Performers
- MBIRA MASTERS OF ZIMBABWE
- AFRICAN ALCHEMIES
- ANTARA WINDS
- Anyango Yarbo-Davenport (violin)
- Yin Zheng (piano)
MBIRA MASTERS OF ZIMBABWE
Cosmas Magaya is an internationally recognized master of the mbira dzaVadzimu. As a performer, mbira teacher and leader of the mbira ensemble Mhuri yekwaMagaya, he has gained national and international acclaim for his extraordinary talent as a musician and teacher in the Zimbabwean music traditions.
As a performer, he has completed several international tours with mbira ensembles Mhuri yekwa Rwizi and Zimbabwe Group Leaders Mbira Ensemble, including two in Europe and two in the United States. His performances are featured on a number of critically acclaimed CDs. As an mbira master musician and respected teacher, Cosmas has been invited to teach master classes at top universities in the United States including Stanford, Northwestern and Duke Universities, as well as numerous other universities throughout the United States and Canada.
In addition to performing and teaching, Cosmas has collaborated with ethnomusicologist Dr. Paul Berliner since 1971. Their field research on Shona traditional music resulted in a scholarly book, The Soul of Mbira.
Beauler Dyoko, known as the “Queen of Mbira Music,” is Zimbabwe’s first woman mbira recording artist. She is leader and featured singer with the popular contemporary mbira ensemble, The Black Souls, and has regularly been invited to perform a traditional song to open the Zimbabwean Parliament. She has also performed with Mhuri yekwa Rwizi/Soul of Mbira groups for many years in Zimbabwe and throughout the world, and toured with the Zimbabwe Group Leaders Mbira ensemble in Europe and the United states. Beauler is also a spirit medium, an herbalist, fashion designer, and teacher of traditional Shona cooking. Beauler is an active member of organizations promoting women musicians in Zimbabwe, and has written original songs in support of AIDS awareness and non-violence. She is the sole supporter of a large extended family of grandchildren, nieces, and nephews in Zimbabwe.
Performing together as the Mbira Masters of Zimbabwe, Cosmas and Beauler represent the respected elder generation of mbira players in Zimbabwe today. Their powerful playing and singing taps the deep spiritual and cultural roots of this music, and the authentic ancient beauty of the traditional songs of the Shona people of Zimbabwe. They have recorded a CD together, Afamba Apota, which has quickly become a classic source for students and appreciators of Shona mbira music.
AFRICAN ALCHEMIES
Jennifer Choi (violin) has charted a career that breaks through the conventional boundaries of solo violin, chamber music, and the art of creative improvisation. As a soloist, and chamber musician, she has performed in venues worldwide such as the Library of Congress in Washington D.C., Alice Tully Hall in New York, the Mozartsalle in Vienna, and the RAI National Radio in Rome. In 2000, she was the Winner of the Artist International Award, leading to a debut recital in Weill Hall at Carnegie Hall. A graduate of the Juilliard School, Jennifer now resides in New York City and is a prominent fixture in its new music scene. She is regularly invited to premiere and record major works by influential composers like Lee Hyla, Christian Wolfe, and
John Zorn.
Christopher Gross (cello) Following Christopher Gross' performance of Brian Ferneyhough's Time and Motion Study II for solo cello at the Lincoln Center Festival, the New York Times wrote: "...for 20 minutes this skinny young cellist with a punkish hair cut seemed like a musical master of the universe..." Highly in demand for contemporary music, he has played with numerous ensembles including the Flux Quartet, International Contemporary Ensemble, Continuum, Second Instrumental Unit, Argento Chamber Ensemble, New York Miniaturist Ensemble, and performed in venues including Weill Hall, Disney Hall, Merkin Hall, Jazz at Lincoln Center, Symphony Space, Barge Music, and MoMA. He is a founding member of the iO Quartet, Quartet-in-Residence at SUNY Purchase from 2006-2008 and currently the 2008 Fellowship Ensemble at Monadnock Music. As an active educator, he is on the Teaching Artist faculty at The New York Philharmonic, is a certified Suzuki Instructor and has had articles published in the Journal of the Suzuki Association of America. He holds a Masters Degree from the Juilliard School as well as a BA and BM from the Oberlin College and Conservatory.
Thomas Rosenkranz (piano) has twice been named Artistic Ambassador sponsored by the State Department of the United States. He has traveled to the Middle East and Africa to present recitals for television broadcasts and served as teacher-in-residence at the Higher Institutes of Music in Tunis and Beirut. He is the recipient of the “Classical Fellowship Award” from the American Pianists Association. He has given debut performances at Lincoln Center (New York), Kennedy Center (D.C.), Hilbert Circle Theatre (Indianapolis), L’Acropolium (Carthage), and Theatre de la Ville (Tunis), and was recently appointed Assistant Professor of Piano at the University of Hawaii at Manoa. He continues to have a vested interest in the performance of contemporary music and has recorded for the Nonesuch, Cantaloupe, and Tzadik labels. He was the recipient of the Presser Award for Music and studied Olivier Messiaen’s Twenty Visions of the Child Jesus with Yvonne Loriod-Messiaen in Paris. He currently serves as artistic director and arranger for the Tunis-based group Le Minaret et la Tour, which consists of Arab, Flamenco, and Western musicians.
South African-born Martin Scherzinger (mbira, piano) is Associate Professor of Media, Culture, and Communication at New York University. His research specialties are sonic culture, music, media and politics of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, with a particular interest in the music of high modernism, minimalism, post-modernism, transnational musical fusions, electronic dance music (from disco to trance), non-western music, and the economic determinants of globalization. These interests are resolutely interdisciplinary, spanning the fields of ethnomusicology, musicology, and music theory no less than sound studies, performance studies, and critical theory. He is currently working on a book documenting the African origins of music by Steve Reich, Kevin Volans, György Ligeti, and others. His compositions explore transformations and translations of indigenous African music in the context of a western instrumentarium.
ANTARA WINDS
Founded in1982, The Antara Winds have appeared regularly on “Live from Hochstein” and have performed extensively throughout the greater Rochester area. In addition to presenting traditional repertoire for woodwind quintet, the Antara Winds delight in bringing audiences the music of contemporary composers. In recent years, they have premiered two works written specifically for Antara, Verne Reynolds’ Antara Music (2003) and Libby Larsen’s Blue Windows After Marc Chagall (2005, sextet for wind quintet and piano), and in 2007 participated in a consortium commission of a new work for wind quintet, Suite Cantabile by Bill Douglas.
Diane Smith is a member of the flute section of the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra and teaches flute and chamber music at the Hochstein School and Roberts Wesleyan College. She appears frequently with such Rochester organizations as the Oratorio Society and the Broadway Theatre League, and has also performed with the Syracuse Symphony and the Erie Philharmonic. In addition to her teaching duties at Hochstein, Ms. Smith serves as Coordinator of Ensembles and Co-Chairperson of the Woodwind, Brass and Percussion Department. Ms. Smith received the Bachelor and Master of Music degrees from the Eastman School of Music, where she studied with Joseph Mariano.
Judith Ricker was a member of the Rochester Philharmonic oboe section for fifteen years and an instructor of oboe and chamber music at the Hochstein School of Music & Dance until 1991. She is a founding member of the Antara Winds, and she serves on the Board of Directors of the Hochstein School and the Mercury Opera Rochester. After completing an MBA degree in 1991, Ms. Ricker left the RPO to pursue a career in market research. She is currently Division President of the Strategic Brand and Communications Consulting practice at Research at Harris Interactive, an international market research firm based in Rochester.
Margaret Quackenbush is President & Executive Director of the Hochstein School of Music & Dance and also is a member of the clarinet faculty. An active soloist, chamber, and orchestral musician, she is a founding member of the Antara Winds, and has appeared frequently with the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra, the Rochester Oratorio Society, Mercury Opera, and other area ensembles. She holds the Doctor of Musical Arts degree in Performance and Literature from the Eastman School of Music, as well as degrees from the University of Oregon and the University of Minnesota, Morris.
John Hunt is the professor of bassoon at the Eastman School of Music. He has previously been a faculty member at Florida State University and West Virginia University. Additionally, Mr. Hunt has played principal bassoon in the Naples Philharmonic and was a member of the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra. He currently serves on the faculty of the Festival Institute at Round Top, Texas and has also performed during summers at the Aspen Music Festival, the Bowdoin Summer Music Festival, and with the Colorado Festival Orchestra.
Mary Hunt teaches horn at the State University College at Geneseo. She holds degrees from the Eastman School of Music and The Catholic University. Formerly on the faculty of West Virginia University, she has performed with such groups as the Skaneateles Festival, Utah Music Festival, Monadnock Music, the Naples Philharmonic, and the Orchestra Sinfónica de Minería in Mexico City.
Anyango Yarbo-Davenport
The African-American violinist Anyango Yarbo-Davenport was born in Munich. Her father is the late Austrian conductor and violinist Hans-Peter Jillich, and her mother is the African-American lyric soprano Africa Yarbo-Davenport, known through her performances for television in the Netherlands and the United States and recordings for Phillips Classics. After training at the music academies of Munich and the Mozarteum in Salzburg, Anyango received a full scholarship to complete her studies at the Eastman School of Music, where she was awarded the Performer's Certificate and the B.M. in May 2008; she is currently enrolled in the M.M. program.
Her sponsors include William Harris Lee of Chicago, the Sphinx Organization, and the Gateways Music Festival. For the 2008-2009 season she will perform at Carnegie Hall, Detroit Orchestra Hall and the Harris Theatre in Chicago. As a recitalist and international prizewinner she performs throughout the US, UK, Germany, and Austria. She has also been invited to teach master classes for performers of all ages throughout the US. Since the age of 14, Anyango has been dedicated to introducing and supporting the musical development of underprivileged and handicapped children and she collaborates with non-profit organizations in Germany and the US. She currently performs on a Guadagnini violin (1785), on loan from her teacher, Prof. Charles Castleman.
Yin Zheng
Pianist Yin Zheng has performed extensively across Europe, US, and Asia. She has been featured on leading music stages such as Carnegie Hall and Steinway Hall in New York City, and in music festivals in Europe, China and Canada. She has worked with pianists such as Paul-Badura Skoda, Alicia de Larrocha, and Vladimir Viardo, and has been praised as a unique interpreter of the music of Mozart. Dr. Zheng received her early training at the Secondary School affiliated with the Shanghai Conservatory. She furthered her study with Dominique Cornil, a student of both Maurice Ravel and Alfred Cortot, at the Royal Conservatory in Brussels, where she graduated with the Highest Distinction in both Piano and Theory. In the summer of 2007, she earned the Doctor of Musical Arts degree from the Eastman School of Music under the tutelage of Nelita True.
Dr. Zheng won first prize in both the 28th Frinna Awerbuch International Piano Competition held by New York Piano Teachers’ Congress, and the Empire State Piano Competition of the New York State Music Teacher’s Association. She also won the Eastman Concerto Competition in 2006. In the same year she performed Mozart’s double and triple piano concertos with Nelita True and the Shanghai Philharmonic Orchestra. Dr. Zheng was appointed Assistant Professor of Piano at Oakland University in Michigan in fall 2007. Her vision of a music world without boundaries is conveyed in her repertoire, which ranges from baroque classics to works by leading contemporary composers. She has recently ventured into the third-stream by working and performing with jazz violinist Regina Carter.