Artists   Doug Backenhus, bassoon   Martha Carapetyan, viola   Andrew Cooperstock, piano   Martha Dudgeon   Delaine Fedson, harp   Elizabeth Fontan-Binoche, harp   Mikal Hart, horn   Martha MacDonald, clarinet   Barbara Mahler, flute   Sibel Kumru-Pensel, flute   Pascal Saunier, viola   William Terwilliger, violin   David Utterback, piano   Claire Vangelisti, soprano
			Martha Carapetyan Martha has been playing viola for more than 25 years, both as a chamber musician and in orchestras. She has played with Austin Chamber Ensemble for the past several seasons and is also a member of the Austin Symphony. She has degrees in music performance from the University of North Texas (formerly, North Texas State University) and Indiana University. She especially enjoys collaborations with vocal and woodwind artists and is interested in exploring contemporary repertoire for unusual combinations of instruments. When Martha is not playing the viola she likes to hang out with her children, cook and read. Andrew Cooperstock Andrew Cooperstock performs widely as soloist and chamber musician and has appeared in most of the fifty states as well as throughout Europe, Australia, and Latin America. Recent engagements have included performances at New York's Alice Tully, Merkin, and Weill concert halls, as well as at the United Nations. He has also been featured in recitals and concerto appearances at the Chautauqua and Brevard music festivals, in Philadelphia, Detroit, Chicago, New Orleans, Minneapolis, and Baltimore, and in such foreign countries as England, Scotland, France, Monaco, Belgium, Holland, Sweden, Latvia, Peru, Chile, and Panama. A frequent media guest, he has appeared on National Public Radio's "Performance Today," WFMT Chicago's "Dame Myra Hess Concerts Series," WQXR New York's "McGraw-Hill Young Artists Showcase," and on Minnesota Public Radio, Radio France, and the Australian and British Broadcasting Corporations. An advocate for new music, he has premiered works by such American composers as Robert Starer and Paul Schoenfield. With violinist William Terwilliger he has recorded the complete works for piano and violin by Aaron Copland and performed them worldwide, receiving high praise from such publications as Strings and The Strad. Mr. Cooperstock was a prizewinner in the National Federation of Music Clubs Competition, the New Orleans International Piano Competition, and the U. S. Information Agency's Artistic Ambassador Auditions. A graduate of the Juilliard School and the Cincinnati and Peabody Conservatories, he studied with Abbey Simon, David-Bar-Illan, and Walter Hautzig, as well as with collaborative pianist Samuel Sanders. Formerly professor of piano at the University of Oklahoma, he is currently a member of the faculties at North Carolina's Brevard Music Center and the University of Colorado at Boulder. Martha Mortensen Dudgeon Martha Mortensen Dudgeon, a graduate of Westminster Choir College, Princeton, New Jersey, is an educator and pianist/collaborative artist.  She has performed in Europe and throughout the United States. She enjoys serving as accompanist for the Gilbert & Sullivan Society of Austin, performer on the St. Cecilia Music Series at First Presbyterian Church and for various other Central Texas events including First Night Austin at City Hall.  In addition to pianist, she also serves as Artistic Director for the Austin Chamber Ensemble.  'Marti' has been heard live in interviews and performances on local FM radio stations KMFA and KUT. She holds leadership positions with Music Teachers National Association (State and Local), American Guild of Organists and is a member of Mu Phi Epsilon.  As an educator, her students continue to receive Superior ratings in contests and festivals, as well as scholarships to attend Colleges and Universities as music majors and solos with the Austin Lyric Opera. She presented a Grammy Foundation ProSession piano master class in June 2006. Elizabeth Fontan-Binoche Elizabeth Fontan-Binoche won the prestigious Prix d'Israel, the highest distinction for the harp in the world, and acquired early an international reputation for her musicality and brio. She has taught in Paris, Lyon, Rome and Nice and gives concerts and master-classes all over the world, from Japan to the U.S. where she was invited by the Curtis Institute of Philadelphia. Her Kyoto recital won the National Award in Japan. As one of France's most gifted performers, Elizabeth Fontan-Binoche enchants audiences with her passion, her dynamics and her poetry. Her accomplishments are a wonderful homage to her master teacher, Marcel Tournier. Martha MacDonald Martha MacDonald holds degrees from Baylor University, the University of Michigan, and The University of Texas. She is an active chamber musician and has performed extensively throughout the United States and Europe as clarinetist with the Austin Chamber Ensemble and Trio Contraste, a violin, clarinet, piano trio. She can be heard in recordings on the International Clarinet Association CD Project and Chamber Music of Kathryn Mishell. She has taught woodwinds formerly in the Detroit and Houston areas, and at the American School of The Hague, The University of Texas and St. Stephens Episcopal School in Austin. In addition to performing she is Executive Director of the Austin Chamber Ensemble, President of Austin Young Artists Concerts, and maintains a private music studio of clarinet, flute and piano students. Sibel Kumru-Pensel Sibel Kumru-Pensel gave her first flute recital at the Istanbul opera at the age of 15 and came to France to study with Jean-Pierre Rampal, Alain Marion and Maxence Larrieu. She won the First Prize at the Lyon Music Superior National Conservatory and played as leading flutist in the PRO-UNESCO orchestra. She teaches now in Antibes and chairs the Flute Association A travers la flûte whose goal is the promotion of this instrument and the organization of conferences, competitions and master-classes. She gives recitals and chamber music concerts in France and abroad (Switzerland, Turkey, Corsica) and plays in the wind orchestra Opus Quintette. Pascal Saunier Pascal Saunier studied in Los Angeles with Milton THOMAS, in France with Suzanne BISTESI and Gérard CAUSSÉ and was a Fulbright scholar at the University of Austin, Texas. He was awarded the First Prize by the music Conservatory of Nice where he teaches now and a First Prize in chamber music by Radio France. He, too, loves to play chamber music and is the leading violist of the Ensemble Instrumental de Nice. He also plays in a string trio and is much appreciated for his perfect intonation and warm sonority. He has given concerts in Nice, Aix, Monaco , Paris, Switzerland and Italy. William Terwilliger William Terwilliger has established an active and diverse career as a performer and teacher on four continents. With pianist Andrew Cooperstock as the Terwilliger-Cooperstock Duo, he performed over 30 concerts in seven Latin American countries on a 1993 Artistic Ambassador tour sponsored by the US Information Agency. The duo has also performed throughout the United States and in Europe on repeated tours, including concerts throughout France, Holland, Belgium, England, Scotland, Sweden and Latvia. Recent appearances include a New York recital debut at Merkin Hall, performances at the Piccolo Spoleto Festival in Charleston and the Australian Festival of Chamber Music in Queensland, as well as upcoming concerts in London and Toronto. Their performances have been heard over NPR, the BBC, Radio France, as well as Latvian and Australian National Radio. Their CD recording of the Complete Works of Aaron Copland for Violin and Piano was recently released on the Azica label and was lauded by Strings magazine. As a sought-after pedagogue, Mr. Terwilliger has given master classes and clinics at numerous institutions across the US as well as in France, Sweden, England, Latvia, Bolivia, Panama and Australia. He was Associate Professor of Violin at The University of Toledo and violinist with the acclaimed Toledo Trio for nine years, and last year he was appointed to the faculty of the University of South Carolina in Columbia. This past summer marked his tenth season as an Artist Faculty member of the Brevard Music Center in North Carolina. Mr. Terwilliger received his doctorate from the Eastman School of Music, where he studied with Zvi Zeitlin and Donald Weilerstein. While at Eastman, he was first violinist with the award-winning Augustine String Quartet, which coached with the Cleveland, Emerson, Tokyo and Juilliard quartets, and concertized extensively throughout the US and Canada . David Utterback David Utterback is an active collaborative and solo pianist in the Austin area. Performing most often as a vocal accompanist, he is involved in a wide variety of musical endeavors including chamber music, opera, cabaret, and musical theater. He is the accompanist for the choirs of Chorus Austin and is a member of the piano faculty of Southwestern University. Claire Vangelisti Italian-American soprano, Claire Vangelisti's voice has graced both national and international stages. In 1998, her international debut was well received in Lisbon, Portugal at the Centro Cultural de Belém where she presented a solo recital of Twentieth Century American Music. Invited to return to Lisbon in 1999, Ms. Vangelisti performed an additional solo recital and toured as concert soloist with the Orchestra Filarmonia das Beiras under the baton of Osvaldo Ferrierra, where her renderings of Mozart arias acquired extensive audience acclaim. In the United States, Ms. Vangelisti has performed as concert soloist in many works including Mozart's "Great" Mass in C Minor, Missa Brevis in F Major, and Mass in C Major, as well as Schubert's Mass No. 2 in G Major, Vivaldi's Gloria, Rutter's Requiem, Handel's Judas Maccabaeus and Messiah, and Haydn's Lord Nelson Mass. Ms Vangelisti has appeared as a guest soloist with The Laredo Philharmonic Orchestra, The Texas Chamber Consort, Southwest Opera, the Capital City Men's Chorus, Austin Civic Chorus, Austin Civic Orchestra, and The Austin Chamber Ensemble. Ms. Vangelisti made her American operatic debut as an apprentice with the Austin Lyric Opera Young Artist Program, where she had the opportunity to perform several cameo roles in mainstage productions such as Rigoletto, The Ballad of Baby Doe, as well as the role of Papagena in Die Zauberflöte. She has continued her stage career singing Marsinah in Kismet with the San Antonio Symphony, Gianetta in L'Elisir d'Amore with The Lyric Opera of San Antonio, and has been a key player in the Gilbert and Sullivan Society of Austin, performing the roles of Lady Ella in Patience, of Josephine in H.M.S. Pinafore, Mabel in The Pirates of Penzance, and Gianetta in The Gondoliers. Her 2003 performance of Mabel in The Pirates of Penzance won a B. Iden Payne award for "Best Actress in a Musical" as well as a nomination for an Austin Critics Table award in the same category. Vangelisti holds a Doctorate of Musical Arts from the University of Texas.
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