|
 |
Benjamin Boone
Composer
Helene Joseph-Weil
Librettist and Mezzo-Soprano
Hatem Nadim
Pianist
Dr. Anna Hamre
Director of Choirs
|
HELENE JOSEPH-WEIL, LIBRETTIST AND MEZZO-SOPRANO
Helene Joseph-Weil is Professor of Music (Voice & Opera) at California State University
Fresno, where she coordinates the solo vocal performance majors. Before coming to Fresno
State University in 1987, she was Visiting Professor of Voice at the Hochschule für Musik
“Mozarteum” in Salzburg, Austria. Other academic appointments included Stanford University
and the International Institute for Chamber Music in Munich, Germany, where she taught
German lyric diction and vocal techniques in support of master classes with Elly Ameling and
K.S.Walter Berry.
The Fresno-based mezzo-soprano has collaborated with composer Dr. Benjamin Boone
on creating Ascención: A Dramatic Ethno-historical Cantata for Mezzo-Soprano, Piano, Chorus
and the bells of Mission San Juan Bautista, for which she has written the book and lyrics based
on 20 years of research. The cantata is having its world premiere today, February 24, 2008,
3:00 p.m. in the Fresno State Music Department Concert hall. Joseph Weil is also preparing a
series of voice/piano recitals with pianist Hatem Nadim, who is the collaborative pianist for the
Ascención cantata.
An honors graduate of the Oberlin Conservatory of Music, Helene Joseph-Weil earned
her master’s degree at San Jose State University and is a magna cum laude graduate of the
Franz Schubert Institute in Baden-bei-Wien, Austria. She received grants for her musical studies
from The Martha Baird Rockefeller Fund for Music, The Metropolitan Opera Studio, The Kate
Neal Kinley Memorial Fellowship, Oberlin Alumni Foundation, and the Fromm Foundation. Her
teachers include Phyllis Curtin, Thelma Votipka, Louise Toth, Lislotte Egger-Poetschke, Ellen
Repp, Donald Stenburg, and Dietrich Erbelding. Additional studies on the German Lied and
opera included extended studies with Viorica Ursuleac, Elly Ameling, Hans Hotter, Walter Berry,
Jorge Demus, Erik Werba, Ernst Haefliger, and Rudolf Jansen.
The Metropolitan Opera Auditions winner has had a long, extensive, and diverse solo
performing career in opera, oratorio, concert and recital that includes performances with the
Boston Symphony at Tanglewood Festival, Opera Society of Washington D. C, the Metropolitan
Opera Studio, UC-Berkeley Contemporary Music Players, Scholar Opera, Cabrillo Festival,
Chautauqua Opera, the Salzburg Landestheater, Ascoli Piceno Festival (Italy), and solo
concerts at the Munich Gasteig. Joseph-Weil has soloed under the batons of Erich Leinsdorf,
Julius Rudel, and Leonard Bernstein and has premiered new vocal works throughout Europe
and the United States, including When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloomed by Roger Sessions
and the West Coast premieres of Berio’s Circles and Babbitt’s Philomel.
Joseph-Weil has been Artist/Teacher-in-Residence at the Ascoli Piceno Music Festival
in Italy and was the Founding Co-Director of the Mozart Opera Studies Institute (MOSI) in
Austria and San Francisco. Her teaching awards include Fresno State University Provost’s
Award for Academic Excellence in Teaching (2000), the Phi Kappa Phi University Artist Award
(2003) and the 1999 Heart of the City Award from the Fresno First Baptist Church for her
contributions to Fresno’s cultural arts.
BENJAMIN BOONE, COMPOSER
Benjamin Boone is an Associate Professor at California State University Fresno where
he teaches music theory and composition. A Fulbright Senior Specialist Fellow to the Republic
of Moldova, his compositions have been performed in over seventeen countries from Carnegie
Hall to China, Japan, Australia, Africa and Europe. Boone’s compositions appear on over
sixteen CDs, garnering awards and honors from the International Society of Contemporary
Music, the Olympia International Prize, the American Society of Composers, Authors and
Publishers, the American Composers’ Forum, Billboard Magazine, the National Association of
Composers/USA, The American Music Center, the Fundación Valparaíso (Spain), Bayerischer
Rundfunk Studio Franken - Bavarian National Radio, Meet the Composer/Southeastern Arts
Federation, the Southeastern Composers' League, the Delius Foundation, the North Carolina
Arts Council Fellowship, the Tennessee Arts Commission Fellowship, and the A*deVantgarde
Festival für Nueue Musik, Munich. Boone’s compositions are published by Latham Music, Alry
Publications, Eighth Note Publications and Sentinel Dome. His research on the musical
aspects of speech is mentioned in the leading encyclopedia of music, Grove’s. With a wide
variety of interests, Boone has also assisted a biologist with the infrasonic recording of
rhinoceros vocalizations in Zimbabwe, served as a music business manager in New York City,
and performed as a saxophonist throughout the United States and Europe.
Most recently, Benjamin Boone has received significant funding in support of his work on
the Ascención cantata: the American Music Center Composer's Assistance Program and the
American Composers Forum Subito Grant program. For more information, visit
www.BenjaminBoone.net
HATEM NADIM, PIANO
Hatem Nadim was born in Cairo (Egypt) and, at the age of ten, started his formal music
studies at the Cairo Conservatoire, where he completed his studies in solo piano with R. Yassa,
V. Fedorovtzew and V. Samaliotow, and graduated with honors. Continuing his studies in
Germany, Nadim was a scholarship holder at the Frankfurt Hochschule für Musik (University for
Music.) He continued his post- graduate studies there with Professor Joachim Volkmann and
Professor Rainer Hoffmann in chamber music and vocal accompaniment.
From 1989 to 1996 Nadim was a faculty member of the Johannes Gutenberg University
in Mainz teaching solo piano. In 1989, Nadim became a faculty member of the Hochschule für
Musik in Mannheim, Germany, as a collaborative pianist, chamber music coach and teacher of
piano accompaniment. He has performed with many chamber music partners in concerts
throughout Europe, the United States, Korea, and the Middle East. These partners include
Leslie Parnas, Arto Noras, Michael Flaksman, Susanne Rabenschlag, Jean-Michel Tanguy,
Michael Hasel, the Verdi Quartet, Hermann Voss, and Helene Joseph-Weil. He as also several
recordings, his latest being The Complete Mozart Violin Sonatas with Susanne Rabenschlag,
which was featured on a recent radio broadcast, as well as an interview with the two artists, in
Germany. He is currently the staff collaborative pianist for Music Department at California State
University Fresno.
DR. ANNA HAMRE, DIRECTOR OF CHOIRS
As Director of Choral Activities at California State University, Fresno, Anna Hamre is in
demand as a conductor, clinician, and adjudicator. She has worked with university, church,
community choirs and school ensembles of all ages. She has been a guest conductor of a
number of honor choirs, and several ensembles under her direction have been invited to
perform at music conventions. Her various positions have given her the opportunity to premiere numerous works, including conducting the American premiere of Philip Wilby’s 2004
reconstruction of Mozart’s Mass in C (Novello). She conducted the Fauré Requiem for
MidAmerica Productions in Carnegie Hall February 2006. Her spring 2008 projects include
serving on the adjudication staff for World Project’s Pacific Rim Festival in Hawaii and
conducting a California massed-choir concert in the Forbidden City Concert Hall in a Kingsway
International choral tribute to the 2008 Beijing Olympics.
At Fresno State she is responsible for the management of the choral program, and she
conducts the Concert Choir, Chamber Singers, and Community Chorus. She also teaches
undergraduate conducting and graduate conducting and literature. Her honors include the
Fresno Arts Council Horizon Artist Award (2007), the California Association for Music Education
(CMEA) Choral Conductor Award (2006), the CMEA Central Section College/University Music
Educator Award (2006), the Fresno-State College of Arts and Humanities Outstanding Teacher
Award (2003).
Dr. Hamre holds a BA degree in vocal and instrumental music education from
Augustana College, Sioux Falls, SD; an MM degree in choral music from the University of
Northern Colorado in Greeley; and a DMA in choral literature and performance from the
University of Colorado in Boulder.
She has written articles for state music magazines, the International Choral Bulletin, the
Choral Journal, and Spotlight on Teaching Chorus. She has presented sessions for various
choral-conducting and music-education organizations, and in March she will travel to Denver to
lead a conducting workshop at the national convention of the Organization of American Kodály
Educators. Masterworks Press of Olympia, WA publishes her music-literacy method, The High
School/University Sight-Singer. She has served on the California state boards of both ACDA
and CMEA, and she also holds membership in the College Music Society, National Collegiate
Choral Organization, Chorus America, Southern California Vocal Association, Organization of
American Kodály Educators, and the Fresno-Madera County Music Educators’ Association.
|
|
|
