CURTIS ON TOUR: “The Soldier’s Tale” with John de Lancie

Artists

Soovin Kim Violin & Artistic Director

Soovin Kim enjoys a broad musical career regularly performing Bach sonatas and Paganini caprices for solo violin, sonatas for violin and piano ranging from Beethoven to Ives, Mozart, and Haydn concertos and symphonies as a conductor, and new world-premiere works almost every season.

When he was 20 years old, Kim received first prize at the Paganini International Violin Competition. He immersed himself in the string quartet literature for 20 years as the 1st violinist of the Johannes Quartet. Among his many commercial recordings are his “thrillingly triumphant” (Classic FM Magazine) disc of Paganini’s demanding 24 Caprices and a two-disc set of Bach’s complete solo violin works that were released in 2022.

Kim is the founder and artistic director of the Lake Champlain Chamber Music Festival (LCCMF) in Burlington, Vermont. In addition to its explorative programming and extensive work with living composers, LCCMF created the ONE Strings program through which all 3rd through 5th grade students of the Integrated Arts Academy in Burlington study violin. The University of Vermont recognized Soovin Kim’s work by bestowing an Honorary Doctorate upon him in 2015.

In 2020, he and his wife, pianist Gloria Chien, became artistic directors of Chamber Music Northwest in Portland, Oregon. He, with Chien, were awarded Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center’s 2021 CMS Award for Extraordinary Service to Chamber Music. Kim devotes much of his time to his passion for teaching at the New England Conservatory in Boston and the Yale School of Music in New Haven.

David Shifrin Clarinet & Artistic Director Emeritus 1981–2020

Clarinetist David Shifrin graduated from the Interlochen Arts Academy in 1967 and the Curtis Institute in 1971. He made his debut with the Philadelphia Orchestra having won the Orchestra’s Student Competition in 1969. He went on to receive numerous prizes and awards worldwide, including the Geneva and Munich International Competitions, the Concert Artists Guild auditions, and both the Avery Fisher Career Grant (1987) and the Avery Fisher Prize (2000).

Shifrin received Yale University’s Cultural Leadership Citation in 2014 and is currently the Samuel S. Sanford Professor in the Practice of Clarinet at the Yale School of Music where he teaches a studio of graduate-level clarinetists and coaches chamber music ensembles. He is also the artistic director of Yale’s Oneppo Chamber Music Society and the Yale in New York concert series. Shifrin previously served on the faculties of the Juilliard School, the University of Southern California, the University of Michigan, the Cleveland Institute of Music, and the University of Hawaii.

Shifrin served as artistic director of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center from 1992 to 2004 and Chamber Music Northwest in Portland, Oregon from 1981 to 2020. He has appeared as soloist with major orchestras in the United States and abroad and has served as Principal Clarinet with the Cleveland Orchestra, American Symphony Orchestra (under Stokowski), the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, and the Symphony Orchestras of New Haven, Honolulu, and Dallas. Shifrin also continues to broaden the clarinet repertoire by commissioning and championing more than 100 works of 20th and 21st century American composers. Shifrin’s recordings have consistently garnered praise and awards including three Grammy nominations and “Record of the Year” from Stereo Review.

Shifrin is represented by CM Artists in New York and performs on Backun clarinets and Légère reeds.

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Upcoming Concerts & Events

• Clarinet Masterclass with David Shifrin (2021)
• EXCLUSIVE DONOR CONCERT: The Emerson Quartet with David Shifrin

John de Lancie Narrator

John de Lancie has had an eclectic career as an actor, director, producer, writer, educator, and comedian. In addition to the iconic role of Q on the Star Trek series The Next Generation, Voyager, Deep Space 9, and Picard, he has appeared in numerous television shows including Breaking Bad, CSI, The West Wing, Sports Night, Judging Amy, and Legend.

His film credits include The Hand that Rocks the Cradle, Taking Care of Business, Fearless, Multiplicity, Woman on Top, Good Advice, Pathology, and The Last Session. He has performed in many stage productions, and has been a member of the American Shakespeare Center, the Seattle Repertory Theatre, and the Old Globe.

The son of renowned Philadelphia Orchestra oboist John de Lancie, Mr. de Lancie grew up in a musical household. Over his career, Mr. de Lancie has performed as narrator with a number of major orchestras, including the New York Philharmonic, the Cleveland Orchestra, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Philadelphia Orchestra, and the Montreal Symphony Orchestra. His repertoire includes Peer Gynt, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra, and Peter and the Wolf, among many others.

He has written and directed ten symphonic plays produced with the Milwaukee Symphony and St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, the LA Philharmonic, and Pasadena Symphony. Mr. de Lancie wrote, directed, and hosted “First Nights,” a concert series at Walt Disney Concert Hall with the LA Philharmonic that explored the lives and music of Stravinsky, Beethoven, Mahler, Schumann, and Prokofiev. Mr. de Lancie has also directed the operas Tosca and Cold Sassy Tree in Atlanta, Madame Butterfly in San Antonio, and Cinderella in Sacramento.

Mr. de Lancie is a graduate of Kent State University and The Juilliard School. When time permits, he is also an avid sailor.

Learn more at johndelancie.com.

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William McGregor Double Bass

William McGregor, from Ann Arbor, Mich., first entered the Curtis Institute of Music in 2018 and received a Bachelor of Music in 2022. He is now pursuing a Master of Music, studying double bass with Harold Hall Robinson and Edgar Meyer. All students at Curtis receive merit-based, full-tuition scholarships, and Mr. McGregor is the Shaun F. O’Malley Fellow.

Mr. McGregor has won several competitions, including the 2017 Stulberg International String Competition, the 2012 and 2016 Juilliard Pre-College Open Competitions, the 2013 Salome Chamber Orchestra Young Artist Competition, and the 2012 Ensemble 212 Young Artist Competition. He has performed as a soloist at Lincoln Center, Merkin Hall, the Kennedy Center, and Carnegie Hall. In 2018–19, he appears with the Baltimore Chamber Symphony and the Grand Rapids Symphony.

In 2018, Mr. McGregor was named a National YoungArts Finalist and a U.S. Presidential Scholar in the Arts. He studied in the Juilliard School Pre-College Division for nine years and was a fellowship student at the Aspen Music Festival and School. He has performed in master classes with Timothy Cobb, John Kendall, Eugene Levinson, Ranaan Meyer, David Murray, and Anthony Stoops.

Mr. McGregor began studying the double bass at age two. His other teachers have included Derek Weller and Albert Laszlo. In his spare time, he enjoys sports and collecting baseball cards.

Luis Marquez Teruel Bassoon

Luis Marquez Teruel, from Maracaibo, Venezuela, entered the Curtis Institute of Music in 2019 and studies with Daniel Matsukawa, principal bassoon of the Philadelphia Orchestra. All students at Curtis receive merit-based, full-tuition scholarships, and Mr. Marquez Teruel is the William Curtis Bok Bassoon Fellow.

Mr. Marquez Teruel began his musical studies at age nine, and one year later performed with Sir Simon Rattle and the National Children’s Symphony Orchestra of Venezuela on an Austrian tour. He also performed with Venezuela’s Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra on their 2016 European tour.

As a soloist, Mr. Marquez Teruel was a concerto competition winner at both the Interlochen Arts Academy and the Interlochen Arts Camp. He has been featured on NPR’s From the Top at Carnegie Hall, also receiving the show’s Jack Kent Cooke Young Artist Award. He has also appeared as soloist with numerous Venezuelan orchestras.

Before starting his studies at Curtis, Mr. Marquez Teruel studied at the Interlochen Arts Academy. His previous teachers include Antonio Aray, Martha Davila, and Eric Stomberg.

James Vaughen Trumpet

James Vaughen, from Champaign, Ill., entered the Curtis Institute of Music in 2018 and studies trumpet with David Bilger. All students at Curtis receive merit-based, full-tuition scholarships, and Mr. Vaughen is the Peter King Fellow.

Mr. Vaughen was co-principal trumpet of the Chicago Youth Symphony Orchestra (CYSO) from 2013 to 2017. He has appeared as a soloist with the CYSO, East Central Illinois Youth Orchestra, and University of Illinois Sinfonia da Camera. He has performed as a member of Carnegie Hall’s National Youth Orchestra of the U.S.A. and attended the Pacific Music Festival in Sapporo, Japan.

In 2020 Mr. Vaughen was winner of the Roger Voisin Memorial Trumpet Competition and semifinalist in the Young Concert Artists International Auditions. He was a 2017 National YoungArts Winner and participated in the National YoungArts Week in Miami, performing and collaborating with artists from a variety of disciplines. In 2015, he placed second in the National Trumpet Competition and was featured on NPR’s From the Top.

Mr. Vaughen began studying the piano at age six and trumpet at age ten. His other teachers have included Ronald Romm, Nathan Mandel, Sal Percoco, and Aaron Romm. Before entering Curtis, he worked for a year with the AmeriCorps at Spring Initiative, a nonprofit transformative after-school program in the Mississippi Delta.

Derek Gullett Trombone

Derek Gullett of Uniontown, Ohio, has established himself as one of the world’s most accomplished up-and-coming young trombonists. Mr. Gullett entered the Curtis Institute of Music in 2019 and studies trombone with Nitzan Haroz and Matthew Vaughn. All students at Curtis receive merit-based, full-tuition scholarships, and Mr. Gullett is the Edwin B. Garrigues Fellow.

It was at age 12 that he began his studies on the trombone. It wasn’t until he was age 15 that he had his first trombone lesson with James Albrecht, now principal trombonist of the Reno Philharmonic. During his studies at Lake High School in Uniontown, Ohio, Derek was a part of the school’s marching band, concert band, and jazz orchestra. Outside of school hours, he was the principal trombonist of numerous youth ensembles such as the Canton Youth Symphony Advanced Orchestra, Akron Youth Symphony, Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra, and Ohio All-State Orchestra. Halfway through high school, he began to study trombone under Richard Stout, second trombonist of the Cleveland Orchestra. In addition to being a part of many youth ensembles, he also had professional engagements, such as being the principal trombonist of both the Akron Civic Theater Orchestra and the Freedom Brass Band of Akron, Ohio.

Following high school, Derek enrolled at the Curtis Institute of Music to further his studies with Nitzan Haroz and Matthew Vaughn, principal, and co-principal trombonists of the Philadelphia Orchestra, respectively. Partway into his studies at Curtis, he began to perform with the Philadelphia Orchestra and can be heard in numerous video and recording projects of theirs. He has also appeared with many other Philadelphia-based orchestras as a freelancer. Starting in 2022, he was appointed a substitute trombonist with the New World Symphony. In the summer of 2022, he joined the National Repertory Orchestra and also served as the principal trombone of the Breckenridge International Festival of the Arts Chamber Orchestra. It was in that same summer that he also made his Bravo! Vail Music Festival debut on a program presented by the New York Philharmonic. Also, at the start of his third year at Curtis, he began to work on bass trombone with Blair Bollinger, bass trombonist of the Philadelphia Orchestra. Another major influence in his development as a trombonist is Joseph Alessi, principal trombonist of the New York Philharmonic. Currently, Derek is pursuing his bachelor’s degree at Curtis, where he is a recipient of the Edwin B. Garrigues fellowship.

Over the course of his career thus far, Derek has had the opportunity to tour the world with numerous ensembles and has performed in coveted halls such as Verizon Hall, Severance Hall, Stift St. Florian, Musikverein Wien, and Carnegie Hall. He has also had the pleasure of collaborating with many world-renowned conductors such as Vinay Parameswaran, Franz Welser-Möst, Teddy Abrams, Michael Tilson-Thomas, Osmo Vänskä, Peter Oundjian, Michael Stern, Andrew Grams, and Yannick Nezet-Seguin.

In addition to being a passionate performer, Derek is equally at home in a teaching environment. Over the years, he has maintained a studio of brass students of all levels and ages, many of whom have seen their own personal successes.

Tae McLoughlin Percussion

Tae McLoughlin, from South Orange, N.J., entered the Curtis Institute of Music in 2021 and studies timpani and percussion with Don Liuzzi, Eric Millstein, and Ji Su Jung. All students at Curtis receive merit-based, full-tuition scholarships, and Mr. McLoughlin is the Carol Coe Conway Memorial Fellow.

Mr. McLoughlin was a finalist at the Great Plains International Marimba Competition in 2017 and was awarded the Sabian/Robert Zildjian Memorial Percussion Scholarship for all four years of his undergraduate study. He has attended Eastern Music Festival.

Prior to entering Curtis, Mr. McLoughlin earned a Bachelor of Music degree from the Manhattan School of Music. His previous teachers include Christopher Lamb, Duncan Patton, Kyle Zerna, and She-e Wu. He began studying piano at age five and percussion at age seventeen. In his spare time, he is an avid tennis player and coffee lover.

Micah Gleason Conductor

Micah Gleason, from Chapel Hill, N.C., entered the Curtis Institute of Music in 2022. As a conducting fellow, she works closely with Curtis mentor conductor Yannick Nézet-Séguin, music director of the Philadelphia Orchestra and the Metropolitan Opera. All students at Curtis receive merit-based, full-tuition scholarships, and Ms. Gleason is the Rita E. Hauser Conducting Fellow.

Ms. Gleason has been recognized for her diverse performance abilities as a conductor, vocal soloist, and chamber musician. Interdisciplinary collaboration and community building are at the core of her music-making. She is curious about the most effective ways to disrupt the stasis and comfort of the modern concert hall; to examine how the disciplines of music research, performance, and perception can grow more aware of each other, and how artists across disciplines, activists, and researchers can most effectively collaborate. She holds a Bachelor of Music degree in vocal performance from the Chicago College of Performing Arts and Master of Music degrees in conducting and vocal arts from the Bard College Conservatory of Music.

An alumna of several notable training programs, including the Aspen Music Festival and the Conducting Institute at Oxford, Ms. Gleason was one of eight inaugural vocal fellows at the Crested Butte Music Festival. Her output as a vocal soloist ranges from concert appearances, including alto soloist in Handel’s Messiah and Mozart’s Requiem, multiple operatic roles, and an extensive song and chamber music repertoire. She also served as the alto artist in residence at the University of Chicago for two years, where she was a regularly featured soloist. As a conductor, Ms. Gleason has led notable ensembles such as The Orchestra Now and the Eastern Festival Orchestra.

While obtaining her degrees at Bard College Conservatory of Music, studying under James Bagwell and Stephanie Blythe respectively, she served as the assistant conductor of the Bard Symphonic Chorus, conductor of the Bard Opera Workshop, and the assistant conductor of the Bard Graduate Vocal Arts Program’s main stage production of Janáček’s The Cunning Little Vixen, in collaboration with The Orchestra Now. In July 2022, Ms. Gleason served as the music director for the world premiere of the opera The Final Veil during its residency at The Cell Theater in New York City.

Alongside mezzo-soprano Joanne Evans, she is a co-founder of Loam, an artistic partnership presenting semi-immersive musical works. Current projects include co-conceiving, producing, and performing as a featured singer in The Fragile Femme, collaborating with director George Miller and choreographer Matilda Sakamoto.

Ms. Gleason was named a 2021 conducting fellow at the Eastern Music Festival, where she studied with Gerard Schwarz, received the 2021 Emerging Conductor Award from The Gena Branscombe Project, and was named a National Finalist for The American Prize in Conducting.

Curtis on Tour Ensemble

Since its founding in 1924, Curtis Institute of Music alumni have gone on to make history as soloists, composers, conductors, orchestral players, and chamber musicians. Curtis graduates have received Pulitzer Prizes, Guggenheim Fellowships, and Avery Fisher Awards and are in the front rank of soloists and conductors. They are members of the world’s leading orchestras, including principals in every major American orchestra. They have sung with La Scala, Covent Garden, the Vienna Staatsoper, and the San Francisco Opera, among others, and more than sixty have sung at the Metropolitan Opera.

Curtis on Tour features extraordinary emerging professional artists performing alongside celebrated faculty and alumni. Grounded in Curtis’s “learn by doing” philosophy and steeped in the school’s distinguished history of artistic excellence, this innovative global touring initiative is an integral component of a Curtis education. For more than 10 years, Curtis on Tour artists and ensembles have delighted audiences around the globe with performances that are “exhilarating from beginning to end” (Washington Post).

Curtis students hone their craft through more than 200 orchestra, opera, and solo and chamber music offerings and programs that bring arts access and education to the community. Curtis’s rare tuition-free policy was established in 1928 and to this day provides merit-based, full-tuition scholarships for all Curtis students. Students continue to be accepted for study at Curtis solely on the basis of their artistic talent and promise.

For nearly a century Curtis has provided each member of its small student body with an unparalleled education alongside musical peers, distinguished by a “learn by doing” philosophy and personalized attention from a faculty that includes a high proportion of actively performing musicians. To ensure that admissions are based solely on artistic promise, Curtis makes an investment in each admitted student so that no tuition is charged for their studies.

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