ABOUT THE ARTISTS

from 20230205_University of Mississippi Faculty

by Florida State University College of Music

Assistant Professor of Voice Marcy Stonikas has performed with major opera houses and symphony orchestras across North America, Europe, and Australia. Recent highlights include the title role in Turandot with Atlanta Opera, Cincinnati Opera and Seattle Opera; the title role in Ariadne auf Naxos with Seattle Opera and Berkshire Opera Festival; the title role in Fidelio with Volksoper Vienna, Seattle Opera, and the Princeton Festival; the title role in Tosca with Arizona Opera and Opera Santa Barbara, and the title role in Salome with Utah Opera. She was First Prize winner in the Wagner Division of the 2013 Gerda Lissner Foundational Vocal Competition, the Leonie Rysanek prize-winner of the 2013 George London Vocal Competition, and a finalist in Seattle Opera’s 2014 International Wagner Competition. She is also the recipient of a Shouse Career Grant and a Richard F. Gold Career Grant from the Shoshana Foundation. Stonikas received the Bachelor of Music in Vocal Performance from Oberlin Conservatory and the Master’s of Music in Vocal Performance from the Chicago College of Performing Arts at Roosevelt University.

American tenor Eric Rieger has enjoyed success performing opera throughout Europe where he has sung under such conductors as John Elliot Gardner, Stefano Ranzani, and Franz Welser-Möst. His career has led him to the opera companies of Zürich, Luzern, Basel, Trier, Regensburg, Kaiserslautern, Bremerhaven, Osnabrück, Nordhausen, Konstanz, Novara, Treviso, as well as Zomeropera Alden Biesen in Belgium, Edinburgh Festival Theatre, Citizens Theatre in Scotland, and Everyman Palace Theatre in Ireland. Known for his interpretations of Rossini, Donizetti, and Mozart, Rieger has excelled in such roles as Almaviva (Il Barbiere di Siviglia), Don Ramiro (La Cenerentola), Lindoro (L’Italiana in Algeri), Nemorino (L’Elisir d’Amore), Ernesto (Don Pasquale), Tonio (La Fille du Régiment), Tamino (Die Zauberflöte), Belmonte (Die Entführung aus dem Serail), Don Ottavio (Don Giovanni), and Ferrando (Cosí fan tutte). His large repertoire spans from the Baroque (Alcina, Dardanus), to the 20th century (The Rake’s Progress, Albert Herring).

Equally at home on the concert platform, Rieger has been featured at the Claudio Monteverdi Festival in Italy, the Royal Opera House at Covent Garden, the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, the Kimmel Center in Philadelphia, and Carnegie Hall. He has appeared with many notable orchestras including the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, the Basel Sinfonietta, St. John’s Orchestra (London), the Luxembourg Chamber Orchestra “Les Musiciens,” the Trier Philharmonic Orchestra, and the Symphony Orchestras of Harrisburg and Lubbock, and the Philadelphia Youth Orchestra. Frequent oratorio and concert performances have included Handel’s Messiah; Bach’s St. Matthew and St. John Passions, B Minor Mass, Magnificat, and many Cantatas; Mozart’s Requiem and Coronation Mass; Mendelssohn’s Elijah, Rossini’s Messe Solennelle; Beethoven’s 9th Symphony, Orff’s Carmina Burana and Britten’s Serenade for Tenor, Horn, and Strings, among many others. A passionate recitalist, Rieger has performed an eclectic repertoire of art song with the Boston Art Song Society, Lyric Fest in Philadelphia, Market Square Concerts in Harrisburg, St. John’s Smith Square in London, and many other venues across the U.S. and Europe. His solo debut album, Poet’s Journey: Song Cycles of Benjamin Britten, is available on the Affetto/Naxos record label, and he is featured on the Naxos International recording James Whitbourn: Carolae with the Grammy-nominated Westminster Williamson Voices.

In addition to his performance career, Rieger is in demand as a voice teacher and currently serves as Assistant Professor of Voice at Florida State University. Prior faculty appointments include Western Washington University (Coordinator of Vocal Studies/Director of Opera), Westminster Choir College, Texas Tech University, and Nazareth College. Additionally, he was Assistant Director and faculty member of the CoOPERAtive Program, a young artist program for singers at Westminster Choir College. His frequent masterclass engagements have included appearances at the University of Memphis, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Missouri State University, Texas Tech University, Colorado State University, Nazareth College, Buffalo State College (SUNY), and Carnegie Mellon University. He has presented research nationally and regionally at conferences for the National Association of Teachers of Singing (NATS) and American Choral Directors Association (ACDA). A passionate language and diction specialist, he is fluent in German and Italian, conversant in French, and has coached singers on diction and dialect throughout Europe and the United States. Rieger is a graduate of the Eastman School of Music (DMA & BM with distinction) and the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland (MM).

Associate Professor of Violin at Florida State University, violinist Benjamin Sung is also a Faculty Artist and violin coordinator at the Brevard Music Center and principal second violin of the Brevard Music Center Orchestra. Recent concert highlights include the 2018 Brevard Music Festival; a complete Beethoven cycle with pianist David Kalhous; an appearance with the FSU University Symphony Orchestra in Piazzolla’s Estaciones Portenas for the 2016 ASTA National Conference; and a TED talk for TEDx Fargo. Sung has an upcoming new solo album featuring works by Sciarrino, Berio, Maderna, and Schnittke; in the 2019-2020 season, he had engagements to play the 24 Caprices by Paganini in Canada, Taiwan, Brazil, and throughout the United States.

Sung has performed as soloist with numerous orchestras, including the Camerata Romeu of Havana, Cuba, the Virtuosi of Festival Internacionale de Musica in Recife, Brazil, and the National Repertory Orchestra. He is equally in demand as a chamber musician, having shared the stage with great performers including pianist Monique Duphil, and cellists Antonio Meneses and Marcio Carneiro. He is a past winner of the Starling Award of the Eastman School of Music and the Violin Fellowship of the Montgomery Symphony, and an Aaron Copland Fund Recording Grant.

An enthusiastic advocate of contemporary music, Sung has recorded the music of composers Steve Rouse and Marc Satterwhite for Centaur Records, has performed and taught for Studio 2021 at Seoul National University, and has worked with many of the greatest composers of this generation, including John Adams, Pierre Boulez, George Crumb, and Helmut Lachenmann. In 2012, he released an album of new American works entitled FluxFlummoxed on Albany Records, a recording hailed by Fanfare Magazine as “a brilliant performance of four superb works” with “impeccable intonation and tone production.”

Sung holds the Bachelor’s degree from the Eastman School of Music, where he studied with Oleh Krysa, and Master’s and Doctorate degrees from the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music, from the studio of Nelli Shkolnikova. Sung also studied at the Professional Training Program at Carnegie Hall, the Lucerne Festival Academy, the New York String Seminar, and the Chamber Music Residency at The Banff Centre.

Pamela Ryan, Professor of Viola at the Florida State University College of Music, performed as soloist with the Aspen Philharmonia as winner of the Aspen Music Festival Young Artist Concerto Competition playing Alan Shulman’s Theme and Variations, working with the composer. In 2014, she was soloist in the Bartók Concerto with the Thailand Philharmonic Orchestra, and returned there as a soloist in 2018. She has performed dozens of concertos and orchestral solos under the baton of Robert Spano, Peter Bay, Darius Mikulski, David Hoose, Alexander Jiménez, and many others.

Active in the new music scene, Ryan has recorded 20th century chamber music for labels Naxos, Col Legno and the Canadian Broadcasting Company (Gold Label). Her new music solo performance was praised by the American Record Guide for “superb technique and musicianship.” She was violist of the Bowling Green String Quartet, touring Mexico City and Carnegie Hall, working with George Crumb on his Black Angels for electric string quartet, and performed in duo regularly with Robert Spano, who wrote Quaderno for viola and piano for her. In addition to new music activities, she has performed chamber music as faculty artist for summer festivals at Aspen (CO), Brevard (NC), Yellow Barn (VT), Schlern (Italy), Green Mountain (VT), Idyllwild (CA) and Bowdoin (ME), as a faculty member at FSU, and as a returning guest at Seventh Species (OR), and Amelia

Island Festival (FL). As orchestral musician, she was principal violist of the Southwest Florida Symphony and Chamber Orchestra on Sanibel Island for three years, and principal violist of the Tallahassee Symphony for 28 years.

Beyond traditional viola activities she has performed on rebab in Bali and in San Francisco with Balinese musicians, performed on historic period viola with Jaap Schroder, and performs regularly as a local jazz violist in Tallahassee with the band JazzEtcetera. Her live video performances of rarely played historic viola caprices have many unsolicited subscribers on YouTube. Ryan received the MM from the Conservatory of Brooklyn College (CUNY) and the DMA from the Cincinnati College-Conservatory (UC). A dedicated teacher, Ryan won the FSU University Teaching Award for Excellence in Teaching, nominated by students. She was honored to give the national collegiate viola master class at the ASTA 2008 National Conference in Albuquerque, and has given many national conference presentations, as well as serving on national boards. She is proud that her former students hold viola positions in professional orchestras and universities on 5 continents.

Professor of Cello Gregory Sauer joined the College of Music in 2006. A native of Davenport, Iowa, Gregory Sauer attended the Eastman School of Music and the New England Conservatory. His principal teachers included Ada Marie Snyder, Charles Wendt, Paul Katz, Laurence Lesser, Bonnie Hampton and Colin Carr. For eleven years prior to his arrival at FSU Sauer taught at the University of Oklahoma, where he was named Presidential Professor (2005).

Praised for his versatility, Sauer performs in many different musical arenas. He has appeared in recital at the Old First Concert Series in San Francisco, the Crocker Art Museum in Sacramento, the Brightmusic Concert Series in Oklahoma City, at universities and schools of music such as the Blair School of Music at Vanderbilt, the Shepherd School at Rice University, the University of Iowa and the University of Tennessee, among many others. Sauer was a prizewinner in the Hudson Valley Philharmonic and Ima Hogg National competitions and has performed concertos with the Hudson Valley Philharmonic, the Houston Symphony, the New American Chamber Orchestra, the Quad City Symphony, Oklahoma City Philharmonic, the Columbus (GA) Symphony, the Tallahassee Symphony, and the Missoula Symphony, among others.

Sauer joined the Carpe Diem String Quartet in 2019, playing concerts in Carnegie Hall’s Weill Recital Hall, Siena, Italy, and in the group’s first China tour. Along with his brother, Thomas Sauer, he serves as co-Artistic Director of Chamber Music Quad Cities in their hometown of Davenport, Iowa. Other chamber music ventures have resulted in appearances at the Austin Chamber Music Center, the Snake River Music Festival, the Victoria Bach Festival, the Texas Music Festival, the Colorado Music Festival, and the

Garth Newel Music Center. As a member of the Fidelio Quartet, a prizewinning group in the London International String Quartet Competition, he performed concerts in the UK, Germany, Italy, and the Tanglewood and Aspen Music Festivals.

In 2006, Sauer was appointed to the music faculty at Florida State University. Prior to that he taught eleven years at the University of Oklahoma, where he was named Presidential Professor. Other teaching/performing positions have been a visiting professorship at the University of California at Los Angeles, summer programs such as the Texas Music Festival, the Duxbury Music Festival, the Foulger International Music Festival, the Green Mountain Chamber Music Festival, Red Lodge Music Festival, and the Hot Springs Music Festival.

Sauer has recorded for MSR Classics, Harmonia Mundi, Albany, and Mark Records.

Sauer attended the Eastman School of Music and the New England Conservatory. His teachers included Ada Marie Snyder, Charles Wendt, Paul Katz, Laurence Lesser, Bonnie Hampton, and Colin Carr.

Assistant Professor of Double Bass George Speed enjoys a career that combines teaching with solo, chamber, and orchestral performing. He joined the College of Music faculty after 14 years as Associate Professor of Double Bass at Oklahoma State University, where he received the 2009 WiseDiggs-Berry Award for Teaching Excellence. For the past four summers, Speed has served on the artist faculty of the Brevard Music Center in Brevard, North Carolina.

Orchestral playing is central to Speed’s career. Recently appointed principal bass with the Tallahassee Symphony, he served as Principal Bass of the Oklahoma City Philharmonic from 2005-2019. For 17 years Speed was a regular player with the Boston Pops Esplanade Orchestra, including numerous television broadcasts and domestic and international tours. He has also performed with the Boston Symphony, Dallas Symphony, Fort Worth Symphony, and Handel and Haydn Society, among others.

Speed is passionate about both chamber music and solo performance. The Pierre Boulez Workshop at Carnegie Hall selected him to perform Schoenberg’s Kammersymphonie, Op. 9 in Weill Recital Hall under Maestro Boulez in 1999. From 2005-2019 he performed regularly with the Oklahoma City-based chamber ensemble Brightmusic. In August 2018, Centaur Records released Mr. Speed’s recording of his Vivaldi cello sonata 1-6 transcriptions, with forthcoming print publication by Recital Music.

A native of Spartanburg, South Carolina, Speed earned the Bachelor of Music degree, summa cum laude, from Vanderbilt University, and the Master of Music degree from

Boston University. Additional studies include two summers at both the Aspen Music Festival and the Tanglewood Music Center, where he received the Rose Thomas Smith Legacy Prize. His principal teachers were Edwin Barker, Edgar Meyer, and William Scott. Speed plays on a late-19th century Neapolitan bass by Carlo Loveri.

Hailed for his passionate and virtuosic piano playing by the East Hampton Star, internationally acclaimed pianist Stijn De Cock maintains an active musical career as a soloist, chamber musician, and teaching artist in the US and abroad. His playing has been described as “alternating between the stormy and sublime, while getting to the heart of the music” and was praised for its ability to create “a most compelling musical narrative” (Amalfi Festival concert review).

In recent years, De Cock’s concert seasons have included concerts on four continents, from the US to Europe, Asia, and Africa. In recent concert seasons, De Cock has appeared in Kenya, Macau, Taiwan, Canada, Italy, France, Belgium, Poland, the Czech Republic, Greece, and Spain, in solo, chamber, and collaborative capacities. He has performed in prestigious music festivals around the world, a selection of which include the Amalfi Coast International Music and Arts Festival, PianoTexas, Pianofest in the Hamptons, the XIV NewSound Festival, the Interventions New Music Festival at the Great Gallery of the Toledo Museum of Art, the Prague International Piano Masterclasses, and the Gijón International Piano Festival. De Cock has also been a major prize winner in multiple competitions, including the Los Angeles International Liszt Competition, the Ann Arbor Society for Musical Arts Young Artist Competition, the Poland International Music Festival Piano Competition and the Prix des Jeunes and Lions Club music competitions in Belgium.

As the founding director or the Brancaleoni International Music Festival, De Cock has created a summer festival that offers a unique, intensive, and integrated artistic learning environment to the aspiring young pianists, singers, and string players from around the world in the beautiful Marche region of Italy. Also a sought after teaching artist, De Cock has presented masterclasses and lecture-recitals in Naples, Amalfi, and Maiori, at the Amalfi Coast International Music and Arts Festival in Italy, the Charles University in Prague, the Pardubice Conservatory in the Czech Republic, Tangaza College and the Conservatoire de Kenya in Nairobi, Kenya, Wah Yan College and Lasalle College in Hong-Kong, China, and Tunghai University in Taiwan. Dr. De Cock has taught and held faculty positions at the State University of New York Fredonia, the University of Michigan, Schoolcraft College, Albion College, and the University of Wisconsin Stevens Point. He currently serves on the piano faculty of Florida State University as Assistant Professor of Piano.

As a student, De Cock was admitted to the Royal Conservatory of Music in Brussels at the unusually young age of fifteen in the studio of Evgeny Moguilevsky. He was trained in the tradition of Russian pianism, as Moguilevky himself is a former student of Moscow Conservatory’s legendary teacher, Heinrich Neuhaus, whose formidable students included Sviatoslav Richter, Emil Gilels, and Radu Lupu. De Cock graduated from the Royal Conservatory with a Premier Prix, and holds the Master’s and Doctorate of Musical Arts degrees from the University of Michigan, which he pursued under tutelage of Logan Skelton. De Cock has also received guidance from artists such as Claude Frank, Robert McDonald, Yehoved Kaplinsky, Julian Martin, Matti Raekallio, Boris Slutsky, Malcolm Bilson, Martin Katz, Margot Garrett, and Marilyn Horne.

De Cock is an active member of the American Liszt Society, the College Music Society, and MTNA. His students have won prizes at state and international piano competitions, gained admission to competitive undergraduate and graduate college programs and participated in international music festivals.

A native of New Zealand, Read Gainsford began full-time music study with top piano teachers, Janetta MacStay and Bryan Sayer, before receiving a grant from the Woolf Fisher Trust and the top prize in the Television New Zealand Young Musician of the Year. Gainsford then relocated to London, where he studied privately with Brigitte Wild, a protégée of Claudio Arrau, before winning a place in the Advanced Solo Studies course at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, where he studied with Joan Havill, graduating with the prestigious Concert Recital Diploma (premier prix).

Read Gainsford has performed widely in the USA, Europe, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa as solo recitalist, concerto soloist and chamber musician. He has made successful solo debuts at the Wigmore Hall and Carnegie Hall’s Weill Recital Hall, and has performed in many other venues, including the John F. Kennedy Center, Queen Elizabeth Hall, Barbican Centre, Fairfield Halls, Birmingham Town Hall and St-Martin-in-theFields. He has recorded for the Amoris label, BBC Radio Three, Radio New Zealand’s Concert Programme, and has broadcast on national television in New Zealand, the UK and Yugoslavia.

Gainsford moved to the United States in 1992 to enter the doctoral program at Indiana University, where he worked with Karen Shaw and Leonard Hokanson. Since that time he has been guest artist for the American Music Teachers Association and has also given numerous recitals, concerto performances and master-classes. He has appeared at the Gilmore Keyboard Festival and the Music Festival of the Hamptons, spent several summers at the Heifetz International Music Institute, is a member of the contemporary music group Ensemble X, and the Garth Newel Chamber Players. Gainsford has also enjoyed working with such musicians as Jacques Zoon, William Vermuelen, Roberto Diaz,

Eddie vanOosthuyse and Luis Rossi. Formerly on the faculty of Ithaca College, where he received the college-wide Excellence in Teaching Award in 2004, Gainsford joined the piano faculty at Florida State University in 2005.

About The Featured Composer

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September 18, Bak & Chang, viola/piano