Conservatory of Music

 
Margaret Mezzacappa '09

Friday, October 5, B-W hosted the Iron Composer instant composition competition.  Five composers from across the country were selected to compete in the contest that tested their wits and endurance and culminated in a live performance of their compositions that evening.  The secret ingredient, the story of Little Red Riding Hood, and the instrumentation, two pianos, two trumpets and percussion, were revealed to the contestents at 9:00 am and they had 5 hours to complete their compositions.  After an afternoon of printing parts and rehearsing with the performers, the compositions were premiered at a public concert with Mark Satola of WCLV serving as MC.  Judges included: Keith Fitch, chair of the composition department at Cleveland Institute of Music; Bill O'Connell, Vice President of WCLV; and Mary Dobrea, chair of the piano department at Baldwin-Wallace Conservatory of Music and one of the performers for the evening. Sunny Knable won first prize with Travis Jeffords winning second prize and Andrew Jamieson third prize.  The concert was broadcast live on WCLV and was presented by Analog Arts.

George Pope, Instructor of Flute, will receive the 2009 Arts Alive! Award for Arts Education from the Akron Area Arts Alliance. Pope has been on the faculty of the B-W Conservatory since 2002 and has been Professor of Flute at The University of Akron School of Music since 1978. He served as Principal Flute of The Akron Symphony Orchestra from 1978-2002, and is a founding member of the Solaris Wind Quintet and The Chamber Music Society of Ohio. He has degrees from The University of Tulsa and Northwestern University, and has appeared throughout Europe, South America and the US in concert and in masterclasses. His annual University of Akron Summer Flute Experience celebrated its 23rd anniversary in 2009.

B-W Conservatory Alumnus Chris Anderson '95 has been named Director of the B-W Alumni Jazz Orchestra.  Jim Wynacott '64 helped to found the B-W Alumni Jazz Orchestra and retired from its direction following their 2009 performance which celebrated 50 years of jazz at the B-W Conservatory.  The B-W Alumni Jazz Orchestra will have its next concert on February 14, 2010.  The annual concert is a fundraiser for the B-W Conservatory Women's Committee.  Christopher Anderson's teachers include Dr. William Fay, Paul Ferguson, Allen Kofsky, and Edward Zadrozny.  Anderson has performed trombone with some of the best in the Classical, Jazz, Gospel, Latin and other musical idioms.  He has performed with many different musical groups including the Canton Symphony Orchestra, Cleveland Chamber Symphony, Cleveland Jazz Orchestra and Jazz Heritage Orchestra. Anderson is the Music Administrator in the Department of Arts Education of the Cleveland Metropolitan School District; he is also on the faculty of the Cleveland Music School Settlement.

Jill Paice '02, of Broadway's Curtains and The Woman in White, joined the Broadway production of Alfred Hitchcock's The 39 Steps on June 2.  Paice's West End roles include Scarlett O'Hara in Gone with the Wind and Laura Fairlie in The Woman in White. Her other credits include Anne in A Little Night Music (Roundabout Theatre Company gala performance), Elizabeth in Ace at Signature Theatre for which she received a Helen Hayes nomination for Best Actress, Betty Haynes in Irving Berlin's White Christmas (Fox Theatre Detroit), Sophie in Mamma Mia! (Las Vegas) and more.

Victoria Bussert

cast of [title of show]

In their second year of collaboration, Baldwin-Wallace College Conservatory of Music and Playhouse Square presented [title of show] May 1 - 3 at PlayhouseSquare's 14th Street Theatre.  In this multi-tiered partnership, B-W music theatre students performed onstage while senior arts management students produced the show with the assistance of PlayhouseSquare staff.  The production received a rave reviews from the Plain Dealer's Tony Brown and from BroadwayWorld.com.  The New York Times published an article previewing the Cleveland performances of the show on May 1.  Hear an interview with the show's director Victoria Bussert, co-creator Hunter Bell and music theatre student JR Bruno on WCPN's Around Noon here. 

Monday, April 27 B-W Conservatory voice faculty member Timothy Mussard received the 2009 Prix Lauritz Melchior by the Academie Du Disque Lyrique in Paris. This international award recognizes a helden tenor (a large and dramatic voice in the tenor range).  Mussard received the award for his role as Siegfried in the Melba recording of Richard Wagner’s Götterdämmerung, with the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra and State Opera of South Australia. The Academie is funded by the Foundation of Pierre Berge and Yves Saint Laurent and the jury was comprised of a panel of 17 music critics and music scholars.  The Cleveland Plain Dealer included an article on the award here.