2021-22 Artists

Suzanne Rousso, Viola
Mallarmé Artistic Director

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was trained at the Curtis Institute of Music, The Eastman School and the New England Conservatory,earning Bachelor and Master of Music degrees in viola performance. In her early career she held orchestral positions around the country, including with the Chattanooga Symphony and Opera, The Amarillo (TX) Symphony, The New Mexico Symphony, the Spoleto Festival and the Santa Fe Opera. Early in her career, Suzanne was principal violist of the Greensboro Symphony and performed regularly with the North Carolina Symphony.
Ms. Rousso was appointed Director of Education for the North Carolina Symphony in May 1999 where she oversaw all aspects of the Symphony’s education program and in late 2006, she was appointed Director of Operations and Education of the Portland (Maine) Symphony. While in Maine she performed as a member of the Vermont Symphony, PortOpera, Opera Boston and the Portland Chamber Orchestra.
Suzanne returned from Maine to North Carolina in the summer of 2008 to become the Artistic Director of the Mallarmé Chamber Players, where she also performs as a violist and baroque violist. She attended the Amherst Early Music Festival in July 2012, as well as Oberlin’s Baroque Performance Institute, Tafelmusic’s Baroque Winter Institute and is a member of the North Carolina Baroque Orchestra. She is the founder and administrator for the NC HIP (historically informed performance) Music Festival that is held biennially in the Triangle.

Molly Quinn, Soprano
(My Daughter the Singer)

Hailed for her “radiant sweetness” by the New York Times…

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Molly Quinn has garnered praise for her thought provoking and delightful interpretation of music from the medieval to the modern. She has collaborated with notable musicians and arts organizations around the globe including The Knights NYC, Portland Baroque Orchestra, Apollo’s Fire, The Folger Consort, The Bang on a Can All-Stars, TENET, Trinity Wall Street, Ascension Music, Clarion Music Society, Saint Thomas Fifth Avenue and Concert Royale, Pacific Baroque Orchestra, North Carolina Baroque Orchestra, Ensemble VII, The Helicon Society, Quicksilver Ensemble, and Acronym.  Molly has also garnered acclaim for her work crossing genres in classical, folk, and contemporary music. Molly was dubbed “pure radiance” by the Los Angeles Times for her work with The Bang on a Can All-Stars in Steel Hammer. The production traveled to Abu Dhabi in 2017.  Other highlights of the past season include her Kennedy Center Debut as the title role in Dido and Aeneas, and the role of Papagena in Die Zauberflöte with Clarion Music Society, where Opera News dubbed her “A lovely and feisty companion.” She has been featured in projects by notable presenters including The Lincoln Center White Lights Festival, Moscow’s Gold Mask Festival, BAM Next Wave Festival, Bang on a Can marathon, San Francisco Early Music Series, and Carnegie Hall’s Venetian Festival. She is a festival soloist at The Staunton Music Festival, and staff musician and featured soloist at The Carmel Bach Festival. She was a featured soloist on Trinity wall Street’s Grammy Nominated recording of Handel’s Israel in Egypt.  She has performed as a soloist in such noted international venues as Shostakovich Hall in St Petersburg, Teatro National de Costa Rica, The Arts Center of NYU Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates, Vancouver’s Chan Centre for the performing arts, and San Cristobal Cathedral in Havana, Cuba.

 

Heartland Baroque
(My Daughter the Singer)

Bound by a passion for playing instrumental music of the 17th and 18th-Centuries…

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 ..Heartland Baroque is an ensemble made up of early music specialists from all over the United States.  Its members, Martie Perry and David Wilson, baroque violins, Keith Collins, dulcian, Barbara Krumdieck, baroque cello, and Billy Simms, theorbo, hail from North Carolina, Indiana, California, and Maryland, and often perform together in other well-known historically informed period instrument ensembles around the country. Heartland Baroque dives into the 17th and 18th-Century Baroque musical world with vigor, showing off the immediacy and technical brilliance, the vivacity and profundity, the lilt, complexity, and spontaneity of its composers.  Most recently Heartland Baroque completed a residency they were awarded at the esteemed Avaloch Farm Music Institute and were featured in concert as part of the 2018 North Carolina HIP Music Festival. They have also performed concert tours in North Carolina and have presented fringe concerts at the Boston and Berkeley Early Music Festivals as well as for the Early Music Festival for Grace.  The group’s debut CD, The Benevolent Monarch, will be released in 2022.

DYNAMIC DUOS
Brianna Cantwell and Winfred Felton

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Brianna Cantwell, an undergraduate student at the University of North Carolina School of the Arts, is in her fourth year studying bassoon with Saxton Rose. She maintains a private studio with many students throughout Western North Carolina and teaches bassoon masterclasses at several middle and high schools. When not teaching or performing, she provides reeds to many schools across the state.

Throughout her time at UNCSA, she has participated in many school ensembles such as the Symphony Orchestra, Opera Orchestra, Ballet Orchestra, Wind Ensemble, Chamber Winds, and the Nu Ensemble. She has also enjoyed being a part of several chamber groups: Wind Quintet, Reed Quintet, Bassoon and Oboe Duet, Trio with Oboe and Piano, and Bassoon Ensemble. Outside of school she has performed with The Carolina Philharmonic, the Winston-Salem Symphony, the Piedmont Wind Symphony, and the High Point Community Orchestra, and the Salisbury Symphony.

 

Brianna was a member of the Eastern Music and has been a part of several commissions for both solo bassoon and reed quintet. She also participated in an organization that arranged free private lessons and reeds for students displaced from their primary instructors during Covid-19.

 

Winfred Felton is a fourth-year undergraduate music major at the University of North Carolina School of the Arts. He is currently in the studio of Saxton Rose, studying bassoon performance. His love for music came from growing up surrounded by church music and being fascinated by the many colors that can be found within it. Winfred’s principal engagements include performances with the Lamont Symphony Orchestra, UNCSA Symphony Orchestra, Eastern Music Festival Orchestra, as well as the Winston Salem Symphony. He has attended and been admitted to music festivals such as Boston University Tanglewood Institute, Miami Music Festival, Eastern Music Festival, and Aspen Music Festival. He is also a former student of the multiple Grammy Award-nominated bassoonist Martin Kuuskmann, with whom he studied with at the Lamont School of Music. Next year, Winfred will be attending the Yale School of Music in order to complete his master’s degree in music performance. In his free time, Winfred is a voracious reader and consumer of all musical genres. 

DYNAMIC DUOS
Early Gray – Drake Duffer and Owen Dodds

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Early Gray is a duo formed by pianist Owen Dodds and guitarist/mandolinist Drake Duffer. Self-described as “modern folk”, Early Gray began as an experimental duo by two classical musicians, and what started as pure improvisation spun into fully developed vocal and instrumental compositions. Based in Winston-Salem North Carolina, Drake and Owen have drawn influence from being surrounded by the state’s various musical spheres.

Early Gray’s debut album, Paint the Windows, was released in 2017, with another full-length record anticipated in 2022. They have appeared in venues such as Lincoln Center’s Clark Studio Theater, New York’s Rockwood Music Hall, Carrboro NC’s Cat’s Cradle, and Elkin’s Reeves Theater as guests of The Martha Bassett Show. They have collaborated with artists including Gabriel Kahane and Tanner Porter.

DYNAMIC DUOS
Ingrid Knight and Gastón Reggio

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Gastón Reggio – percussion and Ingrid Nora Knight – keyboard met in spring of 2021 when Gastón moved to Raleigh. Hailing from opposite ends of the Western Hemisphere, they bonded over a love for Brazilian & Argentinian music as well as straight ahead jazz. Born in Uruguay but having studied drum set for six years at the Tatuí Conservatory in São Paulo, Gastón is well versed in the various rhythms of Brazilian music. Ingrid is a jazz studies Master’s student at North Carolina Central University and has studied various types of Latin music since high school.

Tyshawn Sorey
multi-instrumentalist
(Invisible Ritual)

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Newark-born composer and multi-instrumentalist Tyshawn Sorey
(b. 1980) is celebrated for his incomparable virtuosity, effortless mastery and memorization of highly complex scores, and an extraordinary ability to blend composition and improvisation in his work. He has performed nationally and internationally with his own ensembles, as well as artists such as John Zorn, Vijay Iyer, Roscoe Mitchell, Muhal Richard Abrams, Wadada Leo Smith, Marilyn Crispell, George Lewis, Claire Chase, Steve Lehman, Jason Moran, Evan Parker, Anthony Braxton, and Myra Melford, among many others.

The New York Times has praised Sorey for his instrumental facility and aplomb, “he plays not only with gale-force physicality, but also a sense of scale and equipoise”; The Wall Street Journal notes Sorey is, “a composer of radical and seemingly boundless ideas.” The New Yorker recently noted that Sorey is “among the most formidable denizens of the in-between zone…An extraordinary talent who can see across the entire musical landscape.”

Sorey has composed works for the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the International Contemporary Ensemble, soprano Julia Bullock, PRISM Quartet, JACK Quartet, TAK Ensemble, the McGill-McHale Trio, bass-baritone Davóne Tines, Alarm Will Sound, the Louisville Orchestra, and tenor Lawrence Brownlee with Opera Philadelphia in partnership with Carnegie Hall, as well as for countless collaborative performers. His music has been performed in notable venues such as the Walt Disney Concert Hall, the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, the Village Vanguard, the Ojai Music Festival, the Newport Jazz Festival, the Kimmel Center, and the Mostly Mozart Festival at Lincoln Center.  Sorey has received support for his creative projects from The Jerome Foundation, The Shifting Foundation, Van Lier Fellowship, and was named a 2017 MacArthur fellow and a 2018 United States Artists Fellow. 

Sorey has released twelve critically acclaimed recordings that feature his work as a composer, co-composer, improviser, multi-instrumentalist, and conceptualist. His latest release, Pillars (Firehouse 12 Records, 2018), has been praised by Rolling Stone as “an immersive soundworld… sprawling, mysterious… thrilling” and has been named as one of BBC Radio 3’s Late Junction 2018 albums of the year. 

In 2012, he was selected as one of nine composers for the Other Minds Festival, where he exchanged ideas with such like-minded peers as Ikue Mori, Ken Ueno, and Harold Budd. In 2013, Jazz Danmark invited him to serve as the Danish International Visiting Artist. He was also a 2015 recipient of the Doris Duke Impact Award. Sorey has taught and lectured on composition and improvisation at Columbia University, The New England Conservatory, The Banff Centre, University of Michigan, International Realtime Music Symposium, Harvard University, Hochschule für Musik Köln, Berklee College of Music, University of Chicago, and The Danish Rhythmic Conservatory. Sorey joined the composition faculty of the University of Pennsylvania in the Fall of 2020.

Jennifer Curtis, Violin
(Invisible Ritual)

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The New York Times described violinist Jennifer Curtis’s second solo concert in Carnegie Hall as “one of the gutsiest and most individual recital programs.” She was celebrated as “an artist of keen intelligence and taste, well worth watching out for.”

Curtis navigates with personality and truth in every piece she performs. Jennifer is a member of the International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE) and founder of the group Tres Americas Ensemble. She has appeared as a soloist with the Simon Bolivar Orchestra in Venezuela and the Knights Chamber Orchestra; performed in Romania in honor of George Enescu; given world premieres at the Mostly Mozart Festival in New York; collaborated with composer John Adams at the Library of Congress; and appeared at El Festival de las Artes Esénias in Peru and festivals worldwide.

An educator with a focus on music as humanitarian aid, Jennifer has also collaborated with musical shaman of the Andes, improvised for live radio from the interior of the Amazon jungle, and taught and collaborated with Kurdish refugees in Turkey.

Jennifer joins the Haw River Ballroom’s Culture Mill in Saxapahaw, North Carolina as artist in residence and teaches a course on the art of interpretation at Duke University. She plays on a 1777 Vincenzo Panormo violin.

Paige Whitley-Bauguess

Paige Whitley-Bauguess, Dancer
(Bach and Forward)

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…interprets, recreates, and performs Baroque theatre dance in venues all over the world. A recent presenter wrote “what [she does] is excellent – artistic, interesting, historic – and downright exciting not to mention fun…one could not ask for more,” (Steven Cooksey, Shenandoah University). She is co-director of the Baroque Arts Project in North Carolina and producer of two baroque dance DVDs: Introduction to Baroque Dance-Dance Types (funded in part by an NC Arts Council Choreographer’s Fellowship) and Dance of the French Baroque Theatre. Both feature artistic collaborations with her baroque dance partner Thomas Baird. Paige has stage directed baroque operas for festivals and universities in the US and has given masterclasses and workshops at universities, museums, and historical sites in the US, Canada, and Japan. She is a former member of the NY Baroque Dance Company and holds an MA in Dance History from the University of California at Riverside and a BFA in Ballet from the NC School of the Arts. Paige received funding for the creation of Bach and Forward from a cooperative venture of Alleghany Arts Council, Ashe County Arts Council, Watauga County Arts Council, and Wilkes Art Gallery with support from a Regional Artist Project Grant of the North Carolina Arts Council, a division of the Department of Natural and Cultural Resources.

 

Stephanie Vial
Baroque Cello
(Bach and Forward)

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 is a widely respected cellist, praised for her technical flair and expressive sense of phrasing. Vial performs regularly in early music ensembles throughout the US and has given solo and chamber music concerts, lectures, and master classes at numerous universities and institutions: including The Shrine to Music Museum in Vermillion, South Dakota, The University of Virginia, Duke University, and The Curtis Institute of Music. She is co-director of the period instrument ensemble The Vivaldi Project and its educational arm, the Institute for Early Music on Modern Instruments (EMMI). www.thevivaldiproject.org

Vial received her undergraduate degree from Northwestern University, an MM from Indiana University, and a DMA in 18th-­century performance practice from Cornell University. Her book, The Art of Musical Phrasing in the Eighteenth Century: Punctuating the Classical “Period,” published by the University of Rochester Press, was praised by Malcolm Bilson as “inspired scholarship” and “essential reading.” She has recorded for the Dorian Label, Naxos, Hungaroton, and Centaur Records, with a recent release of string trios for MSR Classics, titled Discovering the Classical String Trio. Vial lives in Durham, N.C.

Jacquelyn Bartlett, Harp
(A Musical Affair)

A champion of chamber music, Jacquelyn Bartlett was born in Detroit, Michigan, where she was surrounded with music.

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Her mother, Mary Bartlett, is a noted harpist, arranger, composer and teacher and Bartlett began her musical studies with her at an early age. A dedicated and passionate educator, she is much sought after as a teacher, chamber music coach and presenter for master classes and seminars.

Credentials

  • Formerly served on the faculties of Duke University and UNC Chapel Hill; currently teaching at Appalachian State University and UNC Greensboro in addition to UNCSA
  • After continued studies with world renowned harpists, Carlos Salzedo and Alice Chalifoux, she  made her solo debut at age 16 in Chicago’s Orchestra Hall in a performance of the Handel Harp Concerto, which received high critical praise
  • Additional harp teachers include Lucy Lewis, Lucille Lawrence and Susann McDonald
  • Invited to perform with many of the world’s leading orchestras including the Detroit Symphony, the New York Philharmonic, the Indianapolis Symphony, the Rotterdam Philharmonic, the Slovac Radio Symphony, the Baltimore Symphony, the Kansas City Philharmonic, the North Carolina Symphony and the Milwaukee Symphony
  • Has worked with some of this generation’s most well known composers such as Aaron Copeland, George Crumb, Alberto Ginastera, Dan Locklair, George Rochberg and John Rutter and with conductors such as Eugene Ormandy, Sixten Ehrling, Sergiu Commissiona, Aaron Copeland, James Paul, Izler Solomon and Pierre Boulez
  • Founder and ten-year Artistic Director of SummerMusic in Blowing Rock, N.C. and Music at St John’s in Valle Crucis, N.C.

Career Highlights

  • Founding member of Fire Pink Trio and long time member of Mallarme Chamber Players
  • Has written and published articles in professional journals, edited music for publication and is a recorded artist on the Albany, Capstone and Naxos labels
  • Wworld premiere recording of Dan Locklair’s Concerto for Harp and Orchestra with the Slovak Radio Symphony Orchestra was released by Naxos and has received high, critical praise

Organizations

  • American Harp Society
  • World Harp Congress

Carrie J. Knowles, Author
(A Musical Affair)

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Twelve years ago, Carrie Knowles bought a small office building at the southernmost edge of Historic Oakwood in Downtown Raleigh. She named the building the Free Range Studio and inscribed this on the wall: Creativity should have no boundaries and dreams no fences. “That’s how I see the world,” Knowles says, “and the way I hope to live my life as a creative person.”

The Free Range Studio has provided office space to a wide range of writers and other creative people over the last twelve years, including Carrie’s close friend and fellow author, Peggy Payne. Both Peggy and Carrie not only have their offices at Free Range, but also coach other writers and teach classes there.

Carrie has published dozens of short stories and hundreds of newspaper and magazine articles, and four novels: Lillian’s Garden (Roundfire Books, 2013), Ashoan’s Rug (Roundfire Books, 2013), A Garden Wall in Provence (Owl Canyon Press, 2017), The Inevitable Past (Owl Canyon Press, 2020), a collection of short fiction, Black Tie Optional: 17 Stories (Owl Canyon Press, 2019) and a writing workbook, A Self-Guided Workbook and Gentle Tour on Learning How to Write Stories from Start-to-Finish (Owl Canyon Press, 2020). Her non-fiction memoir about her family’s struggles with their mother’s Alzheimer’s, The Last Childhood: A Family Story of Alzheimer’s, initially published by Three Rivers Press, was recently revised, updated and reissued through Amazon.  

Carrie writes a regular column for Psychology Today: “Shifting Forward: A Wanderer’s Musings”.

Carrie was named the Piedmont Laureate for Short Fiction in 2014. Her short stories have won more than 25 awards, including the Village Advocate Fiction Contest, the Blumenthal Writers & Readers Series, the North Carolina Writer’s Network Fiction Syndication and Glimmer Train’s Very Short Fiction Competition. She has been named a finalist in Glimmer Train competitions six times and was also a finalist in the Doris Betts Fiction Contest and received an honorable mention in the National Literary Awards.

In 1994, she was awarded a North Carolina Arts Council Creative Nonfiction Grant to complete the work on her memoir, The Last Childhood: A Family Story of Alzheimer’s. When first published, this book secured acclaim as one of the top 100 books written about Alzheimer’s. 

As an arts advocate she has been a board member for the Symphony Orchestra Development Association, Carolina Wren Press, Raleigh Chamber Music Guild, Burning Coal Theatre and the American Forum. She served as a judge for the Raleigh Fine Arts Society’s Annual Fiction Contest for eight years and was the co-coordinator of the Reader’s Series at the Hardback Café in Chapel Hill with Paul Jones and Georgann Eubanks.

Carrie was also the founder and coordinator of the Boylan Heights ArtWalk from 1992-2007 and the founder and director of the Cary Cross Currents Festival from 2008-2012.

Carrie and her husband, Jeff Leiter, have called Raleigh home since 1978. They have three children.

Alma Coefman, Flute (Luna’s Magic Flute)

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Born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Alma Coefman has performed and taught the flute in Argentina, Italy, Japan, Canada, and  in the US. She has served on the faculties of the Collegium Musicum of Buenos Aires, the Juan José Castro Conservatory (Buenos Aires), and the Alberta College Conservatory (Canada).

 As a soloist, Coefman performed with the Camerata Accademica di Padova (Italy), the Cardenal Newman Orchestra (Argentina), the Tsukuba City Orchestra (Japan) and the Concordia Symphony Orchestra (Edmonton, Canada). She was a member of Argentina’s National Radio Youth Orchestra, the Orchestra of the Catholic University, the Cardenal Newman Orchestra, and the Philharmonic Orchestra of Buenos Aires (Colón Theatre)

Coefman has played in numerous chamber music concerts, and has been member of several music ensembles devoted to the diffusion of Argentinean and Latin-American music, such as Nuevos Aires (Tango fusion), Maíz (Latin-American folk), Tango Gotán (Tango), and Aires del Sur (Guitar & flute duo). 

Currently, Coefman continues performing and teaching the flute in North Carolina, where she integrates music with her interests in literature and Latin-American culture.

Kristin Trangsrud, Piano (Luna’s Magic Flute)

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Born in North Dakota, Kristin Trangsrud graduated from Concordia College in Moorhead, MN with a BA in music. Trangsrud’s musical career includes solo concerto performances with the Fargo Moorhead Symphony and Concordia College Orchestra and winning the North Dakota Piano Teachers’ competition and the F-M Symphony Young Artist Award. In North Carolina, Ms. Trangsrud has collaborated extensively with local soloists and church, community, and university choruses including UNC’s Carolina Choir, the Eno River Unitarian Universalist Fellowship, the Community Church of Chapel Hill, and Unity Peace Church in Durham. She collaborated for many years with the Occasional Trio, enjoying their mission of performing chamber music in retirement and nursing homes. Together, flutist Alma Coefman and Kristin Trangsrud have showcased the works of Argentinean composer, Astor Piazzolla, in performances across the Triangle including Duke University’s Nelson Room.

Paperhand Puppet Intervention
(Luna’s Magic Flute)

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In 1998 Paperhand Puppet Intervention’s directors Donovan Zimmerman and Jan Burger met and began a collaboration of epic proportions. Since then, 20 years ago, they have been using papier-mâché, cardboard, bamboo, your old house paints, cloth, and other assorted junk (treasure to us!) to create incredible giant puppets, masks, shadow plays and spectacle performances for all ages. 

They continue to tell stories, beat drums, sew cloth, get sweaty, push boundaries and carry heavy things to help make the world a better place. Paperhand’s parades, pageants, and award winning performances aim to be an inspiration, a call to action, and a celebration for everyone to enjoy!


OUR MISSON 

Paperhand Puppet Intervention’s mission is to use diverse styles of puppetry and artistic expression to create works that inspire, promote social change and are deeply rewarding for all involved. These styles include: giant puppets, rod puppets, shadow puppetry, masks, stilt dancing and anything under the sky that strikes our fancy.

Our vision is inspired by our love for the earth and its creatures (including humans). We will synthesize many art forms including, but never limited to, sculpting, painting, dance, music, improvisation, costume design, set design and theater. We are committed to creating multi-scaled and multi-disciplinary puppet performances that support this vision.

We will use this puppetry, performance and creativity to undermine and eradicate greed, hate and fear and promote justice, equality and peace. We will work uncompromisingly to these ends.

We are celebrants. We are activists. We are puppeteers.

Carla Copeland-Burns, Flute (A Musical Affair)

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Noted as a flexible and versatile player, flutist Carla Copeland-Burns currently performs with the Greensboro, North Carolina, and Salisbury Symphonies as well as the North Carolina Opera, Carolina Ballet, Blue Mountain, and with the performer-composer collective Forecast Music. She has been a guest artist-teacher at universities and conferences nationally and internationally, and a featured performer at National Flute Association Conventions. In summers she is on the faculty of the InterHarmony International Music Festival in Italy and Germany. Carla is a Yamaha Performing Artist

Jacqueline Saed Wolborsky, Violin (Bluegrass Blend)

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is Principal Second Violin of the North Carolina Symphony and a Lecturer of Violin at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She was previously a member of the Charleston Symphony. She has been a featured soloist with the North Carolina Symphony, Brussels Chamber Orchestra, and South Carolina Philharmonic, and was honored with the Russell Award at the Coleman International Chamber Music Competition.

Wolborsky has performed at the National Gallery in Washington, D.C., as a co-founder of LACE (Living Arts Collective Ensemble) and with fellow NCS musicians in a trio setting. She has performed for Nobel Peace Prize winner Elie Weisel in Chicago and, in 2001, for the Vice President of the United States in Washington, D.C. She has spent past summers at the Verbier Festival in Switzerland, at the Eastern Music Festival in Greensboro, with the Chautauqua Symphony in New York, at the Norfolk Chamber Music Festival in Connecticut, at Ravinia’s Steans Music Institute in Chicago, at Keshet Eilon in Israel, and at the Weathersfield Festival in Vermont. She has worked with members of the Tokyo, Cleveland, and Vermeer Quartets; and with Yuri Bashmet, Joseph Silverstein, and Claude Frank, among others. She has toured with Joshua Bell, James Levine, and Mstislav Rostropovich.

Wolborsky received her bachelor’s degree from the Oberlin Conservatory, as a student of Roland and Almita Vamos, and her master’s degree from the Cleveland Institute of Music, where she studied with Donald Weilerstein and received her Suzuki teacher training.

Jeanine Wynton, Violin
(Bluegrass Blend)

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Violinist Jeanine Wynton has performed as a soloist, chamber, and orchestral musician in major concert halls across Europe, Russia, the United States, South America, New Zealand, and Israel. Originally from Los Angeles, she began studying the violin at age two and a half with the late Suzuki pedagogue Idell Low. At age five, she was a featured performer on the television shows That’s Incredible, Real People, and Omnibus. At 10, she made her solo debut in Montevideo, Uruguay after which a critic for La Mañana magazine wrote: “She played with breathtaking technique and astounding assurance, bringing the house down…”

Since then, Wynton has been honored to win prizes in numerous competitions including the Pasadena Showcase House Instrumental Competition, MTNA (Music Teachers National Association) performance competition for the state of Indiana, Fort Wayne Philharmonic Young Artists Competition, and Artists International in New York City. In 2005, she was a semi-finalist in the Michael Hill International Violin Competition in New Zealand. She has been a featured soloist with several orchestras including the Richmond Symphony, the Binghamton Philharmonic, the Fort Wayne Philharmonic, and the Yale Philharmonia, among others.

Prior to joining the North Carolina Symphony, she was a member of The Florida Orchestra, served as Assistant Concertmaster of the Richmond Symphony and Assistant Concertmaster of the Binghamton Philharmonic, and has performed regularly with the Minnesota Orchestra since 2008. Every summer she travels to Chicago where she performs with the Grant Park Orchestra, a position she has held since 2006.

Wynton is a graduate of Yale University where she studied with Erick Friedman, Syoko Aki, and members of the Toyko String Quartet.

Hank, Pattie & the Current
(Bluegrass Blend)

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Bluegrass ambassadors Hank Smith and Pattie Hopkins Kinlaw join forces once again with their original and energetic new soulgrass band, Hank and Pattie. Hank and Pattie take bluegrass and infuse it with their own flair, drawing from a melting pot of styles including classical and Motown, which adds up to an authentic and unique reflection of American music. While some of the music sounds old school and some sounds fresh and new, their overall musicianship, vocal harmonies, impassioned delivery and innovative arrangements captivate all generations of music lovers.

Hank and Pattie are backed by an all-star band comprised of Carolina musicians Stevie Martinez on Bass and vocals and Billie Feather on guitar.

Bonnie Thron, Cello
(Bluegrass Blend)

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Bonnie Thron joined the North Carolina Symphony as principal cellist in 2000. She is an active chamber musician and recitalist and locally has been a guest artist with the Mallarmé Chamber Players and the Ciompi Quartet, as well as occasionally joining the Jacobowitz-Larkin Duo to form a clarinet trio called Three For All. In the Washington, D.C. area, she has recently been a guest with the American Chamber Players and performs regularly on the Washington Musica Viva series. For the past several summers, she has been a guest artist and teacher at the East Carolina University Summer Chamber Music Institute. In the summers, she plays in the Sebago Long Lake Music Festival in Maine.

Previously Thron was a member of the Peabody Trio, in residence at the Peabody Institute, during which time the group won the Naumberg chamber music competition. Early in her career Thron was assistant principal cellist of the Denver Symphony for a season and she has played and recorded with the Orpheus Chamber Ensemble. She has had a long history with the Apple Hill Chamber Players, as a guest artist and chamber music coach, and was involved in the group’s first Playing for Peace tour to the Middle East in 1991. Thron has performed concertos with the North Carolina Symphony, the Orpheus Chamber Ensemble, the Juilliard Orchestra, the Panama National Orchestra, the Vermont Symphony Orchestra, and various other orchestras in North Carolina and her original home state of New Hampshire.

Thron received both a bachelor’s and a master’s degree from The Juilliard School. Her teachers include Lynn Harrell, Norman Fischer and Elsa Hilger. Thron also received a bachelor’s degree from Johns Hopkins School of Nursing and worked as a nurse for several years as a nurse at Johns Hopkins Hospital and as a case manager in home care nursing during which time she was also a cello teacher at the Baltimore School for the Arts.

Baron Tymas, Guitar
( Jazz U)

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Baron Tymas is a guitarist, composer and Associate Professor of Music at North Carolina Central University. A former NCCU music department chair, Baron teaches graduate and undergraduate courses in jazz arranging, jazz composition, multimedia applications and guitar. His NCCU jazz combos have earned national recognition in the U.S, both through live performances and recordings.

     Baron performs regularly with his own groups and others. He is privileged to have played with many world-class artists, and has released three albums as a leader. His 2017 project, Montréal, is a collection of original compositions dedicated to life in that beautiful city. His previous two albums are, Insight at Midnight (2009), and Blues for the Tribe (2007). Each album relies heavily on Baron’s compositions.

Juan Álamo, Percussion
(Jazz U)

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Juan Álamo (Associate Professor) is an internationally known performer, composer, and educator. He holds a Bachelor of Music degree from the Puerto Rico Conservatory of Music, and Master of Music and Doctor of Musical Arts degrees with Jazz as related field from the University of North Texas.

Originally from Cidra, Puerto Rico, Dr. Álamo has presented solo recitals at universities and percussion and jazz festivals throughout the United States, Europe, Central and South America, and the Caribbean. He has been featured as a soloist and with Jazz ensembles in television and radio shows in Puerto Rico, Mexico, Venezuela and the United States.

Dr. Álamo has recorded and shared the stage performing in collaboration with renowned artists such as Keiko Abe, William Cahn, Ney Rosauro, Orlando Cotto, Steve Shick, Tito Puente, John Wooton, Dave Samuels, Michael Spiro, Alfredo Naranjo, and Ted Piltzecker. He has performed and recorded with the San Juan Pops and played the Classical orchestral repertoire with the Puerto Rico Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Krzyszt Penderecki and Sergiu Comissiona.

His first solo marimba recording “Remembrance” was released in 2007. It features standard repertory as well as two of his compositions for marimba. In 2014, Dr. Álamo released his second CD, entitled “Marimjazzia”, featuring original compositions and arrangements of jazz standards such as Afro Blues and Waltz for Debby. Marimjazzia was selected to represent Parma Records at the 58th Grammy Awards in the category of “Best Latin Jazz Album,” and “Best Instrumental Solo.” His 2016 recording “Pursuing Freedom” has being selected to represent Albany Records at the 2017 Latin Grammy Awards in the category of “Best Solo Classical Album.” In the spring of 2018, Dr. Álamo will be releasing his first Latin jazz album “Ruta Panoramica” as well as giving a series of concert and master classes in France, Italy, and Spain.

Also as a composer, Dr. Álamo has several pieces published by major publishing companies such as; Innovative Percussion, Drop 6 Media, C. Alan Publication and Mallet Work Inc. Dr. Álamo collaborated with Arthur Lipner creating the Jazz vibes book “Milt Jackson: Transcribed Solos of the Master.” He is also the author of “Four Mallet Music for the Modern Marimba Player,” a technique and pedagogical method for marimba that includes a collection of original etudes for beginners and intermediate-level marimba players. This book has been used as part of the curriculum of several universities in the USA, Europe as well as in Central and South America.

Dr. Alamo is a performing artist and clinician for Yamaha, Meinl Percussion and Encore Mallets Inc. He also has its own signature marimba mallets designed by Encore Mallets Inc. Dr. Álamo is a member of the Percussive Arts Society, Kappa Kappa Psi and is artist-clinician for Encore Mallets Inc. His teachers include Jose Torres, Jose Alicea, Christopher Deane, Mark Ford, Dr. Robert Schietroma, and Ed Smith.

More information about Dr. Álamo’s artistic career, compositions, recordings and performance schedule can be found in his personal web site at, www.juanalamo.com.

John Brown, Bass
(Jazz U)

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Bassist, composer, educator and actor John Brown is a native of Fayetteville, North Carolina, and currently resides in Durham, NC. He is a graduate of the School of Music at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro and the School of Law at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He currently serves as Director of the Jazz Program and Associate Professor of the Practice of Music at Duke University, and has served on the faculties of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, North Carolina State University, North Carolina Central University and Guilford College (NC).

When he was very young, John took piano lessons from Frances Hunter (a close family friend), and began studying the bass when he was just 9 years old with his beloved teacher, Susan Ellington. He has been performing ever since. John began performing with the Fayetteville Symphony Orchestra (NC) at age 13, and he was playing Principal Bass with that orchestra and performing with the Florence Symphony (SC) while still in high school. As a student in Fayetteville, John had several mentors (including Paul Scott, Walter McPherson, Richard H. L. Jones, Hennigan “Buddy” Kearns, Betsy Heath, Felix Sawyer, Jay Bolder, Alan Pierce, Janice James, Joy Cogswell, Alan Porter, Craig Brown, John Cubbage, the late Malachi Sharpe, Tom Gavin, Harlan Duenow and Ernest Plummer) who helped guide his interests and keep him focused on studying music.

Dan Davis, Drums
(Jazz U)

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Dan Davis (B.M. 1989 – Music education/percussion – East Carolina University; M.M. 2012 – Jazz studies/performance – North Carolina Central University, summa cum laude).  Drum set studies with David Via, Keith Copeland, and Thomas Taylor. Percussion studies with Massie Johnson (UNC – School of the Arts), Harold Jones and Mark Ford (ECU).

In 1984 Dan received the A.J. Fletcher music scholarship to study percussion at East Carolina University.  He was the 1987 M.T.N.A.-Wurlitzer competition national winner in percussion and in 1988, won the E.C.U. concerto competition performing Paul Creston’s, Concertino for Marimba (3rd mvt.) with the E.C.U. symphony orchestra.

Dan moved to the Raleigh/Durham/Chapel Hill area in 1990 and began a long association with many of the finest musicians in the region.  He is an active performer, educator, and clinician. From 2002-2005, Dan was a band director at the Durham School of the Arts in Durham, N.C., receiving the Claus Nobel Educator of Distinction award in 2005.

Currently, Dan maintains a full schedule of students and performs in many different styles of music.  He is an adjunct professor of jazz drum set, jazz history, and directs a jazz combo/jazz ensemble at UNC-Chapel Hill and East Carolina University.  Dan has performed with artists Joe Chambers, John Abercrombie, Paul Jeffrey, Claudio Roditi, Conrad Herwig, Lynn Seaton, Walter Smith 3rd, Corey Wilcox, Eric Alexander, James Riggs, Andre Hayward, Dayna Stephens, Kate McGarry, Ben Allison, Gary Smulyan, Steve Nieve (Elvis Costello and the Attractions), Jiggs Whigham, Will McFarlane (Bonnie Raitt, Muscle Shoals), Six String Drag, and many other local and regional musicians.