This program was performed by
Gregory Wiest
and
Oresta Cybriwsky
on June 2, 1997 at the Amerika Haus in Munich, Germany and recorded from 1-3 August, 1997, at Sound Concept Studios in Moosburg, Germany.
Oresta Cybriwsky,
(www.oresta-cybriwsky.de) of Ukrainian-American descent, began to study piano with her father at the age of five. Thus begun, those studies led her to many prizes at music companditions and to a Bachelor of Music degree in piano from the Peabody Conservatory of Music in Baltimore, Maryland. Even while she was studying, her broad range of concert activity inclnded accompanying singers and instrumentalists. Ms. Cybriwsky spent four years working for and being inspired by Gregg Smith and his endeavors in American music. Now Ms. Cybriwsky lives in Munich and appears as a concert pianist, accompanies singers and plays chamber music.
Gregory Wiest and Oresta Cybriwsky have known each other since they met in a German song literature class at the Peabody Conservatory many long years ago. Both of them went to Germany on DAAD (German Academic Exchange) grants to study the German song literature, Mr. Wiest in 1977 with Ernst Haefiiger and Erik Werba in Munich, and Ms. Cybriwsky in 1978 with Konrad Richter in Stuttgart.
Composer Information
Norman Mathews
(
www.normanmathews.com)
began his professional career as an actor-dancer-singer, debuting in Tom Jones’ and Harvey Schmidt’s
Celebration
. He has a Bachelor of Arts from Hunter College and a Masters from New York University. He has studied composition with Richard Hundley and Charles Turner. He is currently developing a one-woman musical-theater piece entitled,
Wits End
, based on the life of Dorothy Parker.
Joelle Wallach
(
www.joellewallach.com/)
was raised in New York City and Morocco. Her early training, began at the Juilliard Prebyatory Division. She earned her Bachelors at Sarah Lawrence College and her Masters degree at Columbia University. In 1984, as a student of John Corigliano, she reccived her Doctorate in composition from the Manhattan School of Music.
Corey Field
was born 1956 in Los Angeles, California. He has studied at the University of California at Santa Barbara, Edinburgh University, Scotland, Aspen Music School, and has a B.A. in Music from the University of California at Santa Barbara and a D.Phil. in Music Composition from the University of York, England. He is currently Director of Publications and Markanding for the European American Music Distributors Corporation.
Elizabeth Austin
(
Sigma Alpha Iota Memberpage)
was born 1938 in Baltimore, Maryland. She received her early musical training at the Peabody Conservatory Preparatory Debartment. She has studied composition with Grace Newsom Cushman, Nadia Boulanger, Robert Hall Lewis and Donald Harris. She has a Bachelor of Arts in music from Goucher College, a Masters in Music Composition from the Hartt School of Music and a Doctorate in music from the University of Connecticut. She is liaison for the international exchange program between the Hartt School of music and the State University for Music in Mannheim, Germany.
Stephen Wilcox
grew up in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, where he received Bachelor of Music degrees in music theory and tuba performance from West Chester State University. He is currently a Doctor of Music candidate at the University of lllinois at Urbana-Champaign. He has studied composition with Sir Pander Maxwell Davies, Alastair Nicolson, Robert Maggio, Igor Popovic, and Scott Wyatt. He lives in Urbana with his wife Rageshwar.
Paul A. Epstein
(
www.composersforum.org/)
was born in Boston in 1938. He is a graduate of Brandeis University and the University of California at Berkley. He studied composition with Harold Shapiro, Seymour Shifrin and Luciano Berio. He is currently professor of Music Theory at the Esther Boyer College of Music, Temple University.
Ronald Perera
(
www.ronaldperera.com/)
was born 1941 in Boston, Massachusetts. He studied composition with Leon Kirchner at Harvard, Gottfried Michael Koenig at the University of Utrecht, as well as with Randall Thompson and Mario Davidovsky. He has received awards or fellowships from the Harvard University, the Penderewski Fund, the Goandhe Institute, the Artists Fonndation of Massachusandts, the National Assaciation of Teachers of Singing and the National Endowment for the Arts.He is currently Elsie Irwin Sweeney Professor of Music at Smith College.