Where might you find Philharmonic Musicians during the summer months?  Many of our musicians perform and teach at summer programs and festivals.  Here are some examples:

Karen Bogardus (Principal Flute) is performing Principal flute in the opera Carmen with the New Rochelle Opera in June.  In July she will perform principal Flute in the operas Madame Butterfly and La Fille du Regiment (Donizetti) with the Martina Arroyo Foundation.  Later that month she will perform principal flute in Sondheim’s A little Night Music and Floyd’s Of Mice and Men in the Phoenicia International Festival of the Voice.  In August she is spending a week at the retreat Hill and Hollow Music recording a CD of music written for and premiered by the award winning  Emerald Trio which will be released on the Naxos label.  She will also perform as principal flutist in the Yellow River Concerto and other Chinese music in a concert in Avery Fisher Hall.  She will spend the rest of August practicing for the quintet recital and concerti performances at the International Festival of Music in Monterrey Mexico.  There she will play a duo concerto with flutist Bart Feller and a quintet concerto and recital with oboist Gerard Reuter, clarinetist Ben Fingland, Bassoonist Adrian Morejon and Hornist Karl Kramer.

Sarah Chandler (Second Clarinet) will be performing as substitute second clarinet/basset horn with the Glimmerglass Opera Orchestra, in Verdi’s Macbeth and Mozart’s Magic Flute.  She is also performing the Schubert Octet with other Glimmerglass Orchestra members in a chamber music concert on August 2 in Cherry Valley, NY.

Dan Fabricius, (Percussion), will once again be teaching at the Ithaca College Summer Music Academy.  Dan has been a percussion instructor at the camp since the program began and also serves as the conductor for both the Intermediate Percussion Ensemble and Jazz Ensemble.

 Emily Kalish (Violin) will be home teaching violin lessons at a camp in New York City called “Violin Traditions from Around The World,”  the camp introduces folk styles including American fiddle, Celtic, and Klezmer.  On July 17th, on the one-year anniversary of Eric Garner’s death, she’ll be playing in the orchestra for The Dream Unfinished: A Symphony Benefit Concert for Civil Rights.  On July 31 she will be performing Berlioz’s Symphonie Fantastique with Groupmuse and an accompanying aerial circus performance!  The last two weeks of August, Emily will be in Morris, NY (near Oneonta) at Magic Mountain Music Farm, a musical retreat where each participant works on one sonata for two weeks with the amazing pianist, Cullan Bryant.  They will have free public performances on September 5th and 6th. This year she is playing Hindemith’s romantic and whimsical Sonata opus 11 no. 2.

Tomoko Kanamaru (Principal Keyboard) will be performing in the Veritas Music Flute and Piano Seminar in Niigata, Japan with the flutists, Rie Shimizu (Tokyo based soloist) and Kazuo Tokito (Philadelphia Orchestra), September 9-13.

Nora Krohn (Viola) traveled to Belgrade, Serbia to perform as principal viola with the Balkan Chamber Orchestra in a World Peace Concert at Kolorac Hall on June 28. She was thrilled to participate in a musical endeavor that fosters peace and understanding between musicians from various countries in the Balkan region, and after touring Japan several times with the group, was happy to visit her colleagues’ homeland for the first time.  On July 13, she will present a recital with pianist Vlada Yaneva at St. John’s Episcopal Church in Williamstown, Massachusetts, interweaving classical and contemporary viola and piano repertoire with the poetry of Emily Dickinson.

Steven Mathiesen (Principal Timpani) played with Symphoria in pops concerts in Skaneateles, Aurora & Rome in July.

Rachel Miller (Principal Harp) was one of three harpists to be awarded the Lyon and Healy Award, after the competition was held in June in Logan, UT, during the American Harp Society’s Summer Institute. Details can be found at the Lyon and Healy Facebook page, and well as the American Harp Society’s Facebook page.   At the end of July, her harp duo, Beyond Pluck, will be featured as guest artists at the Connecticut Valley Harp Intensive. They will be teaching, coaching, and performing with and for young harpists between the ages of 12-19. 

Patti O’Connell (Second Horn) will be playing her 36th season in the Horn section of the Glimmerglass Opera Orchestra.  This year the Glimmerglass Company celebrates its 40th season!  As Horn 3 she will only play in MacBeth, by Verdi, affording her time to be home in Owego enjoying gardening and working on some much needed home improvement projects.  She is also preparing a recital for the historic Palatine Church in Nelliston, NY, scheduled for August 16th and starting work on a cd of sacred music for Horn and Organ.

Alex Shuhan (Principal Horn) is spending his first summer at the Sewanee Summer Music Festival teaching high school and college horn students, coaching student chamber music ensembles, and performing on chamber music recitals with other faculty, including the Brass Quintet and the Woodwind Quintet.

Uli Speth (Concertmaster) will be in his tenth season at Eastern Music Festival performing with soloists Andre Watts, Anne Akiko Meyers and Lynn Harrell among others. He will be coordinating chamber music for 180 students of high school and college age and will be teaching privately.

Binghamton Philharmonic Bassoonist Dr. Melissa Kritzer is a member of the trio, Reeds Amis.  Recently that group launched a project through Indiegogo to champion previously unpublished work of French female composer, Fernande Decruck.  The group has reached its goal, which will enable it to present historical findings and play Decruck’s music at a premier music conference, the International Double Reed Society Convention this summer in Tokyo.  They will also produce a CD of Decruck’s music and get the music published.

According to Decruck’s surviving children, in the 1930s and 40s, members of the Parisian ensemble Trio d’Anches de Paris (Myrtil Morel, Pierre Lefebvre, and Fernand Oubradous) commissioned Fernande to write a series of works. They were the most famous woodwind players in France and it was a turning point in her career.  Unfortunately, due to a series of circumstances, her reed trios remain unpublished.  Until now…or, very soon!

Congratulations, Melissa, and Reeds Amis!

@bingphilmusic