Nikolas Nackley, Baritone
Young American baritone Nikolas Nackley has been acclaimed by the Boston Globe for his ability to “continually impress with his beautiful voice and acting.” Equally regarded for his concert and operatic work, Mr. Nackley has enjoys a thriving career on stages throughout New England, the West Coast, and abroad.
A proponent of new music, he was recently heard as the Postman in Lee Hoiby’s “The Scarf” with The New England Chamber Opera Series and was featured as Joe Pitt in the North American Premier of Peter Eötvös’s opera Angels in America a joint production of Opera Boston and the Boston Modern Orchestra Project. His most recent operatic credits include the role of Demetrius in Festival Opera’s highly praised production of Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream under maestro Michael Morgan, the role of Deus in a staging of Charpentier’s dramatic Jesuit Motet Judicium Salomonis under the musical direction of John Finney, as well as his Opera Providence debut as Frank in Die Fledermaus. In 2004 he premiered the role of Andy in Roger Rudenstein’s “Grace” with the orchestra of Emmanuel Music, with whom he also performed the title role in Don Giovanni under the late Craig Smith. Stage engagements in New England include Granite State Opera, Boston Lyric Opera, Opera Boston, Boston Modern Orchestra Project, Intermezzo Opera, The Handel and Haydn Society, Boston Baroque, and Opera Aperta. Other roles include Papageno, Pangloss, Assan, the Count, Figaro, and Aeneas.
Praised for his interpretations of the baroque and classical oratorio repertoire, Mr. Nackley’s solo concert appearances include the St. Matthew Passion and the Monteverdi Vespers with the Carmel Bach Festival. He has been featured in the St. John Passion with the New Hampshire Master Chorale, the Duruflé, Fauré, Mozart and Michael Haydn Requiems with the Newton Choral Society, Dartmouth Handel Society and the Fine Arts Chorale as well as numerous Messiah’s with orchestras and choruses throughout New England. Recent seasons include the St. Mathew Passion with Emmanuel Music, Bach’s Magnificat with the Handel and Haydn Society, Haydn’s Lord Nelson Mass with the Heritage Chorale, and Mozart’s Mass in C Minor with the Orchestra of Emmanuel Music at Harvard Memorial Church. He has appeared on numerous occasions as a featured soloist with the Handel and Haydn Society at Boston’s Symphony Hall and Jordan Hall and is a frequent soloist in the renowned Emmanuel Music Sunday Cantata series at Emmanuel Church, Boston. In 2007, he was selected as the baritone soloist for the Virginia Best Adams vocal fellowship at the Carmel Bach Festival where he performed in both concert and master class under master teachers Sanford Sylvan, David Gordon, and Anne Grimm.
Mr. Nackley earned his Master of Music degree from the New England Conservatory in Boston. He has served as the head of vocal faculty at The North Shore Conservatory at Endicott College in Beverley, Massachusetts. A native of the San Francisco Bay Area, Nikolas currently resides in Milton, Massachusetts.
Mutsumi Moteki, Harpsichord
Since her college years in Tokyo, Japan, Mutsumi Moteki has been active as a vocal coach/accompanist. She received extensive training in this area from Westminster Choir College and University of Michigan as well as prestigious summer programs such as Music Academy of the West, Steans Institute for Young Artists, Franz-Schubert-Institut in Baden bei Wien, and Conservatoire de musique in Genève. She is currently an associate professor at the University of Colorado at Boulder, where she teaches singing diction, vocal repertoire, heads the musical staff of CU Opera, and is a member of newly formed Collaborative Piano Faculty.
In the spring of 2000 she taught 5 weeks at Hochschule für Musik “Hans Eisler” in Berlin, Germany, as an exchange professor. She also taught at Kobe College in Japan for a year as the Bryant Drake Guest Professor during the academic year 2002-2003, and holds a vocal accompanying faculty position at University of Miami’s Salzburg Summer Program.
Joseph Robinson, Oboe
From June 1978 until September 2005, Joseph Robinson served as Principal Oboe of the New York Philharmonic. Following his famous predecessor Harold Gomberg, he was the last oboist in America to study directly with the legendary Marcel Tabuteau. Like both of them, Joseph Robinson became one of the most distinguished orchestra musicians of his era. (See Career Highlights for a chronology of his New York Philharmonic activities).
Since his retirement from the New York Philharmonic in September 2005, Joseph Robinson has continued to appear extensively as an oboe soloist, chamber musician, teacher and clinician from Atlanta to Alaska. Performances have included concerti by J. S. Bach; G. F. Handel, J. C. Bach, W. A. Mozart, R. Vaughan-Williams, J. Francaix, and R. Strauss, which he played eight times during the summer of 2007. He also appears often in duo concerti and recital programs with Mary Kay Robinson, his violinist wife.
Each spring semester Joseph Robinson is Artist in Residence at Duke University, where he produced important double reed events in 2006 and 2007, and where he will present his former colleagues—members of the Philharmonic Quintet of New York, in simultaneous master classes on campus Sunday afternoon, April 13, 2008. At Duke he collaborates frequently with other faculty members, most often the Ciompi Quartet, with whom he has performed the Bliss Quintet many times as well as the world premiere of a Quintet for Oboe and Strings written for him by composer Robert Ward.
Joseph Robinson continues to coach and teach each summer at the Bowdoin International Music Festival and to participate in the Bellingham Festival of Music. He is a member of the board of directors of the Pacific Arts Association. Together with award-winning film maker Jason Starr, in April 2006 he produced in New York City’s Riverside Church an historic concert/documentary of Mahler’s Second Symphony, broadcasts of which are scheduled to begin in 2008.
Named a Scholar of the Aspen Institute in 1994, he served for four years on the “Magic of Music” panel for Knight Foundation—a group that directed major funding in support of American symphony orchestras. In 1983 he received an honorary Doctor of Music degree from his undergraduate alma mater, Davidson College, where with Zubin Mehta’s help he created a major scholarship fund for young musicians at the school. In 1989 he proposed, planned, and arranged funding for the New York Philharmonic’s two-week stay at the Grand Teton Music Festival in Jackson Hole, Wyoming—the first residency in the Philharmonic’s 147-year history. As a member of its board of directors in 1992, Joseph Robinson produced “Heroes of Conscience” for Union Theological Seminary—both as a benefit concert, which helped raise $2 million for an endowment at the Seminary in memory of theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and as an Emmy-award-winning television concert/documentary. He created and directed chamber music residencies for his Philharmonic colleagues at The Homestead, a five-star resort in Hot Springs, Virginia, and at Hotel Hershey in Hershey, Pennsylvania. In the spring of 2003 he produced “Prelude to Piano,” an event that involved pianist Emmanuel Ax and fifteen other professionals in joint performances with students at Northern Valley High School in Demarest, New Jersey, and that raised nearly $100,000 for purchase of the school’s new Steinway B.
Named a charter member of the Board of Overseers of The Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia as well as of the Thomas S. Kenan Institute of the Arts, Joseph Robinson helped organize the Children’s Merry-Go-Round, Inc., a not-for-profit organization aspiring to build a carousel for peace in Israel. In 1976 he created in honor of his teacher the John Mack Oboe Camp at Little Switzerland, North Carolina—one of the most successful specialty seminars of its kind in the world, and for three years he headed a national advisory committee for Oberlin College Conservatory. As president of the Grand Teton Orchestral Seminar, he helped develop unique orchestral training that inspired imitation in the first Master of Orchestral Performance degree in American higher education—at Manhattan School of Music, where Mr. Robinson was department chair for the program and head of Oboe Studies. In Riverside Church in New York City on May 15, 2005 he received the Presidential Medal—Manhattan’s highest award—for twenty-seven years of meritorious faculty service to the School.
Joseph Robinson’s career as an oboist began effectively with his appointment by Music Director Robert Shaw to the principal chair of the Atlanta Symphony in 1967. From 1974 until 1978 he was Instructor of Oboe at the North Carolina School of the Arts, during which time he served as a member of the Clarion Woodwind Quintet and the Piedmont Chamber Orchestra. He also served as volunteer principal oboe and member of the board of directors of the Winston-Salem Symphony. He won the New York Philharmonic Principal Oboe audition in December, 1977, following a tour the previous summer in which he was Acting Assistant Principal with the Cleveland Orchestra. Despite an invitation from Music Director Seiji Ozawa following a week of concerts as guest oboist with his orchestra, Joseph Robinson declined to join the Boston Symphony in the spring of 1989.
A native of Lenoir, North Carolina, Joseph Robinson majored in English and economics at Davidson College, where he was elected to Phi Beta Kappa and earned a Fulbright Award for study of federal governmental support to the arts in Germany. It was during this post-graduate year in Europe that he met Marcel Tabuteau and became that great teacher’s first student in the ten years following Mr. Tabuteau’s retirement from the Philadelphia Orchestra. A frequent public speaker, he has keynoted the Wyoming Governor’s Conference on the Arts in Cheyenne and the Association of North Carolina Symphony Orchestras in Raleigh, and has lectured widely on orchestra governance as well as the interpretative art of music. He is author of several published articles, including one in the Wilson Quarterly concerning the need to reintroduce instrumental training in the nation’s public schools; another in Instrumentalist dealing with fundamentals of oboe playing; and still another in Harmony that recommends a competitive format as a way of increasing public interest in orchestra concerts. As a demonstration of this competitive potential for orchestras, Mr. Robinson and his counterpart Richard Woodhams, produced a concert performed jointly by players from the Philadelphia Orchestra and the New York Philharmonic in Camden, New Jersey in November 1996—an unprecedented event hailed by The New York Times as “a classic battle of the bands.”
His invitation to Johanna Johnson, a 16-year-old oboe-playing cancer patient from California, that permitted her to fulfill a Make-A-Wish Foundation dream by performing in the New York Philharmonic, sparked international interest in December 2000. In April 2005 he joined Johanna Johnson for her senior recital at Gustavus-Adolphus College in Minnesota.
Joseph Robinson is married to violinist Mary Kay Robinson, a former member of the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra, and they are parents of three remarkable daughters—executive Katie, doctor Jody and diva Becky.
Andrew E. Henderson, Organ
Andrew Elliot Henderson became Director of Music and Organist at Madison Avenue Presbyterian Church (MAPC) in July 2005. Andrew succeeded his former teacher, John Weaver, following his distinguished 35-year tenure at MAPC. At the church he administers a busy liturgical program with a number of choirs including a choral society (the Saint Andrew Chorale), and a concert series sponsored by the Saint Andrew Music Society, “Music on Madison.” The recipient of a C.V. Starr Foundation fellowship, he was awarded the Doctor of Musical Arts degree at the Juilliard School in 2007, receiving the Richard F. French prize for the best doctoral document. He is the organ instructor at Teacher’s College, Columbia University, and has served on the organ faculty at Westminster Choir College in Princeton, NJ.
Dr. Henderson, a native of Thorold, Ontario, holds degrees in music from Cambridge University in England and Yale University. While at Cambridge he held the position of Organ Scholar at Clare College, Cambridge from 1996-1999, and at Yale he completed his graduate studies in organ performance on a full scholarship from the Yale Institute of Sacred Music. From 2001 to 2005 he was the Assistant Organist at the Church of St. Ignatius Loyola, New York, where he was actively involved in their renowned liturgical and concert programs.
In August 2002 Andrew was one of four candidates chosen to compete in the final round of the international organ competition Grand Prix de Chartres held in Chartres Cathedral, France, and in 2003 he won first prize in the biennial National Organ Playing Competition sponsored by the Royal Canadian College of Organists. Recent performances include organ and continuo playing with the New York Philharmonic, American Symphony Orchestra, Musica Sacra, the Collegiate Chorale, in addition to performing solo recitals in Nebraska, New Jersey, Georgia, South Carolina, at the historic Round Lake Auditorium in Upstate New York and at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City.
A Fellow of the Royal Canadian College of Organists, his teachers have included John Tuttle, Barrie Cabena, David Sanger, Thomas Murray and John Weaver. Andrew is married to organist Mary Wannamaker Huff, who is the Associate Director of Music at Madison Avenue Presbyterian Church and Director of the Children’s Choirs at the Church of St. Ignatius Loyola. Andrew and Mary have two young boys, Elliot (4) and Christian (2).
Boulder Bach Festival Chorus
The Boulder Bach Festival Chorus had its start in the early 1980s as the St. Cecilia Singers. Its evolution happened when St. Cecilia members wished to expand their scope of performance and took on the role of chorus for the newly formed Bach Festival. For over 25 years now, the BBF Chorus has been a major contributor both to the success of the Festival and to the vital cultural scene of the Denver-Boulder region. The chorus comprises around sixty volunteer singers from all walks of life, who share a love for the works of J. S. Bach and the desire to perform them meaningfully. To create the consistently high quality that our audience expects is no small feat. Much of the success is owed, of course, to effective direction and leadership, but a lion’s share also goes to those who, in a mere two and a half months of rehearsal, take that direction and make it real for an audience. Please direct any inquiries about joining this respected group to Dan Seger, .
MeeAe Nam, soprano
Soprano MeeAe Cecilia Nam has extensive performance experience as soloist in operas, oratorio, sacred music, art songs, chamber music concerts, and recitals in the United States, Germany, Austria, and her native South Korea. Her artistry encompasses a wide range of vocal repertoire that includes composers as diverse as J. S. Bach, or the avantgardist Gyorgy Kúrtag.
Her superb musicianship and keen understanding of the music of contemporary composers brought her many opportunities to collaborate with such composers as George Crumb, Josef Dorfman, Wolfgang Stockmeier, David Mullikin and David Kirtley. The MTNA invited Dr. Nam together with the Ariel Trio for their National Convention to sing “Voice of the River Han (2001)” written for her by David Mullikin. She has appeared as guest artist with numerous ensembles including the Colorado Symphony, Boulder Philharmonic, Boulder Bach Festival, Colorado Music Festival Orchestra, Denver Philharmonic Orchestra, Evergreen Chamber Orchestra, the Jefferson Symphony, the Ariel Trio, the DaVinci String Quartet, the Denver Young Artists Orchestra, Fort Collins Symphony and Colorado Chamber Players, Augustana Chamber Orchestra, Colorado Ballet and Salzburg Mozarteum Orchestra.
Among other her favorite opera roles she has performed “Pamina” in The Magic Flute and “Clori” in L’Egisto , “Despina” in Cosi fan tutte, “Susanna” in Le Nozze di Figaro, and recently she sang the US premier of a one-act opera Songs of Shulamith for soprano and percussion directed by Josef Dorfman, the composer himself.
Dr. Nam earned a Doctor of Musical Arts degree in vocal performance and pedagogy from the University of Colorado at Boulder. Before she joined the faculty of Music and Dance Department at Eastern Michigan University she taught voice at Metropolitan State College of Denver where she served as chair of the vocal studies program for 5 years and also founded and directed the annual “Vocal Arts Competition for Young Colorado Musicians”.
As lecturer and vocal clinician Dr. Nam frequently travels throughout the United States and South Korea to give vocal workshops at conferences and Universities. Repeatedly, she was a guest recitalist and lecturer for the Colorado State Music Teacher’s Association and also gave a lecture recital at the MTNA National Conference in Salt Lake City, Utah. Her students have been active in national and international competitions and music festivals. This year Dr. Nam appeared as advisor and guest artist clinician in the first annual “Seoul International Opera Festival,” where three of her students performed lead roles in Mozart’s “Magic Flute.”
With her husband, Dr. Horst Buchholz, organist and conductor, she has given numerous recitals for organ and voice in Germany and Austria including performances during the Salzburg International Summer Music Festival. Her excellent understanding of works by Mozart led her to perform many soprano solos in Mozart’s sacred works, as well as “Requiem” and “Exultate, jubilate” with the Mozarteum Orchestra in the 250th anniversary year of Mozart’s birth during Salzburg Festival. This year she will appear as guest artist in Bach’s “Wedding Cantata” with the Boulder Bach Festival and in Monteverdi’s “Love Songs” with the Baroque Chamber Orchestra of Colorado.
“Soprano Mee-Ae Nam has a voice of surprising power for so petite a frame, accurate in intonation, well-supported in delivery and with sly bits of interpretation thrown in.” Glenn Giffin, The Denver Post
“A clear, well-supported voice that moves easily in its registers. .....extra care in projecting words,....in Fauré’s “Les Roses d’Ispahan” her projection was that of fantasy to match the text’s evocations of poetic grandeur.” Glenn Giffin, The Denver Post.
Jory Vinikour, Harpsichord
Jory Vinikour is recognized as one of the outstanding harpsichordists of his generation. A highly diversified career brings him to the world’s most important festivals and concert halls as recital and concerto soloist, partner to several of today’s finest singers, and as one of the most visible continuo performers. Born in Chicago, Jory came to Paris in 1990 on a scholarship from the Fulbright Foundation to study with Huguette Dreyfus and Kenneth Gilbert. First Prizes in the International Harpsichord Competitions of Warsaw (1993) and the Prague Spring Festival (1994) brought him to the public’s attention, and he has since appeared in festivals and concert series throughout much of the world.
A concerto soloist with a repertoire ranging from Bach to Nyman, he has performed as soloist with leading orchestras including Rotterdam Philharmonic, Flanders Opera Orchestra, Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, Lausanne Chamber Orchestra, Philharmonic of Radio France, Ensemble Orchestral de Paris, Netherlands Chamber Orchestra, Cape Town Symphony Orchestra, and Moscow Chamber Orchestra with conductors such as Marek Janowski, Armin Jordan, Fabio Luisi, Marc Minkowski, John Nelson, Gordan Nikolic, Constantine Orbelian, and Victor Yampolsky. He participated in a recording of Frank Martin’s Petite Symphonie Concertante with the Lausanne Chamber Orchestra under the direction of Armin Jordan (Suisse Romande, 2005), and also performed the Harpsichord Concerto by the same composer with the Symphony Orchestra of the MDR in Leipzig’s Gewandhaus under the direction of Martin Haselböck in January of 2003.
Increasingly known as an accompanist, he has appeared extensively in recital with artists such as David Daniels (European tour in 2007), Hélène Delavault, Magdalena Kozena, Annick Massis, Marijana Mijanovic et al. He has accompanied legendary Swedish mezzo-soprano Anne Sofie von Otter in recitals in Sweden, Norway, Spain and Paris and at La Scala in Milan. With luthenist Jakob Lindberg, their programme of English and Italian music of the 17th century, entitled Music for a While was released by Deutsche Grammophon in early 2005.
His recording of Bach’s Goldberg Variations, released on Delos International in 2001 received excellent reviews throughout the world. John von Rhein of the Chicago Tribune named it as one of 2001’s top ten classical CD’s, an honor that was also accorded to Mr. Vinikour’s recording of Bach’s seven harpsichord toccatas in 1999. Mr. Vinikour will release a double-CD collection of Handel’s keyboard music at the end of 2008, followed by recordings of the keyboard music of Pancrace Royer and Jacques Duphly.
Recent events include a performance of Bach’s Goldberg Variations in Reykjavik, Iceland; perrformances at the Piccolo Spoleto Festival; a recording of Handel arias with Mexican tenor Rolando Villazon and the Gabrieli Consort, directed by Paul McCreesh; Upcoming events include performances of Poulenc’s Concert Champetre with the Thüringer Symphoniker directed by Oliver Weder in late 2008, and the same work with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra conducted by Stéphane Denève in March, 2009 and performances for the Oslo Chamber Music Festival. Mr. Vinikour will be guest director of the Austrian Baroque Academy for the 2008 session. As well, he will perform English composer Cyril Scott’s Harpsichord Concerto with the Orion Chamber Orchestra, under Toby Purser’s direction in London this September. This work has not been heard since its premiere in 1937. Mr. Vinikour’s restitution of the score will be published by Chester-Novello.
Krista Bennion Feeney, Concertmaster and Soloist
Krista Bennion Feeney is one of the leading American violinists, particularly in the field of chamber music and chamber orchestra leadership.
Her hometown of Menlo Park, CA, is on the San Francisco peninsula. She grew up while the area was earning its nickname of Silicon Valley. She developed rapidly as a violinist during her childhood, studying with local teachers Clarice Harelick and Anthony Doheney. She played solo concerto performances and in a student string quartet, performed in the Palo Alto Chamber Orchestra, and, at the age of 13, entered the preparatory department of the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. She went on to attend the Conservatory as a collegiate student, studying with Isadore Tinkleman and Stuart Canin.
Alexander Schneider, a member of the legendary Budapest Quartet who was conducting string seminars for promising young artists, heard her play and asked her to appear in his annual Christmas series with the New York String Orchestra, as soloist in Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto No. 4. He promoted her to concertmaster for the next year, and she appeared in Bach and Vivaldi violin concerti in Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center concerts. Schneider also brought her to play as a soloist when he conducted the Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra and others.
Before graduating from the San Francisco Conservatory, she was a founder and first violinist of the Ridge String Quartet, in 1979 (named after the Ridge Winery of Santa Cruz, CA). After graduating from the Conservatory, she studied at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, under Schneider’s older brother (and fellow Budapest Quartet member), Mischa Schneider, as well as Jaime Laredo and Felix Galimir. She joined the Brandenburg Ensemble, a New York-based Classical and Baroque string orchestra, where she was concertmaster and soloist.
After moving to New York, she joined the St. Luke’s Chamber Ensemble, of which she is the director of chamber music series, and the St. Luke Chamber Orchestra, where she serves as co-concertmaster. As such, she has worked with conductors Franz Brüggen, André Previn, Roger Norrington, Charles Mackerras, and Robert Shaw. At Norrington’s request, she has toured and recorded with him and the London Classical Players. Her recordings include the Bach violin concertos with the Orchestra of St. Luke’s, and the Dvorák piano quintets with the Ridge Quartet and Rudolf Firkusny. With a group called the Loma Mar Quartet, she performed and recorded in Liverpool, England, two string quartet works by Sir Paul McCartney and quartet arrangements of works the former Beatle wrote for his wife, Linda. In May 1999, she also premiered a concerto for violin and strings written for her by Eric Ewazen.
As an active session violinist, she has participated in Wynton Marsalis’ Midnight Blues Standard album, Paul Simon’s Songs from the Capeman, and Ten Thousand Maniacs’ Blind Man’s Zoo.
She has also appeared at many major music festivals, including Gidon Kremer’s Lockenhaus Festival, both Spoleto Festivals (in Italy and Charleston, SC), and festivals in Helsinki, Santa Fe, and other cities.
She maintained her musical contact with the San Francisco Bay area, returning often to play concertos and chamber music appearances, including an appearance as guest concertmaster with the San Francisco Opera. In 1999, she accepted the position of music director of the San Francisco-based New Century Chamber Orchestra, a fifteen-member group that is one of America’s leading conductorless chamber orchestras.
Krista Bennion Feeney lives with her husband, John Feeney (a double bass player), and their two sons near New York City.
Timothy J. Krueger, Chorus Director
Timothy Krueger studied musicology at the Wheaton College Conservatory, the University of Colorado-Boulder, the Universität Hamburg, Germany, and the University of London’s Royal Holloway College, England. He founded and is Artistic Director of the Denver-based professional ensemble St. Martin’s Chamber Choir, and has worked professionally with such ensembles as the Santa Fe Opera, the Santa Fe Desert Chorale, Chicago A Cappella, the Vox Early Music Ensemble (Ann Arbor), the St. John’s Cathedral Choir in Denver, and the Ars Nova Singers of Boulder. He is choirmaster of St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church, Denver; chorus master of the Colorado Music Festival at Chautauqua; and a part-time member of the music faculty at the Metropolitan State College of Denver, where he directs the men’s choir and teaches music history classes.
