Class Notes

Class Notes find more online today.newenglandconservatory.edu Find more news, profiles, and press releases, updated weekly. concerts.newenglandconservatory.edu Coming to Boston? Find out what’s playing at NEC. Pianist Mildred Cloudman celebrated her 101st birthday in October 2006. In attendance at the celebration was Mary Baker Carr ’62, ’83, who recently moved to Thornton Oaks in Brunswick, Maine, with her husband. … Celebrating her 100th birthday in October 2006 was classmate Dorothy Knauss ’28 DP (harp) of Macungie, Pa., who is remembered by neighbors as “the best music teacher in our locale.” Pianist Ethel Potts Bernard ’38 DP, ’40 B.M. is an active member of several chamber groups. She studied conducting with Davison and Woodworth, had several teaching jobs, and was married to Albert Yves Bernard of the BSO. She has three children, six grandchildren, and two great-grandchildren. Ruth Shipton Lowe is living in a nursing home in Auburn, Maine. She recalls with pride her affiliation with NEC. 1 9 4 2 R E U N I O N Y E A R 1 9 3 9 1 9 3 8 1 9 2 8 elder care facility, also in Keene. She remembers how thrilled she was to play the organ in Jordan Hall as a student. 1 9 4 7 R E U N I O N Y E A R At 83, Barbara Chambers Geissinger ’47 M.M. still directs a 20-voice women’s chorus that performs regularly. She occasionally substitutes as a church choir director and pianist. Harpist Colette Rushford Canavan retired to Sarasota, Fla., and is living at a continuing care retirement community. She attends concerts, opera, ballet, and theatre in Sarasota, and is only minutes away from the beach. After 32 years of teaching, Joan Durfee Barrie still takes “one or two” students, and plays regularly at church services. … Bernice Edwards Hall, Ph.D., is the founder and director of the Bernice Edwards School of Music in the Bronx, where she is also Minister of Music at Bethlehem Lutheran Church. 1 9 5 0 1 9 4 9 1 9 4 8 www.newenglandconservatory.edu /classnotes Get details of Reunion 2007 as well as regional events in your area. www.newenglandconservatory.edu /alumni/services.html Find out how your Alumni Relations office is helping you. alumni.newenglandconservatory.edu Register for the NEC Online Alumni Directory or update your listing. subscribe www.newenglandconservatory.edu /subscribe Sign up for your free subscription to NEC’s e-newsletter, NEC Update, and get the news as it happens. Frederic T. Nazro is retired from jobs as principal bassoon and recording engineer in the U.S. Coast Guard Band and music director of the First Baptist Church in New London, Conn. When Dean F. DeRosa worked as an NEC elevator operator, “one of my thrilling moments was when a classmate of mine, while giving her a ride in the elevator, had asked me to hold her violin. I was flabbergasted to know that the instrument I was holding was a Stradivarius! It was insured for $50,000 in those days.” In the Navy during World War II, DeRosa was known as “the singing corpsman.” He later worked for the Boston Pops. … For the last several years, pianist Hazel Beard Guyer has been corresponding by e-mail with classmate and violinist Margaret Olsen Blickle, whom she accompanied while at NEC. 1 9 4 5 Hedi Swiacki Kay, 1 9 4 3 R E U N I O N 2 0 0 7 If your class year ends in a two or a seven, this is your reunion year. We welcome you to Reunion 2007, May 18–20. Go to www.new englandconservatory.edu/alumni/events for more information and to register online for reunion activities, or call 617-585-1175. R E U N I O N 2 0 0 6 Outstanding Alumni Awards were given to the following alumni at Reunion 2006. David Breitman ’81 M.M. Yuko Hayashi ’56, ’58 M.M., ’62 A.D. Lloyd McCausland ’54, ’56 M.M. Johanna Hill Simpson ’81 M.M. A Lifetime Achievement Award went to Lora Cooke deVaron hon. ‘88 organist at St. Anne’s Church in Worcester, Mass., for the past 50 years, has performed more than five thousand masses. In 2004, her years of service were celebrated in a gathering of parishioners, friends, and family, where she received a framed tribute from Pope John Paul II and a resolution from the Massachusetts General Court. 1 9 4 6 Muriel McCauley Buck writes that she has been a Navy wife since 1950, with “four wonderful children and six wonderful grandchildren.” Buck has been a piano teacher and organist in many different churches and chapels during her Navy tours. In retirement, she has been the interim organist at the Jesus Saviour Roman Catholic Church in Newport, R.I. … The 2004 Juneteenth Battle of the Bands and Drumlin was named after one of Austin’s most beloved musicians and former band director, Alvin O. Patterson. The celebration brought together bands from around the Mildred Cloudman ‘28 with state, and more than 14,000 specMarian Alper. tators. … Joseph I. Quinn, bass-baritone soloist at St. Gregory Church in Dorchester, Mass., has performed in recent years as a featured actor with Reagle Theatre in Waltham, Mass., in productions of Brigadoon and She Loves Me. … After retiring in the 1980s as director of engineering for the Wausau Metals Corporation in Wausau, Wis., Frederick Zender ’50 Reginald W. Haché ’54, ’58 G.D. spent 14 years as the director M.M., ’60 A.D. of the Wausau Senior Citizens Chorus. Miriam Hines Bednarz ’51 DP, ’52 has taught piano and various music classes at the Vermont Conservatory of Music, Arlington Academy of Music, Hillview School for Girls, Willamette University, Oregon College of Education, and Chemcheta Community College. She has performed several programs of chamber music and four-hand piano recitals. … Pianist Frances Taylor Godfriaux still performs occasionally and remains active in the Music Teachers National Association. Retired for 15 years, she and her 1 9 5 1 Helen E. Ellis, retired from jobs as a court assistant and as a church organist/choir director, writes that she accepted two organ playing engagements in 2005: one for a Lenten service at the United Church of Christ in Keene, N.H., the other for a communion service at an 22 husband enjoy traveling. … Jack L. Miller retired in 1991 from the University of North Dakota, where he was Associate Dean of the College of Fine Arts, and also conducted the Grand Forks Symphony for eleven years. … Pianist Cecil Taylor’s 75th birthday was celebrated at the Iridium Jazz Club in New York. Jazziz magazine called the event “the most exhausting party in town” and one of “the year’s more significant gigs.” Taylor was backed by a 15-piece big band. 1 9 5 2 R E U N I O N Y E A R In 2005, a program of organ music by Alfred Hoose ’52 M.M. was broadcast on WCRB in Boston, Mass. Heinrich Cristensen was the organist, and the music was recorded at Boston’s Basilica of Our Lady of Perpetual Help Church. … Former NEC faculty member Elizabeth Burbank Hancock Storrie ’52, ’55 M.M. currently resides in Cumberland Foreside, Maine. Storrie is still very active as a vocal performer and piano accompanist and works at the Brunswick Baptist Church. Carol W. Arnold teaches piano in Kailua, Hawaii. “It is with great pride that I see my student of many years ago, Vivian Hornik Weilerstein, is now on the faculty at NEC!” Arden Anderson-Broecking directed Die Fledermaus for Crystal Opera Consortium in Norwalk, Conn. Anderson-Broecking is cofounder of the theatre, and this was the first production in their recently built performance space. … In 2005, pianist Reginald W. Haché ’54, ’58 M.M., ’60 A.D. was the subject of a front-page Sunday “Lifestyles” profile in the St. Augustine (Fla.) Record. Retired after 25 years of teaching at Northeastern University, Haché is now a resident of St. Augustine Shores, where he performs, and has recently cut three CDs with the St. Augustinebased record company Eclipse. … Anne Fontaine Hovey recently retired as the full-time music director at St. Alphonsus Church in Danvers, Mass. She works part time in several churches on the North Shore, and teachs voice and piano privately. … Ruthelaine Jones MacIntyre is Director of Music Ministries at Whiting United Methodist Church in N.J., and directs the Crestwood Chorus, a 75voice community chorus. … Charles G. Smith ’54 M.M. is music director and part-time organist at St. Christopher’s Episcopal Church in Sun City, Ariz. He also writes that he plays “mediocre golf three or four times a week.” 1 9 5 4 1 9 5 3 and co-directing the Village Music School in Wellesley, Mass., for the past 25 years, she is now retired. She also recently retired as director of youth and adult choirs at Wellesley Congregational Church. Hung and her husband still live in Wellesley, and enjoy their summer home in Gloucester. Her two children and five grandchildren live close by. … Aime M. Simoneau ’58, ’68 M.M. conducted the North Port (Fla.) Orchestra from 1998 to 2003, and is currently conductor of the Manatee County Community Band. Simoneau is first trumpet in the Sarasota Brass Quintet, and also performs with the Sun Coast Band in Sarasota. 1 9 5 7 R E U N I O N Y E A R In June 2006, Barbara Field retired from her post as executive director of New York City’s Third Street Music School Settlement. In 2005, Choral Arts New England honored former faculty member Donald Teeters with a lifetime achievement award for his exceptional service to choral music and to the choral community in New England in a ceremony at All Saints Parish in Brookline, Mass., where Teeters has been principal church musician since 1967. Teeters received NEC’s Outstanding Alumni Award in 2004. Earl Groner is past president of the New York State School Music Association, president-elect of the National Association for Music Education Eastern Division, and music director of Empire State Concert Productions. … Arthur Lewis ’59 M.M. writes, “I look back with great fondness toward the people I encountered at NEC—faculty, students, and administration.” Lewis is Professor Emeritus at Illinois State University, and is currently an adjunct faculty member at Emory University (Ga.). Lewis was principal viola with the Baltimore Symphony, Nashville Symphony, and the Santa Fe Opera orchestra, and was violist in the Philadelphia Orchestra and Philadelphia Chamber Symphony. … Michaline Chomicz Manno ’59, ’64 A.D. is active as Executive Director of the Garden State Chorale (N.J.), a soprano soloist at the First Presbyterian Church in Orange, N.J., and Scholarship Chairperson for the past five years with the Suburban Music Study Club in Madison, N.J. She is retired from the Newark Board of Education as Elementary and Secondary Education Supervisor. She writes she is “still singing and now has four grandchildren to dote upon.” … In 2005 a concert was held in Russia featuring a composition by Leila Pradell ’59 M.M. It was in honor of the 750th anniversary of the City of Kaliningrad, as well as in memory of Pope John Paul II. … Sandra Lenz Schaller writes that her years of teaching instrumental music in North Syracuse, N.Y., were “very successful due to NEC.” She is the proud grandmother of several grandchildren. 1 9 5 9 1 9 5 8 the CD Priscilla Gordon sings Stefano Donaudy. … The September 2005 edition of the Connecticut newspaper The Day featured a story on George Kent ’60 M.M., founder and music director of the Chorus of Westerly, R.I. The chorus’s performance hall recently underwent a $2.47 million expansion, and was renamed as the George Kent Performance Hall. The Chorus of Westerly was founded in 1959 by Kent, who has served as its music director ever since its foundation. The Chorus is the only chorus in the U.S. to include children as full members. Kent’s father, George Kent Sr., is the oldest member of the chorus at the age of 95. … Richard Wyland ’60 M.M. is a freelance musician in the Twin Cities, plays principal clarinet in the Encore Wind Ensemble, and is a clarinet instructor at Bethel College. 1 9 6 2 R E U N I O N Y E A R After 43 years of teaching music in the Dover, Mass., public schools, Diane Jones has retired. Her tenure there saw the building of a strong OrffSchulwerk program, which has continued with the expertise of Diane’s son, Michael, who assumed his mother’s position. Her retirement has been short-lived, with teaching at the Cape Cod Conservatory, substitute teaching, and various gigs in suburban historic homes playing a harpsichord built by her late husband. … Beverly Newberry Reilly ’62, ’68 M.M. teaches flute in Plymouth, Mass., and plays in several community organizations, including first flute and piccolo in two community bands. Iris Downs Fields teaches middle school music classes for the U.S. Department of Defense in Japan. She writes, “The children of our military personnel need good educators to provide an American school atmosphere.” … After 43 years of teaching, Mira Frohnmayer ’63 M.M. will retire from Pacific Lutheran University in Tacoma, Wash., where she has been a professor of music and chair of vocal studies. She plans on moving to Lopez Island, Wash. … Annette Sampson Sims is organist and choir director at Highlands United Methodist Church in Highlands, N.J. She has been a church musician since 1964, has taught both privately and in local schools, and has sung opera in New York, New Jersey, and Australia. Linda Brunner is principal flutist with the Midcoast Symphony in Maine. She is also a member of the Midcoast Woodwind Quintet, the Downeast Chamber Players, the Bangor Symphony, and has performed with the Maine State Ballet Orchestra. Brunner conducts the Hallowell Community Band, which performs weekly outdoor concerts in Boothbay Harbor. … After an operatic career in Europe, Gail Carson returned to the U.S. in 1985 and started work as a journalist. She retired from the Ithaca Journal in 2002, and is currently writing a book about her Nepali nephew, Ram. Carson lives in Ithaca’s EcoVillage and writes that she is “still in touch with NEC alums Noreen Murphy ’65 and David Crohan ’66, ’68, ’70 A.D.” … Benjamin G. Del Vecchio ’64, ’66 M.M. is music director at Mary, Queen of Peace Church in Danville, Ind. Visit www.benja mindelvecchio. … Patricia Huston Dreger is retired, 1 9 6 4 1 9 6 3 After serving for 41 years at the University of Texas School of Music, where at various times he was assistant dean of the College of Fine Arts and chaired the music department, Richard D. Blair retired in 1996 as Professor Emeritus. His performance career included engagements with orchestras throughout Texas and more than 20 years as principal oboist with the Austin Symphony. … Former NEC faculty and chair of the organ department for 30 years, Yuko Hayashi ’56, ’58 M.M., ’62 A.D. was recognized at her 50th Reunion in 2006 with an Outstanding Alumni Award. Hayashi continues to perform throughout North America, Europe, and Japan. … Joan Goddard Hung writes that after founding 1 9 5 6 Pianist Janice Ehrmann has been a member of a piano duo since the 1970s. … Tenor Alberto Figols, husband and musical partner of soprano Priscilla Gordon de Figols, died November 9, 2006. In fall 2005, Arko Recordings released 23 1 9 6 0 except for teaching a large class of private students. Dreger was formerly the principal flute with the Huntsville Symphony, conductor/founder of the award winning Madison County (Ala.) Schools Orchestra Program and president of the Huntsville Chamber Music Guild. … Dr. Francesco-Tomaso Esile published poetry with five publishing houses in 2003, and expects to complete a book in 2006. Dr. Esile is the retired director of music in the Pentucket Regional School system in West Newbury, Mass. … Philip W. Leach is a sales representative at David French Music Co., Inc. in Westborough, Mass. He hopes to do as much private teaching as possible upon his retirement in a couple of years. … Christine Lloyd Savard is a vocal music and choir teacher in the Oscoda (Mich.) area school system. She has written four musicals and several songs for K–5, and has worked on revising both state and district curricula. When she retires, Savard plans to buy a motor home and travel, as well as putting on concerts. … Elaine Rosen Wolfson retired in 1995 as vocal director of South Portland (Maine) High School. She and her husband, Jeff, reside in Sarasota, Fla., where Elaine teaches privately and at the Out of Door Academy. 1 9 6 5 Greer McLane Hopkins ’65, ’68 M.M. music therapist, works with geri-psychiatric patients at the Quincy Medical Center in Mass. and with residents of various health care facilities. McGinty also teaches piano privately, and gives concerts occasionally. McGinty is a fitness buff who attends yoga and aerobic classes regularly. Her community activities include active membership in the Quincy Symphony Guild. … Rosemont “Robin” M. Stone ’66 M.M. teaches in Greenfield, Mass. She gives both piano and violin recitals, and is director of Four Seasons Chamber Ensemble, primarily composed of amateur senior citizens. She freelances with several orchestras, having recently retired as concertmaster of the Holyoke Civic Symphony. 1 9 6 7 R E U N I O N Y E A R In 2004, Susan Mardinly received her Doctor of Musical Arts from the University of Connecticut. Her dissertation was titled “Barbara Strozzi and The Pleasures of Euterpe.” Mardinly has transcribed and published 21 of the composer’s works, and remains active as a singer/teacher in Connecticut. … Judith Ann Pepe-Dansereau ’69 M.M. has published several poems, including one in The Best Poets and Poems of 2003, published by the International Library of Poetry. Steve Schiller is principal trumpet with the Springfield Symphony Orchestra in Mass. Schiller’s son Sander is a trombone student at NEC, in his last year of undergraduate study with BSO bass trombonist Doug Yeo. … April Showers-Michaud has been principal flute with the Thayer Symphony Orchestra in Leominster, Mass., for the past 21 years. She has taught at the Thayer Performing Arts Center, and in the Nashua School District for the past 20 years. She also writes that she recorded a CD of holiday music with the Bullfinch Players, and is a member of the Windhammer Chamber Players. 1 9 7 0 Gail Nelson-Holgate ’67 M.M. is a self-employed writes that she ran into classmate and fellow Santa Fe Opera apprentice Roger Lucas ’69 DP at the Merola Summer Program in San Francisco. “After 35 years he is as charming as ever, and is still singing with his lovely wife, Deborah Ward Lucas ’70 M.M.” 1 9 6 6 Leon Gregorian has guest-conducted singer/actress/voice teacher. She has performed as guest artist on both Holland America and Silver Seas cruise ships and has two national TV commercials out as on-camera principal for both Home Depot and Smith Barney. Nelson-Holgate is a narrator for Educational Books, and has worked for 12 years as a narrator for Talking Books, Inc. for the American Federation for the Blind. … Since 1983, Rev. Msgr. Francis V. Strahan has been pastor of St. Bridget’s Parish in Framingham, Mass. He has also taught liturgical music, homiletics, and liturgy at St. John’s Seminary in Brighton, Mass., for 18 years, where he also directed the seminary choir. Since 1965, he has been an adjunct professor at Blessed John XXIII Seminary for delayed vocations in Weston, Mass. Suzanne Cleverdon ’68, ’71 M.M. is a minister of music at the Church of Our Savior in Milford, N.H. She writes: “NEC and my classmates were life-long influences which enhanced my sense of bliss as a musician which endures to this day.” … Jazz at Bard presented an evening with the Henry Grimes Quartet: bassist Grimes, pianist Marilyn Crispell, percussionist Tani Tabbal, and guest trombonist Roswell Rudd. … Flutist Robert Stallman ’68, ’71 M.M. performs as a soloist with numerous orchestras internationally. His latest CD, Mozart Sonatas for Flute and Harp, was recorded with harpist Katerina Englichova. Robert lives in Philadelphia with his wife, Hannah Woods. Visit www.robertstallman.com. 1 9 6 9 Howard B. Chadwick, Jr. ’69 M.M. 1 9 6 8 throughout the world, including China, Australia, Mexico, and Germany. In October 2006, Gregorian traveled with the Michigan State University Symphony to Austria, Vienna, and Salzburg to participate in a Mozart celebration. Gregorian has received several awards from Michigan State University including a distinguished faculty award, a teacher scholar award, and the Apollo Award for university/community relations. … Paul Johnian concertizes on five different instruments, has made several recordings, and is music director of the Millennium Music Center in Nashville, Tenn. … After a successful career in finance, cellist Johan Michael Katz ’66, ’68 M.M. has returned to his first love: music. He completed studies in 2001 with Noam Sheriff in Tel Aviv and in 2002 with Urs Schneider in Switzerland. Katz now conducts a chamber orchestra he founded named the Barn Sinfonietta of Oxted, which performed his Symposium for harpsichord and strings in 2004. … In 2005, Ralph Lockwood ’66 M.M., Professor of Music Emeritus at Arizona State University, conducted members of the Phoenix Symphony and the Arizona State University faculty in a special concert entitled “The Glory of Brass.” Lockwood is an active freelance musician, often appearing as a harpsichordist with the Phoenix Symphony, and in performances of Handel’s Messiah. In 2006, he gifted the Arizona Opera with a Goble harpsichord which was used in the company’s first Baroque Opera presentation of Handel’s Semele. … Erlinda Salazar McGinty ’66 M.M., a licensed mental health counselor and advanced certified continues to sing in the New England area, is the proprietor of antiques shops in both Boston and Nantucket, and oversees the running of the Nantucket Musical Arts Society, which presents world-class artists each summer. … Esteandrea Cohen Gaffin recently completed her 35th year of teaching elementary vocal music in the Sharon (Mass.) Public Schools. … After 20 years of teaching voice at Dartmouth College, Pamela Gore ’69 M.M. will continue to teach privately. Gore also gives public speaking workshops for companies, as well as for preaching classes at Harvard Divinity School. … Joan Nahigian Jensen ’69 M.M. teaches piano and voice to all ages in her home studio. She directs musicals for both children and adults, plays piano for parties and events, and is the organist and choir director at her church. … In 2004, Philadelphia Orchestra cellist Gloria J. dePasquale ’71, ’73 M.M. presented a recital at the University of New Hampshire with Arlene Kies ’71, ’74 M.M. DePasquale also performed Brahms’s Double Concerto with the Main Line Symphony in Pa. Her violinist husband, William, is an Emeritus Player of the Philadelphia Orchestra. … Philip Morehead ’71 M.M. conducted student performances of Janacek’s Cunning Little Vixen at the Lyric Opera of Chicago, where he is an Head of Musical Staff. With his wife, Patricia, he runs the new music group Cube. … Jim Morgan writes that he has been playing a French bassoon for the past 30 years. He promotes the study of the instrument through concerts and conversation. … Emory Waters ’71 M.M., the Petersburg (Va.) Symphony Orchestra’s composerin-residence, was commissioned to compose Family Portraits, a celebratory cantata for the 250th anniversary of the City of Petersburg. In 2000, Waters’s two-act opera The Edge of Glory was premiered by the PSO with cast of faculty and students from Virginia State University. The Christmas anthem Joy Shall be Yours in the Morning was commissioned by the Petersburg Boys’ Choir directed by Buckner Gamby ’51, ’55 M.M. Waters’s concerto for horn and concert band received its first performance in 2005, by Nelson Lawson with the All-Richmond High School Concert Band. 1 9 7 2 R E U N I O N Y E A R 1 9 7 1 Jazz saxophonist Stanton Davis did a walk-on scene in the 2006 film Half Nelson starring Ryan Gosling. Music from Davis’s last album, Manhattan Melody, appears in the film. Davis is also releasing a remake of songs from his first album, Stanton Davis’ Ghetto/Mysticism. The songs are being sampled for house mixes on Stonethrow Records. … In 2004, vocalist Rebecca Shuh Diebold performed with the Ottumwa Symphony Orchestra in Iowa. 24 piano, and keyboard skills. … In 2004, clarinetist On the new CD Visions Interieures: Bruce M. Creditor ’75, ’77 M.M. gave the concert The Developing Song Cycle (Bridge Records), premiere of John Williams’s Viktor’s Theme from pianist Warren Jones performs late 19th- and early The Terminal, as well as performances by Morton 20th-century song cycles with soprano Georgine Gould and Brahms, with the Curtisville ConsorResick. Jones, high in demand as an accompanist tium in Lenox, Mass. He has also performed at to divas such as Jessye Norman, Kiri te Kanawa, the Token Creek Chamber Music Festival in and Denyce Graves ’88 DP has led Wisconsin. … 2005 marked the several masterclasses at NEC over 10th anniversary for pianist David the past few years. … Jessica Ryder Deveau ’71 PREP, ’75 as Artistic ’73, ’75 M.M., formerly known as Director of the Rockport Chamber Beverly Morgan, has made a career Music Festival. He performed a solo transformation developing a unique recital on the Bank of America style of meditative singing. Her CD Celebrity Series in Boston in 2006. A Voice in the Night exemplifies her In a tour of China, his concerts deep exploration of sound, color, were taped by China Cable TV and and rhythm. Ryder is living in his Qingdao performance was Dingmans Ferry, Pa., and in New broadcast live. Recent concerto York, and leads workshops entitled Robert Stallman ’68, ’71 M.M. appearances include Gershwin’s “Your Creative Voice.” … Frank Rhapsody in Blue with the Boston Sacks recently reconnected with Pops under Keith Lockhart, the NEC and writes that he switched Harkness Festival in Connecticut, careers from music to nutrition after in Mozart’s Concerto K.488, and he left the Conservatory. He is a Beethoven’s Emperor Concerto with professor of nutrition and heart the Miami Symphony led by disease at Harvard School of Public Franceso la Vecchia. … In 2005, Health, and has been married for Dianne England ’75 M.M. sang the three years to Haunia Campos, also role of the Mother in Stockton a professor of nutrition at Harvard. Civic Theatre’s production of Warren Jones ‘73 He now especially enjoys seeing Amahl and the Night Visitors. former classmates in concerts, espeRetired from teaching elementary cially those from the jazz program. school, England now teaches voice and piano at San Joaquin Delta Community College in Stockton, 1 9 7 4 During the Mozart Calif. … Reed Gratz ’75 M.M. writes year, performances of Mozart’s that he was a Fulbright Requiem took baritone David Arnold Distinguished Chair at the ’74 A.D. on a tour of Prague with University of Leiden. He was listed Harold Rosenbaum. Along with his in the spring 2005 edition of Who’s many concert appearances, Arnold Who Among American Teachers. was heard in a televised solo concert … David R. Hawkins has taught at benefiting Rosenbaum’s New York East Carolina University for the past Jessica Ryder ’73, ’75 M.M., Virtuoso Singers. Arnold was sched27 years. … Ellen McLain Lowrie ’75, uled to perform Handel’s Messiah in ’77 M.M. per-formed in the play Steel Magnolias at the Philadelphia’s new Kimmel Center. … the Village Theatre in Seattle in 2005, moving on Composer Thomas Oboe Lee ’74 M.M., ’76 M.M. is to the role of Marcellina in Mozart’s The Marriage working on an opera about the life and times of of Figaro with Seattle Opera Young Artists. … Ann Oscar Wilde with playwright Paul Hodes. Ludwig ’75 M.M. teaches instrumental music to 4thWorkshop performances of the work took place in and 5th-graders in the Capistrano Unified School 2006 at the Concord (N.H.) Community Recital District in San Juan Capistrano, Calif. She also Hall and aired on NPR’s “Here and Now” teaches private lessons on oboe, and performs with program (listen at www.here-now.org). The Civic the South Coast Symphony, chamber ensembles, Symphony Orchestra of Boston debuted Lee’s and in solo performances. … Judy Niemack resides oboe concerto, based on the story of Persephone, in Germany and has an active performing schedin 2006. … Performing at the five-star Polo ule in Europe. She recently appeared in New York Lounge in the Beverly Hills Hotel has been a won- at the Jazz Standard, and at Sweet Rhythm with derful experience for pianist Patricia Anne Rice for Darmon Meader of the vocal jazz group New York many years. … In 2004, Amy E. Teare was married Voices. Niemack presented her book/CD Hear It to John DeWitt on Mackinac Island, Mich. and Sing It! Exploring Modal Improvisation in a workshop at the 2006 IAJE conference. … 1 9 7 5 Larry Phillips, president of the Ellis L. Phillips Donald L. Appert ’75, ’77 M.M. writes Foundation, works closely with the Constellation that in 2004 he guest-conducted the State Performing Arts Center in Cambridge, Mass., and Symphony of St. Petersburg (Russia) and the Orchestre Symphonique de Conservatoire Frederic is planning the installation of a Bach organ in the Center’s Great Hall. … Violinist Alicia Ourada Chopin (Paris). The latter program included the Strubler ’75, ’77 M.M. is heading into her 25th year French premiere of his own work Elegy for string with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra. While orchestra. … Music from the CD When the Galop was the Rage by Helen Beedle ’75 M.M. is featured in recently in Boston, Strubler and her husband stopped into NEC to show son Mark where his the first-season finale of the HBO series “Big mother went to school. She writes: “I have fond Love.” Beedle is an adjunct assistant professor at memories of my experience at NEC. I had great Lehigh University where she teaches music theory, teachers and met life-long friends there as well. 1 9 7 3 25 Alumni in Alternative Careers Launched in 2006, the NEC Network for Alumni in Alternative Careers (NAAC) has the mission of providing a network and supportive community for those alumni who, although no longer making their living professionally through music or teaching, have maintained a deep passion for music and an appreciation for the training they received at NEC. The NAAC group is collecting stories of alumni who have chosen careers outside of the music professions, and plans to develop a database for networking and providing career support resources for those considering this transition. For information on NAAC, contact Cheryl Weber, Director of Alumni Relations at cweber@newenglandconservatory.edu. Alumni: Verify your data! If you are a New England Conservatory alumna/us, you have just been contacted in connection with an important verification project to update and complete alumni records. Information collected will be compiled in an alumni directory, both in printed form and on CD, which will be made available only to NEC alumni in fall 2007. NEC has chosen Harris Connect Publishing to update your information and produce this directory. Data Verification Forms were mailed to all NEC alumni February 2007. Each form is imprinted with the information currently on file for you. Alumni are strongly urged to mail back completed Verification Forms within 14 days of receipt—even if there are no updates to the information listed. This timely response will help NEC make sure all alumni have taken advantage of this important opportunity to confirm the accuracy of their information. “This verification and directory project provides a wonderful opportunity for alumni to stay connected with NEC and with each other. It’s important that every alumna/us take just a few minutes to look over the data listed on their Verification Form,” says Cheryl Weber, NEC Director of Alumni Relations. “For many alumni, it’s been years since this information has been updated. As a result, a significant number of NEC records contain outdated and incomplete information. Watch for your questionnaire and help your school keep current records.” My orchestral experience there prepared me for my DSO job—and I am very thankful for that!” … Gary Thor Wedow ’75 M.M. conducted Handel’s Xerxes at New York City Opera, starring Lisa Saffer ’85 M.M., ’86 A.D. In 2005, he conducted Bizet’s Carmen, also with New York City Opera. … Kathi Edelson Wolder ’75 M.M. was married in 2004 to Burt Wolder. Wolder is president of Edelson Communications, LLC, a public relations agency specializing in luxury goods and services. Debra J. Berstein-Aponte writes that she works as a secretary for the New York State Department of Transportation. Her daughter Debbie is completing vocal training at Mannes’s Preparatory division in New York. … Mimmi Fulmer ’76 M.M. writes that her solo CD About Time received praise from Opera News online and from the American Record Guide. In 2005, Centaur released a CD of works by Joseph Dubriel with Fulmer as soloist and co-producer. Fulmer teaches voice and opera at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. In 2005, she premiered a one-woman, multimedia opera written for her by Alicyn Warren. Fulmer is a regular soloist with the Madison Bach Musicians and Wisconsin Baroque Ensemble. Her students have enjoyed success with such companies as New York City Opera, Los Angeles Opera, and Opera Australia. … Lynne Hoffman-Engel ’76 M.M. is currently vice president of sales with Telarc, based in Cleveland, Ohio. She comes to this job from a long marketing career in the record business, including London Records, PolyGram Classics, and Platinum Entertainment. She sings at Church of the Covenant in Cleveland, and lives with her husband, Robert Engel. Son Marc is studying jazz trombone at Swarthmore College. … Cellist Elizabeth Kellogg ’76 M.M. writes that 2006 marks her 30th year of teaching privately. Her flute, violin, and cello trio The Hamilton Trio has performed at over 850 weddings in its 20 years. Kellogg is part of a string quartet group that reads from the collection of the late cellist Bob Collins, who taught at the University of Maine. Kellogg and her husband John, are the proud grandparents of two boys. … In addition to his role as principal flute with the Pennsylvania Ballet Orchestra, in 2002 Edward Schultz was invited to join the Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia, where he is currently principal flute. … Sarah Tenney ’76 M.M. teaches marimba to 40 students ages 5 to 65 at the Rivers Music School in Weston, Mass. Her advanced students have premiered works by NEC faculty Michael Gandolfi as well as Andy Vores, Peter Child, and John McDonald, and have performed at Symphony Hall, the Liszt Academy of Music, the Orff Schulwerk National Conference, and the Percussive Arts Society International Convention. 1 9 7 7 R E U N I O N Y E A R 1 9 7 6 with Renee Fleming and Bill Frisell in 2004 for Decca/Universal. In 2005, Hersch performed his evening-length Leaves of Grass at Carnegie Hall’s Zankel Hall. … The Starline Academy for the Performing Arts in Stoughton, Mass., was opened in 2005 by Paris Kampanelas, and offers lessons in music, drama, and dance for both children and adults. The Academy is an extension of the Starline Room Dinner Theater, where from 1981 to 1994 a singing waitstaff performed the best of Broadway and beyond every weekend. After a tenyear hiatus, the room came back as the Paris Cabaret. … In 2004, Marie Herseth Kenote presented a lecture-demonstration on the Leipzig Set at the National Flute Association Convention in Nashville. She has presented lectures on war and music, and on the flute music of J.S. Bach at Nyack College, where she teaches. Kenote is a flute substitute with the New York Philharmonic and New Jersey Symphony. … Trombonist Donald Sanders ’77 M.M. recently reconnected with NEC’s Alumni Office and passed along a CD of live recordings. Living in Westwood, Mass., Sanders is no longer able to perform because of health issues. … Phillip Silver ’77, ’79 M.M., a University of Maine music professor, has joined the advisory board of the Inextinguishable Project, which explores the little-known Jewish Cultural Association formed in 1933 in Nazi Germany, and has produced a PBS documentary, concert tour, CDs, and educational programs. A concert by soprano Louise Toppin at Carnegie Hall’s Weill Recital Hall paid tribute to the late tenor William Brown with new works by eight African-American composers, including Donal Fox’s Peace Out, My Brother. Fox’s recent career highlights include a live appearance on the internationally syndicated radio show “Open Source,” the New York premiere of his Monk and Bach Project at Jazz at Lincoln Center, and the world premiere of his Hear De Lambs ACryin’ by the Albany Symphony Orchestra as part of their spirituals project. … Paul Shumsley of East Hartford, Conn., freelances with world music groups the Pangeans and Berkshire Samba Group. Shumsley is also performing with Dancing Worlds (“creative trance-dance”) in western Mass., and is actively teaching. Visit www.wildestdreams.com /pages/guitar_lessons.html. After working as director of the Lucy Moses School at the Kaufman Center in New York,, Allison Ball ’79 M.M. is Director of Leadership, Training and Recruitment at the American Symphony Orchestra League. … Maria Ionia Caswell writes she has had a good career as a baroque violinist/violist. She plays with the Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra in San Francisco, lives in Sonoma County, and has a lovely family. The Cab Calloway Orchestra performed at the Pori International Jazz Festival in Finland in 2005. The group is directed by Chris Calloway “CB” Brooks. Of more than 100 concerts with dozens of acts, and spanning 10 venues, the Calloway show was one of the very first attractions to sell out one of Pori’s venues. In fall 2006, Brooks joined forces with Hankus Netsky and the 1 9 8 0 1 9 7 9 1 9 7 8 Klezmer Conservatory Band for a show at the Berklee Performance Center. … John J. Curtis is Director of Choral Activities and Director of Fine Arts at College Misericordia in Dallas, Pa., and was recently appointed to full professor. … Cathy M. Dillon writes that she had a very challenging teaching assignment teaching grades kindergarten through 8th grade in the Norwalk Public School system in Conn. … Gregory Dinger writes that he had “the musical experience of a guitarist’s lifetime” performing Rodrigo’s Concierto de Aranjuez with the Woodstock Chamber Orchestra on the occasion of the final concert by its music director Luis Garcia-Renart. The performance featured Dinger’s arrangement of the piece’s famous slow movement for his ensemble the Arabesque Trio. … Flutist Peggy Friedland ’80, ’82 M.M. has been a teacher at Phillips Academy in Andover, Mass., for the past 23 years. She was formerly on the faculty at Holy Cross and Clark University in Worcester, Mass. Friedland has been a freelance performer with the Boston Ballet, the Boston Pops, the Boston Lyric Opera, Emmanuel Music, and the North Shore Music Theater. She made a CRI recording of NEC faculty Michael Gandolfi’s Caution to the Wind, and has taken photographs of NEC faculty John Heiss that have appeared in Flute Talk. Friedland is currently involved in “Sacred Sounds, Sacred Grounds,” a multimedia project about the famed Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris. … Gale Fuller ’80 M.M., mezzo-soprano and winner of the Liederkranz competition and the International Center for Contemporary Opera competition, was the featured soloist in Luciano Berio’s Folk Songs with the Lexington (Mass.) Sinfonietta in 2005. … Pianist Jeremy Kahn released the CD Most of a Nickel, which takes some of the songs from Kurt Weill’s The Threepenny Opera and arranges them in a jazz quartet setting. Visit www.kahnman.com. … Fred Parcells has finished writing The Reel Book, an Irish music collection he has been working on since 1988. … Composer Maxine Miller (Meira) Warshauer ’80 M.M. is one of five new Fellows to receive a South Carolina Arts Commission 2006 Artist Fellowship. Warshauer was also named an Artist Fellow in music composition in 1994. … Composer Bruce Wolosoff ’80 M.M. collaborated with New York City Ballet dancer and choreographer Benjamin Millepied in a performance at New York’s Joyce Theater in 2006. The work featured dancers Ethan Stiefel and Gillian Murphy. 1 9 8 1 New York–based composer/flutist Jamie Baum has received critical acclaim for her Pianist Ofelia Laria Biancuzzo writes that while she living in Boston, she taught at St. Theresa’s School in West Roxbury, and at the W.R. International Music Studio. Now based in Florida, Biancuzzo has a private studio that has been quite successful. She still travels back to Boston for concerts with soprano Eileen Joseph. … In 2004, pianist Fred Hersch released his 22nd CD as a leader, The Fred Hersch Trio + 2 (Palmetto). He recorded a CD CD Moving Forward, Standing Still. Baum’s septet formed in 1999 and made its first European tour in 2006. Baum recently recorded the CD Great Circle with Jerome Harris ’77, Ken Wessel, and Jeff Hirshfield. … Jennifer Carr ’81 M.M. is a vocal instructor at Texas Christian University School of Music in Fort Worth. She is also on the faculty of the Oklahoma Summer Arts Institute, and serves as a choral accompanist. Carr continues to perform as a singer, accompanist, and choral director. … Now leading the Virginia Arts Festival into its eleventh year, Artistic Director Robert W. Cross presides over the planning, scheduling, and supervision of more than one hundred performances. Working closely with the Commonwealth of Virginia, Va. Tourism Commission, Va. 26 Commission for the Arts, and SE Va.’s Visitor and accepted a teaching position at the University of Tennessee at Knoxville. … NEC Alumni Council Convention Bureaus and Economic Development member Cathy Fuller ’82, ’88 M.M. is the new host offices, Cross has brought and kept the Festival in the black. Visit www.virginiaartsfest.com.… and producer of “Classics in the Morning” on Boston’s WGBH 89.7FM, presenting classical Percussionist Evan Lattimore is now principal music, interviews and live performances Monday timpanist with the Thayer Symphony Orchestra through Friday from 9:00am to noon. Cathy has in Leominster, Mass. Based in Princeton, Mass., worked full-time at WGBH since Lattimore teaches band at Central 2000. She has two daughters: Tree Middle School in Rutland. … Alexandra, 19, who attends Smith Ilca Lopez ’81 M.M. directs the opera College, and Samantha, age 13. … program at the Conservatory of the University in San Juan where she Kurt Grisson writes that he is an avid also teaches voice. Lopez continues long-distance backpacker. In 2003, to have a prolific career as a he conquered the Appalachian Trail performer with many opera houses in six months, and in 2004, he and orchestras worldwide. … Eliane completed Vermont’s Long Trail, a distance of 272 miles, in the span Lust was the featured pianist at a of three-and-a-half weeks. … 2005 Human Rights Day concert, Jeremy Kahn ’80 Beginning in fall 2006, Arthur Houle where she performed music related ’82 M.M. is associate professor of to workers throughout the music and director of keyboard centuries. Lust premiered Rzewski’s studies at Mesa State College in De Profundis and his 24 Ludes and Grand Junction, Colo. Houle is Melodramas from The Road in San active as a piano teacher, performer, Francisco, where she is based. … Johanna Hill Simpson ’81 M.M., clinician, composer, adjudicator, founder and leader of the PALS and as an American Music Teacher columnist. He recently gave presenchildren’s chorus, received an tations for national conferences of Outstanding Alumni Award at the College Music Society and Reunion 2006, as she prepared to Music Teachers National turn her chorus over to a new direc- Suzanne Sheppard ‘82 Association. … Pamela C. Matthews tor and spend more time in New ’82 M.M. is on the faculty of Mercy Hampshire. Simpson continues to High School in Burlingame, Calif. serve as an NEC Trustee and on the She is also the co-choir director of Alumni Council. … Dianne Winsor ’81 M.M., principal flutist of the Bethany Presbyterian Church. Orquesta Sinfonica de Castilla y Matthews writes that she has been Leon in Valladolid, Spain, since reliving educational experiences of 1991, recently completed a concert her past, wishing she could go back tour of South America and the again, with one daughter at St. Dominican Republic. Winsor is one Olaf College in Minn. and another of six NEC alumni in principal learning to be a lover of music. … Lily Afshar ’83 positions with the OSCyLeon In 2004, Suzanne Sheppard released her debut piano solo CD On Dove’s including Marius Diaz Lleal ’90 M.M., Wings, with her own arrangements of familiar ’91 G.D., Nestor Pou ’89, Jennifer Moreau ’85, ’87 favorites along with two originals. Sound samples M.M., Robert Blossom ’84, and past NEC Fulbright at www.suzannesheppard.com. … Donald scholar Jose Redondo. Most recently appointed to the orchestra is double bassist Emad Khan ’05. Swinchoski ’82 M.M. has been teaching in the New Jersey area for almost a decade. He is a member of the Navesink Brass Quintet, and is conductor of 1 9 8 2 R E U N I O N Y E A R the Band of Two Rivers. Frank Albinder ’82 M.M., ’83 M.M. writes that after 11 years in Chanticleer, 18 recordings, and a 1 9 8 3 Classical guitarist Lily Afshar ’83 Grammy Award, he left San Francisco for M.M. has released her fourth CD, entitled Washington, D.C., where he conducts three Hemispheres. The CD features premieres of works choruses—Washington Men’s Camerata, the Woodley Ensemble, and the Virginia Glee Club at by Polish composer Gerard Drozd, and introduces University of Virginia—and sings frequently at the Persian traditional music composed for the guitar by Reza Vali. Afshar plays a guitar with small frets White House chapel. … Toni Passmore Anderson on the album, and also performs on the Persian ’82 M.M. chairs the music department at La Grange instrument the seh-tar. … Musicologist Bruce D. College in Ga. Anderson is also vice president of the Georgia chapter of the National Association of McClung teaches at the University of Cincinnati’s College Conservatory of Music and is completing Teachers of Singing. Recent performances include a book on Kurt Weill’s Lady in the Dark for Handel’s Messiah with the Lafayette Chorale, Oxford University Press. … Jonathan Rappaport ’83 Sweet Betsy from Pike, and Sondheim’s Side by Side with the LaGrange Opera Theater, as well as the M.M. is head of the Conservatory Lab Charter Atlanta premiere of Lee Johnson’s Childlike School in Boston. In 2004, he received the Lowell Mason Award from the Massachusetts Music Civility. … Lorraine DiSimone ’82 M.M. sang the Education Association and the Irene Buck Service role of Elizabeth Proctor in Opera Boston’s 2005 to Arts Education award from the Massachusetts production of The Crucible as well as a guest vocal Alliance for Arts Education. In 2004, he recital at Wake Forest University in Winstonconducted the premiere of his original choral Salem, where she has been on the faculty three work Two Tongue Twisters at NEC during the times as a sabbatical replacement. DiSimone has 27 Vocal Vacation of the Kodaly Music Institute. … David Rife ’83 M.M. writes that his daughter Melissa is a cello major at Indiana University. In October 2004, Rife’s other daughter, Molly, soloed with the Civic Orchestra of Tucson. … Sara WyseWenger ’83 M.M., of Arlington, Mass. writes that her current favorite teaching experiences are in kindermusik classes (newborns to seven-year-olds.) She also teaches in assisted living settings, with seniors seated on the edge of the circle of families and children. Mark George Macksoud is teaching part time at the Portland Conservatory of Music in Maine. He has toured Germany with the Mark Kleinhaut Trio and has recorded two CDs with the group. … Karen Rafferty Stephan ’84, ’87 and her husband, Garree, are planning the release of 23 new books to add to their current collection of 26 book copyrights and 272 song copyrights. … James Zimmardi works within his own company, Star Media, scouting talent for commercial/pop markets. He is a record producer and voice coach with acts being developed nationwide. 1 9 8 4 A 2005 concert by the Pro Arte Chamber Orchestra featured the world premiere of Variations on the Oscar Mayer Weiner Song by Mark Kuss. Other recent projects bring Kuss together with jazz saxophonist Branford Marsalis, jazz vocalist Nneena Freelon, and Japanese conceptual artist Nakosho Michi. … Bass Guitar for Dummies, by Patrick Pfeiffer ’85 M.M., has been published in the popular For Dummies Press series. … In fall 2005, pianist Monica Godoy Tessitore ’85 M.M. performed in Brazil with cellist Peter Stumpf ’90 A.D., former NEC faculty and principal cellist of the Los Angeles Philharmonic. … In 2003, pianist Joel Weiskopf released the CD Change in My Life (Criss Cross) with John Patitucci, bass, and Brian Blade, drums. Weiskopf ministers regularly in music at the worldrenowned Brooklyn Tabernacle Church, and teaches jazz studies at New York University. … Brian S. Wilson is working on a commission for the Catskill Klezmorium with clarinetist Robin Seletsky ’79. The second of two such collaborations has been critically acclaimed throughout Klezmer circles. Rodger G. Coleman writes that he played in the Boston band Uya from 1988 to 1995 with NEC alums Steve Forrey ’88 and Eric Hipp ’87. He moved to Nashville in 1997 with his wife, Liz. He is now circulation head at the Anne Potter Wilson Music Library at Vanderbilt University. Coleman continues to make music in his home studio, and is a consultant on digital archiving projects. … After freelancing in Chicago for eight years, Debra Fong ’86, ’88 M.M. moved to California with her husband, cellist Christopher Costanza ’86, ’89 A.D. Fong is now a freelance violinist in San Francisco, performing with such groups as Opera San Jose, Symphony Silicon Valley, and the California Symphony. She is a lecturer in music and teaches violin and chamber musicat Stanford University. In summer 2006, she performed with the Santa Fe Opera in New Mexico. Since 2003 Costanza has been a member 1 9 8 6 1 9 8 5 of the St. Lawrence String Quartet, which is now quartet-in-residence at Stanford and performs in the U.S., Canada, and Europe. … In 2005, Vicki Pfluger Gorman ’86 M.M. was a soprano soloist with the Honolulu Symphony in performances of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 and Vaughan Williams’s Serenade to Music. She also performed with Chamber Music Hawaii in arias by Mozart and Bach. She is on the voice faculty of the Punalou Music School. … In 2005, Frank Graffeo ’86 M.M. directed Faust with the Shreveport (La.) Opera. In 2006, Graffeo made his conducting debut with the Atlanta Ballet in a production of Peter and the Wolf, and conducted a Georgia Southern University production of The Elixir of Love. He also led his first Verdi Requiem with the Symphony of the Mountains in Kingsport, Tenn., and conduced Don Giovanni at Opera Delaware. … Julie Heirich’s second daughter, Camille Rose Eichelhardt, was born November 15, 2005. Her older daughter, Helene, is now five years old. Heirich is still principal horn with the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande in Geneva, Switzerland, where she has been since 1994. … Jeffrey B. Hodes and his writing partner wife, Nastaran Dibai, are the new executive producers of the ABC sitcom “Hope & Faith,” starring Kelly Ripa. They have moved to New York, where the show is made, after 17 years of writing and producing television in Los Angeles. … Jane Hudson ’86 M.M. of Jasper, Ala., runs Hudson Piano Studio and Jasper Keyboard Artists. She is organist and choir mistress at St. Mary’s Episcopal Church. Her students have won numerous state and regional piano competitions, and she is active with the Alabama Junior Miss program and the Miss Alabama pageant. … Violinist Soo-Yeon Kim ’86 M.M. performed Mozart’s Sinfonia Concertante, K.364 with the Inchun Philharmonic Orchestra at the Seoul Orchestra Festival. Kim teaches at Chongshin University in Seoul. … K. Bryan Kirk ’86, ’88 M.M. has been director of music for the First Congregational Church in Darien, Conn. for the past 10 years, and has composed many anthems, hymns, and instrumental works for churches and concerts. He accompanies many choral groups and performs several organ concerts every year. Kirk has also been on the piano faculty of the Westport School of Music in Conn. for over 17 years. … Veronica Kulig has been a violinist with the Utah Symphony since 1991. She teaches students privately, and also performs chamber music and solo recitals. … Diane Luchese ’86 M.M., ’87 M.M. teaches at Towson University where she recently received tenure. Active as an organ performer, she is on the Executive Board of the Baltimore chapter of the American Guild of Organists. … Jamie Manning works in Internetbased marketing within the financial services industry. … Soprano Stephanie Mouat ’86 M.M. is a member of the voice faculty at McMurry University in Abilene, Tex. Her husband, William Mouat ’87 M.M., is the director of opera and assistant professor of voice at Hardin-Simmons University, also in Abilene. The couple has three children: Julianna, Nicole, and Gavin. … Active as a high school and adult education instructor of musical literacy and theory, Michele Pinet ’86 M.M. is also busy with a career as a private harp teacher and freelance musician. Pinet presented a paper at the 2006 American String Teachers Association National Conference entitled “Motivation in the Private Harp Studio.” … Bruce Ridge was recently elected president of the International Conference of Symphony and Opera Musicians (ICSOM). He has been a member of the North Carolina Symphony since 1987. … Saxophonist Benjamin Schachter ’86 M.M. has been on the faculty of Temple University since 1993, and on the faculty of the University of the Arts in Philadelphia since 2004. His numerous recordings include five as a leader. He has received composition fellowships from the Pew Fellowship for the Arts, the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, and the American Composers Forum. … Rob Scheps spent nine years as a saxophonist with the Oregon Symphony. He has also recorded more than 20 CDs and toured Canada, Europe, Tokyo, and the U.S. with a quartet that he led with Dave Kikoski. In 2005, Scheps played alto sax and flute with Motown legends the Four Tops in Kingston, N.Y. … William F. Quinn Smith released his sixth CD, Ensoul, on his own label Orison Records. Besides working as a studio musician in Los Angeles, Smith has toured with Tracy Chapman. Visit www.orisonmusic.com. … Jeff Weinmann played drums and percussion on the CD Bring Babylon Down by the Lutsinga Musical Ensemble, which also features John Chmaj ’86 M.M., piano. … Sally Knaki Wituszynski is beginning her 13th year teaching music at Berwick Academy, a K–12 private day school in southern Maine. She also freelances on violin and viola. Wituszynski is married and has two sons: one who enjoys playing the piano, and one who is a serious bass player. 1 9 8 7 R E U N I O N Y E A R has released his first CD of piano music on Centaur: music of Haydn. Schenkman recently performed as a pianist with Boston’s Chameleon Arts Ensemble in a mix of classical and modern repertoire: Beethoven, Rachmaninoff, Earl Kim, and Daron Hagen. … Violist Nancy Lemke Svenddal is performing with the Birchwood String Quartet in Minn., where she lives with her husband of ten years and her two sons. … Laura Knoop Very had her second child, Benjamin Stewart, with tenor Raymond Very. He joins teenaged Kaitlin, and Isabella, now in elementary school. Very made her Metropolitan Opera debut in 2003 in a performance of Carmen with Denyce Graves ’88 DP. … Jeffrey Work ’87, ’95 A.D. is principal trumpet of the Oregon Symphony as of the 2006/2007 season. Mark Bennett was recently commissioned to write the music, book, and lyrics for a new musical project that Nicolas Martin will direct at the Huntington Theater in Boston. Bennett’s most recent musical, Most Wanted, commissioned by the La Jolla Playhouse, continues its developmental process after a very successful workshop at the Sundance Theatre Lab. In addition to his post as faculty member at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts, where he is a Yamaha Artist, Bennett has been busy with such projects as music and sound designs for Broadway’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and Henry IV, as well as writing scores for theatres around the country including Dead End and Without Walls (Mark Taper Forum, Los Angeles), Our Town (Berkeley Repertory Theater), The Underpants (Alley Theater, Houston), and the annual production of A Christmas Carol at Ford’s Theater (Washington, D.C.). His music is heard in the American premiere of The Coast of Utopia, an epic trilogy of plays by Tom Stoppard produced by the Lincoln Center beginning fall 2006. … In 2004, New World Records released The Unknown Ives, Volume 2 by pianist Donald Berman ’88 M.M. Berman is artistic director of Americans in Rome: Music by Fellows of the American Academy in Rome. … Kenneth A. Brooks is a saxophonist with Bob Weir’s (Grateful Dead) band Ratdog. Visit www.rat-dog.com. … Chris Chalfant ’88 M.M. is a prolific composer as well as pianist. She was invited as the U.S. pianist in the Prague Mezanorodi Festival, and directs the Lifetime Visions Orchestra in Brooklyn with Joseph Jarman. Chalfant has made numerous recordings as leader and has written for Reggie Workman, Graham Haynes, and Bobby Few. … Jonathan Ingber ’88 M.M. teaches at MiraCosta College and Palomar College, and is the brass coach at Ada Harris Elementary School in Cardiff, and Rancho Santa Fe Elementary School, all in Calif. … David Kravitz ’88 M.M. performed the role of the Geographer in Boston Lyric Opera’s production of The Little Prince. Kravitz is a lawyer as well as a singer/actor. … Anne Phillips writes that she loves singing with her trio Primal Polyphony and occasionally playing flute. She practices clinical psychology and treats a variety of clients, including musicians. … Pianist Claire Ritter released her eighth CD, Greener than Blue, with Stan Strickland, Todd Low, and Bob Weiner. … Robin May Stone ’88 M.M. is teaching piano, violin, viola, cello, and ensemble classes at her 1 9 8 8 Kevin Birch is a past dean of the American Guild of Organists in Bangor, Maine. He has been director of music at St. John’s Catholic Church in Bangor since 1992. Birch is also a member of the faculty at the University of Maine’s School of the Performing Arts in Orono, where he teaches organ, harpsichord, and conducts the all-women vocal ensemble the Athena Consort. … In 2003, Sean Callery won an Emmy in the category of outstanding music composition (underscore) for a dramatic series for the Fox network’s show “24.” His continuing work on this series was recognized again in 2006. … Shana Druffner writes that she attended Georgetown Law Center and now practices law with some national clients. Druffner is also a studio teacher of violin and viola in North Dallas. She has four children: Sophie, Katrina, Claire, and Natalie. … Firelight Moonlight, the 2004 CD by Peter Janson ’87 M.M., was critically acclaimed by radio stations in Texas and Canada. Janson co-wrote and played a song on the CD Jamie Bonk—My World, which was the winner of “Album of the Year” and “Best Instrumental Album-Acoustic” at the 2004 NAR LifeStyle Music Awards. … Barry Leaman ’87 M.M. is raising three boys with his wife in Oahu, Hawaii. He performs regularly in a wide variety of venues and in different styles. Leaman writes that his family is his priority, but his love for music remains strong. … In the middle of operatic performances, tenor Brian Skinner (Fernando del Valle) left Zurich to return to his hometown of New Orleans, where he joined the Symphony Chorus in a performance of Handel’s Messiah to benefit Hurricane Katrina relief efforts. … Harpsichordist Byron Schenkman 28 Music with Finale,” co-author of two books (The Berklee Practice Method Teacher’s Guide and Essential Songwriter), and is the editor of more than one hundred books and online courses about music, culture, business, and technology. He teaches at Berkleemusic.com, and resides in central Massachusetts with his wife and two children. … Alanna Battat Rantala ’90 M.M. resides in Auburn, Mass., and has a private teaching studio at home. She now has two sons, Nathan and Evan Aleski. She does freelance accompanying at Holy Cross College. … In 2003, Cynthia Zielski Reinhardt and her husband, Tom, welcomed their first child, Jack, into the world. Reinhardt is completing her 1 9 8 9 Violinist Annette D.M.A. at the State University of Blackman-Perocier ’89 M.M. was the Sean Callery ‘87 New York, Stony Brook. … After a first recipient of the Augusto three-and-a-half-year absence, Rodriguez Foundation’s Medal of Nancy E. Sullivan ’90 M.M. has Musical Excellence, awarded at the returned as a lecturer at Northern University of Puerto Rico’s Rio Arizona University in Flagstaff. She Piedras campus. In an educational is principal horn with the Flagstaff concert at the Casals Festival in Symphony, and writes that her job Puerto Rico, Blackman-Perocier was at NAU is a great fit for her given the Merit Award as a soloist growing family. by conductor Jorge Mester. She has also performed with the Boston 1 9 9 1 Soprano Linda Balliro Civic Symphony Orchestra under Byron Schenkman ’87 recently sang the world premiere in the baton of Max Hobart. … David J. Reider ’89 M.M. is very active with Vienna of an interpretation of his educational services consulting Robert Schumann’s song cycle, firm Educational Design, LLC with Dichterliebe, using poems in English by Elizabeth Kirchner. evaluation projects in arts education and technology learning. Clients Composer Thomas Oboe Lee ’74 M.M., ’76 M.M. was go-between for have included the Boston this project. Balliro lives in the Symphony Orchestra, MIENCC Boston area where she has estab(through NEC), NASA-USRA, and lished a vocal studio while other state and federal agencies. … Rev. Pamela Jean Sayre is a pastor of auditioning throughout the US. … the New Washington (Ohio) United Claire Ritter ’88 Steven Bathory-Peeler ’91 M.M. is a Methodist Church. In 2003, Sayre doctoral student in composition at the Hartt School of Music in Conn. … Wendy graduated from the Methodist Theological School Broder is a special education teacher and facilitain Ohio with a Master of Divinity degree. tor, teaching three- to five-year-olds with disabilities. She lives near Las Vegas with her chil1 9 9 0 Timothy R. Blake has been living in dren Rachel and Edan. Some of her interests Germany, performing all over Europe, and writes include wellness, fitness, Eastern philosophy, and that he “rocked out in Baghdad!” Blake has previyoga. … Christine Conley ’91 M.M. has been teachously performed with the Wind Symphony, the ing music for six years in Raleigh, N.C. She runs a Jazz Ambassadors, and the USAFE rock band. … show choir, a “traditional” choir, a madrigals In 2004, Mark F. DeWitt ’90 M.M. was the recipient ensemble, and most recently, an a capella choir. of the Klaus P. Wachsmann Prize for Advanced Membership for all the vocal groups has grown and Critical Essays in Organology. The award was from 79 to 135, and is still growing strong. … given by the Society for Ethnomusicology for his Jerry Timothy Hudson ’91 M.M. and his wife are the article “The Diatonic Button Accordion in Ethnic proud parents of a son, Tom. Hudson continues Context: Idiom and Style in Cajun Dance Music,” to play with Carolina Brass, whose third CD was published in 2003 in the journal Popular Music released in 2004. … Thomas Mackey ’91 M.M. has and Society. … Linda Emmanuel performed the role been principal percussionist of the Cedar Rapids of Celia in the Carlisle, Mass., Savoyard Light Symphony in Iowa for the past 12 years, and Opera’s production of Gilbert and Sullivan’s section percussionist of the Des Moines Iolanthe. Her Kindermusik studio, Giggle Kids Symphony for the past 5 years. Mackey also mainMusic, in Newton, Mass., offers classes for tains a private studio of about 25 students. … newborns through age seven. … In 2005, In 2004, Gregory Miller ’91 M.M. was appointed Euphonium Concerto: Swimming the Mountain, by music director and organist at St. Peter’s Episcopal Allen Feinstein ’90 M.M., was performed by Adam Church in Cambridge, Mass. … After graduating Frey with the U.S. Army Orchestra at the U.S. from NEC, Dr. Jorge L. Pastrana ’91 M.M. received Army Band’s 22nd Annual Tuba/Euphonium his doctorate from the University of Arizona. conference in Washington, D.C. … Jonathan Feist While working on his doctorate, he received a ’90, ’92 M.M. is now managing editor of Berklee Fulbright grant to do research on classical guitar, Press. He is author of the online course “Writing flamenco, and the music of Joaquin Rodrigo. He home studio and at the Stoneleigh-Burnham School in Greenfield, Mass. She also directs an ensemble of adult amateur musicians known as the Four Seasons Chamber Ensemble. Stone recently received awards from the Pioneer Valley Symphony and Holyoke Civic Symphony after years of service as concertmaster. She has also been a featured pianist with the PVS on nine separate occasions. … In 2006, classical guitarist Berit Strong ’88 M.M. performed Rodrigo’s Concierto de Aranjuez with the Wellesley (Mass.) Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Max Hobart. Visit www.beritstrong.com. 29 Stay Connected NEC Alumni Directory to be Published Stay connected with NEC and your school friends. Share your information for professional networking. NEC’s new Alumni Directory will be available in print and CDROM this fall. In February, Harris Connect Publishers administered a comprehensive data research survey to every NEC alumni so that you can update your information. When your survey arrives or you receive a phone call from Harris, please take a moment to verify your information. This will be used only by NEC for purposes of this directory. World music is … … Halim El-Dabh? “World music” is a contested term, sometimes accused of being nothing but a marketing gimmick. But if it has any meaning at all, it could be embodied by composer Halim El-Dabh ’53 M.M., whose music has found global inspiration and has been globally embraced for more than 60 years. Born in Cairo in 1921, El-Dabh was lured away from a career as an agricultural engineer by the cosmopolitan range of music available in Egypt in the 1940s, from village drumming to opera to jazz. In 1950 a Fulbright grant brought him to the United States and a geography that spanned Albuquerque, Aspen, New York, and Boston; Native American music, Aaron Copland, Martha Graham, and NEC’s Francis Judd Cooke. It figures that when he hitchhiked, it was Stravinsky who picked him up. As fame came, it meant different things in different lands. How could a single person be the toast of Paris, the darling of the Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center, yet also conduct ethnomusicological research throughout Egypt and sub-Saharan Africa, even creating a pan-Ethiopian traditional instrument orchestra for Emperor Haile Selassie I? This is what it means to be a “citizen of the world” in musical terms. Small wonder that when El-Dabh’s Symphony for 1,000 Drums was premiered in 2006, “drummers joined in to change the rhythm of the planet.” The premiere took place in Kent, Ohio, where El-Dabh has taught since 1969, and is currently University Professor Emeritus of Kent State University. With the first beat timed to follow carillon bells, let it not be said that this elderly professor seeks the quiet refuge of the ivory tower! And of course Ohio is simply a point of departure, with invitations beckoning from Beijing to Johannesburg. The shrinking planet may finally be right-sized for this expansive composer. El-Dabh’s scores are represented by stately publisher Edition Peters of New York, Frankfurt, Leipzig, and London—but scrutiny of Peters’ large El-Dabh find more online catalogue reveals that he has hardly bothered to send them anything since the 1960s. Instead, he has halimeldabh.com taken on new life through the World Wide Web, El-Dabh’s own idiosyncratic Web site with a Web site that divides his work into compass points, a comprehensive sampling of his music dept.kent.edu/pas/faculty/halim_ el-dabh.asp El-Dabh’s Kent State faculty page available through the American Music Center’s New Music Jukebox, and the score for Symphony www.newmusicjukebox.org home to more for 1,000 Drums made available to all comers as an online scan. than 70 sound clips was the second-prize winner of the Douglas Sholin Competition for guitar, and a finalist in the President’s Concerto Competition at the University of Arizona. He teaches at Southwestern College in San Diego, Calif. … Charys Schuller Punto is a member of the first violin section in the Frankfurt Radio Symphony. Her string sextet released their first CD on CPO Classics. Punto is also active as a teacher, privately, and with the Hessen Youth Symphony. … As executive director of Volti, a professional chamber choir based in San Francisco, Eric Valliere ’91, ’93 M.M, ’00 D.M.A. took note of the presence of NEC alumni Lara Bruckman ’98 M.M. and E.E. “Chip” Grant IV ’96 M.M. in this group that has been nationally recognized for its commitment to the development and performance of new choral music. This season, Volti performed No More to Hide: An American Wedding Cantata, written by former NEC provost Alan Fletcher. Valliere is now executive director of the Nashua (N.H.) Symphony Orchestra, where he has many opportunities to present NEC alumni as soloists, in addition to substantial NEC presence in the orchestra itself. … Margaret Smith Ward teaches horn at Plymouth State University and St. Paul’s School in N.H. Ward enjoys staying at home with her daughter, Madeline, and spending time with her husband Rick, who is a horn player and an attorney. 1 9 9 2 R E U N I O N Y E A R www.drumsymphony.com all about the Symphony for 1,000 Drums Performances of El-Dabh’s music also seem to find the most unconventional settings. In 2006, opera lovers entered a working-class Eastern European emfinstitute.emf.org/articles/ neighborhood in Cleveland to witness 170 musigluck.eldabh.html El-Dabh in his own words, cians performing the world premiere of Thamos, King of Egypt in the historic Shrine Church of St. from a few years ago Stanislaus, mother church for Poles in the Cleveland area. Sacred places are not new to El-Dabh: since 1961, his Sound and Lights of the Pyramids of Giza has played nightly at the site of the Great Pyramid. As Halim El-Dabh continues to accrue frequent flyer miles, 2007 brings him to Boston for celebrations at NEC, Harvard, Brandeis, and Tufts. But wherever you go in the world, you will undoubtedly find traces left by this well-traveled composer. —Rob Schmieder A solo violin piece, Song of the Phoenix, by violinist Lauren Bernofsky ’92 M.M., was performed by Ana Milosavljevic on a recital in Carnegie Hall. Bernofksy was also commissioned for works by cellist Benjamin Myers ’96 D.M.A. and pianist Jon Sigurdsson. She is working on a commission for the Hartford Ballet Company for a Wizard of Oz production. … Baritone Marcus DeLoach writes that he sang in a production of Rameau’s Platée at New York City Opera, directed by Mark Morris. He also performed the role of Ping in a production of Puccini’s Turandot at the Hollywood Bowl. DeLoach’s recital CD, American Song, is out now. He also appears on the 2006 Naxos release Jewish Operas, Vol. 2.… The Chicago Symphony Orchestra has appointed Susanna Drake as assistant/utility horn. … Edward P. Mascari ’92 M.M., ’93 M.M. saw several world premieres of his compositions in 2004: Concerto for saxophone and orchestra with Detlef Bensmann and the Southwestern German Philharmonic under the baton of Michael Dixon, and Mass without Words with the President’s own U.S. Marine Band, a saxophone quartet, and organist Irvin Peterson in Washington, D.C. … Classical guitarist David Patterson recently released a solo album, Esordio. Visit www.davidpatterson guitar.com. … Monica Stratton ’92 M.M. said farewell to being a member of the Dale Warland Singers upon Dale Warland’s retirement. Stratton and her husband, Roger Stratton ’92 M.M., became the proud parents to Daniel Bogdan, adopted in April 2004. Roger has new compositions published by Alliance Music. … Linda Zoolalian has worked her third summer in Rome, coaching and playing for the Opera Festival di Roma. She writes that she is proud to be a condo owner in Los Angeles. 1 9 9 3 Alison Bazala received her doctorate in cello performance from the University of Maryland, with a dissertation on “Bohuslav Martinu’s Chamber Music for Violoncello and Piano.” She performed all of the composer’s works for cello and piano as well as his Sonata da Camera for cello and chamber orchestra and his Trio for flute, cello and piano, which she first performed at NEC and which inspired her to select Martinu for her dissertation. … Michelle Freedman ’93 M.M. serves as the full-time cantor of the Temple Israel in Ridgewood, N.J. … Violinist Jason Horowitz ’93, ’96 A.D. recently joined the Boston Symphony Orchestra. … Tom Joyce has been a bass trombonist with the Charleston Symphony in S.C. for more than ten seasons. He has been a member of the Burning River Brass Ensemble for five years, releasing three CDs on the Dorian label. In 2000, Joyce married Jan Christy, principal viola of the Charleston Symphony. The couple has two children. … HaeSun Paik ’93 A.D. and EnSik Choi ’92 A.D. were faculty/artists for 2006 BIMFA in Beijing this summer. Both teach at Seoul National University in South Korea, and are artistic directors of Busan Music Festival. … Jazz composer Kerry Politzer took third place in the jazz category of the 2005 International Songwriting Competition for her song “Rhodes Rage.” … Brian Mirabile Ricci writes that after singing chorus/comprimario roles with Boston Lyric Opera for six years, he began work on his debut CD, produced by Josh Noland (of Country Music Hall of Fame) and available at www.cdbaby.com/cd/brianricci. … David Spelman has been a valuable asset to the Krannert Center for the Performing Arts at the University of Illinois. He planned and produced their first Wall to Wall Guitar Festival in fall 2005—“four days of guitar madness that rocked the community, and surprised some of the journalists who visited from out of town.” … Dr. John R. Zimmerman ’93 M.M. recently earned his Ph.D. in music from the University of Minnesota. He is director of bands at Apple Valley High School in Minn., and president of the Minnesota Chapter of the International Association of Jazz Educators. Zimmerman also performs part time with the Minnesota Orchestra, and for shows with visiting celebrities. Thomas Fortier ’94 TU (English & American Literature/jazz trumpet) has been living in Japan, doing print/Web production work. Currently, he works as an executive search consultant at Tokyo’s East West Consulting K.K. Music continues to be a major part of his life, including the occasional bar gig, pub band, funky horn section, small jazz groups. Finally, he is engaged to his girlfriend of 10 years! … In July 2004, Barbara Kimber Harrington celebrated the birth of her first child, Jacob Lawrence Harrington. … Msgt. Peter M. Harrison ’94 M.M. is the resource advisor/budget manager for his squadron in the United State Air Force Band of the Pacific-Asia. He continues to play keyboards for his rock band Final Approach and piano in his jazz band Pacific Showcase. A recent performance in Hiroshima was the first time the U.S. Air Force Band had appeared in the city in many years. Harrison has also attended the Senior Noncommissioned Officer’s Academy at Maxwell Air Force Base in Ala. … Vocalist Lisa 1 9 9 4 with the Boston Pops, Boston Lyric Opera, American Symphony, and two seasons with the Spoleto Opera Orchestra in Italy. With a diploma in computer programming and Web development from the Chubb Institute for Technology, he also freelances as a Web designer specializing in music. He is a founding member of the Masterpiece Brass Quintet, and runs the online music performance company Masterpiece Brass Productions. Martin won a section trombone audition with the 1 9 9 5 Trombonist Richard Allentown Symphony Orchestra, Begel ’95 M.M. is with the Dayton under the musical direction of (Ohio) Philharmonic. He has also Diane Witry. … Composer and subbed for the Cincinnati guitarist Jeff Roberts, a Ph.D. candiSymphony. … Michael Eaton is date in composition at Brandeis director of music and organist at University, was recently awarded a Church Hill United Methodist Fulbright Fellowship for study in Marcus DeLoach ’92 Church in Norwell, Mass. Eaton China in 2006–07. He will also works for the Andover Organ continue his studies on the Chinese Company, where he builds new stringed instrument the guqin with pipe organs, tunes, repairs, and Li Xiangting at Beijing Central restores. … Lawrence Golan ’95 Conservatory of Music, and plans D.M.A. started training as a violinist to travel to the southern province of at three years old with his father, Yunnan as well as Inner Mongolia principal second violinist with the to study other folk music traditions. Chicago Symphony Orchestra. He … Brian K. Sparks ’95 M.M. is joined the Honolulu Symphony, conductor of the professional wind became concertmaster of the ensemble Ocean State Winds. Portland Symphony Orchestra, and David Patterson ‘92 Sparks teaches at the University of director of strings studies at the Rhode Island, and also conducts the University of Southern Maine, Hartford Festival Orchestra. … where he was also music director Esther Ning Yau ’95 M.M., ’96 M.M. is and conductor of the Southern on the piano faculty and board of Maine Symphony Orchestra. Golan visitors at the New School of Music is currently music director of in Cambridge. Yau is also a member Denver’s Lamont Symphony of the Dahlia Piano Trio and the Orchestra and Opera Theatre, New Piano Quartet. She recently Portland Ballet Company, and joined the NEC Alumni Council. Colorado Youth Symphony Orchestras. … Angela Gosse is on 1 9 9 6 Brian Ricci ’93 the faculty of the Children’s Beth Chandler Cahill Orchestra Society in Manhasset, ’96 M.M. was a featured soloist in the Staunton (Va.) Music Festival’s Baroque Outdoors N.Y. She has been performing with the Manhattan Chamber Orchestra, and performed concert at the Woodrow Wilson Birthplace. She Eric Ewazen’s Quintet for trumpet and strings in a completed her D.M.A. at the University of series of recitals in and around N.Y. … John Holly Cincinnati College Conservatory of Music. She is an academy director with the Boston Public teaches flute at James Madison University in Schools. Holly previously held a position as direcHarrisonburg, Va. … In 2005, the Exsultemus tor of instruction at the Wilson Middle School in period vocal ensemble, led by Shannon Canavin, Boston. Visit www.principalship.org, his online presented the concert “La Rue à Dijon: Music from the Courts of Burgundy,” as Ensemble-inplatform for school leaders. … Composer Colin Homiski ’95 M.M. writes that under the guidance of Residence at First Lutheran Church of Boston. the Massachusetts Supreme Court, he and his life Other members are Brian Church ’04 M.M. and Thea partner Guido Englioni were couple number 51 Lobo ’05. … After two years with the Opera Studio to register their intention to marry at midnight at of the Cologne Opera, lyric coloratura Janice City Hall in Cambridge on May 17, 2004. Creswell ’96 M.M. joined the ensemble of the Homiski and Englioni were married three days Staatstheater in the city of Mainz, Germany, later by Town Clerk and Justice of the Peace where she has sung numerous roles, including Margaret Drury. The couple now resides in Blonde, Adina, Gretel, Zerbinetta, and Gilda. London, England. … Composer Lei Liang ’96, ’98 Creswell was married in August 2004. … Quartet Accorda, with violinist Kanako Ito ’96 A.D., is M.M. is a teaching fellow at Harvard University, where he is completing a Ph.D. He has received quartet-in-residence at Park University in commissions from Pro Musica and the Mary Parkville, Mo. … Pianist Rachel Jimenez ’96, ’98 Flagler Cary Charitable Trust for a work that was G.D. happily announces her marriage to Kevin premiered in Carnegie Hall’s Weill Recital Hall. Krudwig in March 2005. The couple have settled He was also the recipient of a Heinrich Strofel in Brooklyn where Jimenez is busy teaching Foundation bursary from Southwest German privately and playing chamber music. Radio. Liang is a visiting professor at the Shanxi Normal University College of the Arts in Xian, China. … Trumpet player Nicholas Martin ’95 M.M. is an active freelance musician and has performed 31 Thorson ’94 M.M. is the creator of JazzArtSigns, a multimedia, multisensory and interactive improvised jazz performance. Along with her band that features Tim Ray ’86 M.M., David Clark ’84, ’86 M.M., George Schuller ’82, the performance also features American sign language interpreters, a painter, a live audio describer, a text captioner, as well as program information in Braille, large print, and on tape. 1 9 9 7 R E U N I O N Y E A R Katarina M. DeBonville ’97 M.M., formerly manager of development programs for the Celebrity Series in Boston, is now Director of Institutional Giving at the Huntington Theatre. An active member of NEC’s Alumni Council, DeBonville is also a freelance writer for Northeast Performer, where she primarily covers jazz performances and CDs. … Congratulations to Don DeVoe ’97 M.M. on the April 2004 birth of his second son, Caleb Everett DeVoe. … Vocalist Kristin Lomholt ’97 M.M. released a CD, Wild is the Wind, on Danish label Music Mecca. … Composer Koji Nakano ’97, ’99 M.M. received two composer grants from the American Music Center. Nakano attended the premiere of one of his orchestral works in Lithuania. … In 2004, Sean O’Loughlin ’97 M.M. wrote orchestral arrangements for the Los Angeles Philharmonic and the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra. In 2005, O’Loughlin was guest conductor of the New Hampshire All-State Middle School Band and the Alabama All-State Junior High Band. … After returning to Austria, Angelika Schopper ’97 DP finished her master’s in piano chamber music at the Mozarteum in Salzburg, and founded her own piano trio, Salzburg Klavier Trio. She has also earned an additional degree in cultural management, and is working part time at the International Foundation Mozarteum. A CD by Greg Burk ’98 M.M. on 482 Music called Nothing, Knowing has Burk in trio with Steve Swallow and NEC faculty member Rakalam Bob Moses. Burk also appears on Either/Orchestra’s Live in Addis Ababa (see Notes, Vol. 30, No. 2). Burk and his family recently relocated to Rome, and he appeared at festivals in Italy, France, England, and Germany in 2005. … Violinist Elayana Marie Duitman is a member of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra. She lives in Troy, Mich., with her husband, Zeger, and their son, David. … In 2005, compositions by Pamela Hines appeared on the CD Hall Sings Hines. April Hall is a Boston vocalist who formerly collaborated with Hines on the CD Twilight World. In 2006, Hines released the CD Drop 2 with original compositions and a pensive twist on the Beatles song “I Will.” Joining her on this CD are Bob Gullotti, and NEC faculty member John Lockwood. Visit www.pamelahines.com. … Boston’s Creative Nation Music (CNM) Productions celebrated its first year of CD releases with a showcase event at the Milky Way in Boston’s Jamaica Plain neighborhood, with performances by guitarist/CNM founder Eric Hofbauer ’98 M.M., Chris Allen’s Central Artery Project, and the Chuck Gabriel Septet, which includes NEC alums Sean Berry ’06 M.M. and Eric Beyers ’93 M.M. The label secured national distribution through City Hall Records and released four CDs in its first year. Visit www.cnmpro.com. … Effective March 2006, the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra appointed Robert McGrath vice president and orchestra manager. McGrath comes to the position from the Louisville Symphony, where he was general manager. McGrath, an alumnus of the American Symphony Orchestra League’s Orchestra Management training program, has also held positions with Chicago’s Music of the Baroque and the Boston Symphony Orchestra. … Maho Nabeshima ’98, ’00 M.M. is an artist lecturer at 1 9 9 8 Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pa. Nabeshima is a member of the University’s Preparatory School faculty. … Domingos Robinson ’98 M.M. continues to serve as associate conductor with the U.S. Army Band “Pershing’s Own” in Washington, D.C. He has led ensembles and participated in the dedication of the World War II Memorial, the state funeral of former President Ronald Reagan, a concert at Lincoln Center, and the 2005 Presidential Inauguration. … Pianist Tyson Rogers ’98 M.M. released the CD The Blueprint Project. Kevin Whitehead, jazz critic for NPR’s “Fresh Air,” called the CD “rich with ideas, confidently executed, melodic and inventive all at once.” … After a year as artistic administrator at the New York Philharmonic, Chad Smith ’98 M.M. returned to the Los Angeles Philharmonic in January 2006 to serve as vice president of artistic planning (see story, page 10.) … Bailey Whiteman ’98 M.M. writes that after a busy summer of home improvements, she performed the alto and soprano solos in Handel’s Dixi Dominus at the Saratoga Choral Festival in Saratoga, N.Y. Whiteman followed this up by singing at her brother’s wedding. 2004 performances included the role of Manuelita in Offenbach’s La Perichole with the Washington Savoyards. She hopes “all are well and are making joyful music.” … Yitzhak Yedid ’98 M.M. is living in Jerusalem, where he has created an ensemble to perform his compositions. Yedid has released five CDs since his time at NEC: 1999’s Full Moon Fantasy, 2001’s Inner Outcry with Ora Boasson Horev ’99, 2003’s Myth of the Cave, 2005’s Passions and Prayers, and 2006’s Reflections upon Six Images. Yedid was one of five individuals to receive Israel’s 2006 Prime Minister Award for Composers. Vocalist Dan Hershey ’99 M.M. writes that he joined the Boston Camerata in two tours (fall 2004 and spring 2005), performing a Shaker Ballet original production. … The self-titled debut CD by the Brooklyn Soul Organization (M&N records) includes Grant Langford on tenor sax. Visit www.cdbaby.com/cd/bso. … In 2006, soprano Anne Dreyer ’99 M.M. sang the role of the Governess in Britten’s Turn of the Screw at Lorin Maazel’s private theater in Castleton, Va., and at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., as well as making her debut as Kostanze in Mozart’s Die Entführung aus dem Serail with Lyric Opera Cleveland. She appears as Adina in L’Elisir d’Amore at Opera in the Heights of Texas in February 2007. … Soprano Barbara Quintiliani took first prize in the women’s division of the 43rd International Singing Contest Francisco Vinas in Barcelona. In addition to winning first prize, she also received both the Verdi Prize and the Public Prize. Quintiliani is the first American woman to win the competition in more than 25 years. In March 2006, she returned to Barcelona for her debut with Gran Teatre del Liceau as Elettra in Mozart’s Idomeneo. … Matt Steckler ’99 M.M., leader of the ensembles Persiflage & Dead Cat Bounce, has released a new CD, Persiflage (Innova Recordings/American Composers Forum). He maintains a very active performing career.… Eli Degibri ’99 TMIJP received Israel’s 2006 Prime Minister Award for Composers in the Jazz category. 1 9 9 9 Bassoonist Jonathan Gresl moved to Boulder, Colo., in 2001. He performs in the Boulder/Denver area as a member of the Colorado Mahlerfest XVI Orchestra. Gresl joined the Musica Sacra Chamber Orchestra in 2002, and performed Vanhal’s Concerto for two bassoons with the Orchestra in 2004. He has been the principal bassoonist with the Longmont Symphony in Longmont, Colo., since 2001. … Lauren A. Pauley recently received an optical license from the American Board of Opticians in Ohio. … Andreea Pauta invites NEC alums to visit www.dreea.com. … Keith Phares ’00 M.M. was featured in an OperaOnline article that took him from his hairbreadth acceptance into the NEC opera program to current success in opera roles, including the Pilot in The Little Prince with Boston Lyric Opera in 2005, a production that also included Claudia Huckle ’05 DP as the Fox and David Kravitz ’88 M.M. as the Geographer. … Eric Platz ’00 M.M. teaches percussion at the University of Rhode Island, UMass/Boston, and the Indian Hill Music Center in Littleton, Mass. He performs regularly throughout the Northeast as a freelancer, and also with the group Fat Little Bastard, a guitar trio with NEC alums Andrew Stern and Noah Jarrett ’02. Visit www.fatlittlebastard.com. … Daniel Plummer ’00 M.M. recently celebrated his fourth anniversary with his partner, Mark. He has sung in Lyric Opera of Chicago’s performances of Aida, Fidelio, Götterdämmerung, and the Opera’s 50th anniversary gala concert. He was a finalist in the Metropolitan Opera National Council Wisconsin District auditions, and won a fellowship to University of Wisconsin-Madison. In 2005, soprano Caprice Corona ’01 M.M. performed a program of 20th- and 21stcentury vocal music at Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall. Corona performed works by Granados, Ades, Britten, as well as the world premiere of her husband Jonathan Bailey Holland’s Songs of Experience. Accompanying Corona was pianist Sarah Bob ’99 M.M. Corona also recently covered the role of Queen Elizabeth with the Opera Theater of St. Louis. … In 2005, the Cypress String Quartet, featuring violist Ethan Filner ’01 M.M., was in residence at M.I.T. The residency culminated with the East Coast premiere of Elena Ruehr’s Quartet No. 4. … Carola EmrichFisher and Colin Fisher ’00 are the proud parents of Kaya Roswitha. Kaya was born on December 28, 2005, at Beth Israel Deaconess Hospital in Boston. Carola writes that “critics called her performance ‘beautiful’ and ‘breathtaking’ ” and that “her voluminous dulcet soprano voice belies her 7 lbs. 8 oz. and 20-inch size.” The family resides in Jamaica Plain. … Peter Flint ’01 M.M. is composing chamber music and slowly working on an opera. He also runs the new music ensemble Avian Music. Visit www.avianmusic.com. … Amanda Forsythe ’01 M.M. was married to conductor Edward E. Jones in June 2005 with a number of NEC alums in attendance. Since graduation, Forsythe has made solo debuts with the Handel and Haydn Society, the L.A. Philharmonic, the Rhode Island Philharmonic, the Omaha Symphony, Emmanuel Music, the Caramoor Festival, as well as maintaining her relationship with Boston Baroque. She has been the winner of The George London Foundation and Liederkranz 2 0 0 1 2 0 0 0 32 competitions, and received honorable mention in the 2005 Walter W. Naumburg competition. Forsythe has spent two fantastic summers at Tanglewood, and has apprenticed at the Steans Institute at Ravinia and with the Chicago Opera Theater. … Michelle Rose Herrera-Lindberg is working as an orchestra teacher and freelance musician in Milwaukee, Oreg. Herrera-Lindberg is also a regular substitute with the Portland Opera and Oregon Ballet. … Natalie Debikey ’01 M.M. has been the third flute/piccolo player with the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra since 2003. She is also an active chamber performer and a private studio teacher. … Former NEC Audience Services Manager Charlie Powers has won a cello position with the U.S. Marine Chamber Orchestra in D.C. … Julia Thompson Whitton writes that she eloped with her husband, Jeff, in beautiful Deer Isle, Maine. She enjoys playing in the viola section of the Kansas City Symphony, and has recently joined the core group of the Chamber Music Society of Kansas City. … Bridget Murphy Zawilinski was married Michael Zawilinski, a coach at Northeastern University, in 2005. The couple are excited about their new home ownership. Zawilinski, a member of the Actor’s Equity Association for the past two years, continues to sing and audition. 2 0 0 2 R E U N I O N Y E A R elementary band director in Fallsburg, N.Y., and Charisse teaches private piano and clarinet lessons from their home. The couple have also become Natural Family Planning teachers. Charisse writes that Rob has recently played bass trombone with the Albany Symphony, the Hartford Symphony, and the Connecticut Opera. Mike Anklewicz ’03 M.M. is pursuing a Ph.D. in musi2 0 0 3 In August 2006, after moving from Boston to Porland, Oreg., Stephen Beaudoin wrote that he was juggling jobs as Managing Director of theatre company Coho Productions, Media Relations Manager for Chamber Music Northwest, and program assistant to Grantfunders for Education. Beaudoin’s byline appears frequently in Willamette Week Online (www.wweek.com), and he has been busy on the performance front as well. In March 2007, he is stage director and tenor soloist for Honegger’s King David with Trinity Consort and members of the Oregon Symphony. … Mark Craig ’02 M.M., at Anchorage Opera Studio Program in Alaska, performed the role of Nemorino in Donizetti’s Elixir of Love and Hermosa in Offenbach’s Isle of Tulipitan. He also participated in an extensive outreach program with K-12 students all over Alaska, “a greatly rewarding experience.” … In 2003, Luiz Mantovani ’02 A.D. joined the Brazilian Guitar Quartet, which along with other touring made its Asian debut at the Hong Kong Arts Festival in 2006. In the quartet, Luiz plays an unconventional 8-string guitar, with an extra treble and an extra bass string. Also in 2006, he appeared in the Pro Musicis Concert Series joined by former teacher David Leisner and flutist Lance Suzuki for concerts in New York’s Weill Hall at Carnegie Hall, and Pickman Hall in Cambridge, as well as a radio broadcast for WGBH/Boston and community concerts both in the N.Y. and Boston area. Visit www.luizmantovani.com. … The Ann Arbor Symphony Orchestra premiered dVRG, for solo cello and orchestra, by Erika Nelson. The concert was held at Michigan Theater in Ann Arbor with Arie Lipsky, conductor, and Yehuda Hanani, solo cello. … In 2004, clarinetists Michelle N. Shoemaker ’02 D.M.A. and Linda Cionitti premiered Libby Larsen’s Yellow Jersey. … Rob Tierney ’02 M.M. (trombone) and wife Charisse ’02 M.M. (clarinet) are the proud parents of their first baby boy, Owen Michael Tierney. Rob is the cology and ethnomusicology at York University in Toronto. 2005 was a busy year in which Mike played on 2 0 0 4 Bird on Triangle with the Gregg Composer Galen H. Brennan Aiseiri Quartet, as well as Brown ’04 M.M. is a contributing recording and releasing The Golem editor at Sequenza21, a blog-based Web site, where he writes frequently of Bathurst Manor with KlezFactor, Pamela Hines ’98 on the future of classical music. a klezmer-fusion band based in Sequenza21 is the winner of the Toronto. … Melissa Ferlaak ’03 M.M. 2005 Internet Award as part of the is the new lead singer of the 28th Annual ASCAP Deems Taylor Austrian “epic metal” band Visions Awards. Visit www.Sequenza21.com of Atlantis. The band has released and www.GalenBrown.com. … its latest album on Napalm Jeremiah Griffin ’04 M.M. released his Records/SPV. … Jason Forbach ’03 M.M. originated the role of Jim in debut album, Folktales of a Fatboy, the premiere of Wallace Shawn’s and continues to perform regularly new play The Music Teacher in the at such venues as New York’s Blue New Group’s 10th anniversary Note, S.O.B.’s, Joe’s Pub, Sweet season. Written in collaboration Rhythm, and Boston’s Regattabar, Yitzhak Yedid ‘98 with composer Allen Shawn, this as well as touring internationally. blend of opera and theater features … Camille Jentgen ’04 M.M. teaches at the Music Maker School in five actors and seven opera singers. Acton, Mass. and Music’s Cool in Noted opera and theater director Londonderry, N.H., in addition to Tom Cairns directed the producher current teaching position at the tion. … Monika Heidemann ’03 M.M. recently released the CD Bright, Yamaha School in Lexington, Mass. which features her original composi… Violist Wendy Richman ’04 M.M., violinist-composer Christopher Jette tions as well as two songs by the late ’05 M.M., violinist/violist Rachel NEC faculty member Steve Lacy. Schoenburg ’05, and others Visit www.monikah.com. … performed this past summer at the Christopher Jenkins ’03 M.M. graduMonika Heideman ’03 Milwaukee Youth Arts Center, as ated from the Manhattan School of alumni of the Milwaukee Youth Music with a professional music Symphony Orchestra. Jette’s compodegree. He is freelancing in New sitions were included in the programming. … York. … Chris Johansen was a student in the master’s program at the Royal Conservatory in the Soprano Nili Riemer recently joined the Hague. He performed at the North Sea Jazz Chautauqua Opera as a studio artist. For the Festival with the Royal Conservatory Big Band 2006/2007 season, Riemer has been accepted to featuring Kenny Wheeler. … Sofia Koutsovitis ’03 the Minnesota Opera Resident Artist Program, and also as an apprentice artist with the Des M.M., along with fellow Boston-based jazz singer Moines Metro Opera. … After similar jobs at the Marianne Solivan, organized a 2005 vocal festival BSO and the Boston Conservatory, Courtney Secoy at the Zeitgeist Gallery in Cambridge, Mass. … ’04 G.D. is the new assistant librarian at the Florida The Janaki Trio won the prestigious Alice West Coast Symphony. Secoy has played with Coleman Award at the 59th Coleman Chamber Ensemble Competition. The trio includes violinist several orchestras, including the St. Louis Symphony, the Opera Theater St. Louis, and the Serena McKinney ’03, violist Katie Kadarauch ’03, and cellist Arnold Choi. The Trio was also recently Baton Rouge Symphony. … Ross Winter is now a selected as one of four winners in the Concert section violinist for the Virginia Symphony Artists Guild International Competition in New Orchestra in Norfolk, Va. York. The trio will receive management contracts as well as a debut concert in Carnegie’s Weill Hall. The group also received the BMI commissioning award. … In 2005, Paula Murrihy ’03 M.M., ’04 G.D. performed the leading role of Dido in the Handel and Haydn Society’s production of Dido and Aeneas (see story, page 12). … Trumpet player Joseph Pero was recently hired for a position with Big Bop Nouveau, a band formed in the late 1980s by jazz trumpeter Maynard Ferguson that tours the world extensively. Visit www.maynardferguson.com. … Benjamin Schwartz ’03 M.M. recently 33 became Assistant to the Artistic Administrator at the Boston Symphony Orchestra. … In 2006, saxophonist and composer Jeremy Udden ’03 M.M. celebrated the release of his debut CD, Torchsongs, at the Lily Pad in Cambridge. Collaborating with Udden on this CD were Ben Monder, Matt Wilson, and NEC faculty members Bob Brookmeyer and John Lockwood. … Jamie Diane Van Eyck ’03 M.M., ’04 M.M. was an apprentice artist with the Utah Symphony for the 2004/2005 season. Stay Connected NEC Alumni Directory to be Published Stay connected with NEC and your school friends. Share your information for professional networking. NEC’s new Alumni Directory will be available in print and CDROM this fall. In February, Harris Connect Publishers administered a comprehensive data research survey to every NEC alumni so that you can update your information. When your survey arrives or you receive a phone call from Harris, please take a moment to verify your information. This will be used only by NEC for purposes of this directory. October 2005 was a busy month for Brian Adler: drumming with the Prana Trio (at Ryles Jazz Club), with Spacely Sprocket (at the CNote in New York) and with singer/songwriter Laura Wolfe (at Joe’s Pub, also in New York). … Drummer Richie Barshay has released the CD Homework, featuring the Richie Barshay Project with special guest Herbie Hancock, available at www.cdbaby.com/richiebarshay. Barshay has been touring with the new Herbie Hancock Quartet, the Dan Tepfer Trio, the Curtis Brothers Quartet, Rhythmic Prophecies, the Klezmatics, and others. An archived interview with Barshay can be heard at www.theworld.org/?q=node/303, and see feature story this issue, page 12. … Elizabeth England was appointed performance librarian at the Boston Conservatory. … Boston Lyric Opera’s 2005 production of The Little Prince included Claudia Huckle ’05 DP as the Fox. Huckle also participated in Santa Fe’s Young Artist program, performing roles in Salome and Carmen. … Amanda Jellen ’05 M.M., whom many have gotten to know as NEC’s new box office manager, is also soprano artist-inresidence with the Back Bay Chorale. … Violist David Kim and violinist Susie Park ’06 A.D. have been selected to be members of the Chamber Music Society Two of Lincoln Center, joining violinist Harumi Rhodes ’05 G.D. Matthew Hoch ’06 D.M.A. has accepted a full-time, tenure-track position as assistant professor of music at the University of Wisconsin-Barron County in Rice Lake, Wis. … Vocalist Yulia Van Doren won first prize in the 2006 International Bach Competition. 2 0 0 6 2 0 0 5 I N M E M O R I A M A L U M N I Mrs. Ernest Marsh ’16 Florence Pinkerton Clements ’23 DP Ruth Glazer Eleanor Edwards ’31 B.M. Anna Barnes Rowse ’31 DP Harry S. Hull, Jr. ’32 B.M. Norman Kelley ’32 Iris F. Pando ’32 B.M. Alexander Gelpe ’33 B.M. Olive M. (Spaniol) Hasson ’33 DP Clare Morse Wing ’33 DP Ann (Sadowski) Mendoza ’34 DP Margaret Phyllis Bailey ’35 DP Lillian L. Chasse ’35 B.M. Myrtle A. Lemaire ’35 DP Miriam (Atlas) Pizer ’36 DP Marjorie Barrows Libby ’37 B.M. Rita (Moran) Holland ’38 Mary Alice McManus ’38 B.M. Kathryn Shortell ’38 Virginia Vincent Chase Walley ’38 DP Pauline Young ’38 DP Wanda Ferrari ’39 Jacqueline (Hall) Sibley ’39 SS Ruth (Miller) Goldin ’40 DP May Marcia (Cohen) Homelson ’40 DP Leona B. Kerstetter ’41 Frederic B. Langworthy ’41 DP Kalman Novak ’41 DP Muriel Peterson Robinson Edgar ’42 DP, ’45 B.M. Sheila Myrna Hoskins Irwin ’42 John D. Boomer ’44 34 John di Francesco ’44 Isabel (Butterfield) Nichols ’44 Alice M. O’Brien ’44 Barbara (Foss) Roberts ’45 Clara Elizabeth (Wells) Stevenson ’45 Sarah Caldwell ’46 Roberta L. Humphrey ’46 Joan M. Monbourquette ’48, ’57 M.M. Nicholas Cardinale ’49 DP Lucille (Young) Dressler ’49 Jane (Knight) Holt ’49 DP Alfred G. Lague ’49, ’51 M.M. Leonard G. Moss ’49 Raymond Wilson Stewart ’49, ’51 M.M. Cynthia Bishop Brewster ’50 M.M. Michael Laguta ’50 Cynthia Swift Prentice ’50 Leo Francis Robinson ’50 George Zakarian ’50 Lawrence W. Cochrane, Jr. ’51 Ercolino Ferretti ’51 William H. Grass, Jr., ’51, ’55 M.M. Richard Byron Wetmore ’51 Robert E. Estes ’52 Arlene Siegel ’52 Richard William Tillery ’52 Carol Arnold ’53 Joseph Rizzo ’53 Sona (Asbed) Haydon ’54 Coretta Scott King ’54 Jacqueline H. Hawk ’55 George Guilbault ’56 Thomas Christopher Christie ’57 Natalie Goregliad ’57 Walter V. Tokarczyk ’57, ’59 M.M. Judith Leigh Brown ’58 David deLisle ’59, ’61 M.M. Frank Clark ’60 Cert., ’62, ’71 M.M. Robert L. Mogilnicki ’60 Elaine Dorothy Wolfson ’64 Byron A. Thomas ’68 M.M. William L. Vincent ’68 Wayne F. Stonkus ’70 M.M. Julia Gabaldon ’73 Elizabeth Parcells ’74, ’77 M.M. Patricia J. (Dillon) Moore ’77 M.M., Mary Jo Sanna ’77 M.M. Mark F. Jason ’81 Dana Brayton ’84 M.M. Ruth Elizabeth (Allen) Hodkinson ’88 M.M. Andrew Starr Kyte ’03 I N M E M O R I A M F A C U LT Y & F R I E N D S Nancy Milender Bower Albert England Betty Lou Farnham Elliot Forbes ’96 hon. D.M. Clara May Friedlaender Ralph Gomberg Dr. Robbie Lacritz-Deitch Donald Martino Daniel Pinkham Wayne Rapier Anna Yona find more online www.newenglandconservatory.edu /obituaries Obituary texts and links will remain online for at least one year after initial Web posting. Daniel Steiner (1933–2006) Daniel Steiner, President of New England Conservatory beginning in 1999, died June 11, 2006, succumbing to complications of chronic lung disease. An attorney, and the first non-musician to head NEC, he was a passionate music lover who applied his legal expertise and extensive experience in higher education to the task of making the Conservatory one of the best music schools in the world. He often compared NEC to other institutions at the top of their fields—Harvard and MIT— and was confident that the Conservatory would achieve the same excellence, a standard of excellence he knew from his quarter-century of high-level service at Harvard. During President Steiner’s tenure at NEC, the Conservatory added many renowned artist teachers to its highly respected faculty, and saw student applications almost double. In addition, the new joint NEC/Harvard degree program, which President Steiner’s perseverence made possible, created an extraordinary opportunity for outstanding musicians who are prepared for undergraduate academic work at the highest level. Steiner made it his business to have NEC exemplify the path of excellence in musical training, and to build a nurturing environment where students could pursue their passion for music. He recognized the importance of scholarship support for gifted students, and inaugurated the $100 million “Gift of Music” capital campaign, which had come well within sight of its goal at the time of his death. Under Daniel Steiner’s leadership, NEC has become the preeminent school for string training and chamber music coaching. Gifted young string players come here to study with important studio teachers, who are among the world’s finest chamber musicians, as a core curricular activity, or as participants in professional training programs for string quartets and piano trios that were established by President Steiner. Stellar ensembles nurtured at NEC are going on to win major national and international competitions. Daniel Steiner assumed the presidency of NEC for the pure enjoyment of doing it, after a brilliant and full career spent primarily in public service and higher education. He gave Daniel Steiner receives the NEC charter from unstintingly of his time David Scudder, April 2001. and passion, and relished opportunities to hear NEC’s superb young musicians, often accompanied by his wife, Prudence Linder Steiner, who has continued the family’s legacy of service by agreeing to join NEC’s Board of Trustees. During a May 4, 2006 Leadership Dinner at NEC, the Daniel Steiner Presidential Endowment Fund was announced before NEC’s president, his family, and two hundred guests. As of early 2007, the fund contains $3 million and is named after Daniel Steiner to celebrate the achievements of his sevenyear tenure at NEC. Tom Fitzsimmons find more online today.newenglandconservatory.edu/ nec_today/article/64 more about Daniel Steiner Miro Vintoniv Ginny and Pete Nicholas with Daniel Steiner at Boston Leadership Dinner, May 2006. 35 Miro Vintoniv