Pianist James Bagwell
received
his undergraduate degree in piano from Birmingham-Southern College as a
student of William DeVan and Hugh Thomas. After completing his Masters
degree in conducting and musicology from The Florida State University,
he taught at The Asheville School in North Carolina. He is currently
working
on his doctorate in conducting at Indiana University. Mr. Bagwell has
sung
professionally with Robert Shaw in southern France in 1988 and 1990,
and
served as assistant conductor for the Ashevelle Symphony Chorus. While
at Florida State, he organized one of the few performing ensembles in
the
nation which focus solely on various genres of American music. His
research
on American shape-note hymnody contains the first transcriptions
available
of unpublished manuscripts and documents housed in an archive in
Carrollton,
Georgia. In Bloomington, Mr. Bagwell is Music Director at First
Baptist-United
Church of Christ, and conducts the high school choir affiliated with
Indiana
University's children's choir program.
Bagwell | Becker | Bolt
| Fellman | Hansen | Hendricks
| Johnson | Libal | Simmons
| Smith | Swaney | Swanson
| Todd | Thomas | Williamson
| Wojciechowski
Pianist Nicole Becker
studied
at the Mannes College of Music in New York City from ages five to
seventeen
under Russian pianist Elena Leonova. She received her Bachelors degree
in Biology with a focus on Neuroscience from Yale University. While at
Yale, she studied piano with Daniel Pollack and Sara Laimon. Ms. Becker
received a Fulbright Teaching assistantship to teach English in France,
and spent one year teaching and studying music in Paris. At Indiana
University,
she is currently completing her Masters degree in Piano Performance
under
Leonard Hokanson. Ms. Becker's performances include solo and chamber
recitals
in New York, New Haven, and on the Yale campus, and appearances in
festivals
including the Yale Summer Piano Institute and the Victoria
International
Festival of the Arts in British Columbia.
Bagwell | Becker | Bolt
| Fellman | Hansen | Hendricks
| Johnson | Libal | Simmons
| Smith | Swaney | Swanson
| Todd | Thomas | Williamson
| Wojciechowski
Pianist Anne Bolt was
born
in England and started playing the piano at age four. She has performed
a wide variety of solo and chamber music concerts in Japan, Canada, the
United States and Germany and throughout the UK. She recorded a concert
for Bavarian State Radio in 1990 and has performed concertos at major
venues
in the UK, Hong Kong, Malaysia and Singapore. In 1993, Ms. Bolt
graduated
from Oxford University with BA Honors degree, and spent the following
year
at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama on the Advanced Solo Studies
course, studying with Hilary Coates. In 1994, Ms. Bolt was awarded a
Fulbright
Scholarship to pursue her Masters at Indiana University under the
direction
of Menahem Pressler. She also received an English Speaking Union
Fellowship
and a British Universities North America Club "BEST" Scholarship.
Bagwell | Becker | Bolt
| Fellman | Hansen | Hendricks
| Johnson | Libal | Simmons
| Smith | Swaney | Swanson
| Todd | Thomas | Williamson
| Wojciechowski
Pianist Ray Fellman,
who performed
in the March concert of the complete songs of Clara Schumann, is also
active
as a music director. He is currently pursuing a degree in Vocal
Coaching
and Accompanying, studying with Karen Shaw. He has also worked with
James
Tocco and Gary Arvin, and studied voice with Dale Moore, James King and
Jane Kowalski. He has been Music Director of the Indiana University
Broadway
Cabaret for four years. Other music directing projects have included
Indiana
University Theater Department productions of Anything Goes, Cabaret and
the upcoming Guys and Dolls; Brown County Playhouse productions of
Tintypes,
Forever Plaid, and Sondheim's Side by Side this summer; the Aiken
Productions
tour of Amahl and the Night Visitors; and at the Edyvean Repertory
Theater
in Indianapolis, 1776, Tintypes and Tapestry this fall.
Bagwell | Becker | Bolt
| Fellman | Hansen | Hendricks
| Johnson | Libal | Simmons
| Smith | Swaney | Swanson
| Todd | Thomas | Williamson
| Wojciechowski
Soprano Amy Hansen Simmons
grew up in California, Brazil and Oregon. She is pursuing a Masters
degree
at Indiana University, where she has performed the roles of Pat Nixon
in
Adams' Nixon in China and Gretel in Humperdinck's Hansel and Gretel.
She
enjoys singing recitals, including Haydn, Mozart, and Wolf song
recitals.
She was recently a soloist at Merkin Hall in New York City, the
Festival
Music Society in Indianapolis, the Bloomington Early Music Festival,
and
the International Bassists' Convention. Ms. Hansen Simmons is a 1995
Metropolitan
Opera Auditions District winner, a 1996 Opera/Columbus Competition
finalist,
and a 1995 MacAllister Awards semi-finalist. Her 1993 Bachelors degree
is from Oberlin College Conservatory of Music, where she sang Musetta
in
Puccini's La Bohéme and Mélisande in Debussy's
Pelléas
et Mélisande. She and her husband David are expecting a baby in
August. After the baby is born, she hopes to continue singing with the
support (and babysitting help) of her family and friends.
Bagwell | Becker | Bolt
| Fellman | Hansen | Hendricks
| Johnson | Libal | Simmons
| Smith | Swaney | Swanson
| Todd | Thomas | Williamson
| Wojciechowski
Tenor David Hansen Simmons,
Wisconsin native, is an enthusiastic supporter of the song recital and
an avid student and interpreter of Lieder, most recently Schumann's
Liederkreis,
Op. 39 and Brahms' Liebeslieder Walzer with pianists Nicole Becker and
Anne Bolt. Currently, he is a Masters degree student and diction
instructor
at Indiana University, studying voice with Patricia Havranek. He has
coached
lieder with Leonard Hokanson and had master classes with Arlene Auger,
Reri Grist, and John Wustman. At Oberlin he pursued studies in piano
and
organ, and often accompanies singers or plays the organ at University
Lutheran
Church. Recent stage appearances include the role of Luther Billis in
the
Indiana University production of South Pacific, and the chorus of the
Carnegie
Hall gala performance of Mahler's Eighth Symphony, under Robert Shaw.
Soon
he will appear as Franz in Offenbach's Tales of Hoffmann. David is
looking
forward to the birth of his first child and the return of the Lombardi
Trophy to Green Bay (in that order).
Bagwell | Becker | Bolt
| Fellman | Hansen | Hendricks
| Johnson | Libal | Simmons
| Smith | Swaney | Swanson
| Todd | Thomas | Williamson
| Wojciechowski
Baritone Andrew Hendricks
is a student of Giorgio Tozzi. He has performed a number of lead roles
with the Indiana University Opera Theater, including Pelléas in
Debussy's Pelléas et Mélisande, Guglielmo in Mozart's
Così
fan Tutte, the Viceroy of Peru in Offenbach's Perichole, Pangloss in
Bernstein's
Candide, and Richard Nixon in Adams' Nixon in China. Among his
performances
as concert and recital soloist are the Monteverdi Vespers, Stravinsky's
Les Noces, Wolf's Italienisches Liederbuch, Adams' The Wound-Dresser,
Crumb's
Songs, Drones, and Refrains of Death, Bach's B-Minor Mass and St. John
Passion, and Britten's War Requiem. He has appeared professionally with
the orchestras of St. Louis, Indianapolis, and Marin County, in works
ranging
from Handel and Bach (Messiah, Israel in Egypt, Christmas Oratorio) to
Corigliano (Of Rage and Remembrance). However, his most memorable
musical
experience to date has been his appearance as a dancing aerosol can in
the chamber opera Gallantry by Douglas Moore.
Bagwell | Becker | Bolt
| Fellman | Hansen | Hendricks
| Johnson | Libal | Simmons
| Smith | Swaney | Swanson
| Todd | Thomas | Williamson
| Wojciechowski
Soprano Evelyn Johnson
has
performed with the Indiana University Opera Theater, most recently as
La
Ciesca in the 1994 production of Gianni Schicchi. She also performed
the
role of Celie in Pastatieri's Signor Deluso with the Indiana University
Chamber Opera in March, and also sang in the concert featuring the
complete
songs of Clara Schumann. Last July, she was an apprentice with the
Dorian
Opera Theatre in Decorah, Iowa, where she covered the role of Mimi in
Puccini's
La Bohéme. Ms. Johnson is a graduate of Indiana University and
received
her Bachelors degree in Voice in 1992, and Masters degree in 1995.
Currently,
she continues her voice studies with Carol Smith.
Bagwell | Becker | Bolt
| Fellman | Hansen | Hendricks
| Johnson | Libal | Simmons
| Smith | Swaney | Swanson
| Todd | Thomas | Williamson
| Wojciechowski
Pianist Marie Libal-Smith is a native of Cleveland, Ohio currently living in
Pittsburgh. She earned performance degrees in piano from the
Baldwin-Wallace Conservatory of Music and the Indiana University School
of Music, and has since performed numerous recital programs as vocal
accompanist and chamber music partner. Ms. Libal-Smith has served on
the piano faculty at the University of Alabama in Huntsville and at the
DePauw University School of Music in Indiana.
Ms. Libal-Smith plays an extensive repertoire of both instrumental and
vocal music. She has served as master class pianist for renowned opera
singers Giorgio Tozzi, Gianna D’Angelo, Vera Scammon and Jean Deis, and
regularly accompanies for Metropolitan Opera District Auditions. Ms.
Libal-Smith’s major teachers have included Artur Balsam, Leonard
Hokanson, Joseph Rezits, Robert Mayerovitch and Luba Dubinsky of the
Borodin Trio.
Ms. Libal-Smith has conducted master classes in collaborative piano and
chamber music at Baldwin Wallace College and at the University of
Alabama in Huntsville. She has collaborated with renowned flutist Carol
Wincenc and tenor Gran Wilson, and has appeared in concert in New York
City, Toronto, Nashville, Ann Arbor, Oberlin, Blue Hill, Maine and
Lenox, Massachusetts.
Recent performances have included a song recital with soprano Lisa
Williamson who recently made her Carnegie Hall debut. Ms. Libal-Smith
has collaborated with Marissa Regni, principal second violinist of the
National Symphony Orchestra (DC). Ms. Libal-Smith has performed in
Victoria, British Columbia with violinist Sharon Stanis of the
Lafayette String Quartet. A recording of the music of Suk, Prokofiev
and Szymanowski is soon to be released. In recent concerts, she
has collaborated with Sean Gabriel, principal flute of the Cleveland
Chamber Symphony and Cleveland Opera, and Amy Porter, former
co-principal flute of the Atlanta Symphony.
Ms. Libal-Smith is currently serving on the piano faculty of
Westminster College in New Wilmington, PA, is staff accompanist at
Duquesne University and studio pianist for renowned flutist Jeanne
Baxtresser at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh.
Tenor David Kenneth Smith,
as a dedicated Lieder recitalist, includes in his repertoire art songs
of Beethoven, Berg, Brahms, Schubert, Strauss, Wolf and Spohr. On the
1994
wedding anniversary of Robert and Clara Schumann, he performed their Liebesfrühling,
with Lieder of Felix and Fanny Mendelssohn in a concert billed
“Friends,
Siblings, Spouses.” He established and edits the internationally renown
website ClaraSchumann.net,
which is an undisputed rival of those for major composers. After
eight years and more than 228,000 visitors, the website continues to be
a vital resource to encourage and facilitate further research and
performance
of her music. He founded the Clara Schumann Society, and in that
capacity,
has organized and performed numerous concerts of her music. He
continues
to present the Lieder of Clara Schumann to various audiences,
accompanied
by his wife, pianist Marie Libal-Smith. Their program entitled 1840:
Wedding-Year Lieder of Robert and Clara Schumann, which
includes
Robert’s Dichterliebe and excerpts of Frauenliebe und –Leben
is frequently requested. |
Enthusiastically reviewed in the role of Don Ottavio in the Huntsville Opera Theater’s 2000 production of Don Giovanni, Dr. Smith returned to that stage last year as Don Ramiro in Rossini’s Cenerentola. His other roles include Tanzmeister/Brighella in Strauss’ Ariadne auf Naxos, Boles in Britten’s Peter Grimes, Bardolfo in Verdi’s Falstaff, Guillot in Massenet’s Manon, Remendado in Bizet’s Carmen, Satyavan in Holst’s Savitri, and the Mozart roles of Pedrillo in Abduction from the Seraglio, Don Curzio in Marriage of Figaro, and Cash in Impresario. He appeared with Bimbetta as Aeneas in Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas for the 1995 Bloomington Early Music Festival. Dr. Smith is also well-known regionally as an oratorio performer, particularly Messiah; among many venues, he has been a featured soloist at Christ Church Cathedral in Indianapolis, Pro Musica Orchestra of Columbus, Bloomington Early Music Festival, Burritt Museum City Lights & Stars concert series, Huntsville Community Chorus, and the University of Victoria, Canada. Dr. Smith studied voice with Giorgio Tozzi, James King, Dallas Draper, and Jean Deis. He was born and raised in southeast Asia, and received degrees at Wheaton Conservatory and Indiana University- Bloomington. His doctoral dissertation on the songs of English poet-composer Ivor Gurney marks yet another area of concentrated research and performance, which has resulted in several articles on Gurney’s music, and the new comprehensive website Ivor.Gurney.net, designated in 2000 as the Official Website of the Ivor Gurney Society. Currently serving as Associate Professor of Music in his third year at Geneva College, after four years at the University of Alabama in Huntsville, Dr. Smith teaches Voice, Music Literature, and Aural Skills. As a successful teacher, his Voice students of all voice types, undergraduate and older, are actively involved in opera, oratorio, art song, musical theater, jazz, conducting and teaching, and include four first-prize winners at the Alabama state NATS auditions in three years. |
Soprano Susan Swaney
has performed
as Cunegonde in Bernstein's Candide, Madame Mao in Adams' Nixon in
China,
the title role in Holst's Savitri and Tzeitel in Fiddler on the Roof at
Indiana University, where she earned her Masters degree in Voice as a
student
of Vera Scammon. She has performed as soprano soloist in Beethoven's
Symphony
No. 9 with the Anderson and Carmel, Indiana, Symphony Orchestras and
has
collaborated with several composers on performances of new works. In
1995,
she was semi-finalist in the Center for Contemporary Opera
International
Opera Singers' Competition, and this summer will premiere an opera by
composer
Constance Cooper in Princeton, New Jersey. She has performed a recital
of Goethe poems, appeared in the concert of the complete songs of Clara
Schumann, and is preparing a recital, "In Praise of the Domestic Arts."
A native of Iowa, Swaney studied Musicology and Violin at the
University
of Michigan, and spent a year at the Mozarteum Conservatory in
Salzburg,
Austria.
Bagwell | Becker | Bolt
| Fellman | Hansen | Hendricks
| Johnson | Libal | Simmons
| Smith | Swaney | Swanson
| Todd | Thomas | Williamson
| Wojciechowski
Violinist Christopher Swanson
has performed with the San Luis Obispo County (CA) Mozart Festival, the
Los Angeles Baroque Orchestra, the Austin Symphony Orchestra (TX),
numerous
community and university ensembles, and recently, with the Bloomington
Early Music Festival. He currently enjoys working for the Bloomington
Voice
Newspaper, playing concerts with friends, and (unfortunately) most
activities
that his mother disapproves of.
Bagwell | Becker | Bolt
| Fellman | Hansen | Hendricks
| Johnson | Libal | Simmons
| Smith | Swaney | Swanson
| Todd | Thomas | Williamson
| Wojciechowski
Pianist Sally Renée Todd
is a native of Bedford, Indiana. Composers Bartok, Franck, and Debussy
have appeared on her recent concert programs, although she specializes
in Chopin. Ms. Todd is currently completing a Masters in Piano, her
second
degree at Indiana University. She studies with Schumann-expert Leonard
Hokanson, and previously with Enrica Cavallo-Gulli, Walter Robert,
Marion
Hall, and Karen Taylor. She serves as Executive Assistant at both the
Latin
America Music Center and the Bloomington Early Music Festival.
Bagwell | Becker | Bolt
| Fellman | Hansen | Hendricks
| Johnson | Libal | Simmons
| Smith | Swaney | Swanson
| Todd | Thomas | Williamson
| Wojciechowski
Soprano Lisa Williamson —Since her debut with the Indianapolis Symphony, soprano Lisa Williamson continues to garner ovations from audiences and critics throughout the U.S. and Canada. The critical success of her portrayal of Alice Ford in Verdi’s Falstaff, opposite Timothy Noble, led to recitals and concerts in New York, Chicago, San Antonio, Cincinnati, Detroit, Orlando, Indianapolis, Atlanta and Washington, D. C., where she was invited to sing for the National Dedication of the Indiana Plaza. |
Miss Williamson
has excelled
in a wide variety of musical styles, ranging from the operatic
repertoire
of the bel canto era to the musical theater of Rodgers &
Hammerstein
and Lerner & Loewe. having performed with several symphonies
throughout the Midwest, she recently made her debut with the Toronto
Symphony,
performing with the renowned conductor Erich Kunzel. In addition
to stage and concert work, Miss Williamson has also performed as a
voice
talent on numerous recordings, including the Broadway tour soundtracks
for The Will Rogers’ Follies and 42nd Street.
Last season, she
made her
debut with the Pine Mountain Music Festival as Violetta in Verdi’s La
Traviata and with the Triangle Opera Company, where she performed
Rosalinda
in Die Fledermaus. Miss Williamson also performed with
Tulsa
Opera, the Columbus Symphony, Arte Vivo Productions in her second La
Traviata of the season and returned to Triangle Opera Company
portraying
Musetta in La Bohème. Upcoming engagements include
concerts, recitals and performances of The Merry Widow, La
Traviata,
Manon,
Yeoman
of the Guard and Iolanthe.
|
Cellist Tomasz Wojciechowski,
a native of Poland, came to Bloomington in 1989 bringing with him an
extensive
and significant career of twenty years in music. Having graduated with
distinction from Poznan Music Academy, in 1981 moved to Rome after
completing
a postgraduate scholarship at the Prague Music Academy to take the
position
of co-principal of the cello section in the Rome Opera Orchestra. It
took
him almost a decade to realize that he is not tailored for this kind of
artistic routine. Thanks to a generous grant from the B.
Piasecka-Johnson
Foundation, he was able to attend and complete a doctoral program at
Indiana
University under the severe eye of distinguished cellist Janos Starker.
In the meantime, he has successfully performed as a soloist with
various
orchestras and chamber groups in Poland, Italy, Bulgaria, Germany,
Austria,
the Czech Republic and the United States. He spent the last two years
as
Assistant Professor of Cello at Converse College School of Music in
Spartanburg,
S.C. Presently he is preparing for finals and for a solo tour in Poland
with a program of the cello concerti of Schumann, Haydn and
Tchaikovsky.
Married since 1974, he is the father of two boys age 21 and 9.
Bagwell | Becker | Bolt
| Fellman | Hansen | Hendricks
| Johnson | Libal | Simmons
| Smith | Swaney | Swanson
| Todd | Thomas | Williamson
| Wojciechowski
Penny Thomas received a Bachelor of Music degree in Music Education from Wesleyan College (Macon, GA), a Master of Music degree in Music History and Literature from Georgia State University, and a PhD in Musicology from the University of Florida where she studied with Dr. David Z. Kushner. She is a member of Sigma Alpha Iota, Pi Kappa Lambda, Phi Beta Delta, Alpha Psi Omega, Pi Delta Epsilon, the College Music Society, American Musicological Society, and Sonneck Society for American Music. While at the University of Florida, she received the D'Albora Graduate Music Scholarship and the President's Recognition Award.
Dr. Thomas has performed with the Renaissance
Consorts
at Wesleyan and the University of Florida, served as the music editor
of
the Wesleyan Magazine of Creative Arts, and organized a symposium on
women
composers at UF. She has presented papers on various aspects of
American
music to the southern chapters of the College Music Society and
American
Musicological Society, as well as the Musicology Lecture Series held at
UF, and has had papers pulbished in the New Journal of Music and
Composer
USA. She is currently teaching music in both the Marion County public
schools
and for Nova Southeastern University and maintains a private studio in
Ocala, Fl.
Bagwell | Becker | Bolt
| Fellman | Hansen | Hendricks
| Johnson | Libal | Simmons
| Smith | Swaney | Swanson
| Todd | Thomas | Williamson
| Wojciechowski