Regular Faculty - Week Two
PIANO
Jan Deats, pianist, was a scholarship student at Oberlin Conservatory and received her Master’s Degree from Southern Methodist University. She has been a student of Gyorgy Sandor, Alexander Uninsky, and Menahem Pressler. She has performed for 30 years in The McCall Deats Duo, cello and piano. She is Chair of the Piano Department at the Rockland Conservatory of Music.
Lily Friedman, Music Director, pianist, was a founding member of The New York Piano Trio, winner of Artists International Competition and awarded a debut performance at Carnegie’s Weill Hall. She has been a participant in the Marlboro Festival, the Orono, Maine Festival, and has performed in a variety of chamber ensembles throughout the New York metropolitan area and New England, as well as in France and the former Soviet Union. Among her more notable performances are the entire Beethoven Sonatas for Piano and Violin with New York Philharmonic violinist Anna Rabinova, and the entire Beethoven oeuvre for piano and cello with Juilliard professor Andre Emelianoff. She is co-founder and Music Director of Summertrios, a chamber music organization which offers four one-week residential programs to adult amateur musicians. It has served thousands of amateur musicians and provided intensive training in chamber music for dozens of young professionals. She holds a Masters degree from The Juilliard School where she was a student of Beveridge Webster and an ABD in the Doctoral Program at Teachers College of Columbia University. Independently, she studied piano with Irma Wolpe, and chamber music with Menahem Pressler, Arthur Balsam, Isidore Cohen, Rudolf Serkin, and Joseph Fuchs. She has been a performing participant in the Menahem Pressler Master Classes for the past 14 years.
Efi Hackmey, pianist, has appeared in the United States and Europe, including concerts in Weill Recital hall at Carnegie Hall; Weiner Saal Mozarteum, Salzburg, Austria; and Hochschule fur Musik Franz Liszt, Weimar, Germany. In his native Israel, Mr. Hackmey has performed at the Recanati Auditorium, Tel Aviv Museum of Art; the Jerusalem Music Center; and in concerts presented by the Arthur Rubinstein International Music Society in Eilat. He was featured on Israeli TV Channel 2, the most popular TV channel in Israel, and on the "Voice of Music" channel of the Israeli National Public Radio. Mr. Hackmey is currently on the piano faculty at DePauw University School of Music in Indiana. He has taught at Indiana University Jacobs School of Music as Associate Instructor of piano and music theory. Mr. Hackmey received his Bachelor of Music and Master of Music degrees with distinction from Tel Aviv University. During his studies in Tel Aviv he won second prize in the Tel Aviv University Piano Competition.
He is currently a doctoral candidate in piano performance at Indiana University. His main teachers were Menahem Pressler and Pnina Salzman. He also worked with such renowned artists as Emmanuel Ax, Lazar Berman, Charles Rosen, Janos Starker, David Zinman and Jaime Laredo.
Denise Kahn, pianist, studied at the Oberlin Conservatory and has a Master’s degree from The Mannes College of Music. Her primary teachers include Bruce Hungerford, Murray Perahia, Edward Aldwell, and Sophia Rosoff. She maintains a very busy studio in Manhattan teaching, for the most part, serious adult amateurs. She has a full program of activities for her students, including chamber music, performance workshops, Feldenkreis workshops and theme parties. A chapter in the book Piano Lessons by Noah Adams is devoted to Denise’s teaching. She was a founding member of the Cameo Trio and is a member of the faculty of The Mannes College of Music, Extension Division. Denise has enjoyed coaching at Summertrios for the last 17 years.
Max Pakhomov, pianist, has toured England, Scotland, Austria and Estonia in both solo and chamber music performances. He is a founding member of The Bronx Chamber Players and is principal pianist of the Bronx Opera Company. His solo performances include piano concertos by Tchaikovsky, Saint-Saens, Brahms, Beethoven, Rachmaninoff and Grieg with the Orchestra of the Bronx, the Orchestra of The Barge Music Festival, and the Staten Island Philharmonic. Maxim is a graduate of The Moscow Conservatory.
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VIOLIN
Arthur Dibble, violinist, violist, is active in New York’s Broadway Show scene and with the American Symphony Orchestra. He recently toured with Barbara Streisand throughout the United States and Europe. He was formerly a member of the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra and performs frequently with the Harrisburg, Long Island, and Riverside Symphony Orchestras. Currently he is principal violist of the Key West Symphony. His chamber music performances throughout the world include collaborations with Cho-Liang Lin, Lynn Harrell, and Gil Shaham. A dedicated educator, Mr. Dibble was professor of viola and chamber music at Southern Illinois University, Edwardsville, and Washington University in St. Louis. He is a teaching artist for the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center and holds degrees from Duquesne University and The Juilliard School.
Christopher Lee, violinist, became a protege of Zino Francescatti at the age of 16. He studied at The Curtis Institute and The Juilliard School, earned a doctorate degree, became a Fulbright Scholar, and has been awarded four honorary doctorates. His teachers were Dorothy Delay, Henryk Szeryng, and Nathan Milstein who observed, ". . . he has the most beautiful violin sound of his generation." Lee has received many awards, including the Guggenheim, Carl Flesch International Competition, J.S. Bach Competition and the Fritz Kreisler Prize. He has performed as a soloist under conductors Leopold Stokowski, Leonard Bernstein, Sergiu Commissiona, Lucas Foss, Arthur Fiedler and others. His love of teaching has led him to the faculties of Taipei University Academy of Fine Arts; the Shanghai Conservatory; the Geneva Conservatory in Switzerland, where he was Szeryng's teaching assistant; SUNY at Stonybrook, where he was assistant to Isidore Cohen; Princeton; and The Julliard School. Further, he teaches at Kean University in New Jersey, New York University, Summertrios, and in his private studio. He has served as concertmaster of the New Jersey Symphony, the American Symphony, the Little Orchestra Society and the Brooklyn Philharmonic. He is a founding member of the New York Piano Trio.
Esther Noh, violinist, won the Audience Prize at the 2006 Carl Nielsen International Violin Competition, First Prize in the 2004 Julius Stulberg International String Competition, and Second Prize in the 2009 Ima Hogg International Concerto Competition. She has soloed with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the Houston Symphony and the Danish National Philharmonic. As a chamber musician, she won first prize in the junior division of the 1994 Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition and has had residencies in Banff, the Smithsonian Museum and the Musicord Summer Festival. She was a member of the resident quartet for the University of Michigan Contemporary Ensemble. An active champion of improvised and alternative music, she has worked with John Zorn, Mark O’Connor and Edgar Meyer and given concerts at the Tonic Club and CBGB’s in New York City. Ms. Noh holds degrees from the Oberlin Conservatory and the University of Michigan. She is currently pursuing a doctorate at SUNY, Stony Brook
Linda Rosenthal, violinist, performs throughout North America, Europe and Asia in recitals as a soloist and as a chamber musician. She is the Founder and Artistic Director of “Juneau Jazz & Classics,” an annual festival that features world-renowned jazz and classical artists. She is also Artistic Director of the Lake Placid Chamber Music Seminar for Adults and Professor of Music at the University of Alaska Southeast in Juneau, where she makes her home.
In addition to a busy schedule performing solo and chamber music, Ms. Rosenthal also tours “Strings & Stories,” a show for young audiences that was commissioned by and premiered at the Kennedy Center in 1995. Since then, Ms. Rosenthal and Los Angeles actor Bill Blush have performed the show annually for thousands of children in schools, libraries, and theaters throughout the United States. Ms. Rosenthal has commissioned and premiered more than a dozen works, including pieces for solo violin, electric violin, violin and narrator, as well as “Glacier Blue,” a Concerto for Solo Violin and Big Band. Her three solo CDs feature the sonatas of Copland, Piston and Porter; favorite violin encores; and, “Fiddle de Bop,” a collection of Americana music for violin and piano. Ms. Rosenthal plays on a violin made in Turin, Italy in 1772 by J. B. Guadagnini.
Yuval Waldman, violinist (also conductor), made his debut as a solo violinist at the age of eight. He gave his Carnegie Hall Debut in 1969 as winner of Jeunesses Musicales – Carnegie Hall International Competition. A graduate of The Rubin Academy of Music in Tel Aviv and The Juilliard School, he has performed worldwide as a violinist, conductor and chamber player. He is founding Music Director of the Madeira Bach Festival in Portugal and the Jefferson Music Festival at Kennedy Center; and principal conductor of the New American Chamber Orchestra. He has recorded for Sony, Omega, Newport Classic and Angel Records.
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VIOLA
Andrew Knebel, violist, is a graduate of the Hartt School of Music/University of Hartford where he was a student of Steve Larson. He holds a double Bachelor’s degree in Viola Performance and Music Education. He was a member of the Honors Chamber Program at the Hartt School, “Performance 20/20,” a tuition-free, invitation only program. He has participated in Master Classes with John Largess (Miro String Quartet), Chauncey Patterdon (Miami String Quartet) and Heidi Castleman. Andrew is also a coach for the Young People’s Institute for Chamber Music in Stamford, CT.
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CELLO
James J. Cooper III, cellist, attended The Curtis Institute of Music as a student of David Soyer and Peter Wiley. He is principal cellist of the Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia and performs with the Philadelphia Orchestra as substitute cello. He also participates in the Philadelphia Chamber Music Series and the Post Philadelphia Orchestra Chamber Music concerts. He is principal cellist of The Philadelphia Virtuosi Chamber Orchestra, which has performed across Europe and in many South American countries. He has performed solo in the chamber music series at Saint Paul’s Episcopal Church.
Robert LaRue, cellist, is a member of the New York City Opera Orchestra at Lincoln Center and First Prize winner of the National Society of Arts and Letters Cello Competition (Mstislav Rostropovitch, jury chairman). Formerly he was cellist of the New England String Quartet; currently he is a member of Seraphim (a contemporary music ensemble). LaRue is a graduate of the Curtis Institute, the New England Conservatory, and Juilliard; he has also attended Indiana University School of Music. His teachers included Soyer, Greenhouse, Lesser, Starker, Tsutsumi, and Parisot; he studied chamber music with Mischa Schneider (Budapest Quartet), Felix Galimir, Menahem Pressler, and Bernard Greenhouse (Beaux Artes Trio), Eugene Lehner (Kolisch Quartet), Rostislav Dubinsky (Borodin Quartet), and Samuel Sanders.
Brian Snow, cellist, pursues an active performing career in New York City, where he is a member of Newspeak Ensemble, the Omni Ensemble, and the Praxis String Quartet. He has appeared as a soloist with the Riverside Orchestra and Crescent City Symphony (New Orleans) and has performed with Mark Morris Dance Group, Alarm Will Sound, All-American Rejects ACME, Fireworks Ensemble, singer-songwriter Brett Aaron, the Emerson String Quartet, and Meredith Monk. He has recorded with the Yale Cellos, Sonya Kitchell, Ratatat, Kenny Werner, and Jonsi of Sigur Ros. Brian has won top prizes at the Paranov, Emerson String Quartet, and Longy concerto soloists competitions. Currently a DMA candidate at Suny Stony Brook, he holds degrees from the Hartt School of Music and from Yale, and his cello teachers include David Finckel, Aldo Parisot, and Colin Carr. A dedicated teacher, Brian is a faculty member at Brooklyn Conservatory, Brooklyn Poly Prep, the Berkeley-Carroll School, and the 92nd St. Y School of Music.
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WOODWINDS & BRASS
Linda Boyd, flutist, has performed in the Unites States, Germany, Austria and Switzerland. She has been heard on National Public Radio and WQXR in New York City. Currently, she can be heard on the CBS Early Morning Show music. Principal flute with the Sacred Music Society and Oratorio Society of Queens Orchestras, Linda Boyd has performed at Carnegie Hall, Alice Tully Hall, Avery Fischer Hall and the 92nd Street Y in New York City. She has also performed with the Lake George Opera, the Queens Symphony, the Albany Symphony, the Westfield Symphony, the Colonial Symphony, Texas Opera Theater, Houston Grand Opera, and the Houston Symphony in Texas, and the American Synfonietta in Europe. She is an active chamber musician and founding member of TRILOGY, a flute, viola, and harp trio whose CD, TRILOGY has been released on the Extreme label to much acclaim. Last season, Ms. Boyd performed the New York premiere of Celedonio Romero’s Suite Andaluza for flute, and guitar with guitarist Pepe Romero at the 92nd St Y in New York. She has made many appearances as soloist at the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C. She can be heard on the CD LINDA BOYD LIVE, and has another CD soon to be released. In addition to performing, Ms. Boyd enjoys teaching and maintains an active private teaching studio in Manhattan. Many of her students have received acclaim in competitions and have been awarded scholarships to music schools and conservatories.
Larry Guy, clarinetist, has been working and teaching in New York for over 35 years. He has played with the New York Philharmonic, the New Jersey Symphony, the Orchestra of St. Luke’s, Orpheus, and the Brooklyn Philharmonic. For many years he was principal clarinet with the Long Island Philharmonic, the Joffrey Ballet, the Lake George Opera and the Queens Symphony Orchestra. Presently, he teaches at NYU, Vassar College, the Music Advancement Program at The Juilliard School, and the Pre-College Division at the Manhattan School of Music. Mr. Guy was recently named Chair of Pedagogy for the International Clarinet Association. He is the author of six educational texts for clarinetists and has produced three educational CDs on the playing of Daniel Bonade, Mitchell Lurie and Ralph McLane, three of the greatest players of the 20th century.
Shotaro Mori, bassoonist, originally from Fukuoka, Japan, completed his studies at Mannes College of Music where he received a full scholarship and won First Prize in the Concerto Competition for woodwinds, brass and percussion. He has performed with such groups as the New York Philharmonic Chamber Ensemble, the Jupiter Symphony, the Haddonfield Symphony, the Cosmopolitan Symphony, and the Cayuga Chamber Orchestra. As a soloist, he has performed with the Lyric Theatre Orchestra, the Korean Chamber Orchestra, One World Symphony, and the Mannes Orchestra. He has participated in the Aspen Music Festival, the Virgin Atlantic Holders Festival in Barbados, and the Asian Youth Orchestra in Hong-Kong. Shotaro is the bassoonist for the Springfield Symphony Orchestra, the Woodwind Five, and the West Side Winds.
Craig Vandewater, bassoonist, studied at Stony Brook and Yale; his principal teacher was Arthur Weisberg. Since completing his doctorate at SUNY Stony Brook, he has taught at the University of Texas (El Paso), the Blue Lake Fine Arts Camp and the Ross School of East Hampton. He is the solo bassoonist of the Peconic Chamber Orchestra and the North Shore Pro Musica of Long Island. He is also a member of the Lancaster Festival Orchestra of Lancaster, Ohio.
Barbara Oldham, French horn, is a founding member of the Quintet of the Americas, which has toured in over 300 cities and has performed in Carnegie Hall’s Weill Recital Hall in the American Music Week Series, the Bermuda International Festival, and many others in the United States and in Latin America. She has held solo recitals at the Bronx Museum of the Arts, the Library for the Performing Arts at Lincoln Center, and the American Landmark Festival. She has appeared in chamber music performances with the Marlboro Music Festival, the St. Luke’s Chamber Ensemble, the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center and many others. Her chamber music coaching includes the Quintet’s numerous residencies such as at Northwestern University, Austin Peay State University (TN), Hunter College, New York University and abroad in the Ukraine, the Republic of Georgia and Thailand. On the faculty of Brooklyn College and NYU, Oldham is a graduate of Miami University in Ohio (B.M.) and Manhattan School of Music (M.M.) She graduated Phi Beta Kappa and Magna Cum Laude. She has recorded on CRI, MSR, New World, Newport Classics, MMC and private labels.
Dan Wions, French horn, has worked under the baton of such prestigious conductors as Zubin Mehta, Michael Tilson Thomas, Manfred Honeck, Sir Andrew Davis, Charles Dutoit, Kurt Masur, and Lorin Maazel, among others. He has subbed on Broadway and toured with Dave Brubeck, Aretha Franklin, Frank Sinatra Jr., Patti Lupone, Anne Murray, Leann Rhimes, Clay Aiken, The Irish Tenors, and Josh Groban. Dan has performed as a soloist with the National Concert Party at the Kennedy Center, the Massapequa Philharmonic, and the Bucks County Choral Society. He was recently appointed principal horn of the Chamber Orchestra of New York, and co-principal horn of The Philharmonic Orchestra of the Americas.
Other special honors include being a finalist in a recent New York Philharmonic assistant principal horn audition and finalist in Calgary Philharmonic associate principal horn audition and Hartford Symphony principal horn auditions. Dan holds a BM in Horn Performance, with outside studies in piano and composition, from Indiana University. He is a former faculty member of the Westminster Conservatory of Westminster Choir College. He has been a participant at the FAME festival, the National Orchestral Institute at the University of Maryland, and a member of the prestigious Verbier Festival Orchestra in Switzerland. He resides in Hillsborough, NJ, freelancing and teaching primarily in the NJ, NY, CT, PA, DE and DC areas, and contracting internationally through his company, Live Music Consulting www.LiveMusicConsulting.com. He has recorded for Sony classical and Naxos records.
Lisa Kozenko, oboist, has appeared as a concerto soloist with the Nova Filarmonia of Portugal, the National Orchestra of New York, the National Symphony Orchestra of Mexico, the Lehigh Valley Chamber Orchestra, and the Greenwich Village Orchestra. In 2001, she was a prizewinner in the 15th Louise D. McMahon International Music Competition. She has recorded on the Digital Concerto, Albany and Arabesque labels. She has 11 solo oboe and chamber music commissions to her credit. In 1999, her solo recording on the Arabesque label of Doubles by Judith Zaimont was named to Chamber Music America’s Century List of Recordings. In 1997, Ms. Kozenko was awarded the Chamber Music America Heidi Castleman Award for excellence in chamber music teaching. As a member of the Manhattan Wind Quintet, she was a finalist in the 1994 Walter W. Naumburg Foundation Chamber Music Competition and prizewinner of the Coleman, Fischoff, Monterey, Yellow Springs, and Chamber Music Chicago Competitions. Kozenko is the former principal oboist of the New York City Opera National Company and has appeared with the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra, the Grand Rapids Symphony, and The Bach Choir of Bethlehem. She has served on the faculties of the Bowdoin Summer Music Festival, Summertrios, and Eastern Music Festival. Currently, she is Artist-Lecturer at Moravian College and a member of the faculty of the Mannes College Preparatory and Extension Divisions.