The New School News

Mannes Faculty Adds New Stars

Composer Missy Mazzoli will join the faculty of Mannes College The New School for Music (Photo: www.missymazzoli.com)

As Mannes College The New School for Music continues to lead classical music education into a new era, by combining top-level conservatory training with a focus on contemporary and experimental music, career education and social engagement, Dean Richard Kessler has announced the addition of ten new faculty members representing the cutting edge of music. The new faculty have been lauded in The New York Times, played for acclaimed ensembles, and performed around the world. Read on for more information about the new talent at Mannes.

“These are faculty who offer not only superlative musical instruction, but who are passionate about teaching students to work and create in our evolving field,” said Kessler. “I’m thrilled to welcome them to Mannes.”

Barbara Allen is currently principal harpist with the American Ballet Theater orchestra and the Greenwich Symphony. Allen is also a member of Parnassus, the Perspectives Ensemble and L’Opera Francais and has appeared with Orpheus, St. Luke’s Chamber Ensemble and the New World String Quartet. She has performed with numerous orchestras, including the New York Philharmonic, Vienna Philharmonic, and the American Symphony Orchestra. Ms. Allen holds a master’s degree from the Juilliard School, and a bachelor’s degree from the State University of New York at Purchase.

Pianist Eteri Andjaparidze has performed as a soloist with the London Symphony Orchestra, Montreal Symphony, Quebec Symphony, Beijing and Shanghai Philharmonic Orchestras, Russian State Symphony, Moscow State Philharmonic, and St. Petersburg Philharmonic. Her recordings on Naxos, Marco Polo, and Melodiya labels include solo albums nominated for Grammy and Deutsche Schallplatten awards.  She studied at the Moscow Tchaikovsky State Conservatory, and is on the faculty at NYU Steinhardt School.  She has taught at DePaul University, The Moscow Tchaikovsky and Tbilisi State Conservatories, and has conducted master classes around the world.

Violinist Miranda Cuckson has been praised by The New York Times for her “undeniable musicality.” Her album of the music of Luigi Nono was named a New York Times Best Classical Recording of 2012. Cuckson has performed throughout the world, and was recently a soloist with the American Symphony Orchestra. She has worked with composers Henri Dutilleux, Elliott Carter, Salvatore Sciarrino, John Adams, Helmut Lachenmann, Mario Davidovsky and Georg Friedrich Haas, among others, and performs with the ensembles counter)induction and Sequitur. She directs the concert series Transit Circle, which she founded in 2007. Cuckson studied at Juilliard and has been on faculty of the Mannes Prep and Extension Divisions for many years.

American pianist Jeremy Denk has appeared as soloist with many major orchestras, including the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Philadelphia Orchestra, and the symphony orchestras of Boston, Chicago, San Francisco, and London. An avid chamber musician, he regularly collaborates with other artists such as Joshua Bell and Steven Isserlis. After graduating from Oberlin College and Conservatory in piano and chemistry, Denk earned a master’s degree in music from Indiana University, and a doctorate in piano performance from the Juilliard School. He also is the author of “Think Denk,” a noted blog with the music press and industry.

Violinist Curtis Macomber has performed in hundreds of premières of works by Elliott Carter, Mario Davidovsky, George Perle, Charles Wuorinen, and Steven Mackey, among others. Macomber is violinist for the Da Capo Chamber Players, a founding member of the Apollo Trio, and violinist for Speculum Musicae. He has recorded for the CRI, Arabesque, and Bridge labels. He is a member of the chamber music faculty of The Juilliard School. He also teaches at the Manhattan School of Music and has taught at the Tanglewood, Taos, and Yellow Barn Music Festivals.

The New York Times recently deemed composer Missy Mazzoli “one of the more consistently inventive, surprising composers now working in New York.”  Mazzoli’s music has been performed internationally by groups including eighth blackbird, Kronos, New York City Opera, the Minnesota Orchestra, and the American Composers Orchestra.  She is currently composer-in-residence with the Opera Company of Philadelphia. Mazzoli studied at Yale, The Royal Conservatory of the Hague, and Boston University, and is also active as a pianist and keyboardist, frequently performing with Victoire, a band that is dedicated to performing her own compositions.

Todd Reynolds, violinist, composer, educator and technologist is known as one of the founding fathers of the hybrid-musician movement and one of the most active and versatile proponents of what he calls “present music.” The violinist of choice for Steve Reich, Meredith Monk, Bang on a Can, and a founder of the string quartet known as Ethel, his performance and compositional style is a hybrid of old and new technology, multi-disciplinary aesthetic and pan-genre composition and improvisation. Emerging from the classical tradition, Reynolds’s is a graduate of the Eastman School of Music and the State University of New York at Stony Brook. Reynolds studied with violin legend Jascha Heifetz and was principal second violin of the Rochester Philharmonic. Todd Reynolds’s music has been called “a charming, multi-mood extravaganza, playful like Milhaud, but hard-edged like Hendrix” (Strings Magazine), and his countless premieres and performances of everything from classical music to jazz to rock‘n’roll seem to redefine the concert hall and underground club as undeniably and unavoidably intertwined. Amazon rated his 2011 release, Outerborough, best of classical.

Ronald Thomas recently stepped aside as the principal cellist of the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra. He is the co-founder and artistic director of the Boston Chamber Music Society, and has appeared as soloist and in recital with orchestras throughout the United States, Europe and the Far East. Thomas has appeared with The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, the Seattle Chamber Music Festival, Bravo! Colorado Chamber Music Festival, Spoleto Festival, Blossom Festival, Chamber Music Northwest Festival, Music at Menlo, Sarasota Festival, and others. He studied at The Curtis Institute and New England Conservatory, and has taught at M.I.T., Brown University, Boston Conservatory and Peabody Conservatory.

Max Zeugner, bassist, joined the New York Philharmonic in 2012.  Zeugner has been featured as a soloist and chamber musician throughout the US and Europe.  Before joining the Philharmonic, he performed with the London Symphony Orchestra, Netherlands Philharmonic Orchestra, and the BBC Symphony.  Zeugner has collaborated with a wide range of artists including Joanna Newsom, The Eastern Jazz Project, and the Pet Shop Boys, and was previously on the faculty of the Royal Northern College of Music.

Cellist Jeffrey Ziegler has performed internationally with the renowned Kronos Quartet. Ziegler has performed over 100 world premiers, and recorded on the Nonesuch and Deutsche Gramophone, Blue Note, and Smithsonian Folkways labels. He has also recorded for film and performed with a wide variety of artists including Norah Jones.  Ziegler studied at Eastman, Rice, and Indiana University, and frequently collaborates with the interdisciplinary company VisionIntoArt.