Rocky Ridge Staff

SoYoung Lee - Music Director

SoYoung Lee, newly appointed Music Director at Rocky Ridge Music Center, received her Doctorate in Musical Arts in Piano Performance from the University of California, Santa Barbara. SoYoung is involved with a number of innovative chamber music and dance projects including Bach2Brazil and In the Mist chamber ballets in collaboration with choreographer Viki Psihoyos, a newly commissioned of chamber opera by composer/librettist Daniel Felsenfeld titled The Bloody Chamber based on the fairytale of the Bluebeard's Castle, and a multi-disc recording project of Schumann's piano works with pianist Sergio Gallo. She has held director positions at Baldwin-Wallace College Conservatory Adult Education/Preparatory Department, Millikin University Preparatory Division and the Boulder Arts Academy/Boulder Ballet. SoYoung served on the music faculty at Millikin, State University of New York, Fredonia and most recently, served as visiting Piano Pedagogy faculty at the University of Colorado, Boulder. She attended the University of Birmingham and the Birmingham School of Music in England, the University of Southern California and the University of California at Santa Barbara on a full music fellowship. SoYoung is equally at home as a performing artist, teacher, producer, and arts administrator.

Jean Denney - Office Manager

Jean Denney has worked as a performing musician, teacher, and administrator. Holding a master’s degree in Violin Performance and a bachelor’s degree in Music Education, she is currently a violinist in the Greeley Philharmonic Orchestra and Ft. Collins Symphony Orchestra, and freelances in the Front Range area having performed with the Cheyenne Symphony, Colorado Music Festival Orchestra, Greeley Chorale, Larimer Chorale, Canyon Concert Ballet, Colorado Dance Theatre, Opera Ft. Collins, and West Nebraska Masterworks Chorale. She has taught public school in Colorado, Texas, and Indiana and at Colorado State University, and maintained a private violin studio since 1984. Jean is a chamber music coach for the Youth Orchestra of the Rockies, and has acted as Executive Director of the String Quartet Program of Northern Colorado and Librarian of the Greeley Philharmonic Orchestra. As a year round resident of Estes Park, she is thrilled to be a part of the Rocky Ridge Music Center staff, serving as Office Manager.

Anthony "Hutch" Monteson - Development Director

Jean Zukowski, Office Assistant (summer)

Jeanne Zukowski has been teaching piano for over 20 years. She has a Bachelor of Music Degree in Piano Performance from the University of Nebraska at Omaha. She studied piano with Clarke Mullen and Dr. Marsha Johnson. She has also received her national certification in piano from the Music Teachers National Association. During her years of teaching Jeanne has been active in the National Federation of Music Clubs, the National Guild of Piano Teachers, and Music Teachers National Association in both Nebraska and Colorado.

Jeanne has accompanied and directed both adult and children’s choirs, performed in and directed handbell choirs, adjudicated at student piano auditions, and attended the International Church Music Festival in 2003 in Bern, Switzerland as an accompanist. She and her husband John moved to Estes Park in 2005. She has been president of the Estes Park Area Music Teachers Association since September, 2006.

Sharing the joy of music with others is her passion---both teaching and performing. One of her greatest joys is staying in touch with former students, seeing how they have grown and matured as young adults, and knowing that they are still enjoying their music.

When not involved in music, her other passion is hiking year-round with family and friends in the mountains, particularly Rocky Mountain National Park---her favorite place in the whole world!

Jon Bell Property Manager

Jon Bell, a long time resident of Allenspark, Co (near Rocky Ridge), has been property manager for some years. Jon has seen many changes at Rocky Ridge over the years and his handywork is visible throughout the campus.

 

 

 

 

Claudia Anderson - Program Director for JSS 1 and JSS 2

Claudia Anderson’s brilliance and originality as a solo performer (“Flute playing of the highest echelon” – New York Concert Artists Guild; “Vast range of sonorities” – Giornale di Sicilia) have graced audiences throughout the U.S., Europe and Brazil. A Fulbright scholar to Italy, Ms. Anderson was subsequently principal flute of the Orchestra del Teatro Massimo in Palermo. After returning to the U.S., she was solo piccolo for ten years with the Cedar Rapids (IA) Symphony and is presently principal flute with the Waterloo/Cedar Falls Symphony in Iowa.

Receiving degrees from the Universities of Michigan, Massachusetts and Iowa, Dr. Anderson is a guest artist and clinician at many colleges and music series around the country; she is exclusively a Miyazawa artist and also performs with flutist Jill Felber in the innovative duo ZAWA! (www.zawa.org; www.miyazawa.com). Equally at home in both the standard and contemporary repertoire, Dr. Anderson has commissioned and arranged works for solo and duo format. Her unique programming and performing styles were influenced by an early background of extensive contemporary music performance and her years of playing opera in Italy. Her work with Jill Felber of ZAWA! reflects the drama/theatricality of new music and the operatic stage, with their unconventional staging, lighting and costumes. Another recent chamber initiative, New Prairie Camerata--a core ensemble of flute, violin and harp based in Grinnell--links performance with history and architecture by performing in nontraditional spaces that showcase local gems and stimulate community participation.

Faculty positions include Grinnell College (currently), Universities of Iowa and Northern Iowa, Ithaca College and the University of California at Santa Barbara. Her recorded solo and duo performances can be found on the Centaur, Neuma and CRI labels. Her solo CD, American Flute (Centaur, 1994), was awarded five stars from Classical Pulse in 1995. Duo CDs include ZAWA! (Neuma, 2001), ZAWA2 (ZawaMusic, 2006) and Duos for Flute and Oboe (Centaur, 2005) with Rocky Ridge colleague William McMullen.

Gloria Chuang - Coordinator for Adult Piano and Piano Pedagogy

Gloria Chuang, piano, won the National Young Keyboard Competition of Taiwan at age 11, under the tutelage of her father and Robert Scholz. Her success led to her United States' debut, soloing with the San Francisco Youth Symphony. She holds both a Bachelor's and a Masters of Music from the Juilliard School in New York City. She then received her Doctor of Musical Arts in Piano Performance from the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor in 1993, where she was the recipient of the Regents Scholarship.

Gloria is a third-generation teacher of music in her family. While serving as a university faculty member, she was the appointed Distinguished Artist to Taiwan for the celebration of the fiftieth anniversary of Tamkang University. As an ambassador of international relations through music, she performed, spoke and administered master classes to students in high schools and universities in Taipei. Some of Gloria's past performance venues have been: Alice Tully Hall, Paul Hall, Bruno Walter Auditorium, Weill Recital at Carnegie Hall, the Institute of the Arts, the National Taiwan Normal University in Taipei, the Landmark Center, and the University of Wisconsin at Madison/UW Whitewater. She has been twice the featured artist with the Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra of Minneapolis.

Aside from performing Dr. Chuang has been adjudicator for numerous competitions and festivals, and a clinician for many workshops. Gloria is the Chair of the Independent Music Teachers for WMTA, and a faculty and staff at University of Wisconsin in Madison and assistant professor of piano at Winona State University. She is also a violinist at the Edgewood Chamber Orchestra and in the Bayfield Piano Quintet.