Archive for July, 2010

For the past 14 years, the Westerhoff Family Foundation has provided the Rangeley community the gift of music by bringing the faculty of their school here to perform.  The Westerhoff School of Music and Art, located in Metuchen, New Jersey, is a community-based school offering private and group instruction in music and art.  Founded in 1998 by Mrs. Helga K. Westerhoff, the school has grown to a student body of over 300 who enjoy creating and learning both music and art in a supportive environment.

On August 5^th at 7PM, the annual Westerhoff Concert will be held at The Church of the Good Shepherd in Rangeley.  The extensive program will include Four Romantic Pieces, Op. 75 by Antonín Dvořák, Sonata in A Major, Op. 162, D. 574 by Franz Schubert, Partita No. 2 in C Minor by Johann Sebastian Bach, Barcarolle, Op. 60 by Frédéric Chopin,  and Etude written and played by nineteen year old Nikita Mamedov.

 Musicians will include Sarah Dalrymple, soprano, David Recca, piano, David Iskowitz, piano, Cliff Bernzweig, violin, Nikita Mamedov, piano.

 Cliff Bernzweig is a violinist from West Orange, New Jersey. In 1993, Cliff won first prize in the youth division of the Corpus Christi Young Artists Competition in Corpus Christi, Texas. Two years later, he was one of three American violinists selected to compete in Sendai, Japan, at the Tchaikovsky Competition for Young Musicians. Cliff is a graduate of the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York. He is a member of the Harrisburg Symphony Orchestra in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, and plays regularly with New Jersey-based orchestras such as the Orchestra of St. Peter’s by the Sea and the Monmouth Symphony. Cliff has given solo recitals in many venues in New Jersey and throughout the Northeast, including Merkin Hall in New York City. Cliff teaches violin at the Westerhoff School of Music & Art and at the Newark Academy in Livingston, New Jersey.

      David Iskowitz, pianist, is Music Director of the Westerhoff School of Music & Art. He also is an adjunct faculty member and staff accompanist at Drew University in Madison, New Jersey.

     Mr. Iskowitz performs often in the tri-state area, both as soloist and chamber musician. He plays regularly in faculty concerts at Drew University and at the Westerhoff School, and frequently appears in local concert series, often in collaboration with instrumentalists and singers. He has performed with the Brunswick Symphony Orchestra and at Merkin Hall in New York City. He is a graduate of the Peabody Institute of the Johns Hopkins University.

      Nikita Mamedov, pianist, is a former piano student of the Westerhoff School of Music & Art.  He is currently a scholarship student at Westminster Choir College in Princeton, NJ, majoring in piano performance and studying with Ingrid Clarfield. Nikita is nineteen years old. He was born in St. Petersburg, Russia, where he attended the Rubenstein School of Music. He later lived in Cincinnati, Ohio, where he studied for two years at the School for Creative and Performing Arts, before moving to New Jersey, where he studied for three years at the Westerhoff School. Nikita has received prizes in the New Jersey Music Teachers Association’s Young Musicians Competition, and Penn State’s Marion Garcia Piano Competition. In 2008, Nikita was chosen as one of New Jersey’s top twelve high school classical musicians by the Algonquin Arts Center’s  Rising Star Program, and also performed at Weill Hall at Carnegie Hall, New York, as a grand prize winner of the Rising Talents Festival based in Princeton, NJ.

       Sarah Dalrymple, soprano, has been a soloist for the past several years in the New York area in both opera and oratorio literature.  Most recently, she was featured as a soloist for Bach’s Magnificat at Symphony Space’s Wall-to-Wall Bach Festival.  As an opera major at Purchase College, she sang the role of Valletto in Monteverdi’s L’Incoronazione di Poppea and appeared as Miranda in Lee Hoiby’s The Tempest.  With the Purchase Camerata, she has sung solos in Handel’s Messiah and Gloria, and Bach’s Lutheran Mass in F Major.  She is currently a staff singer for the chancel choir at St. Paul’s on the Green, Norwalk, CT, which recently completed a singing tour of various cathedrals in England and Scotland.  Sarah is also a member of New York City’s Madrigalia Via, which performs repertoire that spans the 12^th to 20^th centuries.  Sarah furthers her strong commitment to the arts by working in the marketing and development departments at The Performing Arts Center, Purchase College.  She is a proud student of Bonnie Hamilton.

 David Recca, pianist, is currently an adjunct professor at the Conservatory of Music of Purchase College, SUNY. There he directs the College Chorus, and is the founder / conductor of the Purchase Chamber Singers, in addition to teaching a variety of courses such as Music Theory and Solfege. He teaches piano at the Westerhoff School. As a student at Purchase, he received the Theodore Presser Scholar Award in 2004, as well as a Bachelor of Music in Composition and a Performer’s Certificate in Vocal Coaching / Accompanying. He is most recently a graduate of the Eastman School of Music with a Master of Music in Choral Conducting, having been granted a full-tuition scholarship. Recent professional engagements include serving as assistant conductor and chorus master for the Mercury Opera Rochester’s production of Mozart’s Don Giovanni, and artistic director of the Manhattan-based early music ensemble Madrigalia Via, which the Wall Street Journal has called “sinfully blissful.”

Sponsored by Rangeley Friends of the Arts, the WOODLAND CHAMBER
ENSEMBLE will perform a varied program of concert music for flute,
oboe, English horn, guitar, voice, and piano on Tuesday, August 10 at
7:00 P.M. in the Church of the Good Shepherd in Rangeley.  All of the
music has been chosen for its audience appeal.  Compositions by
Telemann, Fauré, Villa-Lobos, Vaughan Williams, and many others,
including ensemble member Barbara Ulman, will be presented.  Music
for Hugh Ogden’s poem “Fir on the Oquossoc Shore, Singing,” for
voice, English horn, and piano, was composed by Ulman specifically
for members of this ensemble.  Tickets ($15) can be purchased at the
Chamber of Commerce and also at the door.   For further information,
please call Barbara at 864-3629.

Woodland Chamber Ensemble

Sue Downes-Borko has been a high school music teacher in the state of
Alaska, a staff accompanist for the College of New Jersey, and a
member of several flute quartets.   Sue is the director of the
Rangeley Community Chorus and has participated in many local music
productions.  Currently, she operates a private lesson studio and is
the Minister of Music for the Rangeley Congregational Church.

Victor Borko was born and raised in the Philadelphia area.  He
studied classical/jazz guitar and music education at the Philadelphia
College of the Performing Arts and then moved to Alaska, where he was
a music educator.  He has played guitar in many professional
productions and has also played for celebrities including Bobby
Rydell, Don Rickles, and Bob Hope.  He now resides with his wife,
Sue, in Rangeley, where they run Gull Pond Music Studio.  Victor
plays guitar and keyboard at St. Luke’s and Our Lady of the Lakes
churches and enjoys composing and performing sacred music and hymns
on the classical guitar.

Gail Russ teaches instrumental music in Maine School
Administrative District 58, which includes Phillips, Kingfield,
Strong, Stratton and Salem.  Since moving to Maine in 2005, she has
played oboe, clarinet, and English horn for the Camden Pro Musica
Orchestra, Monmouth Theater, Lewiston/Auburn Community Theater, the
Bangor Symphony, and other bands and orchestras in the area.   She
says, “I have the best ‘job’ ever: children and music; I have been
blessed!”

Barbara Ulman began piano lessons at age seven, and has continued an
active musical life ever since.  She earned a B.A. from
Harvard/Radcliffe, while also studying piano chamber music at the
nearby Longy School of Music.  She has spent summers on Rangeley Lake
since birth, and now lives in the foothills near Yosemite National
Park the rest of the year.  In 1989 she completed a second B.A., in
Music Theory and Composition, at California State University, Fresno.
She plays chamber music for fun and for public performance, and also
composes art songs and music for small ensembles and for chorus.

An evening of original compositions by award-winning piano soloist and composer Cody Michaels will be presented at the Church of the Good Shepherd in Rangeley on July 27^th at 7PM. For Michaels “the piano is a way to connect with the mystery of creation and every song is a prayer”.

Born in October of 1960, Cody grew up in southeastern New Hampshire. His jazz pianist father introduced him to the piano at the age of three.  Cody’s wide musical tastes, as well as his love of nature, literature and people, are central to his art. Besides classical and jazz, he also enjoys folk, blues, rock, contemporary instrumental, popular, and world music.
At the University of New Hampshire, Cody studied environmental science and became an avid mountaineer.  In 1988, Cody returned to New Hampshire to become an Appalachian Trail caretaker in the White Mountains, and then in the Rangeley Region

Through it all, Cody continuously played the piano as “an emotional, spiritual outlet”. He first appeared in public while in Telluride, Colorado, warming up crowds before movies at the Nugget Theater. He occasionally played for restaurants and clubs in the various places he was stationed along the Appalachian Trail, with the Forest Service, and while in Northampton.

It was during a long walk on the Appalachian Trail in 1997 that Cody vowed to devote the remainder of his life to music. He began to practice more extensively, and made numerous appearances for restaurants, resorts, and clubs in New England, western North Carolina, Colorado, and Leipzig, Germany.
 
Upon settling in New Hampshire’s White Mountains in 2001, Cody launched a career as a concert artist and released his debut CD of original piano solos, “A Creation Prayer”, to high praise. Three more critically acclaimed CD’s have followed: “Primum Non Nocere” (2004), “Autumn Suite” (2007), and “Winter Suite” (November 2009).

Cody’s repertoire now includes more than sixty original works for solo piano, along with a handful of interpretations such as “Over The Rainbow” and “Carol of The Bells”. In the late fall of 2005, Cody relocated to the open spaces of Vermont’s “Northeast Kingdom”. His concerts are in steadily increasing demand in the Northeast USA and beyond.

 The evening sponsored by the Rangeley Friends of the Arts will demonstrate Cody’s creativity as a composer and will be a delight for the audience.  Tickets ($15) are available at the Rangeley Lakes Chamber of Commerce 864-5364.