Mr. Rudiakov is active as a conductor and violist. His collaborations in both areas have included performances with many renowned musicians and ensembles. Among them; Ruth Laredo, Stanley Drucker, the Shanghai Quartet, Eudice Shapiro, Camerata New York, Andre-Michel Schub, Christopher Taylor, the New York Pro Arte Chamber Orchestra, Ani Kavafian, Sharon Robinson, members of the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, Jaime Laredo and members of the Juilliard, Guarneri and Tokyo string quartets, among others. He is a founding member of the New York Piano Quartet and the String Orchestra of New York City (SONYC), and has performed extensively in the USA and abroad.
Mr. Rudiakov has served on the faculties of Bennington, Middlebury and Green Mountain Colleges, and was appointed Artistic Director of the Manchester (VT) Music Festival in 2001, succeeding his late father. He has held guest and permanent conducting posts with the Metropolitan Symphony, the Adelphi Chamber Orchestra and the Bergen Philharmonic. Currently he is on the faculty of the Manhattan School of Music Pre-College Division, the Michael Rudiakov Music Academy, and the Manchester Music Festival where he has been the conductor of the Manchester Chamber Orchestra since 1989.
Ariel Rudiakov has won critical acclaim as both violist and conductor. He has been a guest on Vermont Public Radio, WAMC for Performance Today and WQXR in New York City. He is also active in bringing about the commissioning of new works for both solo viola and orchestra. Composers who have dedicated works to him include Richard Lane, Coleridge Taylor-Perkinson and Philip Lasser. He records for the Eroica and MMF labels. Mr. Rudiakov resides in Yonkers, NY and Manchester, VT with his wife, violinist Joana Genova and son Michael.
Christine Howlett is the Director of Choral Activities at Vassar College where she conducts the Vassar College Women's Chorus, Vassar College Choir and teaches music theory and voice. Her choruses have sung at Lincoln Center and Carnegie Hall, and have toured in Italy, Turkey, Germany, Spain and in the USA. Recently, the Vassar College Women's Chorus performed at both the National Collegiate Choral Association at Yale University in November, 2009 and at the American Choral Directors Association Eastern Conference in Philadelphia in February 2010. She is the Artistic Director of Cappella Festiva, an auditioned choral ensemble with a thirty-five year history of performing in the Hudson Valley. In 2006, she co-founded the Summer Choral Festival at Vassar College and the Cappella Festiva Treble Choir, an auditioned choral ensemble for treble voices ages 10-16.
Christine Howlett is active as a soprano soloist and has performed in many works including J.S. Bach's Magnificat (BWV 243), Mass in B minor (BWV 232), St. Matthew’s Passion (BWV 244), Actus Tragicus (BWV 106), Charpentier's Les Arts Florissants, Mozart's Coronation Mass, Benjamin Britten's Ceremony of Carols, Mass by Igor Stravinsky, and most recently, Francis Poulenc’s Gloria. She has sung in ensembles, both as soloist and choral member, under Simon Carrington, Paul Hillier, Lorin Maazel, and Helmuth Rilling. She is a member of Kairos: A Consort of Singers, an ensemble of sixteen voices whose members are artists-in-residence at the Holy Cross Monastery in West Park, NY.
Stephen Michael Smith is Music Director/Conductor of the Danbury Community Orchestra, the Stephen Smith Singers in New York City, and the Unitarian Universalist Congregation at Shelter Rock in Manhasset, NY where he conducts The Shelter Rock Chamber Orchestra and a 45 voice semi-professional choir. He also serves as Artistic Director of the professional Music at Shelter Rock Concert Series.
Mr. Smith's guest conducting credits include the Wroclaw Philharmonic Orchestra (Poland), St. Petersburg Camerata (Russia), Karlovy Vary Philharmonic (Czech Republic), Danbury Symphony Orchestra, New Britain Symphony, St. Luke's Orchestra (San Francisco), Riverside Choral Society, Schola Cantorum of Harvard University, and Coro di Camera (Boston). He has also performed in France, Italy, Portugal, Greece, and the former Yugoslavia. In both 1997 and 2000, Mr. Smith was chosen to participate in the International Northern Baltic Festival at the historic Catherine the Great Theater of the State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg, Russia. During his tenures as Music Director/Conductor of the Shrewsbury Chorale and the Dalton Alumni Chorale he prepared both institutions for their Carnegie Hall debuts (Verdi’s Requiem and Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9/Missa Solemnis).
A champion of new works, Mr. Smith has conducted numerous premieres, including the world premieres of Paula Kimper’s Where Everything Is Music, Allen Hill’s Toward the Light and The Gift, Larry Deming’s Variations on Blackberry Blossom, the New York premiere of William Bolcom’s May-Day, and US premieres of Mickelson's reconstructions of 16th century Venetian works by Gabrieli, Bassano, Obrecht, Zarlino, and Croce. Last month he conducted the world premiere of Gerald Busby's Quatrains, performed in New York City by the Stephen Smith Singers.
A native of upstate New York, Mr. Smith received his first professional appointment at the age of 11. He studied conducting with Vincent La Selva at The Juilliard School, Alexander Polishchuck at the State (Tchaikovsky) Conservatory of St. Petersburg in Russia, and Mariusz Smolij (Houston Symphony), and has participated in international master classes with Robert Shaw and Victor Yampolsky.
Mr. Smith has taught music at the University of Hawaii, Hartwick College, and the American Academy of Music. He previously served as Executive Director of the San Francisco Opera Guild, Interim Director of the Merola Opera Program and consultant with the University of California at San Francisco, the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, Wolf Trap Institute for the Arts, and Opera Southwest.
Lisa Denton, Co-Director/Choreographer and Costume Consultant, has worked on the costumes and staging of the Danbury Nutcracker since 1997. As a principal dancer for the New Dance Collective, she also served as the company's primary costume designer. Ms. Denton has appeared in movies (Back to School, Tonight's the Night), on television (Riptide, A-Team, As the World Turns) and on radio (NBC's Imus in the Morning). In recent years she has appeared locally on stage as Elsie Barlow in Road to Mecca and Eleanor Bachman in The Great White Hope. She minored in dance at Denison University and UCLA, and trained with the Westchester Ballet Company and in NYC with Ronn Forella and David Storey. Currently, Ms. Denton works with Speak Deep, the Heart River Healing School, and in private practice as an intuitive healer and teacher.
Tina Johns Heidrich Christine Howlett Matthew Phelps Christopher ShepardTina Johns Heidrich
will be our Conductor for Handel's Messiah, 2010.
She is the Founder and Music Director of the Connecticut Master Chorale. Ms. Heidrich’s unique approach of “work hard but have fun” and her immense energy ensure an exciting and educational experience for her singers, while eliciting their very highest performance quality. Celebrated for her devotion to the choral arts, music critics have praised her “gift for selecting complex but entertaining material for her professional-caliber group” as well as her ability to “elicit the maximum of passion from the music”. Born and raised in Danbury, Ms. Heidrich earned her Master’s Degrees in Music Education from Western Connecticut State University. With an extensive background and over 30 years of experience in choral and orchestral conducting, she has directed numerous school, church and community choirs and orchestras, as well as musical theatre. Additionally, she has been Director of Music of the First Congregational Church of Bethel since 1990.
Christine Howlett
is the Director of Choral Activities at Vassar College where she conducts the Vassar College Women's Chorus, Vassar College Choir and teaches music theory and voice. Her choruses have sung at Lincoln Center and Carnegie Hall, and have toured in Italy, Turkey, Germany, Spain and in the USA. Recently, the Vassar College Women's Chorus performed at both the National Collegiate Choral Association at Yale University in November, 2009 and at the American Directors Association Eastern Conference in Philadelphia in February 2010. She is the Artistic Director of Cappella Festiva, an auditioned choral ensemble with a thirty-five year history of performing in the Hudson Valley. In 2006, she co-founded the Summer Choral Festival at Vassar College and the Cappella Festiva Treble Choir, an auditioned choral ensemble for treble voices ages 10-16. She studied as an undergraduate at the University of Toronto, and earned both a Master’s Degree in Early Music Voice Performance and a D.M.A. in Choral Conducting from Indiana University.
Matthew Phelps
was recently named Minister of Music at The Reformed Church of Bronxville. Formerly from Cincinnati, he served as Music Director of St. Aloysius Gonzaga Church. While serving at St. Aloysius, Mr. Phelps was the founder and artistic director of Women in Song, a community women’s choir that specialized in classical and romantic treble repertoire and served on the faculty of Xavier University where he was a lecturer, choral conductor, and organ recitalist. While in Cincinnati, he served as accompanist of the Vocal Arts Ensemble of Cincinnati and an assistant conductor with the Cincinnati Boychoir. He received degrees from Wright State University and the College-Conservatory of Music in piano and choral conducting respectively. He also holds an associate certificate from the American Guild of Organists. The American Choral Director's Association recognized his efforts as a conductor when he was invited as a Semi-Finalist for their Young Conductor Competition in 2001.
Christopher Shepard
has recently been appointed music director of the Desoff Choirs in New York City. Resident in Sydney, Australia from 1996 to 2008, Chris served as Director of Music at Sydney Grammar School, one of Australia’s most prominent high schools. He founded the Sydneian Bach Choir and Orchestra in Sydney, Australia, and was the music director of BACH 2010, a project to perform all of Bach’s choral cantatas. Since returning to America, Chris has been a guest conductor at Emmanuel Church in Boston, which is renowned for its four-decade Bach cantata project. In 2009, he took up an appointment as Music Director of the Worcester Chorus in Worcester, Massachusetts, America’s third-oldest community choir. He also serves as Music Director of the First Congregational Church in Watertown, Connecticut. He holds degrees from the Hartt School and the Yale School of Music, where he studied choral conducting with Marguerite Brooks. He is currently completing his PhD in Musicology at the University of Sydney, researching the performance history of Bach’s B Minor Mass in 20th-century America.
 |  |