Essex Chamber Music Players

Donate/ Advertise

Past Performances

	The Players, Composers and Conductors

	Michael G. Finegold – Artistic Director of ECMP, Flutist, Composer, and Northern Essex Community College Professor Emeritus of Music enjoys a diversified career in music. Michael 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 and chamber musician. 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, 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 fellow artists Gilbert Kalish, Robert Levin, Joy Cline Phinney, Yehudi Wyner, the Borromeo String Quartet, and soloed with pop and jazz artist Bobby McFerrin. In the Boston Globe Richard Dyer wrote “Feldman was superb” in his recent Celebrity Series debut. His solo CD on Albany Records “Rider on The Plains” featuring Virgil Thomson’s Cello Concerto was part of producer Blanton Alspaugh’s 2008 nomination for a Grammy award (Producer of the Year) and was hailed as an “excellent recording…the concerto sounds exhilarating in this bracing and confident performance” by Anthony Tommasini in the New York Times. He also has several CD’s on the Naxos, Arsis and Zimbel labels. A consummate advocate of new music, he has premiered cello works by composers Aaron Kernis, David Diamond, Gunther Schuller, and many others. Co-founder of Cello e Basso with bassist Pascale Delache-Feldman, they have been called “a musical Lewis and Clark” by NPR’s Ron Schacter. He has performed at the Pablo Casals, Schlesswig Holstein, Yellow Barn, Killington, and Summit Music Festivals. A Curtis Institute graduate with studies at the Paris Conservatory, Mr. Feldman currently is on the cello faculty at Tufts and Brown Universities and New England Conservatory. Website: Emmanuelfeldman.com
	David Pihl, Pianist David Pihl, of Worcester, Massachusetts, studied at Boston University School of Music and received his Master of Music in Piano Performance at the University of Lowell School of music. His principal teachers have been Michael Kramer and Anthony di Bonaventura. He also studied vocal accompanying in Europe under Elly Ameling and Rudolf Jansen. He has performed widely in the Worcester, Boston and Lowell areas, and, together with Michael Finegold, co-founded the Essex Chamber Music Players. He has performed as a soloist and as a vocal accompanist in Munich, Germany. Mr. Pihl recorded and performed William McKinley's "Secrets of the Heart" for flute and piano for Master Musicians Collective (MMC). His most recent recording on the MMC label was John Mitchell's "Music for Woodwinds Vol. 1" with internationally-acclaimed clarinetist Richard Stoltzman. In reviewing Mr. Pihl's recordings for "Fanfare", Philip Scott called his playing of "Secrets of the Heart" "brilliant" and commented that he was "a rock" on the performance of John Mitchell's "Music for Woodwinds." David Pihl has also recordedWilliam Thomas McKinley's Concerto in Two Movements for Piano and Orchestra. In addition to recording for the MMC label, David has performed and recorded piano solos and art songs of Langston Hughes' poetry by Stephen Peisch. He also recorded the recently released Jonathan Sachs' "Litanies" and "Ghost Horses" for Parma Recordings. David Pihl has taught music at Worcester State College, Northern EssexCommunity College and Becker Junior College. He is the staffaccompanist for the Theatre Dept at Holy Cross College and has been theaccompanist for the University of Massachusetts - Lowell Chorus. Hecurrently teaches at Lawrence Academy. Upcoming musical releases include another collaboration with RichardStoltzman for the Parma label on Marie Barker Nelson's "Sonata for Clarinet and Piano". Mr. Pihl is currently planning to record the worldpremiere of "Twenty-Four Etudes for Piano" by William Thomas McKinley and "Three Movements for Piano" composed by Marc Rossi and inspired by the teachings of philosopher J. Krishnamurti.
	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, 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.
	Guest Performers

	Described by the Hartford Courant as “gracefully navigating” through music, Hilary Ledebuhr is in demand as a hornist throughout New England. A native of Elmira, New York and Kenilworth, Illinois, Hilary earned her Bachelor’s degree from Ithaca College, studying with the acclaimed pedagogue, John Covert. After obtaining a Master’s degree at New England Conservatory, Hilary embarked on her career with an orchestral tour of South America where she performed throughout Argentina and Chile, including the Colon Theater in Santiago, Chile, and Luna Park Stadium in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Recently awarded the position of Third Horn with the Hartford Symphony Orchestra, she has been a member of that organization in varying capacities since 1996. Since then she has shared the stage with many artistic luminaries, including Luciano Pavarotti, Andrea Bocelli, Doc Severinson, Joshua Bell and Yo-Yo Ma, and at a variety of venues such as Madison Square Garden in New York City and Symphony Hall in Boston. Performances throughout New England have included backing up Joni Mitchell, Bernadette Peters, Tim Janis, and Itzhak Perlman, and at Mohegan Sun with Frank Sinatra, Jr. An active freelancer, she can frequently be heard with many theater and chamber groups, recently performing as Principal Horn with the White Mountain Musical Arts Annual Bach Festival, playing the Cantata BWV 79, “Gott der Herr ist Sonn und Schild”. Brass Venture, a brass quintet she founded in 2000 with her husband and trumpeter Erich Ledebuhr, retains a mission to create audience-engaging performances of new music. The group recently released a CD of music written for Brass Venture by American composer and Berklee College of Music professor Thomas Hojnacki. With the quintet, Hilary has presented master classes and recitals throughout New England, including the Bar Harbor Music Festival in Bar Harbor, Maine, Brown University, and the Berklee College of Music. Besides works written for her quintet, Hilary has been honored to participate in the premieres of many orchestral works, including “Ellis Island: The Dream of America” by Peter Boyle. She has written articles for the quarterly horn publication Cornucopia, participated as a panelist at the Northeast Regional Horn Conference’s discussion on freelancing, and was active in orchestra governance of the Hartford Symphony Orchestra as Delegate to the Regional Orchestra Players’ Association and Orchestra Committee Chair. She plays on an Engelbert Schmid and a horn handmade by Charles Geyer in 1919.

JOE HUNT Drummer, Educator, Author

After undergraduate studies at Indiana University, Joe Hunt joined the George Russell sextet (1960-1962), which included Eric Dolphy, Don Ellis, and Steve Swallow. After two years in the army Joe joined the Stan Getz quartet,1964-1965 for tours in North and South America, film and TV appearances, Jazz festivals including Newport. From 1966-67 Joe was with the Bill Evans trio for national tours, festivals, and clubs. Joe came to Boston with Gary Burton in 1971 and taught at Berklee College until 2002. In 1996 Joe was adjunct faculty at The Thelonious Monk Program, NEC (New England Conservatory). He is now Professor of Music (part time) at NEC and still teaches as a part time as Professor at Berklee too. In 1994 52nd Street Beat, history of modern jazz drumming (Aebersold) was published. In 2004 Joe recorded first CD under his name Joe Hunt Trio (Dreambox CD DMJ-1067) Joe is a current Cambridge, MA resident and member of the Joe Hunt trio, Leo Genovese trio, Greg Hopkins quintet, and Don Friedman trio. He recently played in the Tel-Aviv jazz festival with Don Friedman and Chuck Israels (2/3 and 2/4/2010).

Justin Purtill

Justin Purtill, Bassist
Justin Purtill has been an active member of the creative music scene for over ten years. He has performed, recorded, and toured with the likes of Gary Burton, Marco Benevento, Hal Crook, Leo Genovese, Brian Godchaux, Donna Jean Godchaux, Joe Hunt, Steve Kimock, Eric Kloss, Sonya Kitchell, Rakalam Bob Moses, Tisziji Munoz, Tiger Okoshi, Sandy Rothman, Melvin Seals and the JGB, John Shannon, Esparanza Spaulding, The Sewer Rats, Kendrick Scott, Paul Wertico, and Amy Winehouse. Justin has released three CD's of improvisational singer-songwriter music titled "Permanent Mystery", "Raw", and “Sore Eyes for Sight" on AYVA Records.

Composers of Current and Recent New Works

	Marc W. Rossi (b. 1952) Composer and jazz pianist Marc W. Rossi received his Bachelor's and Master's degrees in Composition from New England Conservatory. His principal teachers were William Thomas McKinley and Donald Martino, (composition) George Russell, Jimmy Giuffre, Jaki Byard, (jazz studies) and Peter Row (sitar and North Indian music). Since then he has continued private studies in composition and orchestration with Frank Bennett, and jazz improvisation with Charlie Banacos, and sitar with Peter Row. Rossi's music has been performed here and abroad, and recorded by The Czech Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Silesian Philharmonic Orchestra, SinfoNova, the Essex Chamber Music Players under Artistic Director Michael G. Finegold, concert pianists Jeffery Jacob and Cameron Grant, the New England String Quartet, soprano Margot Emery and pianist William Merrill, cellists Emmanuel Feldman, Rafael Popper-Keizer and Felix Simonian, Indian classical guitarist Prasanna, sitarist Peter Row, Indian violinist Krishnan Lalgudi, santoor player Satish Vyas, the Jimmy Giuffre 4, Stan Strickland and Ascension, and the Berklee Faculty Jazz Orchestra to name a few. As a keyboardist he has performed, recorded, and toured with Stan Strickland and Ascension, George Russell's Living Time Orchestra, The Jimmy Giuffre 4, Bo Diddley, pianist/historian Lewis Porter, the Robert Moore Quartet, the Row and Rossi Project, the Living Geometry Duo, and the Marc Rossi Group (MRG). Rossi's compositions have been favorably reviewed in Fanfare, The American Record Buyer's Guide, New Music Connoisseur, and The Boston Globe, and New Music Box. His original MRG jazz CDs has been favorably reviewed in Jazz Times, The LA Jazz Scene, Downbeat, All About Jazz, Jazz.com, Abstract Logix, Jazzreview.com, and Morrice's Internet Jazz Review. Rossi has been on the faculties of Tufts University and New England Conservatory, as is now a full time Professor at the Berklee College of Music where he has taught since 1989. To learn more about Marc Rossi, please visit http://www.marcrossi.com/
	David Bennett Thomas (b. 1969) David Bennett Thomas is a composer living in the Philadelphia area, where he teaches composition, theory, and piano at The University of the Arts. He holds degrees from West Chester University and The Peabody Conservatory; and studied privately with Lukas Foss. Thomas has composed music in many genres, most prolifically for chamber music and voice. Several recordings have been released of his works, on the Capstone Records label. Thomas is also enjoys a second life as an active jazz pianist. His website is www.davidbthomas.com, where you can find out more about his activities.
	Eric Sawyer (b. 1962) The music of Eric Sawyer receives frequent performances on both coasts, including at New York’s Weill and Merkin concert halls and at Tanglewood, as well as in England, France, Germany, and most recently in Romania and Bulgaria. Recent performances include works on programs by the Brentano String Quartet and San Jose Chamber Orchestra. His opera with poet John Shoptaw, Our American Cousin, on the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, received its staged premiere from Boston Modern Orchestra Project in June 2008, and a recording of the opera just been released on the BMOP/sound label. His chamber music compilation String Works and cantata The Humble Heart are available on compact disc from Albany Records. Mr. Sawyer has received the Joseph Bearns Prize, a First Music commission from the New York Youth Symphony, and awards from the Tanglewood Music Center and the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and has held fellowships from the MacDowell Colony and Harvard University. He teaches at Amherst College where he is chair of the music department. http://www.ericsawyer.net/
	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 (b.1938 ) 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.
	Elaine Erickson (b. 1940) Elaine Erickson received a Master of Music degree in Music Composition from Drake University. She has won numerous awards, fellowships and residencies, including from the Ford Foundation (Contemporary Music Project), Meet the Composer, the Charles Ives Center (4 times, the National League of American Pen Women (including the $1000 Music Composition Award), the Pyle Commission Award from the Iowa Composers Forum, among others. She has done additional study in composition at the University of Iowa and at Peabody Conservatory in Baltimore. Her teachers have been Francis Pyle, Richard Hervig, Jean Eichelberger Ivey and Robert Hall Lewis. She has composed 5 operas, 3 of which were performed at Peabody. She travels to schools throughout Iowa, presenting workshops involving her compositions, as an artist for VSA arts of Iowa. She is a published poet. She lives in Des Moines, Iowa
	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