2017 season guest artists
Tyrone Chambers is a native of New Orleans, LA, and it is there where his love of music began. Indubitably one of the greatest musical cities, New Orleans has bathed him and his elders with all kinds of music. Born into a musical family, he grew up singing at home, in church, and at school. Music has played an integral role in the life of this artist. Mother, father, siblings, aunts and uncles throughout numerous generations have been singing in this family. From a young age Tyrone has been drawn to music and singing, ever since he saw the reaction from churchgoers to the magic of the music within. It’s a thrill to sing for people and to feel their good energy radiating back at you.
Tyrone started singing in church very young, around 4 or 5 years old. From there he has not stopped. In elementary school he sang for school events, in choir, and led the entire student body and faculty in “My Country ‘Tis of Thee” every morning. When in adolescence, singing became more than recreational. His parents enrolled him in the Sallier School of Music where he began to learn the tenants of singing, piano, theory, and music. From then on, there was no way he would stop raising his voice for good. Singing in choir in middle school and high school was a no-brainer. High school is where Tyrone was first introduced to major European classical composers such as Handel, Bach, Beethoven, Mendelssohn, Mozart, and Brahms- through their respective choral works mostly.
He holds a Bachelor’s degree from Morehouse College, an all-male private institution in Atlanta, GA with a great history and legacy of musical and leadership excellence. The experience of traveling the country and parts of the world with the Morehouse College Glee Club, as chorister and featured soloist, to sing for dignitaries, world leaders, and the common man alike will not soon leave him. At Morehouse, Tyrone was so influenced by the
men who taught him. They modeled for him such professionalism and dedication to music each and every day. There aren’t too many artists that have influenced him, but he was so impressed by his professors that he adopted their ways in order to become his own artist.
Now living in Frankfurt Germany and enjoying the beginnings of a inspiring career, Tyrone is finding performances in opera, musical theater, gospel, adult contemporary, and classical pop music. In all of the music he is driven by his passion for people, social justice, and love. This is the meaning of art and artistry for him. Its primary purpose is to uplift, heal, change, inspire, grow, love, and restore humanity. Tyrone Chambers is a uniquely talented and giving person, onstage and off. He has been praised for his expressiveness and attention to language. He has something to say with the music he sings, and that makes all the difference.
Michael Danchi – Violin Artist and Visionary: A violinist since the age of four, Mike trained at the world-renowned Eastman School of Music. While at Eastman he studied with virtuoso Charles Castleman, a brilliant musician and well-loved teacher.
Since 2008, Mike has produced a highly successful Strings Attached concert series in North Carolina. He works closely with Carolina Ballet, North Carolina's world-class company led by artistic director Robert Weiss. Recent collaborations include world premieres of Dracula, Masque of the Red Death, and Picasso ("Song of the Dead") with original music by Mark Scearse. Mike also performed on stage in Carolina Ballet's updated 2011 Nutcracker production which incorporated Las Vegas style magic.
In June 2012, Mike led the West Side Story orchestra as concertmaster for its final North America tour stop in Durham, NC. The orchestra's work was declared "...spectacular...every note with perfection...glorious" (Durham Herald Sun, June 2012).
Between orchestral, ballet, Broadway, chamber and solo engagements, Mike slips easily into the parallel worlds of classical music recording engineer, electronic sound designer, and teacher. He is also an amateur ballet dancer and slalom water skier.
David Dubal is internationally known as a pianist, teacher, writer, broadcaster and one of the foremost American painters of our time. An acknowledged authority on the piano literature, Mr. Dubalʼs highly acclaimed books include The Art of the Piano, The Essential Canon of Classical Music, Evenings with Horowitz, Reflections from the Keyboard, and Conversations with Menuhin etc.
Mr. Dubalʼs video, The Golden Age of the Piano, has been seen worldwide in four languages, and won him an Emmy award. His book "Remembering Horowitz, " with 125 essays by world famous pianists includes a compact disc of Mr. Horowitz and Mr. Dubal in conversation.
Recipient of the First ASCAP/Deems Taylor Award for broadcast journalism, Mr. Dubal has won numerous other honors, including the coveted George Foster Peabody Award for innovative broadcasting. He served as Music Director of WNCN in New York City from l967-90, and was also producer and commentator for innumerable special broadcasts. From 2000, Mr. Dubal has had a program " Reflections from the Keyboard" heard on WQXR.org world- wide ( 105.9 New York ) and as well as "The Piano matters," a weekly program heard on WWFM.org highlighting the piano in comparative performance.
Mr. Dubal has been a faculty member of The Juilliard School since 1983, and joined the faculty of the Manhattan School of Music in 1994. He has performed in recitals and lecture-recitals in forty states, conducted master classes and lectured world-wide, and judged many international competitions, including the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition. Mr. Dubal received the Doctor of Music from the State University of New York ( SUNY).
Elana Gleason, hailed by the New York Post for flaunting "pinpoint finesse on high B's and C's" and by Opera News for singing with a "particularly beautiful soprano," is a full lyric soprano native to New York City. She can next be seen performing in the ensemble of Macbeth with New Orleans Opera.
Most recently, she sang the role of Micaela (Carmen) with Natchez Festival of Music and the title role in The Merry Widow (Regina Opera). Roles from the 2014 -2015 season include Violetta in La Traviata (La Piccola Opera), Cio Cio San (cover) in Madama Butterfly (Natchez Festival of Music), Nedda in Pagliacci (Opera Company of Brooklyn), The title role in Tosca (Mississippi Opera), Kate Pinkerton in Madama Butterfly (Opera Louisiane), Frasquita in Carmen (Staten Island Philharmonic), and the soprano soloist in Mississippi Opera's "Opera Goes to Hollywood" Gala.
Favorite appearances in recent seasons have included Tosca (cover) (Natchez Festival of Music), Nedda in Pagliacci (Regina Opera), Gilda in Rigoletto (Dicapo Opera), Fiordiligi in Cosi fan tutte (Opera Company of Brooklyn) and Vitellia in La Clemenza di Tito (dell'Arte Opera Ensemble), for which she was praised as having "a large voice with a sturdy, slightly metallic quality, that glowed and flourished in her big arias." In 2013, Elana was a top 10 finalist in the Arkadi Opera Idol competition. Ms. Gleason is a graduate of Bard College with a BA in music and currently resides in New Orleans.
Nikita Galaktionov was born in Moscow, Russia in 1996 in a family of music patrons and lovers. His parents, Georgy Galaktionov and Tatiana Suchacheva, were founders of Central Music School Foundation, an organization supporting this legendary school of music.
Mr. Galaktionov began his music studies at age 3, and four years later, entered the famed Central Music School, where he studied with Professor Anatoly Ryabov. After graduating from the school he was accepted at Maimonida State Music Academy in Moscow, where he now studies with one of the prominent pianists of Russia, Professor Arkady Sevidov.
Nikita Galaktionov is a recipient of many national and international awards, including the 1st prize at the Euterpe International Competition in Italy in 2009. At age eight, he made his debut with the National Philharmonic of Russia under the baton of Maestro Vladimir Simkin in the Great Hall of Moscow International House of Music. After this, he has become a regular guess artist in prestigious festivals and concert series in the main cities of Russia, performing solo recitals and with symphony orchestras, including the Presidential Symphony Orchestra of Russia and Novaya Klassika Symphony Orchestra.
Mr. Galaktionov has performed all over the world, including Italy, Lithuania, Latvia, Austria, United States, France, Germany and has appeared at Carnegie Hall, Great Hall at Tchaikovsky Conservatory and Great Hall at Moscow International House of Music and in Moscow’s Kremlin Palace.
Praised by the New York Concert Review as “much more than a pianist, but a musician with a fine mind and enormously promising creative energy”, Jonathan Levin is quickly establishing a reputation as an enthusiastic and compelling advocate for classical music, creating integrated programs that garner closer connections with audiences through illuminating discussion and example.
Born in North Carolina, Jonathan made his debut with the Raleigh Symphony Orchestra when he was fifteen. Since then, he has become a sought after recitalist and soloist, performing throughout the country in concert halls, museums, universities, schools, libraries and private salons. Jonathan was recently chosen to present a special performance of Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue at the Grand Kremlin Palace in Moscow, Russia as a part of the 4th Melody of Generations Festival with the Presidential Symphony Orchestra of the Russian Federation. He has been a laureate of many competitions and prizes including the National Stillman-Kelley Award, 2nd Prize at the 2012 Los Angeles International Liszt Competition and recipient of the Alan Walker Award from the American Liszt Society. Jonathan recently made his solo recital debut at Carnegie’s Weill Hall, presenting his new program entitled "American Portraits."
Jonathan is Artistic Director and Founder of Clayton Piano Festival in Clayton, NC which seeks to create accessible, educational, world-class concerts and music presentations that uniquely enrich the cultural life of the area. The festival, which presented its 5th anniversary season of concerts, public classes, school outreach and other community events in the fall of 2016, aims to bridge the gap between performer and audience, bringing classical piano music to people of all ages and levels of exposure to the arts.
“A passionate advocated of the music of Mexican Nationalism” “Combined fire and sensitivity…considerable artistry”
- New York Concert Review Magazine
Mexican Pianist and Musicologist César Reyes is one of the leading performers of Latin American Music in the United States. An active member of the Society for American Music, he has presented lecture-recitals on the piano music of Mexico in the most prestigious conferences of the United States and Europe. Including the American Musicological Society (AMS), the Society for American Music (SAM) and Yale University.
An advocate of contemporary music, Mr. Reyes produced the artist tour “The Music of Our Century,” under the sponsorship of the Mexican National Endowment for the Arts.
A leading Mexican newspaper, La Jornada, describes him as “an interpreter who penetrates music deeply bringing the intentions of the composer to the fore. … He possesses the perfect aesthetic sensibility to interpret Franz Liszt and the composers of the 19th century”.
After graduating from Mexico’s National Conservatory, he came to the United States in 2001 to continue his studies under the direction of the renowned Cuban-American pedagogue Germán Diez, disciple and assistant of the legendary pianist Claudio Arrau. Mr. Reyes earned a Masters Degree in Music and a Master in Arts at the City University of New York with the support of the Mexican Government.
Mr. Reyes is the President of the Committee Mexico 2010: Two Hundred Years of Music, a yearlong celebration of Mexican Music in the United States to commemorate the Bicentennial of Mexican Independence and the Centennial of the Revolution.
He is the Founder and Artistic Director of the First Annual Latin American Piano and Song Festival of New York, the first festival in the United States dedicated to the exploration of classical, folk, and popular traditions of the Latin American piano and song repertoire.