Boston University Tanglewood Institute Announces 2024 Faculty
Boston University Tanglewood Institute Announces 2024 Faculty
Boston University Tanglewood Institute (BUTI) welcomes new faculty members, guest faculty, conductors, and artists-in-residence from across the country and from just down the road.
BU Tanglewood Institute‘s faculty is comprised of members of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, as well as faculty from Curtis Institute of Music, Boston University School of Music, and more. They are the backbone of BUTI’s inimitable educational experience. We invite you to come to Lenox, Massachusetts this summer, to hear them in concert and see the transformation they create in our students!
2024 Guests & Artists-in-Residence
Amanda Majeski
Soprano
During the 2023/24 season, Majeski returns to the Teatro Real Madrid as Marta The Passenger and performs Katja at the Semperoper Dresden. In 2022/23 she debuted the title role Salome for the Madison Opera and sang Katja in concert with the London Symphony Orchestra conducted by Sir Simon Rattle. Other recent performances include: her house debuts at the Dutch National Opera, as Donna Elvira Don Giovanni, and Opéra de Paris, as Vitellia La clemenza di Tito; a return to the Teatro Real Madrid as 3rd Norn and Gutrune Götterdämmerung; Katya in concert at the Amsterdam Concertgebouw; an appearance with the Madison Opera for the return of its wildly popular Opera in the Park concert; and virtual performances with the Lyric Opera of Chicago and Harris Theater.
Majeski’s 2019/20 season commenced with her debut with the Nürnberger Symphoniker bringing her Straussian expertise to his Vier letzte Lieder conducted by Kahchun Wong. She then returned to Lyric Opera of Chicago, the company that launched her international career, for her house role debut as Donna Elvira in Don Giovanni, followed by Hugo Wolf Italienisches Liederbuch at the 92nd Street Y, alongside bass-baritone Philippe Sly and pianist Julius Drake.
Jessie Montgomery
Composer and Violinist
Jessie Montgomery, Musical America’s 2023 Composer of the Year, is a GRAMMY-winning, acclaimed composer, violinist, and educator whose music interweaves classical music with elements of vernacular music, improvisation, poetry, and social consciousness, making her an acute interpreter of twenty-first century American sound and experience.
Her profoundly felt works have been described as “turbulent, wildly colorful and exploding with life” (The Washington Post) and are performed regularly by leading orchestras and ensembles around the world.
In July 2021, she began a three-year appointment as the Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s Mead Composer-in-Residence.
Nico Muhly
Composer
Nico Muhly, born in 1981, is an American composer who writes orchestral music, works for the stage, chamber music and sacred music. He’s received commissions from The Metropolitan Opera: Two Boys (2011), and Marnie (2018); Carnegie Hall, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, The Australian Chamber Orchestra, the Tallis Scholars, and King’s College, Cambridge, among others. He is a collaborative partner at the San Francisco Symphony and has been featured at the Barbican and the Philharmonie de Paris as composer, performer, and curator.
An avid collaborator, he has worked with choreographers Benjamin Millepied at the Paris Opéra Ballet, Bobbi Jene Smith at the Juilliard School, Justin Peck and Kyle Abraham at New York City Ballet; artists Sufjan Stevens, The National, Teitur, Anohni, James Blake and Paul Simon. His work for film includes scores for for The Reader (2008) and Kill Your Darlings (2013), and the BBC adaptation of Howards End (2017). Recordings of his works have been released by Decca and Nonesuch, and he is part of the artist-run record label Bedroom Community, which released his first two albums, Speaks Volumes (2006) and Mothertongue (2008).
Curtis Stewart
Violinist and Composer
Praised for “combining omnivory and brilliance” (The New York Times), four-time GRAMMY Award-nominated violinist and composer Curtis Stewart translates stories of American self determination to the concert stage.
Tearing down the facade of “classical violinist,” Stewart is in constant pursuit of his musical authenticity, treating art as a battery for realizing citizenship. As a solo violinist, composer, Artistic Director of the American Composers Orchestra, professor at The Juilliard School, and member of award-winning ensembles PUBLIQuartet and The Mighty Third Rail, he realizes a vision to find personal and powerful connections between styles, cultures and musics. Stewart’s 2023 album of Love., a tribute to his late mother Elektra Kurtis-Stewart, has been nominated under Best Instrumental Solo in the 2024 GRAMMY Awards.
Imani Winds and Valerie Coleman
Woodwind Quintet
Imani Winds is the 2024 GRAMMY® winner in the Classical Compendium category for Jeff Scott’s “Passion for Bach and Coltrane” released on their recently formed record label, Imani Winds Media. Celebrating over a quarter century of music making, the three time GRAMMY® nominated group has led both a revolution and evolution of the wind quintet through their dynamic playing, adventurous programming, imaginative collaborations and outreach endeavors that have inspired audiences of all ages and backgrounds.
The ensemble’s playlist embraces traditional chamber music repertoire, and newly commissioned works from voices that reflect historical events and the times in which we currently live. Recent projects include a Jessie Montgomery composition inspired by her great-grandfather’s migration from the American south to the north, socially conscious music by Andy Akiho, reflecting on mass incarceration, and a work by Carlos Simon celebrating iconic figures of the African American community. These works and more have been commissioned as a part of the Legacy Commissioning Project.
Joined this summer by original Imani Winds members, Mariam Adam and Valerie Coleman, the group will be performing at Trinity Church after intense workshopping with the BUTI students.
2024 Conducting Roster
Beatrice Affron
Young Artists Orchestra
Beatrice Jona Affron arrived at Philadelphia Ballet, formerly Pennsylvania Ballet, in 1993 as our assistant conductor.
She was later promoted to resident conductor, and, in 1997, became the company’s music director and conductor.
Beatrice has conducted numerous ballets by George Balanchine in addition to other classics, including Giselle, The Firebird, Romeo and Juliet, and The Sleeping Beauty. In 2004, she led the world premiere of Christopher Wheeldon’s Swan Lake.
Paul Haas
Young Artists Orchestra
Paul Haas was at the start of a promising conducting career when he devised and produced a concert project called REWIND in 2006, featuring composer and musician colleagues and violin soloist Anne Akiko Meyers.
REWIND was a reaction against the staid nature of the standard classical music performance: audience members surrounded the performers, then left and started playing behind the audience on all sides. There were mirrored sculptures by Kate Raudenbush hanging from the ceiling, interacting in multifaceted ways with the subtle theatrical lighting design. Music started before the audience arrived, and it continued without pause – even between pieces – until after the audience left. A laptop artist injected samples of the orchestra and the audience into the texture.
Kerem Hasan
Young Artists Orchestra
Kerem Hasan is regarded as one of the most exciting young British conductors. Winning the Nestlé and Saltzburg Festival Young Conductors Award in the summer of 2017 laid the foundation for his flourishing international career. Prior to that, he had already gained attention as a finalist in the Donatella Flick Conducting Competition in London and as Associate Conductor of the Welsh National Opera.
From 2019 to 2023, he served as the Chief Conductor of the Tiroler Symphonieorchester Innsbruck in Austria to great success. Highlights of the 2023/2024 season include guest engagements with the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra, Dresden Philharmonic, SWR Symphonieorchester, and Turku Philharmonic. He will make his debuts with the Trondheim Symphony Orchestra, Kymi Sinfonietta, PHION Orchestra, RTÉ Concert Orchestra, and Collegium Musicum Basel. Further afield, in North America, Kerem Hasan will work together with the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra for the first time.
David Martins
Young Artists Wind Ensemble
With a dual career as a clarinet performer and conductor, David J. Martins balances orchestral venues with an active teaching and conducting schedule.
After 25 years he retired in June of 2023 as a Master Lecturer in the School of Music at Boston University where he was the Music Director of the Wind Ensemble and taught Applied Clarinet, Chamber Music and Graduate Conducting.
H. Robert Reynolds
Young Artists Wind Ensemble
H. Robert Reynolds is the Principal Conductor of the Wind Ensemble at the Thornton School of Music at the University of Southern California where he holds the H. Robert Reynolds Professorship in Wind Conducting.
This appointment followed his retirement from the School of Music of the University of Michigan where he served as the Henry F. Thurnau Professor of Music, Director of University Bands, and Director of the Division of Instrumental Studies.
Mallory Thompson
Young Artists Wind Ensemble
Mallory Thompson is director of bands, professor of music, coordinator of the conducting program, and holds the John W. Beattie Chair of Music at Northwestern University.
In 2003 she was named a Charles Deering McCormick Professor of Teaching Excellence.
As only the third person in the university’s history to hold the director of bands position, Thompson conducts the Symphonic Wind Ensemble, teaches undergraduate and graduate conducting, and administers all aspects of the band program.
Katie Woolf
Young Artists Vocal Program Chorus
Known for her innovative programming, Katie Woolf (she/her) is emerging as a conductor with a special expertise in working with developed high school voices.
She is hailed by colleagues and students alike as a passionate and energetic artist, equally at home in traditional and contemporary repertoire, who encourages her students to go beyond the boundaries of their imagination in their vocal work.
2024 New Faculty & Guest Faculty
Carl Anderson
Assistant Director, Double Bass Workshop
Double bassist Carl Anderson joined the Boston Symphony Orchestra at the start of the 2019-2020 season.
A versatile performer, he is equally comfortable in the orchestra, in chamber music ensembles, and as a soloist.
Orchestral appearances have included performances with the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra; with the New York Philharmonic under the baton of Alan Gilbert as a Zarin Mehta Global Academy Fellow; and with the New World Symphony in Miami directed by Michael Tilson Thomas.
Jon Bisesi
Director, Percussion Workshop
Jonathan Bisesi has held the position of Percussionist with The “President’s Own” United States Marine Band since May 2004.
Mr. Bisesi is currently on the Percussion Faculties of George Mason University School of Music, (2015; Co-coordinator of the Percussion Department since 2022), Boston Conservatory at Berklee (2021) and the University of Maryland (2022; Director of the Percussion Studio since 2023).
Karin Bliznik
Visiting Faculty, Trumpet Workshop
Karin “K” Bliznik (she/they) has performed on multi-Grammy Award-winning orchestral albums.
She served as Principal Trumpet of the Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra for a decade, and before that with the Atlanta Symphony, Charlotte Symphony, and Charleston Symphony Orchestras, as well as the Santa Fe Opera.
Ilana Cady
Staff Accompanist and Choral Pianist, Young Artists Vocal Program
Ilana Joyce Cady, graduated with a Master’s of Music in piano performance at Longy School of Music of Bard College; May 2017, under the direction of Leslie Amper.
During her time at Longy she has performed at Pickman Hall, Sanders Theater at Harvard University, and the Dante Allegheri Society in Cambridge.
She has collaborated with Longy’s Side by Side El Sistema program and the Boston Cello quartet. Being involved with Longy’s chamber program, Ilana has had the privilege to work extensively with Robert Merfeld.
Allison Yoshie Eldredge
Director, Cello Workshop
Allison, an international concert cellist, has been heralded as “a cellist afraid of nothing” by the Chicago Sun Times and was awarded the coveted Avery Fisher Career Grant and named “Young Artist of the Year” by Musical America.
Allison has enjoyed a career performing from London to Moscow to China to Berlin as soloist with orchestras and in recital. She gained international attention performing the Elgar Cello Concerto at the invitation of Music Director, Daniel Barenboim and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in 1991.
Jade Espina
Vocal Instructor, Young Artists Vocal Program
An Arkansas native, mezzo-soprano Jade Espina is a classical singer, private voice and piano teacher, and middle school chorus teacher in the Boston area.
Ms. Espina completed her graduate studies at Boston University, where she pursued a Master of Music in Voice Performance as a student of Penelope Bitzas.
She holds a Bachelor of Music in Voice Performance and Bachelor of Music Education-Choral Emphasis from the University of Colorado-Boulder.
Ira Gold
Director, Double Bass Workshop and Coaching Faculty, Young Artists Orchestra
Prior to joining the National Symphony Orchestra in 2005, Ira Gold performed with several American orchestras, as Section Bass with the Minnesota Orchestra and as guest Principal Bassist with the San Francisco Symphony and Detroit Symphony.
He was recently named Principal Bass of the Bellingham Festival of Music for the summer of 2024. Mr. Gold has been on Faculty at the Peabody Conservatory since 2009, and was recently appointed Associate Professor of Double Bass, where he teaches private lessons, orchestral repertoire classes, masterclasses, and coaches chamber music.
Courtney Jones
Brass Coaching Faculty, Young Artists Programs
The newest directions in 21st Century trumpet performance are being explored and defined by BUTI Young Artists Brass Coach, Courtney D. Jones.
Dr. Jones is an award-winning Conn-Selmer (Bach) performing and recording artist who has also emerged as a leading figure in contemporary performance and pedagogy, conducting, and service to inner-city youth through music outreach programs.
An artist who transcends stylistic boundaries, Courtney has performed with classical ensembles and orchestras throughout the United States, internationally, and has won multiple solo awards and accolades through regional and national trumpet competitions.
Michael Jorgensen
Director, Violin Workshop
Described as an exceptional musician by Maestro Lorin Maazel, BUTI Violin Workshop Director, Dr. Michael Jorgensen, is the Assistant Professor of Orchestral Strings at Lehigh University, where he serves as the concertmaster of the Lehigh University Philharmonic Orchestra.
He has also taught violin at Middle Tennessee State University, Covenant College, and the Wyoming Center for the Arts in their Touchstone program for at-risk youth. He has given masterclasses across the country, and he teaches violin and plays concertmaster for the Mostly Modern Festival held at Skidmore College.
JIJI Kim
Co-Director, Classical Guitar Workshop
Through her impeccable musicianship, compelling stage presence, and commitment to commissioning and performing new musical works, JIJI has solidified her reputation as a top 21st-century guitarist. In 2021, The Washington Post selected JIJI as “one of the 21 composers/performers who sound like tomorrow,” and The Kansas City Star recently described her as “a graceful and nuanced player.”
In recent seasons, JIJI has presented solo recitals at Carnegie Hall’s Weill Recital Hall; Lincoln Center; 92nd Street Y; Caramoor; Green Music Center; and the National Art Gallery, among other distinguished venues. Her performances have been featured on PBS (On Stage at Curtis), NPR’s From the Top, WHYY-TV, FOX 4-TV, Munchies (the Vice Channel), The Not So Late Show (Channel 6, Kansas), and Hong Kong broadcast station RTHK’s The Works. In 2016, she became the first guitarist in 30 years to secure first prize in the Concert Artists Guild Competition.
Gregory LaRosa
Assistant Director, Percussion Workshop
Gregory LaRosa serves as the Principal Timpanist of the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra and as a regular Guest Principal with London’s Royal Philharmonic Orchestra.
Traveling the world as a soloist, chamber musician, orchestral performer, Gregory has performed in many of Europe’s most prominent music festivals.
Andreea Muţ
Vocal Coach, Young Artists Vocal Program
Romanian pianist Dr. Andreea Muţ attended the Gheorghe Dima Academy of Music in Cluj-Napoca, Romania, before completing her Master of Music degree at Sam Houston State University, and her Doctorate in Collaborative Arts at University of Houston.
Dr. Muţ has performed solo and chamber music recitals throughout Romania, France, Colombia, Mexico and the United States.
Elisabeth Shafer
Visiting Faculty, Trombone Workshop
Hailed by The Boston Musical Intelligencer as “outstanding” and “fearless,” Dr. Elisabeth Shafer, a native of State College, PA, is a dedicated performer and music educator.
She has appeared in concert with orchestras and ensembles, including the Memphis Symphony Orchestra, ProMusica Columbus, Akron Symphony Orchestra, Detroit Chamber Winds and Strings, Michigan Opera Theatre Orchestra, Erie Philharmonic, Youngstown Symphony Orchestra, The Jackson Symphony, CityMusic Cleveland Chamber Orchestra, Toledo Symphony Brass, Akron Symphonic Winds, Memphis Jazz Orchestra, DanJo Jazz Orchestra, Symphony in C, the Eastern Connecticut Symphony, the Nittany Valley Symphony, and Barclay Brass.
Tracy Rowell
Visiting Faculty, Double Bass Workshop
Tracy Rowell is on the faculty of the Oberlin Conservatory and the Cleveland Institute of Music. Formerly the Assistant Principal Bass of the National Arts Centre Orchestra, a major Canadian ensemble, she remains an active performer on modern and historic bass.
Currently the principal bassist of Citymusic Cleveland Chamber Orchestra, she also performs with Apollo’s Fire, Cleveland’s Baroque Orchestra. A founding member of the Pantheon Ensemble, Tracy has also performed with groups such as the Cavani, St. Lawrence, Pacifica, Jasper, Jupiter and Parker Quartets.
Marcelina Suchocka
Percussion Coaching Faculty, Young Aritsts Programs
Born in Bialystok, Poland, Marcelina Suchocka is the Principal Percussionist of the Sarasota Orchestra.
Ms. Suchocka enjoys a diverse career spanning orchestral, chamber, new music, and solo playing. She was a fellow at the New World Symphony in Miami and has performed with the Cleveland Orchestra, New York Philharmonic, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, National Symphony Orchestra, Dallas Symphony, Detroit Symphony, Kansas City Symphony, Utah Symphony, and the Florida Orchestra.
She has also performed as soloist with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra playing the Koppel Marimba Concerto.
Jason Vieaux
Co-Director, Classical Guitar Workshop
Grammy-winner, Jason Vieaux, “among the elite of today’s classical guitarists” (Gramophone), is described by NPR as “perhaps the most precise and soulful classical guitarist of his generation”.
In appearances from New York’s Lincoln Center to Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw and the Seoul Arts Center, Jason Vieaux has cemented his reputation as an artist of brilliance and uncompromised mastery. Cited for his “eloquent and vibrant performances” on disc (Gramophone Magazine) he is hailed as “virtuosic, flamboyant, dashing and, sometimes ineffably lyrical” (New York Times) on stage.
Tom Weaver
Staff Accompanist and Program Coordinator, Collaborative Piano Fellowship Program
Thomas Weaver is a pianist, composer, and conductor currently on faculty at the Curtis Institute of Music and the Boston University Tanglewood Institute.
Weaver began his musical training at the age of eight, first appearing in public performance at the age of nine. Weaver holds a strong belief that his eclectic career has helped to mold him as a well-rounded musician, equally at home on the stage and as an educator.
Benjamin Wright
Brass Coaching Faculty, Young Artists Programs
New Orleans trombonist Matthew Wright has been playing with the Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra since 2011, the Vermont Symphony Orchestra since 2008, and has played all over the world in orchestras, big bands, and chamber ensembles.
He is on the 2024 Grammy-winning recording Live at the Orpheum Theatre with the LPO and Lost Bayou Ramblers and was in the first horn section to play with the band Cake.