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VARSITY VIOLAS 2011
Music for Viola Ensembles

October 23, 2011 at 3:30 p.m.

Grace and St Paul's Lutheran Church
123 W. 71st St, NYC

Admission: Free!
More information: (212) 592-7785

The Penn State Viola Ensemble
Directed by Tim Deighton
Conductor, Matthew Sheppard

Michael Kimber - Reflections
Tsan-Kuang TK Lee -Thinn Ooh Ooh (Darkening Sky)(World premiere)
John Hawkins - Tri for 6 violas
Frank Bridge - Cradle Song
Paul Chihara -Concerto Piccolo, III. Allegro Vivace (World premiere)

The Penn State Viola Ensemble’s participation in this event was made possible with support from the James E. Hess and Suzanne Scurfield Hess Endowment for the Penn State School of Music.

Intermission

The Crane Viola Ensemble
Faculty Advisor: Shelly Tramposh

Carl Stamitz - Viola Concerto
George B. Chave - Viola Sextet
Johann Groh - Five Intradas

Scott Slapin - Capricious for Three Violas (Homage to Emanuel Vardi)
Shmuel Katz, Ann Roggen, Brenton Caldwell

[Note about Emanuel Vardi]

Join the performers for a read-through of the Bach Brandenburg Concerto No. 6! Email us at newyorkviola@gmail.com for more information.

About the Performers:

Since beginning viola studies at the age of twelve, Brenton Caldwell has performed throughout the US, Canada, Europe, Japan, South America and Africa. Brenton has received numerous awards including prizes in the 2009 National Young Artist and the Watson Forbes International Viola Competition. As a soloist he has performed with the Curtis and Banff chamber ensembles, and the East Texas Symphony Orchestra. A dedicated chamber musician, he has appeared at the Amelia Island Chamber Music Festival, BRAVO! Vail Valley Music Festival, the Chamber Music Conference and Composers' Forum of the East, Music@Menlo, Angel Fire, Banff, Ravinia, Verbier, Tanglewood, Pacific Music Festival, Festival Mozaic, Festispiele Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, and the Medellín Festicámara Internacional. Brenton regularly performs alongside esteemed artists such as Roberto Díaz, Gary Graffman, Daniel Hope, Marc Johnson, Ida Kavafian, Menahem Pressler, Steven Tenenbom, and Eugenia Zukerman. With an ardent devotion to education, Mr. Caldwell has participated in numerous outreach projects and concerts, presented masterclasses throughout the U.S., South Africa and Colombia, and served as teaching assistant to his long-time mentor Karen Tuttle. Other major viola instructors include Ruth Morrow, Susan Dubois, Jeffrey Irvine, Lynne Ramsey, Roberto Diaz, and Misha Amory. This past season Mr. Caldwell served as guest principal violist with the Boston Philharmonic and KwaZulu-Natal Philharmonic Orchestras. Brenton is an alum of the Academy - a program of Carnegie Hall, The Juilliard School, and the Weill Music Institute. Through the Academy he taught in the New York City public school system and performed at Carnegie Hall and Juilliard as a member of Ensemble ACJW. In addition to continued collaborations with Ensemble ACJW, Mr. Caldwell performs frequently with groups such as the American Ballet Theater Orchestra, Metropolis Ensemble and the New York Philharmonic. A native of Tyler, Texas, Mr. Caldwell earned his Bachelor of Music degree at the Cleveland Institute of Music and an Artist Diploma from the Curtis Institute of Music.

The Crane Viola Ensemble is a student-led group at the Crane School of Music,dedicated to performing pieces for multiple violas. Although many of the concerts feature original works for multiple violas, the group also arranges its own music. The CVE has had two concerts at The Crane School of Music in the past year, which included performing trios, quartets, and quintets, as well as concerts at area retirement homes. The students are coached by Shelly Tramposh, the viola professor at the Crane School of Music. Members of the group include:
Kimberly Callahan (junior)
Dave Phillips (sophomore)
Stephanie Vitkun( sophomore)
Timothy MacDuff (sophomore)
Joshua Olmstead (freshman)
David Bojanowski (sophomore)

This semester, the Crane Viola Ensemble will be featured at a college-wide open house, as well as performing on the NYVS concert in New York City.

Shmuel Katz serves as principal violist with the Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra and with Pennsylvania Ballet. He is a member of the Orchestra of St. Luke’s and plays regularly with the Philadelphia Orchestra and the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra. Mr. Katz has appeared as principal violist and concertmaster with the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra. He recorded with them for EMI label and has toured with them in Europe, Asia and North America. He is a member of the string department faculty at NYU where he teaches viola and chamber music.
Shmuel received his bachelors and masters degrees from the Manhattan School of Music where he studied violin and viola with Pinchas Zukerman and Michael Tree.

The Penn State Viola Ensemble: Members are Samantha Bollinger, Macullen Byham, Jinian Compton, Joseph Cosgrove, Brett Detweiler, Leah Frederick, Lindsay Fulcher, Caitlin Hartig, Nicola Hicks, Di Lu, Alexandra Lukasiewicz, Curtis Rainey, Renata Ribeiro, Matthew Ross, Gretchen Seaver Lee, Stephen Weiss, and Anna Zeshonsky.

Violist Ann Roggen is a member of the Orchestra of St. Luke's and has recorded extensively for the Telarc, Sony and Deutsche Gramaphone recording labels. She maintains an active and vital studio at William Paterson University where she is professor of viola, chamber music and orchestral studies. As a member of the Bennington and Vassar College faculties,she has had great success in developing interdisciplinary cultural events designed to combine music with literature, history, dance and language in performance. Ann is an avid researcher of unique and unusual repertoire for the viola in combination with other instruments and voice. In her role as President of the New York Viola Society, she has been successful in creating numerous performance opportunities in New York City for dedicated violists to explore this repertoire, both old and new. In the fall of 2008, she was elected to the national board of the American Viola Society. A few of Ms.Roggen's recent creations include an evening featuring the violists of the London Symphony Orchestra,a pair of concerts focusing on viola music by film composers,as well as a presentation at the Pen and Brush devoted to the life and works of composer Rebecca Clarke. A highlight of Ann's current season is a project called "Entartete Musik",a series of concerts for viola,saxophone and piano that explore the music of composers suppressed by the Third Reich in the 1093's-1940's. Highlights of recent seasons include concerto performances with the Zagreb Chamber Orchestra (Croatia), as well as recitals and master classes under the auspices of the American Cultural Centres in Zagreb and Vilnius, Lithuania. Ms. Roggen received her musical training at the Peabody Institute of Johns Hopkins University, and the Juilliard School.

Dr. Shelly Tramposh is an avid recitalist and chamber musician, performing recitals in Europe, Central America and throughout Northern America to critical acclaim. She performs at congresses held by the American Viola Society, and has presented at ASTA national conferences. Her CD of works for viola and piano, "Sprezzatura", is available from PARMA recordings, and includes world premieres of works by Paul Chihara and Paul Siskind. Dr. Tramposh is published in The Strad, and has presented master classes and practicing presentations across the country. Before joining the Crane faculty, Dr. Tramposh was a member of several orchestras, including the Colorado Symphony, the Rochester Philharmonic and the Colorado Springs Symphony, where she was Associate Principal viola. Her teachers include Martha Katz, Steven Tenenbom and Burton Kaplan; she holds degrees from the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, the Eastman School of Music and the University of Colorado at Boulder.