In late July assistant professor of piano Diane Birr served on the faculty of International Workshops in Graz, Austria. She presented, in collaboration with Jean Barr of the Eastman School of Music, a session on Robert Schumann's op. 85, Twelve Four-Hand Pieces for Big and Little Children. During the two-week event Birr performed several recitals, including those with Eduard Melkus, baroque violinist from Vienna, and François Rabbath, bassist with the Paris Opera Orchestra. In addition, she coached chamber music and performed in the numerous string master classes offered at the workshop.
Associate
professor of trumpet Frank Campos conducted a performance of Dana
Professor Dana Wilson's Ascent of Helicon at the International
Brassfest, held at the University of California, Long Beach. This very
dramatic work is scored for six trumpets surrounding the audience and is
performed in the dark!
Last winter Professor Kim Dunnick performed with the Hofer Symphoniker, the orchestra of Hof, Germany. Substituting for the coprincipal trumpet, who was on leave during that time, Dunnick played a combination of principal and second trumpet for concerts, operas, and ballets.
At
the Russian Consulate in New York City this spring, assistant professor
Richard Faria '87 performed a concert of Russian music with the
Sylvan Wind Quintet. During the summer he taught at the Apple Hill Center
for Chamber Music in Keene, New Hampshire. He also performed a concert
of music by Beethoven, Bartók, and Messiaen with the Guild Trio
in Easthampton. This fall he played at Cornell University. That concert
featured Joan Tower's new clarinet quintet, as well as music by Stravinsky
and Elliot Carter.
Associate professor Mark Fonder was a visiting associate professor in music education at the University of Washington in Seattle this summer. He taught graduate classes in music education history, wind literature, and advocacy.
This summer Professor Janet Galván was a guest faculty member at Villanova and Hartt School of Music and conducted Bernstein's Chichester Psalms for the NYSSMA Directors Chorus.
Last spring associate professor Lee Goodhew performed Carl Maria von Weber's Andante and Hungarian Rondo with the Ithaca College Wind Ensemble, both on campus and on their spring tour. She also performed Weber's Bassoon Concerto with the Ithaca College Concert Band on campus and Mozart's Sinfonia Concertante with the Cayuga Chamber Orchestra. In addition, she recently performed two concerts with the Syracuse New Music Society. In June the Ithaca Wind Quintet performed at the 25th annual conference of the International Double Reed Society.
Assistant professor of music education Maud Hickey was recently elected national chair for the Music Educators National Conference Creativity SRIG (Special Research Interest Group). Hickey will facilitate and help focus discussion around the topic of research on musical creativity through the publication of a national newsletter as well as through a new World Wide Web site she was developing this fall. In addition, she will coordinate the Creativity SRIG conference session at the national MENC convention in Phoenix in 1998.
Hickey also coauthored an article with Northwestern University professor Peter Webster. "Rating Scales and Their Use in Assessing Children's Music Compositions" was published in the winter 1995 issue of the Quarterly Journal of Music Teaching and Learning.
Assistant professor Mark Hill's summer activities included performances at the Music from Gretna Festival in Mt. Gretna, Pennsylvania, where he performed the Marcello Oboe Concerto and several Bach arias. He also appeared in the nationally televised "Mostly Mozart Festival Concerts, Live from Lincoln Center," with soloists Pinchas Zukerman and Itzhak Perlman. He was a guest artist at the Kniesel Hall Chamber Music Festival, where he performed Loeffler Rhapsodies, and guest artist and faculty member at Music from Apple Hill, where he performed Joan Tower's Island Prelude for oboe and strings. Hill's student Sandy Stimson '93 was one of four oboists selected nationally to be a fellow at the Tanglewood Music Festival.
On June 3 assistant professor Jean Loftus received the Civic Morning Musical Award for excellence in performance. The association was established in 1890 for central New York performances.
This summer associate professors Wendy Mehne and Karl Paulnack presented a lecture recital on "Tempo and Rhythmic Implications in the Flute Sonatas of J. S. Bach" at the National Flute Association convention in New York City. Mehne also performed and coached chamber music at the Wisconsin Youth Symphony Orchestra Workshop. She reports that Jennifer Mitchman '94 won the Army Field Band flute audition and Colleen Countryman '93 is the second flute with the Columbus Symphony in Ohio.
Assistant professor Jonathan Sokasits '83 served as rehearsal accompanist for the North American Children's Chorale, composed of six children's choirs from around the country and directed by Janet Galván. He performed with this group and the New England Symphonic Ensemble at Carnegie Hall on June 30.
Sokasits served for the fourth year as a piano faculty member at Blue Lake Fine Arts Camp in Twin Lake, Michigan, in July and August. As a member of the faculty piano trio Aurora, he performed a concert of works by Arensky, Beethoven, and Ravel. The other trio members are violinist Lauren Davis, concertmaster of the Baton Rouge Symphony, and cellist Alyson Berger '90.
In May Sokasits recorded Karel Husa's Concertino for Piano and Wind Ensemble, under the supervision of the composer, with the Ithaca College Wind Ensemble conducted by Professor Rodney Winther.