Christian Marc Alonzo- musician, teacher and conductor. He is a member of the CUNY Brooklyn College Conservatory of Music’s brass and wind ensembles as a euphonium player. Here he also studies music education and conducting.
Christian currently teaches music for the Harmony Program at PS 152 in Brooklyn. The Harmony Program is piloting a promising and highly replicable model of intensive music education in NYC. The model incorporates elements of the world-renowned Venezuelan National System of Youth and Children’s Orchestras (“El Sistema”).
He also traveled to Caracas, Venezuela in June 2009 to spend two weeks learning from Venezuela’s famous national orchestra system”El Sistema.” Christian was invited by El Sistema Director, Susan Siman when she visited New York in April 2009
On his first day, Christian visited Montalban, the largest of El Sistema’s orchestra sites, and met the talented young musicians he would conduct, members of the Orquesta Infantil de Beethoven.
During his trip, Christian was given the opportunity to meet and talk with the LA Philharmonic’s very own Maestro Gustavo Dudamel. Dudamel himself, is a product of Venezuela’s El Sistema. Christian is also the director and conductor for the Staten Island Youtharmonic Project. [http://siyoutharmonic.r8.org/ Follow SI Youtharmonic on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/SI-Youtharmonic-Project/109949689333 ]
Mathias Aspelin Composer, Pianist, Arranger
Mathias Aspelin was born in Lappfjard, a village in the Swedish-speaking area on the west coast of Finland. Under the musical influence of a musical family, he started playing the piano at an early age, but didn’t take his first lesson until he was nine. It wasn’t long before he was performing solo and as an accompanist.
Mathias left Lappfjard to study at an International Baccalaureate high school. It was here, immersed in this new, multi-lingual environment, that Mathias first realized there was a rich, global culture beyond the borders of his native country. He studied philosophy and science and was curious about different ways of incorporating these new concepts into his playing.
While still in high school, he graduated from the Kuula Institute for Classical Studies. At the age of 16, Mathias was invited to perform for the Prime Minister of Finland playing Gershwin’s “Three Preludes” and Bill Evans’ “Re: Person I Knew.”
After high school, he completed a year of compulsory military training. He applied to Balliol College at Oxford University and was accepted, but put it off a year when he won a scholarship to study with Joanne Brackeen at Berklee College of Music. This had a profound effect on Mathias’ musical concepts and was crucial to his development as a player and composer.
Returning to Oxford may seem like a step backward from this point. However, Mathias has always been inspired by musicians like Wayne Shorter and composers like Xennakis and Stravinsky who have degrees in subjects outside music. Eventually, Mathias earned a degree in mathematical sciences and received a top result in philosophy. Mathias stayed active in Oxford’s music scene, and even played for President Clinton at the opening of the Rothemere American Institute at Oxford.
Also during this time, Mathias studied with numerous musicians, notably AMM pianist John Tilbury. It was under Tilbury’s tutelage that he came to the music of Morton Feldman, which proved to be another defining moment. While he always had an interest in minimal music, it was Feldman who introduced Mathias to an air of timelessness within a composition that he strives to incorporate into his own pensive style.
From Oxford, Mathias returned to the full-time study of music at the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki, Finland in 2001. Within two years, he earned a Fulbright scholarship that would bring him to the University of Southern California in Los Angeles. At USC he was a Quincy Jones Music Scholarship awardee and studied with Alan Pasqua and Vince Mendoza. He graduated Pi Kappa Lambda.
Most recently, Mathias was selected to participate in the Mancini Institute for emerging professional musicians and also toured with the Crimson Jazz Trio, a piano trio led by King Crimson drummer Ian Wallace. Mathias was a winner in the John Coltrane Scholarship Competition 2004.
Jourdan Astier
Richard Beeson Retired Orchestra Manager of the New York City Opera at Lincoln Center.
Jose Bergher
Cellist; member American Symphony Orchestra, 1970-1980; member Orquesta Sinfónica Venezuela, 1980-2000; board president, Orquesta Sinfónica Venezuela, 1986-1990; guest speaker at ICSOM, 1995 (International Conference of Symphony and Opera Musicians).
James A. Biddlecome has had a long and varied career. He began his musical studies with Claude Shappelle at Somerville (NJ) High School. He attended the Juilliard School of Music from 1956 to 1960, where he majored in trombone performance. From 1961 to 1963 he was a member of the US Army Field Band, returning to New York City in the fall of 1963. He has played with the American Ballet Theater Orchestra, the Goldman Band, and the New Hampshire Music Festival, and for eight years was principal trombonist of the Caramoor Music Festival. On April 23, 2006, Jim retired from the New York City Opera Orchestra, where he had played for over 40 years. He remains with NYCO as assistant orchestra librarian. He has appeared on numerous occasions as guest conductor of the Queens Symphonic Band. In January 2002 he was appointed Music Director of the North Jersey Philharmonic and in 2006 was selected to be Music Director of the Ridgewood (NJ) Gilbert & Sullivan Opera Company. While still a member of the NYC Opera Orchestra, he created the NYCO Education Department’s Opera in a Nutshell, a program for young instrumental musicians, where he conducted Nutshell presentations of Verdi’s Rigoletto, Puccini’s La Bohème, Puccini’s Tosca, and Bizet’s Carmen. Additionally, Jim has conducted the All North Jersey High School Orchestra (Region I All-State), the West Virginia All-State Orchestra, and the 2002 South Dakota All-State Orchestra.
Read Jim’s letter to Maestro Abreu by clicking HERE
David Braynard Bio coming soon.
Lucille Carra
Lucille Carra was born in Manhattan and graduated from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts with a BFA in Film Production and an MA in Cinema Studies. Through her company, Travelfilm, she has produced, directed and written prize-winning cultural documentaries. The Inland Sea (Earthwatch Film Award, Best Documentary, Hawaii International Film Festival) was filmed in Japan, and was based on Donald Richie’s classic travel memoir. Dvorak and America was the first U.S-Czech TV co-production and concerns composer Antonin Dvorak’s years in New York and his relationship with his African-American students. It premiered at Royal Festival Hall in London. The Last Wright, produced and written with biographer Garry McGee (Jean Seberg-Breathless), was funded, in part, by the National Endowment for the Arts and Humanities Iowa. Her films have been screened at international film festivals including Sundance, San Francisco, Leipzig, Sydney, Melbourne, Montreal, London, Golden Prague Music Festival. Funding sources include PBS, Czech TV, AVRO, Janus Films, RM Associates, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Japan Foundation, etc. Her films are distributed internationally on television and educational and home video. She is currently curating public programs of newly discovered performances by legendary Canadian pianist Glenn Gould in conjunction with a new documentary on his television, recording and radio work. [Source: http://www.dcenvironmentalfilmfest.org/press.php?PressID=10&range=C-D]
Lucille nominated Maestro José Antonio Abreu for the Glenn Gould Prize; it was unanimously awarded to him. Glenn Gould Prize to Maestro José Antonio Abreu.
Teresa Cheung is in her fourth season as assistant conductor for the American Symphony Orchestra and her third season as the music director and conductor for the Manhattan College Orchestra. She began her conducting career as apprentice conductor of the Nashville Symphony Orchestra. For six years, Cheung served as resident conductor for the Evansville Philharmonic Orchestra and conductor of the Evansville Philharmonic Youth Orchestra and Evansville Philharmonic Chorus. During her tenure in Evansville, Cheung played a major role in the musical life of the community. Amongst her many initiatives, she led the Evansville Philharmonic Youth Orchestra on its first international concert tour to Japan in 2002. A strong advocate for music education for all ages, Cheung has created numerous innovative concerts and lectures for educational programs with the Evansville Philharmonic Orchestra and the American Symphony Orchestra. Cheung is equally at home with orchestral and choral genres and is in frequent demand for symphonic, choral, and operatic productions in New York City, including the world premiere of Ruth Schonthal’s opera Jocasta. She served as the rehearsal conductor for Marc Blitzstein’s Regina and the first US fully-staged production of Robert Schumann’s Genoveva while serving as assistant conductor to Maestro Leon Botstein at the Bard SummerScape and the Bard Music Festival. Recent guest conducting appearances include Bard Music Festival with the American Symphony Orchestra, Altoona Symphony Orchestra, Centre Symphony, Empire Opera, Fort Wayne Philharmonic, New Amsterdam Symphony Orchestra, New York Metro Vocal Arts Ensemble, and Phoenix Symphony. A native of Hong Kong, Cheung earned her MM in Conducting from the Eastman School of Music. She is the recipient of the JoAnn Falletta Conducting Award for the most promising female conductors.
Roberta Cooper, bio coming soon.
Jacqui Danilow has been a Bass Player with the Metropolitan Opera orchestra for the past 27 years.Her most important goal in life is to increase cultural activity in our society for the sole purpose of creating a BETTER SOCIETY!!!!!
Akua Dixon, jazz cellist, composer, conductor, and vocalist.
A native of New York City, Akua Dixon has performed with Duke Ellington, Lionel Hampton, Max Roach, Dizzy Gillespie, Woody Shaw, B.B. King, James Brown, Carmen McRae, Betty Carter, La Lupe, Charanga America, Israel “Cachao” Lopez, Hector Lavoe, Marvin Gaye, Diana Ross, Tina Turner, Busta Rhymes, Whitney Houston, and many others. She is a graduate of the famed, High School of Performing Arts. A student of Benar Heifetz she attended the Manhattan School of Music. Akua is the leader of Quartette Indigo and was the founding cellist in the Uptown String Quartet. She supplied the string arrangements for the five-Grammy award winning CD, The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill and Aretha Franklin’s Grammy-nominated A Rose Is Still A Rose. She performs her original works and arrangements of jazz classics in concert halls and at jazz festivals around the world. Akua notated and conducted the premiere of “Riverside” for the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre, and has received awards from The National Endowment for the Arts, the Rockefeller Foundation and Meet the Composer. She has lectured at the Smithsonian and is the 1998 recipient of the African American Classical Music Award. Akua has worked on Broadway at Doonesbury, The Mystery of Edwin Drood, Dream Girls, Barnum, Cats, Jerry Girls and Nine. Please click here for her website.
Gayle Dixon–[Deepest regrets on the death of our friend and colleague: November 23, 2008.]
Please click here for her web page/bio.
Olivia Koppell
Violist, American Ballet Theater Orchestra.
Infinitely concerned with the OTHER ..
Eddie Locke Extraordinary musician and human being.
[Deceased: September 7, 2009.]
Please go to the following links for more about Eddie:
Charity MacDonald
Videographer. For more about Charity, please CLICK HERE. Or HERE.
Ahéhee'
Samuel Marchan
From Venezuela, founding member of the El sistema Merida’s branch.
Juilliard and NYU graduate, active freelancer and music producer.
He has been Consultant for the Sphinx Organization that promotes diversity in classical music.
Founding member of the Carpentier String Quartet that has premiered works of more than 40 latino composers.
Part of the initial group that started AXIS string quintet and the Philarmonic of the Americas.
Sam has been artist in residence for the Carnegie Hall link up programs and music explorers.
He is a specialist in Suzuki, Dalcroze, Kodaly and Paul Rolland methods.
Sam has a vast experience developing strings programs for the NYC Public Schools from Pre-k to High School, and is actually in charge of the PS 116M,PS 163Q, PS/IS 34’s strings programs.
He has received an honorary award as a Parks/King/Chavez visiting professor at the University of Michigan.
Enrique Márquez, violist and music advocate. Has served as principal violist of the Philharmonic Orchestra of the Americas, the Youth Orchestra of the Americas and the Jeunesses Musicales World Orchestra among other ensembles. 2005 Carnegie Hall debut recital in Weill Hall with Paquito D’Rivera.
Enrique is currently Executive Assistant to the Dean of Performance at the Manhattan School of Music, as well as member of the International House New York Alumni Association Steering Committee, member of the CORE of the Philharmonic Orchestra of the Americas and former member of the Board of Directors of the Youth Orchestra of the Americas. Enrique has performed and recorded in over 20 countries throughout the Americas, Asia and Europe. Collaborations with the Carnegie Hall Weill Music Institute, the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center and the United Nations Association of New York.
Enrique holds degrees from the Interlochen Arts Academy, Indiana University-Bloomington and the Manhattan School of Music, further studies at the Universität der Künste Berlin.
P. George Mathew
George Mathew returned to Carnegie Hall in January, 2007 as Artistic Director and Conductor of the REQUIEM FOR DARFUR, a benefit performance of the Verdi Requiem, bringing together UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador Mia Farrow, former UN Humanitarian Affairs head, Jan Egeland, and others to aid and highlight the plight of the survivors and refugees of the ongoing conflicts in Darfur and Chad. He made his Carnegie Hall debut in January 2006 as Artistic Director and Conductor of BEETHOVEN’S NINTH FOR SOUTH ASIA (BNSA), a benefit concert, he organized to raise funds and public awareness for survivors of the devastating earthquake of 2005. The concert brought together global leaders from the musical, media, business, academic, governmental and diplomatic communities and raised over $164,000 in a single evening for relief programmes managed by Doctors Without Borders/ Médecins sans Frontières. These concerts brought together principal musicians from major international orchestras, opera companies and chamber ensembles. Future concerts include MAHLER FOR THE CHILDREN OF AIDS (Mahler 3rd ) in January 2009, and the NINTH FOR DARFUR (Beethoven 9th ) in 2008-09. George Mathew and these humanitarian concerts were profiled in the global media, including BBC WORLD TV and Radio, CNN International, the New York Times, New York magazine, Radio France, Voice of America, NY1 television, National Public Radio’s Weekend Edition and Morning Edition, the Indian Express, the Pakistan Daily Times, Musical America and Symphony magazine. He also appears as narrator and conductor in the forthcoming documentary on Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, FOLLOWING THE NINTH.
In August 2007, George Mathew was named Music Director and Conductor of the Youth Philharmonic for United Nations and made his debut at the United Nations in October 2007. He made his Brooklyn Philharmonic debut this summer with the opening concert of their 2007 Summer Concerts. Since January 2007 he has served as assistant/cover conductor with the Brooklyn Philharmonic.
As co-Artistic Director of the Salon Nights series from 2002-04 at International House, New York, he produced over 35 orchestral and chamber music concerts. In July 2006, he was named President of the International House New York Area Alumni Council (NYAAC), having previously served on the Board of Trustees and as Chair of the Resident Gift Campaign. He is also a alumnus of the Manhattan School of Music, Amherst College, the University of Minnesota ( M.M.) and Duke University and has held teaching and conducting positions at The Manhattan School of Music, Amherst College, University of Minnesota and Tufts University.
Reinaldo Moya Please click here for his bio.
Marni Nixon Natalie Wood’s singing voice in West Side Story and Audrey Hepburn’s in My Fair Lady.
Please CLICK HERE for her bio.
Larry Rawdon
Steven Richman, Conductor and Music Director, HARMONIE ENSEMBLE/NEW YORK
Steven Richman, a winner of the Concert Artists Guild Award, is dedicated to the work of Harmonie Ensemble/New York, which he founded. Since 1997 he has been the Music Director and Conductor of the annual international Dvorák Day Concerts in New York featuring both the Dvorák Festival Orchestra of New York and the Ensemble.
Since 1979, he has led Harmonie Ensemble/New York in many historic and record-breaking concerts at Lincoln Center, throughout New York City and the United States, and recorded 8 internationally acclaimed CDs, including a Grammy-nominated Stravinsky CD on Koch International Classics.
Other recent engagements include conducting the Janácek Philharmonic Orchestra in the Czech Republic, and conducting Dvorák with members of the National Symphony in Washington, D.C.
Mr. Richman has also served as Music Associate for international television broadcasts of United Nations Day Concerts, collaborating with conductors including Yehudi Menuhin, Lorin Maazel, Richard Bonynge, Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos, and Zubin Mehta.
For the 2004 Dvorák Centennial, New York Times Favorite CDs, Mr. Richman was the only American, and living conductor, so honored. Steven Richman has been called “a masterful conductor” by the New York Daily News, “an excellent conductor, clearly a young man of unusual gifts” by composer Aaron Copland, and is recognized as a very special musician of extraordinary musicality, sensitivity and dynamism.
He is a frequent lecturer on subjects ranging from Gershwin to Toscanini, and also presents a series of radio talks on music. Mr. Richman writes on a variety of musical topics, reviews CDs on WQXR-FM’s First Hearing, and also reviews concert videos. He has conducted master classes at Chicago’s DePaul University. Mr. Richman is a recipient of the Concert Artists Guild Solo Recital Award. Maestro Richman was a founding member and Music Director of the Dvorák American Heritage Association, and contributed to Dvorák in America (Amadeus Press). Dvorák’s recently discovered Arrangement for Solo, Chorus and Orchestra of Stephen Foster’s “Old Folks at Home” was published, for the first time, in Mr. Richman’s edition by C. F. Peters.
William J. Scribner
Founder and Artistic Director of the Bronx Arts Ensemble.
Mr Scribner is principal bassoon and orchestra manager of the Colonial Symphony, Morristown, New Jersey An active freelance bassoonist in the New York area, Mr. Scribner is principal bassoonist with the Long Island Philharmonic, and the New Jersey State Opera Orchestra. He has performed with such groups as the New York Philharmonic, the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, the Chautauqua Symphony Orchestra, the Brooklyn Philharmonic, New Jersey Symphony, the American Symphony Orchestra and in numerous Broadway productions. He is a member of the Phoenix Woodwind Quintet, New York Five and the Leonia Chamber Players, and has been a faculty member at the University of Connecticut (Storrs), Queens College, Rutgers University at Newark, and the Bloomingdale House of Music. Mr. Scribner is a Board member of the Bronx Council on the Arts, the Advisory Board of Hostos Community College, and the Arts Consortium of Bronx Community College. and former treasurer of the American Symphony Orchestra. Mr. Scribner’└ education includes a Bachelor of Music for the University of Michigan and a Masters Degree in
Performance from New York University.
Joseph Sherman — a leader in music education in the NYC public schools for 35 years, founded the High School for Violin and Dance in the Bronx in 2002.
Mr. Sherman earned a Bachelor of Music degree from Ithaca College as a saxophone major in 1967. He later got a Masters Degree in Music Education at Queens College and a Masters in Education Administration from CCNY, and studied violin for nine years with Oscar Ravina of the New York Philharmonic.
Mr. Sherman worked in NYC public high schools from 1969 until 2004. Before becoming the founding Principal of the H.S. for Violin and Dance, Mr. Sherman served as Director of Arts Education for Bronx High Schools, Assistant Principal for the Arts at Morris High School, Conductor of Manhattan Borough-Wide Junior High School Orchestra, and Orchestra Director and Instrumental Music Teacher at Taft High School.
He has also maintained a steady career as a performer on both violin and saxophone while working in public schools. Mr. Sherman has been a violinist in the Bronx Symphony Orchestra for more than twenty years and plays a leading role in managing the affairs of the orchestra.
Professor Elise S. Sobol
Please CLICK HERE FOR HER NYU BIO.
Nina Stern is one of North America’s leading performers of the recorder and classical clarinet.
Click here for her website.
In recent years she is also hailed as an innovator in teaching school-age children to be fine young musicians. A native New Yorker, Ms. Stern studied with Jeanette van Wingerden and Hans-Rudolf Stalder at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis in Basel, Switzerland, where she received a Soloist’s Degree. From Basel, she moved to Milan, Italy where she was offered a teaching position at the Civica Scuola di Musica. Ms. Stern performs regularly as soloist or principal player with prestigious ensembles such as New York City Opera, The New York Philharmonic, The New York Collegium, Concert Royal, Philharmonia Baroque, American Classical Orchestra and Boston Baroque, She has also appeared with Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra, L’Orchestra della Scala (Milan), I Solisti Veneti, Hesperion XX and Tafelmusik. Her numerous festival appearances have included performances under leading conductors such as Christopher Hogwood, Trevor Pinnock, Claudio Scimone, Kurt Masur, Lorin Maazel, Jane Glover, Bruno Weil, Ton Koopman, Andrew Parrot and Jordi Savall. She has recorded for Erato, Harmonia Mundi, Sony Classics, Newport Classics, Wildboar, Telarc and Smithsonian labels.
Ms. Stern is currently on the faculty of the Mannes College of Music where she directed
the Historical Performance Program from 1989 to 1996. She has taught at the Five Colleges in Western Massachusetts and was twice a Visiting Professor at Oberlin Conservatory. Ms. Stern has been on the faculties of numerous workshops throughout the
United States and in Europe.
Ms. Stern also serves as Director of Education for the New York Collegium, where she is co-founder of a successful hands-on music teaching project in inner city public school classrooms. This project involves instruction to entire classrooms on recorder and percussion, as well intensive after school instruction that includes classical guitar. The Washington Post applauded this program as a model in its “innovation in the classroom” series (11/9/03). For this important work Ms. Stern was awarded an Endicott Fellowship in 2003 and was honored in 2005 with the “Early Music Brings History Alive” Award, bestowed by Early Music America. Recently, Ms. Stern recently developed a classroom teacher-training course (“Flutes and Drums Around the World) for the Amherst Early Music Festival and will initiate a recorder course for the visually impaired at The Lighthouse in New York City in the fall of 2006.
Lauren Taylor, L.C.S.W., is the project coordinator of the Hartford Partnership Program on Aging Education, and an adjunct professor at the Columbia University School of Social Work (CUSSW). A psychiatric social worker, she has been on staff for many years at the Service Program for Older People (SPOP). Lauren conducts seminars and workshops on a wide variety of mental health issues related to the aging process. In 2002, in conjunction with CUSSW, she made an educational film about sexuality and aging, funded by the Hartford Foundation and distributed by the New York Academy of Medicine. In 2005 she created a second teaching film, in which she brought together young social work students and older women for a dialogue about the challenges facing women across the life span.
Lauren has been studying music and dance since childhood. She was a free-lance illustrator before becoming a social worker. She has four children, and lives on Manhattan’s the Upper West Side.
Gregory F. W. Todd, Esq.
Gregory is a graduate of Yale University (B.A., cum laude, 1976) and the University of Michigan Law School (J.D., magna cum laude, 1982), where he was a Contributing Editor of the Michigan Law Review and a member of Order of the Coif. He spent four years in Tokyo, Japan with the law firm of Nishimura & Sanada, before joining Sullivan & Cromwell in New York (1987-1991). He concentrates on financial and corporate law matters, and in particular the areas of venture capital, private equity, and investment partnerships. Mr. Todd is admitted to the Bar in the States of New York and California.
Peter Weitzner, Bassist.
Peter Weitzner, a graduate of the Juilliard School, has performed with Solisti New York, the Jupiter Symphony, EOS Ensemble, SONYC, Philharmonia Virtuosi, Stamford Symphony, Musicians Accord, and the New Jersey Symphony.
As soloist, he has appeared with the Baltimore Symphony and performed the New York premiere of Sheila Silver‚s Chant for bass and piano.
Mr. Weitzner has been a frequent participant at international music festivals including Mostly Mozart, OK Mozart, Cape May, Festival of the Hamptons, Bratislava Music Festival, and the Bruckner Festival in Linz, Austria.
An avid chamber musician, Mr. Weitzner is currently the curator and host of the BPL Chamber Players in residence at the Grand Army Plaza branch of the Brooklyn Public Library. He has performed with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, Orion Quartet, Enso Quartet, Trio Solisti, New York Chamber Ensemble, Yale at Norfolk, Cooperstown Chamber Music Festival, New York Philomusica, Garden City Chamber Music Society, Sherman Chamber Ensemble and the Berkshire Bach Society.
He has also performed with the dance companies of Lar Lubovitch and David Parsons as well as Merce Cunningham’s 80th birthday celebration at the Lincoln Center Festival in the New York premiere of Biped.
He also participated in a performance at NJPAC (NJ Performing Arts Center) with the re-emerging Alice Coltrane, along with her son Ravi and Jack DeJohnette.
For ten years Mr. Weitzner toured the world as a member of the Giora Feidman Trio.
His work can be heard on the Nonesuch, Albany, Pro Gloria Musicae, New World Records, Musical Heritage Society, Delos, Grenadilla, and Berkshire Bach Society record labels.
He has also produced recordings of the Brandenburg Concerti with the Berkshire Bach Society and the critically acclaimed complete flute music of J.S. Bach with flutist Susan Rotholz and Kenneth Cooper, fortepiano, released by Bridge Records
July 29, 2009 at 8:08 am |
[...] fo El Sistema-New York City (ESNYC) member Lauren Taylor for this translation of an excerpt.] [...]