Music from Copland House Artists

Derek Bermel

DEREK BERMEL ("A truly exceptional talent" The New York Times) has premiered dozens of clarinet works, including his own concerto with the American Composers Orchestra at Carnegie Hall. A recipient of the 2001 Rome Prize and 1999 Guggenheim Award, he is co-founder of the interdisciplinary ensemble TONK, and has performed with the BBC Symphony, Los Angeles Philharmonic, and Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, at the Aspen Music Festival, and in concert in New York, Paris, Amsterdam, the Hague, Jerusalem, Los Angeles, and other cities around the world. His many honors include Fulbright and Javits Fellowships, several ASCAP Awards, the Brian Israel Prize, Quinto Maganini Award, and New York Foundation for the Arts Creative Artists Fellowship.

Michael Boriskin

Pianist and Copland House Artistic and Executive Director MICHAEL BORISKIN is “one of the world’s most valuable piano virtuosos” (The New York Observer). He has performed in over 30 countries, appearing with leading international orchestras and at many of the world‘s foremost concert venues, including Lincoln Center (on its Great Performers Series), Carnegie Hall, the BBC, South West German Radio, and Vienna‘s Arnold Schoenberg Center, among many others. He played an important role at the New York Philharmonic’s Completely Copland Festival in 1999, and co-hosted CENTURYVIEW on NPR for three seasons. He is a prolific recording artist, with a large discography ranging widely from Brahms and Tchaikovsky to the present on BMG/Conifer, Harmonia Mundi, New World, Albany, Koch International, and many other labels.

Paul Lustig Dunkel

"No guessing is necessary about PAUL LUSTIG DUNKEL's stature as a musician and instrumentalist. Playing of his deft and stylistically impeccable kind is rare, whether the music is new or old" (The New York Times). Flutist, Music Director of the Westchester Philharmonic, and long-time Resident Conductor and co-founder of the American Composers Orchestra at Carnegie Hall, he has performed internationally and at major festivals such as Aspen, Stratford, Spoleto, Casals, and Music from Marlboro. Winner of the Leopold Stokowski Conducting Award and a Grammy nominee, he has recorded on New World, CRI, Summit, and other labels. An original member of Speculum Musicae and a member of the Contemporary Chamber Ensemble, he has expanded the flute repertory through numerous commissions and premieres; his latest commission won the 1999 Pulitzer Prize for composer Melinda Wagner, and is recorded for Bridge Records.

Nicholas Kitchen

"NICHOLAS KITCHEN's performance swept all before it – strong and varied in gesture, direct in emotion, technically adroit, the whole of it surging along as if on a single impulse" (The Boston Globe). First violinist of the Borromeo String Quartet, he has appeared in two dozen countries in the world’s most illustrious concert halls, including the Berlin Philharmonie, Zurich Tonhalle, Amsterdam Concertgebouw, Opera Bastille, and London’s Wigmore Hall. He began his performing career in his native North Carolina, where he is on the faculty of the Fletcher School of Performing Arts, and where he has hosted North Carolina Public TV’s Performance Showcase mentoring young violinists. He has settled in Boston, where the Borromeo Quartet serves on the faculty of the New England Conservatory of Music as Quartet-in-Residence.

Wilhelmina Smith

Cellist WILHELMINA SMITH ("winningly individual" The New York Times) made her debut with the Philadelphia Orchestra and was a prizewinner in the Leonard Rose International Cello Competition. She has appeared with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, Moscow Chamber Orchestra, American Chamber Players, and Music from Marlboro, and at the Chamber Music Festival in the Palaces of St. Petersburg and the La Jolla and Marblehead Chamber Music Festivals, among many others. She is Artistic Director of the Salt Bay Chamberfest in Maine, which she founded, and Florida’s Pensacola Chamber Music Festival, and is a member of The Mannes Trio.