David Lipten
Release Spring 2012
David Lipten’s music has been described as possessing "a strength and integrity…along with a deep [and]…rigorous musical lyricism." His compositions have been performed by some of the most accomplished chamber ensembles, including the New York New Music Ensemble and the Chester Quartet, among others. Recent performances of his music have included a number of his piano works Best Served Cold, Snap and Ever Since, three of Time’s Dream for chorus, as well as one of Ictus for string quartet at the Portland Chamber Music Festival where it was awarded first prize in 3rd Annual Composers Competition.
David has received a number of commissions including those from the Fromm Music Foundation at Harvard University, the Verdehr Trio/Michigan State University and Duo46; awards, fellowships and grants from the St. Paul's Chamber Music Competition, ASCAP, the International Society for Contemporary Music (ISCM), the State of Florida and Duke University, also among others. He has also been in residence at the MacDowell and Yaddo colonies, as well as the Aspen Music Festival, the Oregon Bach Festival, the CSU Summer Arts Festival and the June in Buffalo Composers Conference.
David holds a B.A. in Piano Performance from Hampshire College, a M.A. in Music Composition from the Aaron Copland School of Music at the City University of New York/Queens College and a Ph.D. in Music Composition from Duke University. He currently lives and works in Florida with his wife, Holly, and daughter, Olivia.
CD Tracks and Program Notes:
1 |
Ciompi Quartet |
15:10 |
|
2–4 |
Show of Hands |
Mark Tollefsen, piano |
|
5 |
Jana Starling, clarinet; Omri Shimron, piano; |
11:01 |
|
6–12 |
Time's Dream |
Volti |
|
13 |
Jayn Rosenfeld, flute, piccolo, alto flute; |
20:14 |
Ictus (2000–2001)—for string quartet
The sense and form of Ictus depend on the ways previously established material is altered, either through changes of speed and/or the ways in which the music is accented (similar to the ways in which different syllables are stressed in poetry—or its Ictus) and how it's colored by using a wide variety of bowings and/or articulations.
The Fromm Music Foundation at Harvard University commissioned the quartet in 1999–2000. It was premiered in September of 2001 by the Chester Quartet and performed by them on two other occasions. The Perugino Quartet also played the piece in 2005. Sunghae Anna Lim and Joan Kwoun (vlns.), Maria Lambros (vla.) and Andrew Mark (vc.) performed Ictus in Maine at the Portland Chamber Music Festival.
Musicians — Ciompi Quartet
The Ciompi Quartet was founded at Duke University in 1965 by the renowned Italian violinist Giorgio Ciompi. All its members are professors at Duke University and play a leading role in its cultural life, in addition to traveling widely throughout the year for performances. In a career that includes hundreds of concerts and spans five continents, the Ciompi Quartet has developed a reputation for performances of real intelligence and musical sophistication, and for a warm, unified sound that is enhanced by each player’s strong individual voice. With a rare maturity and insight born of wide experience, the Ciompi Quartet projects the heart and soul of the music, in a repertoire that ranges from well-known masterpieces to works by today's most communicative composers.
Recent US concerts range across the country from Washington State to Texas to New York City, and abroad in Germany, the Czech Republic, and Serbia. The Ciompi has appeared regularly at venues such as New York’s Merkin and Weill Halls, Boston’s Jordan Hall, and the National Gallery and Phillips Collection, Washington, DC. In the summer the Quartet performs at Monadnock Music in New Hampshire, with recent appearances at the Great Lakes Chamber Music Festival in Michigan, North Carolina's Eastern Music Festival and Highlands Chamber Music Festival. The Ciompi members excel as communicators and are frequent choice for residencies in many settings, ranging from colleges to inner city and rural schools.
Recent musical collaborations have included the distinguished talents of pianists Bella Davidovich, Menahem Pressler and James Tocco, cellist Ronald Leonard, oboist Joseph Robinson, saxophonist Branford Marsalis, soprano Susan Narucki, and jazz vocalist Nnenna Freelon. The latter four performed world premieres with the Ciompi Quartet, reflecting the Quartet's commitment to creative programming, which often mixes the old and the brand new in exciting ways. The Ciompi’s extensive record of commissions includes many strong works that it continues to play on tour. Close ties to composers from Duke University such as Stephen Jaffe, Scott Lindroth, David Lipten and Mark Kuss, continue to produce important contributions to the repertoire. The Quartet’s latest recording is of the quartets of Paul Schoenfield, including the popular “Tales of Chelm” on Naxos. It adds to numerous other discs on the CRI, Arabesque, Albany, Gasparo, and Sheffield Lab labels, with music from Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven up through the present. For more information, please visit: www.ciompi.org
Eric Pritchard, first violin
Eric Pritchard, who joined the Ciompi Quartet in 1995, was formerly the First Violinist of the Alexander and Oxford Quartets. Mr. Pritchard has taught at Miami University, San Francisco State University, City University of New York, and the North Carolina School of the Arts. He was winner of the National Federation of Music Clubs Award in Violin as well as the first prize winner at the Portsmouth (England) International String Quartet Competition and the Coleman and Fischoff national chamber music competitions. He has performed widely as a recitalist and as soloist with the Boston Pops and orchestras in Europe and South America. His major teachers were Eric Rosenblith, Josef Gingold, Ivan Galamian and Isadore Tinkleman and he holds degrees from Indiana University and the Juilliard School.
Hsiao-mei Ku, second violin
Hsiao-mei Ku has won merit as a soloist, chamber musician and teacher in the US and her native China. She performed widely in China where she gave her first live performance on National TV when she was 11 years old, and later won the Government Award of Best Performance. At Indiana University, she received her Master of Music degree with distinction, and was awarded the Performer's Certificate by the School of Music, where she studied and worked with Franco Gulli, Rostislav Dubinsky, Gary Hoffman and Janos Starker.
Formerly Associate Concertmaster of North Carolina Symphony, Ms. Ku joined the Ciompi Quartet in 1990. She is in demand as a teacher on two continents, serving on the faculty at Duke University and Guangzhou Xinghai Conservatory. She is a founding member of the Chirusca Trio; has taught master classes and appeared as a soloist with Eastern Music Festival; and has collaborated with pianist Ann Schein and cellist Steve Kates. Her recent recording of three violin solo pieces, released on CD by China Records, is part of a Chinese composer Zheng Qiu-feng's celebration. She performs on a violin made by J.B.Vuillaume.
Jonathan Bagg, viola
As a solo violist Jonathan Bagg has an interest in bringing new and unfamiliar works to life. Solo appearances include the Phillips Collection in Washington DC, Boston’s Jordan Hall, and Manchester, New Hamphsire’s Currier Gallery. Bagg has recorded the solo music for viola and piano by Robert Fuchs (1847-1927), and music for viola and piano by Robert and Clara Schumann, with pianist Jane Hawkins, on the Centaur label. Recordings of contemporary solo works by Arthur Levering, Malcolm Peyton, and Donald Wheelock are on Bridge, Centaur, and Gasparo. Of his solo playing, the Washington Post has noted his "total confidence, rock-solid technique and a deep sensitivity," while American Record Guide hailed him as "an excellent violist who approaches the music with intelligence, passion, and clarity." In 2007 Mr. Bagg became an Artistic Director of the Monadnock Music festival in New Hampshire. He directs the chamber music program at Duke University, where he served as Director of Undergraduate Studeies for seven years. He graduated with honors from both Yale University (B.A.), and the New England Conservatory (M.M.), where he was a student of Walter Trampler.
Fred Raimi, cello
In addition to his work with the Ciompi Quartet, Fred Raimi especially enjoys the opportunity to perform with his wife, Jane Hawkins. Jane has performed often with the Ciompi Quartet and its members, going back to recitals with Giorgio Ciompi in the 1970s.
Mr. Raimi began his studies as a youth in Detroit at Cass Technical High School. Mr. Raimi joined the Duke faculty and the Ciompi Quartet in 1974, after graduating from the Juilliard School and receiving a Masters degree from State University of New York-Binghamton, where he performed as a member of the Amici Quartet.
Among his marks of distinction, Mr. Raimi has won the International Cello Competition in Portugal and was a participant in Pablo Casals' final master class. His instrument was made by Vincenzo Ruggieri in Cremona, Italy, in 1691.
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1. Best Served Cold (2003)
I wrote Best Served Cold while in residence at the MacDowell Colony in Peterborough, NH in 2003. It was the dead of winter and magnificently serene for much of the time. Nothing about the character of this short, sometimes violent piece, then, can be attributed to my surroundings.
My time at the colony also happened to coincide with the build-up to the mess in Iraq. I spent some of my downtime listening to the fabrications presented to the United Nations by a certain former Secretary of State for what turned out to be some of the pretense for the situation. We all knew what was coming. I was outraged.
The title is borrowed from "Les Liasons Dangereuses" (1782) by Pierre Ambroise Francois Choderios de LaClos. However, my original acquaintance with it came from either Mr. Worf, a Klingon character in Star Trek, or from Montgomery Burns, Homer Simpson's evil boss; I'm not sure which. This piece was commissioned by Christopher Adler and premiered by him in October 2003.
2. Ever Since (2004)
Ever Since is the second work in a series of short character pieces I began writing for piano in the winter of 2003. The first (Best Served Cold) is quite fiery, so I wanted to write something more introspective as a contrast. Its impromptu nature is attributable to improvising much of the initial ideas for it at the piano.
3. Snap (2005)
The title refers to the rather break-neck pace at which the music is intended to proceed. The tempo marking calls for it to be played at a speed which is "as fast as humanly possible." The piece primarily features quick, repeated single notes connected by short, jagged bursts or runs leading to passages of climactic chords.
These solo piano pieces started life as separate works to fulfill three different commissions. I realized that they would work well together as one piece following a fairly conventional 3-part format (fast-slow-fast). So the three works became one (though the individual "movements" have retained their original titles and may still be performed individually). The music (especially in mvts. 1 and 3) owes much to the compositions of György Ligeti and David Rakowski, both of whom have written prodigious volumes of piano etudes.
Mark Tollefsen, piano
Pianist Mark Tollefsen is sought for his musical creativity and technical and rhythmic precision. He has been a strong advocate of new music. This advocacy has included performances of over fifty works by living composers and more than a dozen world or regional premieres. A native of St. Louis, Mark received a Bachelor of Arts degree from Washington University in St. Louis and a Masters of Music from the University of Cincinnati’s College-Conservatory of Music.
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Whorl (2002)—for Bb clarinet, violin and piano
When I began to write Whorl (originally commissioned by the Verdehr Trio and Michigan State University) I had recently finished working on my string quartet, Ictus. One of the most inviting sounds a quartet makes comes from the ability of all four instruments to sound like one. I had a hard time getting that sound world out of my ears. The heterogeneous sound made by a group consisting of a clarinet, violin and piano, then, posed a number of interesting challenges.
One of my solutions was to use a technique called "hocket," whereby one musical line or thought is broken up and shared among the different instruments. In Whorl, a line of music is often begun by one of the instruments, perhaps accompanied by another, and is then taken over and completed by the third. It is like a family discussion in which each member is talking at once with the participants finishing each other's sentences.
Musicians
Jana Starling, clarinetist
Canadian clarinetist Jana Starling has recently joined the music faculty at the University of Western Ontario in London, ON. She previously taught at Arizona State University, among other colleges and universities. Jana has performed and adjudicated throughout Canada, the US and Paraguay, South America, where she spent two years teaching woodwinds. Jana's 2006 debut CD "Inflexion" earned a 2007 East Coast Music Award nomination for Classical Recording of the Year and is often heard on CBC Radio Canada. Jana has performed with the Phoenix Symphony Orchestra, ProMusica Chamber Orchestra, guest artist at the Belgian Clarinet Academy, at the International ClarinetFests and with the Arizona Opera Company. She actively commissions and records new music, and plays Eb clarinet in the newly-formed, Ironwood Trio. In 2011 Jana is releasing her second solo CD and a CD with colleague Robert Spring of newly commissioned clarinet duos.
Omri Shimron, piano
Omri Shimron was born in the US but grew up in Israel where he received his early musical training. In Israel he appeared at the Jerusalem Music Center, the Jerusalem Academy of Music and the Tel Aviv Museum. In the United States, he won prizes from the Josef Hoffman Piano Competition and the Chautauqua Institution. As an orchestral soloist, Shimron played with the Hillsdale College/Community Orchestra, the Finger Lakes Symphony, and the Elon University Orchestra. Collaborative and solo concerts included appearances at the Kennedy Center’s Millennium Stage and New York City’s Sundays on the Island series. Live radio performances featured sessions for WBFO and WXXI stations.
An eclectic performer, Shimron’s repertoire choices are traditional yet increasingly contemporary. In the past decade he premiered several new works by young composers such as Marco Alunno (Concerto for Piano and Ensemble, 2003), Christopher Brackel (Deploration for amplified harpsichord, electric viola and electronics), Ben Hackbarth (Lines of Communication, 2004) and Christopher Dietz (Five Reflections on the Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyam, 2009). Other recent projects include this recording of David Lipten’s trio Whorl for Ablaze, performances of Israeli composer Menachem Wiesenberg’s Metamorphosis II (2008) and George Crumb’s Eine Kleine Mitternachtmusik (2002). In 2011–12 he presented five performances of Frederic Rzewski’s The People United Will Never Be Defeated!
Outside the US, Shimron has participated in the Felicja Blumental International Music Festival in Tel Aviv, the American Conservatory's Summer School in Fontainebleau (France), and has presented recitals at Wolfson College (Oxford University) and the Bursa State Conservatory in Turkey. In 2008, he performed anisotropie, a new work for prepared piano by German composer Michael Quell, as guest artist at SoundsCAPE—a contemporary music festival in Pavia, Italy. During the fall of 1997 he was a long-term resident at the Banff Centre for the Arts in Alberta, Canada.
In his piano teaching, Shimron embraces a holistic approach to music that integrates creativity and physical awareness with a historically informed approach to style and sound. His academic work focuses on analysis of tonal and post-tonal music, and performance studies. He has presented his work for the College Music Society and is a frequent guest recitalist and clinician in music departments in the US and abroad, including most recently: Winthrop University, Texas Woman’s University, Arizona State University, Erskine College and the Jerusalem Academy of Music.
An assistant professor at Elon University, Shimron teaches piano and music theory. He completed his Bachelor of Arts degree in music from the University of Rochester (magna cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa, 1997), a Master of Music (Piano, 2000), a Master of Arts in Music Theory Pedagogy (2004), and a Doctor of Musical Arts degree in (Piano, 2004) from the Eastman School of Music where his primary mentor was Rebecca Penneys. Before relocating to North Carolina, Shimron taught at Hillsdale College (MI) and Eastern Mediterranean University on the island of Cyprus.
For more information, please visit: www.omrishimron.com
Beth Ilana Schneider, violin
Beth Ilana Schneider has been described as "a prodigious talent, poised and introspective, and very impressive" by the Los Angeles Times. Making her soloist debut at the age of 16 with the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, Beth has since performed throughout the United States including at the Kennedy Center and Carnegie Hall, as well as in Europe with Sir George Solti and the Schleswig Holstein Festival Orchestra. She has performed chamber music with many renowned artists including Lynn Harrell and Yefim Bronfman, has worked under conductors including David Zinman, Neeme Jarvi, Simon Rattle, Kurt Masur, Leonard Slatkin and Christoph Dohnanyi, and has performed at the Los Angeles Philharmonic Institute, the Sarasota Chamber Music Festival, the Meadowmount School of Music, ENCORE, Music '98 at Cincinnati Conservatory of Music, and the Great Lakes Chamber Music Festival. A graduate of Indiana University Bloomington and the University of Arizona, her primary teachers have included Linda Cerone, Victor Danchenko, Eugene Gratovich, Conny Kiradjieff, Andreas Reiner, Mark Rush, and Nelli Shkolnikova. Chamber coaches have included Henry Meyer from the Lasalle String Quartet, Paul Katz from the Cleveland String Quartet and Phillip Setzer from the Emerson String Quartet. Beth is a former member of the San Antonio Symphony and a former Lecturer of Violin, Viola and Chamber Music at Eastern Mediterranean University in the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus.
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Time's Dream (2003)—for chorus, texts by E.E. Cummings
Time's Dream is a group of six songs with settings of poetry by E.E. Cummings. The University of San Diego Choral Scholars premiered them in December of 2003. The title is taken from Cummings' poem "Now Air Is Air And Thing Is Thing; No Bliss."
The texts were chosen largely because of the way Cummings plays with the idea of time in all of his writings, whether through interjecting thoughts in parentheses or by breaking up words/lines and interspersing these with other thoughts or sentiments before returning to the original trains of thought. Cummings' style, then, bears a striking similarity to music where comprehensibility depends on the unfolding of ideas/sounds in time, whether these are to be interpreted linearly or not.
Texts by E.E. Cummings
to stand(alone)in some autumnal afternoon: enormous this how patient creature(who's dream,is to taste life)imaginable mysteries |
l(a le ll s) iness |
un(bee)mo vi asl(rose)eep |
this man's heart is true to his -n't interest him(by the look guess ex- nothing as much as -v- in -g)a snowflake twi- -here |
Beautiful is the ently)fal ling(e Now |
|
now air is air and thing is thing:no bliss of heavenly earth beguiles our spirits, whose live the magnificent honesty of space. Mountains are mountains now;skies now are skies- universe we'd(and we alone had)made -yes;or as if our souls,awakened from the courage to receive time's mightiest dream |
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Musicians—Volti
Founded in 1979 by Robert Geary (as the San Francisco Chamber Singers), Volti is a professional 20-voice chamber choir based in San Francisco. Volti showcases American contemporary music and composers and introduces contemporary music from around the world to Bay Area audiences. Adopted in the choir’s 25th anniversary season, the name “Volti” is taken from the musical expression “volti subito,” which directs musicians to “turn [the page] quickly,” or “look ahead”). Volti performs only contemporary music, most of it by American composers.
Working with some of the most creative and original established and emerging American composers, the professional singers of Volti present multiple premieres and commissions each season. With over 500 performances to its credit, the group has become one of America’s renowned choirs, repeatedly recognized as a pioneering force in the contemporary choral performance field. In June of 2009 the American Society for Composers and Publishers (ASCAP) awarded Volti its Award for Adventurous Programming of Contemporary Music for the sixth time. Volti is the first and only chorus to receive this award so many times.
In addition to its commissioning and concert programs, Volti sponsors an educational outreach program, the Choral Institute for High School singers, and a young composer residency program, the Choral Arts Laboratory. Volti’s recent recording “Turn the Page: New Directions in American Choral Music” is available on the innova label. www.voltisf.org
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Gyre (1996-97)—for flute (alto flute, piccolo), Bb clarinet (bass clarinet), violin, cello, piano and percussion
The music in Gyre is characterized by whirling contrast. I combine the instruments in as many ways as possible while trying to highlight their individual characteristics. I also exploit cooperation among various instrumental combinations depending upon the changes in the musical situation.
The construction of the piece loosely resembles Ritornello form with a number of periodic returns to thematic material separated by contrasting episodes. This compositional game plan was used in the earliest forms of the Concerto and was suggested to me by Jacob Druckman's Come Round. By treating this form as an abstract model and by allowing myself to take liberties with it, I am able to create a higher degree of formal contrast than would otherwise be possible. By referring both to this historically established model and to a genre like the Concerto, I hope to forge a connection with a listener's experiences and expectations.
The new title (originally Stunt Double) came to me by way of an old friend, Karen Gold (via Facebook!), and is borrowed from a William Butler Yeats poem, The Second Coming, which states, in part:
Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned; …
Gyre was recorded in 1998 at California State University, Long Beach and is courtesy of CSU Summer Arts.
Jayn Rosenfeld, flutes
Jayn Rosenfeld, a graduate of Radcliffe College and the Manhattan School of Music, studied flute with James Pappoutsakis, William Kincaid, and Marcel Moyse. She was principal flutist in the American Symphony Orchestra when it was conducted by Leopold Stokowski and won a National Endowment for the Arts Solo Recitalist Grant in 1986. Her many recordings include concerti by Cimarosa, Steiger, Kraft, and Constantinides, solo works by Ruth Crawford Seeger, Leon Kirchner, John Anthony Lennon, and Robert Erickson, and many chamber works on Bridge, CRI, Opus One, GM, Musical Heritage, Columbia, and Centaur Records. Flutist and executive director of the New York New Music Ensemble, Ms. Rosenfeld also plays with the Orchestra of the League of Composers, the Richardson Players at Princeton University, the Washington Square Chamber Players, and is first flutist of the Princeton Symphony Orchestra. Ms. Rosenfeld teaches at the Juilliard School in the Music Advancement Program, and at Princeton University. www.jaynrosenfeld.com
Jean Kopperud, clarinets
"The American clarinetist Jean Kopperud was absolutely smashing" (New York Post). A graduate of The Juilliard School and former student of Nadia Boulanger in France, Kopperud has toured the United States, Canada, Europe, Japan, China, the Caribbean and Australia as concert soloist and chamber musician. Presently she is performing with The New York New Music Ensemble, Omega, the ISCM Ensemble, Ensemble 21, and Washington Square Chamber Players. She has recorded for Deutsche Grammophon, Bridge Records, G M Recording, Koch, Musical Heritage and Centaur records.
Kopperud is also a performer on the cutting edge of the Music-Theater genre. National acclaim for her presentations of Karlheinz Stockhausen's Harlekin, the demanding performance work for dancing clarinetist, resulted in her Avery Fisher Hall debut presented by the New York Philharmonic.
Each holiday season, she takes part in the Twelfth Night Festival in Westerly, Rhode Island where she is seen starring in unusual performance art roles. Working with Broadway director, Tom O'Horgan, Jean Kopperud developed "CloudWalking" a music-theater work that previewed at ClarFest in 1988 and toured for three years. "Cloud Walking" is a reference to Kopperud's passion for skydiving. She has found a way to include even that in her show, which amuses and amazes audiences with her very special combination of musical and athletic abilities.
Currently Ms. Kopperud is on the faculty of SUNY Buffalo and the Juilliard School. (formerly on the New York University and Columbia faculties.) At Juilliard she teaches a class called "On the Edge" in the Evening Division as well as private and class clarinet in the Music Advancement Program. "On the Edge" is a course to practice performing that is also done in workshop around the country.
Laura Frautschi, violin
Violinist Laura Frautschi has established a reputation as a versatile musician with a strong commitment to contemporary as well as classical repertoire. She regularly performs as soloist and chamber musician throughout the United States and Asia, and collaborates frequently with living composers. She has given world premieres of violin concerti by leading American composers Lee Hyla and Augusta Read Thomas.
Her recent chamber music activities include appearances at the Caramoor International Festival, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Wellseley Composer Conference, Moab, and St. Bart's Music Festivals. In addition, she is a concertmaster of the New York City Opera Orchestra, and has toured internationally as a concertmaster of the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra.
Ms. Frautschi's extensive discography ranges from Vivaldi's Four Seasons with the Festival Strings Lucerne and Lee Hyla's Violin Concerto with the Boston Modern Orchestra Project, to twentieth-century chamber works by Bernard Rands, Chen Yi, and Margaret Brouwer.
Laura Frautschi studied applied mathematics at Harvard College and violin performance with Robert Mann at the Juilliard School.
Chris Finckel, cello
Born into a family of cellists, Chris Finckel began his studies with his father George Finckel and is a graduate of the Curtis Institute of Music where he studied with Mischa Schneider and Orlando Cole. Currently Mr. Finckel is the cellist of the Manhattan String Quartet with whom he performs on major Chamber Music series throughout the United States and Europe. A frequent guest artist with such renowned ensembles as the Tokyo String Quartet and the Orpheus Chamber Ensemble, Mr. Finckel has appeared at the Casals, Santa Fe, Ravinia, Saratoga, Norfolk, and Rockport Chamber Music festivals, and has recorded for the Nonesuch, New World, CRI, Bridge, and Vanguard record labels. A dedicated performer of 20th century music, Chris Finckel has been involved in New York City's contemporary music scene for over 20 years. Through his affiliations with such organizations as the New York New Music Ensemble, Parnassus, The Contemporary Chamber Ensemble, and Speculum Musicae, he has participated in the premieres of the works of over 100 composers including pieces by Milton Babbitt, Jacob Druckman, Elliot Carter, Mario Davidovsky, Donald Martino, Steve Reich, and Charles Wuorinen.
James Winn, piano
Dr. James Winn, piano and composition professor at the University of Nevada, Reno since 1997, made his professional debut with the Denver Symphony at the age of thirteen, and has been performing widely in North America, Europe, and Japan ever since. With his duo-piano partner, Cameron Grant, he was a recipient of the top prize given in the two-piano category of the 1980 Munich Competition. Dr. Winn has been a solo pianist with the New York City Ballet, a member of the New York New Music Ensemble, and of Hexagon (woodwind quintet plus piano), as well as a frequent guest with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, Speculum, the Washington Square Contemporary Music Series, the Chamber Music Society of Sacramento, the Group for Contemporary Music, and Bargemusic.
Well-known as a specialist in new music, he has been involved in numerous world premieres and premiere recordings by many renowned composers, among them 13 Pulitzer Prize winners (John Adams, Michael Colgrass, Mario Davidovsky, Norman Dello Joio, Jacob Druckman, Aaron Kernis, George Perle, Wayne Peterson, Mel Powell, Joseph Schwantner, Melinda Wagner, Charles Wuorinen, and Ellen Zwilich). He is currently a member of Argenta, UNR's resident chamber trio, the pianist of the Telluride Chamber Music Festival, and performs regularly in recital with internationally acclaimed New York based violinist Rolf Schulte.
An active recording artist, Winn is featured in more than three-dozen CDs as soloist, chamber musician, and composer. Dr. Winn's compositions have been performed internationally. He has received the University of Nevada -Reno College of Liberal Arts' Mousel/Feltner award for creative activity, an Artist Fellowship Grant in composition from the Nevada Arts Council, the 2007 Award for Creative Activity from Board of Regents of the Nevada System of Higher Education, and the 2009 Governor's Award for Excellence in the Arts.
Daniel Kennedy, percussion
Daniel Kennedy holds a doctoral degree in percussion performance from the State University of New York at Stony Brook, and has studied with multi-percussionist Raymond DesRoches, hand-drum specialist John Bergamo, and tabla master Swapan Chaudhuri. He has been the founding member of several contemporary music ensembles, including the California E.A.R. Unit and the Talujon Percussion Quartet, and has performed throughout the United States, Europe, India, Bali, and Japan. He is featured as a percussion soloist for the California Arts Council Touring Program, and has an extensive list of recordings. He is currently the Instructor of Percussion at California State University, Sacramento, and is a member of the San Francisco Contemporary Music Players and Gamelan Sekar Jaya.
Harvey Sollberger, Conductor
Harvey Sollberger is a composer, conductor, and flutist who has been active in many world musical centers. Performers of his music have included the New York Philharmonic, the San Francisco Symphony, Tanglewood, June in Buffalo, Interlink (Tokyo), Radio France and Pierre Boulez's Domaine Musical (Paris), TRANSIT (Belgium), and Incontri di Musica Sacra Contemporanea (Rome). Sollberger has received the Award of the National Institute of Arts and Letters, two Guggenheim Fellowships and commissions from the Fromm, Naumberg and Koussevitzky foundations, and has taught at Columbia University, the Manhattan School of Music, Indiana University, and the University of California, San Diego. His output as composer and performer is documented on over 150 commercial CDs. Harvey Sollberger currently lives in lowa.
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