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Home :: Accolades Accolades :: Voice Foundation Honors Richard Miller Voice Foundation Honors Richard Miller Internationally renowned vocal pedagogue Richard Miller was presented with the Voice Foundation of America’s Voice Education Research and Awareness (VERA) award during the foundation’s Voices of Summer Gala Benefit and Concert held June 2, 2006, in Philadelphia. The VERA award recognizes recipients’ exceptional interest in or contribution to the field of voice communication.
“Richard Miller’s contributions to voice pedagogy and science have been extraordinary,” says Robert T. Sataloff, MD, DMA, chair of the Voice Foundation’s board of directors. “He has served as a key bridge between music and science, translating medical and scientific research into practical musical knowledge and translating musical tradition and teaching into incisive foci for scientific research. His interdisciplinary vision, passion, and scholarship have been invaluable to the evolution of modern voice medicine, science, and pedagogy.” Oberlin’s Wheeler Professor of Singing, Miller retired at the end of the 2005-06 academic year after serving as a member of the Conservatory faculty for 42 years. Before coming to Oberlin, he earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in music at the University of Michigan and a Diploma di Canto from L’ Accademia di Santa Cecilia in Rome, going on to an impressive international career as a leading tenor in opera, oratorio, and recital. Miller is “a legend in the field of music,” says Dean of the Conservatory David H. Stull. “His contribution to Oberlin as an artist, teacher, and mentor has been utterly extraordinary. Beyond Oberlin, his students have continually occupied the great performance stages of the world and have transmitted his passion for music to audiences and students alike. As a professor, his prodigious scholarly output and his teaching methods have shaped the curricula of private teachers and conservatories throughout the world.” In 1987, Miller founded Oberlin’s Otto B. Schoepfle Vocal Arts Center, an acoustic laboratory that provides measurable feedback on all aspects of the singing voice, allowing students to overcome technical issues. The center is the first objective voice laboratory to be based within a music school. “A great many Oberlin voice-major graduates claim that their laboratory experience was important in the development of their singing abilities because it enabled us to analyze spectra and overtones,” says Miller. “Many of these students have gone on to stellar professional careers singing at major opera houses throughout the world, such as the Met, La Scala, City Center, Houston Opera, and San Francisco Opera.” Miller’s teachings have had a crucial impact on vocal pedagogy around the world. He has given master classes in systematic vocal technique and artistic interpretation throughout North America, Europe, Australia, and New Zealand, and he was for many years Visiting Professor at the Mozarteum International Summer Academy in Salzburg, Austria. An adjunct staff member in the Cleveland Clinic Foundation’s Otolaryngology, Head, and Neck Surgery Department, an associate of Collegium Medicorum Theatri, and a member of the American Academy of Teachers of Singing, Miller is a frequent adjudicator for vocal performance competitions around the world. In 1990, he was decorated by the French government as a Chevalier/ Officier, L’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres. He has written eight books and more than 100 articles on voice pedagogy research and performance, and he has edited three collections of songs. During Miller’s tenure at Oberlin, his remarkable reputation and tremendous talent led other world-class conservatories to try to woo him away from the Conservatory. He turned them all down. “Although I’ve received attractive offers from other schools throughout the years, I chose to stay with Oberlin,” he says, “because the caliber of its students, faculty, and the institution as a whole is exceedingly high, and it’s one of the few schools of music associated with an academically strong liberal arts college. I’ve enjoyed building student talent, and I’ve had many wonderful performance opportunities.” One of Miller’s students is soprano Kendra Colton, who joined the Conservatory faculty on July 1 as Visiting Assistant Professor of Voice. More information about Colton and the other new members of the faculty appointed for the 2006-07 academic year will appear in the 2007 issue of Oberlin Conservatory magazine. Horne, Welser-Möst, Henke Honored at Commencement
Legendary mezzo-soprano Marilyn Horne and acclaimed Music Director of the Cleveland Orchestra Franz Welser-Möst received Honorary Doctor of Music degrees during Oberlin’s 173rd Commencement on May 29, 2006. Emeritus Professor of Eurhythmics and Music Education Herbert Henke ’53 received the College’s Alumni Medal. A world-renowned mezzo-soprano, teacher, mentor, and champion of excellence in the vocal arts, Horne has been called the “Star-Spangled Singer” and “the Heifetz of singers.” A Distinguished Professor of Voice at Oberlin, Horne was in residence in October 2005 under the auspices of the Danenberg Residency Fund, giving public and private master classes with Oberlin voice students. Her 2006 residency will take place October 27 to 31. An extraordinary advocate for the advancement of music, Welser-Möst has involved Oberlin students in many performance and rehearsal opportunities. The ongoing collaboration between the Cleveland Orchestra and the Conservatory is built on a core element of Oberlin’s mission: professional training and contact with one of the world’s great orchestras is vital to a formal music education.
Henke received Oberlin’s Alumni Medal in recognition of his outstanding and sustained service to Oberlin College and its extended community. After graduating from Oberlin, Henke earned a PhD in music education at the University of Southern California and a license in Dalcroze Eurhythmics at Carnegie Mellon University. In 1962, he joined the Conservatory’s music education and music theory faculties, retiring after 36 years. Another honor came his way in July, when he was awarded the Diplôme Supérieur Honoris Causa by the Institute Jaques-Dalcroze in Geneva, Switzerland. The presentation was made at the International Dalcroze Eurhythmics Conference held at Carnegie Mellon University. Austria, Canada, Russia, and Spain. What sounds like a fascinating itinerary for an inveterate traveler is actually a list of countries where Conservatory string students won top prizes during the recent competition season. Our journey begins in Krems, Austria, where violin performance major Daniel Austrich ’07 won first prize in the Beethoven Competition in July 2005. Austrich, who studies with Alla Aranovskaya of the St. Petersburg Quartet, performed works by Beethoven, Brahms, and Paganini. Austrich traveled to Pamplona, Spain, in September for the Sarasate Competition, where his performances of works by the contest’s namesake, as well as Handel, Paganini, Bach, Beethoven, Schnittke, and Ravel, garnered him second prize. For the finals round, he performed, with orchestra, Sarasate’s Carmen Fantasy and the Brahms Concerto under the baton of famed Spanish conductor Enrique Garcia Asensio. Ui-Youn Hong ’05 joined Austrich in the Sarasate winners’ circle; a student of Professor of Violin Milan Vitek, she won third prize. Austrich returned to his native Russia in December for the Moscow Paganini Competition, which is sponsored by the Violin Art Foundation and, according to Austrich, is Russia’s most prestigious international violin competition. For the third audition (finals round), he performed the Brahms Concerto for Violin and Orchestra and was awarded second prize. The conductor for the finals round was Alexander Skulsky, chief conductor of the Kremlin Philharmonic Orchestra. Ontario native Edwin Huizinga ’06 received an auspicious welcome in his province last November. He took first prize in the open string division of the Kitchener-Waterloo Chamber Orchestra Student Concerto Competition. As a result, the violin performance major, who studied with Professor of Violin Marilyn McDonald, performed from memory Mozart’s complete Violin Concerto No. 5 in A, K. 219 with the orchestra at Maureen Forrester Recital Hall in March 2006. A review in the Record wrote that Huizinga is “a master in the making,” and that his “cadenzas were worthy of Joshua Bell.” Harpist Sarah Oliver ’06 of Grosse Ile, Michigan, won first prize at the Midwest Harp Festival Solo Competition, held in Tulsa, Oklahoma, in July 2005. Oliver, who studied with Assistant Professor of Harp Yolanda Kondonassis at Oberlin, also was awarded fifth prize in the advanced division of the American Harp Society’s 16th National Competition, held in June 2005 in Los Angeles. Cellist Paul Dwyer ’07, a student of former Professor of Cello Peter Rejto and of Hans Jørgen Jensen, who taught at the Conservatory last year, won second prize at the Heida Hermanns International Competition for Strings, held in Hartford, Connecticut, in November 2005. Dwyer, of Hamburg, Germany, performed Bach’s Suite No. 4, Ligeti’s Solo Sonata, the Barber Cello Concerto, and Beethoven’s Sonata in D Major. During his senior year, Dwyer is studying with Assistant Professor of Cello Amir Eldan. Violin performance major Yuncong Zhang ’07, a student of Marilyn McDonald, won second prize at the Camerata Orchestra Solo Violin Competition, held in March on the Bloomington campus of Indiana University. Zhang, of Changchun, China, performed Shostakovich’s Violin Concerto No. 1 and Bach’s Violin Sonata No. 2 in A Minor. Christopher Mallett ’07 and Michelle Younger ’07, performing as the Oberlin Guitar Duo, won second place in the UTB/TSC Guitar Ensemble Festival, held on the campus of
Three recent piano graduates of the Conservatory swept the top three prizes at the Corpus Christi International Competition for Piano and Strings, held in February 2006 on the campus of Del Mar College in Corpus Christi, Texas. Michael Bukhman ’05 won the first prize and $5,000 for his performance of Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 4 in G Minor; Yury Shadrin AD ’05 won the second prize and $2,500 for his Chopin Concerto No. 1 in E Minor, Op. 11; and Scott Meek ’05 won third prize and $1,000 for his performance of Prokofiev’s Concerto No. 1 in D-flat Major, Op. 10. Bukhman studied at Oberlin with Professor of Piano Robert Shannon. He is enrolled in the Master of Music program at the Juilliard School, studying with Robert McDonald.
Meek, who studied at Oberlin with Associate Professor of Piano Alvin Chow, also won the bronze medal and third prize at the 2005 World Piano Competition, held in Cincinnati in July 2005. He studies with Menahem Pressler in the Master of Music program at Indiana University. Winner of the silver medal and second prize at the 2005 World Piano Competition was Spencer Myer ’00, who was also chosen in April 2006 as one of two Classical Fellows at the Gala Finals of the Classical Fellowship Awards, held at the Hilbert Circle Theatre in Indianapolis. The American Pianists Association (APA) sponsors the fellowships. Myer, who studied with Peter Takács, was named the Christel DeHaan Classical Fellow, which encompasses a cash award, publicity, career assistance, and performances in national and international venues. The APA Fellowship is valued at more than $75,000. Myer earned his Master of Arts degree from the Juilliard School and, in 2005, a Doctor of Musical Arts from Stony Brook University. In 2003, Thomas Rosenkranz ’99 won an APA Fellowship. Myer’s other recent accolades include fourth prize and $10,000 in the Cleveland International Piano Competition in August 2005, and fifth prize in the Busoni International Piano Competition, held in August and September 2005 in Bolzano, Italy, where he was the only U.S. competitor. More First Prizes for Oberlin Pianists Anastasia Dedik AD ’06 of Russia, a student of Professor of Piano Sedmara Rutstein, won first prize at the International Russian Music Piano Competition, held in May 2005 in San Jose, California. Mudi Han ’06, who studied with Professor of Piano Peter Takács, won first prize at the International Beethoven Piano Sonata Competition, held in May 2005. Ji Yeon Shin ’07, a piano performance major and student of Associate Professor of Piano Haewon Song, won the gold medal at the Wideman Piano Competition, held in December 2005 in Shreveport, Louisiana. Megan Glover ’06, a student of Professor of Piano Alvin Chow, received a special recognition award in that competition. Elissa Miller-Kay ’06, a Takács student, was the sole winner of the Ben Steinberg Musical Legacy Award, held in Toronto in January 2006. Organists Put the Pedal to the Medal Somewhere between earning an Artist Diploma in organ performance in 2005 and a Master of Music degree in historical performance in 2006, Bálint Karosi, of Budapest, Hungary, found time to win top prizes in several important competitions. He won second prize and a $2,000 cash award in the National Young Artist Competition, sponsored by the American Guild of Organists (AGO). The finals were held at the AGO National Convention in Chicago Also featured at the AGO National Convention was James Feddeck ’05, who won first prize in the New York City Chapter of the AGO Competition for Young Organists in May 2006. He went on to represent New York City and win first prize at the competition for Young Organists in the AGO’s Region II, and was subsequently featured in a “Rising Stars” recital at the national convention. Feddeck, who double majored in organ and oboe performance, earned a Master of Music in conducting in 2006. Another first-prize winner in an AGO regional competition was Thatcher Lyman ’05, who won first prize in the Ohio (Region V) Chapter and was also featured in the AGO’s Rising Stars convention recital. And keep an eye out for incoming student Jeffrey Wood ’08. He was a Region I first place winner and also appeared on the “Rising Stars” program. At the Miami International Organ Competition held in Florida in February 2006, Bálint Karosi won first prize and the audience prize, both of which carried a cash award and include a full-length recital at the Church of the Epiphany in South Miami during the 2006-07 concert season. Joining him in the winners’ circle was Daniel Sullivan ’01, who won second prize. In August 2005, in Valais, Switzerland, Bálint won second prize in the International Organ Competition held at the Abbey of Saint-Maurice d’Agaune. He is also a recipient of a Westfield Concert Scholar Award. Songsun Lee AD ’06 won second prize in the Fort Wayne (Indiana) National Organ Playing Competition earlier this year. Kevin McHugh Is a Watson Fellow
The Thomas J. Watson Foundation awarded jazz pianist and composer Kevin McHugh ’06 a 2006-07 Watson Fellowship. “The awards are long-term investments in people likely to lead or innovate,” says Beverly Larson, the executive director of the Watson Fellowship Program. Recipients undertake one-year-long independent research projects outside the United States. McHugh’s project, “The Music of Megacities: Cultural Homogenization in Super-Metropolises,” will take him to Brazil, Egypt, India, and Japan to investigate the development of local musical cultures. “With a projected 2.5 billion more people living in the world’s largest cities over the next 20 years, addressing the concern of cultural homogenization—and specifically local music—in megacities is incredibly important,” says McHugh. “I plan to perform with, interview, and record local jazz musicians … and discover how their music has become an expression of their global identity. I will try to understand the influence of local music on jazz, and see if there really is a sound of the city.”
In a surprising turn of events, a third Oberlin graduate captured a 2005 Jacob K. Javits Fellowship. Each year the Javits Foundation awards only two fellowships in the field of music. Last year, however, there were three recipients, all from Oberlin. Glenda Goodman ’04 was removed from the waiting list in November 2005 and awarded a fellowship, joining her fellow 2005 winners percussionist Ross Karre ’05 and pianist Michael Bukhman ’05. Goodman earned a Master of Music degree at Juilliard in 2006 and is enrolled in Harvard’s Historical Musicology MA/PhD Program. For her Javits project, Goodman says she explored the “intellectual and cultural implications and parameters of offering audiences a multimedia, multipurpose new-music ensemble, one that pushes at conventional boundaries in music and investigates new audiences.” Administered by the U.S. Department of Education, Javits Fellowships provide financial assistance to students who undertake graduate study leading to a master’s or a doctoral degree. For their academic merit and leadership potential, Annelies Fryberger ’05 and Reginald Patterson ’05 received Fulbright fellowships to teach English abroad during the 2005-06 academic year. Both served their fellowships in Guadeloupe, the center of the Caribbean’s Creole culture. Fryberger, who earned a double degree in French and piano performance, did an Oberlin honors project on the great French poet from Martinique, Aimé Césaire. Her post-Fulbright plans include graduate school. Patterson earned a double degree in French and viola performance with a minor in African American studies. For his honors project, he studied 17th-century French fabulist Jean de La Fontaine and the promotion of his work in the Francophone world. An international educational program sponsored by the U.S. Department of State, the Fulbright Program is designed to increase mutual understanding between the people of the United States and those from other countries.
Composer and TIMARA graduate Mario Diaz de León ’04 of New
York City was awarded a Meet the Composer/Van Lier Fellowship last year. He says that the TIMARA program gave him the ability “to focus on the study of electronic music and its relation to whatever other discipline I chose. For me, it meant studying composition so I could write for acoustic instruments and electronics while collaborating on video art projects with Jay King. Group improvisation eventually became a focus as well.” His Meet the Composer fellowship gave him the opportunity to collaborate on a series of works for his multimedia duo, King/ Diaz de León; participate in a U.S. tour with composer-improvisers Zeljko McMullen ’06 and Doron Sadja ’05 (aka Sadjeljko); and, as one of six selected for the International Contemporary Ensemble’s 21st Century Young Composers Project, compose a new work for premiere at Merkin Hall in New York City. In the spring he traveled to Europe, where he and King attended the opening of an exhibition featuring their work at Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Castilla y León (MUSAC), in It’s one thing for a young musician on the cusp of a professional career to attend a conservatory in fairly close proximity to one of the world’s great orchestras; it’s something else again to be able to perform on the same stage with one.
Happily for Oberlin students, the Cleveland Orchestra is less than an hour away by car and a mere audition moment away from a thrilling—and valuable—performance experience. “The advantages to our participating students cannot truly be measured,” says Gerald Crawford, Professor of Singing and Chair of the Vocal Studies Division. “They gain the opportunity to work with one of the greatest orchestras in the world and conductors of equal stature. The opportunity to venture forth in such fashion while still an undergrad has enormously powerful implications.” For the 2005-06 season, nine Oberlin students were selected by audition to sing with the Cleveland Orchestra; five of them appeared in an all-Stravinsky program conducted by Pierre Boulez. Soprano Marie Masters ’05 was the soloist in Four Russian Peasant Songs, and tenor Thorsteinn Arbjörnsson ’06, mezzo-soprano Robin Hok ’06, and tenor Michael Sansoni ’07 sang minor roles in Le Rossignol. Last-minute excitement occurred when bass Dashon Burton ’05 replaced a professional singer who became ill and performed the role of the Chamberlain in Le Rossignol. In a Plain Dealer review, Donald Rosenberg called Burton and the other lead singers “superb.” In September, baritone Todd Boyce ’05 performed in Stravinsky’s Requiem Canticles with Franz Welser-Möst conducting, and in January 2006 soprano Natasha Uspensky ’05, mezzo-sopranos Kathryn Leemhuis ’05 and Katherine Lerner ’06, and Michael Sansoni sang roles in Schumann’s Faust, also under the baton of Welser-Möst. Three of the six young singers to win coveted slots in Marilyn Horne’s legendary Carnegie Hall master class in January were Obies: Kathryn Leemhuis, baritone Edward Parks ’06, and tenor Matthew Peña ’04. All were featured in Anthony Tommasini’s New York Times article about the annual event. Tommasini described the Oberlin singers thus: Leemhuis: “warm, dusky voice;” Peña: “sweet-voiced tenor;” and Parks: “robust baritone.” Soprano Carolyn Betty ’99, who won the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions in 2002, was awarded the 2006 George London/Kirsten Flagstad Memorial Award and $10,000 in the 2006 George London Foundation yearly awards competition in March in New York City. Once again, Oberlin Conservatory singers acquitted themselves admirably at the Metropolitan Opera’s 2006 National Council Auditions, winning all three of the “encouragement awards” dispensed at the Cleveland district’s round held in October 2005: Katherine Lerner, bass/baritone Damien Pass ’06, MM ’07, and baritone Kevin Ray ’07. Jon Stinson ’01 advanced to the regionals in Pittsburgh.
Soprano Ellie Dehn ’02, a national finalist in the Met Opera auditions in 2005, won the role of Ellen in the Opera Orchestra of New York’s production of Lakmé, staged at Carnegie Hall in February and conducted by Eve Queler. In addition to a favorable review by New York Times critic Bernard Holland, the role led her to Rome to sing Anne Truelove with James Morris (Lakmé’s Nilakantha) under the baton of Daniele Gatti in a staged, televised performance of The Rake’s Progress at Accademia di Santa Cecilia. Edward Parks won first place in the Opera Columbus Irma M. Cooper International Vocal Competition, held last March on the campus of Ohio State University. Soprano Meagan Brus ’05 received an honorable mention, and soprano Kira McGirr ’06 was a finalist. This past summer, eight Oberlin-trained singers won auditions to the prestigious Apprentice Program for Young Singers at the Opera Theater of St. Louis. Returning for the second year in a row were baritone Todd Boyce ’05 and Kathryn Leemhuis. They were joined by tenor Nicholas Bentivoglio MM ’06, baritone Jason Eck ’08, soprano Jennifer Forni ’06, soprano Jennifer Jakob ’07, Katherine Lerner and Damien Pass. Soprano Mara Adler ’06 won honorable mention at the Akron Symphony Chorus John McDonald Vocal Scholarship Competition, and Kira McGirr was a finalist. Daniel Tacke Wins BMI Student Composer Award
Daniel Tacke ’06 was one of only 10 young classical composers to be named a winner in the 54th Annual BMI Student Composer Award competition. BMI President and CEO Del R. Bryant announced the decisions of the jury and presented the awards at a May reception held in New York City. Among those in attendance was celebrated composer Milton Babbitt, Chairman of the Awards. Tacke, who studied at Oberlin with Lewis Nielson and Randolph Coleman, Professors of Composition, and Ross Feller, Assistant Professor of Composition, won for Lvminvs, a composition for string trio that was also honored in May with the Nancy B. and Russell C. Hatz Special Recognition Award by the National Federation of Music Clubs’ Young Composers Contest. The BMI Student Composer Awards recognize superior creative talent. Winners receive scholarship grants to be applied toward their musical education; Tacke is enrolled in the Master of Music program at the University of California in San Diego. More than 400 manuscripts were submitted to the competition from throughout the Western Hemisphere, and all works were judged under pseudonyms. The jury members for the 2006 competition were Michael Daugherty, Mario Davidovsky, Tobias Picker, Roger Reynolds, and José Serebrier. Eleven former winners of the BMI Student Composer Awards have gone on to win the coveted Pulitzer Prize in Music, including Christopher Rouse ’71. Quintet Shines with Norfolk Chamber Music Fellowship The Tappan Brass Quintet (TBQ) was the only brass quintet—and the only undergraduate ensemble—to be awarded a fellowship to the prestigious Norfolk Chamber Music Festival, which took place in July and August at the Ellen Battell Stoeckel Estate in Norfolk, Connecticut. Affiliated with the Yale Summer School of Music, the festival’s admissions process is highly competitive. Of the 37 fellows admitted to the festival this year, seven were Oberlin students or alumni—a contingent second only to that of Yale’s. Violinists Emma Lundgren ’03, a graduate student at the University of Kentucky, and Soo-min Lee ’06 received individual fellowships.
“Being awarded a full fellowship to attend Norfolk is a high achievement,” says Associate Professor of Trumpet Roy Poper. “This excellent brass group received coaching from members of the brass faculty at Yale and comments from such acclaimed ensembles as the Tokyo and Vermeer string quartets—a phenomenal opportunity for an undergraduate quintet in an atmosphere of graduate and post-graduate students.” The members of the TBQ are David Matchim ’07, trumpet; Michael Brest ’08, trumpet; Jeffrey Staulcup ’07, horn; Benjamin Zilber ’08, trombone; and Michael Roest ’06, tuba. Matchim and Brest study with Poper; Staulcup is a student of Professor of Horn Roland Pandolfi. Zilber studies with Professor of Trombone James DeSano, and Roest, who graduated in May and has enrolled in the graduate program at the Juilliard School, studied with Teacher of Tuba Ron Bishop. Zilber says that the ensemble’s rewards were considerable: “We gained a tremendous amount of focus and intensity at Norfolk. Our group had to change and expand its rehearsal methods in order to prepare ourselves for the frequent performances.” The Tappan Brass Quintet performed in five young artist recitals in the festival’s celebrated Music Shed for an audience that included festival faculty and students as well as members of the surrounding community. They also played a twice-weekly fanfare during intermissions of the professional concert series. Larew Wins Early Music Scholarship Mary E. Larew ’05, winner of a 2005 Marshall Scholarship and a graduate student at the University of York in England, was awarded the Barbara Thornton Memorial Scholarship from Early Music America (EMA) in May. The prestigious award honors the late Barbara Thornton, who, with Benjamin Bagby ’72, was one of the founding members of the early music ensemble Sequentia. Thornton was, says Oberlin Professor of Musicology Steven Plank, “a woman without peer in her unflagging championing of medieval music drama.” EMA makes the award to “an outstanding and highly motivated (and possibly unconventional) young performer of medieval music who seeks to widen his/her experience through more advanced study and/or auditions in Europe,” according to the EMA web site. In their remarks, the international panel of judges noted that Mary’s “clear sense of purpose and enthusiasm for medieval plays” reminded them of Thornton’s own “energy and intensity.” Mary plans to use the $2,000 award in support of her production of another medieval play this coming season—Herod and the Slaughter of the Innocents. A service organization for the field of historical performance in North America, Early Music America’s goal is to expand awareness of and interest in the music of the medieval, Renaissance, baroque, and classical periods.
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