Musical Club to Present Concert Featuring Schumann and Vocal Music

The Musical Club of Hartford will present its final concert of 2016 at the Westminster Presbyterian Church 2080 Boulevard, West Hartford on Dec. 8 at 10 a.m.  The winter and spring concerts will continue in the first four months of 2017.

First on the program, the Musical Club’s Vocal Ensemble will present works by C.E. Miller, Gustav Holst, Gabriel Faure, Isadore Freed, Edvard Grieg, and Michael Martin. The program of the Musical Club Vocal Ensemble is a celebration of music sung over seven decades. The copyright of the first song is 1916 and of the last number is 2003.  Members of the Vocal Ensemble are Jane Bugbee, Carol Carlson, Sandra Ann Craig, Sharon Girard, Carol Hunt, Marjorie Hutensky, Miriam Kennedy, Ellen Ma, Josephine Mangiafico, Anne Mayo, Carol Sexton, Susanne Shrader, Lean-Cheng Tan, Vilma Walton, Janet Wilson, and Eugenia Zessos. Accompaniment is provided on the piano by Elizabeth Carabillo. Rita Henderson conducts.

Next, will be the romantic and popular Piano Trio No.1 in D Minor by Robert Schumann. This captivating trio is one of the most definitive romantic trios and is imbued with Schumann’s strong personal style.  Schumann (1810-1856) wrote this piece in 1847. Lisa Kugelman, violin, Fran Bard, cello, and Stacy Cahoon, piano will perform.

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Cellist Fran Bard has played with the Hartford Symphony Orchestra for many years. She also performs with the Hop River Chamber Players in Andover,CT  .Ms. Bard taught Elementary Strings in the Windsor Public Schools for most of her teaching career and finished  in the Glastonbury Public Schools. Originally from Chicago, she received her B.M.  from the Chicago Musical College and her M.M and Music Educators Certification from the University of Connecticut. Her cello training was under the tutelage of Channing Robbins, Aldo Parisot, Raya Garbousova, Karl Fruh and Mary Lou Rylands.

Stacy Cahoon (West Hartford) holds performance degrees from the University of Massachusetts at Lowell, and a Master of Music Degree from the Hartt School of Music in Accompanying. She is an active accompanist in the area working with singers and instrumentalists. In addition, she is the accompanist for the Travelers Chorale and the CitiSingers of Hartford.  As a composer, she has had vocal compositions premiered at Bushnell Hall, and the Women Composers Festival of Hartford.

Lisa Kugelman, violinist, West hartford, studied with Bernard Lurie, Roman Totenberg, and Syoko Aki, and performs regularly with the Hartford Symphony, the Worthington Trio, and the Arensky Trio.

Patrice Fitzgerald, mezzo-soprano, received a graduate degree in Vocal Performance from Hartt in 2008.  She has performed in musicals and operas throughout the region, appearing with Berkshire Opera, Connecticut Opera, Warner Theatre, Greater Hartford Opera Ensemble, Simsbury Light Opera Company, and West Hartford Community Theater, and has toured Brazil, Spain, Argentina, Scotland and Ireland as a choir member and section leader.  Patrice performs regularly in classical, Broadway and jazz concerts with her husband Richard Leslie.

Alice Matteson, soprano, was born and raised in Orlando, Florida. Alice graduated magna cum laude from The Hartt School in 2008 with a Bachelor of Music in Vocal Performance. During her time at Hartt, she performed the role of Eurydice in Offenbach's Orpheus in the Underworld, and partial roles of Ginevra in Händel's Ariodante, and First Witch in Purcell's Dido and Aeneas. She was also a featured soloist with the Hartt Baroque Collegium. Concert works have included soprano soloist in Mozart's Requiem, Fauré's Requiem, Vivaldi's Gloria, and Benjamin Britten's Missa Brevis and Ceremony of Carols.  Chamber works have included soprano soloist in Heinrich Schütz's Müsikalische Exequien, J.S. Bach's Wedding Canata (BWV 202), J.S. Bach’s Jesu, meine Freude (BWV 227) and Giacomo Carissimi's Jonas. Alice has a special interest in early music, and sings with the up-and-coming vocal chamber ensemble Voce Concitato, based in Hartford, CT.

Alice is also very dedicated to music ministry in the church. She has been a member of the Schola Cantorum at the Cathedral of St. Joseph in Hartford, CT since 2008, and directs the Archdiocesan Youth Choir, which is in residence at the Cathedral. She also serves as a cantor for the Catholic Communities of East Hartford North and St. John Fisher Church in Marlborough, CT. Alice is an active voice and piano instructor. She is on faculty at Summit Studios Performing Arts Center, located in Manchester, CT, and maintains an active private studio in her home in Bloomfield, CT.

David Garrido-Cid, piano, started his musical studies in Caracas, Venezuela. His education continued in Spain, first in his hometown, Ourense, then at the Real Conservatorio de Música de Madrid. He holds a Masters from The Hartt School, and an Artist Diploma from the Yale School of Music. His major teachers included Anselmo de la Campa, Luiz de Moura Castro and Boris Berman. He has worked with other prominent musicians: Peter Frankl, Claude Frank, Paul Badura Skoda, Joaquin Achúcarro. He was recipient of various scholarships: Donald Johnston (Yale); the Evelyn Bonar Storrs (Musical Club of Hartford); and Fundación Pedro Barrié de la Maza (Coruña, Spain).

Some of his international awards include: First Prize on the Van Rooy Competition for Musical Excellence, and winner of the Emerson String Quartet Competition, both at The Hartt School. David’s performances have taken him through Spain, Italy, Brazil and USA, having shared stage with the Emmerson String Quartet, Humbert Lucarelli, and Robert Black.

David is currently the Director of Music Ministries at St. Thomas the Apostle church in West Hartford, CT. He is actively involved in the choral conducting scene. He is, together with Gabriel Löfvall and Rodrigo Queiroz, co-founder and co-director of Vallis Musicæ - a traveling Connecticut Community Choral project. Born in 2006 in the Farmington Valley area, the group has toured Brazil (2007), Spain (2008) and Argentina (2010), and Ireland (2013). David performs often around Connecticut and Massachusetts, enjoying both solo appearances as well as with his wife, Alice Matteson (soprano).