FACULTY

Clarinet faculty member Alan R. Kay received a 2003 Presidential Scholars Teacher Recognition Award and appeared in a ceremony at Washington's Corcoran Gallery with his student Won-Jin Jo to receive a plaque and congratulations from First Lady Laura Bush. Kay was honored last year with membership in the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra and was recently voted in as the orchestra's program coordinator. He serves as artistic director of the New York Chamber Ensemble, which returned for its 14th season at the Cape May Music Festival. This year the ensemble appeared with Juilliard colleagues Mark Gould, Michael Finn, and Renée Jolles. He appeared on WNYC's Soundcheck with John Schaeffer in February, performing solo works by Vincent Persichetti and Krzysztof Penderecki.

Drama faculty member Felix Ivanov won first place in the heavyweight division at the 2003 American Juyukai 37th Annual East Coast Judo Championship, in Newark, N.J., in September.

Bass faculty member Eugene Levinson was the recipient of the International Society of Bassists 2003 Special Recognition Award in Orchestral Performance in June for his outstanding achievements. Levinson also wrote a new method book titled The School of Agility, released by Carl Fischer, detailing his innovative method of bass playing.

Jerome Lowenthal (MS '56, piano) played an all-Beethoven recital (including the "Hammerklavier" Sonata) at Bargemusic in September. In October he performed solo and chamber music with the Philomusica Society at Merkin Hall. On December 6, he is to play quintets by Fauré and Ignsaz Friedmann with the Avalon Quartet (Blaise Magniere [AD '03, resident quartet], Marie Wang [AD '03, resident quartet], Brian Chen [AD '03, resident quartet], and Sumire Kudo [AD '03, resident quartet]) at the Ukrainian Center. Later that month, he will be giving classes at the Ecole Normale (where he was once a student) in Paris.

STUDENTS

Koji Attwood, Steve Beck (BM '01, MM '03, piano), and Elizabeth Morgan (BM '01, MM '03, piano) are to perform at Merkin Hall on November 22 in a benefit concert for the International Society of the Friends of Gyorgy Cziffra.

Second-year Artist Diploma violinist Tanja Becker-Bender recently completed a tour with the Schleswig Holstein Music Festival Orchestra, conducted by Kurt Masur. Together with violinist Viviane Hagner, she performed Bach's Double Concerto in Hamburg, Greifswald, Berlin, and Leipzig. The tour was presented by the German Music Foundation, which has also loaned her a violin by Giuseppe Guarneri del Gesu since March 2002. Other summer projects included a performance of Beethoven's Violin Concerto with the Chautauqua Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Uriel Segal, a performance of Mozart's "Haffner" Serenade with the Prague Chamber Orchestra at the Rheingau Festival, chamber music at the Bebersee Festival, and recitals in Vienna and Berlin.

Dance student Marcus Bellamy toured Italy and Japan in West Side Story this summer.

Oliver Jia, a Pre-College student of Oxana Yablonskaya, won two first prizes in international piano competitions in Italy this summer. He received the top prize in the 14-18 age range at the Third Rassegna Internazionale per Giovani Pianisti "Citta di Minerbio," and in the young pianist age group at the Asociazione Amici del Concorso Pianistico di Senigallia Incontro Internazionale Giovani Pianisti "Citta di Ostra." Senigallian television interviewed him after the second competition results.

Cellist Wendy Law was invited to play in a memorial ceremony in September for the United Nations staff members who were killed in Baghdad as a result of a bombing in August. The memorial was held at the General Assembly of the United Nations and was webcast live on the U.N. Web site. (See Voice Box on Page 2.)

Artist Diploma pianist Soyeon Lee won second prize at the 2003 Cleveland International Piano Competition in August, as well as the competition's Mozart Prize, given for the best performance of a Mozart work.

D.M.A. composition student John Kaefer's recent composition Mosaic for large orchestra was performed by the Pacific Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Carl St. Clair as part of the orchestra's 2003 American Composers Festival. One of the performances was broadcast throughout California on the radio station K-Mozart FM. Mosiac, which was premiered in April 2002 by the New York Youth Symphony in Carnegie Hall, has garnered awards from BMI and the Barlow Endowment (the Barlow Prize; honorable mention). Kaefer won the 2003 Haddonfield Symphony Young Composers Competition, and Mosaic will be performed by that ensemble in December. He recently joined the piano faculty at Westminster Choir College of Rider University in Princeton, NJ.