Artists

Matthew Savery
Music Director & Conductor

Artists
Stephen Bryant

Bass-baritone Stephen Bryant’s distinguished career in concert and opera has taken him around the world, with acclaimed performances in the United States, Europe, the Middle East and Asia. Of his performance in the title role of Giulio Cesare, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette wrote “Stephen Bryant sings Caesar’s music with a solid baritone sound that contains enough metal (and mettle) to suggest the strength of a great warrior.”
Among this season’s engagements figure Tan Dun’s Marco Polo at De Nederlandse Opera in Amsterdam, a Messiah with the Peniel Concert Choir in Avery Fisher Hall, Mendelssohn’s Elijah with Canterbury Choral Society and A Sea Symphony with Asheville Choral Society.
Season 07/08 brought a slew of oratorio performances. He sang Messiah with the Pensacola Symphony and the Eugene Concert Choir, and the Mozart Requiem with Princeton Pro Musica and the Verdi Requiem with the Buffalo Philharmonic Chorus. He also performed Mahler 8th Symphony with Canterbury Choral Society and appeared with the symphonies of Charleston, Bozeman and Pioneer Valley.
Mr. Bryant has sung with the New York City Opera, the San Francisco Opera, the Santa Fe Opera, the Indianapolis Opera, and other companies of renown. In performance with major orchestras from The New York Philharmonic and Philadelphia Orchestra, to the Israel Philharmonic and Japan Philharmonic, Bryant has delighted audiences with a repertoire spanning from Mozart and Verdi to Virgil Thomson and Stewart Wallace.
“Bryant stormed the heavens with his large and commanding instrument,” said New York Newsday of his performance in Handel’s Messiah. His numerous appearances in Handel’s Messiah include collaborations with the Pittsburgh Symphony and Musica Sacra at Carnegie Hall.
The Bass-baritone’s frequent performances of Mendelssohn’s Elijah include appearances with the New York Philharmonic under Maestro Kurt Masur, and the Philadelphia Orchestra under Wolfgang Sawallisch.
Mr. Bryant’s repertoire extends from Bach and Handel to today’s most prominent composers including Tan Dun. In standard repertoire, the Bass-baritone has performed Colline in La bohème (Indianapolis Opera), Leporello in Don Giovanni (Mobile Opera), Don Alfonso in Cosi fan tutte (Berkshire Opera), Escamillo in Carmen (Opera North), Figaro in Le nozze di Figaro (Madison Opera), the Bonze in Madama Butterfly (San Francisco Opera), and Capulet in Roméo et Juliette at (Opera Theatre of St. Louis, Michigan Opera Theatre, and Chautauqua Opera). He will be performing the role this fall with Toledo Opera as well. Additionally, Bryant has performed roles in a number of contemporary operas including Robert Gonzales in Stewart Wallace’s Harvey Milk (San Francisco Opera and New York City Opera), George Milton in Carlisle Floyd’s Of Mice and Men (Arizona Opera), Indiana Elliot’s brother in Virgil Thomson’s The Mother of Us All (Santa Fe Opera), and covered Claggart in Britten’s Billy Budd (San Francisco Opera).
A premiere interpreter of the works of Academy Award-winning composer Tan Dun, Bryant created the role of Dante in the world premiere of the opera Marco Polo. He reprised the role at London’s Barbicon Center for a performance broadcast by the BBC. Numerous other performances include appearances at the Munich Biennale, the Holland Festival in Amsterdam, the Hong Kong Arts Festival, New York City Opera, the Japan Philharmonic in Tokyo, Settembre Musica in Torino, Italy, and at the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival in Scotland. The Times of London referred to the “ . . . unearthly overtone singing, brilliantly accomplished by Stephen Bryant.”
Stephen holds a Bachelor’s from Oberlin and a Master’s from the University of Michigan. On the voice faculty at William Paterson University, he lives in Montclair, New Jersey with his wife Caryl, and their two sons, David and Andrew.
Amit Peled

From the United States to Europe to the Middle East to Asia, Amit Peled, a musician of profound artistry and charismatic stage presence, is acclaimed as one of the most exciting cellists on the concert stage today.
Mr. Peled has performed as soloist with orchestra and in the world’s major concert halls, such as: Carnegie Hall and Alice Tully Hall, New York, Salle Gaveau, Paris, Wigmore Hall, London, Konzerthaus, Berlin, and Tel Aviv’s Mann Auditorium.
Mr. Peled is also a frequent guest artist, performing and giving master classes, at prestigious summer music festivals such as the Marlboro Music Festival, Newport Music Festival, Seattle Chamber Music Festival, Heifetz International Music Institute, Schleswig Holstein Festival and Euro Arts Festival in Germany, Gotland Festival in Sweden, Prussia Cove Festival in England, The Violoncello Congress in Spain, and the Kfar Blum Music Festival in Israel.
As a recording artist, Mr. Peled will release, this season, his CD, “The Jewish Soul”, on Centaur Records. In addition, as an advocate of Israeli music, he has recorded the Cello Concerto by Mark Kopytman with the Tel Aviv Soloists for the JMC label. He also premiered, under the baton of conductor Ilan Volkov, the Cello Concerto by Israeli composer Erel Paz, written for and dedicated to Mr. Peled.
Amit Peled has been featured on television and radio stations throughout the world, including NPR’s “Performance Today”, WGBH Boston, WQXR New York, WFMT Chicago, Deutschland Radio Berlin, Radio France, Swedish National Radio & TV, and Israeli National Radio & TV.
A celebrated artist on the website of the Internet Cello Society, Mr. Peled is a Professor at the Peabody Conservatory of Music of the Johns Hopkins University and plays a rare Andrea Guarneri cello ca. 1689.
Spectrum Brass Quintet
MASO Young Artist Competition Winners

Chelsey Padilla

Chelsey Padilla is currently a senior studying piano under Laurel Yost at Montana State University in Bozeman. She began taking fiddle lessons when she was four years old and began studying piano when she was five years old. She was involved in fiddle contests throughout her childhood but began focusing on piano in high school. She participated in choir and orchestra throughout high school and college and is the co-concertmaster of the MSU Symphony Orchestra. She was the 2006 Montana State University Concerto Competition winner, the 2007 collegiate winner of the Montana MTNA Piano Competition, and the 2009 College Division winner of the Montana Association of Symphony Orchestras.
Mark Raymond

Mark Raymond is a freshman at Bozeman High school and a lifetime resident of Bozeman, MT. He discovered his love for percussion in elementary school–he was well-known amongst his classmates for incessantly tapping his pencil on the desk–and began his study of percussion in fifth grade. Mark was introduced to the marimba through his private instructor, Jeff Vick, in seventh grade, and performed on the instrument for Joseph Gramley in a master class shortly thereafter. Mark plans to continue to develop his musical talent and explore his passion for music throughout high school.
Sarah Harmsworth

Sarah Harmsworth was born in Utah. Her father, Donald, was a cellist with the Utah Symphony. Shortly after her birth the family moved to northwest Montana and Sarah spent the next four years growing up in a cabin at the southern end of the Cabinet Mountains. After another move, this time to New Mexico, Sarah was allowed to start violin lessons when she turned five. Within a year she had become the youngest member of the Santa Fe Youth Symphony. When she was seven the family moved to Texas and Sarah soon joined the University of Texas String Project. The Harmsworths moved to Montana’s Bitterroot Valley when she was eleven. In addition to the violin, Sarah has also played cello and viola with the Bitterroot Valley Youth Orchestra. In 2007 she won the Montana State Spelling Bee, winning a trip to Washington, D.C., where she advanced to the fifth round of the National Spelling Bee. She currently studies violin with Margaret Baldridge, Professor of Violin at the University of Montana. During the past year she has joined with her father in playing with several symphonies around the state, including Missoula, Butte, and Helena. She also played in the All-Northwest and Montana All-State Orchestras. As a winner of the 2009 MASO competition she has already appeared as soloist with the Great Falls Symphony and the Glacier Symphony. In addition to violin, Sarah enjoys skiing and playing tennis.
Jesse MacDonald

Jesse MacDonald, at age 16 is currently a member of the Bozeman Symphony Orchestra and Billings Youth Orchestra. He is Concertmaster of Bozeman High School Symphony I and Kamerata, and has previously held Concertmaster positions with Montana All-State Orchestra, Beverly Hills Chamber Orchestra, and Interlochen Symphony Orchestra.
Jesse has won the MASO Concerto Competition, Junior Division and the Umpqua Young Artist Competition, resulting in solo guest performances. He was a laureate of the Musicfest Northwest Competition, Minnesota Symphonia Competition and Couer d’Alene Concerto Competition. Other performances include All-Northwest Honors Orchestra, Meritage String Quartet, and at Interlochen, Red Lodge Music Festival, String Youth Orchestra Workshop, and Madeline Island, Wisconsin.
He performs regularly as first violin with the Vivace String Quartet, Duo Dolce and the Evelina String Quartet, which has toured throughout Minnesota and Wisconsin. Jesse has taken part in master classes with Hilary Hahn, Rachel Barton-Pine and Midori. Jesse’s parents and Becky and John MacDonald, and his teachers are Carrie Krause and Stephan Cepeda. He plays on a French-made, 1912 Coretelli Violin.
Joseph Gramley

Multi-percussionist Joseph Gramley’s dynamic and exciting performances as a soloist have garnered critical acclaim and enthusiasm from emerging composers, percussion aficionados and first-time concert-goers alike. He is committed to bringing fresh and inventive compositions to a broad public,and each year he commissions and premieres a number of new works. His first solo recording, American Deconstruction, an expert rendition of five milestone works in multi-percussion¹s huge new modern repertoire, appeared in 2000 and was reissued in 2006. His second, Global Percussion, wasreleased in 2005.
An invitation from Yo-Yo Ma in 2000 led Gramley to join Mr. Ma’s Silk Road Ensemble. In addition to participating in the group’s extended residencies in American cities, Gramley has toured with Mr. Ma and the Ensemble throughout North America, Europe and Asia, performing in the world’s finest concert halls. Along the way, Gramley has studied percussion styles and instruments from around the globe, collaborating with internationally-renowned musicians from India, Iran, China, Japan, Korea and Central Asia. He has also appeared on three top-selling albums with Yo-Yo Ma on the SonyBMG label.
In addition to his solo and Silk Road work, as well as his frequent appearances with chamber groups and orchestras, Gramley performs with the acclaimed British organist Clive Driskill-Smith in the duo Organized Rhythm. The pair’s first recording, Beaming Music, will be issued late in 2007.
Joseph Gramley has performed with: the Metropolitan Opera (on stage with Placido Domingo), Pierre-Laurent Aimard (US tour), Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, Orchestra of St. Luke¹s, Chicago Symphony Orchestra (soloist), Seattle Symphony, Orchestre de Lyon, Dawn Upshaw (US tour), David Robertson (Carnegie Hall), Spoleto Festival (soloist), Martha Graham Dance Company, Merce Cunningham Dance Company, New York City Ballet, Glen Velez (US tour), Keiko Abe (PASIC), Aretha Franklin, Elton John (at Radio City Music Hall and on worldwide TV and DVD), Kayhan Kalhor, Alim Qasimov, Wu Tong, Sandeep Das and numerous others.
Born in 1970, Gramley grew up in Oregon and was named a Presidential Scholar in the Arts while a senior at the Interlochen Arts Academy in 1988. He did his undergraduate work at the University of Michigan where he was a student of Michael Udow and Salvatore Rabbio and also attended the Tanglewood Institute and Salzburg Mozarteum.
Gramley made his concerto debut with the Houston Symphony Orchestra after winning their National Soloist Competition, and made his solo debut at Carnegie Hall’s Weill Recital Hall in 1994. After graduate studies at the Juilliard School in New York, he performed and recorded with the Ethos Percussion Group throughout the U. S. and Europe.
Joseph Gramley is on the faculty of the University of Michigan School of Music, Theatre and Dance and in this capacity is Director of the Percussion Ensemble.
He also continues to direct the Juilliard Summer Percussion Seminar, an intensive program for high-school students held annually at Lincoln Center in New York City.
Janet Sung

Violinist JANET SUNG enjoys an acclaimed international career as a virtuoso soloist, praised for her lustrous tone, dynamic interpretations and bravura performances.
Janet Sung has been guest soloist with the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra, Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra and Aspen Chamber Symphony, as well as the orchestras of Adrian, Boise, Corpus Christi, Delaware, Dubuque, Fargo-Moorhead, Hartford, Owensboro, Traverse City, Wheeling and Wyoming. Abroad, she has been heard with South Korea’s Pusan Philharmonic Orchestra and Russia’s Omsk Philharmonic Orchestra and National Symphonic Orchestra of Bashkortostan. Her solo performances have frequently been aired on radio and television, nationally and internationally, including multiple broadcasts of her performance of Korngold’s Violin Concerto on NPR’s “Performance Today.” Acclaimed for her compelling performances of traditional works from Vivaldi to Berg, she also reveals her repertoire’s diversity by presenting the works of 20th and 21st century composers and regularly touring with fiddler Mark O’Connor’s American String Celebration. Her current season includes the world premiere of Kenneth Fuchs’ American Rhapsody for Violin & Orchestra.
In recital, Janet Sung has been presented in Boston, Chicago, Cleveland, Louisville, New York City and Pittsburgh, as well as in Odense, Denmark, Lausanne, Switzerland and Queenstown, New Zealand. She is also a frequently heard artist at distinguished music festivals, including: Aspen Music Festival, Hot Springs Music Festival, Sewanee Summer Music Festival and Switzerland’s Lucerne Festival. Ms. Sung also tours nationally with the American Chamber Players.
Janet Sung was chosen by Leonard Slatkin as the recipient of the Passamaneck Award, for which she performed at Pittsburgh’s Carnegie Music Hall for the Y Music Society Concert Series. A winner of the Aspen Music Festival’s Nakamichi Violin Competition, she has also been awarded other top prizes and grants from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, National Foundation for Advancement in the Arts, National Federation of Music Clubs Competition and Cho Chang Tsung Foundation.
A native of New York City, Janet Sung began violin studies at the age of seven, making her public debut the following year. At age nine, she made her orchestral debut, performing with the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra. The following year, she began a decade of private studies with the renowned violin pedagogue, Josef Gingold, a period that overlapped with her attendance at Harvard University, from which she graduated with honors with a double degree in anthropology and music. Subsequently, Ms. Sung was invited to study on full scholarship with the esteemed teacher, Dorothy DeLay, at The Juilliard School. She also studied extensively with Masao Kawasaki, David Cerone, Eugene Phillips and the Juilliard String Quartet.
Highly sought after as an artist-teacher, Janet Sung has conducted masterclasses throughout the country, including The Hartt School of the University of Hartford, Harvard University, The Juilliard School and Oberlin Conservatory of Music. She has also served as faculty at The Juilliard School (initially as the Starling/DeLay Institute Fellow), State University of New York at Fredonia School of Music, Hot Springs Music Festival, Sewanee Summer Music Festival and the Mark O’Connor Fiddle Camp. During the 2003-2004 season, Ms. Sung returned to Harvard University as the Clifton Visiting Artist for the “Learning from Performers” program, whose previous guests included Isaac Stern, James Galway, Mark Morris and Quincy Jones.
Janet Sung plays a c.1600 Maggini violin.
Steven Mayer

Credited with “piano playing at its most awesome” (The New York Times), pianist Steven Mayer has brought his unique repertoire of such jazz icons Art Tatum and Fats Waller, as well as music from Mozart to Liszt to Ives, to thousands of listeners worldwide. Mr. Mayer has appeared with the New York Chamber Symphony and Gerard Schwarz in Beethoven’s Concerto No. 4, performances with the Leipzig Gewandhaus and Emmanuel Krivine in Liszt’s Concerto in Eb, appearances with Leonard Slatkin and the Minnesota Orchestra in Gottschalk’s Grand Tarantelle and with co-soloist John Browning in Mozart’s Concerto K.365 under Raymond Leppard, performances with the San Francisco Symphony under Edo de Waart and Herbert Blomstedt in Rachmaninoff’s Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini and the Reger Piano Concerto, a performance of Beethoven’s Concerto No. 3 with the Rotterdam Philharmonic and James Conlon, performances of Mozart Concertos K.595, K.414 and K.482 with the St. Louis and Baltimore Symphonies under conductors Catherine Comet and David Atherton, appearances with the Amsterdam Philharmonic under Ken-Ichiro Kobayashi in Rachmaninoff’s Concerto No. 3, a performance with the Netherlands Chamber Orchestra and Antonio Ros-Marba in Haydn’s Concerto in G, performances of Mozart’s Concerto K.595 with Hugh Wolff conducting the Atlanta Symphony, appearances with the Dallas Symphony under Walter Hendl in Ravel’s Concerto in G, performances with the Boston Pops and Keith Lockhart in Liszt’s Totentanz and an appearance with the Prague Symphony under Jiri Belohlavek in Dvorak’s Piano Concerto on the Carnegie Hall International Orchestra Series.
Winner of the 1992 Grand Prix du Disque Liszt for his ASV world premiere recording of Liszt’s Concerto Opus Posthumous and De Profundis with the London Symphony under Tamas Vasary, Steven Mayer gave the world premiere of Liszt’s De Profundis with the Hague Philharmonic and Jacek Kaspszic in the Hague. Mr. Mayer also performed the European premiere of Liszt’s Concerto Opus Posthumous as well as Liszt’s Concerto in Eb with the Hague Philharmonic under Hans Vonk at the Interlakner and Visp festivals in Switzerland and at La Chaise Dieu in France. Steven Mayer’s album Liszt vs. Thalberg, also for ASV Records, was featured as Recording of the Month in Classical CD Magazine.
In 2002 Steven Mayer began an association with Naxos Ltd. Releases for this label include Charles Ives’ Concord Sonata and Celestial Railroad, and Art Tatum Improvisations. Future releases will include Liszt’s Opera Fantasies as well as music of Heinrich and Gottschalk, among others.
Since his prize winning performance of Leon Kirchner’s Piano Concerto No. 2 with Dennis Russell Davies and the American Composer’s Orchestra at The Third Carnegie Hall International American Music Competition, Mr. Mayer has brought his unique repertoire of classic jazz legends Art Tatum, Fats Waller and Jelly Roll Morton to festivals worldwide including Dick Hyman’s Jazz in July at the 92nd Street Y, BAM’s Gospel to Gershwin with Gunther Schuller, England’s Greenwich Festival and the Ambassador Series in Pasadena. He has recorded Art Tatum for ASV, as well as for Naxos. Mr. Mayer appeared in the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra’s American Roots Piano Marathon at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center in January 2003. Beginning in 2004-2005, Steven Mayer will tour nationally with the scholar/writer Joseph Horowitz and the pianist Anthony de Mare as The American Piano, a flexibly constituted presentation including lectures, workshops, and master classes.
Steven Mayer premiered Kaikhosru Sorabji’s The Perfumed Garden at Columbia’s Miller Theater and has made regular appearances at chamber festivals including Bargemusic, Banff, the Bay Chamber Festival in Maine, Mainly Mozart in San Diego, the San Luis Obispo Mozart Festival, Leonard Slatkin’s Minnesota Sommerfest and the Moab Festival in Utah. Mr. Mayer is currently Professor of Piano at the International Keyboard Institute and Festival at the Mannes College of Music. He has served as Visiting Lecturer in Piano at UCLA, and as juror at the International Flipse Concours in Rotterdam.
James Tocco

James Tocco has enjoyed a worldwide career as a soloist with orchestra, a recitalist, a chamber music performer and a renowned pedagogue. He has a repertoire of over 50 works with orchestra including virtually the entire standard piano concerto repertoire, as well as more rarely performed works such as the Symphonie Concertante of Szymanowski, the Kammerkonzert of Alban Berg, and The Age of Anxiety of Leonard Bernstein. Professor Tocco is one of the few pianists in the world to program regularly the keyboard works of Handel. His awards include: winner of the International ARD Competition in Munich in 1973, appearance in 1975 at the Vienna Festival.
Since that time he has toured the globe with performances in the United States, Canada, most of the countries in Europe and South America, the former Soviet Union, Japan, Australia, South Africa, and the Middle East. Solo appearances include the major orchestras of the world: Berlin, Munich, London, Chicago, and Los Angeles. Festival participation includes Salzburg, Vienna, Lockenhaus, Holland, Schleswig-Holstein, Wolf Trap, Ravinia, Mostly Mozart, Santa Fe, and the Hollywood Bowl.
Pro Arte releases include the world premiere recording of Bernstein’s complete solo piano music and the first recorded performance of the piano solo version of the Suite from Copland’s Rodeo. Mr.Tocco recorded for Gasparo the four piano sonatas of Edward MacDowell. ECM Records has issued his live performance of Erwin Schulhof’s Cinq Etudes de Jazz. Deutsche Harmonia Mundi has released his recording of the complete Bach/Liszt organ transcriptions.
Professor Tocco has been on the faculty of the College-Conservatory of Music since 1991.