendl Shaw and equestrian Mette Larson will teach a clinic at Willow Tree Stables in Huntington, N.Y., focusing on Physical Listening.

In November dance faculty member Roni Mahler danced the role of Giselle’s Mother in Dennis Nahat’s (’65, dance) production of Giselle for Ballet San Jose. Recent roles there also include the Countess in Donald McKayle’s District Storyville and the Mother and the Opera Diva in Flemming Flindt’s The Red Shoes. For Nahat’s annual production of The Nutcracker, Mahler performed the roles of the Housekeeper and Queen Teresa, and she also coached Peter Hershey (’00, dance) in the dual role of the Nutcracker/Prince Alexis.

In April on Easter Sunday, the nationally broadcast Saint Paul Sunday program featuring organ department chair Paul Jacobs performing on the Mander pipe organ at New York Church of St. Ignatius Loyola (originally aired last year) was rebroadcast. In March, Jacobs performed a program of Mendelssohn, Bach, Reger, and Julius Reubke at the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles.

Guitar department chair Sharon Isbin is featured on the soundtrack of Martin Scorsese’s The Departed, which won four Academy Awards in February. Isbin was heard on the awards telecast excerpt. The CD of the soundtrack was released in December on New Line Records.

Students

Undergraduate trumpet student Brandon Ridenour performed with the Canadian Brass in Cheyenne (Wyo.), Sioux Falls (S.D.), and Lansing and Ann Arbor (Mich.) in March. In December, he performed the Rafael Mendez transcription of the Mendelssohn Violin Concerto with the National Symphony at the Kennedy Center, under the direction of Pre-College alumnus Marvin Hamlisch. Brandon is also a member of the Lions Head Brass Quintet, a Juilliard-based ensemble that has been awarded a full fellowship to study and perform at the Aspen Music Festival this summer. Other members include Sydney Braunfeld (horn), Marques Young (trombone), and Jeff Missal (trumpet).

Pre-College violinist Eric Silberger will be one of two violinists representing the U.S. in the International Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow in June. In March, he was heard in a recital broadcast live on WBAI-FM, and in April he performed with the Cosmopolitan Symphony Orchestra at the Great Hall, Cooper Union, in New York. On May 6, he gives a recital at the Fort Lee (N.J.) Community Center. A performance on the Louvre Recital Series in Paris (broadcast live on Radio France) is scheduled for October 4.

Master’s degree candidate Elissa Cassini was second-place winner for violin and master’s degree candidate Akimi Fukuhara was third-place winner for piano in the Joyce Dutka Arts Foundation’s instrumental music competition. They will perform and receive their awards at the foundation’s annual gala concert on May 4 at the Liederkranz Club in New York.

Doctoral candidate in composition Ruo Huang’s cello concerto People Mountain People Sea, with soloist Jian Wang (’91, cello), was one of four works premiered in April at Columbia University’s Miller Theater, as part of its Pocket Concertos: Year Two series. Also on the program was Sebastian Currier’s (MM ’87, DMA ’92, composition) Piano Concerto, featuring Emma Tahmizian (MM ’87, piano).

Kinga Augustyn, master’s degree student in violin, won second prize in the Kosciuszko Foundation’s 2007 Wieniawski Violin Competition, held at the foundation’s townhouse in New York in March. She will receive a cash scholarship prize of $2,500.

Undergraduate piano student Esther Keel won second place in the first Rolf and Brigitte Gardey Piano Competition in Daytona Beach in March, performing Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No. 1 with the Jacksonville Symphony Orchestra.