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Walter F. Aparicio, piano
Walter Aparicio, a native of La Paz, Bolivia, has played solo and chamber recitals in the New York area, as well as abroad. Walter performed solo recitals in La Paz, Bolivia under the sponsorship of the Vice Ministry of Culture and played a duo recital in 2003 under the sponsorship of the Municipal Government of Bolivia and the Vice Ministry of Culture. There, he received a special recognition from the International Young Men's Club Association and was featured on Channel 21- Gigavision. In 2003, Walter was chosen as First Place Winner in the Empire State Piano Competition- Collegiate Division. He is currently a piano adjudicator for the NYSSMA festival in New York State. He has played in recitals for the Behre Piano Associates and in anniversary concerts at Weill Hall for the Adamant Music School. He was also featured on Vermont Public Radio and played in recitals in St. Petersburg, Russia for the International Academy of Music and at the Beijing International Music Festival and Academy in Beijing, China. Furthermore, he has performed in master classes with such distinguished artists as John O' Conor, Jeffrey Swann, Dmitry Rachmanov, Zelma Bodzin, and composer Jake Heggie. Most recently, Walter made his New York Recital Debut at Weill Hall at Carnegie Hall to a sold out audience as part of Artists International Special Presentation Winners Series and received First Prize in the Bradshaw and Buono International Piano Competition, Duo Division. Walter holds a Bachelor of Music in Piano Performance from New York University where he studied with Dr. Deirdre O' Donohue. He completed a Master of Music from Manhattan School of Music with Phillip Kawin. He is affiliated with the World Piano Pedagogy Conference, the Bronx Conservatory of Music and maintains a private studio in Manhattan and Fort Lee.
Clif Brown is currently in the graduate program at Manhattan School of Music, studying for his Master of Music degree in classical guitar performance, studying with David Leisner. He received his Bachelor of Music degree in classical guitar performance from the University of Southern Mississippi. He has had master classes with renowned guitarists such as David Russell, Eliot Fisl, and Joaquin Clerch. Clif was the co-founder and president of the University of Southern Mississippi Guitar Society, and is a Star Award Recipient from the Music Teachers National Association. Celso Cano was born in Lima, Peru. In 1985, he and his family moved to the United States. He began his guitar studies under the direction of Lou Mowad in Miami, Florida at the age of thirteen. At seventeen, he was awarded a scholarship to continue his studies at the University of Arizona in Tucson. There he worked with Tom Patterson and won several guitar competitions. At this time he also volunteered as a teaching assistant at the University of Arizona’s Summer Apex Guitar workshop and also received the D’Addario fellowship to attend the Bowdoin Summer Music Festival in 1995 where he worked with guitarist and composer David Leisner. In 1998, Celso earned his Bachelor of Arts in performance and shortly thereafter moved to Barcelona, Spain to pursue a concert career. While in Barcelona, he studied guitar performance with Illiana Matos at Luthier School for the Musical Arts. At that time, he also began composing and was fortunate to be guided in that pursuit by the prolific Cuban composer Leo Brouwer.
Hermira Gjoni began her piano studies at an early age at the Professional Artistic School in Tirana, Albania, with her first teacher, the pianist Tonin Guraziu. She later completed her studies at the National Conservatory of Music in Albania with excellent results under the guidance of the well-known professor of the Beijing Conservatory, Mr. Chen Bi Gang.
During her career, Ms. Gjoni has performed in Tirana at The National Theater of Opera and Ballet, and Conservatory Hall, also at Tampere Hall in Finland, and Athenee Palace in Bucharest. She was invited to Paris as accompanist for singers at “Placido Domingo International Competition,” and Opera de Bastille. She has been honored to perform in front of Yuri Gagarin and the leader of the Soviet Union, Nikita Khrushchev. She also performed for the Prime minister of The People’s Republic of China, Mr. Chu-En Lai, and the Prince of Cambodia, Sihanuk, and the Princess Monica.
Ms. Gjoni emigrated to the U.S. in 1996 and continues to perform extensively. She has been awarded the Medal “Naim Frasheri” from the Albanian Parliament, and the Medal of Association Campania in October 2007.
New York based percussionist/marimba specialist Laura Jordan has performed in Europe, Canada, Mexico and throughout the United States, in venues including Avery Fisher Hall, the Skirball Center of Los Angeles, the National Geographic in Washington, and the Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico.
Laura has also been featured as a touring and recording world percussion artist and chamber musician. From 2004-2006, following two seasons with the New York Guitar Quartet, Laura joined the ranks of Ensemble Galilei as a member for two seasons, and is featured on their recording Alta. In 2006, she gave the Western premiere of Menachem Zur's Translations for Percussion and Electronics, broadcast several times on Israeli radio. Equally comfortable as a rock drummer, in the fall of 2009, she will tour Europe with the Baltimore based experimental rock group Scary River (Morpheus Records). Laura has participated in several festivals including the Paris Marimba Competition and Perkumania festival in 2006, for which she received a Peabody Career Grant, and the first Zeltsman "Princeton" Marimba festival in 2001, for which she received a Semans Art Fund Grant.
As an educator, Laura is faculty at the Long Island Music Conservatory, the Bronx Conservatory of Music, and director/educator at Washington Heights Percussion, a school she founded in 2005. She has served as an adjunct professor at New York University.Laura received her M.M. from the Peabody Conservatory in 2005, and her B.M. from the Peabody Conservatory in 2004, where she was a student of Robert van Sice and Jonathan Haas. Prior to that, she studied under John R. Beck at the North Carolina School of the Arts high school immersive arts program. At the age of 21, she was accepted into the highly academically competitive New York University Ph.D. program, where she is in the final stages of the degree. Laura is endorsed by Marimba One.
In May of 2008, Ben Laude graduated with a bachelor’s degree in piano performance from Rice University’s Shepherd School of Music where he studied with Robert Roux. He is currently pursuing his master's degree at the Juilliard School under the guidance of Jerome Lowenthal and Matti Raekallio. Ben grew up in Austin, Texas, where, at the age of 17, he performed Rachmaninoff’s 1st Piano Concerto with both the Austin Symphony and Austin Civic Orchestras. In the spring of 2007, the ACO invited him back to appear as a piano soloist in Saint-Saëns’ Carnival of the Animals. That same year, Ben took top honors in the Senior Concerto Division of the Kingsville International Piano Competition, performing Rachmaninoff’s 4th Piano Concerto. For the past two years, Ben has been featured in the Adamant Music School’s annual concert at Weill Recital Hall in Carnegie Hall, where he performed works of Scriabin and Brahms. He recently received national attention after being named the winner of the Yamaha Young Performing Artists award for piano. In addition to his solo pursuits, Ben is an avid chamber musician and collaborator. At Rice he had the privilege to work with may instrumentalists and vocalists under the guidance of such notable musicians as cellist Lynn Harrell, Norman and Jeanne Kierman Fischer (the Fischer Duo), pianist Brian Connelly, and mezzo-soprano Susanne Mentzer.
John H. Robinson III, cello, double bass, theory
Graduate of Bronx Community College and La Guardia High school of the Performing Arts; tutor and assistant in the Department of Music and Art of Bronx Community College; classical performances on bass, cello, and recorder; international recognition for jazz and Latin performances.
 Mariya Spektor, piano, music appreciation/rhythm Mariya studied in Moscow at the Stasov School of Music and Moscow Musical College and later earned her M.A. in Music Education at CUNY Lehman College. A creative and versatile music teacher, Mariya brings a special knowledge of Music History and Musical Genres. She is skilled in the Dalcroze and Kodaly methods of musical education.
David Stone received his Bachelor of Music degree in classical piano performance from New York University in 2008, where he was an Education Trustee Scholarship recipient. In the fall of 2006, he studied piano and chamber music in Prague, Czech Republic. He was a piano performance major at the Interlochen Arts Academy, where he was on the Dean's list and a National Merit Scholar Finalist. David has substantial performing experience as a soloist, chamber musician, and accompanist.
Suzanne Vendil, piano Suzanne Vendil recieved both her Master of Music and Bachelor of Music degrees in classical piano performance from New York University, where she was on the Dean's List and an Honors Scholar. She performs regularly in solo and chamber recitals, and is Artistic Director of The Nouveau Classical Project. She is an Adjudicator with the NYSSMA, was an Adjunct Piano Instructor ar New York Universoty, and has maintained a successful teaching studio for the past 9 years. Canadian born violinist, Brenda Vincent, began violin study at age 10. She completed Toronto Conservatory exams, with Honors, during high-school, then went on to study at The Music Academy of the West in Santa Barbara, California and Peabody Conservatory of Music in Baltimore, Maryland where she graduated with a Bachelor of Music degree in Applied Violin in 1971 and the Israel Dorman Award for Outstanding Violinist. Ms. Vincent has resided and freelanced in New York City since 1979, where she enjoys playing a variety of musical idioms and styles – chamber music, symphony orchestra, opera, ballet, Broadway shows, jazz, Latin, rock/pop, and Contemporary Classical Music. Ms. Vincent has been awarded a Jazz Special Projects Grant (1985) and Jazz Fellowship (1988) from the National Endowment for the Arts to transcribe the recorded works of the legendary American jazz violinist, Stuff Smith. She is currently developing a beginning violin method that integrates traditional Western European music with popular American styles of music and improvisation.
Margaret Wheeler, piano and voice Margaret Wheeler’s varied credits include solo performances with the Philadelphia Grand Opera Company, the Lake Georgia Opera Company, the Pittsburgh Civic Light Opera and Staten Island Opera. She has appeared in Verdi’s Macbeth, Aida, and Il Trovatore. Other performances include The Merry Widow, The Barber of Seville, The Medium, Amahl and the Night Visitors (which she directed and sang the part of the mother); two tours of The Sound of Music and numerous musicals. Ms. Wheeler has been soloist in the Mozart Requiem, Saint-Saens’ Christmas Oratorio, the Rutter Requiem, Rossini’s Stabat Mater and others. Ms. Wheeler received a Masters Degree in Performance (independent study) from Hunter College, and has been on the music faculty in conservatory, college, and public schools. She is a member of Actor’s Equity, American Guild of Musical Artists, NATS (National Association of Teachers of Singing) and Sigma Alpha Iota music fraternity. For her musical achievements Ms. Wheeler is included in the 2009 editions of Who’s Who in America, Who’s Who of American Women, and Who’s Who in the World, published by Marquis. | |
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