Charles Webb
Dean Emeritus of the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music. Dr. Webb received his A.B. and M.M. degrees from Southern Methodist University and his D.M. from Indiana University. Dr. Webb is chairman of the Board of Advisors of International Music Festivals, Inc. and is a member of the Board of Trustees of the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra. In 2004 Dr. Webb was appointed by Colin Powell to a Congressional Committee to Advise the Secretary of State on Cultural Diplomacy. In 2005 he was elected to the Board of Directors of the American Symphony Orchestra League. In June, 2005, he received the Distinguished Alumni Service Award from Indiana University, Bloomington. Dr. Webb maintains an active perfomanace schedule as both conductor and pianist and serves as a judge for international music competitions throughout the world.
Milda Agazarian
Milda Agazarian is Professor of Harp at the Russian Music Academy and the Moscow Special Gnessin School and College. One of the foremost teachers, performers and public figures in Russian music, and an Eminent Culture Worker of Russia, Professor Agazarian was a founding member of the Association of Russian Harp Teachers and has been its president since 1992. She also has been artistic director of the annual Moscow Open Harp Festival since 2000. Professor Agazarian has served on juries of numerous international harp contests in Russia, France, USA, Bulgaria, Wales and Serbia. She has presented master-classes in Japan, Great Britain, France, Hungary and Switzerland. At the 9th World Congress in Dublin, she presented a master-class on “Russian Harp Repertoire’’. In 2004 she was the Guest of Honor at the 6th USA International Harp Competition in Bloomington, Indiana and presented a program of masterpieces of Russian harp music.
Professor Agazarian was born in Erevan, Armenia. She was honored by the Moscow Special Gnessin School with a gold medal and an award from the Tchaikovsky State Moscow Conservatory. She has worked with a number of orchestras including the USSR State Symphony Orchestra and the Radiosymphonic Tchaikovsky Orchestra. As a student and successor of legendary Russian harpists and pedagogues Mark Rubin, Xenia Erdeli and Vera Dulova, Professor Agazarian preserves, continues and develops traditions of the famous Russian Harp School.
Murray Boren
Murray Boren is a prolific composer who se works include nine operas, dozens of songs and choral works and nearly one hundred chamber compositions , i n addition to large-scale works for band and orchestra. He also writes for the theat re providing music for recent productions of Nathan the Wise, Wind in the Willows, Antigone and Macbeth . Recent works include “Lexicon: A Concerto for Harp and Chamber Orchestra” commissioned by the American Harp Association and premiered at their national convention, “Dance Trios” for flute, viola and harp for the Southampton Chamber Music Society, and a Barlow Endowment commission for a wind symphony work entitled “Tribute . ” He also collaborated with Poet Sally Taylor on The Joseph Sonnets for soprano, baritone and chamber orchestra . To commemorate the 200 th birthday of Mormon Church founder Joseph Smith, he composed the opera “The Book of Gold” for the Brigham Young University School of Music. He also composed “Joy” a Christmas fantasia for Kory Katseanes and the BYU Philharmonic Orchestra. Current commissions include a flute concerto and a trombone sonata.
Mr. Boren is Associate Professor and Composer in Residence at Brigham Young University’s School of Music, where he teaches music composition and theory. A CD of his compositions, Partial View, is available from Tantara Records.
Yolanda Kondonassis
Since her debut at age 18 with the New York Philharmonic and Zubin Mehta, Yolanda Kondonassis has performed around the globe as a harp soloist, appearing with numerous orchestras such as The Cleveland Orchestra, English Chamber Orchestra, Detroit Symphony, Houston Symphony, Hong Kong Philharmonic and Orquesta Sinfonica de Puerto Rico. As a Telarc recoding artist, she has won universal critical acclaim for her many recordings, which have included much of the standard repertoire, as well as her own transcriptions and compositions for harp. Over 100,000 of her albums have been sold worldwide. Ms. Kondonassis has published three volumes, including On Playing the Harp, a comprehensive method and etude book, and The Yolanda Kondonassis Collection for Solo Harp, which features her most popular recorded transcriptions and compositions. All of her works are published by Carl Fischer, New York. In addition to her active performing and recording schedule, she heads the harp departments at The Cleveland Institute of Music and Oberlin College Conservatory . For more information on Yolonda Kondonassis, visit her website at www.ykharp.com.
Isabelle Perrin
After a first recital at the age of 17, Isabelle Perrin studied for three years at the Juilliard Schoolin New York before joining the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra. Since 1990, she has been co-Principal Harpist with the Orchestre National de France. As an international soloist, she has given many concerts and master-classes throughout Europe, Russia, USA, Canada, China, Japan, Korea, Australia, and Africa. Ms. Perrin has recorded a number of CD’s, including one highlighting the works of Bernard Andresandoriginal works by Arnold Baxfor flute, viola and harp, performed with the Turner Trio, of which she is a founding member. Playing a single action harp, Ms. Perrin recorded a world premiere of F.A. Boieldieu’s works, including the Sonata and the famous Concerto in C Major. Her other recordings include Pierick Houdy’s pieces for harp and miscellaneous instruments, among them the “ Concerto Français” which he dedicated to her, and many famous repertoire pieces. Ms. Perrin teaches at the Ecole Normale de Musique de Paris and has been appointed Visiting Professor to The Royal Academy of Music of London. The French Government recently knighted her in the French Order of Arts et Lettres in recognition of her involvement in the international music world. For more information on Isabelle Perrin, visit her website at http://www.isabelleperrin.com
Lieve Robbroeckx
After finishing a master’s degree in physics and working for some years as a physics teacher, Lieve Robbroeckx graduated in harp from the Koninklijk Conservatorium Antwerpen. She also received a Teaching Diploma from the Koninklijk Conservatorium Brussel. From 1979 to 1992 she lived in Bangkok, Thailand, where she was active as a performing harpist and teacher. When the Bangkok Symphony Orchestra was founded in 1983, she served as its Principal Harpist and performed as a soloist under the baton of resident and guest conductors. Ms. Robbroeckx promoted the harp in Thailand by organizing concerts and concert-lectures, by playing to royal audiences and by playing for television broadcasts. She encouraged the use of harp in Thai music with the Siamese Music Ensemble Fong Nam and the Mai Thai Chamber Orchestra in concerts and recordings. Upon returning to Flanders, she helped create Harpe Diem, which has become an important annual harp event. Since 2006, she has served as President of the newly established Foundation Harpe Diem. Ms. Robbroeckx has played with a wide range of orchestras and chamber groups. In 1995 she premiered the Concerto for Harp by Flemish composer Marc Verhaegen, and she is a founding member of the Harpe Diem Quartet.
Lieve Robbroeckx teaches harp didactics at the Koninklijk Conservatorium Antwerpen and harp at the Lemmensinstituut Leuven and at the Stedelijke Academie voor Muziek, Woord en Dans Beringen. She was correspondent for the World Harp Congress from 1980 until 2005, when she was elected to its Board of Directors.
Karen Vaughan
Karen Vaughan studied with the great Russian harpist Maria Korchinska after graduating from the Royal Academy of Music, where she held the Baume (Manx) Scholarship for piano. She took an active part in the International Harpweeks in Holland and acted as hostess at the Maria Korchinska International Harp Competition and Workshop in the Isle of Man in 1983.
Ms. Vaughan was a founding member of the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, often appearing as concerto soloist, and for six years she was Principal Harpist of the Royal Scottish National Orchestra. On returning to London in 1984 , she was appointed Co-Principal Harpist of the London Symphony Orchestra . Its hectic schedule has taken her from international tours with Bernstein and Boulez to recording the sound tracks for Star Wars and Harry Potter.
Ms. Vaughan performed at the 2002 World harp Congress in Geneva and has been elected to the WHC Board of Directors. Professor of H arp at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama in Glasgow and at the Royal Academy of Music in London , she also teaches at the Purcell School for musically gifted children and has an expanding studio. She is invited to all the UK conservatories as an examiner and has been appointed Visiting Professor at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama for the year 2006-2007. She is an honorary Associate of the Royal Academy of Music.
Naoko Yoshino
One of the outstanding harpists in the world today, Naoko Yoshino has been a soloist with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, the Israel Philharmonic, the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, Philharmonia Orchestra, and The Philadelphia Orchestra. Renowned conductors with whom she has shared the stage include Menuhin, Ozawa, Sawallisch, Mehta, Sinopoli, Harnoncourt, Blomstedt, and Dutoit. A frequent guest at the Lucerne, Salzburg, Lockenhaus, Schleswig-Holstein, Saito Kinen, Marlboro, and Mostly Mozart Festivals, Naoko Yoshino is also known as a recitalist and chamber musician. Through chamber music, she has come to work with such renowned musicians as violinist Gidon Kremer, violists Veronika Hagen and Nobuko Imai, horn player Radek Baborák, flutists Aurèle Nicolet, Jean-Pierre Rampal, Wolfgang Schulz, and Emmanuel Pahud . In 1994, she earned the honor of performing at The Vatican to commemorate the restoration of the Sistine Chapel. An advocate of new repertoire for harp, Naoko Yoshino has premiered many works, including Toru Takemitsu’s “And then I knew 'twas Wind” and Toshio Hosokawa’s Harp Concerto.
Born in London, Ms. Yoshino began to study harp at the age of six in Los Angeles, California, with Susann McDonald. She finished second at the First International Harp Contest at the Santa Cecilia Academy in Rome at the age of 13, and she finished first at the Ninth International Harp Contest 1985 in Israel, where she was the youngest participant. In 1988, she won the Arts Festival Prize form the Japan Agency for Cultural Affairs.
Naoko Yoshino’s official website: www.naokoyoshino.com
