BIOS
CHIRON
Performing Arts
Christopher Kaufman - Founder/Artistic Director
BIOS
CHRISTOPHER KAUFMAN is a composer, performer, presenter and teacher. He has composed over seventy works for a wide variety of medium including orchestra, wind ensemble, dance, chamber groups, theater and solo works. He is the founder and artistic director of CHIRON Performing Arts through which he has presented the work of hundreds of artists of all disciplines. He has a large private studio of students and has led a wide variety of workshops for students of all ages in public and private schools and universities. He is a writer/reviewer for the New Music Connoisseur. His music has been featured at June in Buffalo, The Charles Ives Music Center, the NorthEastern Composer's Conference, Encore Summer Music, The Internationales Musikinstitut of Darmstadt, Germany and Eastman’s Musica Nova. His Ring of Fire - for orchestra was featured at the American Composers Orchestra readings. He has been a fellow four times at the MacDowell Arts Colony . He has received numerous commissions of his music including recently, Island (‘eeslahnd’) - for full orchestra and narrator. He has received support from the M.F. J. Copying Fund, Meet the Composer, UCC Council on the Arts, CAP, the CAP individual artists' award, as well as charitable donations from individuals in his community who support his work. Kaufman has recently completed a work for large orchestra titled THE PHOENIX - dedicated to the City of New York and presented a chamber version for ensemble and dance at his CHIRON Performing Arts event staged on 11/9/03 at THE FLEA Theater in NYC. He has recently created a new version of ‘Eeslahnd’ sans narration for performance overseas, a new solo work for pianist Daniel Rieppel titled ’Momenta’ (after Schubert), a new orchestral work based on salsa rhythms titled ‘Mambo’, and, for his CHIRON performing arts festival event 11/14/04 is compled an arrangement of improvised and composed music to accompany the live readings of poet Rene Robert Galvan. You may visit his web site for the latest news and to see the layouts for CHIRON Performing Arts events. Kaufman lives in Forest Hills, NY and maintains a large private studio of music students. site link: www.chkaufman.com - or - Jeffrey James Arts Consulting.
KATYA SURRENCE (Choreographer) began studying ballet at the age of five under lifelong mentor, Mahri Coshever, who was more interested in spreading the love of dance than the competiveness of it. When Katya was fifteen, she began teaching for Ms. Coshever and has continued to teach in many of the places where she has performed, such as Los Angeles, Atlantic City, The Bahamas, Japan, Guam, North Jersey and New York City. She began her performing career with Pacific Ballet Theatre and went on to perform with Joey Harris' The Group and other regional companies including Atlantic Contemporary Ballet Theatre and Hudson Repertory Dance Theatre. Ms. Surrence also performed in such musicals as A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum ,The King and I and The Merry Widow with the Los Angeles Civic Light Opera. She performed in revue shows in Lake Tahoe, Venezuela, Spain, Japan, Guam, Hawaii, Baltimore and Atlantic City where she started her Adagio team. Ms. Surrence and her partner went on to dance in the Bahamas, at Foxwood Casino in Connecticut, and on the television show Star Search. Ms. Surrence was then accepted into the American Ballroom Theatre's training program and studied the bronze and silver syllabi in the American technique with Pierre Dulaine and Yvonne Marceau. She received her teaching certificate in ballroom and was invited to join the company. With ABrT she traveled to Portugal, Africa and Hawaii and performed at the Joyce Theatre in New York City. She has recently returned from performing "around the world" with SilverSea Cruises where she was privileged to work with producer and choreographer, Walter Painter. Her own experiences along with studies in Kinesiology have led Ms. Surrence to her own holistic approach to dance -- to work within the student's physical limits to expand their abilities and to help them learn to express themselves through movement. She also believes deeply that dancing is not only for the "naturally gifted" student and that anyone who has the love and the drive can learn to dance.
Trombonist HAIM AVITSUR
has premiered over 50 works for trombone solo, chamber music, and orchestra.
In New York, he has performed at Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall,
the Noonday Concerts at Trinity Church Wall Street, Mannes College of
Music, and the Aaron Copland School of Music. His chamber music appearances
include Lincoln Center‚,
Alice Tully Hall, WQXR, New York‚s Classical Radio Station, Bard
College, and the Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, Russia. Mr. Avitsur
has presented master classes and workshop at the Aaron Copland School
of Music, NY, the Sentor School of Music, Syracuse University, NY, Stanford
University, CA, and the Tel-Aviv Music Center, Tel-Aviv, Israel. - site
link: www.haimavitsur.com
IDITH MESHULAM
was born in Israel and first studied piano with her mother, Shelly Asher-Meshulam.
At age nine, she performed with the Tel Aviv Chamber Orchestra, and for
several years with the Kibbutzim Orchestra, all the while giving solo
recitals and broadcast concerts throughout Israel. After receiving her
bachelor’s degree from Rubin Academy in Tel Aviv, she focused on
playing the works of contemporary composers, among them Olivier Messiaen,
for whom she has played in person.
Ms. Meshulam received her Ph.D. from New York University, where she had
taught for ten years. While a student at NYU, she researched the unpublished
piano music of Stefan Wolpe for her doctoral dissertation. Also an exponent
of the music of Nikos Skalkottas, whose mentor was Arnold Schoenberg,
Ms. Meshulam was collaborating with the composer and conductor Gunther
Schuller on a recording of Skalkottas’s Thirty-Two Piano Pieces,
to be released on the GM label on 2004. Ms. Meshulam initiated, organized,
and participated in a recent memorial concert for Robert Helps, her mentor
and friend. The concert, which was held at New York’s Cooper Union,
was reviewed in The New York Times and partially recorded for National
Public Radio. She has most recently taken an active role in the programming
and performance of a two-day festival of new music presented by American
Composers Alliance at the Kosciuszko Foundation in New York City.
LARA KOHN (dancer/choreographer) was born in Ahmedebad, India, raised in Paris, France and presently makes her home in New York City. Lara trained at the London Contemporary Dance School and apprenticed with Dominque Bagouet at the Centre Choreographique National de Montpellier. Since beginning her professional career in 1990, she has been a member of several French National and Independent dance companies. Most notably: Centre Choreographique National de Tours/Daniel Larrieu and Compagnie Christine Bastin. She has also collaborated with theater director Frederic Fisbach on several productions. Currently she is working on a collaboration with a visual artist as well as developing projects of her own.
ROBERT DICK
is a creative virtuoso in the tradition of Paganini and Hendrix.
Improvisor, composer, author, teacher and inventor, he is known worldwide
for redefining the flute, for creating revolutionary visions of its musical
role to stand alongside the flute's established musics. Robert's
musical tap roots are inspiration from the traditions central to him --
free improvisation, American and European contemporary classical art music,
Blues, Indian and other world musics, Western classical music, electronic,
rock, jazz.
Robert has recently returned to New York City to live after a decade in
Europe. He is on the faculty at NYU. His discography includes over
twenty CDs of original solo and chamber music by fellow composer/performers
in such groups as the A.D.D. Trio (with electric guitarist Christy Doran
and drummer Steve Argüelles) and the Ambient/Overdrive group King
Chubby (with Ed Bialek, samples and keyboards and Will Ryan, handmade
instruments and percussion). Other CDs feature music by Telemann
(the "Fantasies" for flute alone) and Jimi Hendrix.
A duo recording with Jaron Lanier "Columns of Air" is on the
horizon. The Emerson Company manufactures the Robert Dick Model bass flute,
and Dick is developing his radical "Glissando Headjoint" with
Bickford Brannen or Brannen Brothers Flutemakers. The "Glissando
Headjoint", a telescoping mouthpiece, widens the flute's expressive
possibilities enormously -- creating virtually a new instrument. Site
link: www.robertdick.net
GEORGE ROSENBAUM started playing violin at age 6. He won the New Jersey statewide best young artist award 5 years in a row. He studied with Samuel Applebaum at the Manhattan School of Music and with George Papich at the University of North Texas. He is a National and International soloist, chamber ensemble musician and orchestral player and has held faculty positions at Texas Christian University, Northeast Louisiana University, the University of Memphis and Mesa State College. The list of works composed for him by composers of large and small reputations would take up the rest of this program. He is known for his tireless support of new music and masterful performances of works of the past. His ‘Fats Waller’ impressions are a matter of legend. About fifteen years ago he befriended a young composer named Christopher Kaufman, toured with him, cajoled the composition from him of 2 concertos, a duo and a solo work for viola and helped inspire the inception of this concert series.
ELLIOTT SCHWARTZ
was born in New York City and studied composition with Otto Luening and
Jack Beeson at Columbia University. Since 1964 he has taught at Bowdoin
College, where he holds the Robert K. Beckwith Professorship of music.
He has also held extended visiting residencies at the University of California
(Santa Barbara and San Diego campuses), Harvard University, Ohio State
University, the London College of Music, Trinity College of Music (UK)
and Cambridge University (UK). Schwartz has served as president of the
College Music Society, vice-president of the American Music Center, and
national chair of the American Society of University Composers.
Schwartz’s compositions have been performed by such groups as the
Minnesota Orchestra, Cincinnati Symphony, Milwaukee Symphony, Indianapolis
Symphony, St Paul Chamber Orchestra, Chicago Chamber Orchestra, and the
Youth Orchestra of the Netherlands; they have also been featured at numerous
international music centers and festivals including Tanglewood, the Library
of Congress, Monday Evening Concerts (Los Angeles), Spoleto Festival (Charleston),
the Bath, York and Kings Lynn Festivals (England), De Ijsbreker (Amsterdam),
Music of the Americas (London), “Leningrad Spring,” International
Double Reed Festival (Rotterdam), and the European Youth Orchestra Festival
(Copenhagen). Recent appearances as guest composer-lecturer include New
York (Merkin Hall, NYU, SUNY/ Stony Brook, and the Museum of Modern Art),
Berkeley (Sounds New), Boston (Extension Works, Tufts), London (Royal
Academy of Music, and the Institute for United States Studies/ University
of London), the Tokyo College of Music, Reykjavik Conservatory (Iceland),
and the Weimar Hochschule (Germany). In the coming 2003-2004 season Schwartz
will appear as guest composer-performer in New York (Flea Theater), London
(Goldsmiths College and the Royal Academy), and Boston (Berklee College
and Composers in Red Sneakers), Butler University, Adelphi University
and Western Illinois University. He will also hold a week-long residency
at Oxford University (UK), and introduce his new chamber work By George
at the international “Handel MusikTage” (Germany). In addition
to composing, Schwartz has written extensively on musical topics. His
books include The Symphonies of Ralph Vaughan Williams, Music: Ways of
Listening; Electronic Music: A Listener's Guide; Music since 1945 (of
which he is co-author with Daniel Godfrey) and the anthology Contemporary
Composers on Contemporary Music (co-editor with Barney Childs). His compositions
are published by Carl Fischer, G.Schirmer, Theodore Presser, and MMB;
CD recordings of his music can be heard on the New World, CRI, Capstone,
Innova, Vienna Modern Masters and GM labels. An Albany CD of his orchestral
music is due for release this fall. More
about Elliott Scwartz.
BOMBASTIQ BRASS exists both as a trio and as a quintet. This innovative ensemble presents programs that elevate the spirits and provide a good time. The individual players in BOMBASTIQ BRASS are all award-winning New York free-lance musicians with international careers. Usually there will be a theme to concerts by BOMBASTIQ BRASS. For instance “Popular American Classics” – a journey through American music history covering Stephen Foster, George Gershwin, Leonard Bernstein, Madonna and many more. Another program-example: “Something old, something new, Something borrowed, something blue” consisting of original compositions from the Romantic era and from present day, arrangements of music originally scored for other instrumentations, some down-and-dirty blues and a delightful jazz-transcription of Mendelssohn’s famous wedding march. Although BOMBASTIQ BRASS has had many new works written especially for it, and continues to give world-premieres, the main goal of BOMBASTIQ BRASS is to play music that people relate easily to in order to spread joy and happiness to audiences everywhere.
Norwegian horn player Karl Kramer-Johansen
is a member of the Jupiter Symphony Chamber Players. He is a winner of
many prizes and awards – American Horn Competition 1997 and 1999,
and most recently, the 2001 American Scandinavian Society Cultural Award.
Mr. Kramer is also active as a recitalist, lecturer, conductor and composer.
He has recorded for the Philips and Aurora labels. The New York Times
wrote of his performance of Milton Babbitt’s “Around the Horn”:
“…is essentially a stand-up routine for a virtuoso soloist,
excellently communicated by Karl Kramer.”
Gary Press (tuba) is an active freelance musician and
teacher in New York City. He has performed with such groups
as the Albany and Allentown Symphonies, the Long Island Philharmonic and
the Dallas Wind Symphony as well as the PAI Brass, Manhattan Brass Quintet
and the Faculty Brass Quintet at Sam Houston State University. He holds
the Master of Music degree from the Manhattan School of Music, as well
as the Bachelor of Music degree and Performer's Certificate from the Eastman
School of Music. Mr. Press teaches privately, is currently on the faculty
of the Performing Arts Institute in Kingston, PA and has been on the faculties
of Midland College in Texas and the Manhattan School of Music Preparatory
Division. He has recorded for the CBS Masterworks and MMC New Century
labels.
Alice Cotton Architectural Artist and Illustrator
Beautifully detailed pen and ink drawings
Home portraits, book illustrations and advertising art
Alice Cotton
is a professional illustration artist, educator, musician, author and
speaker. Alice's niche is portraying historical architecture in a distinctive
pen and ink drawing style. Alice enhances her architectural work with
color and creates semi-sculptural works with clay, wood and acrylic painting.
Her pen and ink work is featured in her book, When Buildings Speak, where
she introduces the reader to a wealth of beautifully designed buildings,
each with its own unique story. Alice believes these architectural treasures
offer answers to some of our most important historical and philosophical
questions. “Every time I draw one of these buildings, I feel like
I am being sent along a powerful chain of human lives.” Alice's
book, When Buildings Speak (Artemis Publishing, 2001) is available at
most major book stores and on the web.
Alice also teaches Math Artistry to intermediate students through the
Science and Technical Foundation of Oregon and is a frequent participant
in artist-in-residency programs.
For more information contact:
503-254-3173
to see artist's portfolio go to www.artemisillustration.com
JOHN EATON was
called "The most interesting opera composer writing in America today"
by Andrew Porter in The London Financial Times. Through his vast
works in a variety of mediums, he has received international recognition
as a composer and performer of electronic and microtonal music, and has
written over fifteen operas.
Eaton's works have been performed extensively throughout the world.
Several works have been broadcast on Public Radio and Television including
his opera, Myshkin, which was seen throughout world by an estimated 15,000,000
people.
John Eaton has received several prestigious awards including a Mac Arthur
Foundation "genius" award in 1990. His music was chosen
to represent the U.S.A. in 1970 at the International Rostrum of Composers
(UNESCO). He has received a citation and award from the National Institute
of Arts and Letters, three Prix de Rome Grants, two Guggenheim Fellowships,
as well as commissions from the Fromm and Koussevitsky Foundations and
the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. He has lectured at the
Salzburg Center of American Studies, and was Composer in Residence at
the American Academy in Rome. In September 2000, his career was celebrated
in the American Music Center’s web site and excerpts of his operas
can still be seen as well as an extended interview in the archives of
http://www.newmusicbox.org.
Eaton is Professor Emeritus of Music Composition at the University of
Chicago. He taught there for 10 years and at Indiana University
(Bloomington) for 20. His compositions have been recorded by Albany,
C.R.I., Indiana University Press, (American) Decca, and Tournabout, and
are handled by Shawnee Press, G.Schirmer (A.M.P.) and European-American
Music.
RAUL CONTI
American-Argentine Painter and Sculptor
Raúl Conti's work, both paintings and sculptures, speaks volumes
through symbols universal to man. Although he often employs pre-Columbian
elements, these works have a proto-historical perspective common to the
whole race. Raul Conti was born in Morteros, Argentina, in 1931. Beginning
in his adolescence, under the tutelage of Alfredo Lazzari and Juan Grela,
Mr. Conti studied throughout Latin America and Europe. His interests have
long been centered on the resolution of plastic compositions through the
austerity of a palette based on earth tones. Later, he sought the luminosity
of forms through the contrast of complimentary colors using saturated
dyes. He blends these saturated dyes with their complimentaries, producing
the grays of colors that have evolved in his works. He is committed to
the seemingly contradictory worlds of meaning and emotion, expressing
basic impulses that appeal to a distant faculty. In 1977, Raul Conti moved
to New York, where he graphically painted the scenes he saw. Mixing signs,
buildings, and people, he portrays well the nostalgia he must have felt
for Argentina. Recently, however, pre-Columbian symbols have returned
to his works.
Master Conti’s Lists of Exhibitions and Collections are simply far
to vast to list here.
Raul Conti -
457 West 35th Street, Apt. 1E, New York, NY, 10001
Tel: (212) 244-0936 or (718) 846-2351
email: mirian.conti@verizon.net
JENNIFER RODERER
Mezzo-soprano Jennifer Roderer began the 2004-2005 season as Junon in
Mark Morris’ production of Platée at New York City Opera,
where she has appeared regularly since her 1999 debut as Third Lady in
The Magic Flute, notably as Jade Boucher in Jake Heggie’s Dead Man
Walking. In May, she will be featured in City Opera’s first tour
to Japan as Cecilia March in Mark Adamo’s Little Women. Earlier
this spring, she portrays Santuzza in Cavalleria rusticana at Sarasota
Opera, where she has previously sung Gertrude in Hänsel und Gretel.
She began 2004 with her American Symphony Orchestra debut at Avery Fisher
Hall, singing the dramatic leading role of Klementia in Hindemith’s
opera Sancta Susanna, and later sang Brahms’ Liebeslieder Waltzes
with the New York City Ballet, also appearing in its nationally televised
Balanchine Gala.
Ms. Roderer made her European debut at Opern Air Gars in Austria as Amneris
in Aida, a role she has also sung at Opera Illinois. A specialist in the
Verdi, Wagner, and verismo repertories, she has sung Waltraute in Die
Walküre at Lyric Opera of Chicago and Seattle Opera, a Flowermaiden
in Act II of Parsifal with the Los Angeles Philharmonic conducted by Pierre
Boulez, Die Notarin in Strauss’ Intermezzo at Santa Fe Opera, Emilia
in Otello at Opera Pacific, the First and Second Serving Maids in Elektra
at Los Angeles Opera, Virginia Opera, and Washington Opera, and l’Ostessa
in Zandonai’s I Cavalieri di Ekebù with New York’s
Teatro Grattacielo, as well as covering the role of Eboli in Don Carlos
at San Francisco Opera.
Ms. Roderer’s interest in music of our time is reflected by her
appearances at Toledo Opera as Mrs. Grose in Britten’s Turn of the
Screw, Glimmerglass Opera in Britten’s Paul Bunyan, and Opera Festival
of New Jersey in Floyd’s Susannah. She has frequently participated
in New York City Opera’s Showcasing American Composers program,
in excerpts from operas including Charles Wuorinen’s Haroun and
Bright Sheng’s Madame Mao, in which she also covered the title role
at Santa Fe Opera. She also recently sang John Eaton’s microtonal
song cycle Lettere with Ensemble Pi at the American Composers Alliance’s
2004 American Music Festival.
A busy orchestral soloist, Ms. Roderer has sung with the New Jersey Symphony
(Hansel and Gretel and Mozart Requiem), Jacksonville Symphony (Messiah
and Beethoven Symphony No. 9), Anchorage Symphony (Beethoven Missa solemnis),
Pacific Symphony (Beethoven’s Ninth), and Hudson Valley Philharmonic
and Peoria Symphony (Verdi Requiem). She has also sung Stravinsky’s
Les noces with the Los Angeles Master Chorale, Dvoršák’s
Requiem with the Berkshire Choral Festival, and the Bach Magnificat and
Mozart Requiem with Berkshire Lyric Theater.
Ms. Roderer has appeared in New York recitals under the auspices of the
Wagner Society of New York and the Austrian Cultural Forum. She has been
presented in concert by and received support from the Thomas Stewart and
Evelyn Lear Emerging Singers Program of the Wagner Society of Washington,
DC, and is recipient of a grant from the William Matheus Sullivan Musical
Foundation, as well as the Arthur E. Walters Memorial Award from Opera
Index. She has also won grants from the Wagner Society of New York and
Opera Buffs of Southern California, and first prize in the Opera Guild
of Southern California competition. Born in Illinois and raised in Los
Angeles, she holds a Bachelor of Music degree from the University of Southern
California.
The Argentine pianist MIRIAN CONTI
enjoys a growing reputation as a musician whose performances combine technical
brilliance with striking originality and artistic insight. Stylistically
assured in a wide range of repertoire, Ms. Conti is considered a leading
exponent of Spanish music; and her rare ability to communicate passion
and excitement when playing contemporary scores has won the admiration
of leading American and Argentine composers such as Bowles, Broeders,
Cohn, Diamond, Gould, Lees, Persichetti, Ramey, White, Zyman, etc. She
premiered Lalo Schifrin's Piano Concerto No.2 at the Dorothy Chandler
Pavillion in Los Angeles. She was invited by the French Cultural Center
in Tangier, Morocco to perform a concert in homage to Paul Bowles.
The pianist has made solo, orchestral and chamber appearances at Alice
Tully Hall, Merkin Concert Hall, Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall (debut
in 1987 as a winner of Artists International Auditions) in New York ,
and has performed at numerous concert halls throughout the world, including
the Teatro Colón in her native Argentina. In 1989, she was awarded
a special prize as the best performer of Spanish music in the International
Pilar Bayona Piano Competition in Zaragoza, Spain. In 1995, she was awarded
the Andrés Segovia-José Miguel Ruiz Morales Prize as the
best performer of Spanish music in the XXXVIII Santiago de Compostela
International University Course on Spanish Music, Spain. She has appeared
with the Jupiter Symphony and the American Composers Orchestra in New
York City and most recently with the Queens Symphony Orchestra. She was
invited to perform in the prestigious Beethoven-Liszt Concerts Cycle organized
by the Juan March Foundation in Spain.
Miss Conti's latest CD release, on Towerhill, features works by Bach,
Mozart, Beethoven, and Schumann. Conti has also recorded for the Antilles
New Direction Label of Island Records several compact discs featuring
works by Mexican, Argentine, and Spanish composers. Her CD on the Koch
International Classics label features rarely performed piano works by
Joaquín Turina and has been enthusiastically received by critics.
A recording featuring American solo piano music has been released on the
Albany label.
ALBERTO GINASTERA
(Evaristo)(born 1916, Buenos Aires--died 1983, Geneva), a leading 20th-century
Latin-American composer, known for his use of local and national musical
idioms in his compositions.
Ginastera was musically talented as a child and studied in Buenos Aires
at the Conservatorio Williams and the National Conservatory. He received
a Guggenheim award and lived in the United States in 1946-47.Ginastera's
music marks him as a traditionalist, despite his advanced musical vocabulary,
which owes much to the great musical figures of the early 20th century.
His synthesis of techniques is unique and eclectic, and he makes use of
microtones (smaller than half tones), serial procedures (basing works
on selected series of pitches, rhythms, etc.), and aleatoric, or chance,
music as well as older established forms. Ginastera's Piano Concerto and
Cantata para América mágicawon great acclaim at the 1961
Interamerican Music Festival. His first opera, Don Rodrigo (1964), unsuccessful
in its premiere in Buenos Aires, was hailed as a triumph in New York City
in 1966.
Ginastera's masterpiece is the chamber opera Bomarzo (1967), which established
him as one of the leading opera composers of the 20th century. This highly
dissonant score is a reworking of a cantata of the same name for narrator,
male voice, and chamber orchestra, commissioned by the E.S. Coolidge Foundation
at the Library of Congress (1964). In Bomarzo Ginastera made use of novel
and complex compositional techniques but preserved the traditional opera
format of arias and recitatives in its 15 scenes. He further developed
this style in his final opera, Beatrix Cenci, which had its debut in 1971
in Washington, D.C.
WILL RYAN --
the Fluid Druid -- handmade instruments, chanting, and percussion -- a
spirit driven musician playing percussion, birimbau, “reed cornet”,
Shakuhachi, hand-made reed instruments of his own creation, and voice.
His organic approach to new and other world music is uniquely his own.
A blend of rhythms and timbres that can be heard on projects as diverse
as recordings with Buddhist monks, performing at the Clio awards, collaborating
on dance, television, multimedia productions, and films that have been
nominees for both the Cannes and East Hampton Film Festivals. Will along
with Robert Dick, Mark Egan, Michael D’Agostino and Ed Bialek form
the instrumental world fusion quintet King Chubby. Will Ryan is also an
internationally recognized visual artist.
Violinist - CAROLINE CHIN made her solo debut with the South Suburban Symphony of Chicago at age 13, and has since performed with the North Suburban Symphony of Lake Forest, Kishwaukee Symphony, and Skokie Valley Symphony. She performed at the John F. Kennedy Center in Washington DC during the “Imagination Celebration” and the White House during their Christmas Festivities. She has performed with Colin Carr and Charles Neidich in Europe and has collaborated with members of the Chicago Quartet, Takacs Quartet, Tokyo String Quartet, and Vermeer Quartet. Caroline received her master’s degree from the Juilliard School and her bachelor’s degree from Indiana University. Her principal teachers have been Robert Mann, Miriam Fried, and Shmuel Ashkenasi.
Cellist YUN-JOO NA - a native
of South Korea, Cellist YUN-JOO NA is active as a soloist and chamber
musician, and has been featured in performances at Carnegie's Weill Recital
Hall, Merkin Concert Hall, Donnell Library, The National Arts Club, and
the Banff Certer of the Arts, and other venues. While in her native country,
she was recipient of numerous awards, including the Yook-Young and Ewha-kyunghyang
Daily News competition, among other awards. As a concerto soloist she
has performed with the Seoul Philharmonic and the New Seoul Philharmonic
Orcherstras. Miss Na has participated in the master classes of Daniel
Sharpran,Ralph Kirschbaum,Ani Kavafian, Joel Krosnick, and the Orion String
Quartet, and has couched with Laurence Lesser, Seymour Lipkin, Gilbert
Kalish, and the Emerson String Quartet. She also has been featured as
a collaborating artist with pianist Thomas Sauer and violinist Lorand
Fenyves. After receiving her master's degree from the Mannes College of
Music as a student of Paul Tobias, she continued her studies at SUNY in
Stony brook, where she is pursuing a Doctor of Musical Arts degree as
a student of Colin Carr.
ROBERT RENE GALVAN (Kan Balam) was born in San Antonio, Texas. He was educated at Southwest Texas State University, the State University of New York at Stoneybrook and the University of Texas. He has performed extensively as a poet and as a musician, conducting choirs and orchestras. Mr. Galvan is Minnie Stevens Piper Foundation Scholar and Fellow, and received the Texas Excellence in Teaching Award for his work at the University of Texas. At present he is professor of Conducting and Choral Studies at the Brooklyn-Queens Conservatory of Music and Conductor of the Springfield Symphony Chorus. He also appears as arranger and conductor on a CD released in November 1999 entitled Jam & SPice: the Music of Kurt Weill. His collection of poems - METEORS - was published by Lux Nove Editions in 1997. He resides in New York City with his wife Holly and their four year old daughter Gina Renee. More about Robert Rene Galvan.