FACULTY

Faculty member Emanuel Ax (DIP '70, PGD '72, piano) and his wife, Yoko Nozaki (BS '70, MM '72, piano), were soloists with the Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra, conducted by Louis Langrée, for the world premiere of Mark Morris's Mozart Dances on August 17-19. The evening-length work was part of the 40th Anniversary Mostly Mozart Festival.

Composition faculty member Milton Babbitt received the American Music Center's Founders Award at a ceremony in Manhattan in May.

Mentoring program director Eric Booth will be the keynote speaker for an international conference titled Music and the New Musicians, to be held November 8-10 in Glasgow, Scotland. The conference, funded by the Scottish Arts Council through the Youth Music Initiative, will provide a forum for examining the changing nature of the music world and the ways in which music organizations, musicians, and others involved must change with it.

Faculty member Judith Clurman (BM '77, MM '78, voice). conducted a performance on the Prism concert series at Central Synagogue in New York in May. Performers included Vocal Arts Department Director Brian Zeger (MM '81, piano), Deborah Voigt, Emily Bruskin (MM '03, GDIP '04, violin), Julia Bruskin (MM '03, cello), Donna Kwong (BM '00, MM '01, piano), and Colin Fowler (BM '03, MM '05, organ).

Faculty member Jonathan Dawe's (MM '91, DMA '95, composition) orchestral work The Flowering Arts was premiered in January by the Boston Symphony Orchestra under James Levine. The work was commissioned as part of the orchestra's 125th anniversary. Other recent premieres include Gibbons, Gongs, and Gamelan with the Manhattan School of Music Percussion Ensemble and Concerto for the First Sunday of New Year with the Second Instrumental Unit.

Drama faculty member Frank Deal performed in the play Six Years, written by Sharr White and directed by Hal Brooks, and directed the 10-minute play Three Guys and a Brenda, written by Adam Bock, at the Humana Festival in March and April. Also at the festival, drama faculty member Ellen Lauren performed in the play Hotel Cassiopeia, written by Charles L. Mee and directed by Anne Bogart.

Pre-College violin faculty member Shirley Givens appeared as special guest artist in April at New York's Leonard Nimoy Thalia Theater. She performed music by Debussy as well as a group of songs by Noel Coward and Cole Porter arranged by her husband Harry Wimmer (DIP '50, cello). The event was a benefit for Doctors Without Borders.

Jazz faculty member Wycliffe Gordon received the Trombonist of the Year award in July at the 10th Jazz Journalists Awards dinner, held at B.B. King's Blues Club and Grill. Others nominated in his category included Robin Eubanks, Conrad Herwig, Roswell Rudd, and Steve Turre. Gordon also received an honorary doctorate from the University of Scranton (Penn.) at the school's commencement ceremony in May, for which he was the principal speaker.

Christopher Durang wrote the book and lyrics for Adrift in Macao, a new musical that receives its New York premiere at Primary Stages in January.

Drama faculty member Michael Kahn's production of Shakespeare's Love's Labor's Lost, featuring Nick Choksi (Group 39), Michael Milligan (Group 30), Angela Pierce (Group 26), and Claire Lautier (Group 25) and drama faculty member Floyd King was performed over the summer at the Shakespeare Theater in Washington, D.C., and then traveled to the Royal Shakespeare Company in Stratford-upon-Avon in August. Kahn was nominated for a Helen Hayes Award in Washington for Othello. Tom Story (Group 27) was also nominated for A Number.

The Kalichstein-Laredo-Robinson Trio, with faculty member Joseph Kalichstein (BS '67, MS '69, piano), performed with the Claremont Trio—Emily Bruskin (MM '03, GDIP '04, violin), Julia Bruskin (MM '03, cello), and Donna Kwong (BM '00, MM '01, piano)—in April at Dalton Center Recital Hall, Western Michigan University.

Clarinet faculty member Alan R. Kay (BM '82, MM '83, clarinet; ACT '90, orchestral conducting) was a guest artist with America's Dream Chamber Artists in June at Weill Recital Hall. Other performers included Dov Scheindlin (BM '92, MM '94, viola), harp assistant faculty member Bridget Kibbey (BM '01, MM '03, harp), Timothy Fain (MM '00, violin), Cyrus Beroukhim, Arash Amini (MM '99, PS '00, cello), Alexandra Knoll (MM '98, oboe), Michi Wiancko (MM '02, violin), Stephen Sas (BM '92, MM '94, DMA '99, double bass), and Rieko Aizawa (MM '96, piano). A piece by faculty member Behzad Ranjbaran (DMA '92, MM '98, composition) was on the program.

Graduate studies faculty member Philip Lasser was the recipient of the 2006 Walter Hinrichsen Award from the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters. This award is given in collaboration with C.F. Peters Corporation for the publication of a work by an American composer.

Jazz faculty member Wynton Marsalis ('81, trumpet) debuted new music he wrote for the Orion String Quartet in May at Jazz at Lincoln Center's Frederick P. Rose Hall.

Drama faculty member Marsha Norman's book for the musical The Color Purple was nominated for a 2006 Tony Award.

In May, Pre-College faculty member Adelaide Roberts was joined by vocalist Danielle Woerner, guitarist Richard Udell, and harpist Lydia Zotto (a current Pre-College student) for a concert for the artist-in-residence program at the Holy Cross Episcopal Church in Kingston, N.Y. In June, Roberts and Udell performed on the Fine Arts at Old Dutch Church series in Kingston. The following month, Roberts performed solo recitals in Honolulu, while in August she was the guest pianist at the annual Blueberry Festival in Ellenville, N.Y.

Faculty member Kent Tritle (BM '85, MM '88, choral conducting, MM '88, organ) led the Choir and Orchestra of St. Ignatius Loyola in a performance of Mendelssohn's Paulus in May. The soloists were Christopher Feigum, Susanna Phillips (BM '03, MM '04, voice) and Sasha Cooke (MM '06, voice).

Drama faculty member Robert Neff Williams received an honorary doctorate in May from his alma mater, the University of South Dakota in Vermillion.

Drama faculty members Ralph Zito (Group 14) and Wendy Waterman were vocal coaches for the Lincoln Center Theater production of Clifford Odets' Awake and Sing! Zito was vocal consultant for Shakespeare's King Lear, directed by Robert Falls, which opens this month at the Goodman Theater in Chicago.

STUDENTS

Niccolo Athens, a bachelor's degree candidate in composition, was one of 10 student composers named as winners in the 54th annual BMI Student Composer Awards in May. As the youngest winner in the competition, he was awarded the special Carlos Surinach Prize for his composition Robert Kahn's Violin, for violin and orchestra. His work Blind Canvas, for viola and piano, was premiered by the principal violist of the San Antonio Symphony, Allyson Dawkins, at Trinity University.

Piano student Stephen Beus won the Max I. Allen Classical Fellowship in March.

Dance students Anthony Bryant, Brett Perry, Shamel Pitts, and Christopher Vo performed works by Eliot Feld with his Ballet Tech at the Joyce Theater in New York in June.

First-year master's degree student Jennifer Cho was one of 77 recent bachelor degree recipients from across the county to be named as scholars in the Jack Kent Cooke Foundation Graduate Program. As a Cooke Scholar, Cho, a violinist who studied with Stephen Clapp as a Juilliard undergraduate and is now studying with Robert Mann, will receive a scholarship covering tuition, room, board, fees, and books—up to $50,000 annually—for up to six years. She earned a B.M. in May.

First-year dance student Norbert de la Cruz III won first place in the non-classical dance category of the 18th annual Los Angeles Music Center Spotlight Awards, and first place in the dance category of the Emerging Young Artists Awards. He received $6,000 and $20,000 for the awards, respectively.

Pre-College students Roy Femenella, Thomas Reeves, Conrad Tao, Peng-Peng Gong, and Sunbin Kim were recipients of 2006 ASCAP Foundation Morton Gould Young Composer Awards. College Division students Michael Gilbertson, Huang Ruo, Michael Brown, Brandon Ridenour, and Ryan Gallagher were also honored.

Harp student Michelle Gott performed Concertino for harp and concert band, a new work by Kevin Kaska, at Carnegie Hall in April.

The new-music ensemble Avian Orchestra held a CD release party and concert in July at the Stone, a New York venue, for their new recording, Aethletics, featuring new music inspired by sports. Included is D.M.A. candidate Ray Lustig's piece You Catching?, which explores the world of sport-fishing and is a memorial to his grandfather, who was an avid leisure fisherman on Long Island. The work's narration is based a text adapted by Ana Berlin from fishing reports out of Montauk.

Adam Szymkowicz's (Playwrights '07) play Pretty Theft received its world premiere at the Capital Fringe Festival in Washington in July. The production was directed by Christopher Snipe. Also over the summer, Mr. Szymkowicz's plays Nerve and Food for Fish, originally developed at Juilliard, were produced in New York City.