Serenade: the 1996 Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival CD The Festival and Musicians

The Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival
Celebrating its 25th anniversary in 1997, the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival brings more than 50 internationally renowned musicians to Santa Fe for six weeks every July and August. Each summer the Festival presents more than 100 concerts, education and outreach programs, open rehearsals, and lectures in the beautiful Pueblo-styled St. Francis Auditorium of New Mexico's Museum of Fine Arts. Music lovers from all over the country come to enjoy the cool summer evenings at the foot of the Sangre de Cristo mountains and lose themselves in the world's most beautiful chamber music repertoire.

Since its beginning in 1972, the Festival has been dedicated to presenting popular and lesser-known classical repertoire, as well as bringing to Santa Fe new works by contemporary composers. The "Music of the Americas" and "Composer in Residence" programs are part of the great variety in programming that has given the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival its reputation for vision and profundity.

The Musicians
Heiichiro Ohyama played viola with the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival from 1977 to 1985. He was artistic director form 1992 through 1997. He also holds appointments as: Artistic Director of La Jolla SummerFest; Music Director of the Cayuga Chamber Orchestra in Ithaca, New York, the Santa Barbara Chamber Orchestra, and the Japan America Symphony Orchestra of Los Angeles; Principal Conductor of the Roundtop Music Festival in Texas; and Director of Conducting and Orchestra Programs and Professor of Music at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Mr. Ohyama studied in Japan, England, and at Indiana University. In 1979 he was named principal violist of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, a post he held until 1991. In 1986 André Previn appointed him assistant conductor of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, a position he held until 1990. He has made conducting debuts with the Milwaukee Chamber Orchestra and the New York Chamber Symphony at the 92nd Street Y.

Carol Wincenc has had flute concertos written for her by some of today's most prominent composers. In April 1996 she premiered Tobias Picker's The Rain in the Trees with soprano Barbara Hendricks and the Pittsburgh Symphony. In 1995 she premiered a concerto by 1993 Pulitzer Prize winner Christopher Rouse with the Detroit Symphony, and then gave the US premiere of Henryk Górecki's Concerto Cantata with the Chicago Symphony, a work she subsequently performed in London, Amsterdam, France, and Poland. Ms. Wincenc has given over 50 performances of Lukas Foss's Renaissance Concerto. For Valentine's Day, 1996, she premiered 10 short "valentines" written for her by Górecki, Peter Schickele, Michael Tork, and others at a New York recital. Ms. Wincenc created and directed a series of international flute festivals in St. Paul and New York. She has appeared with the London, St. Louis, and Atlanta Symphony Orchestras, the English, Stuttgart, and St. Paul Chamber Orchestras, and has recorded for Nonesuch, New World, and Deutsche Grammophon, as well as appearing on Stereophile's 1995 Festival CD.

Julie Landsman is principal horn of the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, and appears regularly with the New York Philharmonic and the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra. A graduate of Juilliard and a recipient of a Naumburg Scholarship, prior to her appointment to the Met in 1985 she was co-principal horn of the Houston Symphony and principal horn of the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra. Her recording credits include performances with the NYP and Orpheus Chamber Orchestra and an appearance as horn soloist on the Wagner Ring cycle recordings with James Levine and the Met Orchestra. As well as the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, Ms. Landsman has participated in the Marlboro Music Festival, La Jolla Summerfest, and the Sarasota Festival, and is on the faculty of the Aspen Music School. A faculty member of the Juilliard School since 1989, she has also taught at the University of Houston and Rice University.

Sheryl Staples is currently associate concertmaster of The Cleveland Orchestra, and was formerly concertmaster of the Pacific Symphony, Santa Barbara Chamber orchestra, and Asia America Symphony. Ms. Staples has performed nationally and abroad in recital and as a violin soloist with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Cleveland Orchestra, San Diego Symphony, and Louisiana Philharmonic. An active chamber musician, she has participated at the La Jolla Summerfest, Sarasota Music, Mainly Mozart, and Roundtop festivals, in addition to the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival. Sheryl Staples has taught at the University of Southern California and the R.D. Colburn School, after graduating from both institutions as a student of Robert Lipsett.

Max Levinson is 24 but he has performed as soloist with the Los Angeles Philharmonic and the Boston Pops, and in cities throughout the US, Europe, and Japan. He has been heard frequently on National Public Radio, where he was featured on Performance Today, the nationally broadcast Dame Myra Hess Concert Series, and the internationally broadcast A Note to You. Mr. Levinson is a winner of the Coleman Chamber Music Competition and the Performers of Connecticut Young Artists Competition, and was awarded the Bruce Hungerford Memorial Prize at the 1992 Young Concert Artists International Auditions. The recipient of a grant from the Presser Foundation, he was named 1994's Best Emerging Artist by the Boston Globe. Mr. Levinson earned the Artist Diploma from the New England Conservatory, where he studied with Patricia Zander. He received his undergraduate degree in English literature from Harvard and currently serves as Artist-in-Residence at Harvard's Lowell House.

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