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logo The Players and Composers

 

 

 

 

Michael Finegold

Michael G. Finegold – Artistic Director of ECMP, Flutist, Composer, and Northern Essex Community College Professor Emeritus of Music enjoys a diversified career in music. He founded the Essex Chamber Music Players at Northern Essex Community College in 1999 while Professor and Coordinator of Music.

 He studied flute with Doriot Dwyer, former principal flutist of the Boston Symphony while doing post-graduate work at the New England Conservatory. He studied with flutists Samuel Baron and Thomas Nyfenger as a graduate student while working on his Masters of Music and Masters of Musical Arts degrees at the Yale University School of Music.
He studied music composition with Jan Meyerowitz, Tenafly, New Jersey (1960), and Joseph Manieri, Brooklyn, New York (1965). As a composition minor-performance major at the Yale School of Music, Michael studied composition with Gunther Schuller (1966-67), Richmond Brown (1968) and James Drew (1969). In recent times he has consulted with William Thomas McKinley of Reading, Massachusetts and other composers.


Michael has performed with symphony orchestras, theater orchestras, jazz groups and given many recitals. In 1994 with pianist David Pihl, he recorded William Thomas McKinley’s Romances #2, Secrets of The Heart for the MMC (Master Musicians Collective) label. In 1995 he recorded and performed in concert McKinley’s Concerto for Flute and Strings with the Prague Radio Symphony Orchestra, Prague, Czechoslovakia for MMC. In 1998 he premiered Georgetown, Massachusetts composer Ray Loring’s Celebration for Flute and Strings composed for Mount Ida College’s Centennial. In 1998 he performed as soloist NECC faculty member J. Windel Brown’s About Time, and Mitch Hampton’s Pop Goes The Concert Hall: The Swingin’ Seventies with the Czech Radio Orchestra when they visited the United States performing at Boston’s Symphony Hall and the Everett Collins Center in Andover. In February of 1999 Finegold recorded these works in Prague with the orchestra. In 2000 he and internationally renowned clarinetist Richard Stolzman recorded Mitch Hampton’s The Four Humors with the Warsaw Philharmonic. In 2001 he performed the Joachim Quantz Flute Concerto in G Major as guest soloist with the Essex Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Ian Carter White, at the Rogers Center For The Performing Arts, Merrimack College, North Andover, Massachusetts. In 2002 he premiered and recorded Marc Rossi’s Dance To The Music of Being and Fantasy in Adi Talam with ECMP. In 2003 he recorded William Thomas McKinley’s Three Movements for Flute and String with the Slovak Radio Symphony Orchestra, Bratislava, Slovakia. Romances #2, Secrets of The Heart, Three Movements for Flute and String and About Time are now available on MMC Recordings.

Michael’s music composition work include: Quintet for amplified Flute, Violin, Piano, Bass and Drums (1969) performed at Sprague Hall, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut, Salon Musings (1998) composed for and performed by the Thuringer SalonQuintett at Carnegie Recital Hall, Barge Music in New York City, and on tour throughout the United States and Europe, and Rave Reflections for Flute, Cello and Piano (2006) for the Essex Chamber Music Players to be premiered November 19, 2006 at Northern Essex Community College, Haverhill, Massachusetts.  He has also composed several jazz works: Remember The Time, Flautist’s Intrigue, In Pursuit of Nirvana, Dark and Somber, Way Would, Flowers In Autumn, and Wisteria for his jazz group The Essex Jazz Ensemble.


Michael and pianist David Pihl are founding members of the Essex Chamber Music Players. From 2001 -2006 Michael was chosen for inclusion on the Massachusetts Cultural Council (MCC) roster in the Category of Performing and Touring. The MCC Roster is a list of high-quality Massachusetts artists across a wide range of artistic disciplines who are qualified to give performances and/or conduct school residencies. Past honors have included receipt of the Fromm Fellowship in Contemporary Music while studying at the Berkshire Music Center at Tanglewood.

Emmanuel Feldman, Violoncellist

Hailed by John Williams, Grammy award winning composer and conductor as “an outstanding cellist and truly dedicated artist”, Emmanuel Feldman enjoys an active career as a soloist, chamber musician, recording artist, champion and commissioner of new music and educator.
With a repertoire ranging from Bach to Ligeti, Mr. Feldman has concertized throughout Europe and North America. He has performed as soloist with the Boston Pops, Nashville Chamber Orchestra, Greensboro Festival Orchestra, Boston Philharmonic, Boston Modern Orchestra Project, New England String Ensemble and many others.  An avid chamber musician, he was invited to participate in the Marlboro Music Festival and has collaborated with such distinguished artists as Gilbert Kalish, Robert Levin, Joy Cline Phinney,Yehudi Wyner, Max Levinson, Jorge Bolet, Lynn Chang, Arturo Delmoni, the Borromeo String Quartet, Aurea Ensemble and soloed with world renowned pop and jazz artist Bobby McFerrin.  The Boston Globe called his playing “as beautiful as it is enormous, and he can carry a long line with great flexibility, never sacrificing the logic of its direction”.  He has recorded chamber works on the Naxos, Arsis and Zimbel labels and his solo album on Albany Records “Rider on The Plains” featuring Virgil Thomson’s cello concerto was hailed as an “excellent recording…the concerto sounds exhilarating in this bracing and confident performance” by Anthony Tommasini in the New York Times.  A consummate advocate of new music, he has given the premieres of numerous cello works including composers Aaron Kernis, David Diamond, Charles Fussell, Gunther Schuller, John McDonald and Jan Swafford.  As co-founder of Cello e Basso (formerly the Axiom Duo) with double bassist Pascale Delache-Feldman, they have been called “a musical Lewis and Clark, opening up new musical territories” by NPR’s Ron Schacter and are dedicated to bringing new music and new musical experiences to audiences worldwide. He has participated in the Pablo Casals Festival, Schlesswig Holstein Musik Festival and was a faculty member at the Yellow Barn Music Festival, the Killington Music Festival and the Summit Music Festival.  A graduate of the Curtis Institute of Music with additional studies at the Paris Conservatory, Mr. Feldman currently is on the cello faculty of Tufts University, Brown University and New England Conservatory’s Preparatory and School for Continuing Education.

 



David Pihl

David Pihl, Pianist

David Pihl, of Worcester, Massachusetts, is an active solo and collaborative pianist in the Northeast. He has performed in concerts and festivals in Germany, the Czech Republic, and at numerous colleges in the United States. He has collaborated with artists Michael Finegold, Charlotte Russell, Raphael Popper‑Keizer, Emmanuel Feldman and Richard Stoltzman, among others. He holds a Master's Degree in Piano Performance from the University of Lowell College of Music. His principal teachers have been Michael Kramer and Anthony di Bonaventura. He is the solo pianist in the recently released "Concerto for Piano and Orchestra" by William Thomas McKinley on Master Musicians Collective Recordings. Along with Michael Finegold, he is a founding member of the Essex Chamber Music Players of Massachusetts. The Finegold‑Pihl duo actively performs throughout the Northeast and recorded William Thomas McKinley's "Secrets of the Heart" for flute and Piano on MMC Recordings.

 

John Sullivan

 

John Sullivan, Tenor

John M. Sullivan has been a Vocal Fellow at the Berkshire Music Center at Tanglewood and soloist with the Opera Theatre of St. Louis, Sarasota Opera, Mississippi Opera, Mobile Opera, Opera Deleware, the Banff Festival, Canada and the Nissei Arts Festival in Tokyo. Locally, Mr. Sullivan has performed with the Boston Lyric Opera and has been tenor soloist with many choral organizations throughout the Boston area. He is the Music Department Head of the Newton Country Day School.

 

Charlotte Russell

Charlotte Russell, Soprano

Charlotte Russell has appeared as soloist with the Boston SymphonyOrchestra, the Indian Hill Orchestra, the Montanea Festival (Switzerland), and in recital at Fruitlands Museums, Follen Church, the Fitchburg Public Library, Northern Essex Community College, Middlesex Community College, Indian Hill Music Guest Artist Series, and the Church of St. Anne (Jerusalem).  She has premiered songs written for her by Arthur Koykka and Francis Judd Cooke, and has also sung the premiere of several songs by Stephen Peisch.  Charlotte studied voice with Donna Hewitt-Didham and Jo Estill, and as an intern with Ms. Estill was invited to teach at Duquesne University and California State University at Hayward.  She is now a Certified Master in the Estill Voice Training System, which she teaches at Indian Hill and New England Conservatory.  She also teaches voice at St. Mark's School in Southborough and in her private studio, is Music Director at the Union Church of Stow, and enjoys her work as a choral clinician throughout the northeast.  She has a special interest in unusual repertoire and vocal physiology.

 

 

Other players join us for concerts. Their bios appear before the upcoming concert.

 

 Victoria Griswold, Pianist

Victoria Griswold is a classical pianist who has concertized in Europe and Brazil.  At her debut recital in New York City, a reviewer from the New York Times characterized her as “an elegant pianist.” She received her Bachelor and Master of Music degrees from Manhattan School of Music, and her principal teachers include the late  William Nelson of Carleton College,  Zenon Fishbein at the Manhattan School of Music, and Jeaneane Dowis in New York City and the Aspen Music Festival. She has recorded several new works for piano and orchestra by William Thomas McKinley’ on the MMC label, including Wind, Fire and Ice; Silent Whispers; and Mostly Mozart.

Her musical background includes appearances as solo recitalist; soloist with orchestra; chamber pianist; pianist and Music Director for professional musical theatre productions; Music Director and harpsichordist for Ars Musica Antiqua, an early music ensemble; and as church organist.  She also served as staff accompanist at Jersey City State College for six years. 

Ms. Griswold taught piano for 30 years in her private studio, and has adjudicated for many young people’s competitions and auditions sponsored by such organizations as the New Jersey Symphony, the Music Educators Association of New Jersey, the Piano Teachers Congress of New York, and the New Jersey Music Teachers Association.

Victoria Griswold is also the owner of the Plainfield (NJ) Music store, a retail establishment specializing in printed music.

She is the granddaughter of Horace N. Stevens.

Aaron Trant, Percussionist

Aaron Trant, percussion, deemed by 21st Century Music as a “fire-breathing” percussionist, is both an active performer and composer. Cited for his “melodic, if unpitched, voice” (Spendidzine), he has also received great acclaim for his original score and solo percussion performance of the Chris Marker film, La Jetée. His eclectic knowledge of classical, jazz, rock, contemporary and improvised music has made him an asset to many ensembles throughout the United States. Aaron is the cofounder, performer and composer for the After Quartet, one of the few groups dedicated to the art of live musical accompaniment of silent film.  He is also the assistant director and percussionist for the Boston based group Firebird Ensemble, a new music chamber group.  Aaron is an original member of Primary Duo, for piano and percussion (Boston); Endy Emby for trumpet and percussion, the Adam James Wilson Quintet (NYC);High Street Percussion (Miami, Florida); and the frequently touring group Cordis. He also performs regularly with the Boston Modern Orchestra Project, and the Fromm Players (Harvard; Cambridge, MA).
Aaron has been seen in a variety of concert venues including Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall, National Gallery of Art in Washington D.C., Jordan Hall,  and Mexico’s Palacio de Bellas Artes.
As a composer Aaron has had performances throughout the U.S. by Firebird Ensemble, Endy Emby, Mark Gould, Primary Duo and the Boston Modern Orchestra Project’s chamber music series.   Now residing in Boston, Aaron can be heard on the Boiled Jar, Cantaloupe, Cauchemar, Mode, Nepenthe and Stone Quarry labels.  Aaron is a recipient of the 2007-2008 St. Botolph Foundation Grant-in-Aid.

 

 

Peter Zazofsky, Violin

Violinist Peter Zazofsky enjoys a richly varied career that includes performances with many of the great orchestras in America and Europe, recitals in major music centers, recordings and tours as first violinist of the Muir String Quartet. 
A native of Boston, Zazofsky studied with Joseph Silverstein before entering the Curtis Institute, where he studied with Ivan Galamian. Following graduation in 1977, he won Third Prize in the Wieniawski Competition in Poland, and First Prize in the 1979 Montreal International Violin Competition (the only American to win this award). The next year, he won Second Prize in the Queen Elisabeth Competition in Belgium.
Since then, he has performed repeatedly with the Boston Symphony, the Berlin Philharmonic, the Philadelphia Orchestra and the San Francisco Symphony, who also featured him on tour in Hong Kong and Taiwan. He has toured the United States as guest soloist of the Danish Radio Orchestra, and Israel with the Haifa Symphony and the Israel Chamber Orchestra. Further appearances with the Amsterdam Concertgebouw Orchestra, the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, and the Symphonies of Toronto, Minnesota and Montreal have brought acclaim for his collaborations with maestros Tennstedt, Ozawa, Onnandy, Zinman and Charles Dutoit, among others.
Long committed to music of our time, Peter Zazofsky has given first performances of works written for him by composers in Holland, Belgium, Denmark and Spain. He recently recorded music by Carbon, Chumbley and McKinley in Warsaw, and the Concerti of Frederic Van Rossum in Brussels. With the Muir Quartet, he has introduced new quartets by the American composers Joan Tower, Richard Danielpour, Ezra Laderman and Lukas Foss. He holds the position of Associate Professor of Violin and Chamber Music at Boston University.

 

James T. Lattini is currently an assistant professor of percussion at the University of Massachusetts-Lowell, drum and percussion instructor at Lexington Public Schools, Lexington, Ma., and home private instructor in Methuen, Ma. He has a B.A. in Music Education, University of Lowell and an M.M. in Percussion Performance, Boston University.

He has extensive performance experience with renown jazz artists, including: Nick Brignola, Bobby Shew, Claudio Roditti, Steve Marcus, Randy Brecker, The Artie Shaw / Dick Johnson Orchestra, Phil Wilson, Ricky Ford, Rebecca Parris, Jerry Bergonzi, George Garzone, John Lockwood, David “Fathead” Newman, The Bruce Gertz Quartet, The Bruce Gertz/Ken Cervenka Quintet, The John Allmark Jazz Orchestra, and Mark White and “ The Last Trip”. He has appeared in numerous performances with internationally known shows and entertainers including: The Fifth Dimension, The Four Freshmen, Buddy Hackett, Eliza Karshi, Donna McKechnie, The Radio City Music Hall Rockettes, Jeffrey Osborne, Joe Piscopo, Don Rickles, and most recently has performed with the show, “Gershwin Sings Gershwin,” featuring Alexis Gershwin.

He has numerous television and motion picture recording credits including the television shows “Visions” on WLVI channel 56, Boston, Ma., Melrose Place, and the motion picture, “Analyze This.” His recording credits include: Joan Landis, Quiet Passion,” The Bob Sinicrope Trio, and a recently released recording with Miles Donahue, “Bounce,” featuring Joe Caderazzo and John Patitucci. The most  recently released recording that he has appeared on has been with jazz vocalist, Rebecca Parris, “You Don’t Know Me,” featuring Houston Person, Jerry Bergonzi, and Gary Burton.

His festival performances include: The Boston Globe Jazz Festival, The Equinox jazz Festival, and The Manchester Jazz and Blues Festival. He has also been a performer and clinician at the IAJE convention, Boston, Ma. 1994. He is also an endorser of Vic Firth products and a member of the Vic Firth Education Team. 

 

 

John Heiss

John Heiss, Conductor

New England Conservatory Director of Contemporary Ensemble; Flute; Chamber Music; Composition, Music History and Musicology; Music Theory

John Heiss is an active composer, conductor, flutist, and teacher. His works
have been performed worldwide, receiving premieres by Speculum Musicae,
BostonMusica Viva, Collage New Music, the Da Capo Chamber Players, Aeolian Chamber Players, Tanglewood Festival Orchestra, and Alea III. He has received awards and commissions from the National Institute of Arts and
Letters, Fromm Foundation, NEA, Rockefeller Foundation, Massachusetts
Council on the Arts and Humanities, ASCAP, and the Guggenheim Foundation. His principal publishers are Boosey & Hawkes, E.C. Schirmer, and Elkus & Son. Heiss has been principal flute of Boston Musica Viva and has performed with many local ensembles, including the BSO. His articles on contemporary music have appeared in Winds Quarterly, Perspectives of New Music, and The Instrumentalist. Heiss has directed fifteen of NEC’s annual festivals, plus visits by many composers including Ligeti, Lutoslawski, Berio, Carter, Messiaen, Schuller, and Tippett. Along with Juilliard faculty Joel Sachs, Heiss has designed and written a book/CD-Rom classical music primer for Blue Marble Music entitled Classical Explorer.

B.A. in mathematics, Lehigh University; M.F.A., music, Princeton University. Composition with Milton Babbitt, Edward T. Cone, Earl Kim, Otto Luening, Darius Milhaud; flute with Arthur Lora, James Hosmer, Albert Tipton. Recordings on TelArc, Nonesuch, CRI, Golden Crest, Arista, Turnabout, Video Artists International, Boston Records, AFKA. Former faculty of Columbia University, Barnard College, MIT, NEC Institute at Tanglewood.


The Commissioned Composers of Current and Recent Concert Works

Harold Shapero (b. 1920)

Harold Shapero has lived most of his life in the Boston area, graduating from Harvard University in 1941.  Shapero has studied composition with Nicholas Slonimsky(1936), Ernst Krenek(1937), Walter Piston(1938), Paul Hindemith (1940), and Nadia Boulanger(1942). He was composer in residence at the American Academy in Rome in 1970.  As a composer, he has earned the Rome Prize, the Bearns Prize, a Naumburg Fellowship, two Guggenheim Fellowships, and a Fullbright Fellowship. A fine pianist, he has given premieres of most of his keyboard and chamber works. Mr. Shapero has received commissions from the Koussevitsky Foundation, the Houston Symphony Orchestra, the American Jewish Tercentenary, the Louisville Symphony Orchestra, the Ford Foundation, and George Balanchine and the New York City Ballet Company.  A recent revival of his Symphony for Classical Orchestra by conductor Andre Previn, has led to performances of this work by the Los Angeles, Boston, Chicago, Cleveland, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Jacksonville, and London Symphony Orchestras.  For over thirty years he served on the music faculty at Brandeis University, directing its Electronic Music Studio, and teaching theory and composition. Currently retired, he lives in Natick, MA.

J. Windel Brown (b. 1941)

J. Windel Brown has been a teacher at Northern Essex Community College since 1971 where he has taught in the Mathematics Department.  Many of his works have been performed locally and throughout Europe.  He has written 6 pieces for ECMP that have been performed since 2001.  A CD containing his Piano Concerto has been released on the MMC label.  The MMC Recording Company is currently broadcasting the last movement, Ritmico, from his piano concerto over the web at mmcrecordings.com. The Czech Radio Symphony premiered ‘Before Time’ with Michael Finegold as flute soloist in Boston and recorded it in Prague in 1999.  The London Symphony Orchestra recorded another of his compositions, ‘London Overture’, in 2000.  The Moravian Philharmonic performed the premiere of and recorded his ‘Symphony #2’ in 2003.  Locally the Chelmsford Community Band performed his ‘Chelmsford Fanfare’ in July of 2005 and ECMP performed his ‘Suite for Flute, Cello and Piano’ in November 2006.

 

Ray Loring 

We are saddened by the passing of composer Ray Loring (May 20, 1943 - September 6, 2008). He was a graduate of Yale University and the Brandeis Graduate School of Music where he received his MFA in music composition.  His teachers included Seymour Shifrin, Arthur Berger and Harold Shapero.   He was also a classically trained pianist.  He composed extensively for film and television, having received numerous commissions from PBS Nova, Frontline and the History and Discovery Channels.  He scored the music for "Saving the National Treasures" for Nova that aired in February of this year.  He had also provided the music for several important museum installations throughout the US.  Locations have included the Harry Truman Museum, the theater at the National Archives Rotunda, the Museum of the Mississippi, and the Brooklyn Historical Society.  In 2004 he was commissioned to provide an arrangement for the Astoria Jazz Band for inclusion in the Ninth Annual Festival of Women in Jazz held at the Kennedy Center in Washington DC. We will miss Ray, his great friendship, contributions to the ECMP Board of Composers and the works he was intending to compose for ECMP.

 

William Thomas McKinley

One of the most highly regarded and well-known composers of his generation, William Thomas McKinley (b.1938) has been likened to “Ives on steroids” (Fanfare) and “Stravinsky gone mad” (Gerard Schwarz).  He learned both classical and jazz piano at a very early age, becoming the youngest member of the American Federation of Musicians at just twelve years old. To date, he has composed over 350 works, is listed in Groves' Dictionary of Music and Musicians, and has received commissions from the Lincoln Center Chamber Music Society, the Fromm Foundation, and the Naumburg Foundation. His many awards and grants include, among others, an award and citation from the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and eight NEA grants. McKinley has studied with many renowned teachers and composers, including Aaron Copland, Lukas Foss, and Gunther Schuller, and as a jazz pianist has performed, composed, and recorded with Dexter Gordon, Stan Getz, Eddie Gomez, Gary Burton, Miroslav Vitous, Rufus Reed, Roy Haynes, and Billy Hart, to name a few.

In 1992, McKinley founded MMC Recordings with the goal of connecting composers with the finest orchestras, conductors, and performers in the world, releasing their recordings, and creating an archive of modern classical music.  The label’s primary collaborators include luminaries such as clarinetist Richard Stoltzman (a long-time friend and supporter of McKinley and his music), conductors Gerard Schwarz, Marin Alsop, Carl St. Claire, George Manahan, Kirk Trevor, Gil Rose, as well as the London Symphony Orchestra, Seattle Symphony, Warsaw Philharmonic, Boston Modern Orchestra, and many more.

In recent years, McKinley has become even more prolific, and his works are featured on releases from Koch, Delos, and RCA Red Seal in addition to those on MMC.  2006 saw the premiere of R.A.P. (Rhythm And Pulse), a double concerto for Richard Stoltzman (clarinet) and his son Peter (piano), with the Boston Modern Orchestra, and the Nonet for the Quintet of the Americas at Carnegie Hall.  In 2007, selections from McKinley’s Piano Etudes will be premiered at the Tanglewood Festival of Contemporary Music, and Gil Rose will conduct the Boston Modern Orchestra Project in the world premiere of his 7th Symphony, The Cosmos.  MMC Recordings is currently planning a retrospective CD to celebrate the composer’s 70th birthday.

Roger Rudenstein

         I studied music with Fu Yuan Soong and Walter Hilse who taught me to make music that is entertaining as well as artful.  I’ve composed five full length operas and a musical,   of which five have already been performed in New York and New England (Faustus, an updating of the tale to the current age based on Goethe and Marlowe; Azazel, about a Jesus-like rebel;  Ulysses, based on the novel of James Joyce; Grace, the first full-length opera about AIDS based on the play by Edward Langlois and John Carmichael; and Onions, a musical for kids (performed at the Prescott Park Arts Festival).  These received some good reviews when the critics and the stars were in alignment (“gorgeous and rewarding”,”his music mirrors the profundity of Joyce’s words”) and some really terrible ones (“slunk into town”,”not art”).
         I have a large repertoire of recently-composed chamber works which reflect my reaction to the greed-based, warlike, national security state we suffer in.  This part of my work is dubbed The Nightmare of Reason opus. My new recording, State of the Union, is part of these works.
         I have won the Masterworks of the New Era award twice. I have a newly released recording on the MMC label called “State of the Union” and recordings coming out soon on the Masterworks label.
         I currently live in Portsmouth, New Hampshire with my wife, Marilyn, and cats, Marshmallow and Huckleberry.

More info link: www.rogerrudenstein.com