Christopher Durang will be honored next spring with the William Inge Theater Festival Distinguished Achievement in the American Theater Award. The prize will be given in April in Kansas at Independence Community College.

Violin faculty member Lewis Kaplan served on the jury of the Sendai International Violin Competition in Japan in May. In  July, he returned as artistic director of the Bowdoin International Music Festival in Maine, and in August, he presented master classes at the Mozarteum in Salzburg, Austria.

Assistant violin faculty member Joan Kwuon performed the Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto in her Seattle Symphony debut in July in Benaroya Hall.

Joel Sachs conducted a chamber orchestra concert of American music at the Shanghai Conservatory in June. Sachs also gave a lecture-recital about John Cage, in which he performed the Sonatas and Interludes for Prepared Piano. Cheung-Yu Mo (MM ’97, DMA ’02, piano), now on the faculty of the Conservatory, was the translator.

Voice faculty member Robert White received the Chamber Music Society’s Award for Artistic Excellence at a gala dinner and awards ceremony connected with the Society’s opening concert in September, held at Jazz at Lincoln Center’s Frederick P. Rose Hall.

STUDENT NEWS

In August, Ran Dank won fourth prize ($10,000) at the 2007 Cleveland International Piano Competition. Among the works he performed were Boulez’s Douze notations, two Chopin polonaises, six Debussy etudes, Mozart’s Sonata K. 570, and Rachmaninoff’s Concerto No. 2. Dank also received the $1,000 Baroque Prize.

Violin student Laura Lutzke performed in a sonata recital with faculty member Rohan De Silva (Diploma ’82, Postgraduate Diploma ’83, MM ’84, piano) at the Mirabelle Palace in Salzburg, Austria in August.

Violin student Eric Silberger will perform a solo recital at the Musée du Louvre Auditorium in Paris on October 4, which will be broadcast on Radio France.

Alexei Tartakovski won third prize at the Rolf and Brigitte Gardey International Piano Competition in Daytona Beach, Fla., last March, performing Prokofiev’s Piano Concerto No. 1 with the Jacksonville Symphony Orchestra.