classical music boulder, co
classical music Boulder, Colorado
Guest Musicians
Lindsay Deutsch
Violin
Hailed by the L.A. Times as having “… the technical equipment and temperament for a big career…”, American violinist, Lindsay Deutsch, brings a fresh perspective to classical performances. Taking the listening experience to the next level, she plays with a passion and energy that has thrilled audiences throughout the US and Canada. At 23, critics find that she demonstrates “…fine maturity even during the most physical and demanding passages” (San Francisco Classical Voice), and “…has a stage presence and style far beyond her years and a charisma that enthralled her audience.” (LCF Outlook – La Canada, CA)
In the 2008-2009 season, Ms. Deutsch makes her debut with the South Carolina, Brevard, West Virginia, and Norwalk Symphonies as well as the Portland and Mission Chamber Orchestras. She also makes return appearances with the National Academy and Oakville Orchestras in Ontario, Canada and the McGill Chamber Orchestra in Montreal.
Highlights of recent seasons include performances with the Colorado Symphony and the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, both conducted by Jeffrey Kahane, as well as a performance with the McGill Chamber Orchestra in Montreal, conducted by Boris Brott, the Knoxville Symphony conducted by Lucas Richman, and the San Diego Chamber Orchestra with Jung-Ho Pak conducting. Other recent performances include the Fort Worth Symphony, Las Cruces, New West, San Diego Symphony, Redlands, Palm Springs, National Academy and Oakville Symphonies in Canada, and the Boulder Chamber Orchestra. She made her Walt Disney Concert Hall debut performing John Corigliano’s Red Violin Chaconne with the California Philharmonic.
Ms. Deutsch made her solo orchestral debut at the age of 11 with the Clear Lake Symphony in Texas. As a recitalist, she has appeared on the prestigious Dame Myra Hess Memorial Concert Series in Chicago, the Los Angeles Da Camera Society at the historic Doheny Mansion, at L.A.’s Gindi Auditorium, as guest artist at the PepsiCo Recital Hall at Texas Christian University, and several solo performances for the Leonard Nimoy Concert Series. In addition, she performed a recital at the Colorado Symphony Spring Ball with Jeffrey Kahane. Ms. Deutsch has also appeared at Boston’s Jordan Hall, Houston’s Wortham Theatre, Theatre Aquarius in Toronto, Canada and the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles where she performed excerpts of Mark O’Connor’s “Strings and Threads” with the composer and the Disney Young Musicians Symphony Orchestra. She was honored by being invited to perform the theme from “Schindler’s List” for John Williams at a gala dinner in his honor.
As chamber musician, Ms. Deutsch has appeared at the La Jolla Summerfest and the Green Music Festival collaborating with artists Gil Shaham, Jeffrey Kahane, Adele Anthony, Cho-Liang Lin, Sheryl Staples, Arnold Steinhardt, Chee-Yun, Nokuthula Ngwenyama, Alisa Weilerstein, Gary Hoffman, and the St. Lawrence String Quartet.
The internationally known Strad Magazine featured Ms. Deutsch as their pick of “Up-and-Coming Musicians” in their April 2007 issue. Her movie credits include playing the solo violin sound track for the 2006 movie “The Good Shepherd” starring Robert De Niro. She has also collaborated and is the featured “Pro” on the newly released See-Like-Me, Play Like a Pro DVD violin instruction series. Ms. Deutsch's performance of Astor Piazzolla's "Four Seasons of Buenos Aires" with the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra was selected for NPR's Symphony Cast program. Ms. Deutsch has also appeared as a soloist on the national radio program, From the Top in which her performance of Bartok’s Roumanian Folk Dances with Christopher O’Riley was selected for inclusion on the “Best of” CD produced by From the Top. She was featured on Live From WFMT in Chicago and her performance of Vivaldi”s “Summer” with the Colburn Conservatory Orchestra was presented on the Sunday’s Live Series (K-Mozart radio), as well as numerous other performances airing on several National Public Radio stations including Performance Today which featured her in a performance of the Prokofiev “Duo for Two Violins” with Chee-Yun.
Ms. Deutsch feels strongly that the young people of today need to be exposed to the world of classical music. She is actively involved in outreach programs to present classical music in new and exciting ways that will thrill and inspire the young audiences of today. She also has a page on her website specifically aimed at young musicians and their parents which attracts 70,000 hits per month. She has garnered corporate support for this site which encourages young musicians and selects a “Student Musician of the Month” which highlights and recognizes outstanding musicians from all over the U.S. and Canada. In 2007, she and her sister, Lauren, co-founded a non-profit organization, Classics Alive (www.ClassicsAlive.org), dedicated to building classical music audiences. Classics Alive is currently developing a new web site which will allow student musicians from 4 to 18 to upload videos of their performances to be viewed by fellow young musicians from around the world.
In addition to her music, Lindsay Deutsch was a formidable racquetball player. She won the gold medal in the World Junior Olympic Racquetball Championships in 1997 and was selected to the 2000 U.S. Junior Olympic Team.
Lindsay Deutsch currently studies with Robert Lipsett at the Colburn Conservatory. She plays on a 1742 Sanctus Seraphin on generous loan from the Mandell Collection of Southern California.
Read more about Lindsay at www.lindsaydeutsch.com.
Ars Nova Singers
Choir
Specializing in a cappella music of the Renaissance and modern era (20th and 21st centuries), Ars Nova Singers is celebrating its 26th season in 2011–2012. Composed of selectively auditioned choral musicians from the Denver/Boulder metropolitan region, this professional-core ensemble has presented over three hundred performances of more than a hundred different concert programs. The ensemble has received significant national recognition, including the Chorus Program of National Endowment for the Arts and the Aaron Copland Fund for Music, and in 2010 it was a semi-finalist for The American Prize in choral performance. In addition, Ars Nova has released ten independent recordings on compact disc and performed on seven internationally released recordings with Boulder composer and instrumentalist Bill Douglas.
Thomas Edward Morgan
Director
Thomas Edward Morgan, Artistic Director and Conductor of the Ars Nova Singers, is a leading interpreter of new music in Colorado. Mr. Morgan received his Bachelor of Arts degree in Music from Macalester College in St. Paul, Minnesota, and his Master of Music degree in composition from the University of Colorado. He studied choral and orchestral conducting with Dale Warland, Helmut Rilling, and Giora Bernstein and has taken master classes with Eric Ericson and Herbert Blomstedt. In addition to his work with Ars Nova Singers, he currently serves as Music Director of St. John’s Episcopal Church in Boulder, a position he has held for twenty-three years.
Szilvia Schranz
Soprano
Ms. Schranz was born in Budapest, Hungary into a family of musicians that had worked for generations in the Hungarian National Opera and Hungarian Festival Orchestra. At the age of 10, her family escaped their country's oppressive communist government to relocate in Boulder, Colorado where her father's string quartet, the Grammy-winning Takács Quartet, were appointed as musicians-in-residence at the University of Colorado School of Music.
Ms. Schranz schooled in Boulder at the foot of the majestic Rocky Mountains and later studied voice at the University of Colorado. With her rare strength and clarity in the upper coloratura ranges, she won First Prize in the school's prestigious Anderson Vocal Competition and received a full talent scholarship to the Aspen Music Festival. In 1998, she received a bachelor's of music.
After graduating from the University of Colorado, Ms. Schranz performed at the Denver Center for Performing Arts with their Tony-award winning theater company in the Tempest. She then went to further her studies at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London where she studied with Vera Rózsa, who also taught such renown singers as Kiri Te Kanawa and Anne Sofie Von Otter. After a year's study in London, she received a post-graduate diploma in vocal training.
While in London she appeared several times with the London Chamber Soloists, including solo performances of Mahler's Des Knaben Wunderhorn at the Queen Elizabeth Hall, as well as in Mozart's Requiem and Haydn's Creation at St. Martin in the Fields. She also sang at a charity concert for the Kensington Housing Trust at the Leighton House in London.
Back in Boulder, she performed Il Tramonto by Respighi with the Takács Quartet before moving to New York to study at the Manhattan School of Music, where she was taught by the world-renowned Mignon Dunn, best known for her mezzo performances at the Metropolitan Opera. While at Manhattan, she performed as Zerlina in Don Giovanni and Papagena in Die Zauberflöte. She also went to the International Institute of Vocal Arts where she sang in L'Enfant et les Sortileges and won a scholarship to the International Vocal Arts Institute in Montreal. In 2003, she received a Master's of Music from the Manhattan School of Music.
Leah Creek
Mezzo-soprano
Mezzo-Soprano Leah Creek was selected as a national winner of the prestigious Metropolitan Opera National Auditions and holds a Master of Music degree in Voice Performance from Indiana University. Recent solo concert appearances include Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony with the Boulder Philharmonic, Mozart’s Requiem with the Colorado Springs Philharmonic, and Mozart’s Mass in C Minor with the Philadelphia Chamber Chorus. Ms. Creek made her Carnegie Hall debut in New York with Mid-America Productions as a soloist in Haydn’s Lord Nelson Mass and has returned there as a soloist in Duruflé’s Requiem as well as Mozart’s Requiem. She has extensive performance credits in opera, performing roles for two years at New York City Opera along with major roles with companies such as Opera Company of Philadelphia, Opera Colorado, Santa Fe Opera, Syracuse Opera, Sarasota Opera, and Des Moines Metro Opera. Ms. Creek and her husband co-direct Petite Musician, an early-childhood music and movement program that offers Music Together classes in the greater Denver area.
Joel Burcham
Tenor
American tenor Joel Burcham has firmly established himself as a young professional in the world of opera and classical music. A star on the rise, he is known for his dominant stage presence as demonstrated through sensitive acting and “effortless command of his voice,” which was further described by Chris Shull of the Wichita Eagle as a tenor voice of “clarion tone and operatic power.” “Burcham’s soft voice,” declared Jim Edwards of the Chicago Tribune, “was lyrical and smooth as silk but when he opened up his voice, beautiful loud steely notes poured forth.” This versatile tenor voice has appropriately enabled Mr. Burcham to command leading roles with several of North America’s top opera companies. Handsome as he is gifted, Burcham meets each engagement with self-assured dignity and grace. Operatic highlights include Alfredo in La Traviata with Music by the Lake, Lake Geneva, Wisconsin; The Duke of Mantua in Rigoletto for Opera Fort Collins; Pinkerton in Madama Butterfly with Knoxville Opera; Spoletta in Tosca for Madison Opera; and Pang in Turandot for Madison Opera and Opera Omaha. Mr. Burcham made his professional operatic debut with his portrayal of Lindoro in L’Italiana in Algeri with Central City Opera.
The 2010–2011 season commenced with Mr. Burcham fulfilling a return engagement with Opera Fort Collins playing The Duke of Mantua in Rigoletto and with his debut with Knoxville Opera playing the role of Pinkerton in Madama Butterfly, a role Burcham commands with delicate sensitivity and dramatic power. The affable young Burcham is currently preparing for his debut in the title role of Charles Gounod’s Faust in the Bob Jones University Opera Association’s Concert, Opera, and Drama Series production.
Read more about Joel at joelburcham.instantencore.com.
Matthew Singer
Bass
Matthew Singer has performed all over the United States, having sung such roles as Enrico in Lucia di Lammermoor, Alfio in Cavalleria Rusticana, Tonio in I Pagliacci, Dr. Falke in Die Fledermaus, Count Almaviva in Le Nozze di Figaro, Danilo in The Merry Widow, Marcello and Schaunard in La Bohème, Guglielmo and Don Alfonso in Così fan Tutte, Grovesnor in Patience, Mr. Bluff in The Impresario, Yamadori in Madama Butterfly, Boatswain in H.M.S. Pinafore, and Presto in Les Mamelles des Tiresias, as well as the title role in Rossini’s buffo opera Il Signor Bruschino. Matthew has also sung extensively in Oratorio, having been a soloist in the Mass in B Minor of Bach, Elijah by Mendelssohn (in the title role), The Christmas Oratorio of Saint-Seans, Handel’s Messiah, and many more. In the summer of 2003, at the Tanglewood Music Festival, he received critical acclaim for the role of Pierchon de la Rue (Narrator) in the World Premiere of Robert Zuidam’s Rage d’Amours, commissioned by Tanglewood for the 2003 festival. He has also performed with Seattle Opera (part of the inaugural year of the Young Artist Program), Salt Marsh Opera, Asheville Lyric Opera, the Buffalo Philharmonic, the Mansfield Symphony, and the Master Chorale of North Carolina, to name a few.
Read more about Guest at www.theirsite.com.
Alfredo Muro
Guitar
Alfredo Muro was born in Lima, Peru. At the age of 10 he began teaching himself to play the guitar, and he progressed rapidly. He was soon awarded a scholarship to study with Maestro José Pepe Torres at his Guitar Academy.
At age 13, Mr. Muro took the top prize in a nationally televised competition featuring musicians from more than one hundred schools. In 1971, he was the winner in the year-long TV program Trampoline to Fame.
Mr. Muro continued his studies with two of the greatest Peruvian guitar masters, Octavio Ticona and Carlos Hayre, gaining mastery of harmonic theory and the rich variety of Peruvian folklore. After four years of intense studies he moved to the United States to broaden his musical skills, studying with great masters Manuel Lopez Ramos, Frank Costa, and John Doan.
Mr. Muro had the honor of representing Peru at the 16th Annual International Guitar Festival–2005 in Lima and for the second time at the 5th Annual International Guitar Festival–2007 in Arequipa. These juried events featured artists from thirteen countries, including Spain, Germany, Sweden, the United States, Argentina, and Japan. In 2008, Mr. Muro was invited to participate at the Entre Cuerdas International Guitar Festival in Chile and at the First International Guitar Festival in Junin de los Andes in Argentina. In April of 2009 he performed in Brazil at the Federal University of Rio do Janeiro, and in July of that year he was featured in three concerts in the cities of Numberg and Berlin, Germany.
While on tour in Europe, Mr. Muro played with his group Oro Del Peru for the late Pope John Paul the Second at a "Special Audience" at the Vatican.
Over the years he has been invited to participate in many international guitar seminars, and has been selected for Master Classes with some of the World's premier guitarists, such as Manuel Lopez Ramos (Argentina), Carlos Barbosa-Lima (Brazil) and Alfredo Escande (Uruguay). In addition, Mr. Muro has appeared on numerous recordings, stage, radio, and television programs.
Mr. Muro has presented concerts in Germany, Italy, Canada, Brazil, Peru, Argentina, Chile and in many venues throughout the United States. In 2007, he had the privilege to be the featured artist at the Kennedy Center for the Millennium Concert Series in Washington D.C. and at Benaroya Hall in Seattle.
Mr. Muro is not only an accomplished soloist, but is also an arranger and composer. His work as an accompanist has also won critical acclaim. In 1999, Mr. Muro released a solo CD, "Journey Through The Strings" to rave reviews, with the honor of having international artist Jose Feliciano endorse the CD. Mr. Muro has released five other CD's: "The Musical Sea", "Alfredo Muro and Friends Live at St. Gertrude Monastery", "Alma Brasileira, Volume 1", "Alma Brasileira, Volume 2"and his latest solo guitar works "Latin Impressions", released June 2009. Another important project in progress is the publication of his transcriptions of selected Brazilian solo guitar works.
His Repertoire ranges from classical music to Latin American and Spanish music, and from the Beatles, Baden Powell and Jobim, to Bach and Handel. Mr. Muro has a special love of Brazilian music. He has studied and mastered the intricate styles of Choro, Samba, Frevo, Bossa Nova and Afro-samba and interprets many South American composers such as Villa-Lobos, Barrios and Lauro with aplomb.
In March of 2005, Mr. Muro was selected for the Jack Rosenberg Memorial, Musician of the Month Award, by the Jazz Society of Oregon in their Jazzscene magazine. The Centinela Newspaper in Portland, Oregon, featured Mr. Muro as the "Hispanic of the Month". The Hispanic Yellow Pages Directory introduced him as the "Pride of the Hispanic Community".
Mr. Muro and his wife reside in Boulder, Colorado.
Read more about Guest at www.alfredomuro.com.
Claire Huangci
Piano
Born in Rochester, New York, 20-year-old pianist Claire Huangci astonishes all who hear her perform. Coming from a family of scientists, Claire received a grand piano for her 6th-year birthday present. After exploring the instrument herself in the first year, she started taking lessons when she was 7. And in the same year, she was featured on FOX News as a child prodigy with “the skills of a professional pianist.”
During her studies, Claire was awarded with a number of scholarships and won many competitions, including the Grand Prize at the 1999 World Piano Competition. As a result, she performed in the gala concert with the World Festival Orchestra in Cincinnati and in a winner’s concert at Carnegie Hall. Continuing her studies at the Curtis Institute of Music, she went on to win the Philadelphia Orchestra Competition and performed with the Philadelphia Orchestra under the baton of Wolfgang Sawallisch, one of dozens of American orchestras she has appeared with.
In April 2006, Claire won first prize in the 57th Kosciuszko Chopin International Piano Competition in New York City. She made her first appearances in Europe with solo performances in Munich (Herkulessaal), Frankfurt, Leipzig (Gewandhaus), and Paris (Salle Cortot) and has also performed with the China Philharmonic Orchestra.