On April 28, piano faculty member Emanuel Ax (Pre-College ’66; Diploma ’70, Postgraduate Diploma ’72) was named an honorary member of the Philharmonic-Symphony Society of New York. The occasion was his 100th performance with the orchestra. Ax is the 66th person to become so honored since the inductions began, in 1843, and only the 20th since 1900.

Double bass faculty member Timothy Cobb will join the New York Philharmonic as acting principal bass for the 2011-12 season. Cobb is on leave from the Metropolitan Opera, where he is principal bass. 

In May, James DePreist, principal conductor and conductor emeritus of the Juilliard Orchestra, received an honorary degree from Dickinson College, in Carlisle, Pa.

Guitar and chamber music faculty member Sharon Isbin performed music by Rodrigo, Boccherini, and Vivaldi with the Salomé Chamber Orchestra at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in May. Isbin’s new CD, Sharon Isbin and Friends: Guitar Passions, came out on Sony Classical on August 30. 

On September 20, Evening Division faculty member Julie Jordan (MM ’83, piano) presents her concerto series with Benjamin Capps (MM ’10, cello) performing Elgar’s Cello Concerto. The concert takes place at St. Joseph’s Church in Greenwich Village. In August, Paul Hostetter (MM ’89, percussion) conducted works by Beethoven and Brahms at one of these concerts. Jordan is hosting an international concerto competition, with winners to perform at Carnegie Hall’s Weill Recital Hall on October 19 and December 17. 

Figments for two guitars by Literature and Materials of Music faculty member Ray Lustig (MM ’05, DMA ’10, composition) received its premiere in July at New York City’s Gershwin Hotel. It was performed by Thomas Flippin and Rupert Boyd. Also on the bill that night were mixed-media works for flute and electronics by Nathalie Joachim (Pre-College ’01; BM ’05, flute) and Allison Loggins-Hull. 

John Muller (Music History, Graduate Studies) gave a series of lectures for the Metropolitan Opera Guild last winter and spring. The topics included Gluck’s Iphigénie en Tauride, Russian opera, and Wagner’s “Ring” cycle. Muller gave a preconcert talk on Die Walküre prior to the Met’s HD showing of the opera at the Brooklyn Academy of Music and also spoke on aspects of love in Die Walküre as part of Yale’s Psychoanalysis and the Humanities lecture series. 

The Life of Schumann by Michael Musgrave (Graduate Studies) was published in June by Cambridge University Press as part of its Musical Lives Series.

In February, Seemorgh by Behzad Ranjbaran (Literature and Materials of Music and Graduate Studies; MM ’88, DMA ’92, composition) was performed by the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Jacques Lacombe, in Newark, Morristown, and New Brunswick, N.J. It was also performed in March by the Oakland East Bay Symphony, conducted by Michael Morgan, at the Paramount Theater in Oakland, Calif. (For more Ranjbaran news, see Kent Tritle item below.) 

On May 23, Pre-College faculty member Tali Roth (MM ’93, guitar) and flute and chamber music faculty member Carol Wincenc (MM ’72, flute) gave a concert of works by Piazzolla, Jobim, J.S.Bach, Ibert, and others at Barbès in Brooklyn. 

In May, the St. Louis Symphony under David Robertson gave composition faculty member Christopher Rouse’s Symphony No. 3 its premiere at Powell Hall in St. Louis.

At the 50th reunion of Harvard College’s class of 1961, Joel Sachs (Music History, Chamber Music, Graduate Studies) was awarded honorary membership in the honor society Phi Beta Kappa “in recognition of his work as a pianist, conductor, and promoter of new music.”

In September, Kent Tritle (BM ’85, MM ’88 organ; MM ’88, choral conducting) becomes the director of cathedral music and organist of the Cathedral of St. John the Divine. In May, Tritle conducted the Musica Sacra Chorus in Messages to Myself, a program of new works including Three Madrigals After John Dowland by Michael Gilbertson (BM ’10, composition), We Are One by Behzad Ranjbaran, Mother Father by Daniel Brewbaker (MM ’75, DMA ’84, composition), and The Lamb by Robert Convery (MM ’85, DMA ’92, composition). 

In July, Stephen Wadsworth (Director of Opera Studies) made his Broadway directing debut with Terence McNally’s Master Class, which is based on a series of legendary master classes Maria Callas gave at Juilliard in 1971 and 1972. The Manhattan Theater Club production, which stars Tyne Daly, closes September 4. Vocal Arts acting coach Mary Birnbaum is an assistant director.

In April, Evening Division faculty member Assaff Weisman (BA ’99, MM ’01, piano) gave a recital in Boca Raton, Fla., in which he performed works by Debussy, Brahms, Haydn, and Liszt. 

STUDENT NEWS

In April, fourth-year piano student Marika Bournaki was in a video in which she performed works by Scarlatti, Beethoven, Schubert, and Schumann while children’s musically inspired artworks were shown. Bournaki also performed at Théâtre Outremont in Montreal; both the video and the performance were fund-raisers to help a Montreal school replace its playground. 

In June, Pre-College student Daniel Cho, 17, was one of two fourth-prize winners in the 26th annual Irving M. Klein International String Competition at San Francisco State University.

Doctoral student Ted Goldman was the college-level winner of the 2011 Chamber Music Rochester Young Composers Competition. He received $1,000 and a performance of his work. 

In April, cellist Isabel Gehweiler won a ministry of the arts of the state of Baden-Württemberg (Germany) award. Gehweiler, along with pianist Oskar Jezior, also won prizes in Germany’s D.A.A.D. (German Academic Exchange Service) scholarship competition; their scholarships run from September 2011 through May 2012. 

Pre-College clarinetist Adela Kim has been giving monthly concerts at Roosevelt Hospital for patients in the psychiatry department, Addiction Institute, and rehabilitation center; in May she gave a fund-raising concert at the DiMenna Center for Classical Music to raise money to continue the series. Also participating in the concerts were Juilliard students clarinetist Christopher Pell, violinists Fabiola Kim and Doori Na, violist Catie Longhi, pianist Christopher Schmitt, and Pre-College cellist Taeguk Mun. 

In April, the Lysander Trio, comprising pianist Liza Stepanova, violinist Itamar Zorman (for more Zorman news, see below), and Michael Katz (MM ’11, cello), won the first prize (the Alice Coleman Prize) of $7,500 in the Coleman Chamber Music Competition in Pasadena, Calif.

In June, Pre-College pianist Conrad Tao, 17, was named a Gilmore Young Artist, a biannual award that goes to two outstanding artists under the age of 22. He will receive $15,000 to go toward furthering his musical career and educational development; a $10,000 commission for a new piano work to be composed for him; and several performances at the Irving S. Gilmore International Keyboard Festival in Kalamazoo, Mich., which will take place in late April and early May 2012.

Undergraduate organ major Gregory Zelek performed the Poulenc Organ Concerto with the Miami Symphony in April.

In June, Artist Diploma candidate Itamar Zorman tied for second place in the violin portion of the International Tchaikovsky Competition, while master’s candidate Eric Silberger came in fifth. The competition takes place every four years in Moscow and St. Petersburg.