This preview has been provided by the Carolina Summer Music Festival.
The Carolina Summer Music Festival begins with a program inspired by centuries-old folk songs, dances, and poetry. Featuring Readings from James Joyce’s “Chamber Music“
Program
· Suite de Ballet / by Ralph Vaughan Williams
· Piano trio on Irish Folk Tunes / by Frank Martin
· Three songs, op. 10 / by Samuel Barber
· Duo for violin and cello / by Erwin Schulhoff
· Solo piano music / by Maurice Ravel
The Artists
Shona Simpson, reader
Shona Simpson was born in Edinburgh, Scotland, and emigrated to the U.S. when she was seven. After finishing her Ph.D. in English at Duke University as a Mellon Fellow in the Humanities, she taught at Eastern Michigan University and then Wake Forest University. She eventually left academics to be at home more with her three young daughters and to write full time. Her poem “Twinning” was adapted by Sidelong Dance Company into a spoken-word and dance piece. She also collaborated with the composer Lawrence Dillon on a setting of her sonnet, “Still Point,” which in 2010 received its New York City premiere, sung by the Metropolitan Opera’s Theodora Hanslowe. She co-wrote the children’s play Peril on the Red Planet for the Open Dream Ensemble, and she is currently working on her first novel.
Elizabeth Ransom, flute
Elizabeth Holler Ransom, flutist, is known to audiences in the southeastern United States as a soloist, chamber musician, and orchestra player, and she has also performed on several occasions in Europe. She can be heard performing in the Winston-Salem Symphony, the Carolina Chamber Symphony Players, the Ransom-Pecoraro Duo (flute and guitar), The Chamber Music Society of Wilmington (North Carolina), and the American Music Festival. Ms. Ransom currently serves on the music faculty of the North Carolina School of the Arts, and she has taught flute at Davidson College, Lenoir-Rhyne College, and the New England Music Camp.
Ms. Ransom currently teaches courses in music career development and musical outreach at the North Carolina School of the Arts and is a member of the Network of Music Career Development Officers. The courses help to prepare undergraduate and graduate music students for the many facets of a career in music, including performance, teaching, community and educational outreach, grant writing and entrepreneurial project management. Ms. Ransom is recognized as a successful presenter of educational and community outreach programs, having served as education director for the Winston-Salem Symphony and the Carolina Chamber Symphony Players. She has been awarded numerous arts-in-education grants and has designed and presented outreach programs not only for orchestras but as a chamber musician and soloist. She has also been a member of the Winston-Salem Symphony’s Bolton Woodwind Quintet which received national and international acclaim for its innovative arts-in-education programs.
Ms. Ransom grew up in Bristol, Tennessee, and studied with Philip Dunigan at the North Carolina School of the Arts, with the late Severino Gazzelloni in Siena, Italy, and as a Fulbright scholar with Ingrid Koch at the Hochschule für Musik in Hamburg, Germany. She received an Emerging Artist grant from The Arts Council of Winston-Salem and Forsyth County and has won several concerto competitions.
Jacqui Carrasco, violin
Jacqui Carrasco has performed as a soloist and chamber musician throughout the United States, Canada, Europe, Japan, Mexico and Russia, including solo appearances at Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall and at the Library of Congress and chamber music concerts with the Cassatt String Quartet. Since moving to North Carolina in 1999, Ms. Carrasco has been featured in solo and chamber music performances at Duke University; the UNC campuses in Chapel Hill, Greensboro, and Wilmington; Music at Blowing Rock; the Foothills Chamber Music Festival; Chamber Music at St. Peter’s in Charlotte, and with the Salisbury Symphony. She joined the Carolina Piano Trio in 2005.
From 1992-2002, Ms. Carrasco was the violinist of the acclaimed contemporary music ensemble Cygnus and also appeared regularly with New York-based new music groups such as the S.E.M. Ensemble, Anthony Braxton’s Tri-Centric Ensemble, Newband and Musicians Accord. Ms. Carrasco has toured extensively with the Mark Morris Dance Group and been a frequent guest at the June in Buffalo Festival at SUNY Buffalo. She has recorded contemporary chamber music for the Nonesuch, Koch, Mode, CRI and Braxton House record labels.
As a noted performer of Argentine tango music, Ms. Carrasco has appeared with cellist Yo-Yo Ma in concert and on television, as soloist with the Philadelphia Orchestra, and with the New York Buenos Aires Connection at Lincoln Center’s Midsummer Night Swing. She has also been active as a jazz violinist, and her versatile skills have been featured in commercial, film and theater music, as well as on her CD Since We Met with the Jazz Strings Project. Ms. Carrasco received her B.A., magna cum laude, from UCLA, and her M.M. and D.M.A. from SUNY at Stony Brook, where she studied with Joyce Robbins. Having previously taught at Princeton University, she is now an Associate Professor of Music at Wake Forest University.
Evan Richey, cello
Evan Richey attended both the University of North Carolina School of the Arts and the Juilliard School of Music where he studied with Lynn Harrell. He has served as Assistant Principal Cellist in The Greensboro Symphony Orchestra and has been a member of or performed with the New Jersey Symphony, the Colorado Philharmonic, and the Concordia Orchestra. He was a founding member of the West Side Chamber Players in New York City and a frequent guest performer at the Saugatuck Chamber Music Festival in Saugatuck, Michigan. He has played on Broadway in shows such as “Phantom of the Opera”, “The King and I” and “An Inspector Calls”. Evan has performed live on National Public Radio both as a soloist and a chamber musician.
Evan and his brother Craig co-founded The Place, a recording studio in NYC. During The Place’s 14 years of operation, Evan engineered and produced recordings in many musical genres and styles including classical, folk, jazz, pop, rock and musical theater. Clients include artists from independent as well as major record labels. Since moving to Winston-Salem, NC in 1999, Evan’s musical and technical skills as a producer continue to be recognized nationally by leading industry professionals. He is the owner of Ovation Sound, a company that creates music and sound design for multi-media applications with an in-house recording studio. Evan has produced audio for national and international corporations and his company writes jingles for national markets. He has produced many classical recordings released by Centaur, Bridge and Albany records, among others, and his live recordings have been aired on national programs such as NPR’s Performance Today.
Paul Gillies, piano
Pianist Paul Gillies began his performing career at the age of 12 while living in Okinawa, Japan. As an active soloist and chamber music performer, Paul enjoys performing a wide range of music for the piano; in addition to standards of the piano repertory, he plays many lesser-known works, and has premiered several new compositions. In the winter of 2007, he premiered Kenneth Frazelle’s Winter Traces, and in 2003 he gave the first performance of Lawrence Dillon’s Chicane at the Reynolda House Museum of American Art in North Carolina. Also that year, he performed a solo recital including music of Kenneth Frazelle at the Museum of the American Piano in New York City. Paul received a Bachelor of Music degree in piano from the North Carolina School of the Arts in 2001, where he was a student of Eric Larsen. In 2004, he earned his Master of Music degree from the Manhattan School of Music, as a student of Marc Silverman. Mr. Gillies has been on the faculty of the School of Music at the University of North Carolina School of the Arts, and is currently on the piano faculty of the UNCSA Community Music School.
Glenn Siebert, tenor
Tenor Glenn Siebert has appeared with many of the world’s most acclaimed symphony orchestras, including the New York Philharmonic, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Boston Symphony, Cleveland Orchestra, Philadelphia Orchestra, St. Louis Symphony, Royal Flanders Philharmonic, St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, Boston Pops, American Symphony and many others.
Mr. Siebert’s operatic appearances include leading roles in the operas of Mozart, Britten, Donizetti, Rossini and others with the Hamburgische Staatsoper, San Francisco Opera, Santa Fe Opera, Washington Opera, Opera Theater of St. Louis, Denver Opera, Asturias Festival in Oviedo, Spain, Baltimore Opera, Cleveland Opera, Minnesota Opera, Hawaii Opera and others.
He has participated as soloist in summer festivals and chamber music festivals, appearing with the Ravinia Festival in Chicago, the Blossom Festival in Cleveland, Blair Music Festival in Scotland, the Newport Music Festival, and the New York Festival of Song.
Mr. Siebert’s recordings include Mendelssohn’s Paulus with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, Handel’sAcis and Galatea with the Seattle Symphony, Berlioz’sLelio with the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra, Schubert’sMass in Eb with the Atlanta Symphony,Nothing Divine is Mundane: Songs of Virgil Thomson and Beethoven’s 9th Symphony with Brussel’s Anema Eterna. Mr. Siebert is a graduate of Indiana University and is currently on the faculty of the North Carolina School of the Arts in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.
Find out more about . . .
James Joyce and his Chamber Music
