Artists

At EMU she teaches music history and theory, as well as applied violin and piano. An advisory member of the Arts Council of the Valley, Ms. Aracena is excited about the potential for arts to enrich lives in this community. She has played violin in the Bach Festival Orchestra for five summers. This is her third year as coordinator for the Shenandoah Valley Bach Festival.

The 2002-03 season saw her debut in Die Entführung aus dem Serail for the first time at the Lyric Opera of Kansas City and then again at the International Festival d’Aix en Provence and the festival of Baden-Baden in a new production conducted by Marc Minkowski. In 2003-04 she will sing this same production at Opéra de Rouen in the and also will sing the role of Pamina in Die Zauberflöte at the Théâtre du Capitole, Toulouse, give several concerts with the National Symphony, the Detroit Symphony Orchestra and then her debut at the Théâtre de le Monnaie, Brussels in a reprise of the role of Helena.

Her resumé includes performances of major roles with Opera Birmingham, Opera Theatre of St. Louis, the BBC Symphony Orchestra, Eurydice in a new production of Orphée et Eurydice at the Théâtre du Châtelet, conducted by John Eliot Gardiner. She has also sung with the Sarasota Opera, Capital City Opera, Opera Illinois, a European tour with Teatro Lirico d’Europa, and the Connecticut Grand Opera. She has sung with the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, a concert of operetta gems with the Saint Louis Symphony, a series of holiday concerts, also with the Saint Louis Symphony, Messiah with the Toronto Symphony under Sir Andrew Davis, and concerts with the Oklahoma City Philharmonic, Detroit Symphony Orchestra and the Minnesota Orchestra.

Ms. Bender graduated from the Manhattan School of Music Opera Theatre where she first carne to critical attention for her performances in Die Lustigen Wether von Windsor, Six Characters in Search of an Author, Une Education Manquée, and Il Campanello di Notte. She is a winner of the 1995 Amadeus Fund Grant, the Judith Raskin Memorial Award from the Santa Fe Opera Apprenticeship program, and was a 1996 finalist in the George London Competition, and the 1996 recipient of Manhattan School of Music’s Richard F. Gold Career Award Grant and master of music degree. During the summer of 1998, she was an Apprentice with the Santa Fe Opera.

Ms. Bender is a graduate in music of Eastern Mennnonite University, and is remembered here for the sheer joy and delight that she brought to her singing while in this community. This is her second appearance at the Shenandoah Valley Bach Festival.

In addition to solo recitals, he frequently performs with soloists, chamber ensembles and orchestras on both harpsichord and organ. This fall he will participate in performances of Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas and direct chamber music concerts in Aix-en-Provence, France. The following spring he will conduct Opera Vivente’s production of Handel’s Tamerlano in Baltimore. Next year he will also give solo recitals in Oberlin, Baltimore and Boston. In addition to playing and conducting, he enjoys studying harpsichord construction and regulation in the workshop of Thomas and Barbara Wolf.

As of 2004 Mr. Gayle is touring the U.S. as one of the “Three Mo’ Tenors” and recently appeared on FOX television for the national broadcast of the NAACP Image Awards. Other national credits include performances with Seattle Opera, The Seattle Symphony, Opera Omaha, The Omaha Symphony, Houston Ebony Opera Guild, Opera Idaho and The Florida Gulf Coast Symphony among others. Chicago area appearances include performances at the Ravinia and Grant Park Music Festivals, Lyric Opera of Chicago, guest appearances with the Elgin Symphony, the Chicago Sinfonietta, the Du Page Symphony, the New Philharmonic, and at the Chicago Cultural Center.

Mr. Gayle’s continuing musical training began during his childhood and he is a cum laude graduate of the College of Creative Arts at West Virginia University with a degree in applied voice. He is also an alumnus of both the Lyric Opera Center for American Artists and the Seattle Opera Young Artist Program as well as a recipient of the Seattle Opera Guild study scholarship.

Hartman began playing the guitar at the age of nine, learning first by ear and later studying jazz with North Carolina guitarist, Greg Hyslop. He has also studied jazz pedagogy with Jamey Aebersold and jazz string performance with the Turtle Island String Quartet.

Mr. Mills has performed for numerous chapters of The American Guild of Organists, was a featured recitalist in the Guild’s 1992 National and 1996 Centennial National conventions, was a featured artist at the Washington Bach Festival 1987 and 1988, and was the second in a series of four dedicatory recitalists to perform on the Schudi organ in the Crypt Church of the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in February, 1988. He opened the 1989 Wendell P. Whalum Concert Series at Morehouse College, performing for the entire student body. Presented in recital by the Washington National Cathedral in observance of Black History Month 1989, he returned to appear on its 1995 and 2002 Summer Festival Series.

Mills has performed throughout the United States in such places as The Academy of Music, Philadelphia, The Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, The Barns, Wolf Trap Farm Park as well as historic churches in Krakow, Poland, and appeared as guest artist with the Washington Male Chorale, the Concert Artists of Baltimore, the Washington Bach Consort, the Cathedral Choral Society, the Folger Consort and Fairfax Chorale Society. In the spring of 1992 Mr. Mills performed the complete organ works of Johann Sebastian Bach in a weekly series of fourteen programs on the 96 Rieger organ at All Souls Church, Unitarian. He made his west coast debut in July 1992 at the Spreckles Organ Pavilion International Organ Summer Concert Series in Balboa Park, San Diego, his New York City recital debut in July 1993 at the Riverside Church. Concerto appearances include the Pittsburgh Symphony with conductor Isaiah Jackson, the Johns Hopkins Symphony and the Peabody Symphony. Having performed concertos by Handel, Rheinberger and Jongen in two previous engagements, he returned this season to play Hindemith’s Concerto for Organ and Orchestra with the Jacksonville Symphony, Jacksonville, Fla.

For several years Mr. Mills has been a featured artist at the Shenandoah Bach Festival as recitalist, chamber musician—with Cuban chamber choir Exaudi—and choral conductor—preparing the Festival Chorus for Haydn’s Creation. Active as a vocal coach/accompanist, he can be heard as arranger and accompanist on a disc of spirituals with mezzo-soprano Denyce Graves, Angels Watching Over Me. Mr. Mills is the artistic director of the National Spiritual Ensemble.

In September of the past year, Nafziger spent about three weeks in Havana teaching courses in choral music. This was his eleventh visit to the island, where he is often sought out as a conductor and teacher, having worked with many of Cuba’s premier musical ensembles over the past five years. The first course was in women’s choral repertoire, and included attention to ensemble singing and to rehearsal techniques. The second course focused on the choruses from the Bach Magnificat.

Mr. Nafziger is a founding member of the board of directors for the Milestone Learning Center, Highlands, N.C., and an honorary member of the board of directors for Melodious Accord, Inc., New York. He is the co-author with Marlene Kropf of the book, Singing: a Mennonite Voice, and was music editor of Hymnal: A Worship Book [1992], and editor of its Accompaniment Handbook [1993]. He is active in the U.S. and Canada as a guest conductor, workshop leader and clinician.

Mr. Nicholas holds performance degrees cum laude from the University of Texas and Northwestern University, with additional graduate study at Southern Methodist University and post-graduate (doctoral) study at the University of Cincinnati’s College-Conservatory of Music. His principal teachers have been members of the San Antonio, Dallas, Cincinnati, Chicago and Cleveland Orchestras, most notably the late Robert Marcellus, his mentor for many years. Mr. Nicholas has previously served on the faculties of Vanderbilt University’s Blair School of Music, Radford University, James Madison University, Capital University, Kenyon College, and as performer and chamber music coach for The American Institute of Musical Studies in Graz, Austria.

Her degrees include the bachelor of music education from Mansfield University (Pa.), and master of music from Northwestern University. Saxton’s teachers were Vincent Cichowicz, Arnold Jacobs, William Scarlett, Susan Slaughter and Michael Galloway. The legendary Adolph Herseth was her coach during her four years with the Civic Orchestra of Chicago, the training orchestra of the Chicago Symphony. Ms. Saxton was principal trumpet with the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra from 1990-1993, and taught at the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts. While freelancing in Chicago for 10 years, she was principal with seven Midwest orchestras, principal and soloist with the Chicago Chamber orchestra, and performed with the Chicago Symphony and CSO Brass Quintet, the Grant Park Symphony, and Concertante di Chicago.

An active chamber musician, she has performed with the Chicago Chamber Musicians, Sierra Brass (Japan tours), and is a frequent contributer to Chamber Music at the Barn and Plymouth Chamber Music series in Wichita, Kans. She has recorded as a member of the Millar and Monarch Brass Ensembles on Koss, Crystal, Proto, and Novitas labels. Saxton is a Selmer-Bach artist/clinician and recitalist across the U.S., and has presented many concert/clinics in Hong Kong and Japan. Ms Saxton has taught previously at Illinois Wesleyan and Northeastern Illinois Universities. She is on the board for the International Women’s Brass Conference and was a recent guest artist at their 2003 conference. Ms. Saxton recently chartered the Wichita State University International Trumpet Guild Chapter, and the WSU trumpet ensemble played at the ITG conference in Denver, 2004.

The phenomenal success of Spyro Gyra is well known. The Morning Dance album, nearing two million units sold, was paced by Wall’s four compositions. Of the four videos released by the group, two were based on his tunes. His composition “Shakedown” received a 1987 Grammy nomination for Best Pop Instrumental. In all, 38 of Wall’s creations have appeared on the six-million units the group has sold over the years. He has also produced 12 highly acclaimed crossover records with Richard Stoltzman, the premiere classical clarinetist in the world. The album, Begin Sweet World, was cited by Stereo Review as the top classical crossover record of the year. More recently, both of Wall’s solo records enjoyed lengthy stays in the top ten NAC list in R’n’R. Cool Running was selected by WQCD as one of the top 50 jazz albums of 1992. He is currently associate professor of music at State University of New York at Oneonta.

He pursues an active concert and recital career. Engagements have included concerts under Rattle, Bertini, Nagano, Hickox, Menuhin, Sinaisky, Olmi and Willcocks. He has performed with many leading UK orchestras, as well as with the RIAS Berlin Chamber Choir and the Budapest Symphony Orchestra. He has given recitals at the Wigmore Hall, St David’s Hall in Cardiff, the Blackheath Concert Halls, the Cheltenham Festival, for BBC Pebble Mill, all accompanied by Julius Drake; and a recital at the Châtelet Theatre in Paris, accompanied by David Harper. Recordings include A Midsummer Night’s Dream with the LSO under Sir Colin Davis (Philips), Silbersee under Markus Stenz (BMG), and recordings with the BBC Philharmonic for Chandos and the BBC Scottish Symphony for Hyperion.

Highlights of recent seasons have included his debuts at Covent Garden, the Netherlands Opera and the Metropolitan Opera, the Munich State Opera, the Welsh National Opera, and the English National Opera. He has sung the title roles in Don Giovanni and Eugene Onegin for the Australian Opera, Marcello in La Boheme for Glyndebourne Touring Opera, Flint in Billy Budd for the Geneva Opera, Figaro in a new production of The Marriage of Figaro for Scottish Opera, Guglielmo in Cosi fan tutte for Dublin Grand Opera, Masetto in Don Giovanni in Bordeaux; Demetrius in Britten’s A Midsummer Night's Dream for the Australian Opera. Recent engagements include Apollo in Gluck’s Alceste at the Netherlands Opera, Olivier in Capriccio for Opera Australia, the Count in Figaro with Scottish Opera, Christus in a staged version of the St John Passion at English National Opera and Escamillo in Carmen with WNO, Schaunard in a new production of Leoncavallo’s La Boheme for English National Opera, performances of Theodora with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra and Musikkollegium Winterthur, St. Matthew Passion with the CBSO, his first Mephistopheles (La Damnation de Faust) with the BBC Philharmonic, St John Passion with SCO, his debut as the Four Villains in Les Contes d’Hoffmann in Canterbury, New Zealand and the premiere recordings of Cecil Coles’ Fra Giacomo (BBC Scottish Symphony/Martyn Brabbins) for Hyperion and Edgar Bainton’s An English Idyll (BBC Philharmonic/Brabbins) for Chandos.

Recent engagements include Gurrelieder with the Bolshoi Theatre of Russia, Mahler’s Des Knaben Wunderhorn with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, Elgar’s Apostles (BBC Philharmonic), the world premiere of Michael Williams’s The Prodigal Child for New Zealand Opera, Midsummer Night’s Dream in Pittsburgh, Rinaldo in Munich and Alceste at the Dresden Festival. Current engagements and future plans L’elsir d’amore at the New Zealand Festival, Rinaldo in Munich, St Matthew Passion with ECO and Delius Sea Drift in Osaka.