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 Dear Alumni:
It seems like only yesterday we were celebrating the successful
completion of the third academic year at 50 Oak Street and eagerly
awaiting our summer vacations. Yet here we are in November, and the
2009-2010 school year is well underway. New and returning students are
already deep into ensemble rehearsals, lessons, classes and
performances.
Regarding the latter: Having been to numerous performances already this
year, I can say without hesitation that the energy level at the
Conservatory is noticeably high – and we, as alumni, should feel great
pride in having at least a little to do with this! On August 26, 18
alumni performers and composers took part in our Inaugural Alumni
Reception and Recital. Attended by more than 250 fellow alumni,
students and donors, the reception allowed alums to reconnect with one
another and also to connect for the first time with the Conservatory’s
current student body. The recital featured performances that were both
beautifully executed and amazingly well received. It was the perfect
way to kick off the year, so much so that the Alumni Network Committee
– which was instrumental in getting this first go-around off the ground
-- hopes to make it an annual occurrence.
The Alumni Network Committee has other things in store as well:
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Alumni
Studio
Classes
Alumni Studio Classes are taking place this first semester and
throughout the year. On September 22, Dan Becker, professor of
composition, hosted 11 alumni composers ranging from Class of 1973 to
Class of 2009 in a discussion of recent works and career advice. On
October 22, Mack McCray and Yoshi Nagai hosted an Alumni Piano Studio
Class for ten alums to perform new works in front of an audience, while
on December 2, violin professors Bettina Mussumeli and Ian Swensen will
do the same for violinists. Invites will be emailed soon.
Secure
Alumni Section on Website
The Conservatory’s website is undergoing a massive overhaul, the
results of which will be launched in mid-2010. Included in the new site
will be a secure section for alumni, through which we will be able to
offer targeted benefits for all Conservatory graduates.
Facebook
Be on the lookout not only for an improved SFCM Fan Page on Facebook,
but for an Alumni Fan Page as well. This will be the perfect medium for
alums to reconnect with one another, to update “fans” with performance
and career information, and to find out about what’s going on at 50 Oak
Street.
And don’t forget about what the Alumni Network Committee has already
done on your behalf. Alumni access to 50 Oak Street has recently become
much easier, Conservatory alumni are able to get free access to the
Working Advantage Program, and our partnership with Google allows all
alums to get free, hosted email accounts.
There is more in store. I urge you to stay connected and to update us
with your achievements. I thank you for your support during the past
year and wish you a fabulous Holiday Season.
Thank you,
Gary Rust, M.D. (B.M. piano, ’83)
Alumni Network Committee Chair
Board of Trustees
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Join Conservatory faculty Bettina
Mussumeli
and Ian Swensen
for the first-ever Violin Alumni
Studio Class on Wednesday,
December 2 at 8:00pm in the Osher Salon. Attendees will be
given the opportunity to perform new works in front of an audience.
Invites have already been emailed. You can simply RSVP and provide
proposed repertoire through Michael Williams at mwilliams@sfcm.edu or
415-503-6245.
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 Calling all vocal alums!
Save The Date. Please plan to join us from 6:00-7:30pm
on Thursday, January 7th for a
casual, wine and cheese
reception and career discussion with renowned bass-baritone Chester
Patton (M.M. voice, ’91). Invites, RSVP info and additional
details
will be emailed soon. We hope to see you in the new year! |
| check out full the performance calendar |
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 Warren Jones (M.M. piano, ’77) was
recently honored as Collaborative Pianist of the Year by Musical
America, arguably the world’s most popular directory of classical
music. Jones compares playing with soloists to a game of doubles tennis
in terms of the need for an equal relationship. He’s played with many
of the world’s greatest singers and instrumentalists, including Marilyn
Horne, Kathleen Battle, Samuel Ramey, Kiri Te Kanawa and Stephanie
Blythe. Of Jones, soprano Ruth Ann Swenson said “He’s one of the
greatest musicians I’ve ever known. I trust him completely.”
 Ruby Fulton
(M.M. composition, ‘05), formerly a student of Professor Elinor Armer, won the ASCAP
Foundation Morton Gould Award for her composition Road Ranger Cowboy, a six minute
piece for orchestra written for the 2008 Cabrillo Festival
Composer/Conductor Workshop. She is one of 39 composers between the
ages of 10 and 30 who were selected out of a field of 680 applicants
this year to share the $45,000 grant.
“Road Ranger Cowboy is an imaginary
take on the larger-than-life perspective of a cowboy whom I encountered
in real life at a truck stop in Waterloo, Iowa,” Fulton said. “He
was a thin, elderly man with long white hair, dressed from head to toe
in ornate western cowboy clothing, complete with a ten-gallon hat and a
shining set of spurs. Since we were in a fairly urban area, just off a
busy interstate, with no horses in sight, I wondered why he might be
wearing such a costume, and I invented the narcissistic character of
the Road Ranger Cowboy, a lonely hero of dystopian America.”
As a faculty fellow of Peabody Conservatory, Fulton is currently
teaching music theory and studying for her D.M.A. in composition with
Christopher Theofanidis. She is also an adjunct faculty member of
Towson University. In her non-academic life, she plays with Baltimore
bands We Used To Be Family
(trumpet and violin) and Ike Shark,
Inc.
(viola). Her work can be heard at her website http://pcm.peabody.jhu.edu/~ruby/
Quartet Rouge, featuring Conservatory alumnus Erin Benim (B.M. violin,
’01), played in the Berkeley Repertory Theatre’s American Idiot, a
musical adaption of the album by East Bay punk outfit Green Day. The
Quartet -- which is already known for its eclectic pop/rock adaptations
-- performed onstage in eight shows per week alongside a rock band,
playing the full 2004 recording. The series ran through November 15.
 After eight performances with the Santa Fe Opera over the
summer,
Conservatory alumna Elza van den
Heever (M.M. voice, ‘04) headed to
Germany for a series of major roles this fall and winter with the Oper
Frankfurt. The South Africa native will debut as Vitellia in a
production of Mozart’s La Clemenza
di Tito, and reprise her portrayal
of Elisabetta in Verdi’s Don Carlo,
among
other
roles.
Later in the
season, van den Heever will appear in operas in Dallas and Vienna and
in a performance of Handel’s Messiah
with the National Symphony in
Washington, D.C. Elza can also be heard on the San Francisco Symphony’s
recent recording of Mahler’s Symphony
No.
8.
Conservatory alumnus Jeffrey Parola
(M.M. composition, ’05) was awarded
an honorable mention in the 2009 European American Musical Alliance
competition. Parola’s piece, Sempiterna
for
a
Capella
Mixed Chorus, was
among five pieces out of 150 awarded an honorable mention, with no work
being awarded the grand prize this year.
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The Picasso Quartet, featuring
alumni Alisa Rose (M.M.
violin, ’07), Natasha Makhijani
(B.M. violin, ’07), Alexa Beattie
(P.S.D. viola ’08),
and Michelle Kwon (M.M. cello,
’09), are excited to be supported this
season by the Berkeley Piano Club's Emerging Artists Fund and Noe
Valley Chamber Music’s Emerging Artist Series. In two early November
performances, the group performed Mendelssohn's last great Quartet in F
minor Op. 80, Conservatory Faculty David Garner's first string
quartet--which the group premiered last year--and Ravel's String
Quartet in F.
Violinist and former Conservatory Preparatory Division student Mindy
Chen, 13, was named first prize winner in the junior division of
the
2009 Henryk Wieniawski International Violin competition for violinists
under 17. She shares the $2,500 Golden Violin Award with Mone Hattori
of Japan who competed with 107 other violinists from 28 countries
through the three stages of the contest. A former student of Li Lin now
studying in Germany, Chen has been invited to perform in music
festivals and solo concerts in Italy, Switzerland and Russia as well as
back in the US.
Garineh Avakian
(B.M. voice, ’03; M.M. voice, ’05) is currently a
doctoral candidate in Vocal Arts at USC’s Thornton School of Music in
Los Angeles, CA. Between minoring in music education, stage direction
and conducting, Garineh somehow has time to teach voice and direct in
the Light Opera Workshop at the American Musical and Dramatic Academy,
also in Los Angeles. In August of 2010, Garineh will travel to Beijing
to present a lecture at the annual conference of the International
Society for Music Education.
The N-E-W Trio, featuring Conservatory alum Julio Elizalde (B.M. piano,
‘05) was recently named a new resident ensemble at the New England
Conservatory of Music. The trio, which is named after the letters of
members’ names, last year won the Fischoff National Chamber Music
Competition. They will be working with program director Vivian Hornik
Weilerstein at NEC.
Abby McKee (P.S.D.
flute, ‘06) continues her work as Education and
Outreach Coordinator for the Stern Grove Festival in San Francisco, an
organization that presents free musical performances every summer in a
beautiful outdoor amphitheatre at Sigmund Stern Grove in San Francisco.
Laura Snodgrass
(M.M. flute, ’04) is enjoying her second semester as
professor of flute at Humboldt State University. In addition to her
flute studio, this semester Snodgrass is teaching two sections of upper
level ear training, and will be adding woodwind chamber music next
semester. While getting “great teaching advice” from Conservatory
faculty David Conte and Tim Day, Laura is also enjoying
collaborating
with HSU faculty and fellow Conservatory alumni Nick Lambson (M.M.
guitar, ’06) and John Chernoff
(B.M. piano, ’95). “The Conservatory is
taking Humboldt by storm,” Snodgrass reports.
Tell us what you are up to!
Please email Alex Brose at awb@sfcm.edu
with your updates, accolades and announcements. |
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AUDITIONS:
San Diego Symphony
Position: Section
Violin (2 positions)
Application deadline:
30 days before audition date
Audition date:
December 13-14, 2009
Application info: http://www.sandiegosymphony.com
/downloads/repertoires/RepSectViolinDec_0910.pdf
Website: http://www.sandiegosymphony.com
/musicians_auditions.php
Santa Barbara Symphony
Position: Principal
Keyboard, Tuba and Viola
Application deadline:
Dec. 1, 2009
Audition date(s):
Jan. 19, 2010 (Keyboard and Tuba); Feb. 16, 2010
(Viola)
Application info:
see website
Weblink: http://www.thesymphony.org
/auditions.htm
Delaware Symphony Orchestra
Position: Concert
Master & Principal Bassoon
Application deadline:
Dec. 1, 2009
Audition date(s):
Jan. 11, 2010
Application info:
see website
Weblink: http://www.desymphony.org
/auditions.htm
Florida Orchestra
Position:
Substitute musicians for all instruments
Application deadline:
before audition
Audition date(s):
Sat. Dec. 5th, 2009
Application info:
see website
Weblink: http://www.floridaorchestra.org
/employment-and-auditions.asp
JOBS:
Position title:
Temporary Student Life Assistant
Organization: San
Francisco Conservatory of Music
Website: http://sfcm.snaphire.com/form
Posted: Nov. 16,
2009
Deadline: ASAP
Contact: see website
Description: SFCM
is looking for a Temporary Student Life Assistant to
assist with co-curricular programming and to help manage the office of
the President, Dean, Associate Dean, Executive Assistant to the
President, and Assistant to the Dean. Working under the supervision of
the Acting Associate Dean for Student Life, the incumbent will greet
students, faculty, staff and other visitors who enter the office suite,
coordinate the schedules of student workers in the office, and answer
phones. We expect this position to continue for approximately four
months.
Position title:
Public Relations Intern
Organization: San
Francisco Symphony
Website: http://www.sfsymphony.org/UploadedFiles/about
/info/PublicRelationsIntern.pdf
Posted: Aug. 14,
2009
Deadline: Open
until filled
Contact: see website
Description:
performing clerical and online community maintenance
duties, providing assistance with special projects and events etc.
Send application: see
website
Position title:
Assistant Orchestra Personnel Manager
Organization: San
Francisco Symphony
Website: http://www.sfsymphony.org/UploadedFiles/about
/AssistantOrchestraPersonnelManager.pdf
Posted: Sep. 14,
2009
Deadline: Open
until filled
Contact: see website
Description:
assists the Orchestra Personnel Manager as the administrator of the San
Francisco Symphony Orchestra’s collective
bargaining agreement; acts as liaison between management and orchestra;
serves as
resource and counsel for Orchestra musicians
Send application:
see website
Position title:
Marketing Assistant
Organization: LA
Philharmonic
Website: http://www.laphil.com/about
/jobs/details.cfm?id=299
Posted: Oct. 22,
2009
Deadline: not posted
Contact: see website
Description:
provides effective administrative and organizational
support to the VP of Marketing & Communications, and assists with
general marketing functions as needed by other Marketing department
managers.
Position title:
Marketing Assistant
Organization:
Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra
Website: http://www.mso.org
/main.taf?p=2,7
Posted: not listed
Deadline: until
filled
Contact: Sarah
Hogan, hr@mso.org
Description:
coordinate all administrative functions, manage clerical
and research duties, organize department and committee meetings, track
and maintain marketing expense budgets, and manage marketing department
production schedules.
Send application:
Sarah Hogan, hr@mso.org
Position title:
Development Intern
Organization:
Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra
Website: http://www.mso.org
/main.taf?p=2,7
Posted: not listed
Deadline: until
filled
Contact: Jill
Desmond, Campaign Director, hr@mso.org
Description: This
internship will include projects related to research,
communications, donor relations and other aspects of fundraising.
Send application:
Jill Desmond, hr@mso.org
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UpBeat!
Wondering what’s happening with the folks who still haunt the hallways
at 50 Oak Street? Check out the Conservatory’s latest Upbeat
newsletter, now in a full-color
online
edition. In it you’ll find details on a new gift for baroque
period instruments, an update on the Conservatory’s expanding
relationship with music schools in Asia, and a look at student life at
the recently renovated Golden Gate Hall. All exciting stuff—we hope you
enjoy reading
After meeting in Bob Britten's Alexander Technique class during their
first semester at the Conservatory, alumni Christine Liu (M.M. viola, ’06) and Justin Smith (M.M. voice, ’06) are
getting hitched next May 17th, only three days after graduating DMA’s
from the University of Wisconsin--Madison.. They’re planning a small
family ceremony in Milwaukee that Christine says will be as
un-traditional as possible: “No dress, no flowers, no diamond and no
registry.” We wish them a happy, music-filled life together!
Conservatory alumna Elizabeth Choi
(Artist Cert. viola, ‘09) was thrilled to play a concert in Chicago
this fall with fellow Conservatory alum Ryan Ibbetson (M.M. clarinet, ’05)
and friends, including her sister’s indie rock band, Sanawon. The
classical fusion concert featuring the Navitas Ensemble took place in
Evanston, IL, on October 15.
Conservatory alumnus Giacomo Fiore
(M.M. guitar, ‘09) kicked off the Trinity Chamber Concerts series with
a performance in Berkeley on September 12. The program for this
exciting event included a selection of 20th century guitar works from
Italy, France, Japan and England. Giacomo is currently a doctoral
candidate at UC-Santa Cruz.
Where are you now?
Click here
to submit your updated contact information as well as update us on your
recent activities!
Visits:
Piano alumnus Ron Losby (B.M.
piano, ’77) recently returned to SFCM to see 50 Oak Street for the
first time. Following a tour of the new campus and lunch with Dean
Poole, Ron was able to reconnect with former professors and classmates.
Visiting from New York City, Ron was appointed President of Steinway
and Sons—Americas in January of 2008. Congratulations, Ron!
James Freeman (M.M.
Clarinet, ‘92 and former Prep Faculty) also swung by SFCM for the first
time in years to check out the new facility. James was noticeably awake
for his 9AM tour—fitting since he is the founder and owner of local
java powerhouse, Blue Bottle Coffee.
In Memoriam:
Diane Clymer-Greenberg
(B.M. flute, ’96) passed away on Oct 16, 2009 surrounded by her family,
having fought cancer for nine months with grace and courage. Born in
1974 in Albany, California, she attended the Bentley and Crowden
schools, El Cerrito High and the Conservatory. She did graduate work at
the University of Indiana. She was the lower school Music Director at
Bentley from 1999-2009. A natural teacher and parent, she was devoted
to her two young children, as well as the countless classroom and flute
students she taught and mentored. Diane is survived by her loving
husband Robert Greenberg, her children Lillian and Daniel, parents
Richard and Linda Clymer, grandmother Hazel Clymer, sister and
brother-in-law Catherine and Seth Scholar, and her two nephews, Ben and
Will Scholar.
Bassoonist David Bartolotta
(M.M. bassoon, ‘76) was a longstanding member of the San Francisco
Ballet Orchestra, a regular performer with the San Francisco Opera, and
recording artist at Skywalker Sound. He was known by his friends as a
gourmet cook, a member of the Mycological Society of San Francisco, and
by the chefs and law enforcement agencies of the Bay Area as a trusted
consultant regarding the flavor, texture, and safety of wild mushrooms
in the area. He died in a car accident on June 13th in North Carolina.
He was 61 years old.
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| eAlumNotes is a
communication tool for Conservatory alumni. It is sent out three times
per year
with recent updates from your fellow alumni. In addition to this
publication, at any time, you can find information on alumni in the new
alumni
sections of the website. To submit your current information,
complete and return the update forms. |
For
comments,
suggestions
or
questions,
email
alum@sfcm.edu
San Francisco Conservatory of Music
50 Oak Street
San Francisco CA 94102
415.503.6201 |
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