Performer Profiles - Fall 2011 Season |
Coming September 21, 2011: Tina Hall Fiction writer About the Author: Tina May Hall lives and teaches in upstate New York. Her first collection of stories, The Physics of Imaginary Objects, won the 2010 Drue Heinz Literature Prize and was published by the University of Pittsburgh Press. Her novella, All the Day’s Sad Stories, was published as a chapbook by Caketrain Press in 2009. Her stories have appeared in The Collagist, 3rd Bed, Black Warrior Review, Quarterly West, The Fairy Tale Review and other journals. Event begins at 12:30 P.M. Macfarlane Auditorium, Deperno Hall Event calendar listing >
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Coming September 28, 2011: Sar-Shalom Strong Pianist About the Performer: Sar-Shalom Strong, pianist, as received accolades for his sensitive performances of both solo and collaborative repertoire in a career spanning over twenty-five years. Mr. Strong has often be heard performing in concert with the Society for New Music, Civic Morning Musicals, and in collaboration with outstanding area and visiting musicians. He has appeared as soloist in concerti with the Utica Symphony Orchestra and the Hamilton College Orchestra, has performed frequently with the Skaneateles Festival, and from 1998-2007 he served as keyboardist for the Syracuse Symphony Orchestra. Central NY performances include Utica College and Hamilton College concerts with Rob and Lauralyn Kolb, as well as a solo performances at Utica College, a concert of piano trios in Cortland with violinist Jeremy Mastrangelo and cellist David LeDoux, a Syracuse recital with Janet Brown, a performance of Russian music for violin and piano sponsored by the Russian Department of Colgate University. In October 2010 Mr. Strong collaborated with tenor Jon West in a benefit concert for the B Sharp Musical Club Scholarship. Mr. Strong holds degrees from Knox College and Syracuse University, and is Lecturer in Piano and Coordinator of Staff Pianists for Hamilton College. Event begins at 12:30 P.M. Library Concourse Event calendar listing > |
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Coming September 30, 2011: April Bernard Poet About the Author: Born in 1960, April Bernard grew up in New England, where she was educated at Harvard University. Upon receiving her bachelor's degree, she moved to New York City to work in publishing, eventually serving as senior editor of Vanity Fair. Despite her success, Bernard left publishing in order to pursue a Ph.D. in English literature from Yale University. Her first book, Blackbird Bye Bye (Random House, 1989), was chosen by Amy Clampitt as the winner of the 1989 Walt Whitman Award from the Academy of American Poets. The judge commended the book for its utter lack of apology, saying: "The wit here is corrosive, the ear faultless, the raised voice one to which we cannot but listen." Her other acclaimed books of poetry include: Romanticism (W. W. Norton, 2009); Swan Electric (2002); Psalms (1995). She is also the author of a novel, Pirate Jenny (W. W. Norton, 1990). Bernard has taught at Amherst College, Baruch College, and Bennington College, where she is currently on the faculty of the MFA program. She also serves as the Director of Creative Writing at Skidmore College. (Biography excerpted from www.poets.org ) Please Note: Event begins at 7:30 P.M. Carbone Family Auditorium, ECJSC Building Event calendar listing > |
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Coming October 5, 2011: Lauralyn Kolb, soprano G. Roberts Kolb, tenor Sar-Shalom Strong, piano Vocal music About the Performers: A native of California, soprano Lauralyn Kolb holds degrees from Occidental College and Smith College. She has appeared throughout the United States as a recitalist, oratorio, and opera singer, and has given over 100 performances of works with orchestra or chamber ensemble. She has recorded Lieder by Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel with pianist Arlene Shrut (Centaur Records) and Songs by Clara Schumann, Poldowski, and Amy Beach with pianist Don McMahon (Albany Records). The latter recording prompted Robert Long of Audio magazine to write: “Over and over in studying these songs, I’ve been arrested by the charm and rightness of Kolb’s phrasing, by the warmth and expressiveness of her manner, and by the sheer beauty of her voice. She is a treasure...” Ms Kolb’s performances of both recital and oratorio have been heard on WCNY Classic FM Public Radio, and her recording of Hensel’s Italien has been featured on NPR’s SchickeleMix. A committed teacher, Ms. Kolb has taught voice at Hamilton College for over twenty-five years. She has also taught at Colgate University. G. Roberts Kolb is Professor of Music and Director of Choral Music at Hamilton College and a past holder of the Christian A. Johnson “Excellence in Teaching” Chair. He is a graduate of Occidental College, and his postgraduate education includes a year of study at the School of Theology at Claremont, California, a master's degree in Choral Conducting from the California State University at Fullerton, and a doctorate in Choral Music from the University of Illinois. He is a contributing author to Up Front! Becoming the Complete Choral Conductor (E. C. Schirmer) and Five Centuries of Choral Music (Pendragon Press). Before coming to Hamilton College in 1981, Dr. Kolb taught at Smith College, where he conducted the Smith Choirs and Glee Club. Past musical director of both the Syracuse Vocal Ensemble and the Cayuga Vocal Ensemble (Ithaca, N.Y.), he is director of music at the Stone Presbyterian Church in Clinton, N.Y. Also active in the musical theatre world, he has directed Gilbert and Sullivan productions for the Earlville Opera House and been musical director for several Summerstage productions at the Rome Capitol Theatre. Recent onstage roles include Cervantes/Don Quixote (Man of La Mancha), Sweeney Todd (Sweeney Todd), The Lord Chancellor (Iolanthe), The Cowardly Lion (The Wizard of Oz), Henry Higgins (My Fair Lady), Nicely-Nicely Johnson (Guys and Dolls), and Captain Hook (Peter Pan). Sar Shalom Strong, pianist, as received accolades for his sensitive performances of both solo and collaborative repertoire in a career spanning over twenty-five years. Mr. Strong has often be heard performing in concert with the Society for New Music, Civic Morning Musicals, and in collaboration with outstanding area and visiting musicians. He has appeared as soloist in concerti with the Utica Symphony Orchestra and the Hamilton College Orchestra, has performed frequently with the Skaneateles Festival, and from 1998-2007 he served as keyboardist for the Syracuse Symphony Orchestra. Central NY performances include Utica College and Hamilton College concerts with Rob and Lauralyn Kolb, as well as a solo performances at Utica College, a concert of piano trios in Cortland with violinist Jeremy Mastrangelo and cellist David LeDoux, a Syracuse recital with Janet Brown, a performance of Russian music for violin and piano sponsored by the Russian Department of Colgate University. In October 2010 Mr. Strong collaborated with tenor Jon West in a benefit concert for the B Sharp Musical Club Scholarship. Mr. Strong holds degrees from Knox College and Syracuse University, and is Lecturer in Piano and Coordinator of Staff Pianists for Hamilton College. Event begins at 12:30 P.M. Library Concourse Event calendar listing > |
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Coming October 19, 2011: Peter Makuck Poet About the Author: Peter Makuck grew up in Connecticut. He took courses at l'Université Laval in Quebec and received his B.A. from St. Francis College in Maine where he studied French and English. After a two-year stint of teaching French, he returned to graduate school and took a Ph.D. in American literature from Kent State University. In 1974-75 he was a Fulbright Exchange Professor at Université de Savoie, in Chambéry, France. In 1990-1991 he was Visiting Writer at Brigham Young University. More recently, in 2008, he held the Lee Smith chair in Creative writing at North Carolina State University. Until 2006 he edited Tar River Poetry, a national journal he founded in 1978. Distinguished Professor Emeritus at East Carolina University, he lives with his wife Phyllis on Bogue Banks, one of North Carolina’s southern barrier islands. His poetry collections Where We Live (1982), The Sunken Lightship (1990), Against Distance (1998), and Off-Season in the Promised Land (2005) were published by BOA Editions Ltd. Pilgrims (Ampersand Press) won the Zoe Kincaid Brockman Award for the best book of poems by a North Carolinian in 1989. Shorelines, a chapbook, was published in May 1995 by GreenTower Press. More recently, in 2009, Independent Press released another chapbook, Back Roads. In 2010 BOA Editions, Ltd. published Long Lens: New & Selected Poems and the book was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize. Makuck’s essays and reviews, stories and poems have appeared in Poetry, The Hudson Review, The Yale Review, The Nation, North American Review, The Southern Review, The Georgia Review, The American Scholar, The Gettysburg Review, The Sewanee Review, The Virginia Quarterly Review and others. His collection of short stories, Costly Habits, released by University of Missouri Press in October 2002, was nominated for the Pen/Faulkner Award. Event begins at 12:30 P.M. Macfarlane Auditorium, Deperno Hall Event calendar listing > |
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Coming October 26, 2011: Judy Marchione, bassoon Elizabeth Evans, flute Music About the Performers: Bassoonist Judy Marchione holds a Bachelor of Music degree from the Cleveland Institute of Music as a student of George Goslee and Ronald Phillips and a Master of Music Performance degree from the Eastman School of Music. While at Eastman she was a student of K. David van Hoesen and Philip Kolker. She also served as K. David van Hoesn’s teaching assistant which included teaching through the Continuing Education Division as well as conducting wood-wind technique classes for University of Rochester Music Education Majors. Currently Ms. Marchione performs with the Utica Symphony, Catskill Symphony, and Binghamton Philharmonic. She has performed over the years with such orchestras as the Buffalo Philharmonic, Akron Symphony, Canton Symphony, Ohio Ballet, Ohio Chamber Orchestra, Owensboro Symphony, and the Evansville Philharmonic. Flutist Elizabeth Carville Evans holds both Bachelor and Master's degrees in Flute Performance from the New England Conservatory of Music, Boston, where she was a student of Claude Monteux. She was a winner of the 1985 James Pappoutsakis Memorial Flute Competition, and a four time winner of the Conservatory Gala Chamber Music Competition. She has performed as soloist and chamber musician in Boston' s Jordan Hall, the Isabelle Stewart Gardner Museum, the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, and Harvard's Sanders Theater, among others. A native of New Hartford, her early flute studies were with John Oberbrunner. She returned to the Utica area in 1987 and has since established herself as performer, teacher, and active member of the B Sharp and Etude Music Clubs. She has given solo and chamber recitals throughout the area, and performs with the Utica and Catskill Symphonies. Sar-Shalom Strong, pianist, as received accolades for his sensitive performances of both solo and collaborative repertoire in a career spanning over twenty-five years. Mr. Strong has often be heard performing in concert with the Society for New Music, Civic Morning Musicals, and in collaboration with outstanding area and visiting musicians. He has appeared as soloist in concerti with the Utica Symphony Orchestra and the Hamilton College Orchestra, has performed frequently with the Skaneateles Festival, and from 1998-2007 he served as keyboardist for the Syracuse Symphony Orchestra. Central NY performances include Utica College and Hamilton College concerts with Rob and Lauralyn Kolb, as well as a solo performances at Utica College, a concert of piano trios in Cortland with violinist Jeremy Mastrangelo and cellist David LeDoux, a Syracuse recital with Janet Brown, a performance of Russian music for violin and piano sponsored by the Russian Department of Colgate University. In October 2010 Mr. Strong collaborated with tenor Jon West in a benefit concert for the B Sharp Musical Club Scholarship. Mr. Strong holds degrees from Knox College and Syracuse University, and is Lecturer in Piano and Coordinator of Staff Pianists for Hamilton College. Event begins at 12:30 P.M. Library Concourse Event calendar listing > |
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Coming November 2, 2011: David Lloyd Fiction writer About the Author: David Lloyd grew up in the Welsh-American community of Utica, New York. He is Professor of English and Director of the Creative Writing Program at Le Moyne College in Syracuse, New York. His poetry collection The Everyday Apocalypse (2002), won the Maryland State Poetry & Literary Society’s chapbook contest. His poem sequence The Gospel According to Frank, which appeared in 2003 from New American Press, was reissued in an expanded edition in 2010. He is also the author of Boys: Stories and a Novella, published by Syracuse University Press in 2004. His other books include The Urgency of Identity: Contemporary English-language Poetry from Wales, Writing on the Edge: Interviews with Writers and Editors of Wales, and Other Land: Contemporary Poems on Wales and Welsh-American Experience. In 2000, he received the Poetry Society of America’s Robert H. Winner Memorial Award, judged by W. D. Snodgrass; in 2001 he held a Distinguished Scholar Fulbright appointment at the University of Wales, Bangor. His poems and stories have appeared in journals in the US, Canada, and Britain, including Crab Orchard Review, Denver Quarterly, DoubleTake, Natural Bridge and TriQuarterly. A new poetry collection, Warriors, will appear in 2012 from Salt Publishing. Event begins at 12:30 P.M. Macfarlane Auditorium, Deperno Hall Event calendar listing > |
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Coming November 9, 2011 Don Cantwell and the Clef Dwellers Music About the Performers: Don Cantwell and the Clef Dwellers is one of Central New York's best known traditional jazz bands, performing selections from a library of over 400 arrangements. The group's basic instrumentation includes trumpet, clarinet/sax, trombone, piano (keyboard), banjo/guitar, bass and drums. The Clef Dewllers serve up traditional swing music from Mardi Gras to contemporary style. Don Cantwell of Barneveld leads the Clef Dwellers. Cantwell taught for 33 years at Whitesboro Central School, and created an award-winning music education program. At Whitesboro he taught many students who have gone on to careers of distinction as performers and educators, including Mark Kellogg, trombonist with the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra and faculty member at Eastman School of Music; Dr. David Blask, trumpeter with several New Orleans jazz bands; and Michael Hewitt, chair of Music Education at the University of Maryland School of Music. Cantwell has been a recognized jazz educator at elementary, secondary, and collegiate levels. Event begins at 12:30 P.M. Library Concourse Event calendar listing > |
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Coming November 16, 2011: Jeff Friedman Poet About the Author: Jeff Friedman’s fifth collection of poetry, Working in Flour, has recently been published by Carnegie Mellon University Press. His poems, mini stories, and translations have appeared in many literary magazines, including American Poetry Review, Poetry, 5 AM, Agni Online, Poetry International, Prairie Schooner, Antioch Review, Quick Fiction, Nighttrain, The 2River View, North American Review, Boulevard, and The New Republic. A contributing editor to Natural Bridge, he teaches at Keene State College in New Hampshire. Event begins at 12:30 P.M. Macfarlane Auditorium, Deperno Hall Event calendar listing > |
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Coming November 30, 2011: The Society for New Music Regional composers and performers About the Performers: Founded in 1971, the Society for New Music acts as a catalyst for the continued growth of the central New York musical community by commissioning new works, promoting advocacy, showcasing regional composers alongside guest composers, providing regional musicians an opportunity to perform the music of their peers, and bringing new music to as broad an audience as possible through performances, broadcasts, and on the web. The Society is comprised of a core of dedicated professionals who live in Central New York, but who are nationally and internationally renowned. Most have performed and recorded together for many years. The Society for New Music is supported in part with funds provided by the New York State Council on the Arts, Copland Fund, National Endowment for the Arts, Central New York Community Foundation, Alice M. Ditson Foundation, Amphion Foundation, Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation, Virgil Thomson Foundation, Meet the Composer and private donations. Cristina Buciu, a native of Bucharest, comes from a famiof well-known musicians. Her violin teachers include Sherban Lupu, Peter Zazofsky, and the Muir Quartet. She holds degrees from the Bucharest Academy, University of Illinois (MM), and the Artist Diploma from Boston U. She has concertized extensively with orchestras in Romania & the U.S., including the Romanian National Radio and Concerto Chamber Orchestra on its European tour. Ms. Buciu has performed solo and chamber recitals in Romania, England, Italy, Germany and major cities in the U.S. Some engagements include collaborative recitals with such noted artists as Csaba Erdeliy, Sherban Lupu, Andres Diaz and Phyllis Curtin. Twice the winner of the National String Competition in Romania & International Violin Competition in Stusa, Italy, she is also a recipient of a Kate Neal Kinley Fellowship. Featured on National Radio-TV of Romania, Yogoslavia, Voice of America, as well as other American stations, Ms. Buciu has performed at such festivals as the Gubbio, Mittenwald, Novi Sad, and Lanciano Festivals, and at Tanglewood (1996-7) where she worked with the Juilliard Quartet, Leon Fleisher, and performed under Ozawa, Haitink and Previn. She was a guest artist at the acclaimed International New Music Week in Bucharest and is now in her ninth season with the Syracuse Symphony and her ninth season with the Society for New Music. David LeDoux joined the Syracuse Symphony Orchestra in 2006, and began performing with the Society that same year. From 2002-2006 he served as Principal Cellist of the Baton Rouge Symphony, and prior to that with the Tulsa Philharmonic. He studied cello with Ronald Leonard at USC and with Dennis Parker at Louisiana State. As a soloist he has performed with orchestras in Louisiana, Texas and Oklahoma. He has participated in the Quartet Program at Bucknell and the Texas Festival-Institute at Round Top. In May 2010 he soloed with the Syracuse Symphony Orchestra and received standing ovations both nights. Sar-Shalom Strong has received accolades for his sensitive performances of both solo and collaborative piano repertoire. Mr. Strong frequently performs with the Society for New Music, \Civic Morning Musicals, and collaborates with outstanding area and visiting musicians. He has appeared as soloist in concerti with the Utica Symphony Orchestra and the Hamilton College Orchestra, performed frequently with the Skaneateles Festival, and from 1998-2007 served as keyboardist for the Syracuse Symphony Orchestra. Recent performances include Utica College and Hamilton College concerts with Rob and Lauralyn Kolb, a solo piano performance at Utica College, a concert of piano trios in Cortland with violinist Jeremy Mastrangelo and cellist David LeDoux, a Syracuse recital with Janet Brown, and a performance of Russian music for violin and piano sponsored by the Russian Department of Colgate University. In October 2010 Mr. Strong collaborated with tenor Jon West in a benefit concert for the B Sharp Musical Club Scholarship. Recently Mr. Strong collaborated with Jeremy Mastrangelo, violinist and Gregory Wood, cellist in a program of French Impressionistic composers. Mr. Strong holds degrees from Knox College and Syracuse University, and is Lecturer in Piano and Coordinator of Staff Pianists for Hamilton College. Event begins at 12:30 P.M. Library Concourse Event calendar listing > |
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Coming December 7, 2011: Utica College Choir David Kolb, director About the performers: Please join us for this special performance of the Utica College Choir, directed by David Kolb. Kolb is a graduate of Hamilton College with double concentrations in music and mathematics, and has taught math at Mohawk Valley Community College. He has directed the choir at Stone Presbyterian Church in Clinton and is currently the choral director for the Utica Maennerchor. David is also an active singer as well as a frequent performer in local theatrical productions. Event begins at 12:30 P.M. Library Concourse Event calendar listing > |
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