Nigel Coxe
is a Jamaican-born, British-trained pianist
living in the U. S. A Fellow of the Royal Academy of Music in
London, where he studied with Harold Craxton, he has also served as a professor at the Academy.
He is currently professor of music at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, and he combines
his teaching with an active schedule of recitals and lecturing. He has performed
widely in Europe, Great Britain, and America. He has appeared as soloist with the London Philharmonic,
the London Symphony, the Hallé Orchestra, and many others. He has also given recitals for the
Australian Broadcasting Commission in Sydney and has made numerous solo and concerto
appearances for the BBC London. The New York Times has written, "He goes to the heart of
his music in modestly straightforward fashion, leading from expressive strength and shunning any
sort of virtuoso exaggerations." The Times (London) has called him "a musician's pianist to the core."
Mr. Coxe has made two very well-received CDs, both available on the Titanic label:
Music of Percy Grainger and Showstoppers, a disc featuring the music of Gershwin, Grainger, and
Eubie Blake. Both have received worldwide critical acclaim. Recently he was also a member of the
International Jury for the Concours de Musique du Canada in Montreal.
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Marie Hasse
holds a Bachelor of Arts in Piano Performance from the
University
of Central Florida, where she studied with Gary Wolf. She is Head of Keyboard Studies at Polk
Community College and she also teaches privately in the Winter Haven Area. She is currently the
President of the Bach Festival of Central Florida, a past president of the Florida State Music
Teachers Association, and
she frequently adjudicates for FSMTA student events. As Southeastern Regional Junior Festivals
Chairman, she is also active in the student events of the Florida Federation of Music Clubs. Ms.
Hasse is presently serving as Secretary for the American Matthay Association for
the second time and has frequently lectured at the AMA's annual festivals. She performs in
chamber music recitals in the area and lectures on piano pedagogy. In recent years, she has
worked extensively to publicize the contributions of Helen Parker Ford, a Matthay pupil who
specialized in teaching his principles to younger children. Ms. Hasse is also the organist for
First Presbyterian Church in Haines City.
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Ann Holler
earned a B. A. in Mathematics from
King College and a B. A. in Music (Piano Performance) from Virginia
Intermont College in Bristol, Virginia, where she studied with
Kenneth Huber. She also holds an M. M. in Music Theory from the
University of Tennessee.
In her own compositions she draws upon
her previous studies in piano, voice, organ, theory, and mathematics
to create new music. Her music has been performed locally and in
the British Isles. The Appalachian Music Teachers Association named
her Composer of the Year in May 2004.
Two compositions were performed in "Artistic Reflections," a
multi-media program held at First Presbyterian Church in Bristol in
February 2004. This performance was featured in the May/June 2004
issue of Soundingboard, the journal of the American Composers Forum.
In this program, pianist Jane Morison played the piano solo
"Dreamshape" while the audience viewed two paintings by artist Dee
Sproll. During the sanctuary choir's performance of "Exultation and
Immortality," five paintings by Clara Thomas were shown to the
audience. Commissioned by the sanctuary choir of First Presbyterian
Church, this work is a setting of five poems of Emily Dickinson. In
May and June 2004, the choir sang this work at Iona Abbey, Sterling
Castle, and St. Giles Cathedral in Scotland, and also in York,
England.
Ann holds permanent certification in voice, piano, and theory, granted
by the Tennessee Music Teachers Association. She frequently judges at
piano auditions. She has written for the
American Music
Teacher and the
Tennessee Music
Teacher and is the co-author
of the Tennessee Music Teachers Association Written Theory Tests,
used throughout the state of Tennessee. She has been listed in
Who's Who of American Women and Who's Who Among American Teachers.
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Terry McRoberts
is the current President of the American Matthay Association for Piano. A former editor
of the Matthay News, McRoberts wrote an article about Matthay for Clavíer Companion, and gave a presentation on Matthay principles for the national conference
of Music Teachers National Association. He has served Tennessee Music Teachers Association as president and editor of Tennessee Music Teacher, contributed reviews
of new music for Piano Guild Notes, and currently is president of
the Southern Chapter of the College Music Society. He is University
Professor of Music at Union
University in Jackson, Tennessee, where he teaches private piano and
related courses, and is coordinator of keyboard studies and of concerts
and recitals.
A former governor of Province 15 for Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia, he is
faculty advisor to the Iota Sigma Chapter. He performs frequently as a
soloist and a
collaborative musician and with the Jackson Symphony Orchestra. He has
made numerous presentations for the American Matthay Association for
Piano, the
Southern Chapter of the College Music Society, and various music teacher
groups, as well as in China, Japan, Brazil, and Haiti. A church
organist for
over twenty-five years, he currently plays at First United Methodist
Church in Jackson, Tennessee.
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Lynn Rice-See
has appeared as recitalist, concerto soloist,
and chamber musician in the United States and in Europe. She has appeared three times with the Janácek Philharmonic
Orchestra in Ostrava, Czech Republic. In the United States she made her Carnegie Recital Hall debut in 1982, and since then
she has appeared as soloist with the Gulf Coast Symphony, the Huntsville Symphony, the Johnson City Symphony, and the
Kingsport Symphony. In 1992, she appeared in recital in Brussels, sponsored by the Ministere de la Communauté Français,
and her 1993 recital tour of Germany was sponsored by the German-American Institute in Saarbrücken. She was a member
of the Tennessee Arts Commission touring roster from 1991 through 1994. She holds the Bachelor of Music degree from
Peabody Conservatory, where she studied with Walter Hautzig, the Master of Music from the Juilliard School where she
studied with Beveridge Webster, and the Doctorate of Musical Arts from the University of Southern California, where she
studied with John Perry. Currently she coaches with Walter Hautzig and Sheila Paige.
She is currently Professor of Piano at East Tennessee State University. She is also a member of the faculties of the
Adamant Music School in Vermont and the Piano Wellness Seminar. Prior to coming to ETSU, she worked as an opera
coach/assistant conductor at the opera houses of Münster and Essen, Germany as well as at Michigan Opera and Dayton
Opera in the United States. She has also taught at the Manhattan School of Music in New York and at William Carey College.
In celebration of the Tennessee Bicentennial she and mezzo-soprano Sharon Mabry issued a compact disc
(on the Heartdance label) of works by Tennessee composers. This disc contains world premiere recordings of
works for solo piano and mezzo-soprano and piano by Kenton Coe of Johnson City, Michael Alec Rose of Nashville,
Jeffrey Wood of Clarksville, and Michael Linton of Murfreesboro. The song cycle by Kenton Coe, A Family Gathering,
was commissioned by Rice-See and Mabry and received its world premiere at ETSU in 1998.
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Ann Sears
is a former President of the American Matthay Association. She also
serves as Professor of Music and Director of Performance at Wheaton
College in Norton, Massachusetts, where she teaches piano and courses
in European and American music, including African-American music and
American musical theater. She holds degrees from the New England
Conservatory of Music, Arizona State University, and The Catholic
University of America, where her doctoral dissertation was about
American art song in turn-of-the-century Boston. She is well-known for
her performances and publications in American music, and has presented
papers and lecture recitals at national meetings of the Sonneck Society
for American Music, the College Music Society, and the American Matthay
Association. Concert appearances include the Badia di Cava Music
Festival in Italy, the Master Musicians Festival in Kentucky, the
Sumner School Museum and St. Patrick's in the City in Washington, D.C.,
the Gardner Museum and the French Library in Boston, and various
schools and universities in the United States. Her research interests
are American art song, the concert tradition in African American music,
and American opera and musical theater. A compact disc, Deep River: The Art Songs and
Spirituals of Harry T. Burleigh, in collaboration with Oral Moses, bass, originally on
Northeastern Records, has been reissued by Albany Records; and a new disc, Fi-yer! A
Hundred Years of African-American Song, with tenor William Brown, was recently released
by Albany. She is currently review editor of the College Music Society journal Symposium
and membership secretary of the American Liszt Society.
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Stephen Siek
is a past President of the American Matthay Association.
His biography of Matthay, England's Piano Sage:
The Life and Teachings of Tobias Matthay, was published by
Scarecrow Press in December of 2011.
He has studied with Stewart Gordon, Donald Hageman,
Frank Mannheimer,
and Denise Lassimonne. He has concertized extensively throughout North
America and in 1986 he performed the 24 preludes of Rachmaninoff in New
York's Lincoln Center. He made his London debut in 1988. His numerous
articles have appeared in such journals as the American Music Teacher and the
Piano
Quarterly, and in the summer 1993 issue of American Music he presented new research
concerning musical figures active in
post-Revolutionary Philadelphia. He is also a
contributor to the second edition of the New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians,
and
other recent articles include pieces for the American Musical Instrument Society
Journal
and Symposium, the journal of the College Music Society. His recording of
The Philadelphia
Sonatas of Alexander Reinagle (c.1750-1809) was released on the Titanic label in 1998.
Siek's
interests have also extended to other areas of American history and culture, and he has
published and lectured widely on the earlier work of architect Frank Lloyd Wright. He holds
the B. Mus.
and the M. Mus. degrees from the University of Maryland and a Ph.D. from the
College-Conservatory of Music of the University of Cincinnati. He currently serves on the
faculty of Wittenberg University in Springfield, Ohio.
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Dan Franklin Smith,
who resides in New York City, recently returned from Germany where he performed in, among other venues, Kurt Weill Zentrum in Dessau and the Lucas Cranach Hof in Wittenberg.
As a solo recitalist, he made his European debut at Mariefred Kyrkan in Sweden in 1997, where he received a standing ovation and was hailed by the reviewer as "unequivocally one of the most brilliant pianists I have had the pleasure of hearing and reviewing!"
Mr. Smith's debut recording of the Kurt Atterberg Concerto (a premiere recording) was released in September. He offered this work for his Swedish orchestral debut in October of 1998, with Maestro Arne Johansson conducting the Sofia Orchestra. Svenska Dagbladet described his performance as marked by a "sensitive ear, strong sense of style and fine musicianship . . . more than anyone could wish for." The performance, the concerto, and Mr. Smith were featured on SVT's Musikspegeln, which was broadcast throughout Sweden soon afterwards.
Other European engagements have included Oslo and Paris. His 1999-2000 schedule features orchestral appearances in England with the Bournemouth Sinfonietta and with the Sofia Orchestra in Stockholm, in addition to recitals in London, Stockholm and Leipzig.
In the United States he has appeared as a soloist, chamber musician and vocal accompanist at such venues as the National Gallery in Washington, D.C., the Cleveland Museum's Distinguished Artist Series, and Alice Tully Hall at Lincoln Center in New York City. In the 1999-2000 season he will perform solo recitals in Maryland, Ohio, New Jersey, Virginia, California and New York. This fall he will also perform the Robert Schumann Piano Concerto with Maestro Jean-Pierre Schmitt and the Lawyers Orchestra in NYC.
Mr. Smith's work as a solo artist has been described as "breathtakingly beautiful . . . . The dazzling, agile finger work left the audience in utter awe of Smith's technical skill and beauty of tone . . . . His quiet sincere and straight forward manner relies on an economy of movement and energy which allows him introspection into the core of the music."
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Raymond Songayllo
earned his Bachelor
and Master of Music degrees in
piano from Northwestern University. He studied at Aspen, in New York with Alexander
Uninsky and Grant Johannesen, and in Boston with Alexander Borovsky. He has performed
throughout the U.S. and has appeared twice at Carnegie Recital Hall. As a composer, he
has had works presented in various venues, college and university events, festivals and
conferences, and in Fontainebleau, working in composition at the Conservatoire Americaine.
He won the Keyboard Category Award at the Delius Competition at Jacksonville University in
1976, 1992, and 1993. He has received grants from both the Minnesota Composers Forum and
Meet the Composer.
After 27 years of college/university teaching, he is currently performing, lecturing,
composing, and adjudicating. In June of 1990, he made his European debut with two solo
recitals in Geneva under the auspices of Concerts Atlantique of New York. Mr. Songayllo
is a founding member of the Iowa Composers Forum, and was the recipient of the 1993 Pyle
Commission for his Piano Quintet. In the summer of 1994 he was one of 18 pianists at the
French Piano Institute in Paris, appearing in recital at the Salle Cortot. In June 1995 he
performed a lecture/recital at the College Music Society International Conference in Berlin.
In July of 1996 he again performed at the Salle Cortot, and also premiered a new composition,
Hommage à Fauré, in the Salle Munch of the École Normale.
In the 1996-97 season, Mr. Songayllo has appeared as soloist and composer in various venues,
including, again, at the College Music Society Conference in Vienna. His compositions
include works for solo piano, harpsichord, piano with instrumental combinations,
songs, orchestral compositions. His style is eclectic, employing both tonal and non-tonal
styles.
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Christopher Thompson
serves as Associate
Professor of Music at Williams Baptist College in Walnut Ridge, Arkansas, where he has taught
since 1998. At Williams, he teaches all of the music theory and aural skills courses as well
as music fundamentals, music appreciation, applied piano, and composition. He currently serves
as president of the Delta Music Teachers Association of northeast Arkansas and president of
the Schubert Music Club (affiliated with the Arkansas Federation of Music Clubs). With the
Arkansas State Music Teachers Association (ASMTA), he currently serves as an elected board
member, chair of the student composition competition, and co-chair of state auditions. In
2010 he was named Arkansas Music Teacher of the Year by ASMTA, and in 2011 he received
certification as a Nationally Certified Teacher of Music by the Music Teachers National
Association. From 2009-2011, Dr. Thompson served as president of the south central chapter
(Arkansas, Oklahoma, Texas) of the College Music Society.
He received a B.M. in piano from the University of Kansas, an M.A. in music from the
University of Missouri at Kansas City, and a Ph.D. in music theory from the University
of Wisconsin at Madison. His principal piano teachers are Patricia M. Thompson, Karen
Halverhout, Richard Reber,
Richard Angeletti, John McIntyre, Carroll Chilton, and Howard Karp.
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