THE CROSSSOUND SINFONIETTA:
Stewart Emerson (Music Director)    Kenneth Wright (Concert Master)
Linda Ottum (cello)  Phillip Wright (contra bass)
Laura Koenig (flutes)   Nancy Nash (oboes)   Mark Wolbers (clarinet)
Kevin Schempf (bass clarinet, doublebass clarinet)   Rick Trostel (trumpet)
Roger Schmidt (trombone)    Robert Schulz (percussion)   Zhou Yi (pipa)
Jocelyn Clark (zheng)

Stewart Emerson (Berlin) Music Director

Prof. Stewart Emerson was born in London. There he was first a scholar of the Junior Department and then a student of the Royal College of Music. He studied piano with Professor Harry Platts and Professor John Barstow as well as conducting with Professor Christopher Adey and singing with Professor Lyndon van der Pump. He was awarded the Margot Hamilton Prize for piano, the Percy Buck Conducting Prize for Britten's "A Midsummer Night's Dream", the Michael Mudie Prize for opera conducting and the Ruby Hope repetiteur scholarship. During this time he taught music history and theory in the Junior Department and directed the choir and the music theatre department. In the early 1980s, Stewart Emerson was deputy conductor for Abbey Opera and conducted the Apollo Singers, the St. Paul's Festival Orchestra and Enfield Grand Opera. Following his move to Cologne in 1984, he worked first in the opera studio and then with the ensemble as repetiteur with additional conducting responsibilities at the Cologne Opera. At the same time he taught at the Cologne Academy of Music. In 1991 he became head of the opera studio of the Cologne Opera, with whom he conducted performances of "La finta semplice", "Alcina", "Der Leuchtturm", "Riders to the sea" and the premiere of "Der Kinderkreuzzug". In 1995 Stewart Emerson was appointed Professor at the Academy of Music "Hanns Eisler" Berlin, where he is Musical Director of Music Theatre/Opera.

Kenneth Wright (Juneau) Concert Master

Keneth Wright is a native of Washington State and began studying violin at the relatively ripe age of 11. Six years later, Ken became Concertmaster of the Seattle Youth Symphony Orchestra and was the winner of the Seattle Young Artists Concerto Competition, where he played one of his favorite pieces: the Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto. He attended the University of Washington in Seattle where he studied with Maestro Vilem Sokol and Steven Staryk. Since then, Ken has become a prolific performer and recording artist, and was recently featured as a soloist in a Showtime documentary. Ken is a member of the Auburn Symphony and was recently appointed Principal Violin II of the Yakima Symphony Orchestra. Ken plays regularly as a guest with the Juneau Symphony. This is his 4th season with CrossSound.

Linda Hart Ottum (Anchorage) cello

Linda Hart Ottum grew up in Seattle and received her performance degrees from the University of Washington. Her teachers include former Seattle Symphony principal Raymond Davis and Professor Eva Heinitz. While in college she twice attended The Blossom Festival where she studied with soloist Lynn Harrell. After college she continued her studies for five years with San Francisco principal Michael Grebanier. She was the assistant principal cellist and soloist with the Berkeley Symphony Orchestra under conductor Kent Nagano from 1982 to 1988. It was in this orchestra that she had the opportunity to work with many living composers and play numerous premiers. She was also a founding member of the Berkeley Trio. Since 1989 she has been the principal cellist of the Anchorage Symphony Orchestra, Anchorage Opera Orchestra, Anchorage Concert Chorus Orchestra and Alaska Chambers Singers. She is also a member of the Arioso Chamber Ensemble, a cello coach for the Anchorage Youth Symphony and an adjunct teacher for the University of Alaska, Anchorage since 1992. She maintains an active private teacher studio.

Phillip Wright (Seattle) contra bass

Phillip Wright is a Seattle native who's musical skill has taken him throughout the United States and to many different parts of the world. He has toured with orchestras to places as far away as Australia, New Zealand, Russia and Siberia. After graduating with a degree in music from Northwestern University, Phillip joined the bass section of the New World Symphony in Miami Beach, Florida under the baton of Michael Tilson-Thomas. Soon thereafter, he was appointed to the position of Principal Bass. Currently, Phillip is a sought-after freelance bassist living back in his hometown of Seattle and is a frequent guest artist with the Juneau Symphony.

Laura Koenig (Anchorage) flutes

Laura Koenig teaches flute and music history at UAA. She received her doctorate from the University of Iowa as the first performer ever awarded the prestigious Iowa Fellowship. Her dissertation on experimental music in eighteenth-century France received both the Stanley Fellowship for Research Abroad and the Indiana University Press Award. Dr. Koenig also holds music degrees from UCLA and UC San Diego, and she has completed graduate course work at Oxford University. As a specialist in baroque and contemporary music, Dr. Koenig has performed throughout the U.S., Europe, and Australia, including the Australian Broadcasting's Young Artist Series, the Darmstadt Festival, and the National Flute Association's Annual Convention. She has taught at Knox College and the University of Iowa. Since moving to Anchorage in 1997, Dr. Koenig has performed in the Anchorage Festival of Music, Anchorage Symphony Orchestra, Anchorage Opera Orchestra, and as a regular member of the John Damberg Latin Jazz Ensemble. This is her 2nd season with CrossSound.

Nancy Nash (Haines) oboes

Nancy Nash is a multi-instrumentalist who has spent all her adult life, happily, in Haines. In Southeast Alaska she is known mainly as a pianist, but she served as principal oboist with the Juneau Symphony under conductor Mel Flood. She has studied oboe with Robert Mayer, former principal oboist of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, and Peter Christ, of the Westwood Wind Quintet. Hailing originally from the Midwest, Nancy holds a degree in philosophy from Gustavus Adolphus College and a BA in Music from the University of Alaska. She has taught piano privately for thirty years in Haines and also serves as Music Coordinator for the Episcopal Diocese of Alaska. Nancy especially enjoys working with children with special needs, coordinating music activities with physical and developmental therapy plans. The one drawback to life in beautiful Haines is the scarcity of chamber music playing opportunities, so Nancy is very much looking forward to this.

Mark Wolbers (Anchorage) clarinet

Marc Wolbers is Professor of Music at the University of Alaska Anchorage (UAA) where he is the Wind and Percussion Division Head, and Conductor of the University Wind Ensemble where he has served since 1992. Under his leadership the ensemble has grown to become one of the leading wind bands of Alaska . His doctoral degree in Clarinet Performance was earned at the University of Michigan where he was the Associate Conductor of the U of M Youth Band & Wind Ensemble and recipient of both Rackham and School of Music Fellowships. He is currently the State of Alaska Chair for the College Band Directors National Association (CBDNA). As a chamber musician Wolbers has performed with the Fontana Ensemble, Sitka Music Festival, CrossSound where he premiered a work by Alaska composer Stefan Hakenebrg, and he performs annually with members of the DeVere String Quartet. He is a founding member of the UAA faculty trio Alaska Pro Musica (violin, clarinet, and piano). With Alaska Pro Musica, Dr. Wolbers has performed on three acclaimed concert tours to South America, released a CD titled Contrasts and commissioned a major addition to the trio repertoire by Seattle composer Ken Benshoof. The trio has also premiered works by Alaska composers Craig Coray, Garth Hangartner, and George Belden.Prior to his current position at UAA, Dr. Wolbers taught at San Jose State University, San Jose City College, and as a graduate assistant at the University of Michigan. He began his teaching career as a public school band director in Stockbridge, Michigan. Active in the Michigan School Band and Orchestra Association (MSBOA), Wolbers served as MSBOA State Chair of the Youth Arts Festival and as Vice-President of MSBOA Region VIII. His compositions, recordings and published works include Arirang Fanfare for brass and percussion, Singing in the Band Rehearsal (Music Educators Journal), the UAA Fight Song, Mozart Duo K. 423 arranged for two clarinets, UAA Alma Mater, Alaska Pro Musica CD Contrasts, and numerous articles for the Alaska Music Educator Journal. This is his 2nd season with CrossSound.

Kevin Schempf (Bowling Green OH)
bass clarinet, doublebass clarinet

Kevin Schempf is Associate Professor of Clarinet at Bowling Green State University and is active as a teacher, chamber player, soloist, and orchestral musician. After graduating from the Interlochen Arts Academy and the Eastman School of Music, he performed with the United States Coast Guard Band and toured with them throughout the United States and to St. Petersburg, Russia. A frequent soloist with the Band, he was featured on NPR broadcasts and on their 75th Anniversary CD Recording. He was on the faculty at Connecticut College and performed with the New London Contemporary Ensemble. He has also taught at Wesleyan University where he played with the New World Consort, which gave regular concerts throughout Connecticut, in New York City and at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C.

Mr. Schempf played with the Syracuse Symphony Orchestra for nine years, appearing as a concerto soloist on several occasions. He has also performed with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, the Fort Wayne Philharmonic, the Chautauqua Orchestra, and The Toledo Symphony. Chamber music engagements include performing with the Ying Quartet, several concerts and a CD recording with the Society for New Music in Syracuse, NY, appearances at the Skaneanteles Festival, with the Wall Street Chamber Players, Chamber Music Plus, and Venti da Camera.
He has performed throughout Europe and Japan, and most recently in Stockholm as a recitalist at the International Clarinet Conference in 2002. CD recordings include the premiere recording of Stephen Albert's "Wind Canticle" with the Bowling Green Philharmonia and most recently Appalachian Spring with the Nashville Chamber Orchestra.

Rick Trostel (Juneau) trumpet

Rick Trostel experienced his first joy with music classes, choirs and piano lessons as a young student at Interlochen, National Music Camp (now National Arts Camp) where he spent five summers studying voice, drama, piano, trumpet, orchestra and band. Rick began playing trumpet at the age of ten and has studied with a number of teachers, most notably Ron Hassleman of the Minnesota Orchestra and Richard Pressley of the Seattle Symphony. Rick attended Oberlin College and where he received BA in Biology (in order to get a "real job.") After several years pursuing real jobs, music reared its beautiful head in the form of a music teaching job at a school in southwestern Alaska. Rick's musical projects include playing principal trumpet in the Juneau Symphony and Juneau Brass Quintet, producing and performing annual trumpet recitals, directing the Juneau Student Symphonies (youth orchestras with no age limit), directing and teaching at Thrush Hill Music (a private lesson studio), and teaching elementary music for the public Montessori elementary classrooms in Juneau. He has performed with CrossSound since its first program in 1999 and loves every aspect of this festival from working with the composers and fellow musicians to the excitement of bringing sparkling new music to life.

Roger Schmidt (Sitka) trombone

Roger Schmidt grew up in his present home, Sitka. As a musician he has studied music at the Bruckner Konservatorium in Linz, Austria, at Oberlin Conservatory and at the Aspen Music Festival. His principal teachers have been Raymond Premru of the Philharmonia Orchestra and Paul Welcomer of the San Francisco Symphony. He has toured with the Orion Trombone Quartet, and has worked as a free lance musician in the San Francisco Bay area playing with various groups in a wide range of musical styles. He currently teaches music in Sitka. Roger is a former student of the Sitka Fine Arts Camp, which won the Governor's Award for the Arts under his direction in 2004. This is his 6th program with CrossSound.

Robert Schulz (Arlington MA) percussion

has become a familiar face to New England audiences.  The Boston Globe has referenced his virtuoso work as "heroic and indefatigable", his musicianship as "dazzling" and his performance as "spellbinding".  Highly sought after by instrumentalists, composers and conductors alike for his collaborative skills, Mr. Schulz's percussive expertise extends through the traditional symphonic repertory, contemporary solo and chamber ensemble works to jazz, improvisational forms and world music. In addition to BMV, he is percussionist for the Auros Group for New Music, Boston Landmarks Orchestra, Boston Modern Orchestra Project, Fromm Players at Harvard, Music at Eden's Edge and Mistral (of the Andover Chamber Music Series).  He works with the Boston Symphony, Boston Pops, Boston Ballet, and Pro Arte orchestras on various occasions as well as the Boston Chamber Music Society, Collage New Music, Dinosaur Annex and Firebird Ensemble. In 2004 he was nominated for a Grammy Award in the category of Best Small Ensemble Performance for his work on Composer Yehudi Wyner’s The Mirror.

Originally from Buffalo, N.Y., Mr. Schulz’s first teachers were John Rowland and Lynn Harbold of the Buffalo Philharmonic and later Jan Williams at SUNY Buffalo, where he earned his Bachelor’s Degree (1989). After moving to Boston in 1990 for study at the New England Conservatory, he completed a Masters in Jazz Studies with Fred Buda (1992) and was offered successive fellowships to the Tanglewood Music Center while pursuing a Graduate Diploma in Solo Percussion with Frank Epstein of the Boston Symphony (1994).

A successful instructor and committed mentor to many, he has current teaching affiliations with Tufts University, Harvard University and the Boston Conservatory.  His work at these and other institutions includes private lessons, ensemble coaching and conducting, musician contracting, and compositional seminars.  Always interested in expanding his own range as a musician, Bob's approach to his craft has always been one of fearless inclusion, appreciation and exploration of the many musical traditions one finds in this modern age.

Zhou Yi (Shanghai/New York) pipa

pipa soloist, graduated from the Shanghai Conservatory of Music in China. She has been award many prizes: In 1983, the First Prize of the Shanghai Spring Music Festival; In 1989, the Outstanding Performance Award of the Art Cup International Chinese Traditional Instruments Contest and In 1998, the White Magnolia Award for the Extraordinary Expertise in the Fine Arts (NY). As soloist she has toured to Japan, Singapore, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Italy with the group Chinese National Music.

In 1998, Zhou Yi was invited to perform and lecture throughout the United States. She has performed at Merkin Concert Hall in Lincoln Center (NY), Pickman Concert Hall (MA), John Hancock Hall (MA), the Metropolitan Museum of Art (NY), Harvard University (MA), Princeton University (NJ), Yale University (CT), New York University (NY), Peabody Conservatory of Music (MD) and the Eastman School of Music (NY). She is currently a guest lecturer at New York University. Her music has been recorded on the Moon in Sky label and published by New Era Sound & Video Company of Guang Zhou and Nanjing Video Publishing House of China. Accomplished in the traditional repertoire, she is also an active performer of contemporary music. Her playing has been praised for its meticulous technique and expressiveness. She has been singled out as a young performer of notable musical talent. The Boston Globe wrote: "...She has an impressive command of the instrument and of a broad range of its classical, folk, and modern musical literatures..." and The New York Concert Review said: "...Her subtle stringwork made an artistic effect..."

Zhou Yi has delighted audiences in the “Peony Pavilion”, “The Orphan Of Zhao” and “Ghost Lovers” with the Lincoln Center Festival, the Asia Society’s “WenJi: Eighteen Songs Of Nomad Flute”, and has been heard at the Shen Wei Dance Arts’ “Second Visit To The Empress”. She has performed at the Spoleto Festival, USA in 2002 and 2004, and the ADF Festival in 2005. Zhou Yi is a co-founder of the Ba Ban Chinese Music Society of New York.

Jocelyn Clark (Juneau) zheng

Jocelyn Clark grew up in Juneau, Alaska playing the piano, clarinet, and oboe in the Juneau Symphony as well as attending the Sitka Fine Arts Camp. After a year in Japan, she started studying the koto at age 18 with the Sawai Koto Academy under Yagi Michiyo, and later Maruta Miki at Wesleyan University. In 1990-1 she studied zheng at the Nanjing Academy of Arts in China, and then in New York with master Wang Changyuan. From 1992 to 1994 she received a scholarship to study traditional Korean music majoring in kayagûm performance at the National Classical Music Institute in Seoul, Korea. She returned in 1995 to study kayagûm with a grant from the Harvard Korea Institute. In 1999-2000, she received a Fulbright Fellowship to study Korean traditional music in Seoul with Ji Aeri and “National Intangible Human Cultural Asset” Kang Jeongsuk. Jocelyn won the KBS Korean Folk Arts contest for foreigners in 1994 and 1999, and the HBS contest in 1995. In 2000-1 she returned to Korea on a Seonam Foundation Fellowship and appeared at the 2001 Jeonju Sanjo Festival. She is the co-founder and co-director of the new music festival, CrossSound, in Alaska with composer Dr. Stefan Hakenberg, and she founded the East Asian zither ensemble IIIZ+ in 2001 with changgu player/composer Il-Ryun Chung of Berlin, with which she has toured throughout Europe and the East Coast of the US. Her writing on the kayagûm appears in the liner notes of Dr. Hwang Byung-Ki's 2001 re-release box set in English, Korean, Japanese, and French. She has a 2005 Ph. D. from Harvard University in East Asian Languages and Civilizations where she wrote on Kayagûm Pyôngch'ang. This is her 5th program playing in the CrossSound festival.

THE CROSSSOUND SINFONIETTA:
Stewart Emerson (Music Director)    Kenneth Wright (Concert Master)
Linda Ottum (cello)  Phillip Wright (contra bass)
Laura Koenig (flutes)   Nancy Nash (oboes)   Mark Wolbers (clarinet)
Kevin Schempf (bass clarinet, doublebass clarinet)   Rick Trostel (trumpet)
Roger Schmidt (trombone)    Robert Schulz (percussion)   Zhou Yi (pipa)
Jocelyn Clark (zheng)