ABOUT THE FACULTY ARTISTS
Deborah Bish is Associate Professor of Clarinet at Florida State University. Before moving to Tallahassee in 2001, she served as the professor of clarinet at Henderson State University. She has performed with orchestras throughout the United States, including the Arizona Opera (most notably in a production of the Ring Cycle), the Mainly Mozart Festival Orchestra under the direction of Jeffrey Siegel, the Phoenix Symphony, the North Carolina Symphony, and the Arkansas Symphony. Currently, she is a member of the Tallahassee Symphony Orchestra.
Bish has been featured as a recitalist, clinician, and chamber musician at several festivals and conventions including performances at Weill Recital Hall in Carnegie Hall; the Shanghai Conservatory in Shanghai, China; the International Clarinet Association’s ClarinetFests in Lincoln, Austin, Vancouver, Atlanta, and Salt Lake City; the College Band Director’s National Association Convention in Atlanta; the Florida Music Educator’s Association Convention in Tampa, Florida; the Wallowa Lake Chamber Music Festival in Enterprise, Oregon; and the Festival Internacional de Inverno in Vale Vêneto, Brazil.
Bish is very active in the commission, research, and performance of new works. Her recent projects include a recording of the works of Gregory Wanamaker, featuring two pieces written for her by Wanamaker titled clarikinetics and Sonata.
Her biography appears in the twenty-fourth edition of the Marquis Who’s Who of American Women and several editions of Who’s Who Among America’s Teachers. She has served as an adjudicator in a variety of competitions, including both the Young Artist’s Competition and the High School Competition for the International Clarinet Association. Dr. Bish holds degrees from Arizona State University, where she studied under Robert Spring, and Florida State University, where she studied under Frank Kowalsky.
Jonathan Holden is Associate Professor of Clarinet at Florida State University, Principal Clarinetist of the West Michigan Symphony and a member of the Tallahassee Symphony Orchestra. A frequent guest of numerous orchestras, he has performed with ensembles such as the Grand Rapids, Kalamazoo, Baton Rouge and Lansing symphony orchestras, the Fort Wayne Philharmonic, the Mobile Symphony and the Sarasota Orchestra. He is a founding member of the Vireo Ensemble (clarinet, violin, cello, piano) and the Argot Trio (clarinet, violin, piano).
Holden is an ardent soloist and chamber music collaborator. He has made guest appearances with ensembles such as the Degas, Ciompi and Voxare string quartets and has performed as a soloist and chamber musician by invitation of the British Clarinet Congress, Oklahoma Clarinet Symposium, College Music Society, Music Teachers National Association, Festival South, Festival Contempoaneo (Brazil), Alfredo de Saint Malo Festival (Panama), Chamber Music Wilmington, American Music Festival and Saugatuck Chamber Music Festival. He has given performances, clinics and masterclasses at collegiate establishments in the US and overseas including Vanderbilt, Michigan State University, the national conservatories of Panama and Paris and the universities of Memphis, Florida, Mississippi, Oklahoma, Alabama, Tennessee, Texas and Rio de Janeiro.
A proponent of new chamber music, Holden’s latest work with the Argot Trio has yielded notable fundraising success and the commissioning of several new trios to be included on a forthcoming CD, Made in Mississippi, featuring works inspired by the birthplace of America’s music. Contributing composers include Luigi Zaninelli, Michael Burns, Alan Theisen and James Sclater. The Argot Trio’s recording of a new work by Steven Holochwost was released in 2013 on the Albany label. Holden has also prepared and performed works for composers Bright Sheng, Peter Sculthorpe, Ricardo Tacuchian and Judith Zaimont.
Dr. Holden received the Doctor of Musical Arts degree from Michigan State University where he studied with eminent soloist and chamber musician Dr. Elsa Ludewig-Verdehr, as well as Nathan Williams and Theodore Oien. He received BM and MM performance degrees from the Guildhall School of Music & Drama under Joy Farrall, Andrew Webster and celebrated recording artist Dame Thea King.
Professor of Bassoon Jeff Keesecker is Principal Bassoonist with the Tallahassee Symphony Orchestra, holds the Paul W. and Phyllis G. Runge Principal Bassoon Chair with the Pensacola Symphony Orchestra and is the Bassoon Mentor of the National Music Festival (Maryland). He has been a member of the Florida Orchestra (Tampa), the Sarasota Orchestra, the St. Gallen Sinfonie (Switzerland), the Swannanoa Chamber Music Festival (Asheville), and Solisti New York. He has performed as soloist and chamber musician across North America, and in Europe, South America, and Asia, and is a frequent performer at the annual conferences of the International Double Reed Society. He has taught masterclasses and workshops on three continents and has been on the faculties of the Interlochen Arts Camp, Utah Music Festival, and Animas Music Festival (Durango). Keesecker gave the World Premiere of Eric Ewazen’s Concerto for Bassoon and Wind Ensemble in 2003, and in 2006 released a solo CD entitled Bassoon Music of the Americas
A native of Sarasota, Florida, Keesecker first studied bassoon with Trevor Cramer. He received the Bachelor of Music from FSU, studying with William Winstead, and the Master of Music from The Juilliard School, where he studied with Steven Maxym. His training included participation in the Aspen Music Festival, Sarasota Music Festival, National Repertory Orchestra, and the New York String Orchestra Seminar.
Assistant Professor of Flute Karen McLaughlin Large teaches flute lessons, flute ensemble, low flutes, Baroque flute, and Wind and Percussion Pedagogy at the FSU College of Music. Large is passionate about helping students navigate their unique paths in the music world. She does this in her lessons and classes through activities in areas such as music entrepreneurship, audition and competition preparation, community outreach, and grant-writing. Large previously served as Associate Professor of Flute and Music Theory at Kansas State University.
Large enjoys performing in concerto, solo, chamber, and large ensemble settings. She plays regularly with Traverso Colore: Baroque Flute Ensemble, Tornado Alley Flutes, and the Florida Flute Orchestra. She also previously performed with the Konza Wind Quintet, Topeka Symphony Orchestra, Tallahassee Symphony Orchestra, Northwest Florida Symphony Orchestra, and Pensacola Symphony Orchestra. As a guest artist, she has enjoyed performing and teaching at universities in Kansas, Oklahoma, Missouri, Nebraska, Tennessee, and Florida.
Large’s research interests include flute transcriptions of Romantic music, creation of the world’s first Virtual Flute Choirs, Baroque flute performance practice, and the intersection of music theory and flute performance. In Spring 2018 she released her first solo CD which featured her original transcriptions, entitled, String to Silver: Flute Transcriptions of Works in the Romantic Tradition. Large regularly performs and presents her research at national and international conferences.
Dr. Large earned DM, MM, and BM degrees from Florida State University studying with Eva Amsler, Stephanie Jutt, and Joshua Carter.
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, returning 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, Ryan 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 and international 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 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. Sauer has recorded for MSR Classics, Harmonia Mundi, Albany, and Mark Records.
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, Mr. 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 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.
Michelle Stebleton is Professor of Horn and member of the Florida State Brass Quintet and the Tallahassee Symphony Orchestra. Since coming to FSU in 1990, she has been awarded the Teaching Incentive Program Award, an Undergraduate Teaching Award, and several large research grants. Through these grants she recorded two compact discs available on MSR Classics: The Horn Works of Paul Basler and MirrorImage at the Opera, a recording of her horn duo with Lisa Bontrager. The Florida State Brass Quintet’s CD Strophes of the Night and Dawn is available through Crystal Records.
Stebleton, a Holton-Leblanc Artist Clinician, is a six-time prize winner in various divisions of the American Horn Competition. She has traveled to 26 countries as a chamber artist and clinician and performs regularly as a soloist and clinician in Paraguay, The Czech Republic, and under the baton of Philipe Entremont in the bi-annual Music Festival Orchestra in the Dominican Republic.
At FSU Professor Stebleton maintains a horn studio of about 30 students. She offers daily Fundamentals Class, weekly Studio Classes, and Horn Choir. In addition, she teaches the Horn component of Solo Brass Literature. Actively performing, she is regularly featured at the International Horn Society Symposiums and Southeast Horn Workshops. She currently serves as on the Advisory Council of the International Horn Society.
Professor Stebleton received BM and MM degrees from the University of Michigan, where she studied with Louis J. Stout and Lowell Greer. She holds a diploma from the Prague Mozart Academy.
Violinist Corinne Stillwell entered The Juilliard School at the age of ten, where she subsequently spent 15 years working with Dorothy DeLay. A versatile musician, she is an active soloist and chamber musician, a dedicated teacher, and a frequent concertmaster and orchestral leader. Currently Associate Professor at Florida State University, she also is Concertmaster of the Tallahassee Symphony and Artist Faculty at the Brevard Music Center.
A frequent concerto soloist, Stillwell has been featured in over 30 works with orchestras, including the New Jersey Symphony, the Nanjing Philharmonic in China, the Amarillo Symphony, the Greater Rochester Women’s Philharmonic, and on tour to Romania, Hungary, and Poland. As a recitalist, she has performed at Carnegie’s Weill Hall, Chicago’s Dame Myra Hess series, and in Germany, Canada, and across the United States. For over 25 years, she has been a frequent orchestral leader, having served as Concertmaster of the Amarillo Symphony, Randall Chamber Orchestra, Janiec Opera Company, and the School of American Ballet Orchestra; Guest Concertmaster of the Nanjing Philharmonic in China; and Associate Concertmaster of the Rochester Philharmonic and the Victoria Bach Festival.
An avid chamber musician, Stillwell has been featured on NPR’s Performance Today; was a founding member of Trio Solis; and has collaborated with clarinetist Richard Stoltzman, violinist Mikhail Kopelman, and members of the Ying, Cavani, Pro Arte, and Carpe Diem quartets. She has also performed at Alice Tully Hall and the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center in New York City, Chamber Music Rochester, the Amarillo Chamber Music Society, Kosciuszko Foundation, and the American Festival of Microtonal Music. Other festival appearances include Saarburg (Germany), Aspen, Norfolk, Skaneateles, and Arizona Musicfest. As a member of the Harrington String Quartet, she performed
extensively across the Midwest, from Texas to Wisconsin. Other projects with the Quartet included a PBS documentary, TV and radio broadcasts, and collaborations with clarinetist David Shifrin, pianist Robert Levin, and guitarist Pepé Romero. Her mentors have included members of the Juilliard, Cleveland, Amadeus, and Vermeer quartets.
With a robust studio at Florida State University, Stillwell is a dedicated teacher known for her community engagement activities. In 2018, she launched “Building Bridges,” a multi-year project featuring performances of the complete Beethoven string quartets in collaboration with aspiring young musicians. She has also taught courses on the Beethoven quartets for the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute, and is currently the coach and mentor for Sinfonia Gulf Coast’s Quartet-in-Residence. She has given masterclasses at many music schools, such as the Eastman School of Music and Vanderbilt’s Blair School of Music, and she has also served on the faculties of West Texas A&M University, Kinhaven Music School, Point CounterPoint Music Festival, and the Hochstein School of Music, where she was the Director of Chamber Music. Locally, she is Co-Artistic Director of Music for Food Tallahassee, a musician-led initiative to fight hunger and further social justice. She has recorded for Harmonia Mundi, Naxos, and MSR Classics.
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 (Albany Records), a recording hailed by Fanfare Magazine as “a brilliant performance of four superb works” with “impeccable intonation and tone production.”
Sung holds a Bachelor’s degree from the Eastman School of Music, where he studied with Oleh Krysa, and Master’s and Doctoral 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.
A Tennessee native, violinist Shannon Thomas has garnered a reputation for exciting, thoughtful performances as a chamber musician, soloist, and in recital throughout North and South America, Europe, and Asia. Recent performing engagements have taken her to the Kennedy Center, Spoleto Festival USA, Carnegie Hall Stern Auditorium, Bolivia’s Centro Sinfonico in La Paz, and the Banff Centre where she has collaborated with distinguished artists such as the St. Lawrence String Quartet, David Halen, Richard King, Wendy Chen, Anita Pontremoli, and Midori.
As a chamber musician, Shannon has performed at the Innsbrook Summer Music Festival, Garth Newel Music Center, Sarasota Music Festival, Kneisel Hall, ENCORE School for Strings, Aspen Music Festival, Stony Brook University, the International Clarinet Association National Conference (Belgium), Northwestern University, Brancaleoni International Music Festival (Italy), and with the Bryant Park Chamber Players in New York City. In addition to concerts with the Tallahassee Symphony Orchestra where she serves as principal second violin, Shannon performs regularly with the IRIS Orchestra under the direction of Michael Stern. Shannon has recorded for the Blue Griffin Records, and her CD celebrating the music of women composers Lera Auerbach, Ellen Taaffe Zwilich, and Jennifer Higdon was released in 2018.
Interested in sharing her enthusiasm for the arts through teaching, Shannon is in demand as a pedagogue. She currently serves as Associate Professor of Violin at Florida State University and gives master classes throughout the United States and abroad. She also teaches at Green Mountain Chamber Music Festival, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s Luby Violin Symposium, and Hilton Head Chamber Music Institute. Previously on the faculties of University of Southern Mississippi, the Cleveland Institute of Music Preparatory Division, and Interlochen Arts Camp, her students have been prizewinners and finalists at national competitions, including MTNA and the Sphinx Competition. She has also taught at the Kinhaven Music School, Stony Brook University Chamber Music Camp, and the Innsbrook Institute Summer Music Academy and Festival, where she served as Education Director. Shannon has presented educational sessions at the
National ASTA conferences, Florida Music Educators Association annual conference, and the Luby Violin Symposium. In addition, she has served as an adjudicator and clinician for the Seattle Young Artists Music Festival Association in addition to regional All-State orchestral auditions.
Shannon earned the Doctorate of Musical Arts from the Cleveland Institute of Music, where she was Paul Kantor’s teaching assistant. She received the Master of Music from Yale University and the Bachelor of Music from Vanderbilt University, and also pursued graduate work at Arizona State University, where she was the first student to be accepted into the Artist Diploma program. She studied chamber music with Peter Salaff, Merry Peckham, George Sopkin, Christopher von Baeyer, Laurie Smukler and members of the Juilliard, Blair, Tokyo, and Cavani String Quartets. Her principal teachers have included Paul Kantor, Cornelia Heard, Jonathan Swartz, Robert Lipsett, and Ani Kavafian.
Lauded as “a huge talent [with] hidden power and amazing maturity” (Bart van Oort), Taiwanese-American harpist Noël Wan (1994) made her international debut with the Utrecht Symphony Orchestra in 2010. She has performed across North America, Europe, and Asia and has been featured as a soloist at Carnegie Hall, the Muziekgebouw, American Harp Society Summer Institute, World Harp Congress, and Yellow Barn Summer Music Festival. Among her international distinctions are Gold Medal and the Mario Falcao Prize in the 12th USA International Harp Competition; First Prize and the Forgotten Lore Prize in the 2010 Dutch Harp Festival Competition; Grand Prize in the 2014 Carmel Music Society Competition; and Second Prize in the 2013 Nippon International Harp Competition, 2015 Korea International Harp Competition, and 2021 Prix Orford Musique. Additionally, her artistic and scholarly work has been supported by the Illinois Distinguished Fellowship, Chimei Arts Foundation, Presser Foundation, and Ontario Arts Council.
Wan is an alumna of the University of Illinois (BM, DMA) and the Yale School of Music (MM), and her primary teachers include Ann Yeung, June Han, Chimei Hung, Erika Waardenburg, Dan Yu, Doug Rioth, and Linda Wood Rollo. As an educator and scholar, she has contributed to Harp Column, The Collective, and The American Harp Journal, where she has written on philosophy, music education, and feminism. Wan has taught at the University of Notre Dame, Saint Mary’s College, and Western University.
2023–2024 CONCERT SEASON
FALL November 19, 2023 Elijah Felix Mendelssohn UNITY 17 January 28, 2024 Sounds of Cinema Celebrating Tallahassee’s Bicentennial SPRING April 28, 2024 Lord Nelson Mass Joseph Haydn
All performances in Ruby Diamond Concert Hall, Florida State University Funded in part by TICKETS: TCCHORUS.ORG OR 850-597-0603
