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Alumni Class Notes
CLASS OF 2008
Viola da gamba player Rachel Cama-Lekx is currently pursuing her Doctor of Musical Arts at Case Western Reserve University, where she also has a teaching assistantship. She most recently played viola da gamba for an upcoming album by Natalie Merchant.
Mezzo-soprano Michelle Vachon is currently singing with the Boston-based female a cappella quartet Anthology. She is also singing with the Tanglewood Festival Chorus, First Parish of Cambridge Choir, and The Irving Fine Society Singers. She has been invited to sing on the University of Dayton’s Alumni Series in February of 2009
CLASS OF 2007
Rachael Chagat runs a choral camp in Ohio each summer. She enjoys running when she is not working or practicing.
Ashley Hall moved back to Cincinnati and resumed her post with the Dayton Philharmonic. She recently won the principle trumpet position with the Cincinnati Chamber Orchestra. Later this spring, she will travel to India with her fiancé Nate Tighe to work with orphans.
Elise Kopesky is a Development Assistant at the San Francisco Conservatory.
La Tarsha Long is one of four resident artists at the Connecticut Opera for 2007-2008.
Elisabeth Mehl Greene is currently pursuing her Doctor of Musical Arts degree in composition at the University of Maryland, where she also teaches music theory.
Saxophonist Paul Saunders is a specialist (E-4) in the U.S. Army Band. Beginning September 17th through Thanksgiving he will be attending army basic training at Fort Jackson in South Carolina. Following basic training he will then begin advanced military/music training. Following this training, his family will reunite at Fort Jackson, South Carolina. There he will join his new band, where he will be for the next three years. He gives all the best to all his friends and everyone at Longy. “You're a great bunch at a great place - rejoice! : )”
Arlyn Valencia is a fellow at Community MusicWorks in Providence. She also teaches at the Framingham Performing Arts Center.
CLASS OF 2006
Currently living in New York City, Aaron Butler is teaching Dalcroze Eurhythmics at the Lucy Moses School.
Violinist Sarah Glenn works at Longy and teaches violin at the North End Music and Performing Arts Center. She is involved with the Park Street String Quartet. After graduating from Longy, she and her husband Andy adopted two English Bulldogs, Bones and Stu.
Composer Eva Kendrick was most recently commissioned to write pieces for the Rinalto Arts, the New Gallery Concert Series and Dinosaur Annex for their annual Young Composers Festival. This festival is co-sponsored by the Community Music Center of Boston. She is also the music director at the First Parish Unitarian-Universalist in Medfield, MA. In September, she started teaching solfege, theory, and private lessons at the Community Music Center of Boston. She recently married Christopher Kale Conley in Oahu, Hawaii. Her piece, “Famous” for children’s choir, adult choir and string quartet was commissioned and performed by the First Needham Parish and Grace Episcopal Church.
Amy McGlothlin is Adjunct Professor of Saxophone at Salem State College.
Flutist Meghan Miller recently joined the faculty of Longy where she maintains a private studio and is the director of the Preparatory Flute Ensemble. She is co-founder of Duo Voix Claire, a flute/piano duo with Mika Tanaka. She also is the flutist and co-founder of the Fifth Tier New Music Ensemble. Meghan began pursuing her doctorate in flute performance in Fall 2007 at Boston University. She was recently a finalist in the James Pappoutsakis Flute Competition.
A double bassist, Julia Shulman is a first year DMA student at Eastman, where she is also an aural skills teaching assistant.
Michael Winer is currently pursuing a Graduate Performance Certificate at Park University’s International Center for Music in Parkville, MO, where he studies violin with Ben Sayevich. He is also developing and directing an after school program for Children at Risk, in collaboration with the Carnegie Arts Center (Leavenworth, KS) and the Leavenworth School district.
Ching Yeo is Assistant to the President at New England Conservatory.
CLASS OF 2005
Composer Caglar Arsu is pursuing his master’s degree at Istanbul Technical University in Turkey. He is studying with Cr. Michael Ellison and will soon submit his thesis, “Fantasia for Piano and Orchestra.”
Pianist Shoko Baba currently lives in Japan but misses Boston. She was the 1st prize winner of the Bradshaw and Buono International Piano Competition and performed in Carnegie Hall in October, 2006 and in May, 2007. She works for the Tokyo International Music Company, translating master classes and lectures.
Angela Beth Carr is living in Okinawa, Japan, working as the music minster/associate pastor for the Keystone Church of the Nazarene.
Flutist Trisha Craig is on faculty at Johnson State College in Vermont. She owns a music school in Hampton, NH, and also teaches at a school in Manchester, NH. She writes and teaches marching band drill in Dracut, MA, and plays all over the place. She is also on the Board of Directors for Beagles of New England States.
Carola Emrich-Fischer is keeping busy performing in and around Boston, as well as in Germany. She recently was a featured soloist in Lior Navok’s “And the trains kept coming…,” which premiered in Jordan Hall. Carola also frequently performs with the Libella Quartet, one of Boston’s most exciting new vocal quartets, as well as with the Handel and Haydn Society. Carola and her husband, Colin, are expecting their second child in July 2008.
Ana-Maria LaPointe is a masters' degree graduate from Longy School of Music in Cambridge, MA as student of Malcolm Lowe, concertmaster of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. She has won first prizes at the Orpheus Competition, the Interpretation Competitions, the Young Virtuoso Competition, and the Longy Orchestra Soloist Competition. She has played live on WGBH, the main Romanian radio station, and on the television show "Musicians Today and Tomorrow". She received her Undergraduate Diploma from the Longy School, at which time she studied with Sophie Vilker. She is an active performer and teacher; and plays with the New Hampshire Symphony Orchestra, Nashua Symphony Orchestra, Granite Symphony Orchestra and Indian Hill Symphony Orchestra and she teaches violin at the Atlantic Union College, and Seacoast Academy of Music. She is from Bucharest, Romania and has given recitals in both Romania and the USA, including in Carnegie Hall, New York.
Stephanie McGuire is currently singing at the New York City Opera.
Ellen Santaniello recently joined the Terra Nova Consort, an early music ensemble based in Oregon, as soprano and percussionist, and has been performing with them for the past year. She continues to play wild folk music and newly composed chamber music (most recently a piece for 3 hurdy-gurdies--two of them giant) with her friends from Rhode Island. She is on the voice faculty at Rhode Island College and directs their early music ensemble. The baby she used to drag to class has turned into a happy 5-year old with very good pitch.
Laura (Siegel) Schechter is currently pursuing her Ph.D. at Brandeis in musicology.
Richey Tally is the new patron services manager of the Berkeley Symphony.
Panos Terzakis has been traveling around Europe and frequently visiting the United States performing in theatrical productions, recitals and participating in recording projects. He has just finished recording his debut album that will include songs from the project “Graecia Magna”. He also recorded a song for a famous Italian producer that will soon be released internationally. As a musical ambassador between the U.S. and Greece, he just finished his sold-out shows in Athens named “Across The Water” that included the genres of Broadway, Jazz and Spirituals. He is now preparing to return to the classical music world after an invitation from the highly respected Greek Literary Society “Parnassus” to perform Hugo Wolf’s “Michelangelo Lieder” and Dimitri Terzakis’ “Lieder Ohne Worte” Zyklus II, which will travel in Greece and Germany in 2009-2010. This falls’ surprise was Panos’ guest appearance in the TV Drama Series “Alithinoi Erotes” (True Love Stories) that will be broadcasted in Greece and Cyprus at the end of October, 2008.
CLASS OF 2004
Karen Burciaga works at Longy and frequently performs with her group, Seven Times Salt.
Ji Young Lee has been at the Washington National Opera for the past two years, under the leadership of conductor Placido Domingo. Her roles at the National Opera included Gilda (Rigoletto) and she sang Marie in La Fille de Regiment. This season, she will be singing at the New York City Opera.
Yong Im Lee most recently matriculated from the University of North Carolina in Greensboro with her Doctor of Musical Arts in Piano Performance. She is currently teaching as an adjunct piano professor at the Winston Salem State University.
Laura Marshall recently returned from a summer abroad as a guest at the renowned Franz Schubert Institute in Baden, Austria. Favorite performances include: Susanna in Le Nozze di Figaro, St. Ursula in St. Ursula and the 11,000 Virgins with Ars Nova in Boulder, CO, Lieder beym Klavier zu singen with the Boston Clavichord Society, and singing the Top 10 on Late Night with David Letterman.
Hilary Philipp recently received the 2008 Ralph Gomberg Oboe Merit Award. After graduating from Longy, she pursued her master’s degree at the University of Massachusetts Amherst with Fred Cohen and graduated in 2007. Last summer, Hilary was awarded a fellowship to attend the Festival International de Inverno I Campos do Jordao, Brazil. Currently, she is performing with orchestras around New England.
Ana Catalina Ramirez is pursuing her master’s degree at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst. She recently won the Principal Clarinet position in the Mississippi Symphony Orchestra.
Matthew Wright currently teaches guitar at Indian Hill Music Center in Littleton, and at Riverside Theatre works in Hyde Park. He is also the tenor section leader at Eliot church in Newton. He is still slowly taking over the world with his group, Seven Times Salt.
Pianist JeeYeon Yim lives in Seoul, Korea. In addition to giving performances and teaching piano at several colleges including her alma mater, she teaches classes on 20th Century American Music and Research Techniques and Bibliographies.
Currently living in Atlanta, Belinda Yu is working as a Video Journalist at CNN. She received her Master’s in Journalism from Stanford University in June.
CLASS OF 2003
Violinist Frederic Bednarz, is currently playing with the Molinari Quartet.
After graduating from Longy, Elias Morales-Carino returned to Mexico, where he was appointed as Full-Time Associate Professor at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México in Mexico City. His roles include teaching, accompanying, coaching, performing, and researching. He has also completed a second Master’s Degree in Musicology. He would like to say “Thank you Longy!”
Theodore S. “Ted” Davis is the organist and choirmaster at St. Bartholomew’s Church in Baltimore, MD. Ted’s “debut” on the Baltimore-Washington D.C. airwaves was broadcast in October. He was interviewed by WBJC-FM’s Mark Malinowski for the weekly “Toccata” program, following Ted’s performances of works by Bach and Mulet at St. Bartholomew’s. Also in October, Ted was featured on American Public Media’s Pipedreams, a national broadcast. On a program entitled “The American Muse”, Ted performed the world broadcast premiere of “Chaconne” by, Leigh Baxter, a composer from Virginia.
Elizabeth Hays was recently named the Executive Director of the Washington Sinfonietta, a new chamber music orchestra in Washington D.C., which she performs regularly with. Elisabeth was recently engaged and will be married in July 2008.
Kristin Hertzenberg is currently playing “Christine” in the Las Vegas company of Phantom of the Opera and is expecting her first baby in November of 2008.
Pianist Momo Shinohara recently won 2nd prize in the International Schubert Competition in Dortmund, also receiving the special prize for the best performance of a Schubert Sonata.
CLASS OF 2002
Mezzo-soprano Sara Bielanski-Lozano frequently performs in the greater Boston area. She has sung with Opera Boston, Boston Pops and BSO Chorus, Chorus Pro Musica, and Longitude. She has sung jazz at many area venues, and has been involved with several recording projects. She is the vocalist of The Meltdown Incentive, a Boston-based classical improvisation group that regularly performs at area schools and galleries.
Soprano Ann Moss is currently living in the San Francisco Bay area after finishing a post graduate degree at the San Francisco Conservatory in 2005. She sings a lot of contemporary chamber music and is performing the coloratura role with a local opera company. She also teaches a roster of students from various musical backgrounds.
Lorna Jane Norris is the co-chair of the voice department at South Shore Conservatory. She is very interested in uniting the worlds of singing and body awareness through her work as a yoga instructor. Recently, she was a quarterfinalist in the American Traditions Competition in Savannah, Georgia.
Jayne Tankersley is back in her home country, New Zealand, teaching, conducting choirs and singing. She is hoping the Early Music scene in New Zealand will improve in the next few years with her help. She is very busy with her three children, Harry, Ollie, and Juliette.
CLASS OF 2001
Lisa DeSiro is the Editorial and Production Assistant for C.P.E. Bach: The Complete Works, a publishing project of the Packard Humanities Institute. She organized an alumni concert at Longy on November 2, 2007.
Violinist Tobias Steymans is the concertmaster of the Zurich Opera House.
Brenna Wells was recently selected as a semi-finalist for the Chimay Baroque Vocal Competition to be held in September, 2008 in Chimay, Belgium. She received a grant from the Anna Sosenko Assist Trust for performing artists to fund her participation in the competition.
CLASS OF 2000
Flutist Sarah Brady is currently on faculty at the Boston Conservatory. She recently placed second in the National Flute Association’s Young Artist Competition. She performs with the Boston Ballet, the Boston Modern Orchestra Project, Pro Arte Chamber Orchestra, Opera Boston and the Indian Hill Symphony Orchestra.
Xin Ding plays in the first violin section in the Boston Symphony Orchestra, where she has been since 1999.
Brenna Wells just sang as a young artist in the Ton Koopman Workshop: Handel Works for Singer, as part of the Weill Music Institute at Carnegie Hall. She was also one of two singers chosen for a fully-funded scholarship to sing in the Egida Sartori and Laura Alvini Early Music Seminars in Venice, Italy in May 2008.
CLASS OF 1999
Carolyn Smith performs regularly in the Boston area. She teaches recorder classes at the Cambridge Center for Adult Education. If you are interested in a novel about life in Pompeii in the shadow of the volcano, check out her mom’s new book, The House of the Faun.
CLASS OF 1998
In addition to her continued performances with Liber unUsualis and Tapestry, Carolann Buff is currently pursuing her Ph. D. in Historical Musicology at Princeton University beginning in the fall of 2008. This past August she recorded L’homme arme masses of Marbrianus de Orto and Josquin des Perez with the Renaissance ensemble Cut Circle. She also performed with the Boston Camerata and the Tero Saarinen dance company on their tour through Australia and New Zealand in Spring, 2008.
CLASS OF 1997
Nillawanna Rojanasthien was the first Thai student at Longy to receive a Master of Music in Dalcroze Eurhythmics. It has been 10 years since she left Longy but her memories are still very promising and clear. After returning home to Thailand, she established the Nillawanna Eurythmics Center where she teaches Eurythmics and piano lessons to students from the ages of 6 months to adulthood. The school will celebrate its 10th anniversary this year. Since 1999, she has been invited by the Faculty of Music of Mahidol University to conduct workshops for teachers from all over the country. She thanks all of the inspiring teachers, faculty and the Longy Community for her success over the years. She highly recommends the Longy School of Music to anyone who wishes to gain a life-long knowledge from this very unique experience.
CLASS OF 1990
Lauren Schack Clark currently teaches at Arkansas State University, where she is the Keyboard Area Coordinator. Her recent performances have included solo recitals in Naples, Italy, Berklee College of Music and Dickinson College in Pennsylvania. This year she performed a recital at the University of Florida as part of the ASU Double Reed and Piano Trio, collaborated with violinist Stephen Sims at the Cleveland Institute of Music and Denison University. February, 2008 marked the release of her CD by Centaur Records, which contains solo piano music by Boston composer Dr. Rosey Lee; faculty at Berklee College of Music. Most recently published was her book, “Keyboard Theory and Piano Technique” by Longbow Publishing. Also in 2008, she was voted Teacher of the year by the Arkansas State Music Teachers Association and is the first Vice President of that organization.
CLASS OF 1974
Since graduating from Longy, Louis Arnold has been on the Applied Music faculties at a number of schools and colleges. In 1985, he made a career move to industry to earn money to support a family. He has continued to teach and play guitar.
Will Dick is the chair of the Guitar Department at the Brookline Music School. He has recorded classical, popular and original music for guitar and vocals. He has performed extensively throughout eastern U.S.
