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.”