Young Artist Seminar

Claudia Anderson

YAS Faculty

Claudia Anderson is known for her originality and brilliance as a solo and chamber music performer across the U.S. She is a founding member of the innovative flute duo ZAWA! and of New Prairie Camerata, a chamber initiative that showcases a community’s historical and architectural gems through performance and stimulates community participation. A Fulbright scholar to Italy, Ms. Anderson was subsequently principal flute of the Orchestra del Teatro Massimo in Palermo. She is presently principal flute with the Waterloo/Cedar Falls Symphony in Iowa, a guest artist and clinician at many colleges and music series around the country, and on the faculty of Grinnell College. She serves also as flute faculty and program director during the summers at Rocky Ridge Music Center (www.rockyridge.org). Equally at home in both the standard and contemporary repertoire, Dr. Anderson has commissioned and arranged works for solo and duo format and has moved into composition more recently. Writing about artistry in flute playing and chamber music as community is a current passion, as well as riding her Triumph Bonneville motorcycle. Other faculty positions have included the Universities of Iowa and Northern Iowa, Ithaca College, and the University of California at Santa Barbara. National Flute Association positions have included Coordinator for the Chamber Music Competition and adjudicator for HS Soloist, Young Artist, and Convention Performers Competitions. Claudia’s artistic and pedagogical inspiration came from the following great artists who were her teachers: Severino Gazzelloni, Thomas Nyfenger, Geoffrey Gilbert, William Bennett, and Peter Lloyd. 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. Duo CDs include ZAWA! (Neuma, 2001), ZAWA2 (ZawaMusic, 2006) and Duos for Flute and Oboe (Centaur, 2005).

Peter Cooper

YAS Faculty

Principal Oboist of the Colorado Symphony since 1993 and Senior Instructor of Oboe at the University of Colorado at Boulder, Mr. Cooper has also held positions as Associate Principal Oboist of the San Francisco Symphony and Principal Oboist of the Hong Kong Philharmonic. He has performed and taught master classes throughout the United States as well as in Asia and Europe.

Peter Cooper strongly believes in expanding the solo repertoire for the oboe. He has commissioned and premiered five oboe concertos. In 2019 he will play a new concerto by Kevin Puts which was co-commissioned by the Colorado and Baltimore Symphonies.  In 2000 he premiered the David Mullikin Oboe Concerto with the Colorado Symphony and recorded it in 2001 with Sir Neville Marriner and the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields in London for Summit Records. The disc also includes the Richard Strauss Oboe Concerto. The BBC Classical Music Magazine in its review of this CD praised Mr. Cooper as, “a first-rate soloist”. He previously recorded Swiss composer Heinrich Schweizer’s Oboe Concerto with the London Philharmonic Orchestra. He has also premiered concertos by Bill Douglas and Gregory Walker with the Colorado Symphony and Chen Gang with the Hong Kong Philharmonic.

In 2000, Summit Records released Mr. Cooper’s Whispers of the Past, a collaboration with harpist Marcia LaBella that garnered critical acclaim. Classical London Magazine lauded the CD as “A well recorded disc with stylish and charming performances.” The American Record Guide wrote, “Mr. Cooper has my favorite type of oboe sound: sweet, not too harsh, no sharp edges, just a melting soft pastoral tone.” Excerpts from this CD are frequently heard on National Public Radio.

Mr. Cooper has been invited to perform as Guest Principal Oboist with many noted ensembles.  He has played many times with the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra and has recorded and toured with them. Others include the Boston, Atlanta, Seattle, Houston, Milwaukee and San Diego Symphonies, and the Israel Chamber Orchestra.

A prizewinner in the Tokyo International Oboe Competition, he has been soloist with orchestras in Japan, China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Thailand and England, as well as with the San Francisco Symphony.

He frequently performs and teaches master classes at International Double Reed Society conventions. He has been a Principal Oboist of the Grand Teton Music Festival and has performed as Principal Oboist in the Oregon Bach Festival, St Barth Music Festival, El Paso Chamber Music Festival, and Strings in the Mountains.

Peter Cooper plays on Marigaux oboes; Marigaux, Paris, has sponsored him in a series of master classes and recitals throughout the United States and in Asia.

A 1981 graduate of Northwestern University, Mr. Cooper studied with Ray Still and Gladys Elliot.

Jason Lichtenwalter

JAS & YAS Faculty

Jason Lichtenwalter holds the Oboe/English Horn position with the Colorado Symphony in Denver and the Britt Festival Orchestra in Jacksonville, Oregon.  Previous positions include Principal Oboe with the Dallas Opera Orchestra and East Texas Symphony as well as Associate Principal/2nd Oboe and Acting English Horn with the Honolulu Symphony.  He has also performed with the Dallas Symphony (Dallas and Vail), Fort Worth Symphony, Naples Philharmonic, Colorado Music Festival Orchestra, and Colorado Bach Ensemble, among many others.  As a featured soloist, he has appeared on oboe, oboe d’amore, and English horn.  He served as adjunct faculty at the University of Colorado-Boulder and the University of Denver.  Jason earned oboe performance degrees from the Oberlin Conservatory of Music and Eastman School of Music.  His primary teachers were James Caldwell and Richard Killmer, and he pursued post-graduate studies with Elaine Douvas, Robert Walters, Mark Ackerman, and David Matthews.  In October 2020, he founded Peak Reeds, an online reed and cane shop catering to oboists and English hornists at altitude.

David Shea

JAS & YAS Faculty

David Shea currently serves as an Assistant Professor of Clarinet at Texas Tech University, and is also principal clarinet in the Abilene Philharmonic and Lubbock Symphony Orchestras. He has earned degrees from the Oberlin Conservatory (BM), the University of Illinois (MM) and Indiana University (DM). His teachers have been Howard Klug, Lawrence McDonald, Eli Eban, James Campbell and Ronald Phillips. Shea has performed as a soloist and chamber musician throughout the United States, France, Belgium, Germany, Austria, Brazil and Chile. As a member of Trio Montecino, he recently toured in Belgium, Germany, and the United States to promote the release of their second CD, Nuevo Sonido: Latin- American Trios, which is available on the Eroica Classical Recordings label. Shea has performed at the International Clarinet Association Clarinetfests in Chicago, Columbus, Salt Lake City, Atlanta and Kansas City, as well as the OU Clarinet Symposium, University of Montevallo Clarinet Symposium and most recently, at Klarinetstage, Belgium.

Shea was a finalist in the Boosey and Hawkes North American Clarinet Competition and was a concerto competition winner at the Oberlin Conservatory and the Colorado Springs Summer Music Festival. In addition to his solo and chamber music performances, Shea has performed as an orchestral musician with the Indianapolis Symphony, Fort Wayne Symphony, Columbus Philharmonic, Champaign-Urbana Symphony and the Sinfonia de Camera. He has also been involved in numerous CD recording projects for Crystal, Naxos, Delos, Opus One, Indiana University Recordings and Hal Leonard Productions where he worked with such artists as Eugene Rousseau and the Indiana Clarinet Trio. As a teacher, Shea has given master classes throughout the US and South America.  He has been invited twice to teach as a sabbatical replacement at the prestigious Jacobs School of Music at Indiana University.  He has also participated in a Big 12 Fellowship grant with Dan Silver at CU-Boulder, where innovative teaching pedagogies were discussed and demonstrated during week-long residencies at both campuses.  In 2005, Shea was awarded the Texas Tech University President’s Excellence in Teaching Award, and most recently, was inducted into the Texas Tech University Teaching Academy. David Shea is a Buffet-Crampon USA Performing Artist and is the Texas State Chair for the International Clarinet Association.

Rémy Taghavi

YAS Faculty

Noted for his “bubbling, charming” playing, Rémy Taghavi is a highly sought-after bassoonist and educator based in the Northeast, and has performed, toured and recorded with numerous groups across North America, South America, and Asia. Rémy has held the position of principal bassoon with the New Haven Symphony Orchestra since 2018 and has been a guest artist with the Las Vegas Philharmonic and the American Youth, Cape, and Princeton Symphonies. He has previously been an associate member of the Civic Orchestra of Chicago and a substitute with Symphony in C, and has played under conductors including Sir Simon Rattle, Alan Gilbert, and James Conlon. Mr. Taghavi has performed as a soloist with the Stony Brook Symphony Orchestra and the New York Symphonic Ensemble at Fukuoka Symphony Hall and the United Nations.

As a chamber musician, Rémy has given performances at the Banff Centre, Domaine Forget, Bravo! Vail, the Atlantic Music Festival, FIMAC, Montréal/New Musics Festival, and the Annapolis Chamber Music Festival, of which he is co-director and founder. Mr. Taghavi is the bassoonist in Frisson, the New York-based nonet whose performances have been called “musical perfection” (Royal Gazette, Bermuda). He is also a member of SoundMind, a modern wind quintet which performs music by living composers alongside re-imagined works from across an expanse of style, genre, and instrumentation. Rémy is an alumnus of Ensemble Connect, a chamber music and career-development fellowship of Carnegie Hall and The Juilliard School.

A passionate educator, Mr. Taghavi is currently Assistant Professor of Bassoon at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and faculty at the Rocky Ridge Music Center’s Young Artist Seminar (Colorado). He was an instructor in the Evening Division at the Juilliard School from 2014 to 2019. He has given guest masterclasses at colleges and universities throughout the United States and abroad. Rémy graduated magna cum laude from the University of Southern California, received a Master’s degree from the Juilliard School, and recently completed his doctorate at Stony Brook University. His primary teachers include Frank Morelli, Judith Farmer, and Norbert Nielubowski.

Dawn Wohn

YAS Faculty

Highly sought after as musician with a wide range of styles and interests, violinist Dawn Dongeun Wohn has performed throughout North and South America, Asia and Europe. She has appeared as a soloist with orchestras such as the Korean Broadcasting Symphony and the Aspen Conducting Orchestra, performed recitals across the world including Carnegie Weill Hall, Alice Tully Hall in Lincoln Center, Merkin Hall, and Jordan Hall. Her diverse interests have also led her to performances at Electronic Music Midwest, Radio City Hall and international tours with DJ Kid Koala.

Dawn began her musical studiies at The Juilliard School’s Pre-College Division as a full scholarship student of the renowned pedagogue Dorothy DeLay and continued her undergraduate studies at Juilliard with Hyo Kang. She pursued a Master of Music and an Artist Diploma at Yale University and completed her Doctor of Musical Arts degree at Stony Brook University under the direction of Philip Setzer of the Emerson Quartet.

As an active chamber musician, Dawn has performed at International Musician’s Seminar Prussia Cove in England, Great Mountains Music Festival in South Korea, The Banff Centre, and has held fellowships at Music@Menlo, Aspen Music Festival and School, Norfolk Music Festival, Sarasota Music Festival, as well as the Juilliard School’s Chamberfest and the New York String Seminar. Notable collaborations include members of the Emerson Quartet, Miami String Quartet, Afiara String Quartet, Colin Carr, Roberto Plano and Christina Dahl.

Currently, Dawn holds the position of String Division Chair, Assistant Professor of Violin at Ohio University’s School of Music. As a guest clinician she has presented at schools such as Ithaca College, CUNY, Bowling Green State University, Kansas University, East Tennessee State University, and has been on faculty of festivals such as the Académie Anglicorde in France, International Music Festival of the Adriatic in Italy, and Festival de Febrero in Mexico. Her debut album featuring works diverse works by female composers will be released in early 2019 by Delos Records.

Károly Schranz

YAS Faculty, Violin

David Rose

YAS Faculty

David Rose was born in Regina, Saskatchewan and there began his early musical education and violin study. At the suggestion of his first teacher, Ernest Kassian, David switched to the viola at age 12 and immediately enjoyed the deep, warm sound of this new instrument. A few years later, he became a member of the Regina Symphony Orchestra. David’s principal teachers have been Gerald Stanick at the University of British Columbia, and Atar Arad at Indiana University, both of whom guided him to a greater love for music and the viola. His interest in orchestral and chamber music led to association with the Vancouver Symphony, the CBC Vancouver Orchestra, and many chamber music series from coast to coast in Canada, including the Vetta Chamber Ensemble in Vancouver, the Ottawa Chamber music Festival and the summer festival of New Brunswick. Upon graduation, David was awarded the position of associate principal viola of the Vancouver Symphony. He served for eight seasons as principal viola of the Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony and violist with the Canadian Chamber Ensemble, as well as teaching at the University of Waterloo. Also greatly interested in performance on period instruments, David studied baroque viola with John Sawyer and Stanley Ritchie. He was a member of the Pacific Baroque Orchestra and performs and tours frequently with Toronto’s Tafelmusik. Most recently, David served as the acting assistant principal viola of the San Francisco Symphony, enjoying involvement in a European tour and the Grammy-winning Mahler symphony recording cycle.

Si-Yan Darren Li

YAS Faculty

Cellist Si-Yan Darren Li made his professional debut at the age of 9 and has since gone on to an international career as a recitalist, chamber musician and teacher. He has appeared in solo and chamber music performances at Carnegie Hall’s Stern Auditorium, Weill Recital Hall, Alice Tully Hall, Merkin Hall, 92nd Street Y, Kennedy Center, Victoria Concert Hall in Singapore, Izumi Hall in Osaka, Suntory Hall in Tokyo and National Concert Hall in Taipei. Li has also performed in many renowned music festivals, including the Ravinia Festival, Kronberg Academy Cello Festival and Verbier Festival. An active chamber musician, he has collaborated with such esteemed artists as Emanuel Ax, Miriam Fried, Ilya Kaler, Lang Lang, Cho-Liang Lin, Thomas Quasthoff, Alexander Toradze and members of the Juilliard, Takács, Cleveland, Casals and Ébène quartets. His recording of the Bartók string quartets with the Euclid Quartet was highly praised by Gramophone magazine and American Recording Guide.

Having previously taught at Indiana University and University of Central Florida, Li joined the faculty of the Cleveland Institute of Music in 2017. As a dedicated pedagogue, his student ensembles have won top prizes in major international and national competitions, including the Banff International String Quartet Competition, Bordeaux International String Quartet Competition, Melbourne International Chamber Music Competition, Wigmore Hall International String Quartet Competition, Fischoff Chamber Music Competition and Coltman Chamber Music Competition.

Li holds a Bachelor of Music degree from The Juilliard School and a Master of Music and Artist Diploma from the Peabody Institute. In addition to Orlando Cole, his principal teachers include Fred Sherry, Harvey Shapiro, Alan Stepansky and David Hardy. Li is a prizewinner in numerous prestigious competitions, including the Tchaikovsky International Competition in Moscow and Young Concert Artists International Auditions in New York. He is also a recipient of the American Masterpieces grant from the National Endowment for the Arts. Li plays a 1773 cello by Giovanni Battista Guadagnini, generously on loan from the private collection of Mr. and Mrs. Rin Kei-Mei.

Gerardo Teissonnière

YAS Faculty

Regarded by international critics and audiences as an artist of extraordinary musicianship and rare sensibility since his acclaimed solo recital debut at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., American pianist Gerardo Teissonnière brings to the concert stage an exciting amalgam of the diverse and important musical traditions he represents. From appearances at the Aspen Music Festival in Colorado, Lincoln Center in New York to concert halls throughout Asia, Europe, North and Latin America, Mr. Teissonnière appears in solo recital, as soloist with orchestra, in duo-piano and chamber music performances in major concert series as well as in radio and television broadcasts throughout the world.

Highlights of recent concert seasons include solo recital debuts in Munich, Italy and Vienna, as well as
solo and chamber music performances with members of The Cleveland Orchestra, and critically acclaimed performances at the Sulzbach-Rosenberg International Music Festival in Germany. Recent concert season events include appearances at the Teatro Nacional de Costa Rica, Lincoln Center in NewYork City, a performance for an audience of twenty thousand and a solo recital at the Diayucheng International Music Festival in Chongqing, China, his solo recital debut in Beijing, all-Chopin concerts in Poland, chamber music concerts in Latin America featuring première performances of the Sonata for Violin and Piano by Pablo Casals, and a return engagement with the Puerto Rico Symphony Orchestra as soloist in Tchaikovsky’s First Piano Concerto. The 2018 season marked his debut as soloist with orchestra in Beijing, appearances in concert and master classes in New York City, Beijing’s Central Conservatory, as Artist-in-Residence at the Rocky Ridge Music Center in Colorado and a solo recital tour of Shaanxi, Henan, Hunan, and Szechuan Provinces in China. In the 2018-19 season, Mr. Teissonnière began two projects: performing all of Beethoven’s works for piano and orchestra, and a series of recitals featuring works by and inspired toward the composer’s 250th anniversary, and Schubert 2020, his much anticipated traversal of the piano music of Franz Schubert.

During the worldwide Schubert Bicentennial celebrations, Mr. Teissonnière presented a series of critically
acclaimed solo recitals dedicated to the works of the Viennese composer. Highly regarded since for his
interpretations of the Classical repertoire, he has presented local, regional, American and world premièreperformances of music by 20th century and contemporary composers such as Pablo Casals, AaronCopland, Claude Debussy, Evan Fein, Alberto Ginastera, Osvaldo Golijov, Lowell Liebermann, Darius Milhaud, Arvo Pärt, Jake Runestad and Robert Schumann.

Gerardo Teissonnière combines an active performance schedule with faculty appointments at the Cleveland Institute of Music and Case Western Reserve University, and served as Artistic Director of the Piano Department and Artist-in-Residence at the Amati Music Festival in New York. He is the recipient of the Alumni Achievement Award from the Cleveland Institute of Music in recognition of his outstanding accomplishment in the field of piano performance and pedagogy, the Judson Smart Living Award in Education, and received multiple nominations for the Ohio Arts Council’s Governor’s Award for the Arts.

Mr. Teissonnière began his musical training at an early age in Puerto Rico with Cecilia Talavera and LuzHutchinson. He continued Conservatory studies with Jesús Maria Sanromá and Vitya Vronsky, both
pupils of Artur Schnabel and Alfred Cortot, at the Aspen Music Festival with Jeaneane Dowis, in Europe with Dmitri Bashkirov and Joaquín Achúcarro, and made his debut as soloist with the Puerto Rico Symphony as a laureate in the first Jesús Maria Sanromá Piano Competition. An exclusive Steinway Artist, Mr. Teissonnière is on the Artist Roster of the Si-Yo Music Society Foundation in New York.

Gerardo Teissonnière is in great demand for his mentoring of young musicians, and conducts master
classes and piano pedagogy seminars throughout the world. His students have performed as soloists
with some of the world’s most important orchestras such as The Cleveland Orchestra, and in solo recital at Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center, among other venues. A member of the Artist Faculties at the Rocky Ridge Music Center in Colorado, the Sulzbach-Rosenberg International Music Festival in Germany and Music Fest Perugia in Italy, Gerardo Teissonnière is listed in Who’s Who in America, Who’s Who Among America’s Teachers, and Who’s Who in the World. In 2019 Mr. Teissonnière celebrates his 30th anniversary as member of the Piano Faculty at the Cleveland Institute of Music, where he studied with Steinway Immortal Vitya Vronsky Babin

Spencer Myer

YAS Faculty

Lauded for “superb playing” and “poised, alert musicianship” by the Boston Globe, and labeled “definitely a man to watch” by London’s The Independent, American pianist Spencer Myer is one of the most respected and sought-after artists on today’s concert stage.

Adding to his North American credentials, Spencer Myer includes in his current season returns to the Boise and Northeastern Pennsylvania Philharmonics and the Traverse Symphony Orchestra. His solo recitals and chamber music collaborations take him throughout the United States, including an appearance with Jamie Bernstein at Washington, D.C.’s National Museum of Women in the Arts for a special performance of Leonard Bernstein’s complete “Anniversaries”.

Spencer Myer’s orchestral, recital and chamber music performances have been heard throughout the United States, Canada, Europe, Africa and Asia. He has been soloist with The Cleveland Orchestra, the Boise, Dayton, Rhode Island, Cape Town, Johannesburg and Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestras, Pro Arte Chamber Orchestra of Boston, the Baton Rouge, Indianapolis, Knoxville, New Haven, Omaha, Phoenix, Santa Fe and Tucson Symphony Orchestras, Indianapolis Chamber Orchestra, Mexico’s Orquesta Filarmónica de Jalisco and Beijing’s China National Symphony Orchestra, collaborating with, among others, conductors Michael Christie, Leslie B. Dunner, Robert Franz, Bernhard Gueller, Jacques Lacombe, Jahja Ling, Timothy Muffitt, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Kevin Rhodes, Lucas Richman, Steven Smith, Thomas Wilkins and Victor Yampolsky. His 2005 recital/orchestral tour of South Africa included a performance of the five piano concerti of Beethoven with the Chamber Orchestra of South Africa, followed by return orchestra and recital tours in 2008, 2010, 2012, 2015 and 2018.

Spencer Myer’s recital appearances have been presented in New York City’s Weill Recital Hall, 92nd Street Y and Steinway Hall, Philadelphia’s Kimmel Center and London’s Wigmore Hall, while many of his performances have been broadcast on WQXR (New York City), WHYY (Philadelphia), WCLV (Cleveland) and WFMT (Chicago). An in-demand chamber musician, he has appeared for five summers at the Lev Aronson Legacy Festival in Dallas with cellists Lynn Harrell, Ralph Kirshbaum, Amit Peled and Brian Thornton, and has enjoyed a recurring partnership with the Miami String Quartet at the Kent/Blossom Music Festival.  Other artistic partners include clarinetist David Shifrin, sopranos Nicole Cabell, Martha Guth and Erin Wall, the Jupiter and Pacifica string quartets and the Dorian Wind Quintet.

Spencer Myer’s career was launched with three important prizes: First Prize in the 2004 UNISA International Piano Competition in South Africa, the 2006 Christel DeHaan Classical Fellowship from the American Pianists Association and the Gold Medal from the 2008 New Orleans International Piano Competition. He is also a laureate of the 2007 William Kapell, 2005 Cleveland and 2005 Busoni International Piano Competitions. He enjoys an esteemed reputation as a vocal collaborator since winning the 2000 Marilyn Horne Foundation Competition. Mr. Myer was a member of Astral Artists’ performance roster from 2003-2010.

An enthusiastic supporter of the education of young musicians, Spencer Myer has served as a guest faculty at the Oberlin and Baldwin-Wallace Conservatories of Music, and in the fall of 2015, he was appointed Artist-Teacher of Piano and Collaborative Piano at Boston’s Longy School of Music of Bard College.

Spencer Myer’s debut CD for harmonia mundi usa – solo music of Busoni, Copland, Debussy and Kohs – was released in the fall of 2007 to critical acclaim by Fanfare and Gramophone magazines. Mr. Myer has released four CDs on the Steinway & Sons label since 2017:  Piano Rags of William Bolcom, and three discs with cellist Brian Thornton encompassing cello/piano repertoire of Brahms, Debussy and Schumann.

Spencer Myer is a Steinway Artist.

www.spencermyer.com

Julie Holly

Yoga for Musicians Instructor

John McGuire

YAS Faculty

Dr. John McGuire has a vast array of performance and teaching experiences. He has performed with many orchestras around the country, most notably the Dallas Symphony Orchestra, the Dallas Opera, the Fort Worth Symphony, the New World Symphony in Miami, FL, the Civic Orchestra of Chicago, the Illinois Symphony Orchestra, and the Florida West Coast Symphony.

As a soloist he was awarded the title Yamaha Young Artist, has been a finalist in the American Horn Competition, won several regional solo competitions and has appeared as a guest artist at many workshops, festivals and schools across the United States. With several world-premiere performances to his credit, John is a passionate proponent for the creation of new solo horn literature as well as a sought-after contemporary music performer.

Prior to serving on the faculty of CSU, John served as adjunct instructor of Horn at the University of Alabama, Mississippi State University, Appalachian State University, Texas Women’s University, the Music Institute of Chicago, and Florida A&M University. In addition, John maintained a private studio of over fifty students in the Dallas/Fort Worth area public school systems for many years where he was also a prominent clinician and adjudicator. Today, many of John’s former students have moved into successful careers as music educators in reputable school systems and have attained positions as orchestral performers in premier ensembles such as the Detroit Symphony Orchestra.

John received his D.M.A. and B.M. in Music Performance from the University of Alabama, his M.M. in Performance from Florida State University, and a Performer’s Certificate from the Chicago College of Performing Arts at Roosevelt University in Chicago. His major professors were Charles Skip Snead, William Capps, and Dale Clevenger.