Conservatory of Music

Saturday, September 20, 2:00 pm, Kulas Chamber Hall
VOICE: Jeannette Sorrell, Founder, Artistic Director and Conductor,
Apollo’s Fire, the Cleveland Baroque Orchestra
Jeannette Sorrell has won attention as a leading voice in the new generation of early music conductors. She combines an unusual background as both orchestral conductor and early music performer. As a conductor, she studied at the Tanglewood Music Festival under Roger Norrington and Leonard Bernstein and served as a conducting fellow at the Aspen Music Festival. As a harpsichordist, she studied with Gustav Leonhardt, and took First Prize and the Audience Choice Award in the 1991 Spivey International Harpsichord Competition. In 1992 she was a finalist for the Assistant Conductor post with The Cleveland Orchestra, which led to the founding of Apollo’s Fire; since then she has enjoyed a busy career touring, recording and performing national and international broadcasts with this ensemble.   Contact Scott Skiba for more information: sskiba@bw.edu.

October 1, 7:30 pm, Gamble Auditorium
PIANO: Andrew Rangall, piano
Andrew Rangell is best known for his performances of all thirty-two of Beethoven's piano sonatas, and for Bach's Goldberg Variations (BWV 988). In concert, his repertory ranges from Gibbons and Froberger to 20th-century composers such as Nielsen, Berio, Schoenberg, Janacek, and Christian Wolff. In 1991, at the high point of an unconventional and slow-to develop career his hand was severely injured.  He returned to performing after a seven year recovery. While he performs throughout the USA, he is particularly active in New York, where he appears frequently at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the 92nd Street Y, Miller Theater of Columbia, and the Lincoln Center Mostly Mozart Festival, and often tours throughout New England.

Saturday, October 11, 4:30 pm, Kleist Center for Art and Drama
VOICE: Michael LaTour, Stage Director, Lyric Opera of Chicago Patrick G. and Shirley W. Ryan Opera Center
Stage director Michael La Tour has directed a Kentucky Opera outreach program, has worked as an actor, singer, designer and producer, and has directed for DuPage Opera Theatre. He codirected and choreographed (with Peter Amster) the gala opening of the new Joan W. and Irving B. Harris Theater for Music and Dance in Chicago’s Millennium Park, Side By Side By Sondheim for Pegasus Theatre, and Madama Butterfly for Apple Tree (winning Chicago’s After Dark Award for his choreography). Among his film and TV credits are Beverly Hills 90210 and numerous commercials.  Contact Scott Skiba for more information: sskiba@bw.edu.

Saturday, November 15, 2:00 pm Gamble Auditorium
VOICE: Carol Vaness, soprano
Born in San Diego, CA, Carol Vaness launched her professional singing career at the New York City Opera, where she appeared regularly from 1979 to 1983. Since then, she has sung on the world's biggest stages and at premier music festivals, collaborated with today's foremost conductors in operatic and symphonic repertoires, appeared on numerous television broadcasts throughout North America and Europe, and compiled a distinguished catalog of recordings.   She performed the title role of Puccini's Tosca at the Metropolitan Opera in 2004 opposite Pavarotti in the legendary tenor's final operatic performance.  Contact Scott Skiba for more information: sskiba@bw.edu.  

Monday, November 17, 2008, 6:00 PM, Kamm Hall Room 105
ARTS MANAGEMENT: Leah Marie Trent, Education Director for Carnegie Hall West Virginia
Co-presented by the Buckhorn Chair and Arts Management Association
Integrating the Arts – Perspectives of a Practitioner: Carnegie Hall in Lewisburg serves as a non-for-profit arts and education center in the southeastern section of West Virginia. In addition to live performances, concerts and lectures, Carnegie Hall is very active in the community offering arts and education programs for all ages, as part of Bringing the Arts to Life!  Contact Bryan Bowser for more information: bbowser@bw.edu.    

Thursday, November 20, 10:30 am, Hanna Theater, PlayhouseSquare
ARTS MANAGEMENT: Bob Taylor, Executive Director, Great Lakes Theater Festival

Saturday, April 4, time tba, Kulas Chamber Hall
VOICE: John Miller, founder and president of Pinnacle Arts Management
An artists' personal manager since 1980, John Miller has been personally involved with the careers of over 600 opera singers, conductors, stage directors, and designers, and is called upon on a regular basis by more than seventy opera companies, and numerous symphony orchestras and oratorio groups to provide artists and consult in matters of repertoire, productions, and casting. He also provides advice and consulting in matters of co-productions and in executive searches.  Contact Scott Skiba for more information: sskiba@bw.edu.