The MMDG Music Ensemble
formed in 1996, performs with the Dance Group at home and on tour and has become integral to the company’s creative life. The core group, supplemented by musicians from a large roster of regular guests, has helped the Dance Group achieve an unprecedented streak of close to eight hundred performances with live music. The Ensemble’s repertory ranges from 17th-century works by John Wilson and Henry Purcell to more recent scores by Lou Harrison and Henry Cowell. The Ensemble also presents concerts at the Mark Morris Dance Center and other venues, and participates in the Mark Morris Dance, Music and Literacy Project in the New York City public school system. Cellist Wolfram Koessel is the Ensemble’s director.
Steven Beck
(piano) was born in 1978 and is a graduate of the Juilliard School, where his teachers were Seymour Lipkin and Peter Serkin. He made his debut with the National Symphony Orchestra and toured Japan as a soloist with the New York Symphonic Ensemble. Other orchestras with which he has appeared include the New Juilliard Ensemble (under David Robertson), Sequitur, and the Virginia Symphony. He is an Artist Presenter and frequent performer of Bargemusic. Beck has worked with Elliott Carter, Henri Dutilleux, and George Perle, and has appeared with ensembles such as Speculum Musicae, Sospeso, Friends and Enemies of New Music, and Counterinduction, and is also a member of the notorious Knights of the Many-Sided Table. His recordings are on the Albany, Monument, and Annemarie Classics labels. He has played with the MMDG Music Ensemble since 2004.
Jennifer Curtis
(violin), a graduate of the Juilliard School, gave her New York Debut at Carnegie Hall’s Weil Recital Hall last May. Curtis performed Dutilleux’s violin concert l’Arbre des Songes, in Alice Tully Hall with the Juilliard orchestra. The New York Times recognized Curtis’s “fine solos” from her performance as concert master of the Juilliard Orchestra for Mahler’s 9th Symphony in Avery Fisher Hall. She is also a composer and her music has been performed throughout the US, Central America and Europe. Her recent endeavor, Tres Americas Project, began with a tour in Panama, where Curtis performed several of her own works for violin, mandolin, guitar and vocals. In 2000-2001 Curtis was the percussionist for Strong Current Dance Company in San Francisco, California. She first appeared with the MMDG Music Ensemble in 2006.
Katharine Dain
(soprano) is an active concert soloist and ensemble singer based in New York. She has sung soprano roles in the oratorios of Bach, Handel, Mozart, Purcell, Haydn, Mendelssohn, and Britten as well as Mozart's Così fan tutte (Fiordiligi - Harvard University), Cavalli's La Calisto (Calisto - Amherst Early Music Festival), and several premieres of contemporary operas. She is a member of the acclaimed Choir of Trinity Wall Street and has performed with the Parley of Instruments, New York Virtuoso Singers, New England Baroque Soloists, Talea Ensemble, Callisto Ascending (of which she is a co-founder), and the New York Miniaturist Ensemble. After completing degrees from Harvard University and the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, London, she is currently pursuing postgraduate studies at the Mannes College of Music.
Colin Fowler
(piano) hails from Kansas City, Kansas and began studying piano at the age of five. After attending Interlochen Arts Academy, he received his Bachelors and Masters Degrees at The Julliard School, where he studied organ with Gerre Hancock and piano with Abbey Simon. He has played and directed music across the country, at venues including Carnegie Hall, Alice Tully Hall, Jazz at Lincoln Center, and The Library of Congress. Colin has also performed with the American Brass Quintet, Deborah Voight, James Galway, and at many of the churches and synagogues in New York. Broadway credits include the recent revival of 42nd Street and the current production of The Tony Award winning musical, Jersey Boys. Colin is the Chair of the Theory and Ear Training department at Nyack College, where he is a full-time professor and conductor of the Nyack College Chorale. He has played with the MMDG Music Ensemble since 2006.
Scott J. Mello
(tenor) received his B.M. from Oberlin Conservatory and is completing his Master’s in Vocal Performance at NYU. He has appeared in concert with such ensembles as Akron Symphony, Apollo’s Fire (the Cleveland Baroque Orchestra), Aspen Music Festival, Carmel Bach Festival, Oberlin Baroque and Chamber Orchestras, Cleveland’s Trinity Chamber Orchestra, the West London Sinfonia and the New England Symphonic Ensemble at Carnegie Hall. Mello’s diverse operatic and musical theatre credits include Tamino in The Magic Flute, Tom Rakewell in The Rake’s Progress, Bill in Hand of Bridge, Acis in Acis and Galatea, Harry in Company, Hippolyte in Hippolyte et Aricie, Guillot de Morfontaine in Manon and El Gallo in The Fantasticks. He has recorded for Koch International Records and National Public Radio. This season marks his first appearance with the MMDG Music Ensemble.
Christopher Johnstone
(baritone) is a second-year Artist Diploma student at Cincinnati-College Conservatory of Music (CCM). He has performed the roles of Belcore in L’Elisir d’amore, Guglielmo in Così fan tutte, Eisenstein in Die Fledermaus, and Captain Walker in The Who’s Tommy!, among others. Christopher earned his B.M. from Arizona State University and his M.M. from California State University, Long Beach. He has sung with Lyric Opera San Diego, Opera Pacific, Glimmerglass Opera, Tanglewood Music Center, the Modesto Symphony and the Long Beach Symphony. Last summer he performed the role of the Royal Herald in Don Carlo with James Levine and began his collaboration with MMDG singing Aeneas in Dido and Aeneas at Tanglewood.
Wolfram Koessel
(cello) Since moving to New York in 1991 cellist Wolfram Koessel has established himself as a much sought after chamber musician, soloist, recording artist and contractor in the New York music scene. He has performed with MMDG since 1999 and was appointed their music director in 2004. In 2006 Mr. Koessel joined the world renowned American String Quartet, with whom he performs in the foremost concert halls throughout the world, collaborating frequently with today's leading artists. Mr. Koessel appears with a wide range of ensembles and groups, most notably and frequently with the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra. He has supervised and performed music for Warner Brothers, American Express, and many independent film companies besides organizing hundreds of classical orchestra and chamber music concerts during the last decade in NYC. He is on the faculty of the Manhattan School of Music and the Aspen Music Festival. Mr. Koessel resides with his wife, pianist and writer J. Mae Barizo, in Manhattan.
Lara Marie Hirner
(soprano) graduated from Harvard University in June 2005 with a B.A. in Music and Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies. Theater credits include Mabel in Pirates of Penzance (2000), Rapunzel in Into the Woods (2001), the title role in Rossini’s La Cenerentola (2003), and Cunegonde in Candide (2005). She returned to Harvard this past fall as a featured soloist in the Bernstein Festival Gala Concert under the baton of Judith Clurman and recently participated in the Julliard Choral Union’s holiday concert. She looks forward to joining the choir again for their February Bach program. This season marks her first appearance with the MMDG Music Ensemble.
Jesse Mills
(violin) graduated with a Bachelor of Music degree from The Juilliard School in 2001. He has performed as soloist with the Juilliard Pre-College Chamber Orchestra, the Teatro Argentino Orchestra in Buenos Aires, Argentina, the New Jersey Symphony, the Sarah Lawrence College Symphony, the Plainfield Symphony, the Hudson Valley Philharmonic, and Aspen Music Festival’s Sinfonia Orchestra as winner of the Festival’s E. Nakamichi Violin Concerto Competition. Mills received an Aspen Music Festival String Fellowship in 1997. As a chamber musician Mills has performed at Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall, New York City’s Merkin Concert Hall and Bargemusic, the Rising Stars series at Caramoor, the Ravinia Festival’s Bennett-Gordon Hall, and at the Marlboro Music Festival. He has performed chamber music with such artists as Richard Goode, David Soyer, Donald Weilerstein, Anton Kuerti, Peter Wiley, Miriam Fried, Claude Frank, and Fred Sherry. He was a member of the FLUX Quartet from 2001-2003. Currently, Mills is a member of Nurse Kaya, an ensemble comprised of string quartet plus bass and drums which exclusively plays compositions written by its members. Mills is also a member of the Denali Trio, with cellist Sarah Carter and pianist Ashley Wass. He first performed with the MMDG Music Ensemble in 2006.
Jessica Troy
(viola), a native New Yorker, wears a wide variety of freelance hats. As the violist of the MMDG Music Ensemble since 1998 she has toured extensively, from the Brooklyn Academy of Music to the Sydney Festival; with the MMDG Music Ensemble she has performed throughout the U.S. and Japan with Yo-Yo Ma. She is a member of both the Brooklyn and Westchester Philharmonics. Donning her contemporary chamber music hat she has performed and recorded new works with Sequitur and the Meridian String Quartet, and has just performed in the east coast premiere of David Lang's opera "the Difficulty of Crossing a Field" in a string quartet consisting of members of the Flux Quartet and the Bang on a Can All-Stars. On the baroque viola she has performed with the 4 Nations Ensemble, Ensemble Rebel, Concert Royal, and Ars Antiqua among others, and was recently seen with Renee Fleming on the David Letterman Show. A participant at many illustrious chamber music festivals, including Prussia Cove and Marlboro, she can be heard on the latter's 50th anniversary CD in Gyorgy Kurtag's Microludes for string quartet, which she prepared with the composer.
Georgy Valtchev
(violin) has been honored with a number of awards, among them the First Price of the Ducrest International Competition in Lafayette, LA, and the Special Prize of the Tibor Varga International Violin Competition in Switzerland. Mr. Valtchev has appeared as a soloist, recitalist and chamber musician throughout the United States and Europe, and is a frequent soloist with the Lyric Orchestra in Hoboken, NJ, and the Sofia Soloists in Bulgaria. Mr. Valtchev first performed with the Ensemble in 2006.
Yulia Van Doren
(soprano) was born in Moscow and raised in an eclectic, music-filled household where she and her seven younger siblings were taught voice and piano by her Russian mother and American jazz pianist father. While still an undergraduate at the New England Conservatory she was awarded the grand prize in the International JS Bach Vocal Competition, third prize in the American Bach Soloists' Competition and recorded the role of Ceres in the Boston Early Music Festival’s world-premiere recording of the Lully opera _Thésée_. In 2007, Yulia made several important debuts, including her professional operatic debut as Poppea in _L’Icoronazione di Poppea_. Other debuts included Carnegie Hall, the Bach Festival of Philadelphia, the Boston Early Music Festival, and a summer of performances at Tanglewood, where as a vocal fellow she sang Belinda Morris's _Dido and Aeneas_ and performed in a concert of opera scenes coached by Maestro James Levine. During the 2007-08 season Ms. Van Doren appears in concert with ensemble Teatro Lirico, the Seattle Baroque Orchestra, the Portland Baroque Orchestra (Messiah), American Bach Soloists’ (Weilnacht’s Oratorium), Grace Church Choral Society, NYC (Mass in c minor), and Berkshire Bach Society (Chandos Anthems). Yulia is a second-year MM candidate at Bard College in a new graduate vocal program directed by soprano Dawn Upshaw. She is a 2007 recipient of the prestigious Soros Fellowship for New Americans.
Jamie Van Eyck
(mezzo-soprano) originally from Wisconsin, earned a B.M. from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and a M.M. from the New England Conservatory of Music. Van Eyck has performed principal roles with Utah Opera, Opera Boston, Tanglewood Music Center, Brecard Music Center, and the New England Conservatory Opera Theater. She spent two seasons as a Young Artist with the Utah Symphony and Opera, and two summers as a Vocal Fellow with the Tanglewood Music Center. At Tanglewood, she sang the role of Mama in the U.S. stage premiere of Elliott Carter's opera, _What Next_, under the baton of James Levine. Van Eyck performed with the Utah Opera to sing Flora in _La Traviata_ and Alisa in _Lucia di Lammermoor_, and she spent the summer of 2007 as a member of the Apprentice Singer Program with the Santa Fe Opera. In addition, she will perform and record songs of composer George Crumb with Bridge Records (New York) and Orchestra 2001 of Philadelphia.
James Wilson
(piano) has performed at music festivals around the world such as the Hong Kong Arts Festival, the City of London Festival, the Deutches Mozartfest in Bavaria, the Mostly Mozart Festival in New York and the Aspen Music Festival in Colorado. Wilson has collaborated with such diverse artists as violinist Joshua Bell, flutist Eugenia Zukerman, pianist Christopher O’Riley, guitarist Eliot Fisk, actress Claire Bloom, and the Tokyo String Quartet. At home in New York City, he has performed with many groups including the Music of the Spheres Society, Music from Copland House, the Brooklyn Chamber Music Society, Music Under Construction, and the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, with which he has served as principal cellist. He has also been a member of the Shanghai and Chester String Quartets, touring extensively world-wide with both groups. Mr. Wilson’s performances have been broadcast on West German Radio and Bavarian Radio in Germany, CBC radio in Canada, and CBS television and National Public Radio in the USA. He has recorded for the Delos and Music Masters labels. Mr. Wilson currently teaches cello and chamber music at Columbia University. He has also served on the faculties of Princeton University, the University of Richmond, and Virginia Commonwealth University. He is the Artistic Director of the Richmond Festival of Music.