James Besser is a native of South Orange, New Jersey and began piano studies at the age of seven. He studied piano, accompanying, and conducting at Princeton University, Stanford University, Columbia University, New York University, the Mannes College of Music, the Manhattan School of Music, the Juilliard School, the Music Academy of the West, the Tanglewood Music Center, and the Aspen Music School. Mr. Besser maintains a vocal coaching studio in Manhattan and he performs frequently as pianist and accompanist throughout the New York metropolitan area.
Giovanni Longo
Pianist
Hailed by Opera News as a sensitive accompanist to the singers and maintained tight ensemble….through pianistic color and taut rhythmic control, he was able to suggest the tone-poem-like essence of each of the three pieces”, Giovanni Longo made his Carnegie Hall debut shortly after his successful Lincoln Center debut of NY Lyric Opera Theatre’s performance of Puccini’s Il Trittico. He has been receiving many accolades for his extraordinary orchestral pianistic skills and his sensitive artistry. He has served as Assistant music director/vocal coach at Sarasota Opera, Tri-Cities Opera, Indianapolis Opera and DiCapo Opera Theater in NYC, the Tuscia Opera Festival in Viterbo, Italy and the Narnia Vocal Arts Academy in Narni, Italy. Recent productions include La Fanciulla del West, The Flying Dutchman, La Bohème, Don Giovanni, Il Trovatore, Cavalleria Rusticana, Pagliacci, The Crucible, La Cenerentola, and Cendrillon. He was born and raised in Montreal, Canada, by a family of Italian immigrants, and is trilingual in French, Italian, and English. He holds both Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees from the renowned McGill University. His teachers included distinguished Canadian pianists, Richard Raymond and Michael McMahon. Upcoming: La Bohème and Madama Butterfly with NY Lyric and Le Nozze Di Figaro and Suor Angelica with the Narnia Vocal Arts Festival in Narni, Italy.
Kelly Horsted
Pianist
Pianist Kelly Horsted, a native of Sioux City, Iowa, enjoys an active career in NYC as an accompanist, music director and vocal coach
specializing in new opera, art song, and role preparation.
An enthusiast of new music, Kelly begins a fourth season as a co-music director for the Composers and the Voice series at American Opera Projects in Fall 2013. Kelly premiered Beauty Intolerable : A Songbook based on the poetry of Edna St. Vincent Millay by Shiela Silver with singers Deanne Meek, and Risa Renae Harman with AOP at Symphony Space. His collaboration with American Opera Projects has also included performances of Tarik O'Regan's Heart of Darkness and music direction for several readings of Paula Kimper's opera, The Bridge of San Luis Rey. He assisted preparing the cast of Patience and Sarah for the chamber opera's premiere at the Lincoln Center Festival. Kelly was a part of the first semi-staged workshop of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, an opera-in-development by Hershel Garfein directed by Mark Morris. Kelly was music director for readings of Mark of Cain with Center for Contemporary Opera's Atelier Series. A frequent collaborator with Chelsea Opera, Kelly was part of the artistic team performing Glory Denied by Tom Cipullo, returning to the piece in Spring 2011 as part of the preparation staff for Urban Arias. His other Chelsea Opera projects have included The Medium and On Rosenstrasse. Kelly was pleased to perform on the 20th Anniversary concert for Friends and Enemies of New Music featuring Baritone Chris Pedro Trakas and works by Adams, Bolcom and Yarmolinsky. Other contemporary music performances include Vector 5, Cutting Edge Music, Downtown Music Productions, Five Words in a Line and the Guggenheim Museum's Works and Process series.
Dedicated to the development of singers and musicians, Kelly has been a frequent collaborator at NYU's Tisch Graduate Musical Theater Program. Kelly is a facuty member at Ann Baltz's Operaworks in California, where he completed his seventh summer in July 2013. As a visiting lecturer, Kelly music directed Hunter College's flagship mixed bill, The Sisters of Nikolas Flagello and M. Choufleuri of Offenbach. As a coach at the Mannes College of Music, he served as music director for performances of Ned Rorem's Three Sisters Who Are Not Sisters. Kelly served as staff accompanist at the International Workshops in Graz, Austria, and at the Bowdoin Summer Music Festival in Brunswick, Maine. Kelly is currently a faculty member at the Hartt School of Music in West Hartford, CT and Five Towns College, in Dix Hills, NY.
Mr. Horsted is a gifted and versatile pianist whose other performances include appearances at Lincoln Center's Alice Tully Hall and the prestigious Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall, as well as Fountainbleau, France and NBC's Weekend Today Show. He earned both Bachelor and Master of Music degrees from Eastman School of Music, where he was a fellowship recipient and 1st place winner in the Kneisel Lieder Competition.
Paul Kerekes
Pianist
Paul Kerekes is a composer and pianist based in New York City who often confronts and blurs the space between composition and performance. As a co-founding member of Grand Band – a piano sextet described by the New York Times as “a kind of new-music supergroup” – and Invisible Anatomy – an “otherworldly and uncanny” (Village Voice) composer-performer ensemble/collective that’s “shedding labels” (Yale Alumni Magazine) – most of his projects engage and unify these two sometimes-disparate worlds. Both ensembles have had the pleasure of being featured on festivals across the States and abroad – most notably Grand Band’s performance of Kerekes’ first six-piano piece, wither, on The Gilmore International Keyboard Festival, which was described as “pointallistic, sparkling, and delicate” by the Kalamazoo Gazette, and Invisible Anatomy’s performance on the Beijing Modern Music Festival, which lead to consequent tours throughout China’s major cities. Paul’s music has also been described as “gently poetic” (The New York Times), “striking” (WQXR), “highly eloquent” (New Haven Advocate) and he has had the privilege of hearing his pieces performed by many outstanding ensembles, some of which include the American Composers Orchestra, Da Capo Chamber Players, New Morse Code, guitarist Trevor Babb, Thin Edge New Music Collective, Real Loud, andPlay, and Exceptet in such venues as Merkin Hall, (le) poisson rouge, The DiMenna Center, Roulette, Spectrum, and Symphony Space. His compositions and playing have also been featured on NPR’s Performance Today hosted by Fred Child and released on major recording labels such as New Amsterdam Records, Innova, New Focus, and Naxos. He is a recipient of the Morton Gould Young Composer Award from ASCAP, the JFund Award from the American Composer’s Forum, and the Walter Hinrichsen Award from the Academy of Arts and Letters. Paul is a graduate of Queens College and Yale School of Music and currently teaches at Sarah Lawrence College.
Richard Cordova
Pianist
Richard Cordova (Conductor) made his professional conducting debut leading the Scandinavian Premiere of Bernstein's Candide in Bergen, Norway, and has subsequently conducted productions for Oper der Stadt Bonn, Opera North (New Hampshire), Sarasota Opera, Opera Company of Boston, Long Beach Opera, Berkshire Opera, Florida Grand Opera and Baltimore Opera. He has served as Music Director for both Julie Taymor's Juan Darien during its initial off-Broadway inception (later conducting the work during its Tony Award nominated run at Lincoln Center Theater during the 1996-97 season); and earlier for Music-Theater Group's groundbreaking off-Broadway production of Virgil Thomson's The Mother of Us All, an opera he later conducted more often than any other living conductor. As a pianist, he has collaborated with such artists as Martina Arroyo, Frederica von Stade, Renato Bruson, Florence Quivar and Julia Migenes, and has worked in this capacity for several major opera companies around the world. For the past seventeen years, he has toured internationally with various productions of Gershwin's Porgy and Bess, conducting the work on four continents. He continues a ten-year association with the Sarasota Opera, having held various titles with organization including that of Program and Music Director for the Studio Artists.
Walter Winterfeldt
Pianist
Walter Winterfeldt, pianist, was born in New York and attended the Manhattan School of Music where he earned BM and MM degrees in piano and accompanying. His principal teachers included Raymond Lewenthal and Dalton Baldwin. Active as a vocal coach and accompanist, he has performed at Weill and Zankel Halls at Carnegie Hall, and several European cities. He has worked with several well known singers such as Gérard Souzay, Hermann Prey, Thomas Hampson, and Denyce Graves. He has been pianist and repetiteur for the Taconic Opera of Westchester since 1997. He has recorded several CD's of solo, vocal and chamber music. In addition he has taught at several colleges and universities such as Hofstra, Sarah Lawrence, and Manhattan College.
Period taken by this medication to show generic cialis levitra the effect comes from 45 minutes to at least one hour. It appalachianmagazine.com generico levitra on line has been found that the content and graphics that you choose to showcase are up to par with this level of awesome. It is cGMP that is primarily responsible for increasing and decreasing the size of the blood vessels carrying blood to the penile region causing failure of erection. viagra no prescription mastercard is a PDE-5 inhibitor and it helps in the secretion of nitric oxide which promotes blood flow to the penis causing an erection. Each drug buy sildenafil cheap has its symptoms.
Pianists
James Besser
Pianist | Guest Artistic Director
James Besser is a native of South Orange, New Jersey and began piano studies at the age of seven. He studied piano, accompanying, and conducting at Princeton University, Stanford University, Columbia University, New York University, the Mannes College of Music, the Manhattan School of Music, the Juilliard School, the Music Academy of the West, the Tanglewood Music Center, and the Aspen Music School. Mr. Besser maintains a vocal coaching studio in Manhattan and he performs frequently as pianist and accompanist throughout the New York metropolitan area.
Giovanni Longo
Pianist
Hailed by Opera News as a sensitive accompanist to the singers and maintained tight ensemble….through pianistic color and taut rhythmic control, he was able to suggest the tone-poem-like essence of each of the three pieces”, Giovanni Longo made his Carnegie Hall debut shortly after his successful Lincoln Center debut of NY Lyric Opera Theatre’s performance of Puccini’s Il Trittico. He has been receiving many accolades for his extraordinary orchestral pianistic skills and his sensitive artistry. He has served as Assistant music director/vocal coach at Sarasota Opera, Tri-Cities Opera, Indianapolis Opera and DiCapo Opera Theater in NYC, the Tuscia Opera Festival in Viterbo, Italy and the Narnia Vocal Arts Academy in Narni, Italy. Recent productions include La Fanciulla del West, The Flying Dutchman, La Bohème, Don Giovanni, Il Trovatore, Cavalleria Rusticana, Pagliacci, The Crucible, La Cenerentola, and Cendrillon. He was born and raised in Montreal, Canada, by a family of Italian immigrants, and is trilingual in French, Italian, and English. He holds both Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees from the renowned McGill University. His teachers included distinguished Canadian pianists, Richard Raymond and Michael McMahon. Upcoming: La Bohème and Madama Butterfly with NY Lyric and Le Nozze Di Figaro and Suor Angelica with the Narnia Vocal Arts Festival in Narni, Italy.
Kelly Horsted
Pianist
Pianist Kelly Horsted, a native of Sioux City, Iowa, enjoys an active career in NYC as an accompanist, music director and vocal coach
specializing in new opera, art song, and role preparation.
An enthusiast of new music, Kelly begins a fourth season as a co-music director for the Composers and the Voice series at American Opera Projects in Fall 2013. Kelly premiered Beauty Intolerable : A Songbook based on the poetry of Edna St. Vincent Millay by Shiela Silver with singers Deanne Meek, and Risa Renae Harman with AOP at Symphony Space. His collaboration with American Opera Projects has also included performances of Tarik O'Regan's Heart of Darkness and music direction for several readings of Paula Kimper's opera, The Bridge of San Luis Rey. He assisted preparing the cast of Patience and Sarah for the chamber opera's premiere at the Lincoln Center Festival. Kelly was a part of the first semi-staged workshop of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, an opera-in-development by Hershel Garfein directed by Mark Morris. Kelly was music director for readings of Mark of Cain with Center for Contemporary Opera's Atelier Series. A frequent collaborator with Chelsea Opera, Kelly was part of the artistic team performing Glory Denied by Tom Cipullo, returning to the piece in Spring 2011 as part of the preparation staff for Urban Arias. His other Chelsea Opera projects have included The Medium and On Rosenstrasse. Kelly was pleased to perform on the 20th Anniversary concert for Friends and Enemies of New Music featuring Baritone Chris Pedro Trakas and works by Adams, Bolcom and Yarmolinsky. Other contemporary music performances include Vector 5, Cutting Edge Music, Downtown Music Productions, Five Words in a Line and the Guggenheim Museum's Works and Process series.
Dedicated to the development of singers and musicians, Kelly has been a frequent collaborator at NYU's Tisch Graduate Musical Theater Program. Kelly is a facuty member at Ann Baltz's Operaworks in California, where he completed his seventh summer in July 2013. As a visiting lecturer, Kelly music directed Hunter College's flagship mixed bill, The Sisters of Nikolas Flagello and M. Choufleuri of Offenbach. As a coach at the Mannes College of Music, he served as music director for performances of Ned Rorem's Three Sisters Who Are Not Sisters. Kelly served as staff accompanist at the International Workshops in Graz, Austria, and at the Bowdoin Summer Music Festival in Brunswick, Maine. Kelly is currently a faculty member at the Hartt School of Music in West Hartford, CT and Five Towns College, in Dix Hills, NY.
Mr. Horsted is a gifted and versatile pianist whose other performances include appearances at Lincoln Center's Alice Tully Hall and the prestigious Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall, as well as Fountainbleau, France and NBC's Weekend Today Show. He earned both Bachelor and Master of Music degrees from Eastman School of Music, where he was a fellowship recipient and 1st place winner in the Kneisel Lieder Competition.
Paul Kerekes
Pianist
Paul Kerekes is a composer and pianist based in New York City who often confronts and blurs the space between composition and performance. As a co-founding member of Grand Band – a piano sextet described by the New York Times as “a kind of new-music supergroup” – and Invisible Anatomy – an “otherworldly and uncanny” (Village Voice) composer-performer ensemble/collective that’s “shedding labels” (Yale Alumni Magazine) – most of his projects engage and unify these two sometimes-disparate worlds. Both ensembles have had the pleasure of being featured on festivals across the States and abroad – most notably Grand Band’s performance of Kerekes’ first six-piano piece, wither, on The Gilmore International Keyboard Festival, which was described as “pointallistic, sparkling, and delicate” by the Kalamazoo Gazette, and Invisible Anatomy’s performance on the Beijing Modern Music Festival, which lead to consequent tours throughout China’s major cities. Paul’s music has also been described as “gently poetic” (The New York Times), “striking” (WQXR), “highly eloquent” (New Haven Advocate) and he has had the privilege of hearing his pieces performed by many outstanding ensembles, some of which include the American Composers Orchestra, Da Capo Chamber Players, New Morse Code, guitarist Trevor Babb, Thin Edge New Music Collective, Real Loud, andPlay, and Exceptet in such venues as Merkin Hall, (le) poisson rouge, The DiMenna Center, Roulette, Spectrum, and Symphony Space. His compositions and playing have also been featured on NPR’s Performance Today hosted by Fred Child and released on major recording labels such as New Amsterdam Records, Innova, New Focus, and Naxos. He is a recipient of the Morton Gould Young Composer Award from ASCAP, the JFund Award from the American Composer’s Forum, and the Walter Hinrichsen Award from the Academy of Arts and Letters. Paul is a graduate of Queens College and Yale School of Music and currently teaches at Sarah Lawrence College.
Richard Cordova
Pianist
Richard Cordova (Conductor) made his professional conducting debut leading the Scandinavian Premiere of Bernstein's Candide in Bergen, Norway, and has subsequently conducted productions for Oper der Stadt Bonn, Opera North (New Hampshire), Sarasota Opera, Opera Company of Boston, Long Beach Opera, Berkshire Opera, Florida Grand Opera and Baltimore Opera. He has served as Music Director for both Julie Taymor's Juan Darien during its initial off-Broadway inception (later conducting the work during its Tony Award nominated run at Lincoln Center Theater during the 1996-97 season); and earlier for Music-Theater Group's groundbreaking off-Broadway production of Virgil Thomson's The Mother of Us All, an opera he later conducted more often than any other living conductor. As a pianist, he has collaborated with such artists as Martina Arroyo, Frederica von Stade, Renato Bruson, Florence Quivar and Julia Migenes, and has worked in this capacity for several major opera companies around the world. For the past seventeen years, he has toured internationally with various productions of Gershwin's Porgy and Bess, conducting the work on four continents. He continues a ten-year association with the Sarasota Opera, having held various titles with organization including that of Program and Music Director for the Studio Artists.
Walter Winterfeldt
Pianist
Walter Winterfeldt, pianist, was born in New York and attended the Manhattan School of Music where he earned BM and MM degrees in piano and accompanying. His principal teachers included Raymond Lewenthal and Dalton Baldwin. Active as a vocal coach and accompanist, he has performed at Weill and Zankel Halls at Carnegie Hall, and several European cities. He has worked with several well known singers such as Gérard Souzay, Hermann Prey, Thomas Hampson, and Denyce Graves. He has been pianist and repetiteur for the Taconic Opera of Westchester since 1997. He has recorded several CD's of solo, vocal and chamber music. In addition he has taught at several colleges and universities such as Hofstra, Sarah Lawrence, and Manhattan College.