Faculty Biographies
Department Chair
Professor Kent Devereaux
Music Department Chair Kent Devereaux is a composer, director, and producer of opera and music-theater who also has considerable experience working as a senior executive in for-profit higher education, media, and publishing. Kent comes to Cornish from Kaplan, where he was Senior Vice President and acting Dean of Curriculum for Kaplan University. Prior to that he was Senior Vice President in charge of editorial for Encyclopaedia Britannica. He also taught at the California Institute of the Arts and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago for many years.
Kent's artistic work includes collaborations with singers John Duykers, Janice Felty, Rinde Eckert, and Herbert Perry, composers Paul Dresher, Jarrad Powell and Tony Prabowo, and poet Goenawan Mohamad among others. Past and current projects include Gramophone, Film, Typewriter, based upon the writings of the German media sociologist Friedrich Kittler, Kali, an opera based on the Hindu goddess of death, and Visible Religion, a music-theater piece that blends Javanese shadow-puppetry and Balinese dance to tell the Balinese tale of Bima Suarga and Dante's Inferno.
Kent first studied music with Lou Harrison, then later with David Cope and Gordon Mumma while attending the University of California at Santa Cruz. He holds a B.F.A. in Music from Cornish, where he studied classical and jazz composition with Janice Giteck, Bun-Ching Lam, Gil Evans, Art Lande, and Anthony Braxton, and an M.F.A. in Art from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. He's been the recipient of grants from the Rockefeller Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, and Arts International, as well as a Fulbright Fellowship.
Core Faculty
Professor Chuck Deardorf
Bass, Developing Your Professional Career, Jazz Ensemble II
Music Department Administrator
Chuck has recorded and performed with Kenny Barron, Larry Coryell, Bud Shank, and George Cables. He has performed at jazz festivals and clubs throughout the Northwest and in Los Angeles, New York City, Australia, and Canada. As a first-call bassist in the Northwest for 15 years, Chuck has backed up such jazz luminaries as Chet Baker, Joe Williams, Zoot Sims, Mel Lewis, Kenny Burrell, Abbey Lincoln, and Howard Roberts. He is on the faculty of the Bud Shank Jazz Workshop at Centrum and is a former instructor at Western Washington University. He studied music at Evergreen State College.
Professor Janice Giteck
Composition, Composers Seminar, New Performance Workshop, Theory II
Janice has received grants from the NEA, NEH, Seattle Arts Commission, California Arts Council, Music-in-Motion, Lila Wallace, Gerbode foundations and the French government. Her music is recorded on CD for Mode, New Albion and PBS films, and she has been commissioned by the San Francisco Symphony, Bang on a Can Festival in New York, Thamyris of Atlanta, Relache of Philadelphia and Ferrero Films. Her works have been performed and broadcast throughout the United States, Canada, Western Europe and in Australia, New Zealand, Japan and India. She has served as Music Consultant for the NEA, the Rockefeller Foundation, American Composers' Forum, King County Arts Commission and Seattle Mental Health Institute. She is included in New Groves of Music, American Music in the 20th Century, and Contemporary Music Review, London. She holds a BA and MA in Music Composition from Mills College and an MA in Psychology from Antioch University. She attended the Paris Conservatory and studied with Darius Milhaud, Olivier Messiaen and Rebecca Weinstock.
Professor Randy Halberstadt
Jazz Piano, Integrated Skills
A pianist, arranger, composer, and recent author, Randy performs throughout the Pacific Northwest and beyond. He has recorded several CD's (Inner Voice and Clockwork under his own name; Circle Dancing with Jay Clayton; Joanna's Dance and Indigenous Groove with Clarence Acox; and So Many Stars with Janis Mann, for which he also arranged the music; and many others). Randy has performed with several national artists, including Terry Gibbs, Buddy DeFranco, Herb Ellis, Mel Brown, Sheila Jordan, Bobby Shew, Marlena Shaw and John Stowell. In 2001, Randy authored an instructional text, Metaphors For The Musician: Perspectives From A Jazz Pianist. He graduated in 1976 with a BA in Music from the University of Washington.
Professor Bern H. Herbolsheimer
Composition, Vocal Repertoire, Counterpoint, Chamber Music
Bern's recent performances include a three-act opera, Mark Twain, commissioned and premiered by the Nevada Opera Association for their 25th anniversary, and Symphony #1, commissioned by the NEA and premiered by the Florida Symphony Orchestra. His awards for composition include Chamber Music America, NEA National Opera Association, Melodious Accord, Seattle Arts Commission, Washington State Arts Commission, and Meet the Composer. Bern has performed as pianist at the Bergen International Music Festival, Schloss Elmau Concert Series, Columbia Artists, Ojai Music Festival, Spanish Institute, and Cascais-Estoril International Music Festival. He served as vocal coach and harpsichordist for the first performance in Russia of Handel's Messiah, at the Tatarstan State Theater, Kazan. He holds a BA, a BM, and an MM in Composition from the University of Washington.
Professor Jim Knapp
Trumpet, Jazz Composition, Jazz Theory II, Jazz Composers Ensemble
Jim Knapp, director of the Jim Knapp Orchestra, trumpet player, composer, and teacher was born in Chicago, received BA and MA degrees in Music Composition from the University of Illinois. He has served as director of The Composers and Improvisers Orchestra and has led various small jazz groups such as Ohio Howie and the Temple of Boom, and the J-Word.
Jim developed the Jazz Program at Cornish College. In November 2006 he was honored by Cornish College of the Arts for "35 Years of Jazz." In 2007, he was inducted into the Earshot Hall of Fame. Jim has received a National Endowment for the Arts "Jazz Composition Fellowship", a Seattle Arts Commission "Individual Artist Music Composition" grant, a "Special Projects Music Composition" award from the King County Arts Commission, and support from Meet the Composer and Artist Trust. He has recorded as a composer and/or performer on the ECM, A-Records, Origin, Pony Boy, Seabreeze, Flying Fish, Catalyst, and Mode record labels.
The Jim Knapp Orchestra won the Earshot "Best Acoustic Jazz Group" award in 1995 and its CD, Things For Now (A-Records), received the Earshot "Jazz Record Of The Year" award in 1999. The ensemble's other recordings include On Going Home (Seabreeze) and Secular Breathing (Origin). In the past year, his music has been recorded on CD's by Kelley Johnson and Steve Treseler. The Jim Knapp Orchestra plays the first Monday of each month at the Seattle Drum School.
Associate Professor Dr. Natalie Lerch
Voice, Diction, Musical Theater, Opera
Natalie received her doctorate from the Eastman School of Music in May 2002, focusing on Voice Performance and Literature, with an emphasis in opera direction. She began teaching at Cornish in the fall of 2001 where her classes range from Musical Theatre Workshop, English, Italian, French and German diction for singers and private lessons, as well as vocal coach for Into the Woods (2002), and musical direction for Closer Than Ever (2003) and Hansel and Gretel (2004). Natalie has performed a variety of roles onstage including Mrs. Grose in The Turn of the Screw, Fiordiligi in Cosi fan tutte, Miss Pinkerton in The Old Maid and the Thief, Lenny in Crimes of the Heart and Nancy in Oliver. She has performed professionally with Columbus Light Opera, Opera!Columbus, The Reality Theatre, the Norman Luboff Touring Choir and Spotlight Dinner Theatre. Masterclass performances include singing for Renee Fleming, Julianne Baird and Dale Moore. Natalie has sung in Italy (Monteverdi's Orfeo) and Brazil (with the Jazz Ensemble at the Federal University in Rio de Janeiro), and hopes to add Scotland and England to her future itinerary. She currently sings in a female vocal quartet called Divalycious, and is planning a return trip to Brazil within the next year. While all these experiences have created an interesting life and career, other life lessons have been learned while working for a State Representative and being a commercial salmon fisherman on Chisik Island, Alaska!
Professor Dr. Peter Mack
Classical Piano, Basic Keyboard Skills, Chamber Music, Musicianship II, Piano Repertoire
Peter Mack was born in Ireland, where he had his early training with Frank Heneghan at the Dublin College of Music. Subsequent study was at Trinity College, Dublin, and with Bela Siki at the University of Cincinnati College Conservatory of Music and at the University of Washington. Dr. Mack has won several international piano competitions, including the New Orleans and Sherman Clay; his performing career has taken him all over the world. Peter now makes his home in Seattle, where he is on the faculty of Cornish College of the Arts. Many of his students have been national and regional competition winners, and are actively building their performance careers today.
Professor Nelson
Composition, Piano, Chorus, Piano I + II, Conducting, History
A member of the Cornish faculty since 1979 and chair from 1981-1983, performs frequently as a pianist and conductor. He has conducted Minnesota Opera's New Music Theater Ensemble, George Coate4s Performance Works SEEHEAR, and the Floating Opera on Puget Sound. He conducted the Bainbridge Orchestra (1987-2000) and was the pianist with the New Performance Group from 1979-1997. Active as a composer, he has produced a book of fiddle tunes for violin and piano in a variety of styles. He has written more than 1200 fiddle tunes as well as choral works and ensemble pieces. was a visiting professor at Qufu Teachers University in China for the 97-98 academic year. He earned a BA in Zoology from Pomona College and an MM in Choral Conducting from the State University of New York at Stony Brook. His early teachers were Adolph Baller and John Steele Ritter. He currently conducts and sings with Canzonetta, an a cappella ensemble and conducts the Seattle Chinese Orchestra.
Associate Professor Jovino Santos Neto
Jazz Piano, Composition, Jazz Rhythm I, Latin Ensemble
Brazilian-born Jovino Santos Neto worked as a pianist, flutist and producer with the legendary Hermeto Pascoal from 1977 to 1992. He has released several recordings as the leader of his own ensemble and also in collaboration with musicians such as Airto Moreira, Flora Purim, and Mike Marshall. He received the Chamber Music America New Works jazz composition award in 2003 and several other jazz and chamber music commissions. His CD Canto do Rio was nominated for a Latin Grammy in 2004. Jovino was voted 2004 Northwest Jazz Instrumentalist of the Year by the readers of Earshot Jazz. His latest recording is Roda Carioca (Rio Circle), recorded in Brazil and released in 2006 by Adventure Music. It again earned Jovino a nomination for a Latin Grammy as Best Latin Jazz Album. Bruce Gilman on Brazzil magazine wrote: "Roda Carioca reveals a complete artist – composer, arranger, soloist, multi-instrumentalist, ensemble leader – whose artistic sensibility and poetic playing creates a hypnotic authority that haunts the memory." In 2007 Jovino Santos Neto received a grant from Petrobras, the Brazilian state oil company, to research and compose new music inspired based on the Brazilian Northeast musical traditions. Visit Jovino's web site at www.jovisan.net
Associate Professor Margie Pos
Integrated Skills, Musicianship II, Jazz Rhythm
Margie received a BM in Composition from Berklee College of Music and an MM in Jazz Studies from the New England Conservatory. As a jazz bassist she has performed and given clinics in Italy, Costa Rica, Canada, and the U.S. She performs frequently with such musicians as Bob Moses, Larry Baione, Alan Dawson, Gary Chaffee, George Garzone, Barbara London, and John Medeski. Before coming to Cornish Margie taught at Berklee College of Music in Boston.
Professor Jarrad Powell
Composition, Gamelan Ensemble, World Music Traditions, Electronic Music Seminar, Composition Seminar, Theory II, Advanced Analysis
Jarrad Powell's compositions have been performed and broadcast internationally and include pieces for voice, gamelan, various western and non-western instruments, electro-acoustic music, music for theater, dance and experimental film. His work also includes numerous cross-cultural collaborations, particularly with Indonesian artists, including the innovative theater pieces Visible Religion and Kali. Since the early 80's he has directed the group Gamelan Pacifica, one of the most active and adventurous gamelan ensembles in the U.S. He is Music Director and composer for Scott/Powell Performance, a contemporary dance company formed in 1994 with noted choreographer Mary Sheldon Scott. Recent projects also include music for three innovative short films of Robert Campbell, Tilt, Eidolon and Delta of C16H22O4. His work has been commissioned by The Walker Arts Center, Performing Arts Chicago, On the Boards, Music in Motion, Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art, Myrna Loy Center/Helena Presents, the National Performance Network and many individual performers. He has received numerous grants and awards, including NEA, Arts International, Rockefeller Foundation, Paul Allen Family Foundation, 4Culture/King County, The Mayor's Office of Arts and Cultural Affairs/Seattle, Artist Trust Foundation and Creative Capital Foundation. He holds a BA in English and Religious Studies from Rocky Mountain College, a BFA in Music from Cornish College of the Arts, and an MA in Music Composition from Mills College, where he received the Paul M. Henry award for excellence in music composition. His most recent recordings, Natural Selection and Stonehouse Songs are available from Present Sounds Recordings. He is currently a professor in the Music Department at Cornish College of the Arts in Seattle.
www.gamelanpacifica.org, www.scottpowell.org, www.presentsounds.com
Professor Julian Priester
Jazz Trombone, Free Ensemble, Jazz Ensemble II, Jazz History, Jazz Rhythm
Julian has performed with Herbie Hancock, Duke Ellington, Sun Ra, Gary Peacock, Max Roach, Art Blakey, Charles Mingus, and Dave Holland. His compositions have been recorded by Sun Ra, Ray Charles, Herbie Hancock, Philly Jo Jones, Lee Morgan, Max Roach, Abbey Lincoln, Clifford Jordan, and Dave Holland. Julian records for Riverside and ECM record labels. He studied at the Sherwood School of Music in Chicago.
Professor Paul Taub
Flute, Developing Your Professional Career, Integrated Skills, Chamber Music
Paul Taub, flute, is Professor of Music at Cornish College of the Arts where he has been on the faculty since 1979. Paul was trained at Rutgers University and the California Institute of the Arts; his teachers include Marcel Moyse, Samuel Baron, Michel Debost and Robert Aitken. A founding member of the Seattle Chamber Players, Paul has had a strong musical presence in the Seattle chamber music scene as a member of the New Performance Group, Sonora and Taneko. He is an active soloist and recitalist, with extensive work in American, Soviet/Russian, and international contemporary repertoire. He has appeared in venues throughout the US Northwest and Southeast, Western Canada, Southern France, Ukraine, Estonia and Italy as well as on tour four times in Russia. He has given world and US premieres of music by Henry Brant, John Cage, George Crumb, Janice Giteck, Sofia Gubaidulina, Wayne Horvitz, Toru Takemitsu, Peteris Vasks and many others. Paul's program of twelve pieces commissioned for his twentieth anniversary in Seattle (1999) was performed in Seattle in Benaroya Hall's first flute recital and reprised in Atlanta and New York. Oo-ee, the CD of this repertoire, is available on the Periplum label. Other recordings appear on New World, Mode, New Albion, Centaur aned CRI. He is the Chairman of the New Music Advisory Committee of the National Flute Association and is a member of the Board of Directors of Chamber Music America.
Adjunct Faculty
Adjunct Instructor Eric Banks
Musicianship and Advanced Musicianship
Born and raised in the Catskill Mountains of upstate New York, Eric Banks received his BA in Composition in 1990 from Yale University. He studied orchestral conducting with Alasdair Neale, choral conducting with Marguerite Brooks, and composition with Fenno Heath. Eric then moved to Seattle to pursue and complete two Master's and Doctoral degrees in Choral Studies and Music Theory at the University of Washington's School of Music. Eric's PhD research on the 'Swedish choral wonder' won him a Fulbright and Lois Roth Fellowship in Stockholm, Sweden (in 1997-1998) where he apprenticed with Eric Ericson, Gustaf Sjökvist, Anders Eby, and Stefan Parkman. In 1992, Eric founded The Esoterics, a mixed a cappella chamber chorus that specializes in contemporary music; in 2004, Eric founded AEDONIS, a men's a cappella ensemble devoted to gay- and lesbian-positive choral music, and directs these ensembles in addition to teaching musicianship, theory, composition, and voice at Cornish. As a composer, Eric focuses his energy on creating music for unaccompanied voices that reflects his interests in science, symmetry, spiritual systems, gay and lesbian poetry, and foreign languages – both ancient and modern. He has composed over 20 works that have been premiered by The Esoterics, and his upcoming composition projects include: a Sanskrit hymn to Saraswoti (the Hindu goddess of music), a cycle of songs based on the love poetry of Adrienne Rich, settings of Anna Akhmatova and Constantine Cavafy, as well as a cantata based on the ancient chants of the Zoroastrian cosmology. Eric has been awarded grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, Meet the Composer, the Washington State Arts Commission, 4 Culture, and the Arch and Bruce Brown Foundation.
Adjunct Instructor John Burrow
Introduction to Electronic Music, MIDI, Digital Audio Editing
John is a composer of electro-acoustic and instrumental music for film, video, dance and installation. In addition to receiving his BFA in Music at Cornish College of the Arts, John has studied music at the University of Hawaii. He also works as a recording and audio engineer.
Adjunct Instructor Dawn Clement
Piano, Jazz Piano I + II, Jazz Repertoire
Dawn is an active composer, pianist, and teacher. She tours with the "Sabella Consort," doing master classes and workshops from Kansas City to California to Chicago. She received a BM from Cornish.
Adjunct Assistant Professor Michael Delos
Voice
Michael received a BM in Voice Performance from the University of Puget Sound and has done additional studies at the Vienna Academy of Music. He has sung with the opera companies of Monte Carlo, Chicago, Seattle, Honolulu and Vancouver, BC, in addition to appearing with the Detroit, Osaka, Tokyo, Seattle and Oregon Symphony Orchestras. In 1987, Michael joined the roster of the New York City Opera.
Instructor Thomasa Eckert
Classical voice
Adjunct Instructor Denney Goodhew
Jazz Theory II, Jazz Ensemble IV, Musicianship II
Multi-instrumentalist, composer, educator, visual artist and Reiki practitioner, Denney Goodhew has traveled the globe with extensive time spent teaching, performing and recording in the U.S., Canada, Japan, Poland, Norway, Germany, Israel, and Taiwan on saxophones, flutes, clarinets, keyboards, percussion and cello. Collaborations have included performances and/or recordings with Charlie Haden, Gary Peacock, Marc Johnson, Ralph Towner, Etta James, Big Joe Turner, Robert Cray, Robben Ford, Albert King, The Temptations, The Dells, Anthony Braxton, Sam Rivers, Art Lande, Wayne Horvitz, Composers and Improvisers Orchestra, International Creative Music Orchestra, New York Composers Orchestra West, the Reputations and Soundgarden. He has appeared on the CBS Sony, Electra, Traumton, hepJazz and ECM labels. He served as consultant/designer for Claude Lakey Mouthpieces (1988-93), composed for the American Contemporary Dance Company, Shirley Jenkins Dance Company, Tanca Spektakle Warsaw, for the documentary Becoming American and has written over 40 pieces for the video production firm of CurrentRutledge. Accolades include 4 Earshot Jazz Golden Ear Awards: Best Instrumentalist (1990-93), Best Electric Jazz Group (Towner/Goodhew Duo 1990) and a Talent Deserving Wider Recognition Award: Downbeat's Critics Poll (1972). Denney has received support from the Seattle Arts Commission and Meet The Composer. In 1996 a collection of his paintings were featured at the Crawl Space in Amsterdam, Netherlands. From 1993 through 1998, Denney was Professor of Saxophone and Music Science at the Berlin University of the Arts, Berlin, Germany. Upon returning to Seattle in 1998, he rejoined the Cornish College of the Arts faculty, where he also taught from 1974-1981.
Adjunct Instructor Kelly Harland
Individual Jazz Voice
Kelly Harland is a premier studio vocalist in the Northwest. She is a featured voice on TV and radio and has sung background vocals with Ray Charles and Etta James.
Gretta Harley, Adjunct Instructor
New Performance Workshop
Gretta Harley has been composing, performing and teaching music in Seattle for almost 2 decades. She is currently working as Music Director for Seattle Shakespeare's production of Pericles (October '07); and Umo Ensemble's Rubble (June '08), both directed by Sheila Daniels. In addition to the classes that Gretta teaches in the Theatre and Music Departments, she is the In-House Composer and Music Director for the Theatre Department (productions include: Ovid's Metamorphosis; Shakespeare's Measure for Measure, Twelfth Night, A Midsummer's Dream; Charles Mee's Mail Order Bride; Ibsen's Peer Gynt; and John Gay's Beggar's Opera). She has also worked with The Tribe's Project and produced her own musical theater shows. In addition to slaving away at an opera with Juliet Waller-Pruzan, Gretta has a new rock band with singer/actress, Sarah Rudinoff called QueenB. Gretta is a Cornish graduate (2002).
Adjunct Instructor Mark Ivester
Jazz Drums
Mark is a versatile freelance drummer/percussionist with extensive experience in many different idioms from pop-rock to big band to jazz to orchestral settings. He has performed with many national jazz artists including Larry Coryell, Freddie Hubbard, Diane Schuur, Mose Allison, Charlie Byrd and Eartha Kitt. He is currently performing and recording with the Jovino Santos Neto quartet, Sonando, and The Nick Manson trio. In the classical field, Mark has performed with the Honolulu, Spokane and Walla Walla Symphony Orchestras. Mark is a founding member of the professional percussion ensemble Happy Hammers. This group performs percussion music of various ethnic influences including steel drums of Trinidad, African drumming of the Ewe and Yoruba tribes, Afro-Cuban drumming, Brazilian samba and American jazz on mallet keyboard instruments. Mark earned a Bachelor of Music degree at Eastern Washington University. He did undergraduate and graduate work in ethnomusicology at the University of Hawaii in Honolulu which included field study of gamelan in Java. He has taught privately since 1973 and has been on the faculties of Gonzaga University in Spokane, Spokane Falls Community College, Highline Community College and Olympic College, Bremerton.
Adjunct Instructor Ivona Kaminska-Bowlby
Piano
Polish-born pianist, Dr. Ivona Kaminska holds degrees from the Chopin Academy of Music in Warsaw, the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, as well as a Doctorate degree from the University of British Columbia, Canada. She has participated in international festivals including the Mozarteum Sommerakademie, the Schleswig-Holstein Musik Festival, and in Duszniki-Zdroj. Winner of several solo concerto competitions, she has appeared on national public radio in Poland and the USA, gaining acclaim for her tempestuous performances. Among her distinguished awards are the Stefan Batory Foundation Award in 1993, the Beryl Barnes Music Award in 1999, the PhD Scholarship from the University of Alberta in 1998 and 1999, and the Astral Career Development Grant in 2003. She is an active performer, presenting dozens of recitals yearly, including traditional solo repertoire and new music. Among her influential teachers are Andrzej Stefanski, Tatiana Shebanova, Boris Bloch, Mark Clinton, Henri-Paul Sicsic, and Marek Jablonski. Equally passionate as a pedagogue, Dr. Kaminska is the founder and artistic director of the Chopin Academy of Music in Issaquah, Washington, and has been affiliated with Shoreline Community College and the Puget Sound Summer Chamber Music Program. She is frequently featured as a guest lecturer, master class clinician and an adjudicator throughout the Pacific Northwest.
Adjunct Instructor, Jessika Kenney
Voice
Jessika Kenney is a vocalist, teacher, composer and performer based in the Pacific Northwest. She has trained extensively in the vocal arts, particularly Central Javanese sindhenan, in Indonesia from 1997-2000, received her Bachelor of Music degree at Cornish College of the Arts in Seattle, and studies and performs Classical Persian music with Ostad Hossein 'Omoumi since 2004. These experiences give her special insight into the role of the singer culturally, and the areas of ornamentation, microtonality, poetry, and vocal experimentation. She has performed compositions for voice in the U.S., Europe, Indonesia, and frequently appears with Seattle's gamelan community. Jessika's vocal ideas and sounds can be found on several CDs, including Aestuarium with Eyvind Kang (2005), The Stonehouse Songs, with Jarrad Powell (2007), and Athlantis with Mike Patton and Ensemble di Ottoni di Modena performing the music of Eyvind Kang(2007).
Adjunct Instructor Matthew Kocmieroski
Percussion
Matthew Kocmieroski is principal percussionist with the Pacific Northwest Ballet Orchestra. He regularly performs with the Seattle Symphony and Seattle Opera and is also currently the President of the International Guild of Symphony, Opera and Ballet Musicians. In the field of chamber music he served for ten years as artistic director and percussionist of the New Performance Group, and was a founding member of both Taneko and Pacific Rims Percussion Quartet. In the Northwest he regularly performs with the Seattle Chamber Players, and has appeared at the Seattle Chamber Music Society Festivals, the Icicle Creek Music Festival, the Marrowstone Music Festival, the Methow Music Festival, the Orcas Island Chamber Music Festival, the Seattle International Chamber Music Festival and the Bellingham Festival of Music. Internationally he has appeared at the Bergen, Moscow Autumn, Moscow Cold Alternativa, St. Petersburg's Sound Waves, Kiev MusicFest and Warsaw Autumn festivals. One of the greatest satisfactions Matthew has had is his work with numerous composers on their music and the emergence of a number of new works and recordings from these collaborations. He may be heard on many recordings of chamber music, orchestral music and on a wide variety of both Major and Independent motion picture, television, and video game soundtracks.
Adjunct Instructor Michael LeFevre
Classical Guitar
Since receiving his BFA in Music at Cornish College of the Arts in 1992, Michael has established himself as one of the foremost classical guitarists of his generation. He has earned top honors in several competitions, including first prize in 1993 at both the Northwest Guitar Festival and Portland International Guitar Festival competitions, first prize at the 1995 International Guitar Congress in Corfu, Greece, and recipient of the 2001 Northwest Young Artist Award-Tour Prize. In addition to solo recitals, he has performed in duet with Steven Novacek and has appeared with the Seattle Opera, with the Seattle Guitar Quartet, with the New Performance Group, and with the St. Helens String Quartet. In 2003 he released his debut solo recording, Chronicle, which was acclaimed by Soundboard magazine for its "great attention to nuance" and "spirited playing". He has been a faculty member of the annual National Guitar Summer Workshop since 2004 and continues to maintain an active performing and teaching schedule.
Adjunct Instructor Paige Stockley Lerner
Cello
Paige Stockley Lerner is a graduate of the Manhattan School of Music in New York City, where she earned an M.M. Degree, and the University of Washington where she received a B.A. In Political Science and English. She spent one year in Krakow and Prague on fellowship with the European Mozart Academy and then returned to the States as a teaching assistant at the University of Ohio in Akron. She has been a member of orchestras in Connecticut, Castille y Leon, Spain, and Mexico City, as well a freelancer in New York City. An avid performer of contemporary music, Paige founded the St. Helens String Quartet, a Seattle-based group dedicated to presenting 20th Century works as well as commissioning works from local composers. As the Thelma Lehmann Ensemble in Residence at Cornish they have worked with the composition class as they explore writing for the string quartet. Her teachers have included Toby Saks, Valentin Hirsu, Michael Haber and Ardyth Alton. In addition to her quartet work and teaching, Paige performs with the Pacific NW Ballet Orchestra, the Auburn Symphony, and does recording work for movies and television. She works closely with the Seattle Chamber Music Society in their outreach program to introduce Seattle schoolchildren to chamber music.
Adjunct Instructor Michael Jinsoo Lim
Violin, Viola
Michael Jinsoo Lim enjoys a dynamic musical career as a soloist, chamber musician, orchestral performer, recording artist, and teacher. He is co-founder and violinist of the renowned Corigliano Quartet; a member of Open End, a new music and improvisatory group; and makes frequent appearances as a solo performer of electro-acoustic music. Lim also holds a first violin position in the American Ballet Theatre Orchestra in New York City. As a member of the Corigliano Quartet, Lim has enjoyed critical acclaim across the U.S. and abroad and has won numerous awards, including the Grand Prize at the Fischoff Chamber Music Competition and the ASCAP/CMA Award for Adventurous Programming. The Corigliano Quartet has performed in Carnegie Hall, Weill Recital Hall, the Kennedy Center and has recorded for Naxos, Albany Records, CRI, and Bayer Records. Lim studied with the legendary violinist and teacher Josef Gingold at Indiana University. While a grad student there, he served on the faculty as a Lecturer. Lim later studied chamber music at the Juilliard School and taught there as an assistant to the Juilliard String Quartet. He currently serves on the faculty of Cornish College of the Arts, where he teaches violin and viola, and holds a chamber music faculty position at the Seattle Conservatory. For more information on Michael Jinsoo Lim, please visit www.michaeljinsoolim.com
Adjunct Professor David Peterson
Jazz Guitar
David has performed throughout the U.S., Canada, and Europe. He has recorded with Cedar Walton, Blue Sky, Diane Schuur, and Don Lanphere. David studied music at Western Washington University.
Adjunct Instructor Ronald Simon
Classical Double Bass
Instructor Hans F. Teuber
Jazz Saxophone
Adjunct Instructor Linda Waterfall
Songwriting
Linda Waterfall grew up in a musical family. Early training included classical piano, music theory, composition and voice training. She graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Stanford University with a BA in visual art. When she performs, she accompanies herself on both guitar and piano. Her original compositions reflect both classical sensibility and many vernacular influences, and critics often remark that her playing is impossible to categorize. ("...her Whitmanic embrace of the American panorama, mixing vernacular and highbrow culture, and everything in between." - Paul de Barros, Seattle Times) She has released eleven albums of original compositions, including songs and choral music. She tours periodically as a solo musician, composes choral and vocal music for grants and commissions, and works in recording studios both as a producer and as a session musician. Her most recent choral compositions, That Art Thou: Songs from the Vedas, and Songs from the Dao De Jing were funded by Seattle Arts Commission and King County 4Culture grants, and were performed by the University of Washington Chamber Singers, The Esoterics, and The Evergreen State College's Evergreen Singers.
Adjunct Assistant Professor Beth Winter
Jazz Voice, Vocal Jazz Standards I, Vocal Jazz Standards II, Fundamentals of Singing
Since 1988, Beth Winter has been an integral member of the Vocal Jazz faculty at Cornish. She received her BA in Music, with a Classical Voice Performance emphasis from the University of Maryland. A seasoned performer, she has been featured in the major venues in New York, Washington D.C. and in numerous festivals on the eastern seaboard. She received hands-on coaching from Sarah Vaughn, Abbey Lincoln, Sheila Jordan and Jay Clayton. In addition to her studio and classroom teaching at Cornish, she coordinates workshops and showcases acting as facilitator and mentor to many budding vocalists. She participates in an outreach program in Washington public schools with the renowned 493 Reunion Band, funded by a cultural enrichment grant for the Earshot Jazz Society. She's performed with many jazz luminaries such as: Kirk Lightsey, Norman Simmons, Kenny Werner, Fred Hirsch and George Cables. Beth can be heard on several recording projects and seen at major venues throughout the Pacific Northwest and Canada.