Teen Pianophoria! Faculty

Marcia Eckert (Director), a native of Terre Haute, Indiana, is active as piano soloist and collaborative artist and has appeared in the Mostly Mozart Festival, as well as at Merkin, Alice Tully, and Weill concert halls, and London’s Leighton House. She has travelled throughout the United States presenting lecture-recitals on piano music by women composers and on the music of Charles Ives. The Ehrlich/Eckert Duo, a violin and piano duo, recorded music of Germaine Tailleferre which was released on the Cambria label in March, 1995. Ms. Eckert recorded Songs by Women with soprano Susan Gonzalez for Leonarda Records, and 20th Century Music for Recorder and Piano with Anita Randolfi. She has performed with Blue Door, Albany Chamber Players, Polyhymnia, Sarasa, Dulcinea Piano Trio and the Eckert/Gilwood Piano Duo. She has given numerous premieres, including works by Eleanor Cory, Ursula Mamlok, Roger Zahab, Kevin McCarter and Jacob Goodman. Ms. Eckert has served on the keyboard, chamber music and theory faculty of Hunter College, where she was a 1998 recipient of the President’s Award for Excellence in Teaching. She has been teaching piano and chamber music in the Mannes College of Music Preparatory Division since 1983 and is the director of Pianophoria!, and Teen Pianophoria!, summer piano intensives. Ms. Eckert holds degrees in Piano Performance from Indiana University School of Music and State University of New York at Stony Brook. Teachers have included Jorge Bolet, Gilbert Kalish, Claude Frank, William Masselos, Seymour Bernstein, Luis Batlle, and Lucy Greene. She has participated as a fellow at the Berkshire Music Center at Tanglewood and Yale School of Music Summer Chamber Music Festivals and also at the Aspen and Interlochen Music Festivals.

Deborah Gilwood has appeared as a soloist as well as a collaborator with numerous orchestras and ensembles, including the Long Island Philharmonic, Brooklyn Philharmonia, and Solisti New York. As an active chamber musician, Ms. Gilwood has performed across the United States and abroad with such groups as Musical Elements, Infusion, the Alliance for American Song, the Eckert/Gilwood Piano Duo, and Blue Door with cellist Arthur Cook in performances at Carnegie Hall, Weill Recital Hall, Mannes, as well as at many colleges and universities. She has participated in summer festivals at Tanglewood, Sarasota, Aspen, Siena, and Rutgers. Her 2002 recording with Mr. Cook, Censored by Hitler, the Rediscovered Masterpieces, can be heard on the Centaur label. In 1998 she co-founded the Blue Door Chamber Music series at the Provincetown Art Association and Museum in Provincetown, MA. Ms. Gilwood attended Mannes College and received her performance degrees in Piano from SUNY Purchase and SUNY Stony Brook. Her principal teachers include Richard Goode, Gilbert Kalish and Lucy Greene. She has been on the piano faculties at Smith College, the University of Massachusetts Amherst, and Seton Hall University, and is currently a member of the music department at Westfield State College. She currently lives in Amherst, MA. She has been on the Pianophoria! faculty since 2007.

Born in Bosnia and Herzogovina, Vladimir Valjarevic has studied at Mannes College of Music, Rutgers University, Belgrade Conservatory (Serbia) and, as a Fulbright Scholar, at Geneva Conservatory in Switzerland. His principal teachers are Pavlina Dokovska, Pascal Devoyon, Susan Starr, and Vladimir Feltsman. He has participated in festivals such as IMS Prussia Cove in England; American Conservatory in Fontainebleau, France; International Festival-Institute at Round Top in Texas; International Keyboard Festival and Beethoven Festival in New York; Kneisel Hall in Maine (as a recipient of the Artur Balsam Scholarship); and European Piano Teachers Association (EPTA) in Rovigno, Croatia. Mr. Valjarevic has performed as soloist and chamber pianist in New York City at Weill Recital Hall, Merkin Hall, Steinway Hall and the United Nations, among others, as well as other venues in the U.S. and Europe including England, France, Italy, The Netherlands, and former Yugoslavia. He has won numerous prizes as soloist and chamber pianist at National Competitions in former Yugoslavia as well as at the Citta di Stresa and Citta di Marsala International Competitions in Italy. Mr. Valjarevic has collaborated with musicologist Nancy Reich in her highly acclaimed lectures on Clara Schumann, as well as with AmorArtis Chamber Orchestra and The Boys Choir of Harlem. He has recorded for Yugoslav Radio and Television and the Voice of America. His latest CD, Tribute to Fauré, is recorded for Labor Records. Mr. Valjarevic has performed works of contemporary composers Lukas Foss, Dick Hyman, James Cohn, David Tcimpidis, Benjamin Lees, Michael Cohen and Ellen Lindquist. He is a co-founder of the piano trio Hudson Trio and is currently a Doctoral Candidate at Rutgers University. Mr. Valjarevic teaches piano in the Preparatory and Extension Divisions of Mannes College of Music. He joined the Pianophoria! faculty in 2005.

Guest Faculty past and present

Edmund Arkus has performed for many years in the United States, Japan and England to high critical acclaim. He has been presented in solo recitals, as soloist with orchestras, and he has collaborated in many chamber music concerts and sonata recitals. Mr. Arkus performed on radio in New York on WNYC, WFUV, WQXR, as well as live performances over National Public Radio from Washington DC, the BBC radio in England, and NHK-TV in Japan. He has collaborated regularly with Keisuke Wakao, Assistant Principal Oboist of the Boston Symphony, and with other members of the Boston Symphony, and with members of the NHK Orchestra (Tokyo), Berlin Philharmonic and Orchestre de Paris. Edmund Arkus first studied the piano with his mother, Helena Arkus. He then worked with pianist Leopold Mittman. Later, Mr. Arkus entered The Juilliard School in New York, where he studied with the distinguished teacher Rosina Lhévinne, and received both a bachelor's and master's degree in music. Mr. Arkus then completed his piano studies with Wolfgang Rosé, nephew of Gustav Mahler. Edmund Arkus teaches privately and at the Third Street Music School Settlement in Manhattan. He has presented numerous master classes in New York, and in Ogaki, Tokyo and Nagoya, Japan.

John Bloomfield is a Kentucky native and a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Furman University. He earned a master's degree from the Manhattan School of Music, since which he has been a long-term student of Dorothy Taubman and Edna Golandsky. He has taught at Adelphi University and in the pre-college division of the Manhattan School of Music. In demand as a clinician around the country, he has been a featured presenter at many festivals and workshops. He maintains a private studio in New York City. In 2003 he co-founded The Golandsky Institute with colleagues to bring high-level training in the Taubman Approach to the music community. This Approach has proven to be highly effective in the resolution of technical limitations and playing-related injuries. The aim of the Institute is to provide musicians with a foundation that allows for full artistic expression and the development of technical ease and freedom. He serves as one of the Institute's senior directors and as its faculty chair.

Pianist Rosemary Caviglia is committed to the performance of American Music and has premiered several new works. As a doctoral student at NYU, She became particularly fascinated with piano music by Leo Kraft. Her dissertation, The Solo Piano Music of Leo Kraft (1996) involved performances of his works which resulted in a new set of Piano Preludes written for her. Ms. Caviglia received her doctorate from New York University and completed her Master of Music degree at the Manhattan School of Music. Originally from the San Francisco Bay Area, she earned her Bachelor of Music degree at San Jose State University where she was a student of Aiko Onishi. She has appeared as soloist with the Palo Alto Symphony and the Contra Costa Chamber Orchestra. In 2000 she made her solo recital debut at Weill Recital Hall. Ms. Caviglia teaches piano and chamber music at the Third Street Music School Settlement in New York City where she serves as Piano Department Chairperson. She has recorded with clarinetist Esther Lamneck works by Leo Kraft on Capstone Records (CPS-8641 and CPS 8649).

David Dubal is internationally known as a pianist, teacher, writer, and broadcaster. An acknowledged authority on the piano literature, Mr. Dubal’s books. The Art of the Piano, Evenings with Horowitz, Reflections from the Keyboard, and Conversations with Menuhin are highly acclaimed. Recipient of the first ASCAP Deems Taylor award for broadcast journalism, David Dubal has won numerous awards including the coveted George Foster Peabody award. He has been on the faculty of the Juilliard School since 1983 and the Manhattan School of Music since 1995. At Juilliard, his series The World of the Piano is one of the most popular classes in the Evening Division. David Dubal has conducted master classes worldwide and has judged many international competitions. Currently Mr. Dubal is heard every Wednesday night at 10:00PM on WQXR in his program: Reflections From The Keyboard, The Piano in Comparative Performance. His new book, The Essential Canon of Classical Music, was recently published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. In May, 2006, Mr. Dubal received an honorary Doctor of Music from The State University of New York.

Anne Farber is Director of the Dalcroze School of Music at the Lucy Moses School in New York City, offering classes for adults and children, as well as Dalcroze teacher training. She teaches at the Special Music School of America, a public school in New York City for musically gifted children. In addition, Anne maintains a private piano studio and serves on the summer faculty of the Longy School of Music in Cambridge, MA. She has a B.A. in Comparative Literature, University of Wisconsin, Dalcroze Certificate and License from the Dalcroze School in New York City under Hilda Schuster, and the Diplome Superieur from the Dalcroze Institute in Geneva, Switzerland. As an active clinician Anne presents workshops throughout the United States, Europe and Japan in Dalcroze studies: Eurhythmics, Solfege, Improvisation and Pedagogy. She has performed two-piano improvisation recitals with colleagues Lisa Parker and Joy Kane. Her articles have appeared in The American Dalcroze Journal, Music Educators Journal, Keyboard Companion, National Music Council Newsletter, The Bennington Review, and Dissent.

Soprano Helen Gabrielsen is a performer of art songs, chamber works and new music. This past season she premiered song cycles set to texts by e.e. cummings by New York composers Daniel Temkin and Steve Aprahamian and a pocket opera for two sopranos entitled All Three Acts of a Sad Play Performed Entirely in Bed, composed by her husband Dag Gabrielsen and set to text by poet Julie Larios. Helen most recently sang the role of The Serpent at Theatre 80 St. Marks in a production of Orfeo, Eurydice and The Serpent, a new satirical chamber opera based on the Orpheus myth that combines scores by multiple composers including Monteverdi, Rossi, Sartorio, Telemann, Gluck, Milhaud and Offenbach. In 2008 she premiered a pierrot chamber version of Second Childhood with Helix New Music Ensemble and gave a recital of American Songs at the Renee Weiler Concert Hall. She made her Weill Auditorium Carnegie Hall debut performing Tosti songs arranged for guitar and clarinet and her Messiah debut with New York State Baroque Orchestra at St. Paul’s Cathedral in Buffalo. Helen has performed with New England Light Opera, St. Luke’s Chamber Orchestra Outreach Program, Amalfi Coast Music Festival, New York Opera Forum, One World Symphony, Broadmoor Chamber Singers, Harbor Choral Arts, Chamber Chorale of Fredericksburg and The Chromatic Club of Boston. She studied acting with Ann Baltz and Gloria Parker and voice with Mary O'Connell, Penelope Bitzas, Norma Newton and Richard Slade. Helen is on faculty as the music specialist at the Hamilton Park Montessori School.

A certified teacher of Brain Gym since 1991, Connie Green teaches Brain Gym 101, lectures, presents in-services for schools, cruise ships, hospitals and community organizations as well as one-on-one consultations. A soprano with the famed Metropolitan Opera Chorus, her career has also included many supporting roles with the company. She has toured Japan, Spain and Germany with the Met, performing in productions aired over international television and radio. She is on the faculty of her Alma Mater, Mannes College of Music, where she has taught Brain Gym for Musicians. For over a decade she has been collaborating with the Performing Arts Library producer to create and perform programs for their series. The amazing technology of Brain Gym has been the foundation for Ms. Green's ability to ground her creativity and direct her own energy.

Musicologist L. Michael Griffel is chairperson of the music history department at The Juilliard School, where he has taught since 1997. He is also professor emeritus of music at Hunter College and The Graduate Center of the City University of New York. At Hunter, he taught music history from 1970 until 2005, and he served at various times as chair of the music department, co-chair of the Thomas Hunter Honors Program, associate dean of the School of Arts and Sciences, and acting associate provost. He taught for many years in the doctoral program in music at the CUNY Graduate School and at The Mannes College of Music. Dr. Griffel earned his B.A. in music theory at Yale, his M.S. in piano under Rosina Lhevinne and Martin Canin at Juilliard, and his M.A. in the theory of music and Ph.D. in historical musicology at Columbia. Dr. Griffel specializes in the music of the Romantic period, with emphasis on Franz Schubert. He has published chapters in The Cambridge Companion to Schubert, The Schirmer History of Music, and Scholars Who Teach, and articles and reviews in such journals as The Musical Quarterly, Music Library Association Notes, The Beethoven Journal, Current Musicology, Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, and The New Leader. He has been an invited guest speaker for such groups as the Music Theory Society of New York State, the Music Division of the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, and the New York Chapter of the American Musicological Society. He is currently working on a book on Schubert’s late symphonies. Dr. Griffel is a board member of the Schubert Society of the USA and served as vice-president of the New York Chapter of the American Beethoven Society.

Mimi Y. Hsu is a Certified Dalcroze Eurhythmics Instructor on the Faculties of Hoff-Barthelson, CPSM Queens College, and Greenwich House Music School. A native of Tainan, Taiwan, she received her Bachelor of Arts degree in voice performance with a minor in piano at the Chinese Cultural University in Taipei, followed by studies to Dalcroze certification at The New York Dalcroze School, and the License Program at The Longy School of Music in Cambridge, MA. Mimi taught Dalcroze Eurhythmics at The Central Conservatory of Beijing, China, summer 2004. In summer 2005 she introduced the Mind-Body Studies in Performing Arts Festival at Greenwich House Music School—a multi-disciplinary program combining Dalcroze, Feldenkrais, European Mask/Clown/Movement and Multi-Arts Performance. She is president of Tri-State Chapter, Dalcroze Society of America.

Birgit Matzerath holds a degree in piano and a teaching degree in High School for Music and English, from Hochschule für Musik, Köln, and the University of Cologne in Germany. Her teachers have included Oxana Yablonskaya and Seymour Bernstein. For more than 20 years she taught piano and chamber music and performed solo and collaborative recitals in Germany. In 2002, she joined the faculty of the Concord Community Music School in New Hampshire. Since that time she has performed Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier, Book I in the United States and Germany. In addition to teaching and performing, Ms. Matzerath has done extensive research in music education. Her articles have appeared in the music education magazine Üben und Musizieren in Germany, and in Keyboard Companion and Clavier Magazine in the United States. She initiated and organized chamber music camps for music school students in Köln, Germany and St. Petersburg, Russia. She frequently serves as adjudicator for competitions in this country and abroad.

Described by The New York Times as an "astonishingly good pianist", Tatjana Rankovich is committed to continuously expanding the boundaries of the traditional repertoire. She is the first pianist ever to play the First, Second and Third Piano Concertos of Nicolas Flagello, recording them with the National Symphony Orchestra of Ukraine and the Slovak Philharmonic, which were released to unanimous praise and chosen for one of the five "best of the year" recordings in 1996 and again in 1999, by Fanfare magazine. Born in Belgrade, Serbia, Ms. Rankovich has performed throughout the USA, Canada, Europe, Central and South America and as a guest soloist with many orchestras worldwide. Ms. Rankovich holds Bachelors and Masters degrees from the Juilliard School. As a recipient of the Fulbright Grant, Ms. Rankovich appeared as a Cultural Ambassador in recitals throughout Serbia and Montenegro. She has recorded several highly acclaimed discs for Phoenix USA, Naxos, Albany, Artek, Dezil, Citadel, and most recently, a highly praised 3-disk set of live recordings for IBox Records. In 2008, Tatjana Rankovich was one of the recipients of the prestigious State Award, "Golden Badge", which is awarded annually by the Serbian Ministry of Diaspora in Belgrade, Serbia. In addition to her career as a pianist, she is a music therapist and an affiliate with Performance Wellness, Inc., specializing in working with professional musicians and performers, using a clinically proven approach to diagnosing and treating performance related disorders, such as acute performance anxiety, mind-body injuries/illnesses and addictions. Ms. Rankovich is presently on the piano faculty in the Preparatory Division at the Mannes College of Music.

Cynthia Shaw received her Master's of Music Degree in Piano Performance from the Manhattan School of Music where she studied under Dr. Solomon Mikowsky. Other piano teachers include Dora Zaslovsky, Philip Evans and Francisco Aybar. Since leaving school she has turned to musical directing, choral conducting, choral singing, solo singing, composing, piano accompanying and teaching. She has musical directed Off-Broadway, in regional theatres and for the past ten years has been musical director of the New York Christmas Revels at Symphony Space, with whom she was also featured on A Prairie Home Companion with Garrison Keillor at Town Hall and on NPR Radio. As a choral singer, she sang The New York Philharmonics premiere of John Adams On The Transmigration Of Souls, which won three 2005 Grammy Awards. She was an original member of the Douglas Frank Chorale whose recording of The A Cappella Singer was awarded Best Classical Album of 2001 by the Contemporary A Cappella Society. She sang regularly in the professional chorus of Church of the Holy Apostles under Dr. David Hurd, who recently premiered her choral composition, Rich Man. She is active in the Country Dance and Song Society and works as pianist and choral conductor/song leader at Pinewoods Adult Folk Music Camp. She is presently the Upper School Chorus teacher at Brooklyn Friends School and an Artist-in-Residence for the National Chorale at IS 228 in Brooklyn.

Jessica Wolf is a certified teacher of The Alexander Technique and a member of the American Society for the Alexander Technique. Jessica trained at The American Center for the Alexander Technique and continued her studies in London. She has maintained a private practice in New York City since 1977. For over 25 years, Jessica has been exploring and conducting research in respiratory function and breath. In 2002, Jessica became the founder and director of the first post graduate training program for Alexander teachers in The Art of Breathing.