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Dance faculty member Carolyn Adams worked with the National Museum of Dance in Saratoga Spring, N.Y., on the exhibit "Dancing Rebels: The New Dance Group," which opened in June.
Christopher Durang, the co-director of the Playwrights program, had his new play, Miss Witherspoon, premiered last month at the McCarter Theater in Princeton, N.J. The play has its New York premiere in November at Playwrights Horzions. Both productions were directed by Emily Mann and feature Mahira Kakkar (Group 33).
The Richard Rodgers Director of the Drama Division Michael Kahn directed a production of Shakespeare's Othello, starring Avery Brook and featuring Group 27 alumnus Gregory Wooddell, at the Shakespeare Theater in Washington that began on August 30 and runs through the end of October.
Guitar faculty member Sharon Isbin received a Latin Grammy nomination for her recording with the New York Philharmonic of Rodrigo: Concierto de Aranjuez/Villa-Lobos: Concerto for Guitar/Ponce: Concierto del Sur (Warner Classics 2564-60296-2). In October, Isbin performs as soloist with the Zurich Chamber Orchestra in an 18-concert U.S. tour.
In July, graduate studies and L&M faculty member Phillip Lasser (DMA '94, composition) hosted a European American Musical Alliance concert to celebrate Juilliard's centennial at the Salle Cortot of the Ecole Normale de Musique de Paris. Tanja Becker-Bender (MM '02, AD '04, violin) and J.Y. Song (MM '93, DMA '98, piano) performed the chamber music concert, which included works by former faculty member, the late David Diamond, former faculty member Elliott Carter, Fauré, Stravinsky, Lili Boulanger, Lasser, and current doctoral candidate Mathew Fuerst.
In August, three of L&M faculty member Behzad Ranjbaran's (MM '88, DMA '92, composition) works received their premieres. The Philadelphia Orchestra, with Charles Dutoit conducting, performed Saratoga and his Violin Concerto with Chantal Juillet (Pre-College) as soloist. His Piano Quintet was premiered at the Saratoga Chamber Series at Saratoga Performing Arts Center, where he was the composer-in-residence this summer. Also his String Quartet was performed by the Fine Arts Quartet in the same series. International Sejong Soloists premiered Ranjbaran's Awakening for string orchestra at the Great Mountains Music Festival in South Korea. Open Secret for chorus and chamber orchestra was performed at the Ravinia Festival and Italy's Cantiere d'Arte di Montepulciano in July.
Graduate studies faculty member Joel Sachs performed with Continuum this summer in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, at the Ilkhom XX Festival. In June he spent 10 days in Iceland conducting the ensemble Caput in a portrait CD of the Icelandic composer Askell Masson. Sachs also took part in Mongolia's Roaring Hooves Festival in the South Gobi Desert, with performances in Ulaan Bataar, the capital, framing the week.
Jazz faculty member Loren Schoenberg is a finalist for a 2005 Association for Recorded Sound Collections Award for excellence in historical recorded sound research for The Complete Columbia Recordings of Woody Herman, 1945-1947 (Mosaic Records), in the best research in recorded jazz category.
Graduate studies faculty member Kent Tritle (BM '85, MM '88, organ; MM '88, choral conducting) was the organist for a concert at the Church of St. Ignatius Loyola in September.
Jazz faculty member Ben Wolfe performed with his quartet at Small's in New York in August.
Late-Breaking News:
After we went to press with September's New Faculty listings, the Jazz Studies program gained an additional faculty member.
Jazz percussionist Billy Drummond joins the School's faculty this year, in addition to the earlier appointments of Vincent Gardner and Ted Rosenthal. Drummond, a native of Newport News, Va., began playing the drums at 4 under the influence of his father, also a drummer. Arriving in New York in 1988, the younger Drummond joined the band Out of the Blue, and can be heard on their final CD for Blue Note records. He later joined forces with Horace Silver's sextet, and has toured and recorded with such jazz masters as Sonny Rollins, Pat Metheny, Joe Henderson, J.J. Johnson, Nat Adderly, Bobby Hutcherson, James Moody, Andrew Hill, Freddie Hubbard, and Steve Kuhn. Drummond has three albums as a leader to his credit: Native Colours, The Gift, and Dubai (which was voted No. 1 on New York Times jazz critic Peter Watrous's Top 10 list of 1996.
The Red Bull Artsehcro performed the premiere of Concerto for Turntable by DJ Radar and Raul Yañez on October 2 at Carnegie Hall. The ensemble included students You-young Kim, Michael Caterisano, Ryan Murphy, Alexander White, Noah Geller, Nick Recuber, and Timothy LaCrosse, as well as Lauren Sileo (DIP '05, flute) and Nathan Botts (MM '05, trumpet).
Pianist Qing Jiang was one of 10 artists awarded a Jack Kent Cooke Foundation scholarship for graduate study.
Voice student Isabel Leonard and Elaine Alvarez ('04, voice) were winners at the Marilyn Horne Competition and will make their Carnegie Hall debuts this year as a result.
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