MAY
Atar Arad
Born in Tel Aviv, Jacobs School of Music professor Atar Arad began his musical studies on the violin. In 1968, he received a scholarship to La Chapelle Musicale de la Reine Elisabeth in Belgium. Drawn to the rich sound of the viola, he changed instruments and in 1972 went on to receive both the City of London Prize at the Carl Flesch International Competition for Violin and Viola and first prize at the Geneva International Viola Competition. He holds degrees in performance from the Brussels Conservatory and the Israeli Academy.
In 1980, Arad moved to the United States to become a member of the Cleveland String Quartet, with whom he toured extensively for seven years. Since then, he has served as an artist faculty member at the Aspen Music School and Festival, the Shepherd School of Music at Rice University, and Carnegie Mellon University. He is also active as a guest artist at universities and music festivals worldwide.
Arad is also a composer of works for viola and for string quartet, including his Sonata for Viola, which was inspired by the seventeenth century Nicolò Amati instrument he plays. He is also an author of numerous essays on the viola repertoire. His recordings on the RCA, Teldec, Telarc, and RIAX labels are widely acclaimed as demonstrations of the highest level of virtuosity on the viola.
WFIU will feature performances by Atar Arad during the weekday morning program Classical Music with George Walker throughout the month of May.
APRIL
Monika Herzig
WFIU’s featured performer for April is Jacobs School alumna, jazz pianist and educator Monika Herzig.
Born in Germany, Herzig came to the United States in 1988 on a one-year scholarship to the University of Alabama. She earned her doctorate in music education and jazz studies at Indiana University, where she is now an Arts Administration faculty member.
Her eight CDs include Imagine, a collaboration with Indiana Poet Laureate Norbert Krapf. Herzig’s most recent release on Owl Records, Come With Me, includes a DVD documentary about her. Her recordings include material from classic American songbook composers such as Hoagy Carmichael and Cole Porter, pop-rock artists such as John Lennon, and Herzig’s own compositions.
As the editor and primary author of the recent Indiana University Press book David Baker: a Legacy in Music, Herzig documented the life and career of the head of Indiana University’s jazz studies department. She frequently presents lectures and musical demonstrations that focus on the history of jazz in Indiana, as well as the role of women in jazz history.
Herzig has performed at jazz clubs and festivals around the United States, including the Indy Jazz Fest, the W. C. Handy Festival, Louisville’s Jazz Factory, and the IU Art Museum’s Jazz in July series. She has also led groups in performance in Germany, Italy, and Japan. Groups under her leadership have toured Germany, Italy, Japan, and opened for acts such as Tower of Power, Yes, Sting, and the Dixie Dregs.
WFIU will feature music performed by Monika Herzig throughout the month of April on David Brent Johnson’s weekday afternoon program Just You and Me. Herzig will be a guest on the program on Monday, April 2.
MARCH
Karen Shaw
WFIU’s featured performer for March is Karen Shaw, chair of the Piano Department at the IU Jacobs School of Music, where she has been a faculty member since 1968.
Born in Connecticut into a musical family, Shaw received her first piano lessons from her mother. She has studied with Béla Nagy, Menahem Pressler, and Abbey Simon, and received coaching from her friend Jorge Bolet.
Shaw’s first New York appearance was as the winner of the Concert Artist Guild Award; she later debuted in London and Berlin. She has performed all over the United States, Europe, Canada, and the Far East, in such venues as Carnegie Hall, the Kennedy Center, and Wigmore Hall in London. She has recorded music by Schumann, Scriabin, and Rachmaninoff.
Shaw has performed and taught master classes throughout the United States, Europe, and the Far East, training and assisting young pianists including Frederic Chiu, Steven Spooner, and Read Gainsford. She is the founder and director of the Silvermine Series, Inc., a non-profit organization that presents established artists and young pianists aspiring to musical careers. She has been a regular adjudicator for the Concert Artists Guild, the Kosciuszko Chopin competition, and has been a jury member of international competitions in Canada and across the U.S.
She recently founded the IU chapter of the American Liszt Society, and has coordinated numerous concerts dedicated to Liszt, including a series of concerts in 2011 that commemorated the composer’s 200th birthday.
WFIU will feature music performed by Karen Shaw throughout the month of March.
FEBRUARY
Simpson
WFIU’s featured performer for the month of February is Marietta Simpson, professor of music at the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music.
A mezzo-soprano, Simpson has sung with major orchestras throughout the United States, under many of the world’s greatest conductors, including the late Robert Shaw in her Carnegie Hall debut in 1988 as soloist in Brahms’ Alto Rhapsody with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra. She grew up in Philadelphia and received her master’s degree in music from the State University of New York at Binghamton.
Simpson sang the role of Maria in Porgy and Bess with the Lyric Opera of Chicago, Los Angeles Opera, Opera Birmingham and Washington National Opera. She is also known for her performances of new operas including the world premiere of Peter Eötvös’s opera, Love and Other Demons, with Glyndebourne Festival Opera. She sang the world premiere The Thread, composed by J. Mark Scearce to text by Toni Morrison, with the Nashville Chamber Orchestra under its music director, Paul Gambil.
Her oratorio and concert performances range widely from Bach’s Christmas Oratorio to contemporary works such as Donald McCullough’s Let My People Go, a choral work that integrates African-American spirituals and code songs around a narrative text. She made her New York Philharmonic debut under Kurt Masur in Mendelssohn’s Elijah. This was followed by performances, also under Masur, of Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis and Symphony No. 9, and Bach’s St. John Passion.
WFIU will feature music performed by Marietta Simpson throughout the month of February.
JANUARY
Segal
WFIU’s featured performer for January is Uriel Segal, principal guest conductor and adjunct senior lecturer in orchestral conducting at the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music.
Uri Segal was born in Jerusalem in 1944. He won First Prize at the 1969 International Mitropoulos Conducting Competition in New York, and invitations to conduct several prominent American and European orchestras followed. He made his operatic conducting debut in 1973 with a performance of The Flying Dutchman at the Santa Fe Opera. This led to further opportunities to conduct operas in Italy, France, Germany, Japan, Israel, and the United States.
In his career Segal has led many orchestras including the Berlin Philharmonic, Royal Concertgebouw, London Philharmonic, Orchestre de Paris, Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, Warsaw Philharmonic, Stockholm Philharmonic, and Spanish National Orchestra. In the U.S. he has conducted the Symphony Orchestras of Chicago, Pittsburgh, Detroit, Dallas, Houston, and Rochester. He also frequently conducts the Israel Philharmonic and the Jerusalem Symphony.
Segal founded and led the Century Orchestra in Osaka, Japan for eight years and still serves as their Laureate Conductor. The year 2007 marked his eighteenth and final season as music director of the renowned Chautauqua Symphony Orchestra in New York State.
In February of 2009 Segal conducted the Japanese premiere of Ligeti’s opera Le Grand Macabre in Tokyo with the Tokyo Chamber Opera Theater, and he made his debut appearance in the Republic of Korea with the Bussan Philharmonic.
WFIU will feature performances by Uriel Segal throughout the month of January.
DECEMBER
Fagen
WFIU’s featured performer for December is Arthur Fagen, professor of music in orchestral conducting at the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music.
Arthur Fagen is a conductor of symphony and opera in Europe, Asia, South America and the United States with an opera repertory of more than 75 works. He is a regular guest at the prestigious opera houses, concert halls, and music festivals at home and abroad.
Born in New York, he studied with Laszlo Halasz, Max Rudolf at the Curtis Institute and with Hans Swarowsky.
Fagen has served as guest conductor at the Vienna State Opera, principal conductor in Kassel and Brunswick, and as chief conductor of the Flanders Opera of Antwerp and Ghent. He was assistant to Christoph von Dohnányi at the Frankfurt Opera and James Levine at the Metropolitan.
Notable appearances include the Lyric Opera of Chicago, Staatsoper Berlin, Munich State Opera, New York City Opera, and orchestras including the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, the Tokyo Philharmonic, and Orchestre de la Suisse Romande.
Recent productions include Turandot at the Atlanta Opera, Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream at the Nice Opera, and engagements with the Israel Symphony Orchestra, Holland Sinfonia, Buenos Aires Philharmonic, Sicily and Rome’s Symphony Orchestras.
Fagen has recorded Liszt’s Hungarian Rhapsodies with the Staatskapelle Weimar, and Martinů’s six symphonies. His recent Naxos recording of Martinů’s piano concertos was awarded an Editor’s Choice by Gramophone magazine.
WFIU will feature music performed by Arthur Fagen throughout the month of December.
NOVEMBER
Janette Fishell
WFIU’s featured artist of the month for November is Janette Fishell, chair and professor of music for the Organ Department at the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music.
A graduate of Indiana University and Northwestern University, Janette Fishell is a recitalist and teacher of international standing. She has performed in many of the world’s greatest concert venues, including Suntory Hall, Tokyo; King’s College, Cambridge; and Berlin’s Schauspielhaus.
At East Carolina University, she headed the department of Organ and Sacred Music Studies and founded the East Carolina Religious Arts Festival and serves as its artistic director.
In Bloomington, Fishell has embarked upon a 21-concert project, The Seasons of Sebastian, in which she is performing the complete organ works of J. S. Bach for the first time on campus and the greater community.
Her recordings include performances of the music of Marcel Dupré, Petr Eben—a Czech composer on whose music she is considered the leading authority—and J. S. Bach, as well as duet literature performed with her husband, English organist Colin Andrews.
Fishell has been featured in live radio broadcasts worldwide, including recital broadcasts for the BBC from St. Marylebone Church, London; NHK, Tokyo; and Czech Radio. A frequent adjudicator, she has been tutor and artist three times at the Oundle International School for Young Organists and was a judge for the recorded round of the 2000 National Competition for Young Artists sponsored by the American Guild of Organists.
WFIU will feature music performed by Janette Fishell throughout the month of November.
OCTOBER
WFIU’s artists for the month for October are Kevin Murphy and Heidi Grant Murphy. They joined the faculty this fall of the Jacobs School of Music as professor of practice and adjunct professor of practice, respectively.
A native of Syracuse, New York., Murphy received his Bachelor of Music in Piano Performance from the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music and a Master’s of Music in Piano Accompaniment from the Curtis Institute.
In 1992, he was the first pianist invited by James Levine to participate in the Metropolitan Opera’s Lindemann Young Artist Development Program. Until recently, Murphy served as the director of Music Administration at the New York City Opera.
In addition to his on- and off-stage partnership with Heidi Grant Murphy, he has collaborated in concert and recital with many of today’s leading artists, including Michelle DeYoung, Bejun Mehta, Gary Lakes, Nathan Gunn, Olaf Bär, Bryn Terfel, Marcelo Alvarez, Placido Domingo, and Frederica von Stade. He has appeared on The Today Show with soprano Renée Fleming, Good Morning America with soprano Cecilia Bartoli, and The Tonight Show with tenor Gary Lakes.
Murphy has played continuo harpsichord with the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra in productions of Così fan tutte, La Cenerentola, Le nozze di Figaro, Don Giovanni, La Clemenza di Tito and Idomeneo. He has been musical assistant and played continuo harpsichord for the Seiji Ozawa Opera Project in Japan, at the Tanglewood Music Festival and Verbier for James Levine and worked with Esa-Pekka Salonnen at La Jolla’s SummerFest. He is also a regular adjudicator for the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions.
Heidi Grant Murphy is a native of Bellingham, Washington. She began vocal studies while attending Western Washington and continued her studies at IU. Her graduate studies were interrupted when she was named a winner of the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions and engaged by James Levine to participate in the Metropolitan Opera’s Lindemann Young Artist Development Program. Murphy has appeared with most of the world’s finest opera companies and symphony orchestras and has a close working relationship with many of the world’s most esteemed conductors.
Her latest recording is Lullabies & Nightsongs, based on the children’s book illustrated by Maurice Sendak. With Lorin Maazel and the New York Philharmonic, she appears on a live recording of Mahler’s fourth symphony and a separate recording of Augusta Read Thomas’s Gathering Paradise on New World.
Additional recordings include Roberto Sierra’s Missa Latina with the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra, and the Grammy-nominated Sweeney Todd (Johanna) for the New York Philharmonic’s private label. She has recorded Schumann’s Das Paradies und die Peri with the Staatskapelle Dresden as well as Idomeneo (Ilia) and Le Nozze di Figaro (Barbarina), both conducted by James Levine.
WFIU will feature music performed by Kevin Murphy and Heidi Grant Murphy throughout the month of October.
SEPTEMBER
Weiss
WFIU’s artist of the month for September is Yael Weiss, former associate professor of chamber music at the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music.
Yael Weiss has performed across the United States, Europe, Japan, Korea and South America at such venues as the Kennedy Center, Carnegie Hall, and London’s Wigmore Hall. She has appeared as a soloist with major orchestras such as the Seattle Symphony, Prague Chamber Orchestra, and Israel Chamber Orchestra. She regularly performs at international music festivals including Marlboro, Ravinia, and Caramoor. From 1999 to 2003 Weiss served as artistic director of the Hersher Foundation Chamber Music Series in Connecticut.
Weiss has been honored with distinguished prizes from the 2002 Naumburg International Piano Competition and the Kosciusko Foundation Chopin Piano Competition, and has been a recipient of the Presser Award for her devotion to music education from the America-Israel Cultural Foundation.
She studied with Richard Goode and Edward Aldwell at the Mannes College of Music and with Leon Fleisher and Ellen Mack at the Peabody Conservatory. She has presented masterclasses for universities throughout the United States and Europe.
Weiss’s discography encompasses piano works by over a dozen composers. With violinist Mark Kaplan and cellist Clancy Newman, she tours worldwide with her piano trio, the Weiss-Kaplan-Newman Trio. A selection featuring the trio was chosen for the 2003 “Best of St. Paul Sunday” CD. A recent recording of Paul Chihara’s Ain’t No Sunshine, which the trio commissioned, was released on Bridge Records.
WFIU features music performed by Yael Weiss throughout the month of September.
AUGUST
Carmen Helena Téllez
WFIU’s artist of the month for August is Carmen Helena Téllez, a professor of choral conducting and the director of the Latin American Music Center at the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music.
Téllez balances activities as a creative multimedia artist, conductor, scholar, producer, and administrator. She directs IU’s Contemporary Vocal Ensemble and is the artistic co-director of Aguavá New Music Studio, an artists’ group with which she records and tours internationally.
Téllez has conducted 20th century masterpieces by Stravinsky, Ligeti, Schnittke, Xenakis, Lutosławski, as well as the canonic symphonic choral repertoire. She is the first woman on record to conduct the monumental Grande messe des morts by Hector Berlioz.
In 2006 she conducted the world premiere of James MacMillan’s Sun-Dogs, which she also co-commissioned. Mario Lavista’s Missa ad Consolationes Dominam Nostram, Cary Boyce’s Ave Maria and Ingram Marshall’s Savage Altars are among the distinguished choral compositions she commissioned and premiered.
Téllez also presented the collegiate premiere of Osvaldo Golijov’s opera Ainadamar, and she prepared the vocalists in the Chicago premiere of Antonio Estévez’s Venezuelan masterpiece La Cantata Criolla. She has conducted the Midwest and collegiate premiere of John Adam’s opera-oratorio El Niño, as well as the American premiere of Ralph Shapey’s oratorio Praise.
In 2010, Professor Téllez received the University’s Tracy M. Sonneborn Award for distinction as a teacher, scholar, and artist.
WFIU will feature music performed by Carmen Téllez throughout the month of August.
JULY
Klug
WFIU’s Artist of the Month for July is clarinetist Howard Klug, professor of clarinet at the Jacobs School of Music. A graduate of Ohio State University (BME, clarinet) and the University of Maryland (MM, flute), Klug regularly appears at venues around the U.S. and abroad, and gives master classes in London and Vienna.
A former member of the U.S. Air Force Band, where he was a featured soloist on flute, clarinet, and saxophone, Klug has also been the principal clarinetist of the Fresno Philharmonic, Bear Valley Festival Orchestra, Sinfonia da Camera, and the Indianapolis Chamber Orchestra, and a member of the Columbus (Ohio) Symphony Orchestra and the Grant Park Symphony.
With the Fresno Philharmonic (on flute and clarinet), the Bear Valley Festival Orchestra, Klug has been a concerto soloist; he’s also soloed with the Kamerorkest of the Staatsacademie of Vilnius. His extensive chamber music affiliations have included the Illinois Trio, the Illinois Woodwind Quintet, and the Chicago Ensemble.
His numerous articles on clarinet playing have appeared in The Instrumentalist, Leblanc Bell and The Clarinet, where he was the pedagogy editor for ten years. He created the music publishing company Woodwindiana, which brings out previously unpublished solo, chamber, and pedagogical works for clarinet. He is the author of the book on clarinet technique, The Clarinet Doctor.
Klug’s most recent CD, Elegie, was a collaboration with the late pianist Andrew De Grado and features the music of Sarasate, Debussy, Fauré, and others. As a member of Trio Indiana, Klug recorded music by Jean-Michele Defaye, Peter Schickele, and Gary Kulesha. Klug’s students preform in ensembles and teach in universities across the country.
WFIU will feature music performed by Howard Klug throughout the month of July.
JUNE
Pressler
WFIU’s artist of the month for June is pianist Menahem Pressler, the Dean Charles H. Webb Chair in Music and Distinguished Professor of Piano at the Jacobs School of Music.
Menahem Pressler fled from Germany to Israel in 1939. In 1946 he won his first major piano competition, the Debussy International Piano Competition. He made his American debut with the Philadelphia Orchestra under Eugene Ormandy, and for the next decade appeared with many orchestras across the country and internationally.
In 1955, Pressler made his chamber music debut with the Beaux Arts Trio at the Berkshire Music Festival. His collaboration with this group for more than fifty years made them the “gold standard for trios throughout the world” in the opinion of The Washington Post.
Throughout their time together, the Beaux Arts Trio recorded the entire standard piano trio repertoire. Following the Trio’s disbanding in 2008, Pressler has continued to work with groups such as the Juilliard, Emerson, and Cleveland quartets.
It was also in 1955 that Pressler joined the piano faculty at Indiana University. His former students hold teaching positions in prominent schools of music and conservatories across the country, and some have become internationally prominent performers. Pressler continues to teach private students, to give master classes around the world, and to serve on juries of international piano competitions.
Pressler has received six Grammy nominations and is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. In 2005 he received the German President’s Deutsche Bundesverdienstkreuz (German Cross of Merit) First Class, Germany’s highest honor, and France’s highest cultural honor, the Commandeur in the Order of Arts and Letters award.
WFIU will feature music performed by Menahem Pressler throughout the month of June.
MAY
WFIU’s artist of the month for May is Elisabeth Wright, professor of harpsichord and fortepiano at Indiana University’s Jacobs School of Music.
Wright
At the age of five, Wright spent hours sitting at the piano, studying the music of Brahms, Chopin, and above all, Bach. She discovered the harpsichord while studying at Sarah Lawrence College in New York, and, after graduating, she continued her studies in harpsichord with Gustav Leonhardt at the Sweelinck Conservatory in Amsterdam.
Upon her return to the U.S., she began her career as a performer and teacher. At IU, she teaches basso continuo improvisation and performance practices of music of the late Renaissance, Baroque, and early Classical periods and has given many master classes at conservatories around the world.
She has toured in the U.S., Latin America, Canada, Europe, and Australia, and performed at major early music festivals, including Mostly Mozart, Tanglewood, and Festival Cervantino.
Wright currently performs with the early music ensemble Musica Ficta, a group specializing in Renaissance and Baroque music from Spain and Latin America. She is a member of Duo Geminiani with fellow IU professor and violinist Stanley Ritchie, Ye Olde Friends, and Les Sonatistes. Many international groups have sought her as a guest performer, including Tafelmusik and the Seattle, Vancouver, and Portland Baroque orchestras.
Her recordings have appeared on labels such as Classic Masters, Focus, Centaur, Arts Music, Musical Heritage, Milan-Jade, and Pro Musica Antiqua. She has served on juries of international harpsichord competitions and has written reviews for Early Keyboard Journal.
Wright is a founding member of the Seattle Early Music Guild and Bloomington Early Music Associates. She served as a board member of Early Music America and a panelist for the National Endowment for the Arts.
WFIU will feature music performed by Elisabeth Wright throughout the month of May.
APRIL
WFIU’s Artist of the Month for April is Distinguished Professor of Music and Chairman of the Jazz Department at the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music David N. Baker.
Baker
David Nathaniel Baker, Jr. was born in 1931 in Indianapolis and throughout his education, he did not stray too far from home. He received both his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in music education from Indiana University and has studied with a wide range of teachers, performers, and composers, including J. J. Johnson, Bobby Brookmeyer, Janos Starker, Bernard Heiden, and Gunther Schuller.
A virtuoso performer on multiple instruments and top in his field in several disciplines, Baker has taught and performed in many countries. He is also the conductor and musical and artistic director of the Smithsonian Jazz Masterworks Orchestra.
As a composer, Baker has been commissioned by more than 500 individuals and ensembles, including Josef Gingold, Ruggerio Ricci, Harvey Phillips, and the New York Philharmonic. His compositions total more than 2,000 in number, including jazz and symphonic works, chamber music, and ballet and film scores. Other publications include 65 recordings, 70 books, and 400 articles.
He has served many music organizations, including the National Council on the Arts, the American Symphony Orchestra League Board of Directors, and the Jazz/Folk/Ethnic Panel of the National Endowment for the Arts.
Baker has received numerous awards, including the National Association of Jazz Educators Hall of Fame Award, the President’s Award for Distinguished Teaching from Indiana University, and the American Jazz Masters Award from the National Endowment for the Arts. His score for the PBS documentary For Gold and Glory earned him an Emmy. In 2001, he was honored as an Indiana Living Legend.
WFIU will feature music performed by David N. Baker throughout the month of April.
MARCH
WFIU’s Artist of the Month for March is Luba Edlina-Dubinsky, professor of piano performance at the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music.
Edlina-Dubinsky
Luba Edlina-Dubinsky started playing piano at the age of five in her native Kharkiv, Ukraine (then USSR). She made her first public appearance at the age of nine and by age seventeen she was accepted to the prestigious Moscow State Tchaikovsky Conservatory. Upon the completion of her studies under the guidance of the renowned professor Yakov Flier, Mrs. Edlina-Dubinsky graduated with distinction.
As the spouse of Rostislav Dubisnky, a founding member of the legendary Borodin Quartet, Mrs. Edlina-Dubinsky devoted most of her creative endeavors to chamber music. For twenty years she was a constant partner to the Borodin Quartet. In 1976 Mrs. Edlina-Dubinsky and her family emigrated to the west and settled in Holland. In 1977 the Dubinsky Duo and the Borodin Trio, consisting of the Dubinsky spouses and the cellist Yuli Turovsky, were formed. For the next twenty years, as member of both chamber groups, Mrs. Edlina-Dubinsky performed in concerts extensively all over the world. She recorded virtually the complete piano trio repertoire and made a number of piano-violin and piano-cello duo recordings (including the complete Beethoven violin sonatas). Her solo recordings include, among others, the acclaimed complete Intermezzi of Johannes Brahms and complete Songs Without Words of Felix Mendelssohn. In all, she recorded over fifty CDs. From 1976 to 1981 Mrs. Dubinsky held a professorship at the Rotterdam Conservatory in the Netherlands. Since 1981 she has been living in Bloomington, Indiana, where she is professor of piano at the Indiana University’s Jacobs School of Music.
WFIU will feature music performed by Luba Edlina-Dubinsky throughout the month of March.
FEBRUARY
WFIU’s Artist of the Month for February is flutist Thomas Robertello, professor of flute performance at the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music.
Robertello
Robertello is also a leader in the effort to expand the flute’s solo literature and the role of the flute in new music. He has commissioned and championed the works of several young composers including Martin Kennedy, David Dzubay, Mischa Zupko, and Matthew Van Brink.
A former member of the Pittsburgh Symphony, the Cleveland Orchestra, and the National Symphony in Washington, D.C., Robertello has performed as guest principal flutist with the Chicago Symphony, Los Angeles Philharmonic, and the Houston Grand Opera.
He has also made solo appearances at Pacific Music Festival, Nara Festival, Grand Teton Music Festival, Kirishima International Music Festival as the festival’s first flute soloist in 2003; the Londrina Music Festival in Brazil where he was the featured soloist; the Brevard Music Center, and numerous other venues.
With the San Francisco Symphony, Robertello was guest soloist in the release of Jerod Tate’s “Iholba” for solo flute, chorus, and orchestra. Solo recordings include the CD Gypsy Wheel which includes music by Griffes, Bizet/Borne, and Taffanel, and three new commissions with pianist Winston Choi.
Other solo recordings include Souvenir, a CD of works by Fauré and IU alumnus Martin Kennedy, with the composer at the piano, and Thomas Robertello: Flute Recital Live Japan Tour.
Robertello has served on the faculties of the Cleveland Institute of Music and Carnegie Mellon University. He has given masterclasses at the Shanghai Conservatory in China, and he has performed chamber music concerts with members of the Vienna Philharmonic and Empire Brass.
WFIU will feature music performed by Thomas Robertello throughout the month of February.
JANUARY
WFIU’s artist for the month of January is Edmund Cord, professor of music at the IU Jacobs School of Music.
Cord
Cord received his degree in trumpet performance from Indiana University in 1972, and was principal trumpet of the Israel Philharmonic, Utah Symphony, and Santa Fe Opera. He was a soloist with the Israel Philharmonic, Bangkok Symphony, and Utah Symphony, and he performs frequently with the Indianapolis Symphony, the Indianapolis Chamber Brass Choir, and Broadway touring companies. He has been the guest principal trumpet with symphony orchestras across the country and has performed with Doc Severinsen, Ella Fitzgerald, Henry Mancini, Marvin Hamlisch, the Moody Blues.
Previously, Cord served as director of the Bangkok Trumpet and Brass Festival and was brass coach and the trumpet faculty of the Asian Youth Orchestra. He is a charter member and frequent contributor to the International Trumpet Guild, writing about the trumpet music of Johann Sebastian Bach.
Cord coaches and conducts various ensembles and is director of the Indiana University Brass Choir, and his former students have performance and teaching positions in orchestras, colleges, and service bands all over the United States, and the world.
He has presented master classes, clinics, and workshops in brass performance in Australia, Israel, and throughout Asia and North America. His former teachers include some of the most important brass players of the twentieth century. they include Max Woodbury, Herbert Mueller, Louis Davidson, Charles Gorham, Thomas Stevens, and Arnold Jacobs.
WFIU will feature music performed by Edmund Cord throughout the month of January.
DECEMBER
WFIU’s Artist for the Month of December is Susann McDonald.
McDonald
Susann McDonald received her first training on the harp in Chicago and New York, and she moved to Paris at age 15 to study at the Conservatoire de Paris. At the age of 20, she won the Premiere Prix de Harpe—the first American to do so. Shortly after, she also won the International Harp Competition in Israel. She returned to this competition some years later as a judge. She has traveled as a performer to South America and Canada, and her performances have been broadcast all over Europe via radio and television performances.
In 1975, McDonald began her position as chair of the harp department at the Julliard School, a position she held for ten years. Previously she was the simultaneous head of the harp departments at the University of Arizona and the University of Southern California. In 1981, she became the chair of the harp department at the Indiana University School of Music, a position she still holds today.
McDonald founded the USA International Harp Competition in 1989 to help foster the careers and to acknowledge the accomplishments of the world’s most talented young harpists. The competition takes place in Bloomington, Indiana every three years and remains to this day the most prestigious harp competition in the United States, drawing competitors from around the world.
The 2010 competition winners came from France—first-place winner Agnès Clément; Japan—second-prize winner Rino Kageyama; and Russia—third-prize winner Vasilia Lushchevskaya.
McDonald’s recording career goes back to the early 1970s and includes most of the major repertoire for harp, and her recordings also include music of twentieth-century composers such as Miklós Rózsa.
WFIU will feature music performed by Susann McDonald throughout the month of December.
NOVEMBER
Elliott
WFIU’s Artist of the Month for November is tenor Paul Elliott, who serves as the director of Indiana University’s Early Music Institute.
Born in Cheshire, England, Elliott made his solo debut in England in 1972 and debuted in the United States in a performance of Handel’s Messiah at the Hollywood Bowl in 1982 with Christopher Hogwood and the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra.
He received his vocal training at St. Paul’s Cathedral in London (where he began his career as a choral singer) as well as at the King’s School Canterbury and Magdalen College at Oxford. His teachers were David Johnston and Peter Pears.
Elliott is most widely known for his performances of early music, having performed with European ensembles including The Academy of Ancient Music, The Early Music Consort of London, The London Early Music Group, Musica Antiqua Köln, The Deller Consort, Pro Cantione Antiqua, and The Hilliard Ensemble, of which he was a founding member.
Since 1985, he has been based in the United States. Performances have included Mozart’s Idomineo, staged in Chicago’s Shedd Aquarium, appearances at the Kalamazoo Bach Festival, the San Antonio Festival, and concerts with the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra, the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, The City Musick in Chicago, and the Canadian baroque orchestra Tafelmusik.
Elliott has performed works by twentieth-century composers such as Arvo Pärt, Steve Reich, and John Cage, and he makes frequent appearances with the San Francisco-based vocal and instrumental ensemble Magnificat Baroque which specializes in music of the 17th century.
He holds the Certified McClosky Voice Technician designation from the Boston-based McClosky Institute of Voice, of which he is a past president. He is an Honorary Fellow of the London-based Academy of St.Cecilia.
WFIU will feature music performed by Paul Elliott throughout the month of November.
OCTOBER
Colon
WFIU’s Artist of the Month for October is cellist Emilio Colón, associate professor of music at the IU Jacobs School of Music.
Before beginning a master’s degree at Indiana University, Emilio Colón received his bachelor’s from Puerto Rico Conservatory of Music where he won the Pablo Casals Medal upon graduation. During his time at IU, he studied with Janos Starker and served as Starker’s teaching assistant before joining the faculty of IU.
Colón serves on the faculty of music festivals in Texas and California, and he has also taught courses at the Paris Conservatoire, the Geneva Conservatoire, the Franz Liszt Academy of Music, and Toho Gakuen in Tokyo, Japan. He is Executive Vice President of the Eva Janzer Memorial Cello Center at Indiana University.
An active chamber musician, Mr. Colón played with the Emile Beaux Jeux Piano Trio, and from 1996 to 1998 he was a member of the faculty at the New World School of the Arts in Miami, where he performed throughout Florida as a member of the string Trio Vizcaya. Currently he is a member of the Amadé Piano Trio, in residence at Florida Atlantic University.
As a concert cellist, Mr. Colón has toured giving recitals, master classes, and playing as a soloist with orchestras in Costa Rica, Colombia, Ecuador, Guatemala, Puerto Rico, Spain, and the United States.
He has conducted the Indiana University Cello Ensemble in annual programs featuring mainstream cello ensemble music, as well as his own acclaimed arrangements that have been performed by other ensembles around the world.
Colón has made solo and chamber recordings for the Enharmonic, Zephyr, Lyras and Klavier labels, and was recently featured as performer, arranger and composer on Klavier’s recent release of “Obseción.”
WFIU will feature music performed by Emilio Colón throughout the month of October.
SEPTEMBER
Leonard SlatkinWFIU’s Artist of the Month for September is conductor Leonard Slatkin.
Leonard Slatkin is the Arthur R. Metz Foundation Conductor at IU’s Jacobs School of Music and the Distinguished Artist in Residence at the American University. He has enjoyed a long career conducting some of the most prestigious orchestras in the world. His father, a violinist, and mother, a cellist, helped found the Hollywood String Quartet, and his brother also plays the cello. He began his training at Indiana University and Los Angeles City College before getting his degree from the Julliard School. He conducted his debut concert in 1966 with the New York Youth Symphony, and he became the assistant conductor for the Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra under the guidance of his former teacher Walter Susskind.
Slatkin returned to the SLSO as the music directory after two years with the New Orleans Symphony. He stayed in St. Louis for the next seventeen years and helped to increase the reputation of the orchestra with a vast output of high-quality recordings. While building the SLSO, Slatkin also accepted guest engagements with leading orchestras in Europe and the United States including the Chicago Lyric Opera, Vienna Staatsoper, Paris Opera, and the Metropolitan, where he made his debut in 1991 with La fanciulla del West.
His list of recordings include the standard symphonies ranging from Haydn to Elgar, while his artistry as a conductor appears the most in his performance of twentieth-century composers such as Adams, Barber, Castelnuovo-Tedesco, Corigliano (whose A Dylan Thomas Trilogy he premiered), Ives, Schuman, and Piston. He has received acclaim for his recordings of Gounod’s Romeo et Juliette, the complete Vaughan Williams symphonies, and a series of works by Bernstein. His recording of William Bolcom’s Songs of Innocence and of Experience earned him a Grammy Award. He premiered his own composition, The Raven (based on the poem by Edgar Allen Poe), with the SLSO.
WFIU will feature music conducted by Leonard Slatkin throughout the month of September.
