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Faculty - Cello
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Alexander
Ezerman |
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Alexander Ezerman comes from a family where the
cello runs four generations deep, including two former associate
principals of the Philadelphia Orchestra. A prize winner in national and international competitions, he has appeared as a soloist and chamber musician across the United States, Canada, Europe and South America. He regularly performs with his wife, violinist Stephanie Ezerman, as the Ezerman Duo. An active advocate and performer of new music, he has been involved in numerous premiers, and has performed all twelve of the "Sacher" pieces for solo cello in a single recital. His most recent premiere, "Ignis Fatuus" for solo cello, by composer Teresa LeVelle, has been recorded on the Innova Label.
Dr. Ezerman is the newly appointed Associate Professor of Violoncello at the University of North Carolina, Greensboro. His previous position was at Texas Tech University, where he was a founding member of the Botticelli String Quartet. During summers he has also served on the faculties of the Killington Music Festival and the Brevard Music Center. He holds a Bachelors degree from Oberlin College Conservatory, and Master of Music and Doctorate of Musical Arts degrees from the State University of New York at Stony Brook. His primary mentors include Timothy Eddy, Norman Fischer, David Wells and his grandmother Elsa Hilger.
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Robert
Jesselson |
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Robert Jesselson is professor at the University of
South Carolina where he teaches cello and plays in the American Arts
Trio. His performance degrees are from the Staatliche Hochschule fuer
Musik in Freiburg, West Germany, from the Eastman School of Music and
from Rutgers where he studied with cellist Bernard Greenhouse. Dr.
Jesselson has performed in recital and with orchestras in Europe, Asia,
South America, and the United States, and has participated in the Music
Festivals at Nice, Granada, Santiago, Aspen, Spoleto and the Grand
Tetons. He has been principal cello of the South Carolina Philharmonic
Orchestra and the Orquesta-Sinfonica de Las Palmas, Spain. In 1983
Prof. Jesselson was one of the first Western cellists to teach and
perform in China. He was there for a six-month tour, during which he
performed as soloist, gave master classes, and taught at several
conservatories (including Beijing, Shanghai, and Canton). For 15 years
he was the director of the USC String Project, building the program
into one of the largest and most prominent string education programs in
the country. His pioneering work on the National String Project
Consortium, based on the USC String Project, was recognized in an
article in the New York Times in 2003. He is the recipient of the 1989
SC Arts Commission Artist Fellowship, the 1992 Verner Award, the 1995
Mungo Teaching Award, and the 2002 Cantey Award for Teaching. He
recently returned from a European tour in which he performed in Berlin,
Dresden, Leipzig and Prague. Dr. Jesselson was the national President
of ASTA, the American String Teacher Association, from 2000-2002. In
December of 2001, he led a delegation of string players and teachers to
Cuba to begin professional contact with Cuban musicians, and in 2004 he
taught for several months at Sookmyung University in Korea.
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Stefan
Kartman |
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Stefan Kartman received degrees from Northwestern
University, The Juilliard School of Music, and his doctorate from
Rutgers University.
He has served on the faculties of Drake
University, Illinois Wesleyan University, and is currently Associate
Professor of Cello and Chamber Music at the University of Wisconsin -
Milwaukee where he chairs the string area and is director of the
Leonard Sorkin International Institute of Chamber Music. In addition to
solo performance, Dr. Kartman’s experience as cellist of the Kneisel
Trio and the Florestan Duo continues to be an enriching aspect of his
personal and professional life.
Dr. Kartman has performed to critical acclaim in
the US, Europe, and the former Soviet Union. Performances this year
will include chamber music and solo performances in Italy, Holland,
China, Detroit, Cleveland, Milwaukee, and Houston with masterclasses at
the Third Street Settlement Music School in New York City, Cleveland
Institute of Music, Moores School of Music in Houston, and the D’Albaco
Conservatory of Music in Verona, Italy. Recordings of his performances
can be heard under the AnnSam Recordings label.
He has been teaching assistant to Harvey Shapiro
and Zara Nelsova of the Juilliard School and proudly acknowledges the
pedagogical heritage of his teachers Shapiro, Nelsova, Bernard
Greenhouse, Alan Harris, and Antony Cooke.
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Ho-Jung
Kim |
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Ho-Jung Kim is Associate Principal Cellist of the Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra, and is a member of both the Korea Festival Ensemble and the Koreana Chamber Music Society. She has appeared as soloist with the Seoul Philharmonic, the Busan Philharmonic, the Chunju Philharmonic, the Inchon Philharmonic and the Melomania Chamber Orchestra. A top prize winner in the Hohnen Competition in Cologne, Germany, and the Dong-A Music Competition in Seoul, Ms. Kim has played recitals throughout Korea, in Germany, and in Austria.
After graduation from Seoul National University, Ho-Jung Kim studied at the Mozarteum in Salzburg, Austria and the Musikhochschule in Cologne, Germany. She currently serves on the faculty at the Seoul National University, Sookmyung Women's University and Seoul Arts High School.
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Melissa Kraut |
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Melissa Kraut has performed concerts in Germany, Austria, Denmark, Spain, Italy, Canada, France and throughout the United States, including recent recitals in Delaware, Texas, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, Illinois, Indiana, Georgia, Florida, and Tennessee. A highly recognized and sought-after pedagogue, Dr. Kraut was appointed to the faculty of the Cleveland Institute of Music in 2006. She taught at the Interlochen Arts Academy nine summers, serving as the area coordinator for strings for two years, and she is also a faculty member at the Meadowmount School of Music in upstate New York. Prior to her appointment at CIM, Dr. Kraut served as associate professor of cello at the University of Central Florida (UCF). While in Orlando, she was the educational/artistic director for A Gift for Music, a string program that provides free instruments and instruction to 900 inner-city children.
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Steven
Pologe |
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Steven Pologe has performed as a soloist and
chamber musician throughout the United States, Europe, Sweden, Taiwan,
Korea, Thailand, and New Zealand. He is associate professor of cello at
the School of Music of the University of Oregon, and cellist with both
the Oregon String Quartet and Trio Pacifica. Recently released CDs
include string quartets by William Grant Still, recorded with the
Oregon String Quartet, and works by Jon Deak for solo cello and piano
trio. Mr. Pologe has appeared frequently as concerto soloist with a
number of Northwest orchestras, and performs annually as principal
cellist of the Oregon Bach Festival. Prior to moving to Oregon, Pologe
was principal cellist with the Honolulu Symphony for thirteen seasons,
appearing frequently as a featured soloist, and was on the University
of Hawaii music faculty. While in Hawaii, he co-founded and directed
the Academy Camerata chamber music series in Honolulu.
Steven Pologe received the bachelor of music
degree from the Eastman School of Music and master's degree from the
Juilliard School, where he was a three-year scholarship student of
Leonard Rose and Channing Robbins.
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Rhonda
Rider |
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Cellist Rhonda Rider is a member of the acclaimed
piano trio Triple Helix, and for the past twenty-two years was a member
of the Naumburg Award-winning Lydian Quartet. An active touring artist,
she has been heard with the Lydians at international festivals
including Concerts Spirituel de Geneve, Septembre Musique de Lorne, the
Aspen Music Festival, Tanglewood and the American Academy in Rome. She
has performed at the Kennedy Center, Lincoln Center, Weill Hall, the
Library of Congress, the Wigmore Hall in London and the Great Hall of
the Moscow Conservatory. Winners of prizes at international string
quartet competitions in Evian, France; Banff, Canada and Portsmouth,
England, the Lydians were also recipients of two Awards for Adventurous
Programming (ASCAP/CMA). With Triple Helix Rider was awarded Best
Chamber Music Performance of 2000 in the Boston Globe. With the Lydians
she was awarded Best Chamber Music Recording of 2001 (Boston Globe) and
Critics Choice (New York Times) for John Harbison's The Rewaking.
As a soloist, Rhonda Rider won New York's Concert
Artists Guild Award and most recently was awarded an Aaron Copland Fund
Grant. Her two solo discs of contemporary cello music have been cited
as Best of the Year in the Boston Globe. Dedicated to the performance
of new music, Rider has premiered and recorded works by such composers
as John Harbison, Lee Hyla, Steve Mackey and Elliott Carter. Rider has
given numerous cello master classes as well as classes on contemporary
techniques and chamber music at such schools as the Yale School of
Music, Oberlin Conservatory, New England Conservatory, the University
of Oregon, Northwestern University and Princeton. She has served as a
panelist for the National Endowment for the Arts and Chamber Music
America.
Rhonda Rider studied with Richard Kapuscinski at
Oberlin, where she received the Hurlburt Award for Outstanding
Instrumentalist, and with Aldo Parisot at the Yale School of Music
which recognized her with the Haupt Award. She is Coordinator of
Chamber Music at The Boston Conservatory, teaching on the cello faculty
both there and at Boston University. She spends the summer months at
festivals including Tanglewood, Music From Salem and Token Creek, and
also serves as the cello coach for the Asian Youth Orchestra in Hong
Kong.
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Brooks
Whitehouse |
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Brooks Whitehouse
has performed and taught chamber music throughout the US and abroad, holding
Artists-in-Residence
positions at SUNY Stony Brook, the Guild Hall in East
Hampton, NY, the University of Virginia,
as a member of The Guild Trio, and The Tanglewood Music Center. The
Guild Trio
was a winner of both the "USIA Artistic Ambassador" and "Chamber
Music Yellow Springs" competitions, and with them he has performed and
held master classes throughout the United
States
and Canada, as well
as in Norway, Turkey,
the former Yugoslavia,
Belgium,
Luxembourg,
Germany,
Portugal,
France
and Australia.
In 1991 The Guild Trio received a three-year grant from Chamber Music America for their unique music/medicine
residency at SUNY Stony Brook's Medical School.
The trio has been
a frequent feature on National Public Radio's "Performance Today",
and has also appeared on the University
of Missouri's public
television series
"Premiere Performances", and "Front
Row Center"
on KETC-TV9 in St. Louis.
As a soloist Whitehouse has appeared with the New England Chamber
Orchestra,
the Nashua Symphony, the New Brunswick Symphony, the Billings Symphony,
and the
Owensboro Symphony, and has appeared in recital throughout the
northeastern United
States.
His performances have been broadcast on WQXR's "McGraw-Hill Young
Artist
Showcase", WNYC's "Around New York," and the Australian and
Canadian Broadcasting Corporation networks. He has held fellowships at
the
Blossom and Bach Aria festivals, and was winner of the Cabot prize as a
fellow
at the Tanglewood
Music Center.
As guest artist he has appeared with the Seacliffe Chamber Players, the
New
Millennium Ensemble, the JU Piano Trio, The Apple Hill Chamber Players,
the
Atelier Ensemble and the New Zealand String Quartet.
After his graduation from Harvard
College,
Brooks Whitehouse studied with Timothy Eddy and Norman Fischer, earning Master of Music and Doctorate of Musical Arts degrees from the State University of New York at Stony Brook. In 2006 he was appointed to the faculty of the University of North Carolina School of the Arts.
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