Igal Kesselman
- Director, Lucy Moses School
- Music Director, Special Music School
- Artistic Director, Kaufman Music Center International Youth Piano Competition
Praised for his “kaleidoscopic” playing by the New York Times, pianist IGAL KESSELMAN is one of today’s most forward-thinking performers and music educators. After making his American debut with the Washington Chamber Symphony at the Kennedy Center, he has performed throughout the country in such venues as Alice Tully Hall, Symphony Space and Merkin Hall at Kaufman Music Center in NYC; the Corcoran Gallery in Washington, D.C.; and the Kravis Center in West Palm Beach. Dr. Kesselman was a top prizewinner at “Citta de Marsala” International Piano Competition in Italy and has performed as a soloist with many orchestras, including the Annapolis Symphony Orchestra and the Israeli Camerata.
Highlights from recent seasons include performance of Mozart’s Double Concerto with pianist Orli Shaham and the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra USA, solo recitals for subscription series at Tel Aviv University and Arizona State University, and performances with Rob Kapilow on the What Makes It Great? series at Merkin Hall. He also conducted Masterclasses at Oberlin Conservatory, the Colburn School in Los Angeles, Buchmann-Mehta School of Music at Tel Aviv University, Boston University Tanglewood Institute in Lenox MA, Jerusalem Academy of Music, and Arizona State University at Tempe.
Dr. Kesselman is a past recipient of ten America-Israel Cultural Foundation Scholarships. He received his B.M. degree, cum laude, from S. Rubin Academy of Music in Tel Aviv, and his M.M. and D.M.A. degrees from Peabody Conservatory of Music in Baltimore. His teachers have included Yoheved Kaplinsky, Emanuel Krasovsky and Irina Zaritskaya. Currently, he serves as the Director of Lucy Moses School and Music Director of Special Music School (M. 859) at Kaufman Music Center in Manhattan, at curates the popular Tuesday Matinees series at Kaufman’s Merkin Hall.
Dr. Kesselman serves frequently as a judge in international competitions and auditions, including Concert Artist Guild, New Orleans International Piano Competition, Astral Artists, Virginia Wering International Piano Competition and Boston University. He is also the Founder and Artistic Director of the Kaufman Music Center International Youth Piano Competition. Dr. Kesselman is a member of the piano faculty at Lucy Moses School and Special Music School at Kaufman Music Center.
Adam Golka
Polish-American pianist ADAM GOLKA first performed all of Beethoven’s 32 Piano Sonatas when he was 18 years-old, and he returned to the complete cycle in 2020-2021 for performances in NYC, Orlando, and Houston. He also presented all-Beethoven live streams for presenters in Ventura, El Paso, Sitka, Spokane, and the Library of Congress. Adam’s performances and presentations were complemented by 32 short films he created, known as ’32@32″ (available on YouTube), featuring not only conversations with legends such as Alfred Brendel and Leon Fleisher, but also connecting the Sonatas to other disciplines through dialogues with an astrophysicist, philosopher, magician, painter, and a child, to name only a few special guests.
As a concerto soloist, Adam has appeared as soloist with dozens of orchestras, including the BBC Scottish Symphony, NACO (Ottawa), Warsaw Philharmonic, Shanghai Philharmonic, as well as the San Francisco, Atlanta, Houston, Dallas, Milwaukee, Indianapolis, New Jersey, Seattle, Fort Worth, Jacksonville, and San Diego symphonies. He has performed with eminent conductors such as Pinchas Zukerman, Donald Runnicles, JoAnn Falletta, and Mark Wigglesworth.
Adam performed recitals as part of the “Sir Andras Schiff Selects” project at Klavier-Festival Ruhr (Essen), Tonhalle Zürich, Maison de France (Berlin), and 92Y Subculture (NYC). Adam has also performed solo recitals at Alice Tully Hall (NYC), Concertgebouw Kleine Zall (Amsterdam), Musashino Hall (Tokyo), and for Cliburn at the Kimbell. Chamber music is an integral part of Adam Golka’s musical life. He performs frequently with the Manhattan Chamber Players, he has participated in the Marlboro Music Festival, and he is a regular of the Krzyżowa-Music “Music for Europe” festival.
Mark Latham
Born in Tanzania and educated in the United Kingdom and the USA, MARK LATHAM has been active as a violinist, violist, composer, conductor, chamber musician and teacher in the UK, Canada and the US, where he resides.
Mark Latham received his musical training at the Guildhall School (London), the Philadelphia College of Performing Arts, Brooklyn College Conservatory, and the University of Michigan, where he earned his Doctor of Musical Arts in Orchestral Conducting. Mark was privileged to have studied with some of the great musicians and pedagogues of the past century: violin with Masao Kawasaki, Dorothy DeLay and Itzhak Perlman; and chamber music with the Juilliard, Emerson and American Quartets, with Eugene Lehner of the Kolisch Quartet, and Zoltan Zekely of the Hungarian Quartet.
As a violinist, he was a member of the Atlantic String Quartet for 6 years in St. John’s, Canada, where he made many recordings with CBC Radio. He has been a regular with Emmanuel Music in Boston and the New England Bach Festival, and previously was a member of the New Hampshire, Delaware and New Haven Symphonies. He is a founding member of the Aryaloka String Quartet, whose performances have included a UK tour. The quartet was lauded by the Boston Musical Intelligencer for its ‘instantaneous kinetic energy’.
Mark’s primary conducting mentors were Kenneth Kiesler and Gustav Meier, Larry Rachlef, Marin Alsop and Helmuth Rilling. He has served as music director of several orchestras in Canada, Michigan and New England, including the Nashua Chamber Orchestra and the Cambridge Symphony. In Michigan, he was music director of the Gilbert and Sullivan Society. He has conducted the Cabrillo Festival Orchestra in Santa Cruz, CA, the Oregon Bach Festival Orchestra, the MIT Symphony Orchestra, and the Sempre Musick Orchestra.
He has conducted numerous world premieres, and his own works have been performed in the UK, Canada and the US including at New York’s 92nd St. Y. Recent seasons have included directing the All City Orchestra in Salem, Oregon; conducting Mary Poppins in Chelmsford, MA; directing the New Hampshire All State Chamber Orchestra; and premiering a new Requiem by the Vermont composer Robert Griffin as well as a trilogy of operas in Boston and New Hampshire.
Latham holds a deep belief that music is transformational and can be a broad and powerful educational and social medium for both children and adults. He has conducted many youth and community orchestras, and led music seminars and workshops at all levels in the US, Canada and Europe. He was music director of the New Hampshire Youth Symphony Orchestra and the Concord Academy Orchestra, and has taught composition and general music at MusicWorks in the UK, a chamber music program for Europe’s finest young string and piano players. Each summer he conducts and coaches amateur musicians at CAMMAC in Quebec, and directs the orchestra and gives master classes at the Iceberg Chamber Music Institute in Newfoundland. Mark led the University Orchestra at the University of Massachusetts, Lowell for 12 years, where he taught as professor of conducting, violin and viola, and chamber music.
Mark lives in Somerville, MA, with his wife Theresa, several cats, and many books.
David Feltner
Conductor DAVID FELTNER has been acclaimed by The Boston Globe for leading performances of “profound expressivity” and praised for his “fervent advocacy” by The Boston Phoenix. Equally at home in the symphonic and operatic worlds, he has served as Associate Conductor and Chorus Master for Boston Lyric Opera and Cover Conductor for Keith Lockhart and the Boston Pops.
He is in his twenty-fourth season as Music Director of the Chamber Orchestra of Boston, a group that has won accolades from audiences and critics alike for its polished performances and innovative programs. As Steven Ledbetter wrote in The Boston Music Intelligencer: “David Feltner put together a truly captivating program …one of the most completely satisfying concerts that I have heard this season.” As Michael Rocha wrote in The Boston Music Intelligencer: “All told, an immensely satisfying experience that left both heart and mind sated.” And as Geoffrey Wieting wrote in The Boston Music Intelligencer: “This performance will surely resound in many memories for a long time.”
Mr. Feltner has also been thrilling audiences in New Hampshire for the past eighteen seasons as Music Director of the Nashua Chamber Orchestra, where his leadership caused music critic Jeff Rapsis to write: “Conductor David Feltner brought the Nashua Chamber Orchestra to new places.” In 2022 he was appointed Music Director of the Merrimack Valley Philharmonic Orchestra.
He has been a guest conductor for several orchestras, including the Boston Civic Symphony, Brockton Symphony Orchestra, Adelphi Chamber Orchestra, Topeka Symphony Orchestra, Narragansett Bay Symphony, Rhode Island Philharmonic Community Orchestra and Intermezzo: The New England Chamber Opera Series.
An enthusiastic advocate for music of our time, Mr. Feltner has conducted numerous premieres and works by dozens of living composers, from Anaís Azul to Ellen Taaffe Zwilich. Mr. Feltner is also an accomplished violist and composer. As a violist, he has performed with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Boston Pops, Boston Lyric Opera, Boston Modern Orchestra Project, Yamagata (Japan) Symphony, New York City Opera and Palm Beach Opera. His recent orchestral compositions include Dreams and Awakenings for trumpet and strings, Piccolo Concerto (The Night Sky and Wind in the Trees) and From the Depths for viola and orchestra, which he premiered in June 2023.
Jotaro Nakano
Conductor JOTARO NAKANO creates music to bring people closer together. Jotaro’s performances are frequently praised for his thoughtful and innovative programs that are as artistically beautiful as are enriching for the soul.
Currently, Jotaro directs the Longwood Symphony Orchestra, the orchestra of Boston’s medical and healthcare communities; and the SA’Oaxaca Strings International Music Festival Orchestra, the first tuition-free chamber string music festival in Oaxaca, Mexico. Jotaro’s continued partnerships with both of these organizations come as natural continuations of his mission as an impassioned citizen artist who seeks to connect and inspire underprivileged communities with the deeply moving and uplifting powers of art and music.
As a child of Japanese immigrants – a jazz drumming father and a dancing piano playing mother – Jotaro enjoyed a vibrantly multicultural and artistically wide-ranging childhood that left him with a unique curiosity to explore all of the world’s expressive possibilities.
While completing his doctorate at the Peabody Conservatory of Music, Jotaro served as the Peabody Arts in Health Fellow at the Johns Hopkins Hospital, allowing him to explore the many vibrant intersections between arts and healing. Today, with the Longwood Symphony Orchestra, Jotaro leads the Healing Art of Music™ program – leveraging the far-reaching platform of his orchestral performances to help raise funds for, and amplify the impact of, our local nonprofit organizations. Over the years, the Healing Art of Music™ has helped raise millions of dollars for our valuable community partners.
Since its founding in 2019, Jotaro has served as the orchestra director of SA’Oaxaca. Its mission is to provide “excellent educational opportunities to underserved Mexican string instrumentalists, and increase the study and promotion of Latin American and Hispanic chamber music compositions.” Through this large-scale international cultural exchange, Jotaro has performed with hundreds of talented Latin American musicians, and looks forward to returning to Oaxaca every summer.
In the past, Jotaro has served as the Music Director of the Ann Arbor Camerata; Cover Conductor for the Baltimore Symphony, American Composers Orchestra, and San Diego Symphony; and Conducting Fellow of the Long Beach Symphony. His vibrantly multicultural musical life has allowed him to share the stage with musicians across Mexico, the Czech Republic, Romania, and all across the United States. With every new project, Jotaro’s commitment is to maximize artistic collaboration to fill this world with wonder and hope.
Lawrence Rosen
LAWRENCE ROSEN entered The Juilliard School Pre-College Division at eight for one year. He received B.S. and M.S. degrees from Juilliard in composition and piano, studying with Vincent Persichetti, Roger Sessions, and Luciano Berio. He held the Richard Rodgers scholarship for a year, was awarded the Freschl Prize, was granted a Teaching Fellowship at Juilliard, and subsequently joined the Juilliard and Manhattan School of Music faculties while still a student, retiring from institutional teaching at twenty-two.
Mr. Rosen made his New York piano debut at Carnegie Hall, 1983, performing works of J. S. Bach, Charles Ives, Cole Porter, and Lawrence Rosen. He was a Student/Fellow at Tanglewood Music Center for one summer. He served as Assistant to Italian composer Luciano Berio in Rome for a year, composing, arranging, performing, and conducting throughout Western Europe.
Mr. Rosen is a prolific composer, with numerous musical works (music, lyrics, and other incedental music) for on-Broadway and off-Broadway theatres, and many other non-commercial and workshopped shows.
Highlights:
- Composer in residence and musical director, Williamstown Theater Festival, composing incidental music for several mainstage plays starring (among many others) Frank Langella, Blythe Danner and Joel Grey, and creating a weekly cabaret-style review.
- Music and Lyrics for The Phantom of the Opera (original production at the Hirschfeld Theater), subsequently over 50 productions, Carbonell award, movie (a film of the stage version) of same on PBS, première at the 57 Street Playhouse (now the Directors Guild Theater.)
- Sterling Patron Award, Steinway Hall, 1997.
- 2010-11: one of 17 composers chosen (along with Jason Robert Brown, Andrew Lippa, Milton Babbitt, etc.) for inclusion in the choral series Mr. President (composing a vocal quartet on words of Thomas Jefferson) premièred on NPR, published by Subito Music, 2014.
- Former Editor-In-Chief for Piano, The Schirmer Library of Musical Classics. Member, the Dramatists Guild. Member ASCAP, permanent member of the ASCAP Special Classification Committee.
- Over 50 original compositions, arrangements, transcriptions in print (or, out of print), including concert paraphrases of The Songs of Stephen Foster, published in 2001 by G. Schirmer. Special Projects Editor, CD Sheet Music Library, a comprehensive catalog of scores in digital format, published by Subito Music Corporation.
- Created the piano-vocal scores for Pulitzer Prize winner Paul Moravec’s operas The Letter and The Shining.
- Music and Lyrics for the new musical Gatsby, in collaboration with Daniel Landon, adapted from the F. Scott Fitzgerald novel.
- The Accompaniment Studio (a Subito Music Corporation product): created and recorded a series of (several hundred) piano accompaniments of masterworks for learning, study, and practice.
- Contracted by the Gershwin Estate to create a new piano-vocal score for DuBose Heyward and George and Ira Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess, based on the definitive version of the complete opera (not to be confused with the recent, rewritten Broadway version) by Wayne Shirley of Yale University, completed 2016.
- 2017: by arrangement with G. Schirmer, Inc., and the estate of Sergei Prokofiev, copyright holders, creation of an original stage musical based upon Prokofiev’s Peter And The Wolf, and Lucky, a one-act prequel to the Peter And The Wolf stage musical, scenario/libretto, music, and lyrics, now scheduled for production late 2022 (pandemic-delayed.)
- Recently completed the book, music, and lyrics for an original musical, Eternal Stages, about the early days of the Yiddish Theater in America.
- 2021: Book, Music, and Lyrics for an original, two-character musical, Central Park Bench; from the 1924 original Gershwin/Whiteman/Grofé première score, creation of an updated, contemporary version of Rhapsody in Blue, announced for publication in Spring of 2022.
- August, 2022: world première of the new musical, Gatsby, An American Musical (see above,) with a cast of 25 at the Woodstock Playhouse, Woodstock, NY.
Choah Kim
Characterized by her penchant for authentic and scholarly interpretation of musical arts, Dr. CHOAH KIM is recognized for her versatility as both a soloist and chamber musician. Born in Seoul, South Korea, Dr. Kim has performed at renowned venues across the United States, Europe, and Asia, including Carnegie Hall’s Weill Recital Hall, Lincoln Center’s Bruno Walter Auditorium, Palais des Beaux-Arts in Belgium, Musikverein Gläserner Saal and Mozarthaus in Austria, Tsai Performance Center, Miriam A. Friedberg Concert Hall, Seoul Arts Center, and Sejong Center for the Performing Arts, among others.
Dr. Kim began her musical journey at Sunhwa Arts Middle and High School before earning her Bachelor of Music degree from Seoul National University, graduating summa cum laude. She pursued her Master of Music in Piano Performance at the Peabody Institute of Johns Hopkins University with Prof. Alexander Shtarkman and completed her Doctor of Musical Arts degree at Boston University under Prof. Pavel Nersessian. Her doctoral dissertation, titled “The Choreographic Character Piece for Piano Solo, Cinderella by Prokofiev,” was completed under the guidance of Prof. Jason Yust.
Throughout her academic journey, Dr. Kim received numerous honors, including merit scholarships from Sunhwa Arts High School, Seoul National University, and Peabody Institute. She was awarded the Graduate Association Scholarship at Seoul National University, the Peggy and Yale Gordon Accompanist Recognition Prize, the Aaron Richmond Scholarship, and was inducted into the prestigious music honor society Pi Kappa Lambda, receiving the Esther B. and Albert S. Kahn Award. Dr. Kim has garnered multiple awards from the Music Education Newspaper Competition, Haneum Music Competition, Ari Music Competition, Shinye Music Competition, Universal Music Competition, Bradshaw & Buono International Piano Competition, and the CAI Virtuoso International Competition, among others.
As an educator, Dr. Kim has judged numerous youth piano competitions across the United States and has been recognized with Certificates of Excellence in Pedagogy from the National Young Maestro Competition, Golden Key International Music Festival, International Music and Arts Society, and Yamaha Music Education System. Her students have consistently excelled in regional and international competitions, performing at esteemed venues such as Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, Kaufman Music Center, Baruch Performing Arts Center, and Yamaha Hall in Japan
Dr. Kim previously taught group piano and applied lessons at Boston University as a teaching assistant, and is currently a piano faculty at Westminster Conservatory of Rider University. She remains active as a solo pianist and chamber musician, recently releasing “Romance and Fantasy,” the third album with Flano Duo, featuring romantic sonatas.
Yiming Wu
YIMING WU (wuyiming.org), is a composer based in Massachusetts, USA. He is the founder of The May Flower Art Center(MFAC), graduated from the Central Conservatory of Music in China and Peabody Institute of Johns Hopkins University.
In 2006, he was the first Chinese composer to participate and win the Third Prize of the Takemistsu Composition Award in Japan (full orchestra) at the age of 23.
In 2008, he won Second Place in the third Harelbeke International Composition Competition in Belgium.
In 2010, He was the recipient of the BMW Musica Viva Composition Prize in Germany.
Yiming Wu’s original concert music has been performed worldwide by notable orchestras such as Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra, Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, Beijing Symphony Orchestra, Belgium Royal Wind Orchestra, Occasional Symphony, etc.
In 2017, Yiming Wu founded the May Flower Art Center (MFAC) in Maryland, which focuses on guiding young composers to reach the professional level with a creative and efficient teaching methodology created by Mr. Wu.
For years, Mr. Wu’s May Flower Art Center has cultivated numerous winners in various competitions, such as BMI Composer Award, the ASCAP Morton Gould Young Composer Award, National Youth Orchestra – USA (Apprentice Composer), the American Prize, Young Arts National Competition, Emerging Composers Competition, Luna Composition Lab, MTNA national Composition, and others.
His students are located globally, including the United States, Canada, China, Australia, Singapore, and Switzerland.
Mila Filatova
One of the most sought-after piano teachers in New England, MILA FILATOVA (www.MilaFilatova.com) is a student of Prof. Albert Tarakanov, a pupil of legendary Henryk Neuhaus. From an early age, Mila was considered a child prodigy in her native city of Saratov, and was a frequently featured soloist on live radio and television. At the age of 16, composer Dmitry Kabalevsky awarded her as the best performer of his compositions.
After her arrival to the US in 1999, she collaborated in a series of Piano Duet Recitals with the renowned American pianist Frank Glazer, performed with the Metropolitan Wind Ensemble, and established her Piano Academy in Manchester, NH. In 2016, Mila founded Sempre Musick, an organization which provides young musicians with opportunities to perform onstage, including with the Sempre Musick orchestra.
Mila’s students have received awards in many competitions across the USA, Germany, Spain, Bulgaria, Italy, and Russia, including the MTNA National Competitions. Her students have participated in the Van Cliburn Junior Festival, and have been selected as finalists for the Kaufman Music Center International Piano Competition and the Ettlingen International Piano Competition. Her students have also been featured as soloists on the NPR-broadcasted From the Top.
For many years, Mila Filatova served the New Hampshire Music Teachers Association as a Vice President, and was recognized with the NHMTA’s Sister Anita Marchesseault Award for her contributions. She has been recognized as a “Top Piano Teacher” by Steinway & Sons. Mila Filatova has been honored with a Citation by the Governor of New Hampshire in recognition of her outstanding contributions to music education.