Feminist Theory and Music 10 - UNCG School of Music

FTM

FTM10 Keynote Speakers

Sherrie Tucker

Sherrie Tucker, author of Swing Shift: “All-Girl” Bands of the 1940s, is Associate Professor in American Studies at University of Kansas. She holds a PhD in History of Consciousness from UC Santa Cruz and an MA in Women’s Studies from San Francisco State University. Dr. Tucker was the 2004-2005 Louis Armstrong Professor at the Center for Jazz Studies at Columbia University. She is the co-editor of Big Ears: Listening for Gender in Jazz Studies and is currently writing a book entitled Dance Floor Democracy: The Social Geography of Memory at the Hollywood Canteen. An expert on jazz and gender, her articles have been published in numerous scholarly journals and edited volumes, including African American Music: A History; The Other Side of Nowhere: Jazz Improvisation, and Communities in Dialogue; Queer Episodes in Music and Modern Identity; and Unequal Sisters: A Multicultural Reader in U.S Women’s History. Dr. Tucker is co-editor of the journal American Studies with David Katzman. She is participating in Ajay Heble’s Collaborative Research Initiative “Improvisation, Community, and Social Practice” as a member of the “Improvisation, Gender, and the Body” team.

Yolanda Broyles-González

Yolanda Broyles-Gonzalez Yolanda Broyles-González, Professor in the Mexican American Studies & Research Center at the University of Arizona, is author of Lydia Mendoza’s Life in Music. Dr. Broyles-González has been a trailblazer for women and people of color in academia. Her many firsts include: among the first women of color to receive a doctoral degree from Stanford University; the first woman of color to be tenured at the University of California, Santa Barbara, where she was professor of Chicano Studies and German Studies; and the first Native Chicana woman to chair an academic department in the University of California system. The many honors bestowed upon Dr. Broyles-González include the lifetime Distinguished Scholar Award from the National Association for Chicana and Chicano Studies and awards from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Ford Foundation, the Fulbright Foundation, and the German Academic Exchange Service. Her research includes her book El Teatro Campesino: Theater in the Chicano Movement, which has become a landmark in the study of women and performance. Her path-breaking gender pay equity lawsuit against the University of California made national news.

Tammy Kernodle

Tammy Kernodle, author of Soul on Soul: The Life and Music of Mary Lou Williams, is Associate Professor of Musicology at Miami University of Ohio. She received a BM in Music Education and Piano from Virginia State University as well MA and PhD degress in Music History from The Ohio State University. Her research and teaching have focused on African American music, American music, and jazz. Dr. Kernodle’s research has been published in a number of journals and anthologies. She has also lectured extensively on the operas of William Grant Still and the life and religious compositions of Mary Lou Williams and the contributions of black women to American music. Dr. Kernodle has served as the Scholar in Residence for the Women in Jazz Initiative at the American Jazz Museum in Kansas City, Missouri and is currently co-editing a three-volume encyclopedia of African American Music.

Composers, Poets, and Visual Artists

Jean Ahn recently finished her Ph.D. at UC Berkeley and is one of the Emerging Composers in Residence with Berkeley Symphony. She was born in Korea earned degrees at Seoul National University. Notable performers such as Lisa Moore (Oregon Bach Festival), Ensemble Surplus (June in Buffalo), Aspen New Music Ensemble, Korean National Chamber Music Players, Berkeley Contemporary Chamber Players, Beijing Conservatory New Music Players (IAWM Beijing Congress), and the Memphis Symphony, have played Ahn’s music. Recent awards for her compositions include 1st prize from Rennee Fisher Award, fellowship to Aspen, Korean National Music Composers Award, and 1st prize from Sejong Korean Music Competition.

Monique Buzzarté, trombonist/composer, is an avid proponent of contemporary music who commissions and premieres many new works for trombone alone and with electronics in addition to creating her own compositions. Ms. Buzzarté's recording Fluctuations, with Ellen Fullman (Deep Listening 38), was hailed by Wire magazine as one of the Top 50 Records of 2008. Since 1983 her “New Music from Women: Trombone” project has supported the expansion of the trombone repertoire and in recognition of her long history of commissioning and premiering new works Meet the Composer selected her for their "Soloist Champions" program. www.buzzarte.org

Pui-shan Cheung’s music has been described as "beautiful sounds with abrupt intrusions of jagged explosive ideas" (Peninsula Review). Among her many awards and prizes are first prize in the II International Lepo Sumera Composition Contest in Tallinn, Estonia; the Libby Larsen Prize in International Alliance for Women in Music Composition Contest, and a special prize in the IBLA World Competition in Italy. Dr. Cheung has served as Assistant Professor at the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing and is currently composer-in-residence for the Wuji Chinese Plucked String Music Ensemble. She resides in California, San Diego.
Librettist Nancy Dean (b. 1930) is a scholar of medieval literature and holds degrees from Vassar, Harvard, and New York University. She has published scholarly articles on her specialization, Chaucer, in Hunter Studies, Comparative Literature, and Medium Aevum. She is also a poet, novelist, and playwright who has published short stories, three novels—Song in Three Voices being the latest—and has co-edited an anthology of contemporary feminist short stories and, with M. G. Soares, Intimate Acts: Eight Contemporary Lesbian Plays. Dean has retired as a full professor from Hunter College of the City University of New York, where she taught Medieval Studies, Creative Writing, and Women's Studies.

Beth Denisch’s music has been performed throughout North America, Greece, Ukraine, Russia, and East Asia and recorded by Juxtab, Albany, and Interval record labels. Grants and awards include ASCAP, Meet The Composer, The PatsyLu Fund, ACF, and AMC. Commissioning organizations include the Handel and Haydn Society, Equinox Chamber Players, Philadelphia Classical Symphony, and Chamber Orchestra Kremlin. Denisch is Associate Professor at Berklee College of Music and a member of Gender Research in Music and Education. She was the founding director of American Composers Forum New England and serves on the ACFNE and the Women’s Philharmonic Advocacy boards.

Kelly Natasha Foreman studied composition at Fontainebleau and received a Ph.D. in ethnomusicology from Kent State in 2002. She specializes in the music of Japan, with a focus on the shamisen, women/geisha, and Japanese musical aesthetics. She is author of The Gei of Geisha: Music, Identity, and Meaning (Ashgate Press, 2008), and has contributed chapters in Bad Girls of Japan (Palgrave, 2005) and Bowing to Etiquette: Manners and Mischief in Japan (forthcoming). Foreman oversees the New Music Collective and teaches ethnomusicology and musicology at Wayne State University. She is also deeply engaged in the emerging post-industrial urban Detroit art scene both as musician and dancer.

Jaclyn Heyen is a graduate student in Music Technology at Florida International University. She received her BM in Music Technology and a Certificate in Women Studies in 2008 at FIU. She is a musician/consultant for the Renfrew Center of Florida (the countries first residential eating disorder treatment facility), where she has been active in education on eating disorders. A singer, songwriter, and composer of folk and computer music she has composed pieces for the American Dance Therapy Association Annual Conference and ABCs of Eating Disorders Documentary. Her interest in her graduate work is integrating music technology into music therapy.

Poet Elizabeth Kirschner has published three collections of poems, Twenty Colors, Postal Routes, and Slow Risen Among the Smoke Trees all with Carnegie Mellon University Press. She has published widely both nationally and internationally and teaches at Boston College. Kirschner’s poetic settings of Schumann’s Dichterliebe, retitled as The Dichterliebe in Four Seasons with soprano Jean Danton and pianist Thomas Stumpf was recently released on Albany Records. She enjoys musical collaborations and has worked with composers Thomas Oboe Lee, Paul Wehage and Carson P. Cooman. (www.elizabethkirschner.com)

Melanie Klein has long split her time between writing and various ways of making things (sometimes known as running in several directions at once). She has exhibited sculpture in California and New York and regularly reads poetry in New York and New Jersey. Since 2005 she has been living in Poughkeepsie, NY, and teaching English, creative writing, and 3D design at Dutchess Community College.

Composer Pamela J. Marshall studied at Eastman and Yale and has been a fellow at the MacDowell Colony. She has written music for chamber ensembles, chorus, synthesizers, mandolin, and orchestra, including commissions from the Rivers School Conservatory, South Beach Chamber Ensemble of Miami, The Master Singers of Lexington, MA, Green Mountain Youth Symphony, Assabet Valley Mastersingers, and Concord Chamber Ensemble. She leads improvisation workshops and does on-location audio and nature recording. Her music is on Living Artists and ERMMedia, among others. Spindrift Music Company publishes her work (www.spindrift.com).

Judith Shatin (b. 1949) is the William R. Kenan, Jr. Professor and Director of the Virginia Center for Computer Music, which she founded at the University of Virginia. She is a sonic explorer whose music spans chamber, choral, dance, Electroacoustic, multimedia and orchestral genres. Her music has been called “highly inventive... on every level; hugely enjoyable and deeply involving (Washington Post).

Alice Shields (b. 1943) holds a DMA in music composition from Columbia University and is well known for her electronic and computer music as well as opera: her electronic opera Apocalypse was released by CRI Records, and Shaman (1987) and Mass for the Dead (1993) were premiered by the American Chamber Opera Company. Additionally, her oeuvre includes chamber music and works for dance and voice. Shields has been a professional opera singer, performing traditional and modern roles at the New York City Opera and beyond. Since 1991 she has performed Nattuvangam (South Indian rhythmic recitation) for Bharata Natyam dance-drama, and since 1996 has studied Hindustani raga singing with the Bangladeshi singer Marina Ahmed Alam. www.aliceshields.com

Sirarpi Heghinian Walzer, visual artist, is director of Art Without Borders, which helps artist-refugees re-establish their artistic careers. She is also the principal of Consult and Design, a small-business consulting firm, providing graphics, web development and design services. Sirarpi has degrees in biomedical and systems engineering from Boston University and a degree from the Academy for Fine Arts, “The Etage,” in Germany, where she studied painting, stage, and theatre design. In Berlin, where she lived for thirteen years, Sirarpi worked with director/stage designer Andrej Woron, environmental artist Peter Erskine, and Ati Gropius, among others. (www.swalzer.com)

Hsiao-Lan Wang, a native of Taiwan, composes extensively for orchestra, chamber ensembles, solo instruments, and multimedia. Her works have been heard in concerts, music festivals, and on radio broadcasts in Taiwan, Belgium, Canada, France, the Netherlands, Czech Republic, China, and throughout the United States. Ms. Wang is currently a faculty of music technology at Montana State University and serves as the president of International Alliance for Women in Music.
International composer Sabrina Peña Young has premiered her "marvelously abstract" works on four continents at various festivals including the Australasian Computer Music Conference, Turkey's Cinema for Peace, Electrolune, Voices on the Edge, Art Basil Miami, SEAMUS, the IAWM International Congress, Pulsefield International Exhibition of Sound Art, Primera en La Habana X (Cuba), and ICMC. Young released her debut electroacoustic album, Origins, through i-Tunes in 2008. Young was recently commissioned by Millikin State University to compose a multimedia oratorio, and is the author of the New Music Resource (http://newmusicresource.blogspot.com/). She teaches Music Synthesis and Music Theory at Murray State University.

Performers

John R. Beck is a member of the faculty at the University of North Carolina School of the Arts. He currently performs as a percussionist with the Winston-Salem and Greensboro Symphony Orchestras, Brass Band of Battle Creek, and the Philidor Percussion Group. A former member of the United States Marine Band, he performed regularly with the National and Baltimore Symphonies, Washington and Baltimore Operas, and the Theater Chamber Players of the Kennedy Center. Beck has toured the United States as a xylophone soloist with the Marine Band, Jack Daniel's Silver Cornet Band, and the New Sousa Band.

Alexander Ezerman recently joined the UNCG School of Music faculty as the associate professor of cello. A prize winner in national and international competition, he has appeared internationally as a soloist and chamber musician. Ezerman has been on the faculties at Texas Tech University, the Green Mountain Chamber Music Festival, the Brevard Music Center and the Killington Music Festival. An active advocate and performer of new music, he has been involved in numerous premiers. Ezerman holds a BM from Oberlin College Conservatory and a MM and DMA from the State University of New York at Stony Brook. His primary mentors include Timothy Eddy, Norman Fischer, David Wells and his grandmother Elsa Hilger.

Violinist Stephanie Ezerman has appeared in concerts across North America as a soloist and chamber musician. She has performed with the Houston Symphony, North Carolina Symphony, Charlotte Symphony, Memphis Symphony, New World Symphony, Pine Mountain Music Festival, and Spoleto Festival USA, and held leadership positions in such orchestras as the Lubbock Symphony, Caprock Pro Musica, and Abilene Philharmonic. A registered Suzuki teacher, she co-founded and directed the Suzuki Talent Education of the Lubbock Region from 2001 to 2008. She performs regularly with her husband, Alex Ezerman, as part of the Ezerman Duo, has participated in numerous premiers, and has recorded with the Innova label.

Susan Fancher’s tireless and passionate search for a personal repertoire of colorful, lyrical and compelling compositions has produced dozens of commissioned works, as well as published transcriptions of music by composers as diverse as Josquin Desprez, Ben Johnston and Steve Reich. A much sought-after performer of new music, she has worked with a multitude of composers and has performed in many of the world’s leading concert venues and contemporary music festivals. Susan Fancher is an artist for the Vandoren and Selmer companies. She is a regular contributing author to the Saxophone Journal and teaches saxophone at Duke University.

Samee Griffith is a student of Dr. John Salmon in the piano performance program at UNCG. Previously, she studied with Dr. Jackson Leung (Wright State University, B.M.) and Dr. Robert Satterlee (Bowling Green State University, M.M.). Currently, Samee teaches class piano at UNCG and privately at the Music Academy of North Carolina. She has performed in New Music Festivals at both UNCG and BGSU, premiering works by composers Alex Kotch, Matthew Phelps, and Dave Brubeck.

The Washington Post has described Lorena Guillén as a “delicate soprano” and praised her “polished performance” of French cabaret song and “total mastery” of Sprechtstimme. Guillén has devoted her singing career to premiering and recording compositions by living composers and performing the classics of contemporary music, including Berio, Crumb, and Stockhausen. She has performed in numerous new music venues including New Music New Haven (Yale), June in Buffalo Festival, and Stockhausen Festival (Germany). On Stockhausen’s recommendation, Guillén has toured his Indianerlieder and conducted workshops of his vocal music internationally. She is a founding member of the word/music experimental group Lake Affect (1999-2002) and a regular soloist of the multidisciplinary ensemble Musica Aperta (Wash. DC).

Tomie Hahn is a performer of shakuhachi (Japanese bamboo flute), and of nihon buyo (Japanese traditional dance) holding the professional stage name, Samie Tachibana. She is Associate Professor of performance ethnology at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. Tomie’s research spans a wide range of topics including: Japanese traditional performing arts, Monster Truck rallies, issues of identity and creative expression of multiracial individuals, and relationships of technology and culture; interactive dance/movement performance; and gestural control and extended human/computer interface in the performing arts. Her book, Sensational Knowledge: Embodying Culture through Japanese Dance (Wesleyan University Press) was awarded the Alan P. Merriam prize in 2008.

At the age of 10, soprano Jodi Hitzhusen made her singing debut as a soprano soloist in Britten's Ceremony of Carols. Since then, she has performed all across the United States, as well as in the Philippines, Panama, England, Canada and France.   In 2003, Hitzhusen made her operatic debut as Pamina in "The Magic Flute." She has been a voice and piano instructor since 1999 and performs outreach programs in schools through Boston’s “Handel and Haydn Society”.   Hitzhusen is also a pianist and an advocate for ethnomusicology. Most recently, she was awarded an Emerging Artists Grant to study in Scotland and France.

Deborah Lee Hollis, pianist, received performance degrees from Oberlin Conservatory and the University of Illinois and is completing her DMA in collaborative piano at UNCG. Her teachers include Anne Vanko Liva, Miles Mauney, Kenneth Drake, Claire Richards and Andrew Harley. She is the official accompanist for the Long Leaf Opera Company, and has also served as official accompanist for the Eastern Music Festival master classes with Ryan Anthony and David Krakauer. She has served on staff at Duke University, Northeastern University in Chicago, and the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana, and is currently on faculty at Guilford College.

American soprano Lucy Owen Hoyt earned music degrees from Westminster Choir College and James Madison University and is completing a DMA in Voice Performance with a specialty in vocal pedagogy at UNCG. Ms. Hoyt’s teachers include Robert Bracey, Robert Simpson, Helen Kemp, Sally Lance, and LaVerne Roberts. She has served on the faculty at James Madison University, Central Piedmont Community College, and Piedmont Virginia Community College. Ms. Hoyt is a certified vocologist and is a member of the National Association of Teachers of Singing, the College Music Society, and the Lyrica Society for Word-Music Relations.

Fabián López is a native of Málaga, Spain. He studied at the Conservatorio Superior de Música de Málaga, Colgate University, San Francisco Conservatory of Music, Baylor University (M.M), and The University of Michigan (D.M.A). His principal teachers include Nicolae Duca, Laura Klugherz, Kevork Mardirossian, and Camilla Wicks. Fabián has appeared as soloist with orchestras including Royal Symphony Orchestra of Seville, Orquesta Ciudad de Córdoba, Chamber Orchestra of Andalucía, Orquesta Filarmónia de Málaga, Orquesta Ciudad de Almeria, “Manuel de Falla” Chamber Orchestra, etc. Fabián taught at the Royal Conservatory of Music “Manuel de Falla” of Cádiz, Spain (1999-2004). He is currently Assistant Professor of violin at UNCG.

Vivian Montgomery is an award-winning early keyboardist and recipient of a Solo Recitalist Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts. She performs with her acclaimed ensembles Cecilia’s Circle and the Galhano/Montgomery Duo, as well as chamber, concerto and solo recitals across the US. She records with the Centaur, Innova, and Schubert Club labels. She teaches harpsichord and historical performance practice at the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music and currently holds a post as a Visiting Scholar at the Brandeis University Women’s Studies Research Center, preparing her book and CD “Brilliant Variations on Sentimental Songs” under a fellowship from the American Association of University Women.

Mayumi Osada, a native of Japan, is a DMA candidate in piano performance at UNCG. She has studied piano with Dr. Andrew Willis and has worked with Barbara Lister-Sink on injury-preventive piano technique. Ms. Osada graduated cum laude with a BA in music with high honors, and a MM in piano performance from SUNY Binghamton. Her teachers there included Seymour Fink, Ewa Mackiewicz-Wolfe, James Giles and Michael Salmirs. Ms. Osada received the 2009 Sally and Alan Cone Award by Women’s and Gender Studies for her research and her recital programming works by Clara Schumann, Amy Beach and Louise Talma.

Carole Ott recently joined the faculty at UNCG as an Assistant Professor of Choral Music. Her degrees include a BM in Music Education from the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music and an MM and DMA from the University of Michigan. At UNCG, Dr. Ott directs the Chorale and teaches undergraduate and graduate level conducting. Additionally, she is the director of the Winston-Salem Symphony Chorale. As a soloist, Ott has appeared with the Early Music Ensemble at the University of Michigan, has participated in master classes with Early Music Vancouver, and premiered the works of Susan Botti at the American Academy in Rome.

Pinko Communoids is an improvisational trio based in Charlottesville, Virginia. The trio consists of Carey Sargent, Kevin Parks, and Wendy Hsu. They create both free and structured improvisations using instruments including guitars, accordions, and percussion, as well as found objects, circuits, microphones, and other electronics. Since forming in 2006, the trio has given over 40 performances both locally and abroad, including a tour of Taiwan's major cities in Summer 2007. They have performed at 804noise showcases, Red Room, ABC No Rio, Sonic Circuits, Noise in the System, and Technosonics. As members of HzCollective, they helped curate Audio January and Audio February at The Bridge PAI. More info: pinkos.info

Scott Rawls has appeared as soloist and chamber musician throughout the United States, Canada, Mexico, Japan, and Europe. Recent chamber music collaborations include performances with Alex Kerr, Dmitry Sitkovetsky, Gary Hoffman, Lynn Harrell, Bella Davidovich and the Diaz Trio. His chamber music recordings can be heard on Centaur, CRI, Nonesuch, Capstone, and Philips labels. Rawls has toured extensively as a member of Steve Reich and Musicians since 1991. The ensemble has performed in major music centers around the world including London, Berlin, Rome, Tokyo, Prague, Amsterdam, Los Angeles, Chicago and New York. He currently serves as Associate Professor of Viola in the School of Music at UNCG.

Helen Rifas, harpist, earned degrees in music from Reed College and the University of Oregon, where she was a recipient of the Ruth Lorraine Close Fellowship in harp. She is currently principal harpist with the Greensboro and Winston-Salem Symphonies, as well as symphonies in Salisbury, Hickory and Greenville, South Carolina. Ms. Rifas is a member of the Wake Forest Consort, an early music ensemble which performs on period instruments, and frequently performs with flute and cello in church and concert settings. Ms. Rifas is adjunct harp instructor at Wake Forest University and teaches Suzuki harp at Kids in Koncert at Lenoir-Rhyne College in Hickory.

Flutist Wendy Rolfe is one of the USA's leading performers on modern and historical flutes. She performs, records, and/or tours with Boston's Handel and Haydn Society, Boston Baroque, New York's Concert Royal, The Group for Contemporary Music, and her own group, the Odyssey Chamber Players. Other performances include the BBC Proms Concerts, Casals Festival (Puerto Rico) and in Brazil and Ecuador. Dr. Rolfe released the CD "Images of Brazil” in 2006 and has recorded for Decca, Telarc, Analekta, with the Hollywood Studio Orchestra, and for United States' National Public Radio and Television. Dr. Rolfe is a Professor at the Berklee College of Music in Boston, Massachusetts (Manhattan School of Music, DMA, MM; Oberlin Conservatory, BM).

Julie Smith is a masters student at UNCG (M.M. Flute Performance). Prior to her arrival at UNCG, she earned a B.S. in Music Education from Roberts Wesleyan College (Rochester, NY). While at Roberts, Julie had the opportunity to study with renowned flutists Bonita Boyd, Walfrid Kujala, Rebecca Gilbert, and Diane Smith. She is the 2004 and 2007 winner of the Rochester Flute Association's annual competition, as well as winning the '06-'07 RWC Concerto Competition and the prestigious Presser Scholarship. Her future goals include performing in a symphony orchestra and teaching at the collegiate level.

Laura Dangerfield Stevens is the principal flutist of the Western Piedmont Symphony and holds the piccolo position with the Salisbury Symphony. She has performed with many orchestras, including the New World Symphony, North Carolina Symphony, Long Bay Symphony, Winston-Salem Symphony, Greensboro Symphony Orchestra, Long Leaf Opera Orchestra, and the Piedmont Opera Orchestra. Laura is the Applied Flute Instructor at Lenoir-Rhyne University and maintains a private flute studio in Winston-Salem. Ms. Stevens is currently pursuing a DMA at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. She received a BM from the Salem College School of Music and a MM from the University of North Carolina School of the Arts.

Lena Timmons began playing cello in the fifth grade in an El Paso, Texas ISD orchestra program. She completed her bachelor of music degree at Baylor University in Waco, Texas where she studied with Dr. Gary Hardie. Lena finished her master of music performance degree at Baylor University, during which time she also pursued a music history degree under the direction of Dr. Jean Ann Boyd. In August 2008 she began her doctoral work at the University of North Carolina-Greensboro as a student of Dr. Alexander Ezerman and a member of the UNCG Liberace String Quartet.

Nancy Walker has performed as a soloist in Carnegie Hall (Weill Hall), Lincoln Center in Washington D.C., in Europe and throughout the United States. She has won numerous awards and competitions. Dr. Walker teaches voice at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. She has degrees from Hastings College, the University of Colorado and Indiana University. As a Fulbright scholar she studied the songs of German composer Josephine Lang in Munich, Germany. In 2004-05 she returned to Europe to research German voice teaching methods. She has presented her findings at National Conferences of NATS and the College Music Society.

A winner of the Special Presentation Award from Artists International, Hong Kong native Dr. Agnes Wan gave a successful recital debut at Merkin Concert Hall in New York in 2007. She holds a DMA in piano performance and pedagogy from the University of Iowa and an Artist Diploma in Piano from the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music. Agnes has appeared as soloist in orchestral concerts, served as a resident artist at the Banff Centre for the Arts, and has given solo recitals throughout the Southeastern U.S. She is an Adjunct Artist Teacher of Piano at the Blair School of Music at Vanderbilt University.

A Native of Passaic, New Jersey, Charles Williamson is establishing himself in the genres of opera and recital with a distinctive lyric tenor voice. Reviewed by Classical Voice of North Carolina as “an audience favorite…with a robust voice,” Charles has portrayed Vasek in The Bartered Bride with UNCG Opera Studio as well as Eisenstein in Der Fledermaus with North Carolina Central University. Mr. Williamson was awarded first place in the North Carolina Federation of Music Clubs state competition. A student of Levone Tobin-Scott, Charles is pursuing his Master of Music degree at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro.

Andrew Willis is internationally recognized for his performances on historical and modern pianos and has recorded a wide variety of solo and chamber repertoire. At UNCG, Willis serves as Artistic Director of the biennial Focus on Piano Literature. Willis holds the BM in Piano from The Curtis Institute of Music, where he studied with Mieczyslaw Horszowski, the MM in Accompanying from Temple University, where he studied with George Sementovsky and Lambert Orkis, and the DMA in Historical Performance from Cornell University, where he studied with Malcolm Bilson. He served as keyboardist of The Philadelphia Orchestra for several seasons and has taught at several colleges and universities and at Tanglewood.

Peter Zlotnick is Principal Timpanist in the Greensboro, Winston-Salem, and Salisbury Symphony Orchestras. He also performs in the Philidor Percussion Group and the Amphion Percussion Group. Peter has been a featured soloist with the Greensboro Symphony, Rochester Philharmonic, Salisbury Symphony, and Northwestern University Contemporary Music Ensemble. Peter serves as Education Manager for the Greensboro Symphony and Percussion Instructor at Catawba College. He has served on the faculty of UNCG, Guilford College, and the Hochstein School of Music. Peter holds degrees from Northwestern University and the Eastman School of Music, where he studied with Michael Burritt, John Beck, and Ruth Cahn.