Clinicians
Meet our Masterclass Clinicians
We are pleased to introduce this truly impressive group of masterclass clinicians for the SAA’s 13th Conference. In addition to conducting masterclasses with selected Suzuki students during the weekend, each of our clinicians has agreed to perform a selection on our Gala Clinicians’ Concert on Saturday evening, May 24. We’re sure you will not want to miss that event!
Helen Callus, Viola
As a recitalist, chamber music collaborator and concerto soloist, violist Helen Callus has delighted audiences in major cities around the world and throughout the US. In Salt Lake City as the Primrose Memorial Recitalist, she appeared with the world renowned Mormon Tabernacle Choir to an audience of 4,000 and broadcast to over 2,000 television stations around the world.
Helen Callus has performed at every major international viola congress since 2001. Ms. Callus is a regular performing solo artist on radio and TV including National Public Radio, Public Radio International and Radio New Zealand. Her debut recording “Portrait of the Viola” with pianist Robert McDonald, released in 2002, was met with the highest of critical acclaim.
Ms. Callus currently serves as Associate Professor of Viola at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and is the President of the American Viola Society, the first women elected to that title. Her first teaching appointment at the age of 26 was to the University of Washington where she taught for seven years. She has taught masterclasses for the some of the nation’s leading schools of music.
A prize winner at several major competitions including the Tertis International Viola Competition, she has adjudicated for ASTA and was Chair of the jury for the Primrose International Viola Competition in 2003. A native of Kent, England, Helen Callus graduated from The Royal Academy of Music in London as a student of Ian Jewel and was most recently bestowed an Honorary ARAM (Associate of the RAM) from the school. She continued her studies at the Peabody Conservatory in Maryland where she was the teaching assistant to Paul Coletti.
Ms Callus plays on an Alessandrus d’Espine viola made in Turin, 1837, on generous loan from the Mandell Collection in Southern California.
Anthony Elliott, Cello
Cellist Anthony Elliott is in great demand as a soloist, chamber music performer, and teacher. Following his success in the Emanuel Feuermann International Cello Competition in 1987, he gave a highly successful New York debut recital, which received a lengthy standing ovation from a capacity crowd.
Anthony Elliott’s studies were with Janos Starker and Frank Miller. Presently he is a Professor of Music at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. He devotes most of his summer to teaching and performing at the Aspen Music Festival.
A frequent guest soloist with major orchestras, Anthony Elliott has performed most of the standard concerto repertory with such orchestras as the New York Philharmonic, the Minnesota Orchestra, the Detroit Symphony, the Vancouver Symphony, and the CBC Toronto Orchestra. He has also commissioned new works by such composers as Primous Fouuntain III, Augustus Hill, James Lee III, and Chad E. Hughes. As a soloist, his performances have been recorded and broadcast on radio and television across the United States and Canada. His recordings are available online at www.cdbaby.com and at iTunes.
As a chamber musician, he is a regular guest artist at the Sitka (Alaska) Summer Music Festival, the Seattle Chamber Music Festival, the Texas Music Festival, New York’s Bargemusic Chamber Series, Chamber Music International of Dallas, Houston’s DaCamera Series, the Victoria International Festival, and the Gateways Festival. He has also appeared as a member of Quartet Canada, with members of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, and with members of the Emerson, Juilliard, Cleveland, and Concord string quartets.
He has appeared in chamber music with the present and former concertmasters of the Berlin Philharmonic, the Concertgebouw of Amsterdam, the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, and the Cleveland Orchestra. He performs regularly with the Michigan Chamber Players in Ann Arbor.
Benjamin Verdery, Guitar
Benjamin Verdery has enjoyed an innovative and eclectic musical career. He has released over 15 albums, his most recent, Branches (Mushkatweek) features arrangements of works by Bach, Mozart, Strauss, Hendrix and the traditional Amazing Grace. His recording, Start Now (Mushkatweek), won the 2005 Classical Recording Foundation Award. Other recordings of note include Some Towns and Cities which won the 1992 Guitar Player Magazine Best Classical Guitar Recording and his collaboration with John Williams on John Williams Plays Vivaldi (Sony Classical).
Since his 1980 New York debut with his wife, flutist Rie Schmidt, Benjamin Verdery has performed worldwide. He has recorded and performed with such diverse artists as Frederic Hand, William Coulter, Leo Kottke, Anthony Newman, Jessye Norman, Paco Peña, Hermann Prey and John Williams.
Since 1985, Benjamin has been chair of the guitar department at the Yale University School of Music. In 2004, the Yale University Music Library commissioned Ingram Marshall to compose a work for classical and electric guitars. Dark Florescence was premiered at Carnegie Hall with the American Composers Orchestra and Steven Sloane in February 2005.
A prolific composer, many of Benjamin Verdery’s compositions have been performed and published over the years. Most recently, Verdery completed Peace, Love and Guitars for John Williams and John Etheridge recorded at the Dublin Festival in July 2006 and released by SONY in September 2006. His Scenes from Ellis Island for guitar orchestra has been extensively broadcast and performed at festivals and universities in the United States, Canada, New Zealand and Europe, and the Los Angeles Guitar Quartet included it on their CD Air and Ground (Sony Classical). His Etudes for guitar orchestra was commissioned by the Tidewater Classical Guitar Society and premiered at the 2004 Virginia International Festival.
This past spring Benjamin Verdery became a member of the SAA’s Honorary Board.
Joseph Silverstein, Violin
Internationally acclaimed conductor and violinist Joseph Silverstein was Music Director of the Utah Symphony
Orchestra from 1983 until 1998. He received his formal training at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia; his teachers included Josef Gingold, Mischa Mischakoff, and Efrem Zimbalist.
Upon leaving Curtis, Mr. Silverstein joined the Boston Symphony in the fall of 1955. He became concertmaster in 1962 and assistant conductor in 1971, holding both positions through the 1983-84 season.
As a conductor and soloist, Joseph Silverstein has appeared with hundreds of orchestras in the United States, as well as the Far East, Israel and Europe. Future and recent-past engagements with Mr. Silverstein conducting and appearing as soloist include the Milwaukee Symphony, the Utah Symphony, the Minnesota Orchestra, the Rochester Philharmonic, the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, France’s Orchestre Nationale de Lille, the Berlin Symphony, the National Symphony Orchestra of Taiwan, as well as appearances at the Verbier Festival in Switzerland, the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival and the Aspen Music Festival.
He has been a member of the faculties at Yale University, the New England Conservatory, Boston University and the Tanglewood Music Center and currently is a member of the string faculty of the Curtis Institute and an artist member of Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center in New York.
Mr. Silverstein has recorded extensively for RCA, Deutsche Grammophon, CBS, Nonesuch, New World Records, Telarc and Pro Arte. His Telarc recording of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons with the Boston Symphony Orchestra received a Grammy nomination. Other recent recordings, on which Mr. Silverstein is both conductor and featured soloist, are with the Utah Symphony on Pro Arte. Other recent releases include the Bach Brandenburg Concertos with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center on Delos, and the Schmitt Quintet in G Major on Sony Classical.
Joseph Silverstein is a member of the SAA Honorary Board.
Diana Gannett, Bass
Diana Gannett is Distinguished Professor of Double Bass at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor. She holds a masters and a D.M.A. from Yale University. As a chamber musician, she has performed with the artists of the Guarneri, Emerson, Laurentian, and Stanford Quartets and the Borodin Trio, as well as the Iowa Center for New Music, American Chamber Players, New Band, and the Oberlin Dance Collective. As a soloist, her programs have included over twenty contemporary premieres and several solo improvisations, as well as traditional repertoire. She is recorded on Irida records and has a solo CD titled Ladybass.
Diana Gannett’s previous appointments include the faculties of Yale University School of Music, Theatre and Dance and Hartt School of Music, Theatre and Dance in Connecticut, Oberlin College Conservatory in Ohio, University of Iowa School of Music, Theatre and Dance, and the University of South Florida. For many years she held the position of principal double bass at Eastern Music Festival in Greensboro, NC. Her students have been winners in many solo competitions (ISB, ASTA, EMF, Aspen, and various regional competitions) and have also won positions in many fine professional orchestras and teaching institutions.
Professor Gannett is Past President of the International Society of Bassists and hosted the 1999 convention at the University of Iowa. Her studies with Eldon Obrecht, Stuart Sankey, and Gary Karr culminated with being the first Yale doctorate awarded in double bass. She has worked as an instrument builder with luthier Carleen Hutchins of the Catgut Acoustical Society. Mrs. Hutchins built one of the instruments on which Dr. Gannett performs. Gannett built a copy of the Hutchins instrument with the help of luthier James Reck, and currently performs on the new bass.
María Luisa Rayan-Forero, Harp
Internationally renowned harpist, María Luisa Rayan-Forero has performed to critical acclaim in the USA, Europe, Latin America and Japan. She completed her Masters, Artist Diploma and Doctorate degrees at Indiana University, where she studied with Susann McDonald.
Ms. Rayan is in demand as a recitalist, teacher, chamber musician and as a soloist with orchestra. She appears regularly in Puerto Rico, both as a recitalist and a soloist with orchestra, having played at the Casals Festival. Her performances with orchestra include the Entre Ríos Symphony, Córdoba Symphony, National Symphony Orchestra of Buenos Aires, Houston Symphony, as well as at the Tanglewood Music Center, where she was a Fellow, and at the Brevard Music Festival in North Carolina, where she served on the faculty in the summer of 2003.
A Silver Medal winner at the USA International Harp Competition in 1998 and 2001, Ms. Rayan has also won first prize in several of the competitions at the 13th American Harp Society Conference and the Anne Adams Scholarship Awards. She has been a prizewinner at the WAMSO Competition in Minneapolis and at the Ima Hogg Competition in Houston.
Ms. Rayan has performed in major venues in the world, including the Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and at Libby Gardner Hall in Utah and Carnegie Hall in New York. Ms. Rayan gave the premiere of Uncover the Harp (2004) by Paul Sarcich at the National Concert Hall in Dublin as part of the Ninth World Harp Congress. She also appeared with great success at the Geary Theatre in San Francisco in July 2006, where she played at the opening recital of the American Harp Society 37th National Conference.
Paula Robison, Flute
Paula Robison was born in Tennessee to a family of actors, writers, dancers, and musicians. She learned how to play the flute in her school orchestra, and when she was twelve she decided to become a musician.
She studied at The Juilliard School followed with summers at the Marlboro Music Festival. When she was twenty, Leonard Bernstein invited her to solo with the New York Philharmonic. She gave her New York recital debut under the auspices of Young Concert Artists and soon after that became the first American to win First Prize in Flute at the Geneva International Competition. Ms Robison was a founding member of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center and held the title of Artist Member for twenty seasons.
During the same time she was co-director with Scott Nickrenz of the Chamber Music Concerts at the Spoleto Festivals, earning her the Adelaide Ristori Prize for her contribution to Italian cultural life.
A passionate advocate for new music, Paula Robison has commissioned works by Leon Kirchner, Toru Takemitsu, Robert Beaser, Kenneth Frazelle, Oliver Knussen, and Lowell Liebermann. Her teaching has taken her all over the world and she has written five books on the art of flute playing. She holds the Donna Hieken Flute Chair at the New England Conservatory.
Anagnoson & Kinton, Piano
“Synchronicity” is used to describe an intuitive, almost inexplicable co-ordination in timing between people. It could surely be used to describe the outstanding duo piano artistry of James Anagnoson and Leslie Kinton. Rich in history, Anagnoson & Kinton are entering a remarkable third decade of performances. And like finer things in life, their reputation and legacy grow richer each year.
That two pianists can produce a virtually seamless sound, over this many years, gives cause to marvel. The critics certainly have. As The Ottawa Citizen duly noted: “Anagnoson and Kinton’s playing is everything that duo-piano playing should be.” This legendary duo has enchanted audiences throughout Canada, major sections of the United States, Europe, and most recently China.
Of course, as Anagnoson & Kinton continue to seek new geographic frontiers, they also push towards new artistic horizons. In addition to performing with the major orchestras in Canada, they have expanded in innovative musical directions, such as performing Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring alongside Ballet BC. Summer 2006 saw them in a multi-genre premiere entitled Into the Labyrinth by Canadian Ray Luedeke, featuring staging by Tom Diamond and narration with actor Colin Fox.
Anagnoson & Kinton’s recording portfolio is extensive. Since 1981, their nine titles have included works for two pianos, two pianos with orchestra, and one piano four hands. In 2006, a special compilation CD entitled Stages celebrating their milestone 30th season was launched to great acclaim.
As both performers and scholars, Anagnoson & Kinton hold distinguished places in academic circles. Mr. Anagnoson was recently appointed Dean of The Glenn Gould School, Royal Conservatory of Music. He is a graduate of the Eastman School of Music and holds a Masters Degree from The Juilliard School. Leslie Kinton received the Forsythe Graduation Award at the University of Toronto and is on the faculties at both The Glenn Gould School and the University of Western Ontario. Mr. Kinton holds a Masters degree and is currently completing his Ph.D. in music theory at the University of Toronto.
Anagnoson & Kinton, like most outstanding ensembles, are actually greater than the sum of their parts. Or to quote The Boston Globe, “As individuals, they seem to have no technical shortcomings at all; in tandem, they are more than twice as good.” And getting better.
Anagnoson & Kinton are Yamaha Artists.
Clea Galhano, Recorder
Brazilian recorder player Clea Galhano is an International renowned performer of early, contemporary and Brazilian music. Galhano has performed in the United States, Canada, South America and Europe as a chamber musician, collaborating with recorder player Marion Verbruggen, Jacques Ogg, Belladonna, Lanzelotte/Galhano Duo, Galhano/Montgomery Duo, Farallon Quartet and Blue Baroque Band. As a featured soloist, Galhano has worked with the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra conducted by Christopher Hogwood, Nicholas McGegan and Emmanuelle Haim, World Symphony, Milwaukee Baroque and Lyra Baroque Orchestra.
Among other important music festivals, Ms. Galhano has performed at the Boston Early Music Festival, the Tage Alter Music Festival in Germany and at Wigmore Hall in London, Merkin Hall in New York and Palazzo Santa Croce in Rome, always receiving acclaimed reviews. Ms. Galhano was featured in 2006 in the Second International Recorder Congress in Leiden, Holland and in 2007 at the International Recorder Conference in Montreal.
Galhano studied in Brazil, the Royal Conservatory (The Hague), and the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston, earning a Fulbright scholarship and support from the Dutch government. As an advocate of recorder music and educational initiatives, she served for six years on the national board of the American Recorder Society and was featured many years as teacher and soloist at Suzuki and AOSA conferences.
A popular teacher and ensemble director, Galhano regularly conducts workshops across the United States, Europe and Brazil. Currently, Galhano is the Executive Artistic Director of the St. Paul Conservatory of Music and she is on the faculty of Macalester College.
Ms. Galhano has recordings available on Dorian, Ten Thousand Lakes and Eldorado labels, and is artist-in-residence at the prestigious Schubert Club in St. Paul, Minnesota.
Last updated April 25 2008