This year, dance faulty member Terese Capucilli received a special project grant from the Princess Grace Foundation—USA, which she intends to use to produce the film Reed Hansen: The “Sacrosanct” Accompanist. The film, explores the relationship between dance instructor and dance-class accompanist. Hansen has accompanied the Martha Graham technique class at Juilliard for 56 years. 

Barbara Russano Hanning, who joined the Juilliard doctoral faculty in September, will be honored on November 21 with a daylong symposium at City College called Music and Image: Baroque and Beyond in acknowledgement of her long teaching career there. 

Guitar faculty chair Sharon Isbin will be featured November and December in the hourlong documentary Sharon Isbin: Troubadour, which will be carried on nearly 200 public television stations, including New York’s WNET. The documentary will also be released on DVD/Blu-ray by Video Artists International. In October, Warner Classics released a 5-CD box set called Sharon Isbin: 5 Classical Albums. It includes performances with the New York Philharmonic, the Zurich Chamber Orchestra, and a Grammy Award-winning recording of concertos written for her by Tan Dun and composition faculty member Christopher Rouse. The set also includes recordings of Latin American music with saxophonist Paul Winter, percussionist Thiago de Mello, and Isbin’s Grammy Award-winning Dreams of a World.

This past summer, piano faculty member Seymour Lipkin completed his 27th year as artistic director of the Kneisel Hall Chamber Music Festival in Blue Hill, Me. Co-founded in the 1950s by the late former violin faculty member Joseph Fuchs (Diploma ’20, violin), the seven-week festival hosts 51 young artists on full scholarship. The festival’s faculty includes Juilliard cello faculty chair Joel Krosnick and Juilliard violin faculty member Ronald Copes, both members of the Juilliard String Quartet. Over the summer, Lipkin also played three performances of the Mozart D-Minor Concerto at the Midsummer Mozart Festival in San Francisco.

October saw the premiere of Music Theory and Analysis faculty member Ray Lustig’s (MM ’05, DMA ’10, composition) new work Suspension by the Grand Rapids Symphony. The program was curated by Adam Schoenberg (MM ’05, DMA ’10, composition), whose Picture Studies was also performed. In June, Lustig also premiered Beauty Spread Unearthly White for pierrot ensemble and soprano, which was programmed among various responses to Schoenberg’s Pierrot Lunaire. While on the West Coast, Lustig also ran a 5K race for diabetes research.

In September, Music Theory and Analysis faculty member Behzad Ranjbaran’s We Are One was performed by music faculty member Kent Tritle (BM ’85, MM ’88, organ; MM ’88, choral conducting) leading the choir of St. John the Divine in celebration of the 69th General Assembly of the United Nations. The U.K. premiere of “Sunrise,” the third movement of Ranjbaran’s Seemorgh was conducted by Han-Na Chang (Pre-College ’99), who led the Qatar Philharmonic in a live-broadcast performance that was part of the BBC Proms. In August, Ranjbaran’s Fountains of Fin received its Canadian premiere at the Pender Festival; Eugenia Zukerman (BS ’67, flute), and Gary Levinson (BM ’88, MM ’91, violin) performed.

Over the summer, Pre-College faculty member Adelaide Roberts (Pre-College ’53) gave concerts in Kingston and Rhinebeck, N.Y., as well as in Honolulu. In October, she played in a piano ensemble with vocal coach and accompanist Matthew Odell (D.M.A. ’10, collaborative piano) at Fordham.

Pre-College music theory faculty member Eric Sessler’s flute and guitar duo Hammerhead was featured at the National Flute Association convention in Chicago this summer.

In October, dance faculty lecturer Rachel Straus returned to Bratislava for the third year to teach a 12-hour master class on 20th-century jazz dance history. While there, she spoke at the first Slovak International Dance Congress. In June, Straus co-organized the first postgraduate conference in dance studies at Roehampton University in London, where she is completing her doctorate in dance studies.

Voice faculty member Robert C. White Jr. has joined the faculty of Opera Viva in Verona, Italy, where he taught in July and August.

On November 9, flute faculty member Carol Wincenc (MM ’72, flute) premieres Breathless, a new flute concerto written for her by Tod Machover (BM ’75, MM ’77, composition), with the Bemidji (Minn.) Symphony Orchestra. In October, Wincenc performed with Robert Davidovici (Postgraduate Diploma ’73, violin), Paul Coletti (Postgraduate Diploma ’84, viola), and mezzo-soprano Lacey Jo Benter (MM ’11, voice, Artist Diploma ’14, opera studies) in a program called Beethoven, Bagels, and Banter at the Santa Monica College Performing Arts Center.

STAFF

On November 15, the Fresh Squeezed Opera Company—of which Lee Braun, assistant manager of the Juilliard Store, is the orchestra’s director and principal oboist—will present a concert featuring the winner and a selection of other submissions from its recent competition for original songs and arias.

Laura Marks (Artist Diploma ’12, playwrights), Drama Division literary manager and Playwrights program administrator, was honored as an Emerging American Playwright by the PEN/Laura Pels International Foundation for Theater Awards. The judges’ statement noted that Marks exhibited “the skill of an artist far beyond her years” by her “command of dialogue, character, and structure.” 

STUDENTS

Four Juilliard singers were among the 11 participants in the Accademia Solti summer master classes in Castiglione della Pescaia. The four—second-year masters soprano Hyesang Park (pictured at left, with renowned soprano Mariella Devia; photo by Clive Barda) and alum Raquel González (BM ’12, MM ’14, voice), second-year masters tenor William Goforth, and current artist diploma baritone Takaoki Onishi (Graduate Diploma ’13, voice)—studied with masters of Italian repertoire (including Juilliard faculty member Corradina Caporello) and attended master classes. The participants were chosen in part based on their participation in an Accademia Solti master class with Richard Bonynge last fall.

In September, fourth-year pianist Llewellyn Sanchez-Werner (Pre-College ’11) was honored with an Atlantic Council global citizen award for his promotion of social action through music.

In June, Pre-College guitarist Kang Min Shin won third prize in the junior division of the 10th annual Guitar Foundation of America International Youth Competition, which was held at California State University, Fullerton. Also this summer, Shin performed at the final concert of the 13th annual New York Guitar Seminar at Mannes College. In April, Shin won second prize in the Tri-State High School Guitar Competition held by the Long Island University Guitar Festival.

On November 18, third-year pianist Yun-Chin Zhou opens the 54th season of the Young Concert Artists Series at Carnegie Hall’s Zankel Hall in what will also be his New York debut. The program includes works of Haydn, Liszt, Ravel, and Rachmaninoff.