Welcome to the Cobb Symphony Orchestra (CSO)

2008-09 GYSO Guest Artists 2007-08 Guest Artists 2006-07 Guest Artists

Charles, Neidich, clarinet
John Whitney, composer
Dan Maske, composer
George Curran, trombone
Helen Kim, violin
Kenn Wagner, violin

Charles Neidich, clarinet
Hailed by the New Yorker as " a master of his instrument and beyond a clarinetist”, Charles Neidich has been described as one of the most mesmerizing musicians performing before the public today. He regularly appears as soloist and as collaborator in chamber music programs with leading ensembles including the Saint Louis Symphony, Minneapolis Symphony, Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, I Musici di Montreal, Tafelmusik, Handel/Haydn Society, Royal Philharmonic, Deutsches Philharmonic, MDR Symphony, Yomiuri Symphony, National Symphony of Taiwan, and the Juilliard, Guarneri, Brentano, American, Mendelssohn, Carmina, Colorado, and Cavani String Quartets. Mr. Neidich has performed throughout Europe, Asia, and the United States, and is a sought after participant at many summer festivals such as the Marlboro and Sarasota festivals in the USA, the Orford and Domaines Forget festivals in Canada, BBC Proms in England, Festival Consonances and Pontivy in France, Corsi Internazionali di Perfezionamento in Italy, Kuhmo, Crusell Week, Turku, and Korsholm festivals in Finland, the Apeldoorn Festival in Holland, Music from Moritzburg in Germany, the Kirishima and Lilia summer festivals in Japan, and the Beijing Festival in China. When Charles Neidich began studying clarinet with his father, Irving Neidich at the age of 7, he had already started piano lessons with his mother, Litsa Gania Neidich. He continued studying both instruments, but the clarinet gradually won out, and he went at the age of 17 to continue studying with the noted clarinet teacher, Leon Russianoff. After 4 years at Yale University where he majored in Anthropology, Charles Neidich went to the Moscow State Conservatory as the first recipient of a Fulbright grant to study in the Soviet Union. He studied in Moscow for 3 years as a student of the clarinetist, Boris Dikov, and the pianist, Kirill Vinogradov. Known as a leading exponent of period instrument performance practice (he is the founder of the noted period instrument wind ensemble, “Mozzafiato”.) Charles Neidich was one of the first soloists to improvise cadenzas and ornament classical concertos. He has performed his restoration of the Mozart Concerto throughout the world both on modern and period instruments. Mr. Neidich has been influential in restoring original versions of works and bringing them before the public. A list of the clarinet classics he has restored to their original form includes works as diverse as the previously mentioned Mozart Concerto, Concerti of Weber and Copland, the Soireest cke of Robert Schumann and the Andante and Allegro of Ernest Chausson. Mr. Neidich is also an ardent exponent of new music and has premiered works by Milton Babbitt, Elliott Carter, Edison Denisov, Helmut Lachenmann, William Schuman, Ralph Shapey, Joan Tower, Katia Tchemberdji, Vasilii Lobanov and others. He has championed John Corigliano's Concerto, performing it throughout the United States notably with the Syracuse and Jacksonville Symphonies in performances many have called definitive. His recordings are available on the sony Classical, Sony Vivarte, Deutsche Grammophon, Musicmasters, Hyperion, and Bridge labels. For Aaron Copland's centennial, he released the world premiere recording of his reconstruction of the original version of Copland's Clarinet Concerto with “I Musici di Montreal” for the Chandos label.

Mr. Neidich has turned his attention in a serious way to conducting, and has appeared with the Avanti chamber Orchestra, Tapiola Sinfonietta, Helsinki, at the B??stad Festival in Sweden, the Kirishima Festival in Japan, with the New World and the San Diego Symphonies (in a triple role of conductor, soloist, and composer), and in Bulgaria with the Plovdiv State Philharmonic. Very active in education, Charles Neidich is on the faculties of the Juilliard School, Queens College of the City University of New York, the Manhattan School, and the Mannes College of Music, and has held visiting positions at the Sibelius Academy in Finland, the Yale School of Music, and Michigan State University. He is in demand for master classes around the world and for innovative lecture concerts he has devised such as "Old is New: how playing old music on period instruments is like playing new music on modern instruments," and "Craft and Drama: how understanding how Brahms composed makes for a more compelling performance." With his wife, Ayako Oshima, he has published a book on the basics of clarinet technique for the Japanese publisher, TOA Ongaku inc. Last Spring, Charles Neidich was the recipient of the William Schuman Award given by the Juilliard School for outstanding performance and scholarship.
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Bass trombonist George Curran began his first season with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra in the fall of 2006, the same year he joined the faculty at Kennesaw State University. Prior to his appointment with the ASO, Mr. Curran performed with the New World Symphony from 2004-2006. A native of Farmington Hills, Michigan, he received his BME from Central Michigan University in 2000 and MM from the Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music in 2002. His principal teachers have been John Rojak and Peter Norton.

Mr. Curran has performed extensively around the United States, including with the Cincinnati, North Carolina, West Virginia & New Haven Symphonies, the Chicago Civic & Louisville Orchestras, and Dayton Philharmonic. He was also a member of the Kentucky Symphony Orchestra.

As a soloist and chamber musician, Mr. Curran has also been successful in competitions, winning the Eastern Trombone Workshop Solo Competition in 2003 and solo competitions at both of his alma maters. At the 2002 International Trombone Festival, he was a member of the Quartet Competition Winner and was finalist in the Yaxley Solo Competition.

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Composer Dan Maske holds BA and MM degrees in music theory/composition from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, and a DMA in music composition from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. His works include a variety of chamber, symphonic, and some electronic compositions which have been performed around the world. He has received commissions from artists such as the Skyline Brass, the Umpqua Chamber Orchestra (Oregon), the St. Norbert College Wind Ensemble, the Milwaukee Youth Symphony Orchestra - Junior Wind Ensemble, the UWM Youth Wind Ensemble, and the UW-La Crosse Symphony Orchestra, among others. See the RECORDINGS page on this site for info on his recorded compositions.

Dan is also a founding member of the chamber rock ensemble Far Corner, a quartet in which he serves as composer and keyboardist, with occasional duties on percussion. The group’s recordings have been released on the Cuneiform Records label.

Maske has taught private lessons in composition, piano, trumpet, and drumset, and has been a classroom teacher of subjects such as music theory, music technology, orchestration, and progressive rock. He is currently a faculty member of Cardinal Stritch University, a liberal arts college in Milwaukee, WI, where he teaches music theory composition. Dan has also taught at Edgewood College (Madison, WI), and the University of Wisconsin-Madison. In addition, he performs on piano, trumpet, and drumset in a variety of musical styles, and has also worked as an editor and author for Hal Leonard Corporation, the world’s largest music publisher. His instructional book Progressive Rock Keyboard is available from local and online retails everywhere. Visit the Hal Leonard web site for more info, sample pages, and sound samples from the accompanying CD.

Dan’s early musical background includes starting piano lessons at age 9, where he studied with Jerry Spang for eight years. He also started trumpet in school band at about the same time. Maske continued studying piano and trumpet through college. In addition, he learned to play drumset and has kept up w/ occasional performances and recording sessions on that instrument.

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Bass-Baritone John LaForge has appeared as a guest artist with symphony orchestras and opera companies throughout the United States, including The Washington Opera, Dallas Opera, Houston Grand Opera, Chicago Lyric Opera, Chautauqua Opera, Eugene Opera, and The Atlanta Opera, among others. He has also performed in metro Atlanta with the Michael O'Neal Singers, Atlanta Ballet, Atlanta Sacred Chorale, Collegium Vocale, and Peachtree Repertory Opera. He is making his third appearance with Capitol City Opera, having sung the title role in Signor Deluso and John Proctor in The Crucible.

He was recognized by The Santa Fe Opera as Outstanding Apprentice Artist of 1995 (where he performed in their productions of La Fanciulla del West and Salome) and received a similar award in 1994 from the Central City Opera (where he starred as the Comte Des Grieux in Manon). Other awards and honors have been bestowed upon him by the Sullivan Foundation, the Florida Suncoast Opera Competition, the Houston Grand Opera Auditions, the Lyric Opera Center for American Artists and the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions. His active orchestral repertoire includes such works as Handel's Messiah, Faure's Requiem, Beethoven's Symphony No. 9, Verdi's Requiem, Haydn's Creation and Bach's Saint Matthew Passion and B Minor Mass.

LaForge presently serves as Coordinator of Music Education for Fulton County Schools and is an active choral and vocal clinician and adjudicator. He is also active in numerous arts organizations in the Atlanta area, including serving as a member of the Spivey Hall Education Committee and Atlanta Opera Advisory Council. Most recently, he was named to the Advisory Board of the National Center for Educational Partnerships in Music.

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John Whitney, composer
Before studying in Paris, John Whitney Sr. made 8mm movies of a solar eclipse with his home-made telescope. "He was a builder all his life" as quoted by his son, Michael. John Whitney Sr. also studied at Pomona College in California and then continued in England where he studied music and photography informally. In the 1940's he began studying images in motion with his brother James which eventually brought them to an experimental film festival in Belgium in which they won first prize. Further experimenting with this new medium, Whitney began producing 16mm. films for television in the 1950's. One of the works produced at this time was the title sequence for Alfred Hitchcock's Vertigo. Following that Whitney directed several short musical films for CBS television and in 1957 worked with Charles Eames to create a seven-screen presentation for the Fuller Dome in Moscow, in which the screens were the same size as those used at a drive-in theater. In 1960 Whitney founded Motion Graphics Inc., which worked to produce motion-picture and television sequences and commercials with an analogue computer. The analogue computer that Whitney started off with was created from machinery that was used for an M-5 Antiaircraft Gun Director. Later, some of the M-5 components were replaced with those from an M-7, a more sophisticated machine, to create a gigantic twelve foot high analogue computer which Motion Graphics used to produce its work. Whitney continued to perfect the analogue computer and the effects that it could create for many years. In 1961, John Whiney Sr. produced a piece called Catalogue in which he put together all of the effects that he had perfected with his analogue computer.

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Helen Kim joined the music faculty of Kennesaw State University in 2005, with a stellar performance background. A native of Canada, she made her orchestral debut with the Calgary Philharmonic at the age of six, and has gone on to become a respected and sought-after artist. She appeared as a soloist with the Boston Pops at Boston’s Symphony Hall, as well as with the Milwaukee and Atlanta Symphony Orchestras. Ms. Kim earned her Master’s Degree from the Juilliard School, where her teachers included Cho-Liang Lin and Dorothy DeLay. While at Juilliard, she was concertmaster of the Juilliard Orchestra, with which she also appeared as a soloist.

She is the recipient of more than one hundred national and international awards. In 1992, she won the prestigious Artists International Competition in New York and, as a result, gave debut recitals at Carnegie Weill Hall and the Aspen Summer Music Festival. Ms. Kim has appeared with many leading orchestras in Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany and Poland.

A dedicated recitalist and chamber music performer, Ms. Kim has toured extensively throughout Canada and the United States. She has performed with Cho-Liang Lin, Gary Hoffman, Andre Previn, Hilary Hahn, and the Orion String Quartet. A featured performer during the 1988 Olympics Arts Festival, she has given command performances for the Governor General and prime Ministers of Canada.

Ms. Kim has been profiled on national and international television and has appeared on CBC, PBS and CBS networks. Her performances have been aired on NPR and CBC radio networks. Ms. Kim served as assistant and associate concertmaster for the Atlanta Symphony for three seasons. She is currently the assistant concertmaster of the Atlanta Opera Orchestra.

Kenn Wagner, first violinist with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, began focusing his studies toward a musical career at age thirteen, after soloing with the New Orleans and Arlington, Virginia Symphonies. Driven to play in a great orchestra someday, he trained under Joseph Gingold, former Concertmaster of the Cleveland Orchestra, and Vernon Summers, violinist with the National Symphony. Before graduating from Indiana University, he won his first position with the New Jersey Symphony. While finishing his Bachelors Degree, playing with New Jersey, and substituting in the Baltimore Symphony, Kenn auditioned and joined the Atlanta Symphony in 1994, with the aid of coaching from William Steck, Concertmaster of the National Symphony. With his dream realized, he has enjoyed substituting with chamber music groups such as The Riverside Chamber Players, The Atlanta Chamber Players, fundraising concerts with the Georgian Chamber Players, and Awadagin Pratt’s Next Generation festival. Kenn has appeared as soloist and concertmaster with the Atlanta Community Symphony Orchestra, performing the Barber, Tchaikovsky, Brahms, and Glazanov violin concertos with a reengagement this season performing the Beethoven concerto. Last season he also joined the Camerata at Kennesaw University as soloist performing the Haydn C Major concerto. Mr. Wagner has served as Acting Assistant Concertmaster for Atlanta Symphony Orchestra during the 2004-05 season and has been Principal Second and Assistant Concertmaster of the Wintergreen Music Festival in Wintergreen, Virginia.