Artists

Roberto Minczuk

Music Director

In 2017, GRAMMY® Award-winning conductor Roberto Minczuk was appointed Music Director of the New Mexico Philharmonic and of the Theatro Municipal Orchestra of São Paulo. He is also Music Director Laureate of the Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra (Canada) and Conductor Emeritus of the Orquestra Sinfônica Brasileira (Rio de Janeiro). In Calgary, he recently completed a 10-year tenure as Music Director, becoming the longest-running Music Director in the orchestra’s history.

Highlights of Minczuk’s recent seasons include the complete Mahler Symphony Cycle with the Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra; Bach’s St. John Passion, Bruckner’s Symphony No. 7, Beethoven’s Fidelio, Berlioz’s The Damnation of Faust, Mozart’s The Magic Flute, Verdi’s La traviata, Bernstein’s Mass, and Strauss’s Der Rosenkavalier with the Theatro Municipal Orchestra of São Paulo; debuts with the Cincinnati Opera (Mozart’s Don Giovanni), the Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra, and Daejeon Philharmonic in South Korea; and return engagements with the Orchestra National de Lille and the New York City Ballet. In the 2016/2017 season, he made return visits to the Israel Symphony Orchestra, as well as the Teatro Colón Philharmonic and Orchestra Estable of Buenos Aires.

A protégé and close colleague of the late Kurt Masur, Minczuk debuted with the New York Philharmonic in 1998, and by 2002 was Associate Conductor, having worked closely with both Kurt Masur and Lorin Maazel. He has since conducted more than 100 orchestras worldwide, including the New York, Los Angeles, Israel, London, Tokyo, Oslo, and Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestras; the London, San Francisco, Dallas, and Atlanta Symphony Orchestras; and the National Radio (France), Philadelphia, and Cleveland Orchestras, among many others. In March 2006, he led the London Philharmonic Orchestra’s U.S. tour, winning accolades for his leadership of the orchestra in New York, Los Angeles, and San Francisco.

Until 2010, Minczuk held the post of Music Director and Artistic Director of the Opera and Orchestra of the Theatro Municipal Rio de Janeiro, and, until 2005, he served as Principal Guest Conductor of the São Paulo State Symphony Orchestra, where he previously held the position of Co-Artistic Director. Other previous posts include Artistic Director and Principal Conductor of the Ribeirão Preto Symphony, Principal Conductor of the Brasília University Symphony, and a six-year tenure as Artistic Director of the Campos do Jordão International Winter Festival.

Minczuk’s recording of the complete Bachianas Brasileiras of Hector VillaLobos with the São Paulo State Symphony Orchestra (BIS label) won the Gramophone Award of Excellence in 2012 for best recording of this repertoire. His other recordings include Danzas Brasileiras, which features rare works by Brazilian composers of the 20th century, and the Complete Symphonic Works of Antonio Carlos Jobim, which won a Latin GRAMMY in 2004 and was nominated for an American GRAMMY in 2006. His three recordings with the Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra include Rhapsody in Blue: The Best of George Gershwin and Beethoven Symphonies 1, 3, 5, and 8. Other recordings include works by Ravel, Piazzolla, Martin, and Tomasi with the London Philharmonic (released by Naxos), and four recordings with the Academic Orchestra of the Campos do Jordão International Winter Festival, including works by Dvořák, Mussorgsky, and Tchaikovsky. Other projects include a 2010 DVD recording with the Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia, featuring the premiere of Hope: An Oratorio, composed by Jonathan Leshnoff; a 2011 recording with the Odense Symphony of Poul Ruders’s Symphony No. 4, which was featured as a Gramophone Choice in March 2012; and a recording of Tchaikovsky’s Italian Capriccio with the BBC National Orchestra of Wales, which accompanied the June 2010 edition of BBC Music Magazine. The Academic Orchestra of the Campos do Jordão Festival was the Carlos Gomes prizewinner for its recording from the 2005 Festival, which also garnered the TIM Award for best classical album.

Roberto Minczuk has received numerous awards, including a 2004 Emmy for the program New York City Ballet—Lincoln Center Celebrates Balanchine 100; a 2001 Martin E. Segal Award that recognizes Lincoln Center’s most promising young artists; and several honors in his native country of Brazil, including two best conductor awards from the São Paulo Association of Art Critics and the coveted title of Cultural Personality of the Year. In 2009, he was awarded the Medal Pedro Ernesto, the highest commendation of the City of Rio de Janeiro, and in 2010, he received the Order of the Ipiranga State Government of São Paulo. In 2017, Minczuk received the Medal of Commander of Arts and Culture from the Brazilian government.

A child prodigy, Minczuk was a professional musician by the age of 13. He was admitted into the prestigious Juilliard School at 14 and by the age of 16, he had joined the Orchestra Municipal de São Paulo as solo horn. During his Juilliard years, he appeared as soloist with the New York Youth Symphony at Carnegie Hall and the New York Philharmonic Young People’s Concerts series. Upon his graduation in 1987, he became a member of the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra at the invitation of Kurt Masur. Returning to Brazil in 1989, he studied conducting with Eleazar de Carvalho and John Neschling. He won several awards as a young horn player, including the Mill Santista Youth Award in 1991 and I Eldorado Music. ●

Bradley Ellingboe

conductor Bradley

Ellingboe has led a wide-ranging career in the world of singing, including accomplishments as a choral conductor, soloist, composer, scholar, and teacher. As a choral conductor, he has led festival choruses in 35 states and 14 countries. As a bass-baritone soloist, he has sung under such conductors as Robert Shaw, Helmuth Rilling, and Sir David Willcocks. Ellingboe has more than 160 pieces of music in print, including his Requiem for chorus and orchestra, which has been performed more than 300 times in this country and Europe. For his scholarly work in making the songs of Edvard Grieg more accessible to the English-speaking public, he was knighted by the King of Norway in 1994. As a teacher, the University of New Mexico Alumni Association named him Faculty of the Year in 2008.

Bradley Ellingboe retired in 2015 after serving on the faculty of the University of New Mexico for 30 years, where he was Director of Choral Activities, Professor of Music, and Regents Lecturer. He is a graduate of Saint Olaf College and the Eastman School of Music and has done further study at the Aspen Music Festival, the Bach Aria Festival, the University of Oslo, and the Vatican.

Ellingboe has won annual awards for his choral compositions from ASCAP— the American Society of Composers, Arrangers, and Publishers—since 2000. His choral music is widely sung and has been performed and recorded by such groups as the Santa Fe Desert Chorale, VocalEssence, the Saint Olaf Choir, the Harvard Glee Club, Conspirare, and the choirs of the University of Michigan and Luther College, among many others. Beginning in the summer of 2020, he will be Composer-in-Residence for Albany Pro Musica.

He lives in Albuquerque, New Mexico, with his wife, Karen. They are the parents of three children and have four grandchildren. Ellingboe is Director of Choirs at the United Church of Santa Fe and founder and artistic director of Albuquerque’s Coro Lux (“Chorus of Light”). ●

Gabrielle Dietrich

soprano

Gabrielle Dietrich, soprano, is a graduate of the University of the Pacific, University of Colorado at Boulder, and the Kodály Institute in Kecskemét, Hungary. Dr. Dietrich has sung, taught, and conducted across the United States and in Ireland, the UK, Hungary, and Austria. From 2012–2021, Gabrielle was on the music faculty at Penn State Erie, the Behrend College. She is a founding member of La Forza Vocal Octet, and has served as a staff singer at St. John’s Cathedral in the Wilderness in Denver and a choral scholar at the United Church of Santa Fe. She is thrilled to call Albuquerque her new home. ●

Rebecca Brunette

mezzo-soprano

Rebecca Brunette, mezzo-soprano, is a graduate of the UNM music program. As an undergraduate, she performed many roles including Hanna Glawari in Lehár’s The Merry Widow, the Starbird in Mollicone’s Starbird, and Rosalinde in Strauss’s Die Fledermaus. In 2015, she made her professional debut with the Red Rock String Ensemble in Vivaldi’s Gloria. With Coro Lux she has sung the soprano solos in Brahms’s Ein Deutches Requiem and Jenkins’s The Armed Man: A Mass for Peace, as well as Handel’s Messiah in conjunction with the New Mexico Philharmonic. ●

Rebecca Jackson

soprano

Rebecca Jackson, soprano, is a graduate of Texas Tech with a degree in Vocal Performance. She has been a voice teacher, a lead singer in a rock band, and currently teaches middle school music appreciation at Oak Grove Classical Academy. She has been married to her husband, Richard, an Albuquerque native, for 25 years and has lived in Albuquerque for the past 12 years. ●

Sharlotte Kramer

mezzo-soprano

Sharlotte Kramer, mezzo-soprano, is a research mechanical engineer at Sandia National Laboratories and has been a musician her entire life. She studied classical piano as a child, has been in choirs since middle school, and studied voice with Desiree LaVertu in Pasadena while earning her PhD in Aeronautics from the California Institute of Technology. She joined Coro Lux in September 2019. When she is not running experiments in a structural test lab at Sandia Labs or singing, she is baking and spending time with her husband, Richard, and daughters, Grace and Evelyn. ●

Cameron Smith

tenor

Cameron Smith, tenor, is a secondyear graduate teaching assistant at the University of New Mexico, studying under the direction of Dr. Michael Hix. Born and raised in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Cameron has performed as a soloist with Bel Canto Chorus, South Shore Chorale, and the University of Wisconsin Milwaukee Concert Chorale. Also active in operatic performances, he has performed with UNM Opera Theatre, Brew City Opera, and the Florentine Opera Company. As a passionate interpreter of Handel, Cameron is very excited to make his debut performance with Coro Lux and the New Mexico Philharmonic. ●

Joe Mitchell

bass

Joe Mitchell, bass, is originally from Belen, New Mexico. He found his love for the performing arts while singing in choir, playing the trumpet and F horn in band, and performing in plays and musicals throughout middle school and high school. Joe is the choir teacher at Tony Hillerman Middle School and Volcano Vista High School, within Albuquerque public schools. He feels blessed by the opportunity to impact his students the way his teachers and mentors have for him. When he isn’t making music, Joe loves spending time with his husband, John, and their friends and family. Joe is delighted to be back making music with his students, his fellow singers in Coro Lux, and the New Mexico Philharmonic. ●

Coro Lux Chamber Chorus

Coro Lux (“Chorus of Light”) is an auditioned community chorus based in Albuquerque, founded in the fall of 2015. Under Artistic Director Bradley Ellingboe, the chorus has grown into one of the top choruses in New Mexico. Coro Lux consists of the larger Oratorio Society and the smaller Chamber Chorus. The Oratorio Society, with 60 members, presents major choral works, usually with orchestra and often in conjunction with the New Mexico Philharmonic. The Chamber Chorus is an ensemble of 16 members that presents a variety of smaller works in various locations around Albuquerque. Each ensemble presents about three concert programs each season.

Coro Lux has participated in music events far from Albuquerque, including a Carnegie Hall concert in 2016 and the Great American Choral Series festival in Florence, Italy, in the summer of 2018. In 2017, Coro Lux became the Ensemble-inResidence at St. Paul Lutheran Church in Albuquerque. ●

Jason Altieri

conductor

Jason Altieri is the current associate conductor for the Reno Philharmonic and music director of the Atlanta Pops Orchestra in Atlanta, Georgia.

Prior to his work in Reno and Atlanta, he spent time on the road as music director of the New Sigmund Romberg Orchestra and the Hollywood Film Orchestra. Having led the New Sigmund Romberg Orchestra on seven national tours, Altieri has the distinction of having conducted in every state but three and in most of the major performing venues in the United States.

With the Hollywood Film Orchestra, he led several tours in mainland China and Japan where performance venues included The People’s Hall in Beijing, China, and Suntory Hall in Tokyo, Japan. Numerous guest conducting engagements include regular collaborations with the Duluth Superior Symphony in Minnesota, the Santa Fe Symphony, and the New Mexico Philharmonic. In July of 2012, he was the orchestra conductor for the annual International Double Reed Society Conference. During this conference, he collaborated on 16 separate works with internationally renowned soloists from all over the world.

In addition to his orchestral work, Altieri is also an accomplished conductor of opera. Currently, he is working on his seventh collaboration as music director of the Nevada Chamber Opera Theatre. Previous opera engagements include three North American tours with London’s Royal Carl Rosa Opera Company and an associate music directorship with the Ohio Light Opera Company in the summer of 2006. His work in Ohio saw him conducting six productions and more than 40 performances during their 29th season.

In addition, Altieri has released two recordings with the OLO on Albany Records. In 2002, he worked as an assistant to the late Valery Vatchev of the National Bulgarian Opera. This rare experience led to guest conducting engagements of Verdi’s La traviata, Il trovatore, and Rigoletto in the Czech Republic.

While Altieri enjoys a busy career working with professional performing organizations, he is also a fierce advocate for young musicians and music education. This is evidenced by his position as director of orchestras at the University of Nevada, Reno and the directorship of the Reno Philharmonic Youth Symphony. Under his leadership, the Reno Philharmonic Youth Symphony has become an increasingly visible component in Reno’s cultural life, and has embarked on performance tours that have included guest appearances at Carnegie and Disney halls. As a result of his tireless work with young musicians, Altieri was invited to conduct at Nevada’s Small School All-State Festival in April 2017. His educational outreach has extended nationally as well as through numerous clinics with young ensembles all over the country in addition to faculty appointments at the Interlochen Center for the Arts and the Sewanee Summer Music Center.

A native of Atlanta, Georgia, Altieri grew up in a musical family with both parents being former members of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra. He received a Bachelor’s degree in music education from the University of Georgia. He then went on to pursue advanced degrees in conducting from Michigan State University, where he received additional mentorship from Neeme Jarvi of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra and Gustav Meier of the Peabody Conservatory. Altieri currently resides in Reno, Nevada. ●

Albuquerque Youth Symphony / Dan Whisler

The Albuquerque Youth Symphony provides students with a high-quality music education, instills an emotional connection with and lifelong passion for music, fosters a diverse community of musicians, and offers outstanding symphonic performance opportunities for students to share their musical gifts with the community.

Dan Whisler has conducted more than 530 works with more than 75 ensembles, including professional orchestras in the U.S., England, Spain, Lithuania, Hungary, and Romania. His awards as a conductor include the Downbeat Award in 2011 for Best U.S. College Classical Ensemble (conducting Halffter’s Tiento del primer tono y batalla imperial), the Bel Canto Award for Excellence in Conducting, and winner of the 2015 American Prize in Conducting. Mr. Whisler’s recent former positions include Director of Orchestras at the Youth Performing Arts School in Louisville, Kentucky, Conductor of the Indianapolis Youth Philharmonic Orchestra in Indianapolis, Indiana, Director of Orchestras at Center Grove Community School Corporation in Greenwood, Indiana, Founding and Principal Conductor with Intimate Opera of Indianapolis, and faculty member of the String Quartet Program of Northern Colorado in Greeley, Colorado. ●

Matthew Forte

conductor

Matthew Forte is Director of Orchestral Studies at the University of New Mexico, where he conducts the University of New Mexico Symphony Orchestra and Sinfonia and teaches graduate and undergraduate conducting. In the summer months, Matthew works with young musicians at Sitka Fine Arts Camp, in Sitka, Alaska, and maintains an active association with the Aspen Music Festival and School, serving as guest faculty and collaborating frequently with the AMFS Department of Education.

Prior to his appointment in New Mexico, Matthew was Director of Orchestral Studies at the University of Toledo, where he more than doubled the size of the University of Toledo Symphony Orchestra, increasing that ensemble’s artistic standards and its profile regionally and nationally. Additionally, Matthew has worked with such prominent organizations as the Toledo Symphony, Hartford Symphony, and the St. Louis Symphony, and, as a composer, has had works premiered by Glass City Singers, Musique 21 and the Pittsburgh New Music Ensemble. ●

Midori

violin

Midori is a visionary artist, activist, and educator who explores and builds connections between music and the human experience and breaks with traditional boundaries, which makes her one of the most outstanding violinists of our time.

In concerts around the world, she transfixes audiences, bringing together graceful precision and intimate expression. Midori has performed with, among others, the London, Chicago, and San Francisco Symphony Orchestras, the Sinfonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks, the Berlin and Vienna Philharmonics, and the Mahler Chamber Orchestra. She has collaborated with such outstanding musicians as Claudio Abbado, Emanuel Ax, Leonard Bernstein, Jonathan Biss, Constantinos Carydis, Christoph Eschenbach, Daniel Harding, Paavo Järvi, Mariss Jansons, Yo-Yo Ma, Susanna Mälkki, Joana Mallwitz, Antonello Manacorda, Zubin Mehta, Donald Runnicles, Jean-Yves Thibaudet, and Omer Meir Wellber.

Midori’s latest recording of Beethoven’s Violin Concerto and two Romances with the Festival Strings Lucerne was released in October 2020 by Warner Classics. Her diverse discography by Sony Classical, Ondine, and Onyx includes recordings of Bloch, Janáček, and Shostakovich and a GRAMMY Award-winning recording of Hindemith’s Violin Concerto with Christoph Eschenbach conducting the NDR Symphony Orchestra as well as Bach’s Sonatas and Partitas for Solo Violin filmed at Köthen Castle, which was recorded also for DVD (Accentus).

As someone deeply committed to furthering humanitarian and educational goals, she has founded several nonprofit organizations. Midori & Friends provides music programs for New York City youth and communities, and MUSIC SHARING, a Japan-based foundation, brings both western classical and Japanese music traditions into young lives in Japan and throughout Asia by presenting programs in schools, institutions, and hospitals. Throughout the pandemic in 2020 and 2021, she continued to create virtual programming for these organizations, which serve many different communities. She commissioned composer Derek Bermel to write a new piece, Spring Cadenzas, which was premiered (mostly virtually) by student orchestras in 2021 through Midori’s Orchestra Residencies Program (ORP) and will continue to be performed by ORP participants in future seasons; Midori also performed the piece this summer with the National Repertory Orchestra in Breckenridge, Colorado. Through Partners in Performance (PiP), Midori co-presents chamber music concerts around the U.S., focusing on smaller communities that are outside the radius of major urban centers and that have limited resources. During the pandemic, she recorded recitals that were shared with PiP audiences, and provided a series of live, virtual workshops to accompany the recorded performances.

In recognition of her work as an artist and humanitarian, she serves as a United Nations Messenger of Peace. In recognition of her lifetime of contributions to American culture, Midori is the recipient of the Kennedy Center Honors and was celebrated by Yo-Yo Ma, Bette Midler, and John Lithgow, among others, during the May 2021 Honors ceremonies in Washington, D.C.

During 2020 and 2021, she also continued to perform, when possible, and appeared in recital (virtually and/or in-person) at the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society, the 92nd Street Y, in a virtual concert also streamed by the

Schubert Club and Lied Center for Performing Arts in Nebraska, and at the Amelia Island Chamber Music Festival. She performed live with the Houston and Detroit Symphonies and in European engagements with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, the OCM Symphony Orchestra in Spain, Borusan Istanbul Philharmonic Orchestra in Turkey, and Orchestra del Teatro Massimo di Palermo in Italy.

She began her 2021/22 season with the Festival Strings Lucerne on July 1, performing the concert that had been scheduled for March 2020 but was canceled due to the pandemic. This season, she has performances scheduled with orchestras in Atlanta, New Mexico, Phoenix, Austin, Kansas City, and Palm Beach, as well as a U.S. recital tour and tours throughout Europe and Asia. She will perform the World Premiere of Detlev Glanert’s Violin Concerto No. 2 with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra in November and will also perform the piece with the NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra in Hamburg the following month.

Midori was born in Osaka in 1971 and began her violin studies with her mother, Setsu Goto, at an early age. In 1982, conductor Zubin Mehta invited the then 11-year-old Midori to perform with the New York Philharmonic in the orchestra’s annual New Year’s Eve concert, where the foundation was laid for her following career. Midori is the Dorothy Richard Starling Chair in Violin Studies at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia and is a Distinguished Visiting Artist at the Peabody Institute of the Johns Hopkins University.

Midori plays the 1734 Guarnerius del Gesù “ex-Huberman.” She uses four bows—two by Dominique Peccatte, one by François Peccatte, and one by Paul Siefried. ●

Eric Rombach-Kendall

Eric Rombach-Kendall is Professor of Music at the University of New Mexico, where he has served as Director of Bands since 1993. Prior to his appointment at UNM, Mr. RombachKendall held conducting positions at Boston University and Carleton College and taught in the Washington State public schools for six years.

Mr. Rombach-Kendall served as President of the College Band Directors National Association from 2011–2013. He has been a guest conductor and clinician throughout the United States and Canada and has published articles in The Instrumentalist, New Mexico Musician, and Teaching Music Through Performance in Band.

Mr. Rombach-Kendall’s bands have received national acclaim through their performances at the College Band Directors National Association National and Southwest Division Conferences, the MENC National Conference, North American Saxophone Alliance, Society of Composers, Inc., and the New Mexico Music Educators Conference. Mr. Rombach-Kendall is the conductor and co-producer of five recordings with the University of New Mexico Wind Symphony on Summit Records: Fandango, featuring Philip Smith, Principal Trumpet of the New York Philharmonic, and Joseph Alessi, Principal Trombone of the New York Philharmonic; Illuminations, featuring Mr. Alessi; Classic Solos for Winds, featuring woodwind faculty members at the University of New Mexico; Fascinating Ribbons; and Tales of Imagination, featuring UNM Horn Professor JD Shaw.

An advocate of contemporary music, Mr. Rombach-Kendall has commissioned and premiered many works for wind ensemble and concert band. Works he has commissioned have been performed by such prestigious organizations as the New York Philharmonic on Live at Lincoln Center, and the United States Marine Band (The President’s Own). He is an alumnus of the University of Puget Sound and the University of Michigan with degrees in music education and wind conducting. ●