February 21-26

Amadi Azikiwe, viola, has been heard in recital throughout the U.S. Israel, Canada, South America, Central America, India, Japan, Hong Kong, and the Caribbean.  He has been a guest of the Lincoln Center Chamber Music Society and performed on the Kennedy Center and La Jolla “Discovery” series. Mr. Azikiwe has appeared as soloist with the Virginia, North Carolina, Roanoke, Winston-Salem, and Salisbury Symphonies. He has performed at the Marlboro, Tanglewood, Aspen, and Norfolk Festivals, and his performances have been broadcast on radio and television in the U.S., England, Israel and South America. Among his awards are those from the New York Philharmonic, Concert Artists Guild, North Carolina Symphony. Mr. Azikiwe is on the faculty of James Madison University, and has taught at Brevard Music Center. He is also the Director of Program Development for the Gateways Music Festival. He attended the NC School of the Arts, New England Conservatory and Indiana University.

Melvin Chen, piano and violin, has received acclaim for performances on both violin and piano throughout the United States and abroad.  As a soloist and chamber musician Mr. Chen has performed at major venues in the United States, Canada and Asia, and at U.S. festivals including Bravo! Vail Valley, Chautauqua, Norfolk, Chamber Music Northwest, Bard, and Music from Angel Fire.  An enthusiastic chamber musician, Mr. Chen was selected to be a member of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center: Chamber Music Two.  He has collaborated with such artists as Ida Kavafian, David Shifrin, Pamela Frank, and members of the St. Lawrence, Mendelssohn, Miami, Orion, Borromeo, and Arditti quartets. Mr. Chen is Associate Director of the Bard College Conservatory of Music.

Catherine French, violin, a member of the Boston Symphony Orchestra since 1994, has established herself as a versatile and accomplished soloist and chamber musician in addition to her distinguished orchestral career.  Ms. French, originally from Canada, garnered the grand prize at the Canadian Music Competition, the C.B.C. Radio Competition and the National Competitive Festival of Music, Canada’s three major music competitions.  She has performed as soloist with many leading Canadian orchestras and given recitals throughout North America and Argentina.  Ms. French was featured with the Juilliard Orchestra and James de Preist, the Boston Pops and John Williams, and at Carnegie Hall in her debut with David Gilbert. Lauded for her “superbly lyric” playing and her “amazing level of artistry” by Strad Magazine,  Ms. French is a dedicated member of the Calyx Piano Trio and Collage New Music.  Her avid interest in chamber music has led to performances at the Marlboro, Banff, Portland and Carolina chamber music festivals, quartet tours of Germany and China and annual concerts as part of the Prelude series at Tanglewood and the Curtisville Consortium.    Ms. French has recorded for Albany Records and is featured in Donald Sur’s Berceuse for Violin and Piano with pianist Christopher Oldfather.  Catherine French began Suzuki violin at age four then continued her studies under the esteemed Canadian pedagogue Dr. Lise Elson.   Ms. French graduated from Indiana University with a Bachelor’s of Music degree and a Performer’s Certificate, then earned a Master’s degree from the Juilliard School.  Her teachers were Miriam Fried, Felix Galimir and Joel Smirnoff.

Jennifer Lucht, cello and Co-Director, was raised in Greenville, North Carolina.  She began her musical training at the age of three on violin as a student of Joanne Bath and switched to cello at age eleven under the tutelage of North Carolina Symphony cellist Leonid Zilper. She has been heard in chamber music performances at the Kennedy Center, Weill Recital Hall, Tanglewood, the Ravinia and Bravo! Vail Festivals, and on the Greater Philadelphia Performing Artists Series and NPR’s live broadcast “Performance Today”.  A member of the Calyx Piano Trio, she also tours with the Boston Pops Esplanade Orchestra throughout the US, Canada, and Japan and has performed as concerto soloist with ensembles including the Metamorphosen Chamber Orchestra and Vermont Symphony.  Ms. Lucht received her Bachelor and Masters degrees from Indiana University, continuing with post-graduate studies at the New England Conservatory of Music.

Anna Reinersman, harp and Co-Director, began her harp studies at the age of 7, holding her first position as Principal Harp for the Rocky Mountain Symphony in Utah at the age of 14.  Praised by The New York Times as “an elegant harpist”, she performs extensively throughout New York and Boston. Ms. Reinersman recently returned from a tour of Japan with the Metropolitan Opera, playing “La Boheme” and is currently in the pit for the revival of “On A Clear Day You Can See Forever” starring Harry Connick, Jr. She was the harpist for the entire run of the Broadway smash hit “The Producers” and has performed with the Orchestra of St. Luke’s, the Mostly Mozart Music Festival, and has toured the country with the Boston Pops Esplanade Orchestra.  She maintains an active career as a chamber musician with the Locrian Chamber Players, a contemporary ensemble, the Chameleon Arts Ensemble, a Boston based chamber group and the Larkspur Trio. Comfortable in a variety of musical settings, she has performed with such contemporary pop artists as Joni Mitchell, Diana Krall, Alicia Keyes, and the indie band Hem. Ms. Reinersman is also cofounder and codirector of the Carolina Chamber Music Festival She can be heard on the soundtrack of the most recent “The Producers” movie, the cast album for the Broadway revival of “Finian’s Rainbow”, and various other commercial recordings.

Melinda Wagner, Composer-in-Residence,  received graduate degrees in Music Composition from the University of Chicago and the University of Pennsylvania.  Her teachers included Richard Wernick, George Crumb, Shulamit Ran, and Jay Reise. Wagner’s Concerto for Flute, Strings, and Percussion, commissioned by Paul Lustig Dunkel and the Westchester Philharmonic, was awarded the 1999 Pulitzer Prize in Music.  The Chicago Symphony has commissioned three major works — Falling Angels (1992); a piano concerto, Extremity of Sky (2002) for Emanuel Ax; and a forthcoming work.  Extremity of Sky has enjoyed subsequent performances by Emanuel Ax with the National Symphony, the Toronto Symphony, the Kansas City Symphony, and the Staatskapelle Berlin.  Other recent premieres include the Trombone Concerto by the New York Philharmonic and principal trombonist Joseph Alessi, Scamp by the United States Marine Band.  Other performances have come from the Dallas Symphony, the American Composers Orchestra, the Women’s Philharmonic, and the New York Pops. She is the recipient of numerous honors, including a Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship, an award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, three ASCAP Young Composer Awards, resident fellowships from the MacDowell Colony and Yaddo, an honorary degree from Hamilton College, and a Distinguished Alumni Award from the University of Pennsylvania. Melinda Wagner has taught at the University of Pennsylvania, Swarthmore College, Syracuse University, and Hunter College.  She has lectured at many schools including Yale, Cornell, Juilliard, and Mannes.  Ms. Wagner has served as Composer-in-Residence at the Yellow Barn Music Festival, the Monadnock Music Festival, the University of Texas (Austin) and at the Bravo! Vail Valley Music Festival.  She lives in New Jersey with her husband, percussionist James Saporito, and their children.

September 11-18

Sally Anger, artist, grew up in the coastal town of Beaufort North Carolina after moving there at the age of nine. She has loved art all her life, and attended workshops and painted for many years. In 2002 she took the plunge and left a career as a nutritionist to pursue art full time. She obtained her associate’s degree in fine arts from the local community college and then studied for several semesters at a local university’s art school before heading off on her own. She continues to explore new ways to express herself through art by experimentation, life drawing classes, critiques with other artists and workshops. Sally is a member of the Carteret County Arts and Crafts Coalition and the Arts Council of Carteret County, the Twin River Artists’ Association, and the Craven County Arts Council & Gallery. Her artwork is on display at Handscapes Gallery and the Mattie King Davis art gallery in Beaufort, NC; and New Bern ArtWorks in New Bern, NC. She lives on the coastal Newport River in Mill Creek, North Carolina.

Keith Bonner, flute, has performed in a wide variety of ensembles, ranging from symphony and opera orchestras to small chamber groups, Broadway pits and ensembles specializing in new music. Mr. Bonner is currently principal flute of the New York Symphonic Ensemble and member of the Riverside Symphony. He performs regularly with the Symphony Orchestras of New Jersey, Greenwich and Stamford, CT as well as Orchestra New England and the Brooklyn and Long Island Philharmonics. Other positions have included principal flute with the Sarasota Opera Orchestra, the Ashlawn-Highland Opera Festival, and the Dicapo Opera Orchestra.  He has performed with the National Orchestral Association New Music Project and the Patrick Grant Ensemble.  As soloist, Mr. Bonner has performed concertos by Gluck, Teleman, Bach, Doppler and Mozart with various orchestras in the New York metropolitan area and across Japan with the New York Symphonic Ensemble.  Keith has also performed chamber music for flute with the Lenape Chamber Ensemble, ElmCity Chamber Fest and on the St. Alban’s Recital Series on Staten Island, NY. Mr. Bonner has traveled the country as principal flute of the National Touring Company of Andrew Lloyd Weber’s Phantom of the Opera and as flute soloist during the 2005 Tim Janis Ensemble’s PBS Tour of America.  On Broadway in New York, he has performed in the productions of Nine, Fiddler on the Roof, Beauty and the Beast, Mary Poppins and South Pacific. Mr. Bonner holds a bachelor’s degree from the Manhattan School of Music and a Professional Studies Diploma from the Cleveland Institute of Music.  His teachers included some of the most important orchestral principals in the country - Michael Parloff of the Metropolitan Opera, Jeffrey Khaner of the Philadelphia Orchestra, and Joshua Smith of the Cleveland Orchestra.

Gloria Chien, piano, has been picked by the Boston Globe as one of the Superior Pianists of the year, “… who appears to excel in everything.” Richard Dyer praises her for “a wondrously rich palette of colors, which she mixes with dashing bravado and with an uncanny precision of calibration…Chien's performance had it all, and it was fabulous." Gloria made her orchestral debut at the age of 16 with the Boston Symphony Orchestra. Since then, she has appeared as a soloist under the batons of Sergiu Comissiona, Keith Lockhart, Thomas Dausgaard, Irwin Hoffman, Benjamin Zander, Robert Bernhardt and Felix Chen. She is a prize winner of the World Piano Competition, Harvard Musical Association Award, as well as the San Antonio International Piano Competition, where she also received the prize for the Best Performance of the Commissioned Work. Gloria has presented solo recitals at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Harvard Musical Association, Sanibel Musical Festival, Caramoor Musical Festival, Salle Cortot in Paris, and the National Concert Hall in Taiwan. An avid chamber musician, Gloria has been the resident pianist with the Chameleon Arts Ensemble of Boston since 2000, a group known for its versatility and commitment to new music. The Strad praises her for “super performances…accompanied with great character.” She also received fantastic reviews in Gramophone, American Record Guide, and Muzyka 21. Gloria has participated in such festivals as Music Academy of the West, Verbier Music Festival, Bay Chamber Concerts, and Music@Menlo, where she was recently appointed Director of the Chamber Music Institute by Artistic Directors David Finckel and Wu Han. Gloria began playing the piano at the age of five in her native Taiwan. She has a doctor of musical arts, a master’s and an undergraduate degree from the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston. Her teachers have included Russell Sherman and Wha-Kyung Byun. Gloria is an Associate Professor at Lee University in Cleveland, TN and is a Steinway Artist.

Dan Locklair, Composer-in-Residence, is a native of Charlotte, NC. He holds a Master of Sacred Music degree from Union Theological Seminary and a Doctor of Musical Arts degree from the Eastman School of Music. Presently, Dr. Locklair is a Composer-in-Residence and Professor of Music at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, NC. The music of Dan Locklair is widely performed throughout the US, Canada and abroad, including performances in England, Germany, France, Denmark, Hungary, Poland, Sweden, Korea, Japan, Finland and Russia. His prolific output includes symphonic works, a ballet, an opera and numerous solo, chamber, vocal and choral compositions. Dr. Locklair's many awards have included consecutive ASCAP awards since 1981, a Kennedy Center Freidheim Award, an Alienor Award, the New Music Award from the Omaha Symphony Society, two North Carolina Composer Fellowship Awards and the top Barlow International Competition Award for 1989. He was named AGO Composer of the Year by the American Guild of Organists in 1996. His 1995 composition, Since Dawn (A Tone Poem for Narrator, Chorus and Orchestra based on Maya Anglou's On the Pulse of Morning), is the first musical setting of this well-known and important poem commissioned for the 1993 inauguration of President Bill Clinton. Dr. Locklair's music has been premiered and/or performed  by ensembles including the Saint Louis Symphony, Helsinki Philharmonic (Finland), the St. Thomas Choir of Men and Boys (New York City) and the Pittsburgh New Music Ensemble. His commissions have included works for the Knoxville Symphony, the North Carolina Dance Theatre, the Mallarme Chamber Players and a Barlow Endowment Commission. Dan Locklair's music is commercially available on the Koch, Naxos, Ondine, Albany, Orion and Opus One labels.

Mitchell Morton, artist, a native of Onslow County, conveys a bit of an old sailor’s image – wise, pensive.  His coastal lore becomes more pronounced as you engage him in conversation.  “I love to see, smell, and savor the coastal areas.  There’s nothing that quite compares to the smell of an ocean wind or the rustle of the marsh grass on a windy day.”
 
“Art, to me,” says Mitchell “is a form of communication.  I look for subject matter that motivates and invites.  My main objective is to take the ordinary and make is extraordinary using color coupled with the talent God allotted me.” A self-taught artist, Mitchell is adept at working in a variety of art mediums (oil, acrylic, pastel, mixed media).  Mitchell says, “My work in acrylic prevails while my work in oils constantly lingers in my mind.” As a founding member of OOPS (Onslow Outdoor Painters Society), I exchange creative energy with fellow artists just as the old masters did during the impressionistic movement.  The freedom of artistic expression abounds! You can view Mitchell’s works at: Tidewater Gallery, Swansboro,  NC; rt Works Gallery, New Bern, NC; Jacksonville-Onslow Council for the Arts; Lenoir Co. Arts Council, Kinston NC;  One piece (Pre-Teen Dream) is in a permanent collection with UNC-W, Randall Library, Wilmington NC.


Melissa Reardon, viola, is a Grammy-nominated versatile performer whose playing spans all genres of the viola literature.  A First Prize Winner of the Washington International Competition, and the only violist to win top prizes in consecutive HAMS International Viola Competitions, Melissa’s playing has been described as  “elegant,” and “virtuosic”(Classical Voice).  Melissa received the prize for "best performance of a newly commissioned piece" at HAMS in 2006 as well the Tourjee Award in 2002.  Solo engagements have included performances at the Stevens Center, Kennedy Center, Symphony Hall, Jordan Hall, as soloist with Camerata Notturna and the Boston Symphony and most recently, as soloist with the East Carolina Symphony.   Melissa has given recitals in North Carolina, New York, Boston, and Philadelphia and maintains a busy performing schedule as a member of the Enso String Quartet. Melissa is also a founding member of the East Coast Chamber Orchestra (ECCO) and a sought-after collaborative musician.  She has performed with the Miami, Daedalus,  Borromeo String Quartets, with members of the Guarneri, Mendelssohn, Brentano, St. Lawrence and Shanghai quartets and with the Beaux Arts Trio. In concert, Melissa has appeared in numerous festivals across the US, Europe, India and Korea.  Recent festivals have included Music in the Vineyards, Chamber Music Northwest, Bridgehampton Festival, Charlottesville Chamber Music Festival and Sangat Chamber Music Festival in Mumbai, India.  Melissa has also toured the US and France with Musicians from Marlboro and toured with Yo-Yo Ma's Silk Road Ensemble.  In 2006, she was chosen as one of four violists internationally to participate in Chamber Music Connects the World with Gidon Kremer and Yuri Bashmet in Kronberg, Germany.  Melissa holds degrees from the Curtis Institute of Music and the New England Conservatory; her principal teachers include: Kim Kashkashian, Michael Tree, Joseph dePasquale, Karen Tuttle, Samuel Rhodes, and Hsin-Yun Huang.  Since 2007 Melissa has held the position of Assistant Professor of Viola at East Carolina University in Greenville, NC.  She is married to the cellist Raman Ramakrishnan.

Linda Werthwein, artist, has been greatly influenced by travels along the Atlantic, Pacific and Caribbean shores, imparting a tropical feel to her subject matter. From East Carolina University she received an MFA in painting and MAEd in Art Eduction. Commission work has been rendered for private, corporate, liturgical, university and physician spaces. It can be found in collections internationally from Dublin to Singapore, Oahu to the Channel Islands, Belize to St. Maarten, and nationally from San Diego to Minneapolis and Key West to New York. Her work is featured in exhibitions and galleries concentrating in Coastal North Carolina and in the Caribbean including Handscapes Gallery in Beaufort, NC, The Little Art Gallery in Raleigh, NC, Le Cafe Des Arts in Nevis and Devonish Art Gallery in Anguilla, British West Indies. Recent exhibitions include the Anguilla International Art Festival, Eva Wilkins Gallery in Nevis, Nanette Bearden Fine Arts Gallery in St. Maarten, The Equestrian Exhibition at the Barrington Illinois Arts Council and Janisch Studio in San Diego. Emphasizing personal expression her teaching experience has ranged from preschool to the university level, learning disabilities, maximum security inmates as well as professional artists.