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Composer Clint Needham '04 was awarded the prestigious Charles Ives Scholarhip by the American Academy of Arts and Letters on March 4th. The award is given to composition students of great promise. The awards will be presented at the Academy's annual Ceremonial in May. Needham is currently a Jacobs School of Music Doctoral Fellow in composition at Indiana University. Other awards include the William Schuman Prize/BMI Student Composer Award, two ASCAP/Morton Gould Young Composer Awards, the Aspen Music Festival Jacob Druckman Prize, an American Composers Orchestra Underwood Commission, and a New York Youth Symphony First Music Commission. |
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Margaret Mezzacappa, mezzo soprano, '09 will make her Kennedy Center debut performing in a recital of French Jewish music with the Biava Quartet on April 29. She also recently received first place in the Academy of Vocal Arts (AVA) Giargiari Bel Canto Competition. The Giargiari Bel Canto Competition was founded in 1985 by Raymond F. Giargiari in memory of his father and brother, both opera fans and AVA devotees. To the knowledge of Danielle Orlando, AVA coach for the competition, Margaret is the only first-year AVA student to have won the competition in its history. |
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B-W Motet Choir to tour Akron, Columbus, Pittsburg and Buffalo -- The B-W Motet Choir, under the direction of Director of Choral Studies Dirk Garner, will tour Ohio, Pennsylvania and New York February 21 - 25 including both school visits and public concerts. |
| Entrepreneurship in the Conservatory -- Through a grant from the Burton D. Morgan Foundation and in collaboration with the B-W Center for Innovation and Growth, the B-W Conservatory of Music is exploring ways to introduce entreprenuership to all music students. A recent article on the Foundation's web site features an interview with Conservatory Director Peter Landgren and highlights the Conservatory's progress toward this new initiative. |
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B-W announces first ever productions of La Boheme and Rent in repertory planned for February 2011. Building on a series of firsts, the Baldwin-Wallace College Conservatory of Music will continue to break ground with in-repertory productions of La Bohème by Giacomo Puccini and Rent by Jonathan Larson in February 2011. Larson based Rent on the story of La Boheme and used a number of melodic themes from the opera for his musical. Victoria Bussert, director of the B-W music theatre program, will serve as the stage director for both, utilizing the talents of music theatre and voice performance majors on stage and student instrumentalists in the orchestras. The creative team for both productions includes Anna Maria D’Antonio, choreographer; Jeff Herrman, set design and Charlotte Yetman, costumes, all members of the B-W faculty. A guest musical director will conduct La Bohème. The music director for Rent will be Ryan Garrett, a music theatre major who will be a junior in 2010. La Bohème and Rent are scheduled to run for two weeks, February 15 – February 27, 2011. The Saturday and Sunday schedule will include both productions. Tickets will go on sale at the B-W theatre box office in September, 2010. Read the Plain Dealer announcement here and the BroadwayWorld story here.
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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. |
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 Zachary R. Siler '12 |
Zachary R. Siler '12, sophomore B-W Conservatory student, has been the Music Director and Conductor of the Broadview Heights Carolers for two years. This year the choir was selected by Disney© to sing at "A Christmas Carol" Train Tour. Disney© had a train travel to cities across the U.S. and host festivities at each stop to publicize their new movie "A Christmas Carol." The Cleveland event featured the Broadview Heights Carolers, music directed by Siler. The festivities were shown on "Good Morning America" with Sam Champion reporting. See the television coverage here.
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 George Pope |
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. |
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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. |
 Chris Anderson '95 |
Check out the new B-W Conservatory of Music Blog with recent posts from Conservatory Director Peter Landgren and interesting information on Conservatory Admission from Anita Evans.
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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. |
 Jill Paice '02 |
 Lyle Steelman '01 |
Lyle Steelman '01 was appointed the assistant principal trumpet of The Cleveland Orchestra May 15. He will join the orchestra on July 29 at Blossom Music Center, the summer home of the ensemble. Originally from Euclid, Steelman has been principal trumpet of the Charlotte Symphony Orchestra since 2006. Prior to that position he performed with the Richmond Symphony Orchestra for two years. He received his master’s degree from Southern Methodist University and was principal trumpet of the National Repertory Orchestra. His teachers include James Darling, B-W faculty and member of the Cleveland Orchestra (now retired), as well as Tom Booth ’74, a member of the Dallas Symphony Orchestra. |
| Victoria Bussert, director of B-W’s Music Theatre program, received the Award of Achievement in Theatre from Northern Ohio Live magazine Monday, May 4. The annual awards recognize the excellence of people throughout Northeast Ohio in categories ranging from architecture to the arts to civic leadership. Bussert was recognized for her body of work but specifically for her direction of B-W's Phantom of the Opera, The Break Up Notebook: The Lesbian Musical at Beck Center which she workshopped at B-W, and last spring’s rock musical Brooklyn which was performed both on the B-W campus and at the 14th St. Theatre, a project that launched a new collaboration between B-W and PlayhouseSquare. |
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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. |
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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. |
 Timothy Mussard |
On Wednesday, April 15, Conservatory Director Peter Landgren and Conservatory seniors Vanessa Taddeo and Gene Stenger were interviewed on WCPN's Around Noon to preview the 77th annual Bach Festival. Hear the interview here.
 Ryan Haskins '04 |
In March, Ryan Haskins '04 was named the musical director and conductor of the Sioux City Symphony Orchestra in Iowa. His conducting career began in earnest at B-W under the tutelage of Dwight Oltman. “Within six months he had me in front of an ensemble,” Haskins recalled. “If it wasn’t for him, I probably wouldn’t be doing what I’m doing now.” Haskins earned a post graduate diploma in orchestral conducting at the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama and most recently Haskins has been an assistant conductor to the Opera Department and Peabody Symphony Orchestra at Peabody Conservatory and a cover conductor for the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra. “He was a natural leader from the start and worked very hard to develop his musicianship and conducting skills,” Oltman said. Haskins was selected for the Sioux City post from a pool of 117 applicants following a two-year search.
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| March 19 - 22, twenty-two B-W Arts Management students and faculty advisor Bryan Bowser traveled to Chicago to meet with professional arts managers throughout the city. These included visits at Steppenwolf Theatre Company and the Art Institute of Chicago. The Chicago networking trip was sponsored by the B-W Arts Management Association. |  |
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Over 50 B-W Music Education students attended the Ohio Music Educators Association conference January 15 - 18. In addition, the B-W Symphony Orchestra was invited to present a concert at the conference on Thursday, January 15. |
World renowned composer Dr. Chen Yi spent a week at Baldwin-Wallace College as the featured composer of the FOCUS Festival of Contemporary Music. The week culminated in a weekend of concerts October 31 - November 2 and a masterclass that included student composers from B-W, Oberlin College, Cleveland State University and Cleveland Institute of Music. The FOCUS Festival was generously funded by Cuyahoga County residents through Cuyahoga Arts and Culture.
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