Barriers

About Barriers

Feel your way through obstacles and impediments to movement with music from 1995 inspired by Amelia Earhart, the flinty, political and progressive works of Fred Rzewski that offer a space to be angry and reflective, and humanist, downtown composer Eve Beglarian’s idealistic rebellious episode Landscaping for Privacy.

Performers:

Kathlene Ritch, soprano
Gail Springer, vocalist
Yi-heng Yang, piano

Music of:

Leslie Wildman, Conrad Cummings, Fred Rzewski and Eve Beglarian

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Sterling Elliott

Cello

Sterling Elliott began his cello studies at the age of three and made his solo debut at the age of 7. Sterling’s recent accomplishments include being awarded 1st prize in the Senior Division of the 2019 22nd Annual Sphinx Competition in 2019. In October of 2018 Sterling had his solo debut at Carnegie Hall where Frank Daykin of New York Concert Review wrote: “The very fine young cellist Sterling Elliott played two movements from Cassadó’s Suite for Solo Cello with perfect intonation, style, and total involvement.”

Sterling has attended The Taos School of Music, Kneisel Hall, Perlman Music Program, Aspen Music Festival, and will participate in Music@Menlo, Chamberfest Cleveland, and Perlman Music Program.

Additionally, he has soloed with the New York Philharmonic, The Cleveland Orchestra, Virginia Symphony Orchestra, Boston Symphony Orchestra, New World Symphony, Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra, San Francisco Chamber Orchestra, as well as a performance at the 2019 World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. Sterling currently studies with Joel Krosnick at the Juilliard School working towards an undergraduate degree in Cello Performance where he is a recipient of a Kovner Fellowship.

Sam Rosenthal

Viola

Sam Rosenthal, viola is from Shaker Heights, OH. He is in the studios of Heidi Castleman and Hsin-Yun Huang at the Juilliard School where he is a recipient of the Kovener Fellowship award.

Oliver Neubauer

Violin

Praised for his sensitive and uniquely beautiful playing, violinist Oliver Neubauer is establishing himself as an artist of great emotional depth and maturity beyond his years.

This past season, Oliver appeared with the Jupiter Chamber Players, performed as guest concertmaster with the Adelphi Orchestra (as winner of their 2020 competition), and performed virtual concerts for Music@Menlo and String Theory at the Hunter. Oliver has been invited to attend the Perlman Music Program Chamber Workshop as well as the Verbier Festival Academy in the summer of 2021. He will also give numerous performances at Bravo! Vail Music Festival and Music from Angel Fire.

Katherine Leidlein

Vocalist

Katherine Leidlein is a New York based singer and actor originally from Texas where she received a Degree in Vocal Performance from The University of Texas in San Antonio. Her favorite roles include playing Laurie in “The Tenderland” at Seattle Opera Academy, Lily in “The Secret Garden” at The San Antonio Playhouse, Papagena in “Die Zauberflöte” with Manhattan Opera Studio, Adele in “Die Fledermaus” at UTSA Lyric Theatre, and Meg in “Little Women” at The Public Theatre of San Antonio. Her most recent credits include Lena in “One Starry Night” tour of China, Becky US/Ensemble in “It Came From Beyond” at St. Luke’s Off-Broadway Theatre, and The Grand Dame in “Fate Still Rests with Vox Lumiere. She also sang on National Public Radio’s “From The Top” and appeared in the TV show “Evil Lives Here” and the podcast “Last Stop” by Multitude. As well as an industrial for Oxford University Press and other National Commercials.

Lucian Avalon

Oboe

Oboist Lucian Avalon, 23, has enjoyed an eclectic musical career beginning at age 6, which has taken him from Zimbabwean marimba, to Santa Fe Opera vocalist, to classical oboist. He is currently completing his Masters of Music degree at The Juilliard School under the tutelage of Elaine Douvas, with additional instruction from Nathan Hughes and Linda Strommen (Oboe), Richard Dallessio and Scott Hostetler (English Horn), and is a proud recipient of both the Jerome L. Greene Fellowship and the Michael S. Currier Scholarship. For two years he attended high school at the Interlochen Arts Academy where he studied with Daniel Stolper. Upon graduation he received the Academy’s highest honor, the IAA Young Artist Award, and was named a National YoungArts Foundation Honorable Mention winner. Previously he studied with Pamela Epple, Artistic Director of Serenata of Santa Fe, for seven years.

Lucian has played under the baton of many influential conductors including Alan Gilbert, David Robertson, Jeffrey Milarsky, Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla, Gary Wedow, Edward Gardner, Robert Spano, and Hugh Wolff, and has performed with the Juilliard Orchestras, New York String Orchestra, New World Symphony (FL), Montclair (NJ) Orchestra, Boulder (CO) Symphony, Music and Medicine Orchestra (NY), New York Youth Symphony, and all of the Aspen Music Festival and School orchestras. His chamber performances include the New Juilliard Ensemble, AXIOM, and Aspen Contemporary Ensemble for new music, and Juilliard Chamberfest 2018, Cantori New York, Apple Hill Center for Chamber Music, and the Juilliard Chamber Orchestra at Alice Tully Hall.

Recently, Lucian was recognized as a National Finalist and the Texas Regional Winner of the National Society of Arts & Letters 2018 Woodwind Competition, a Juilliard 2018 Concerto Competition Finalist, a finalist for the Pittsburgh (PA) Symphony and for the New World Symphony (FL).

His summer studies have included the Aspen Music Festival and School, Brevard Music Center, Sewanee Music Center, Apple Hill Center for Chamber Music, and National Orchestral Institute. He has played side-by-side with leading oboists, including Elaine Douvas, Alex Klein, Mingjia Liu, and Elizabeth Koch-Tiscione; and has performed in Master Classes with Francois Leleux, Olivier Stankiewicz, Stefan Schilli, and John Ferrillo.

Born and raised in the small, rural village of Coyote, New Mexico, Lucian recognizes the value of community. Since middle school he has organized concerts to fund local farmers markets, homeless shelters, and the Santa Fe Food Depot. In NYC, he mentors students from the NY Youth Symphony, Juilliard Pre-College and the Music Advancement Program, (serving underprivileged and underrepresented students), and regularly performs in the Juilliard Lab Orchestra with student conductors.

In addition to oboe, Lucian was trained as a competitive figure skater and became a USFS Moves Gold Medalist in 2013.

Kathleen McIntosh

Harpsichord

Like most musicians, Kathleen McIntosh found most of her 2020 engagements cancelled. The Postcard project has been a delightful respite, and she was also invited to “layer in” a continuo part for a production of the Havana based group, Conjunto de Musica Antigua Ars Longa. Another such project awaits with Cuban recorder virtuoso, Raul Zaballa, for a festival in Chile. She is nearly through Bach's monumental “Art of Fugue”, perhaps for a future performance.

Phoenix Avalon

Violin

Phoenix Avalon, is passionate about his study of the violin, being the proud recipient of a Kovner Fellowship at the Juilliard School, studying with Itzhak Perlman and Li Lin.

Previously, he was a scholarship student at the Cleveland Institute of Music Young Artist Program with Jaime Laredo and Jan Sloman. Phoenix studied chamber music with members of the Cavani and Cleveland Quartets and attended the Meadowmount School of Music and the Perlman Music Program.

Phoenix has enjoyed solo performances with the Jena Philharmonic, the Cleveland POPS Orchestra, the Boulder Symphony, the Arapahoe Philharmonic, the New Mexico Philharmonic, and Performance Santa Fe Orchestras. He has been featured on USA national radio programs Performance Today and From the Top, as well as giving a solo presentation for TedXABQ.

Phoenix has won numerous competitions, most recently receiving first place at the Louis Spohr International Violin Competition, third place at the Johansen International Competition and Silver Medal at The Fischoff National Chamber Music Association as a member of the Razumovsky Quartet. He is honored to also be a recipient of a 2019 EMCY Prize.

Actively dedicated to community service, Phoenix has played for numerous fundraisers and outreach programs, and has developed and toured an interactive presentation of classical music history for school children as part of ‘From the Top’s Leadership Training’. Phoenix is grateful to be playing on a Jean-Baptiste Vuillaume violin, c. 1850, generously loaned by Kenneth Warren and Son Ltd. of Chicago. In addition to violin, enjoys philosophy, history and cooking.

Mike Kelley

Viola

Mike Kelley, Apple Hill String Quartet violist and Co-Artistic Director at the Apple Hill Center for Chamber Music, graduated from The Walnut Hill School for the Arts and has received degrees from Oberlin Conservatory and The Juilliard School. His teachers have included Leonard Matczynski, Jeffrey Irvine, and Karen Tuttle.

A Primrose International Viola Competition finalist at the age of 18, Mike joined the resident ensemble of the Apple Hill Center for Chamber Music three years later and has been performing and touring internationally with the group for over 20 years. He is the Music Director and Coordinator of Apple Hill’s Summer Chamber Music Workshop where he directs sessions, performs concerts, and coaches chamber music throughout the summer in New Hampshire.

An active composer, Mike has been a Teaching Fellow in Electronic Music at Juilliard, and a guest lecturer at Harvard on the subject of electronic dance music. Under a pop-disco alias, he has performed worldwide in clubs such as Webster Hall (NYC), the O2 (London), and Berghain (Berlin), and has written and produced music for many pop acts, including Metro Area, Caribou, Madonna, and Pharrell. His albums have been selected for the “best of the decade” lists of music magazines Stylus and Fact, and have been highly recommended by Entertainment Weekly, Pitchfork, and the Guardian.

Max Zeugner

Double Bass

Bassist Max Zeugner is currently Associate Principal Bass with the New York Philharmonic. Previously he served as Principal Bass with the BBC Philharmonic and the Royal Northern Sinfonia, and was a member of the Netherlands Philharmonic. A native of Worcester, MA, Max attended the Juilliard School and Boston University before working as a chamber and orchestral musician in Europe for 8 years. He now resides in New York City, where he teaches at the Mannes College of Music and is an avid tennis player.

Kathlene Ritch

Soprano

Kathlene is comfortable performing in many different genres – early music, choral, and sacred, to musical theater and cabaret. From having grown up in church choirs and summer stock, with a year in Salzburg studying music after high school, to the halls of the University of Texas in Austin, Kathlene found a common thread in whatever style she was performing…the connection with the audience.

After earning a Bachelor’s of Music Studies degree from the University of Texas at Austin, she moved to New York City where she sang with such noted ensembles as the New York Philharmonic, London Sinfonietta, and the Vienna Philharmonic. In 2001, she made her solo debut at Lincoln Center with the American Symphony Orchestra in Liszt’s Dante’s Inferno.

Kathlene’s true passion, musical theater, has been a lifelong pursuit. Her first role came at the age of 4, when she was cast as Marta in The Sound of Music. Some of her favorite roles include Sandy in Grease, Adelaide in Guys and Dolls, Maria in The Sound of Music, and Eliza in My Fair Lady. Two of her career highlights were performing Sweeney Todd at Lincoln Center with George Hearn, Patti Lupone and Neil Patrick Harris, as well as the concert version of Carousel at Carnegie Hall with Audra McDonald and Hugh Jackman. She is also an experienced music director, having led from behind the piano for Oklahoma!, Follies, Working, The Fantasticks, and Godspell, to name a few.

In 2011, Kathlene moved to Santa Fe to be the accompanist for the Santa Fe High School Choral Department and the Director of the Royal School of Church Music at the Church of the Holy Faith. In 2012, she became an on-air announcer for Classical 95.5 KHFM Albuquerque/Santa Fe, for which she has received a New Mexico Broadcasting Award. In 2016, Kathlene joined the voice faculty at the Santa Fe University of Art and Design in their musical theater program. She still continues to sing with such groups as the Santa Fe Desert Chorale and the Grammy-winning ensemble Conspirare, with whom she is a featured soloist in their PBS special “Conspirare, a Company of Voices” and their most recently Grammy-nominated “Considering Matthew Shepard” CD.

Barriers

About Barriers

Performers:

Music of:

Support our Concert Videos

Concert Video: Barriers

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Sterling Elliott

Cello

Sam Rosenthal

Viola

Oliver Neubauer

Violin

Katherine Leidlein

Vocalist

Lucian Avalon

Oboe

Kathleen McIntosh

Harpsichord

Phoenix Avalon

Violin

Mike Kelley

Viola

Max Zeugner

Double Bass

Kathlene Ritch

Soprano

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