The Mannes Opera: Hitting the High Notes - The New School

FACULTY AND STAFF NEWS
18
Summer 2007
HAIM AVITSUR (trombone, BM ’97, MM
’99, Career Counselor) appeared as soloist
with the Western Piedmont Symphony in
Hickory, NC in Ferdinand David’s
Concertino No. 4 in E-flat. The local
paper, Outlook, praised him for his
“command of the instrument, from the
loud and silky to the soft and sweet [and
his] beautiful tone and control.”
PER BREVIG (trombone faculty) was guest
conductor of The Oberlin Orchestra at the
Oberlin Conservatory in spring ’06.
L. POUNDIE BURSTEIN (T.O.M.
faculty) delivered the keynote address,
“Schenkerian Analysis and the Long
Range” at the 24th Annual Music Theory
Forum sponsored by The Music Theory
Society at Florida State University in
Tallahassee in January ’07. The next
month he delivered the keynote address for
the Texas Theory Society’s 2007 conference
at the University of Texas at Arlington.
MICHAEL CHARRY (conducting faculty,
former Mannes Orchestra Director) was
guest conductor of the Vancouver
Academy of Music Symphony at
Vancouver’s Orpheum Theater in April ’07
in a concert that was enthusiastically
reviewed in The Vancouver Sun.
KEITH FITCH (composition and chamber
music faculty) has been appointed to the
composition faculty at Bard College
beginning this fall. He is stepping down as
Associate Director the Preparatory
Division, a position he held for 10 years.
He will continue as a faculty member. Mr.
Fitch has been commissioned by the St.
Luke’s Chamber Orchestra for a new work
to be performed in the 2007-08 season.
RUTH FALCON (voice faculty) was described
in the February ’07 programs of the
Metropolitan Opera as “a legend in the field
and works with such starry students as Andrea
Gruber, Sondra Radvanovsky, and Deborah
Voigt. Falcon is known for being adept at
harnessing huge voices, but she is just at home
working with smaller-voiced singers.”
A two-CD set of Beethoven’s piano works
recorded in the 1970’s by HARRIS
GOLDSMITH (chamber music faculty) has
been reissued on the “Brilliant Label.” A
feature article by Benjamin Ivry in the New
York Observer celebrated Mr. Goldsmith’s
distinguished and remarkable career as
writer, critic, pianist, and pedagogue.
WENDY GRIFFITHS (Prep and Extension
T.O.M. faculty) is a recipient of an ’06-’07
ASCAPLUS Award in the Concert Music
Division.
Violinists HIROKO YAJIMA and CHIN
KIM, and cellist MARCY ROSEN (all string
faculty members), joined by Ms. Yajima’s
daughter and husband, violinist Harumi
Rhodes and violist Samuel Rhodes,
presented two chamber music concerts at
Bargemusic in spring ’07.
YURI KIM (piano faculty) performed with
Chin Kim and Anna Pelehk and taught at
several summer festivals in ’06: the
International Music Academy in Castelnuovo
di Garfagnana, Italy; the Duxbury Music
Festival; the Summit Music Festival; and the
International Musica Classica Festival
Competition in Puigcerdà, Spain.
DAN MAREK (voice faculty) is author of
Singing: The First Art, recently published
by Scarecrow Press, and two articles in
Classical Singer: “Advice from the Scuola
Cantorum” (September ’06) and “Mozart
for the Young Singer” (December ’06).
TATJANA RANKOVICH (Preparatory
Division piano faculty) performed Nicolas
Flagello’s Piano Concerto No.1 with John
McLaughlin Williams and the National
Radio Symphony Orchestra of Ukraine on
a Naxos CD.
DAVID ROSENMEYER (theory/conducting,
MM ’05; Mannes Chorus conductor)
made his Carnegie Hall debut on March
13 led the Oratorio Society of New York
(of which he is Associate Conductor) in a
performance reviewed in The New York
Times as “a richly voiced account of
Stravinsky’s Mass, in which a lean
ensemble of wind and brass players offered
deft counterpoint to burnished vocal
harmonies.” In June, Maestro Rosenmeyer
toured Hungary with the Oratorio Society,
conducting Poulenc’s Organ Concerto
with Musical Director Kent Tritle as
soloist. He is also serving as Music Director
of the famed Salzburg Marionettes’ new
production of The Sound of Music.
JULIE ROTH (Assistant to the Dean) ran
and finished the 2006 New York Marathon
with a personal best of 3:49. We are
proud to have someone so accomplished —
percussionist, musicologist, AND athlete as
a member of our staff.
Three Elegies for Soprano and Percussion
composed by RICHARD RUSSELL
(Assistant Director, Extension Division)
were performed by TIFFANY
DUMOUCHELLE (voice, BM ’06, MM
candidate) and STEVEN SOLOOK
(percussion, MM ’05, PSD ’07) at
Symphony Space in a March ’07 New
York Composers Circle concert.
RICHARD SHIRK (piano pedagogy faculty,
Extension piano faculty) performed at
Trinity Parish in Bergen Point as part of the
Arts at Trinity concert series in April ’07.
FAYE-ELLEN SILVERMAN (music history
faculty, College and Extension) has been
awarded a fellowship by the Virginia Center
for the Creative Arts in Amherst, VA.
During her residency, she will join
approximately 20 other fellows focusing on
their own creative projects at this working
retreat for visual artists, writers, and
composers.
WILHELMINA SMITH (cellist, The Mannes
Trio) announces her first solo CD release
with the trio’s pianist THOMAS SAUER
(piano faculty) on the Arabesque Label.
J.Y. SONG (Artistic Advisor for Chamber
Music, piano, chamber music, and music
history faculty) presented “J.Y. Song and
Friends” with violinist Tanja Becker-
Bender and cellist Darrett Adkins on
January 17 at Weill Recital Hall as part of
the Pro Musicis 2007 Concert Series.
Timothy Gilligan in the New York Concert
Review praised her “supple, expressive,
beautifully modulated piano playing which
takes account of the composer’s
instructions and reproduces them in fine