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André Emelianoff has toured throughout North America, Japan, Russia, Austria, and England, and given recitals throughout central Asia and the Mediterranean as an American Ambassador for the Arts, sponsored by the USIA. A cellist with the Da Capo Chamber Players since 1976, he is also a member of the Aeolian Chamber Players, and has been involved with the Music Today Ensemble. Winner of a 1985 NEA Solo Recitalist Award, he has commissioned works by Aaron Kernis, Joan Tower, George Perle, Richard Wernick, Shulamit Ran, Stephen Jaffe, and Gerald Levinson. His guest artist appearances include the Houston Da Camera, New Jersey Chamber Society, Lincoln Center Chamber Society, a participant in the Marlboro, Chamber Music West, and Piccolo Spoleto Festivals, and soloist with Albany Symphony. Mr. Emelianoff is on the faculty at The Juilliard School, as well as the Round Top (Texas) Festival and the Perlman Program. He has recorded for CRI, Opus One, New World Records, Nonesuch, GM Recordings, RCA, Bridge Records, and Pro Arte. In 1997, Mr. Emelianoff made his Salzburg Festival debut with performances of chamber music.
Curtis Macomber is one of the most versatile soloists/chamber musicians before the public today, equally at home in repertoire from Bach to Babbitt. As member of the New World String Quartet from 1982-93, he performed in virtually all the important concert series in this country, as well as touring abroad. He is the violinist of Speculum Musicae and Da Capo, and a founding member of the Apollo Trio. His most recent recordings include: a solo recording ("Casting Ecstatic"), on CRI; the complete Grieg Sonatas on Arabesque; and an all Steve Mackey record ("Interior Design") on Bridge. Mr. Macomber is presently a member of the chamber music faculty of the Juilliard School, where he earned B.M., M.M., and D.M.A. degrees as a student of Joseph Fuchs. He is also on the violin faculty of the Manhattan School of Music, and has taught at the Tanglewood, Taos and Yellow Barn Music Festivals.
Blair McMillen has established himself as one of the most versatile and sought-after young pianists today. The New York Times has described his playing as "brilliant," "riveting," and "prodigiously accomplished and exciting." Recent appearances include the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Caramoor, Harvard University, Maverick Concerts, Concerten Tot un Met (Amsterdam), concerto performances with American Ballet Theatre, and Miller Theatre's 15th-anniversary "Piano Revolution" series. Equally at home in both new and traditional repertoire, Mr. McMillen recently gave the U.S. premiere of Frederic Rzewski's piano piece "Dust," and he presented a critically-acclaimed recital at Columbia University featuring keyboard music from the late 14th-century Codex Faenza. A solo CD "Soundings," with music by Liszt, Scriabin, Copland, and Debussy; was released in late 2004. In addition to Da Capo Mr. McMillen is pianist for the composer/performer collective counter)induction, as well as the downtown NYC-based Avian Orchestra. An active improviser and self-taught jazz pianist, he is currently on the piano faculty at Bard College.
For more information, see Blair McMillen's home page.
Patricia Spencer's recital in Moscow for the Alternativa Festival (October 02) was a fresh highlight in a career devoted to new music. Her highly acclaimed premiere of Shulamit Ran s flute concerto, Voices, for the 2000 National Flute Association convention, is one previous highlight. For the Sonic Boom Festival in the fall of 2001, she premiered solo flute works by Louis Karchin and Eugene Lee to audience and critical acclaim. As a soloist and as a flutist with the Da Capo Chamber Players, she has toured throughout the United States and abroad, including solo performances at the 1999 International Computer Music Conference in Beijing, China. An exciting repertoire of pieces has been written for her, including title works of her solo CD, Thea Musgrave s Narcissus and Judith Shatin s Kairos (Neuma Records). An earlier CD, with pianist Linda Hall, features Boulez s Sonatine along with works by Carter, Perle, Korde, Talma, Martirano, Kreiger, and Jaffe. Both CDs have been greeted with rave reviews from Fanfare and the American Record Guide. Ms. Spencer has received awards from The National Endowment for the Arts, Mary Flagler Cary Trust, and the Aaron Copland Fund for Music for her solo recordings and commissioning projects. As a recitalist and as a Da Capo member, she has commissioned more than 80 solo, duo, and chamber works for flute.
A graduate of the Oberlin Conservatory, where she was a student of Robert Willoughby, Ms. Spencer continued her studies with Marcel Moyse, John Wummer, and Josef Marx. She teaches flute and chamber music at Bard College and Hofstra University.
For more information, please visit Patricia Spencer's Home Page.
Clarinetist Meighan Stoops has distinguished herself in the classical and new-music realms as a solo, chamber, and orchestral performer. Recent highlights include: a Chamber Orchestra of Europe performance for Mostly Mozart of Ligeti’s Chamber Concerto under Pierre- Laurent Aimard, the premiere of Gunther Schuller’s Three Little Expressions (Homage to Brahms), a Glass Farm Ensemble tour of Switzerland, and Chinary Ung cd for Bridge Records with the Naumburg Award–winning Da Capo Chamber Players, currently in residence at Bard College and Conservatory (www.da-capo.org). A Da Capo member since 2002, Stoops has appeared at the Moscow Forum and Autumn festivals; St. Petersburg Sound Ways festival; the Fischer Center at Bard College; Merkin Hall; the Knitting Factory, and other venues. Recent New York Times reviews praised her "vibrant, richly shaded" solo performance of Mario Davidovsky's Synchronisms No. 12, her “star turn" in Joan Tower's Wings, and her “impressive agility and a supple sound on bass clarinet” in Schuller’s Three Little Expressions. She holds degrees from Northwestern and Yale, and is pursuing her doctorate at SUNY Stony Brook.
Ms. Stoops routinely plays with several tri-state orchestras, including Brooklyn Philharmonic, American Composers Orchestra, New Haven, Westfield, Colonial and Princeton symphonies, and teaches clarinet and piano privately and at the Rudolf Steiner School in New York City. She has recorded for Bridge, CRI, Naxos, Albany, and Chesky Records (Grammy nominated Area 31), Martin Bresnick’s soundtrack for the PBS documentary Muhammed: Legacy of a Prophet, Richard Carrick’s accompaniment for Nancy Kiang’s short film Solidarity, and as soloist in Jeff Grace’s score for Glen McQuaid’s feature length “zomcom” I Sell the Dead. Stoops is a founding member of the American Modern Ensemble and Walden School Players, and can be heard with Gotham Sinfonietta, Wet Ink, the Talea Ensemble, the Washington Square Chamber Music Society, the Colorado and Cassatt quartets, Sequitur, ISCM, Newband, Ensemble Sospeso, and Sylvan Winds. She had the great honor of performing with Quintet of the Americas for the second commemorative ceremony of September 11th at ground zero.
