Clara '96 at ClaraSchumann.net

Clara Schumann: Performer Biographies

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Kudos for Clara 

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Bagwell | Becker | Bolt | Fellman | Hansen | Hendricks | Johnson | Libal | Simmons | Smith | Swaney | Swanson | Todd | Thomas | Williamson | Wojciechowski

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Pianist James Bagwell received his undergraduate degree in piano from Birmingham-Southern College as a student of William DeVan and Hugh Thomas. After completing his Masters degree in conducting and musicology from The Florida State University, he taught at The Asheville School in North Carolina. He is currently working on his doctorate in conducting at Indiana University. Mr. Bagwell has sung professionally with Robert Shaw in southern France in 1988 and 1990, and served as assistant conductor for the Ashevelle Symphony Chorus. While at Florida State, he organized one of the few performing ensembles in the nation which focus solely on various genres of American music. His research on American shape-note hymnody contains the first transcriptions available of unpublished manuscripts and documents housed in an archive in Carrollton, Georgia. In Bloomington, Mr. Bagwell is Music Director at First Baptist-United Church of Christ, and conducts the high school choir affiliated with Indiana University's children's choir program. 

Pianist Nicole Becker studied at the Mannes College of Music in New York City from ages five to seventeen under Russian pianist Elena Leonova. She received her Bachelors degree in Biology with a focus on Neuroscience from Yale University. While at Yale, she studied piano with Daniel Pollack and Sara Laimon. Ms. Becker received a Fulbright Teaching assistantship to teach English in France, and spent one year teaching and studying music in Paris. At Indiana University, she is currently completing her Masters degree in Piano Performance under Leonard Hokanson. Ms. Becker's performances include solo and chamber recitals in New York, New Haven, and on the Yale campus, and appearances in festivals including the Yale Summer Piano Institute and the Victoria International Festival of the Arts in British Columbia. 

Pianist Anne Bolt was born in England and started playing the piano at age four. She has performed a wide variety of solo and chamber music concerts in Japan, Canada, the United States and Germany and throughout the UK. She recorded a concert for Bavarian State Radio in 1990 and has performed concertos at major venues in the UK, Hong Kong, Malaysia and Singapore. In 1993, Ms. Bolt graduated from Oxford University with BA Honors degree, and spent the following year at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama on the Advanced Solo Studies course, studying with Hilary Coates. In 1994, Ms. Bolt was awarded a Fulbright Scholarship to pursue her Masters at Indiana University under the direction of Menahem Pressler. She also received an English Speaking Union Fellowship and a British Universities North America Club "BEST" Scholarship. 

Pianist Ray Fellman, who performed in the March concert of the complete songs of Clara Schumann, is also active as a music director. He is currently pursuing a degree in Vocal Coaching and Accompanying, studying with Karen Shaw. He has also worked with James Tocco and Gary Arvin, and studied voice with Dale Moore, James King and Jane Kowalski. He has been Music Director of the Indiana University Broadway Cabaret for four years. Other music directing projects have included Indiana University Theater Department productions of Anything Goes, Cabaret and the upcoming Guys and Dolls; Brown County Playhouse productions of Tintypes, Forever Plaid, and Sondheim's Side by Side this summer; the Aiken Productions tour of Amahl and the Night Visitors; and at the Edyvean Repertory Theater in Indianapolis, 1776, Tintypes and Tapestry this fall. 

Soprano Amy Hansen Simmons grew up in California, Brazil and Oregon. She is pursuing a Masters degree at Indiana University, where she has performed the roles of Pat Nixon in Adams' Nixon in China and Gretel in Humperdinck's Hansel and Gretel. She enjoys singing recitals, including Haydn, Mozart, and Wolf song recitals. She was recently a soloist at Merkin Hall in New York City, the Festival Music Society in Indianapolis, the Bloomington Early Music Festival, and the International Bassists' Convention. Ms. Hansen Simmons is a 1995 Metropolitan Opera Auditions District winner, a 1996 Opera/Columbus Competition finalist, and a 1995 MacAllister Awards semi-finalist. Her 1993 Bachelors degree is from Oberlin College Conservatory of Music, where she sang Musetta in Puccini's La Bohéme and Mélisande in Debussy's Pelléas et Mélisande. She and her husband David are expecting a baby in August. After the baby is born, she hopes to continue singing with the support (and babysitting help) of her family and friends. 

Tenor David Hansen Simmons, Wisconsin native, is an enthusiastic supporter of the song recital and an avid student and interpreter of Lieder, most recently Schumann's Liederkreis, Op. 39 and Brahms' Liebeslieder Walzer with pianists Nicole Becker and Anne Bolt. Currently, he is a Masters degree student and diction instructor at Indiana University, studying voice with Patricia Havranek. He has coached lieder with Leonard Hokanson and had master classes with Arlene Auger, Reri Grist, and John Wustman. At Oberlin he pursued studies in piano and organ, and often accompanies singers or plays the organ at University Lutheran Church. Recent stage appearances include the role of Luther Billis in the Indiana University production of South Pacific, and the chorus of the Carnegie Hall gala performance of Mahler's Eighth Symphony, under Robert Shaw. Soon he will appear as Franz in Offenbach's Tales of Hoffmann. David is looking forward to the birth of his first child and the return of the Lombardi Trophy to Green Bay (in that order). 

Baritone Andrew Hendricks is a student of Giorgio Tozzi. He has performed a number of lead roles with the Indiana University Opera Theater, including Pelléas in Debussy's Pelléas et Mélisande, Guglielmo in Mozart's Così fan Tutte, the Viceroy of Peru in Offenbach's Perichole, Pangloss in Bernstein's Candide, and Richard Nixon in Adams' Nixon in China. Among his performances as concert and recital soloist are the Monteverdi Vespers, Stravinsky's Les Noces, Wolf's Italienisches Liederbuch, Adams' The Wound-Dresser, Crumb's Songs, Drones, and Refrains of Death, Bach's B-Minor Mass and St. John Passion, and Britten's War Requiem. He has appeared professionally with the orchestras of St. Louis, Indianapolis, and Marin County, in works ranging from Handel and Bach (Messiah, Israel in Egypt, Christmas Oratorio) to Corigliano (Of Rage and Remembrance). However, his most memorable musical experience to date has been his appearance as a dancing aerosol can in the chamber opera Gallantry by Douglas Moore. 

Soprano Evelyn Johnson has performed with the Indiana University Opera Theater, most recently as La Ciesca in the 1994 production of Gianni Schicchi. She also performed the role of Celie in Pastatieri's Signor Deluso with the Indiana University Chamber Opera in March, and also sang in the concert featuring the complete songs of Clara Schumann. Last July, she was an apprentice with the Dorian Opera Theatre in Decorah, Iowa, where she covered the role of Mimi in Puccini's La Bohéme. Ms. Johnson is a graduate of Indiana University and received her Bachelors degree in Voice in 1992, and Masters degree in 1995. Currently, she continues her voice studies with Carol Smith. 

Pianist Marie Libal-Smith is a native of Cleveland, Ohio currently living in Pittsburgh. She earned performance degrees in piano from the Baldwin-Wallace Conservatory of Music and the Indiana University School of Music, and has since performed numerous recital programs as vocal accompanist and chamber music partner. Ms. Libal-Smith has served on the piano faculty at the University of Alabama in Huntsville and at the DePauw University School of Music in Indiana.

Ms. Libal-Smith plays an extensive repertoire of both instrumental and vocal music. She has served as master class pianist for renowned opera singers Giorgio Tozzi, Gianna D’Angelo, Vera Scammon and Jean Deis, and regularly accompanies for Metropolitan Opera District Auditions. Ms. Libal-Smith’s major teachers have included Artur Balsam, Leonard Hokanson, Joseph Rezits, Robert Mayerovitch and Luba Dubinsky of the Borodin Trio.

Ms. Libal-Smith has conducted master classes in collaborative piano and chamber music at Baldwin Wallace College and at the University of Alabama in Huntsville. She has collaborated with renowned flutist Carol Wincenc and tenor Gran Wilson, and has appeared in concert in New York City, Toronto, Nashville, Ann Arbor, Oberlin, Blue Hill, Maine and Lenox, Massachusetts.

Recent performances have included a song recital with soprano Lisa Williamson who recently made her Carnegie Hall debut. Ms. Libal-Smith has collaborated with Marissa Regni, principal second violinist of the National Symphony Orchestra (DC). Ms. Libal-Smith has performed in Victoria, British Columbia with violinist Sharon Stanis of the Lafayette String Quartet. A recording of the music of Suk, Prokofiev and Szymanowski is soon to be released.  In recent concerts, she has collaborated with Sean Gabriel, principal flute of the Cleveland Chamber Symphony and Cleveland Opera, and Amy Porter, former co-principal flute of the Atlanta Symphony.

Ms. Libal-Smith is currently serving on the piano faculty of Westminster College in New Wilmington, PA, is staff accompanist at Duquesne University and studio pianist for renowned flutist Jeanne Baxtresser at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh.

Resume & Repertoire

Tenor David Kenneth Smith, as a dedicated Lieder recitalist, includes in his repertoire art songs of Beethoven, Berg, Brahms, Schubert, Strauss, Wolf and Spohr. On the 1994 wedding anniversary of Robert and Clara Schumann, he performed their Liebesfrühling, with Lieder of Felix and Fanny Mendelssohn in a concert billed “Friends, Siblings, Spouses.” He established and edits the internationally renown website ClaraSchumann.net, which is an undisputed rival of those for major composers.  After eight years and more than 228,000 visitors, the website continues to be a vital resource to encourage and facilitate further research and performance of her music. He founded the Clara Schumann Society, and in that capacity, has organized and performed numerous concerts of her music. He continues to present the Lieder of Clara Schumann to various audiences, accompanied by his wife, pianist Marie Libal-Smith. Their program entitled 1840: Wedding-Year Lieder of Robert and Clara Schumann, which includes Robert’s Dichterliebe and excerpts of Frauenliebe und –Leben is frequently requested.

Soprano Susan Swaney has performed as Cunegonde in Bernstein's Candide, Madame Mao in Adams' Nixon in China, the title role in Holst's Savitri and Tzeitel in Fiddler on the Roof at Indiana University, where she earned her Masters degree in Voice as a student of Vera Scammon. She has performed as soprano soloist in Beethoven's Symphony No. 9 with the Anderson and Carmel, Indiana, Symphony Orchestras and has collaborated with several composers on performances of new works. In 1995, she was semi-finalist in the Center for Contemporary Opera International Opera Singers' Competition, and this summer will premiere an opera by composer Constance Cooper in Princeton, New Jersey. She has performed a recital of Goethe poems, appeared in the concert of the complete songs of Clara Schumann, and is preparing a recital, "In Praise of the Domestic Arts." A native of Iowa, Swaney studied Musicology and Violin at the University of Michigan, and spent a year at the Mozarteum Conservatory in Salzburg, Austria. 

Violinist Christopher Swanson has performed with the San Luis Obispo County (CA) Mozart Festival, the Los Angeles Baroque Orchestra, the Austin Symphony Orchestra (TX), numerous community and university ensembles, and recently, with the Bloomington Early Music Festival. He currently enjoys working for the Bloomington Voice Newspaper, playing concerts with friends, and (unfortunately) most activities that his mother disapproves of. 

Pianist Sally Renée Todd is a native of Bedford, Indiana. Composers Bartok, Franck, and Debussy have appeared on her recent concert programs, although she specializes in Chopin. Ms. Todd is currently completing a Masters in Piano, her second degree at Indiana University. She studies with Schumann-expert Leonard Hokanson, and previously with Enrica Cavallo-Gulli, Walter Robert, Marion Hall, and Karen Taylor. She serves as Executive Assistant at both the Latin America Music Center and the Bloomington Early Music Festival. 

Soprano Lisa Williamson —Since her debut with the Indianapolis Symphony, soprano Lisa Williamson continues to garner ovations from audiences and critics throughout the U.S. and Canada.  The critical success of her portrayal of Alice Ford in Verdi’s Falstaff, opposite Timothy Noble, led to recitals and concerts in New York, Chicago, San Antonio, Cincinnati, Detroit, Orlando, Indianapolis, Atlanta and Washington, D. C., where she was invited to sing for the National Dedication of the Indiana Plaza.

Cellist Tomasz Wojciechowski, a native of Poland, came to Bloomington in 1989 bringing with him an extensive and significant career of twenty years in music. Having graduated with distinction from Poznan Music Academy, in 1981 moved to Rome after completing a postgraduate scholarship at the Prague Music Academy to take the position of co-principal of the cello section in the Rome Opera Orchestra. It took him almost a decade to realize that he is not tailored for this kind of artistic routine. Thanks to a generous grant from the B. Piasecka-Johnson Foundation, he was able to attend and complete a doctoral program at Indiana University under the severe eye of distinguished cellist Janos Starker. In the meantime, he has successfully performed as a soloist with various orchestras and chamber groups in Poland, Italy, Bulgaria, Germany, Austria, the Czech Republic and the United States. He spent the last two years as Assistant Professor of Cello at Converse College School of Music in Spartanburg, S.C. Presently he is preparing for finals and for a solo tour in Poland with a program of the cello concerti of Schumann, Haydn and Tchaikovsky. Married since 1974, he is the father of two boys age 21 and 9. 

Penny Thomas received a Bachelor of Music degree in Music Education from Wesleyan College (Macon, GA), a Master of Music degree in Music History and Literature from Georgia State University, and a PhD in Musicology from the University of Florida where she studied with Dr. David Z. Kushner. She is a member of Sigma Alpha Iota, Pi Kappa Lambda, Phi Beta Delta, Alpha Psi Omega, Pi Delta Epsilon, the College Music Society, American Musicological Society, and Sonneck Society for American Music. While at the University of Florida, she received the D'Albora Graduate Music Scholarship and the President's Recognition Award.

Dr. Thomas has performed with the Renaissance Consorts at Wesleyan and the University of Florida, served as the music editor of the Wesleyan Magazine of Creative Arts, and organized a symposium on women composers at UF. She has presented papers on various aspects of American music to the southern chapters of the College Music Society and American Musicological Society, as well as the Musicology Lecture Series held at UF, and has had papers pulbished in the New Journal of Music and Composer USA. She is currently teaching music in both the Marion County public schools and for Nova Southeastern University and maintains a private studio in Ocala, Fl. 

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Clara '96 at ClaraSchumann.net