News From the Hartt Dean's Office
April 3, 2007

Hartt Symphony Orchestra, April 6

The Hartt School will present a concert by the Hartt Symphony Orchestra on Friday, April 6, at 7:30 p.m. in Millard Auditorium on the University of Hartford campus in West Hartford.  The program for the evening includes Ottorino Respighi’s Fountains of Rome, lead by the Symphony’s assistant conductor, Scott Bean.  Guest pianist Sooran Lee will join the Symphony for Ludwig van Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 2, and the evening will conclude with Jean Sibelius’ Symphony No. 3, both under the baton of Symphony conductor Christopher Zimmerman. 

Scott Bean was one of the two winners of the fourth annual International Conductors Workshop held at Mercer University in Macon, Georgia, in January.  He earned a bachelor of music education degree from The Hartt School in 2005, and is currently pursuing his master’s in orchestral conducting at Hartt. In addition to his position as assistant conductor of the Hartt Symphony Orchestra, Bean directs the Hartt Tuba-Euphonium Ensemble and is guest conductor of the Contemporary Players Ensemble.

At Bean's professional debut with the Buffalo Philharmonic during the summer of 2006, he and the orchestra were praised by The Buffalo News for a mercurial and entertaining performance. Bean has also appeared with the Greater Buffalo Youth Orchestra and was the founder and former music director of the Frontier Summer Wind Ensemble.

A champion of contemporary and innovative works for all ensembles, Bean has given several world premieres of works for orchestra and wind ensemble during the past year. A recent premier featured the partnership of fellow Hartt composer, Phil Salathé. With the Holberg Chamber Orchestra, founded by Bean, they presented Divisions, a soprano saxophone concerto with chamber orchestra.

Korean-born pianist Sooran Lee has enjoyed her musical career with numerous appearances in recital and chamber music. In 2005, Ms. Lee made her New York debut recital at Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall presented by Artists International. As a winner of the Miami String Quartet Competition at The Hartt School, she had honor of performing with the Miami String Quartet.

Ms. Lee has been a prizewinner in several competitions including Puigcerda Music Festival Competition in Spain, the Korean-German Brahms Competition, the National Seoul Young Chamber Music Competition in Korea, and Paranov Concerto Competition at The Hartt School. She has also performed at prestigious music festivals such as the Vienna Music Festival in Austria, the Puigcerda Music Festival in Spain, and Manchester Music Festival in Vermont and Chamber Music Institute in Nebraska.

Sooran Lee began her musical studies at the age of four under her mother’s tutelage. After graduating Yewon School and Seoul Arts High School, Ms. Lee received her bachelor's degree at the Ewha Woman’s University. Ms. Lee is continuing her studies at The Hartt School where she studied with Oxana Yablonskaya and is currently a student of Paul Rutman.

All University of Hartford students, faculty and staff receive a free ticket to the concert.  Admission is $20 for the general public with discounts available for senior citizens, students, alumni and groups.

Purchase tickets online...

Lions Gate Trio, April 9

Hartt’s trio-in-residence will present a concert on Monday, April 9, at 8 p.m. in Bliss Music Room.  Violinist Katie Lansdale, cellist Scott Kluksdahl and pianist Florence Millet will be joined by Scott Kluksdahl and students from The Hartt School for Boulez’s Messagessquisse for Cello Ensemble.  The concert also includes works by Chausson, Takemitsu and Mozart.  Admission is free.

Visit the Trio's web site...

HARTT DANCES, April 13-15

The Dance Division of The Hartt School presents HARTT DANCES on Friday and Saturday, April 13 and 14, at 7:30 p.m. and on Sunday, April 15, at 3:00 p.m. in Lincoln Theater. 

A highlight of the program will be the presentation of the restaging of Michael Fokine’s original choreography of Les Sylphides by Hilda Morales and Terence Duncan.  Ms. Morales and Mr. Duncan are both faculty members in The Hartt School Dance Division.  Les Sylphides, performed to music by Frederic Chopin, is a one-act romantic suite of dances in which a poet is inspired by magical sylphides in the romantic atmosphere of a moonlit park. 

Also on the program is Martha Graham’s Panorama, a social protest piece choreographed in 1935, with music by Norman Lloyd.  After its premiere at Vermont’s Bennington College, the work was never performed in New York until the current 12-minute excerpt, also titled Panorama, was reconstructed in 1992 from a film of the original work.   The content of the piece is conveyed by movement: the vigorous dynamics, the use of overlapping units of dancers, the shape of the bodies that telegraphs the spirit of militancy and contemplation.

The concert features several additional works choreographed by Hartt faculty members. 

• Hero, by Kathryn Stevinson-Nollet, showcases three male students in an athletic, full-contact, mesmerizing work about the journey of young men thrust into manhood to serve their country.  Stevinson-Nollet is the director of Full Force Dance Theatre, Hartt’s resident dance company. 
• Ginza Court, choreographed by Adam Miller, director of the Adam Miller Dance Project.
• Gypsy Suite, choreographed by Alla Nikitina.

The final piece on the program is SING, SING, SING, set to the lively Benny Goodman big band tune, with choreography by Douglas Graham.  A master “Fosse” teacher, Graham has appeared on Broadway and in national tours of Cats, Chicago, Phantom of the Opera, Bob Fosse’s Dancin’ and A Chorus Line.  He has also choreographed for Disney and theatres worldwide.  A video clip of the Hartt students rehearsing SING, SING, SING can be viewed on YouTube.

All University of Hartford students, faculty and staff receive a free ticket to the concert.  Admission is $20 for the general public with discounts available for senior citizens, students, alumni and groups. 

Purchase tickets online...

Miami String Quartet, April 19

The Hartt School presents the final concert of the season by quartet-in-residence Miami String Quartet on Thursday, April 19, at 7:30 p.m. in Lincoln Theater. The group will be joined by guest cellist Steven Thomas to perform Alexander Glazunov’s String Quintet in A Major.  The evening’s program also includes Franz Joseph Haydn’s String Quartet in C Major and Bruce Adolphe’s String Quartet No. 4 “Whispers of Mortality”.

Prior to the concert, there will be a dinner and interview with a member of the Miami String Quartet. The dinner will take place in the 1877 Club in the University of Hartford’s Harry Jack Grey Center at 6 p.m.  Dinner tickets are $39. 
               
Steven Thomas is known internationally as a soloist, chamber musician and teacher. A top prize-winner in the Villa-Lobos (Rio, 1982) and J.S. Bach (Washington, 1985) International Competitions, as well as several national competitions in the U.S. and his native England, he performs regularly throughout Europe, North and South America. He has appeared in most of the major concert halls of Europe and the U.S., and has recorded for radio and CDs in Denmark, Holland, the Czech Republic and Israel. He is a regular participant in chamber music festivals in such varied locations as Sao Paulo (Brazil), Cape Cod and Topeka, Kansas.

Mr. Thomas is the principal cellist of the New Haven Symphony Orchestra, and he attracts students from all over the world to both his private studio and The Hartt School, where he has been a faculty member since 1994. He has given master classes at universities in Brazil, Italy and Connecticut. Mr. Thomas received his performers' diploma from the Royal College of Music in London at the age of 16, and holds degrees from Cambridge and Yale Universities, including a Doctorate from the latter, where he studied with Aldo Parisot.

To learn more about the Miami String Quartet, visit their web site.

All University of Hartford students, faculty and staff receive a free ticket to the concert.  Admission is $30-36 for the general public with discounts available for senior citizens, students, alumni and groups. 

Purchase tickets online...

FOR YOUR INFORMATION

Hartt Celebrates 2007
Join us on Saturday, April 14 in the Grand Ballroom of the Hilton Hartford Hotel for Hartt Celebrates 2007.  This elegant “cocktail attire” affair is our annual fundraising gala.  Your support will help our theatres perform as well as our students!  The final piece of funding for our new Performing Arts Center, a $4 million bond that has been recommended by Gov. M. Jodi Rell and approved by the state Bond Commission in January ’07, will allow the first phase of construction to begin this spring.  With the opening of the Performing Arts Center, many theatre productions and dance classes currently held in Fuller Music Center will be relocated to the new space.  Facilities in Fuller will be upgraded to state-of-the-art performance standards as these spaces are reclaimed for use by our music divisions.  Proceeds from Hartt Celebrates 2007 have been earmarked for the planned improvements of these performance facilities, which include enhanced acoustics and lighting; comfortable, permanent seating; and expanded stage and backstage areas.

Hartt Celebrates is a great evening.  It includes an elegant dinner, a silent auction, a live auction hosted by Colin McEnroe of WTIC News Talk 1080, and performances by Hartt’s talented students.  Tickets are $200 per person with a table of 10 costing $1,750.  If you have corporate contacts, sponsorship of the event is $3,000 for a table of 10.  People who come to this event are invariably impressed with the quality of performance at our school.

For more information on this event, contact Micah Woods in the Hartt Public Relations office at (860) 478-4862 or HarttPR@hartford.edu.

“Lost Survivors” Features Music by Banned Jewish Composers, April 16

Baritone Michael Kutner will present ”Lost Survivors”, a DMA Lecture Recital on the life and works of six banned composers from Nazi-era Germany, on Monday, April 16, at 7:30 p.m. in Wilde Auditorium.  Kutner will be joined by pianist Kyle Swann for an evening featuring the works of banned composers Zemlinsky, Schreker, Grosz, Korngold, Krenek and former Hartt Professor Karl Weigl.

After more than 60 years, the banned music of the Jewish Entartete (Degenerate) composers and their associates and students in 1930s Nazi Germany is being rediscovered. In the last decade in Europe, there has been a resurgence of interest and performances of this unjustly neglected music culminating in Franz Schreker’s opera Die Gezeichneten (The Branded) opening the prestigious Salzburg Festival in Austria in 2005.

Earlier this month in California, conductor James Conlon announced that he will begin a multi-year project to perform the music of composers banned by the Nazis beginning with the Los Angeles Opera Company production of Alexander Zemlinsky’s Eine Florentinische Tragödie.  The work was also showcased in a March 7 story on NPR‘s radio program All Things Considered.

Admission to the program is free.

The 2007 winners of the Young Artist Piano Competition held at Shawn's Pianos in West Hartford include Silver medalist Anastasia Seifetdinova, a student of Oxana Yablonskaya, and Bronze medalists Corbin Beisner and YuChen Shih, students of Luiz de Moura Castro.  The competition was organized by the Connecticut State Music Teachers Association for Collegiate Piano. The judges were Ligia Amadio, conductor of Brazilian National Symphony Orchestra, Philip Kawin of the Manhattan School of Music and Neal Larrabee of the University of Connecticut in Storrs.

Several Hartt students were interviewed for a story about campus a capella groups which aired on WNPR.  Jacob Voychick (BMus Music Ed Trombone Performance 2008) explained how he transcribes instrumental parts to be interpreted by voice.  Also interviewed was Sarah Shulman (BA Performing Arts Management 2010), who is the “beat box” percussionist for the University of Hartford a capella group Vocal Explosion.  Colin Britt (BMus Composition 2007) is music director for University of Hartford group L’Shir. The group joined some of the best college groups in the Northeast for the semifinals of the International Championships of Collegiate A Capella on March 31 at Stamford Center for the Arts.  L’Shir also performed live on WNPR’s Where We Live.
WNPR, March 21
Where We Live, March 21

Hartt student Matthew Russo wrote an opinion piece about the defeat of a plan to upgrade his former high school in New Hartford, NY. He talked about how great the need is to improve facilities for music students, but also for athletics and for science and technology students.  Russo is a freshman in Hartt’s Music Education Division who also studies trombone performance.
Utica Observer-Dispatch, March 11

ACADEMIC ACCOLADES

Hartt’s trio-in-residence, the Lions Gate Trio, with Katie Lansdale (violin), Scott Kluksdahl (cello), and Florence Millet (piano), will be featured in an article in the American Composers Forum's quarterly publication Sounding Board. Among the topics discussed will be the role the group had in inspiring and mentoring the West End String Quartet, a group composed of Hartt graduates, with their advocacy of new music.

The Steve Davis Quintet kicked off the Spring 2007 concert season at Firehouse Five in New Haven.  Davis is a faculty member and alumnus of Hartt’s Jackie McLean Institute of Jazz.
The Hartford Courant, March 13

The Alturas Duo, charango/violist Carlos Boltes (GPD viola performance 2004) and guitarist Scott Hill (MMus guitar performance 2002, GPD guitar performance 2004), will perform South American Classical and Folk music at Trinity On Main in New Britain on Saturday, April 14, at 7:30 p.m.  There will be a 6 p.m. Happy Hour and supper.    Hill and Boltes are also faculty members in Hartt’s Community Division.  Call 860.229.2072 or visit their website for more information.

In its “Cal” section, the Hartford Courant previewed the March 30 show by New York City-based band, Ollabelle, in the University’s MUSIC for a CHANGE benefit concert series. The story featured an interview with Tony Leone, a Hartt School alum and percussion instructor, who is a member of Ollabelle.
The Hartford Courant, March 29

ALUMNI NEWS

The world premier documentary film Sacco and Vanzetti with original soundtrack and performance by Hartt alumnus John T. La Barbera (1973) opened in New York City at the Quad Cinema on March 30 and will open in Los Angeles on April 6.  The film is distributed by First Run Features.  The film features the voices of actor John Turturro (Miller's Crossing, Oh Brother Where Art Thou) and Tony Shaloub (Monk) as well as appearances with Arlo Guthrie.  La Barbera is a guitarist and composer on faculty at Bergen Community College in Paramus, New Jersey.  Visit his web site.

Dr. Matthew Hoch (MMus Voice 2003), assistant professor of music at Shorter College, has been named one of two national recipients of the 2007 NATS Vocal Pedagogy Award. The award is presented annually by the Foundation of the National Association of Teachers of Singing (NATS) to fund educational projects related to vocal pedagogy and voice science.  Dr. Hoch will use the grant to obtain teaching certification in Somatic Voicework Training, the only graduate-level certification course in the country devoted to the pedagogy of Contemporary Commercial Music (CCM). CCM pedagogy concerns the teaching of non-classical vocal styles including rock, pop, country, jazz, gospel and folk.  Dr. Hoch was inspired to pursue further education in this area because of the thriving musical theatre program at Shorter College. He said, “Our musical theatre majors will be expected to sing in all styles when they get employed, and I want to help them get the skills that they need.”  The certification course will take place in July at Shenandoah University in Winchester, Va., and the workshop will be led by Jeanne LoVetri, one of the country’s most renowned specialists in CCM pedagogy.

The Department of Music at Arkansas State University presented the final concert in the 2006-07 Faculty Recital Series on March 14, featuring Lauren Schack Clark (BMus Piano Performance 1987). Clark is professor of piano and keyboard activities supervisor at ASU and performs frequently as a soloist and collaborative artist.  She holds a doctor of musical arts degree from Boston University, a master’s in Piano Performance and Pedagogy from Northwestern University, and a Graduate Diploma from the Longy School of Music in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Arkansas State University, March 14

Read the Community Division's Newsletter

Alexina Aron, age 15, was a finalist and prize winner in the Rantucci International Classical Guitar Competition (Youth Division) which was held March 23.  Alex was also a first prize winner in the Rosaro Youth Classical Guitar Competition earlier this year.  Alexina is a student in Hartt's Certificate Program.  She studies Classical Guitar with Dick Provost, faculty member of The Hartt School.

Carriage House Violins of Reuning & Sons Violins will be visiting The Hartt School on Saturday, April 14 from 10 a.m.to 2 p.m. for their Hartford Spring Appreciation Sale.  They are offering discounts on instruments, bows and cases.  To schedule an appointment, call 617.262.0051 or email.

Auditions for Hartt Summer Vocal Institute, April 28 & 29

The Hartt School Community Division will hold auditions by appointment for the Summer Vocal Institute on Saturday April 28, from 11:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Sunday, April 29, from 1:15 to 5:30 p.m. on the University of Hartford campus.  This eight day intensive program for singers, actors and dancers in grades 8 to 12 will be held June 23 to July 1.  Students will participate in acting, dancing, voice and writing classes and apply what they learn through performance, with an emphasis on music and scenes from rock musicals.  The program concludes with a showcase on the last day.

To schedule an appointment, please call 860.768.7768 or email.  Students should prepare two contrasting musical theatre selections and a 60-90 second memorized monologue.  Please bring sheet music in the correct key.

For more information on the Summer Vocal Institute, visit the school’s web site.

Help Wanted - Birthday Party Planner Needed!

The Hartt School Community Division is seeking an Event Coordinator to plan and execute dance and early childhood music birthday parties as well as special group events.  Birthday parties include Ballet Birthdays for young children, Hip/Hop or Broadway Birthdays for "tweens" and teens and First Steps in Music Birthday Parties.  Group Events include a Meet the Sugar Plum Faerie Event, Dance Me a Story Event, Girl Scout Dance Merit Badge programs and more.  The Event Coordinator is also be responsible coordinating various school events including social events, hospitality for special performances, fundraising events and other opportunities as needed.

A complete job description and application instructions can be found at our web site.