BOSTON

UNIVERSITY
CHAMBER
ORCHESTRA
&
BU SINGERS

Thursday, October 31, 2019

Tsai Performance Center

BOSTON UNIVERSITY
Founded in 1839, Boston University is an internationally recognized
institution of higher education and research. With more than 33,000
students, it is the fourth-largest independent university in the United
States. BU consists of 16 schools and colleges, along with a number
of multi-disciplinary centers and institutes integral to the University’s
research and teaching mission. In 2012, BU joined the Association
of American Universities (AAU), a consortium of 62 leading research
universities in the United States and Canada.

BOSTON UNIVERSITY COLLEGE OF FINE ARTS

Established in 1954, Boston University College of Fine Arts (CFA) is a
community of artist-scholars and scholar-artists who are passionate about
the fine and performing arts, committed to diversity and inclusion, and
determined to improve the lives of others through art. With programs in
Music, Theatre, and Visual Arts, CFA prepares students for a meaningful
creative life by developing their intellectual capacity to create art, shift
perspective, think broadly, and master relevant 21st century skills. CFA
offers a wide array of undergraduate, graduate, and doctoral programs, as
well as a range of online degrees and certificates. Learn more at bu.edu/
cfa.

BOSTON UNIVERSITY COLLEGE OF FINE ARTS

SCHOOL OF MUSIC
Founded in 1872, Boston University College of Fine Arts School of Music
combines the intimacy and intensity of traditional conservatory-style
training with a broad liberal arts education at the undergraduate level,
and elective coursework at the graduate level. The school offers degrees
in performance, conducting, composition and theory, musicology, music
education, and historical performance, as well as artist and performance
diplomas and a certificate program in its Opera Institute.

PERFORMANCE VENUES
CFA Concert Hall • 855 Commonwealth Avenue
Marsh Chapel • 735 Commonwealth Avenue
Tsai Performance Center • 685 Commonwealth Avenue
Boston Symphony Hall • 301 Massachusetts Avenue
 October 31, 2019
Tsai Performance Center

BOSTON UNIVERSITY CHAMBER ORCHESTRA

BOSTON UNIVERSITY SINGERS
Joshua Gersen, conductor

The Fair Melusina, Op. 32 Felix Mendelssohn (1809–1847)

The Hebrides, Op. 26 Mendelssohn

(“Fingal’s Cave”)
Nathaniel Efthimiou, conductor

Intermission

A Midsummer Night’s Dream: Mendelssohn

Overture and Incidental Music, Op. 21 & Op. 61
Overture
1. Scherzo (after Act I)
2. Act II, Sc I: “Over hill, over dale”;
Entry of Oberon & Titania
3. Act II, Sc 2:
“You Spotted Snakes, With Double Tongue”
4. Act II, Sc 2: “What thou seest, when thou dost wake”
5. Intermezzo, after Act II: “Help Me, Lysander, help me!”
6. Nocturne (end of Act III):
“On the ground, Sleep sound”
7. Act IV, Sc 1: “But first I will release the Fairy Queen”
8. Wedding March (after Act IV)
9. A Dance of Clowns
10. Reprise of Wedding March (exit of lovers)
Finale. Dialogue & Song:
“Through this house give glimmering light”

Penelope Bitzas & James Demler, narrators

Madison Mackey, First Fairy
Tara Palazuelos, Second Fairy
PROGRAM NOTES

The Fair Melusina

The Fair Melusina Overture was part of a three part commission from
the Royal Philharmonic Society in London. This commission was for
a symphony, an overture and a vocal work. Mendelssohn completed
this overture in 1833, after hearing an opera by the Austrian composer
Conradin Kreutzer entitled Melusine. He attended the premiere of
the opera and while he enjoyed the subject matter, he thought the
music was very poor. Convinced he could do better, he composed an
overture based on the same story.
The legend of Melusina was extremely popular in Europe during the
Middle Ages. It tells of a distraught nobleman, who happens upon
a group of three beautiful women. One of these women introduces
herself as Melusina, and the nobleman almost immediately falls
in love with her. He quickly asks for her hand in marriage, and she
agrees, on the condition that he never see her on Saturdays, under any
circumstances. The nobleman agreed and they married. They lived
happily until one Saturday, when the nobleman’s curiosity got the best
of him. He went to Melusina’s chamber and heard the bath running.
He opened the door just enough to see the beautiful Melusina’s upper
body, which of course was expected. What he didn’t expect was that
from the waist down, Melusina’s body had been transformed into a
giant serpent’s tail. He tried to keep quiet about it, until one day, after
his brother had died and Melusina was attempting to comfort him, he
blurted out, “Away odious serpent, contaminator of an honorable race!”
Melusina knew that he had broken his oath, and she left him forever.
There are various versions of this fable, one in which Melusina’s tail is
more that of a fish, much like a mermaid.
Mendelssohn’s overture isn’t overtly programmatic, but some of
the melodies seem to suggest aspects of the story. The opening
theme has a folk-like quality, another theme hints at the imminent
departure of Melusina, and a third melody sounds strikingly similar to
the storm from The Hebrides Overture. The work is written in sonata
allegro form, which is the same form that symphonies usually start
with. Mendelssohn wrote numerous concert overtures such as this
one, including the overture to Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s
Dream. As with his previous two overtures Hebrides and Calm Sea &
Prosperous Voyage, Mendelssohn paints a wonderful seascape, and
takes us on a journey through the legend of Melusina.
—Mark Knippel for Britt Music & Arts Festival
 PROGRAM NOTES

The Hebrides
In the summer of 1829, Mendelssohn, along with his friend Karl
Klingermann, toured Scotland and the Hebrides region off its west
coast. A highlight of their travels was Fingal’s Cave, a sea cave on an
uninhabited island in the Hebrides. After a memorable visit to the
cave, Mendelssohn wrote in a letter, “in order to make clear to you
the extraordinary effect the Hebrides have had on me, the following
occurred to me there.” Twenty-one bars of music written in short score
followed with detailed instrumental indications. Such detail reveals
the vividness of his original concept and his intent of exploiting
orchestral colors in illustrating his visual impressions. The overture
was quickly completed by 1830 and underwent several revisions
within the next several years. The programmatic overture was a rather
new genre at the time, introducing the idea of the overture as an
independent, autonomous work and departing from the repertoire of
operatic overtures. As opposed to Berlioz, who wrote detailed essays
for program notes, Mendelssohn remained reluctant to describe or
discuss extra-musical ideas in his works. He preferred to view music
as a language and syntax of sounds superior to that of words. In his
revisions of the overture, he rejected contrapuntal detail and busy
imitative writing to capture a primitive, folk-like type of music—one, as
he put it, that favored seagulls over counterpoint.
—Tiffany Chang for Boston University

A Midsummer Night’s Dream: Overture and Incidenatal Music

In recent decades, music lovers have given Mendelssohn little
thought, and the 200th anniversary of his birth in 2009 passed with
little fanfare. His life wasn’t dramatic enough to inspire plays or motion
pictures (he was born wealthy and died richer); his profile is too
ordinary to grace a T-shirt. But during his lifetime, Robert Schumann
said that “Mendelssohn is the Mozart of the nineteenth century, the
most illuminating of musicians, who sees more clearly than others
through the contradictions of our era and is the first to reconcile
them.” Goethe went so far as to claim that Mendelssohn bore “the
same relation to the little Mozart that the perfect speech of a grown
man does to the prattle of a child.” Throughout the nineteenth century,
Mendelssohn was regularly discussed in the same breath as Bach, or
as Beethoven’s natural successor. Today, however, we are apt to take
Mendelssohn for granted, despite the real beauty of his music and the
undeniable significance of his achievements.
Mendelssohn was the most astonishing child prodigy among composers.
Mozart, for all his brilliance, didn’t find and master his own voice at so
PROGRAM NOTES

early an age, and even Schubert, one of history’s most amazing early
achievers, produced nothing to compare with the Octet for Strings
Mendelssohn composed at sixteen or the overture to Shakespeare’s A
Midsummer Night’s Dream he wrote the following year.
Mendelssohn, admittedly, was no ordinary child. He was born into
a wealthy German Jewish family and grew up in a home filled with
music and literature and frequented by distinguished guests. His
father Abraham was a prosperous banker, and his grandfather was the
famous philosopher Moses Mendelssohn. (Years later, after Felix had
made his mark, Abraham would say, “First I was the son of my father.
Now I am the father of my son.”) His sister Fanny, four years older,
showed exceptional musical talent, although, for reasons that have
nothing to do with art, she was fated to become one of the nineteenth
century’s lost composers.
From an early age, Felix displayed many talents: he wrote poetry,
played the piano, sketched, and drew—one of his first teachers
thought his young pupil might make his name as a painter. At ten, he
began to study composition with Carl Friedrich Zelter, a conservative
composer who never wrote anything as impressive as Mendelssohn’s
first efforts. The Mendelssohn family home in Berlin was a gathering
place for the most important creative artists and intellectuals of the
day, and it was there, during the regular Sunday musicales, that young
Felix first heard his music performed, sometimes almost as soon as the
ink was dry.
The most famous of Shakespeare’s plays were often read aloud (in
August Wilhelm Schlegel’s new German translation) and sometimes
even acted out in the Mendelssohn parlor. The Mendelssohn family
library added Schlegel’s edition of A Midsummer Night’s Dream to its
collection in 1826, and it apparently was for an at-home performance
of the play that year that Felix wrote this overture, originally scored
for two pianos. Perhaps recognizing the magnificence of his own
achievement, he orchestrated it almost at once. It was publicly
performed within the year—the concert, which also featured the
eighteen-year-old composer as piano soloist, marked his first public
appearance—and often again during the composer’s life; its popularity
hasn’t faded since.
In August 1843, the king of Prussia, Frederick William IV, who liked
Mendelssohn’s music, asked him to write incidental music for a new
production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Now established, famous,
and already even considered old-hat by the avant-garde, Mendelssohn
quickly set to work on a “sequel” to his most celebrated work, in the
process recapturing his childhood love for Shakespeare and creating
 PROGRAM NOTES

some of his greatest music. (He didn’t tamper with the overture,
recognizing that it was arguably his most perfect composition.)
Mendelssohn interspersed the play with a series of songs, dances,
entr’actes, and short melodramas (music designed to underlay the
spoken words)—all taking their stylistic cues and sometimes also
thematic material from the earlier overture. The result, despite the
seventeen years and forty opus numbers that separate them—the
overture was published as op. 21, the incidental music as op. 61—is a
remarkably integrated, unified, and seamless work of theatrical music.
The overture immediately sets the scene. With four simple, yet entirely
distinctive, woodwind chords—a real “once upon a time” beginning—
Mendelssohn transports us to Shakespeare’s magic-filled woods
near Athens, where the play is set. The fleet, scurrying music that
follows, catching fire when the last of the chords turns from major to
minor, creates an indelible sonic image of the fairy world that no one,
including Mendelssohn himself, has ever surpassed. And just as surely,
Mendelssohn represents other elements in the play, including the
young lovers and, in the homely braying of the closing theme, Bottom
the Weaver turned ass.
The incidental music includes some of Mendelssohn’s loveliest and
most enduring work, even though it is rarely performed in conjunction
with the play it was designed to accompany. The breathtaking scherzo
that introduces Shakespeare’s second act—and transports us to
Shakespeare’s fairy world—is the most celebrated example of the
featherlight, will-o’-the-wisp style for which Mendelssohn is known.
The first of two vocal pieces is a fleet, gossamer setting of “You spotted
snakes” for women’s voices. The impassioned intermezzo—it serves
as an entr’acte between acts 2 and 3—and the atmospheric nocturne,
with its haunting horn calls, have both found a home in the concert
hall. The famous wedding march—actually another entr’acte, dividing
acts 4 and 5—manages to sound fresh and ingenious despite its near
over-familiarity. (Listen to how Mendelssohn switches keys from the
opening fanfare to the big tune that follows.) Mendelssohn lavished
more music on Shakespeare’s fifth and final act than any other,
including a tiny funeral march that seems to anticipate Mahler and
a clown dance based on Bottom’s donkey theme from the overture.
The finale is almost operatic in its sweep, incorporating both song and
melodrama, and revisiting earlier music in a new light. Mendelssohn
ends as he began, though the same chords, once filled with childlike
anticipation, now seem forever changed.
—Phillip Huscher
Note by Phillip Huscher, program annotator for the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.
Reprinted with permission. © 2019 by CSOA
JOSHUA GERSEN, CONDUCTOR

Joshua Gersen recently concluded his tenure as the Assistant

Conductor of the New York Philharmonic, where he most notably
made his subscription debut in 2017 on hours notice to critical
acclaim. Previous conducting posts include the Music Director of
the New York Youth Symphony, and the John S. and James L. Knight
Foundation Conducting Fellow of the New World Symphony. He made
his conducting debut with the San Francisco Symphony in the fall
of 2013 and has been invited back numerous times, most recently
replacing Michael Tilson Thomas on short notice for a subscription
series in June 2019. Other recent guest conducting appearances
include performances with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, St. Louis
Symphony Orchestra, Detroit Symphony Orchestra, Toronto Symphony
Orchestra, Hannover Opera, New Jersey Symphony Orchestra,
Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra, San Antonio Symphony Orchestra,
Phoenix Symphony Orchestra, and the North Carolina Symphony
Orchestra. Mr. Gersen was the recipient of a 2015 and 2016 Solti
Foundation U.S. Career Assistance Award. He won the Aspen Music
Festival’s prestigious 2011 Aspen Conducting Prize and their 2010
Robert J. Harth Conducting Prize, and served as the festival’s assistant
conductor for the 2012 summer season under Robert Spano.
Also a prolific composer, both Mr. Gersen’s String Quartet #1 and
Fantasy for Chamber Orchestra have been premiered in Jordan Hall.
His works have been performed by the New Mexico Symphony and the
Greater Bridgeport Symphony. His work as a composer has also led
to an interest in conducting contemporary music. He has conducted
several world premieres of new works by young composers with New
York Youth Symphony’s esteemed First Music Program and New York
Philharmonic’s Very Young Composers program. He has collaborated
with many prominent composers including John Adams, Esa-Pekka
Salonen, Christopher Rouse, Steven Mackey, Mason Bates, and Michael
Gandolfi. He was principal conductor of the Ojai Music Festival in 2013,
leading works by Lou Harrison and John Luther Adams, among others.
Mr. Gersen made his conducting debut at age 11 with the Greater
Bridgeport Youth Orchestra, and made his professional conducting
debut with them five years later in the performance of his own
composition, A Symphonic Movement. Mr. Gersen is a graduate of
the Curtis Institute of Music, where he studied conducting with Otto
Werner Mueller, and the New England Conservatory of Music, where
he studied composition with Michael Gandolfi. As an educator himself,
Mr. Gersen has worked often with students and ensembles at the
Juilliard School, the Manhattan School of Music, Boston University,
and the Curtis Institute of Music. He serves as the interim Director of
Orchestral Activities at Boston University for the 2019–20 school year.
 MARIAH WILSON, CHORAL DIRECTOR

Described as “a most versatile musician” with “exceptionally rare

talent,” Mariah has established herself as an emerging conductor and
performer in the Boston area. She currently serves as Assistant Music
Director for Boston’s Odyssey Opera and Director of Choral Ensembles
for Boston University.
Her musical training began at age 4 at the Paris Conservatory on
the violin. A few years later, she picked up the piano and harp, and
was performing professionally on all three by age 13. Struggling to
choose only one instrument, her passion narrowed into collaborative
music making, which led her to study conducting. She has conducted
for Cantorum Chamber Choir, Boston’s Back Bay Chorale, Harvard’s
Radcliffe Choral Society, Brigham Young University Singers, and guest
conducted several choirs in the west coast. She continues to inspire
musicians and audiences with sincerity, creativity, and grace.
In more dramatic conducting roles, she has been chorus master and
music director or assistant conductor for some thirty operas now.
Companies she has worked with include: Utah Lyric Opera, Brigham
Young University Opera, BU’s Opera Institute, and she is delighted to
be in her third season collaborating with one of the most adventurous
opera companies in the country, Odyssey Opera.
As a performer, she has given multiple instrument solo recitals
throughout the country, in France, Belgium, and Hong Kong. She has
sung with the Oregon Bach Festival, Handel + Haydn Society, Voices
21C, and the Brookline Consort; she has coached at BU’s Tanglewood
Institute summer vocal program, performed piano concertos with
the Waukeshaw Symphony, and composed a full-length musical that
premiered last year in California.
Indebted to countless mentors and music teachers, Mariah studied
orchestral conducting in Berlin, Vicenza, New York, and Paris, where
she was recognized for highest honors in every subject. Her degrees
are in Piano Performance and Conducting from Brigham Young
University, and her doctorate is in Choral Conducting from Boston
University, where her dissertation project explored how vocal music
can illuminate the cancer experience. This year, she has loved working
with the vocal students in her new position at Boston University and
has been proud to join the faculty there. She hopes you will join us
for our choral concerts exploring conflict through music and human
interaction with the elements in the CFA Concert Hall on November
17th and 23rd!
PENELOPE BITZAS, NARRATOR

Mezzo-soprano Penelope Bitzas is an Associate Professor of Music in

Voice at Boston University. In 2007 she received the prestigious Metcalf
Award, which is Boston University’s highest honor for excellence
in teaching. She received her Bachelor of Music in Voice Performance
and Music Education magna cum laude from Ithaca College, and her
Master of Music in Voice Performance from The New England
Conservatory of Music. Ms. Bitzas has appeared as a soloist under such
notable conductors as Kurt Masur, Seiji Ozawa, Gustav Meier, Luciano
Berio, Richard Westenberg and George Tsontakis. She has concertized
in the United States, Germany, Cyprus, Turkey and Venezuela. As
a frequent performer of new music and Greek music, she has been
heard at Alice Tully Hall, Merkin Hall, Jordan Hall, and other venues
in concerts and world premieres of this repertoire. Ms. Bitzas was a
National Semi-Finalist in the Metropolitan Opera National Council
Auditions and a member of the Minnesota Opera Studio, the New
Music Ensemble at the Banff Centre, and the Blossom Music festival.
She was also twice a vocal fellow at the Tanglewood Music Center.
Her students have been winners and finalists in numerous competitions
including the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions, the
George London Competition, the Jose Iturbi Competition, the Gerdna
Lissner Foundation, the Mario Lanza competition, Joy in Singing, the
Montreal Competition, and NATS. They have performed roles with
New York City Opera, Canadian Opera Company, Florida Grand Opera,
Opera Theater of St. Louis, Boston Lyric Opera, Opera Colorado, Santa
Fe Opera, the Metropolitan Opera and Opera Boston. Their young
artist apprenticeships include the Lindemann program, Santa Fe
Opera, Opera Theater of St. Louis, Merola, Ashlawn Opera, Chautauqua,
Cincinnati Opera, Glimmerglass Opera, and many others. Her students
have gone on to careers singing Opera and New Music in Europe.
Ms. Bitzas has presented master classes at University of Las Vegas,
New Orleans Center for Creative Arts, Opera Theater of St. Louis,
Ithaca College, Classical Singer Convention, NATS Convention,
Longy School of Music, the New England Conservatory Prep, and the
Walnut Hill School. She has been an adjudicator and presenter for
the National Classical Singer Convention, National NATS Convention,
and the Schmidt Vocal Competition. She has served on the National
Fulbright Voice Screening Committee and an Opera Screening Panel
for the National Endowment for the Arts. She has taught at the Amalfi
Coast Music Festival in Italy and the Bel Canto Institute in Florence,
Italy. In 2013 she assumed the directorship of the Boston University
Tanglewood Institute Vocal Program. Ms. Bitzas has been on the
faculty of Boston University since 1993 and previously taught at
Gustavus Adolphus College, Wagner College, and Ithaca College.
 JAMES DEMLER, NARRATOR

Baritone James Demler is known for his versatile range of repertory,

spanning the operatic, oratorio, concert, and popular music genres.
He has been an annual favorite with Odyssey Opera, with recent roles
in Sir John in Love by Ralph Vaughn Williams, Dvorak’s Dimitrij, Mario
Tedesco-Castelnuovo’s The Importance of Being Earnest, Donizetti’s
L’Assedio di Calais, and most recently in Gounod’s Le Medecin Malgre
Lui. Other recent engagements have included performances with
Boston Lyric Opera in Verdi’s Macbeth, Janacek’s Katya Kabanova, and
Massenet’s Werther. Mr. Demler has been featured numerous times
as a soloist with the Boston Pops, with highlights that include Ralph
Vaughn Williams Fantasia on Christmas Carols, and The Boston Red
Sox Baseball Cantata by George Kleinsinger, with Keith Lockhart,
conductor, as part of their City of Champions series. Internationally
Mr. Demler has sung the role of Don Alfonso in a concert version of
Così Fan Tutte with the Tuscia Opera Festival in Viterbo, Italy, and
in 2016 debuted at the Concertgebouw in Bruges, Belgium, and
at the Liederhalle in Stuttgart, Germany, singing the Bass solos in
Verdi’s Requiem. In addition, he made his film debut as Noah in Wes
Anderson’s Moonrise Kingdom, which opened the 2012 Cannes Film
Festival.
Mr. Demler first gained national attention at Houston Grand Opera,
where he appeared as Morales in Carmen, De Bretigny in Manon, and
Peter in Hansel and Gretel. In New York City he made his Carnegie Hall
debut with the Opera Orchestra of New York as Dikson in Boieldieu’s
La Dame Blanche.
James Demler has championed the music of contemporary
composers, particularly Daron Hagen, with whom he premiered
his operas Shining Brow, Bandanna, and The Antient Concert.
He also created the role of Sgt. John Regan in Eric Sawyer’s The
Scarlet Professor for the Five College Festival in Northhampton,
Massachusetts in 2017.
Mr. Demler has been a full-time member of the voice faculty of Boston
University’s College of Fine Arts since 2005.
NATHANIEL EFTHIMIOU, CONDUCTOR

Nathaniel Efthimiou is the founding Music Director of Orchestra

Contempo and a doctoral candidate at Boston University, where
he has studied with Bramwell Tovey and Joshua Gersen. In 2015,
he was awarded the James Conlon Conducting Prize at the Aspen
Conducting Academy and in 2018, his recording of Strauss’s Don Juan
with the Aspen Conducting Academy Orchestra was featured on
American Public Media’s Performance Today. In 2017, he completed
an Artistic Administration internship with the Memphis Symphony
Orchestra where he assisted principal conductor, Robert Moody,
and worked as a member of the artistic team. While in Memphis, he
started an orchestra program at Westminster Academy. In masterclass
settings, Nathaniel has conducted the Bahuslav Martinů Philharmonic,
in Zlin, Czech Republic, and the Aspen Festival Orchestra, studying
with leading conducting pedagogues such as Robert Spano, Larry
Rachleff, and Hugh Wolff. In the pit, he has assisted productions
ranging from Debussy’s Pelleas et Melisande, Puccini’s Gianni
Schicchi, and Donizetti’s L’elisir d’amore. In October 2018, he led four
performances of Tom Cipullo’s provocative operetta, After Life, with
the BU Opera Institute. In collaboration with the Boston University
Center or New Music, Nathaniel has stepped in to rehearse works by
both student and faculty composers such as Klaus Lang and 2019
Boston University Composition Competition winner, Patrick Walker. A
composer himself, Nathaniel has received instruction by composers
such as Joel Hoffman, David Ludwig, and Georg Tsontakis, and his
work has been featured in composition festivals such as the Atlantic
Music Festival in Waterville, Maine, “UPBEAT” in Milna, Croatia, and
WSKG’s television program, Expressions, in Binghamton, New York. In
collaboration with Chester Music in London, he is currently embarking
on a research and performance project which will culminate in the
publication of newly typeset performance editions of works by British
composer Elizabeth Maconchy.
 MADISON MACKEY, FIRST FAIRY

Madison Mackey, soprano, recently made her operatic debut as Frantik

in Boston University’s 2019 production of The Cunning Little Vixen in
partnership with Glimmerglass Festival, directed by William Lumpkin
and E. Loren Meeker. Madison has performed in the chorus for BU Opera
Institute’s production of La Traviata in 2018 and will soon do so again in
BUOI’s upcoming production of The Rake’s Progress. Madison has sung in
a wide array of opera scenes with the Boston University Opera Workshop
and Opera Project from 2016–2019. Her opera scene work ranges from
Mozart to Offenbach to Humperdinck. She is also passionate about art
song and has a vast repertoire ranging from Wolf to Strauss to Libby
Larsen. She is a senior at Boston University studying Vocal Performance.
Before her studies at BU, Madison was a student of the Houston Grand
Opera High School Voice Studio. Upcoming performances with BU Opera
Workshop include scenes from Carmen by Bizet, where Madison will sing
the partial role of Frasquita. Madison is a student of Penelope Bitzas.

TARA PALAZUELOS, SECOND FAIRY

Mexican-American mezzo-soprano Tara Palazuelos has performed

in solo and ensemble capacities throughout the U.S. and Europe.
Tara recently sang in Aquilon Summer Music Festival’s production
of Die Zauberflöte in the role of 3rd Knaben, as well as the partial
role of Mari-Pepa from La Revoltosa. Tara has also sung with Boston
University’s Opera Project scenes program including selections by
Handel, Viardot, Cimarossa, and Menotti. She performed in the chorus
for the BU Opera Institute’s production of La Traviata under the baton
of William Lumpkin. Upcoming engagements include the title role in
scenes from Bizet’s Carmen with BU Opera Workshop, and BU Opera
Institute’s production of The Rake’s Progress. Tara is passionate about
Latin and Hispanic art music as well as diversity and arts outreach.
Currently, Tara is completing her Bachelor of Music degree at Boston
University under the tutelage of Penelope Bitzas.
BOSTON UNIVERSITY CHAMBER ORCHESTRA
1st Violin Cello Horn
Huiying Ma, Nayeon Kim, principal Sophia Addi l
concertmaster Yeji Yoo Sarah Gagnon ªv
Sarah Elert Monica Grady
Minjia Xu Alden Bronson Trumpet
Allie Wei Michael D’Arrigo John Johnson l
Andrew Dicker Christina Han Douglas Mccurdy ª
Sean Lee Kyra Hulligan v
Hexing Ouyang Bass
Olivia Webb Caroline Samuels, Trombone
principal Skye Dearborn v
2nd Violin John DeMartino Eusung Choe
Michael Duffett, Pablo Kennedy
principal Bass Trombone
Ava Figliuzzi Flute Ryan Shaw
Xinyuan Wang Daisy Valderrama l
Bennett Astrove Hayden Tutty ª Tuba
Yuwen Wang Courtney Regester v Colin Laird
Samuel Chung
Reyna Flores Oboe Timpani
Sandya Kola Lilli Samman lª Jeffrey Sagurton v
Rodion Belousov v Casey Voss lª
Viola
Yonsung Lee, Clarinet Percussion
principal Tinghua Wu l Jake Darnell v
Sky Zhang Brandon Von ª Casey Voss
Deberly Kauffman Meghan Davis v
Rebecca Vieker Personnel Managers
Rohan Joshi Bassoon Rebecca Vieker, lead
Benjamin Burgdorf Gabriel Harrison lª Caroline Samuels
Katherine Muñoz v
l Principal in Melusina
ªPrincipal in Hebrides
v Principal in Midsummer

BOSTON UNIVERSITY SINGERS

Caroline Bourg Tara Dougherty Amanda Primosch
Kaley Briden Elizabeth Finnen Caroline Stemerman
Camilla Christensen Kel Cadence Kim Katherine Tiemeyer
Caroline Chung Madison Lamothe Julia Torok
Mary Conley Ray Nichols Hannah Young
Saskia Den Boon Anna Carolina Pelaes
SCHOOL OF MUSIC
STRINGS
Steven Ansell viola *
Edwin Barker double bass *
Heather Braun violin
Lynn Chang violin
Hye Min Choi viola
Carolyn Davis Fryer double
bass
Daniel Doña pedagogy,
chamber *
Franziska Huhn harp
Mihail Jojatu cello
Bayla Keyes violin *
Danny Kim viola
Hyun-Ji Kwon cello
Michelle LaCourse viola * ++
Warren Levenson guitar
Benjamin Levy double bass
Lucia Lin violin *
Dana Mazurkevich violin
Yuri Mazurkevich violin *
Richard Nangle guitar
Michael Reynolds cello *
SAB F’19
Rhonda Rider cello
Todd Seeber double bass
Thomas Van Dyck double bass
Michael Zaretsky viola
Peter Zazofsky violin *
Jessica Zhou harp
PIANO
Tanya Gabrielian *
Gila Goldstein * ++
Linda Jiorle-Nagy *
Pavel Nersesiyan *
Boaz Sharon *
COLLABORATIVE
PIANO
Javier Arrebola * ++
Shiela Kibbe * SAB
Robert Merfeld
ORGAN
Peter Sykes * ++
VOICE HISTORICAL MUSIC EDUCATION
Penelope Bitzas * PERFORMANCE Kevin Coyne
Sharon Daniels * Aldo Abreu recorder Diana Dansereau *
James Demler * ++ Sarah Freiberg Ellison cello Ruth Debrot *
Lynn Eustis * Greg Ingles sackbut André de Quadros *
Phyllis Hoffman Laura Jeppesen viola da gamba Andrew Goodrich *
Betsy Polatin (SOT) Christopher Krueger Karin Hendricks * ++
Tara Stadelman-Cohen baroque flute
pedagogy Ronald Kos *
Catherine Liddell lute Tavis Linsin *
Douglas Sumi * ++
Robinson Pyle Tawnya Smith *
vocal coaching and repertoire
Kevin Wilson pedagogy natural trumpet Kinh Vu *
Gonzalo Ruiz baroque oboe
WOODWINDS, BRASS & Aaron Sheehan voice ENSEMBLES
PERCUSSION Jane Starkman baroque Jennifer Bill
Ken Amis tuba violin/viola Leland Clarke *
Jennifer Bill saxophone Peter Sykes harpsichord * ++ Joshua Gersen *
Kyle Brightwell percussion Aaron Goldberg *
Geralyn Coticone flute MUSICOLOGY AND Genevieve LeClair
Terry Everson trumpet * ETHNOMUSICOLOGY William Lumpkin * ++
John Ferrillo oboe Marié Abe * David Martins *
Timothy Genis percussion
Michael Birenbaum Quintero * Mark Miller
Nancy Goeres bassoon Victor Coelho * ++ SAB S’20
Bruce Hall trumpet Jason Saetta
John Heiss flute Brita Heimarck * Mariah Wilson
Renee Krimsier flute Miki Kaneda * LOA
Gabriel Langfur Joshua Rifkin * OPERA INSTITUTE
tenor/bass trombone Andrew Shenton * (STH) Rita Cote
Kai-Yun Lu clarinet Rachana Vajjhala * Gary Durham
Don Lucas trombone * ++ Jeremy Yudkin * Angela Gooch
David Martins clarinet * Melodie Jeffery Cassell
Mark McEwen oboe COMPOSITION Matthew Larson *
Toby Oft trombone AND THEORY William Lumpkin *
Elizabeth Ostling flute Vartan Aghababian Emily Ranii
Robert Patterson clarinet *
Martin Amlin * ++ Nathan Troup
Margaret Phillips bassoon Deborah Burton *
Allison Voth *
Andrew Price oboe
Justin Casinghino
Kenneth Radnofsky
saxophone Richard Cornell * EMERITUS
Mike Roylance tuba/ Joshua Fineberg * David Hoose conducting
euphonium Samuel Headrick * Ann Howard Jones conducting
Eric Ruske horn * David Kopp * SAB F’19 Mark Kroll historical performance
Robert Sheena English horn Rodney Lister * Joy McIntyre voice
Samuel Solomon percussion Mary Montgomery Koppel William McManus
Richard Stoltzman clarinet Ketty Nez * music education
Linda Toote flute * Andrew Smith Sandra Nicolucci music education
John H. Wallace * SAB S’20
Steven Weigt * STAFF PIANISTS
Jason Yust * SAB S’20 Michelle Beaton voice
Anna Carr voice
Siu Yan Luk strings
Clera Ryu voice
Lorena Tecu * strings

* Full-time faculty LOA Leave of Absence (SOT) School of Theatre

++ Department Chairs (SAB) Sabbatical
ADMINISTRATIVE
Gregory Melchor-Barz Director
Oshin Gregorian Managing Director, Opera Institute
and Opera Programs
Jill Pearson Business Manager
Cami Sylvia Staff Assistant
ADMISSIONS AND STUDENT SERVICES
Laura Conyers Director of Admissions
Megan Anthony Admissions Coordinator
Barbara Raney Student Services Manager
Benjamin Court Administrative Coordinator,
Performance & Applied Studies, and Ensembles
Gilberto Cruz Administrative Coordinator, Composition/Theory,
Music Education, and Musicology/Ethnomusicology Departments
(STH) School of Theology
PRODUCTION AND PERFORMANCE
Christopher Dempsey Director, Production and Performance
Meredith Gangler Librarian, Music Curriculum Library
Mary Gerbi Ensembles Manager
Alexander Knutrud Stage Manager
Xiaodan Liu Senior Piano Technician/Restorer
John Langston Piano Technician
Daniel Vozzolo Administrative Coordinator
UNIVERSITY ENSEMBLES
Michael Barsano Director, University Ensembles
Sharif Mamoun Assistant Director, Athletic Bands
PLEASE JOIN US FOR UPCOMING PERFORMANCES

Sunday, November 17, 8:00pm

BOSTON UNIVERSITY SYMPHONIC CHORUS
Pre-concert lecture at 7:30pm
Performing works by Vivaldi, Mozart, Holst, Schuman, Jusana & others
Mariah Wilson, conductor
Free Admission
CFA Concert Hall

Wednesday, November 20, 8:00pm

BOSTON UNIVERSITY SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA
Performing works by Sibelius, Higdon & Shostakovitch
Joshua Gersen, conductor
Free Admission
Tsai Performance Center

Thursday, November 21, 8:00pm

BOSTON UNIVERSITY WIND ENSEMBLE
Performing works by Ticheli, Jacob, Casinghino, Reed & Schoenberg
David Martins, conductor
Free Admission
Tsai Performance Center

Saturday, November 23, 8:00pm

BOSTON UNIVERSITY SINGERS
Performing works by Mendelssohn, Schütz, Hella Johnson, Holst,
Perera, Antognini, Villa-Lobos, Chesnokov, Elgar & others
Mariah Wilson, conductor
Free Admission
CFA Concert Hall

PERFORMANCE VENUES
CFA Concert Hall • 855 Commonwealth Avenue
Marsh Chapel • 735 Commonwealth Avenue
Tsai Performance Center • 685 Commonwealth Avenue
Boston Symphony Hall • 301 Massachusetts Avenue