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2010/2011 Season
2008/2009 Biographies
2009/2010 Biographies
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Mary Towse-Beck
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Pianist Mary Towse-Beck studied at the Eastman School of Music and at Indiana University where
she obtained her Bachelor's and Master's degrees in piano performance. She studied under several
renowned teachers in the United States, including Jerome Rose, Rebecca Penneys, Edward Auer and
James Tocco, and Benjamin Kaplan and Norma Fisher in London. She has been a featured artist on
NPR in the United States and on Australian national radio, and has performed extensively in the
US, Europe and Australia as both soloist and collaborative artist. After spending nearly 20
years in England, she returned to the States in 2007 with her husband and three children. Now
residing in New Hampshire, Mary continues to perform throughout the US, is a Director of Aliento
Chamber Players, coaches chamber music and has a large teaching studio in her home.
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Dorothy Braker
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Dorothy Braker, cellist, founder and Director of Aliento Chamber Players, Inc., graduated from the
Juilliard School with Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in music performance. Her studies were
with Phil Blum, Karl Fruh, and Harvey Shapiro. Primarily a soloist and chamber
musician, her numerous performances across the United States have included Lincoln Center and Paul Hall in
New York City, The Bennington Museum in Vermont, and the Newberry Library in Chicago. She has
performed in Orchestra, Carnegie, Avery Fisher and Alice Tully Halls. She has also performed
extensive educational concerts across the United States, an activity she has continued here in
New Hampshire.
Here in New Hampshire, in addition to chamber music and solo performances, she is principal cellist with the Portsmouth Symphony,
the Connecticut River Valley Orchestra, and also coaches chamber music and has a private studio of
students. She has played with many other local orchestras and for choral groups. She firmly believes in experiencing music as an integrative and joyful part of life,
both in her East Kingston home with her family, and in performance.
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Paul Dykstra
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Paul Dykstra's versatile pianism and musicianship have interwoven with all of the major
compositional and performance styles in the musical spectrum. Classically trained from a young
age, and trained at the University of Alberta under Helmut Brauss (a protégé of Edwin Fischer
and Elly Ney) he has performed the Bach D Minor and Beethoven G Major Concertos with Canadian
orchestras. Paul has worked with major artists and pedagogues including Anton Kuerti, Gyorgy
Sebok, and Zoltan Szekely at the Banff School and Shawnigan Lake Summer School of the Arts.
His solo, chamber and two piano performances have taken him from Western Canada to the East
Coast of the United States. A winner of many awards and scholarships in his native Canada, he
has also been on the Board of Examiners for the Western Board of Music and Conservatory Canada.
Since emigrating to the US in 1999, he has completed major projects including World Premiere
recordings and performances of contemporary music with clarinetist Richard Stoltzman, a full
length CD of Classical, Romantic, and Contemporary piano repertoire, and a recording with
Stoltzman and the Slovak Radio Symphony Orchestra of NH composer Roger Rudenstein's "Blues for
New Orleans". His recent CD, An Ivory Winter, featuring Great Classical Piano Music for your
Inner Season, with masterpieces by Chopin, Beethoven, Bach, Mozart and NH composer Roger
Rudenstein, can be purchased here.
Paul is also on the Faculty of the Concord Community Music School and performs
many solo and chamber concerts in addition to four-hand one and two piano concerts with
colleague Gregg Pauley.
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Jill Fratianne
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Violist Jill Fratianne currently lives in Hampton, NH. At the age of 17, she became the
youngest violist to receive a fellowship to the Aspen Music Festival. Miss Fratianne was awarded
a fellowship to the Tanglewood Music Festival. Jill received her undergraduate and Master's
degree from Northwestern University where she studied with Roland Vamos and was awarded the
Civic Fellowship of Northwestern, a full tuition scholarship while performing as Principal
Violisit of the Civic Orchestra of Chicago, the training orchestra for the Chicago Symphony.
Currently she performs regularly with the Portland Symphony Orchestra and is the Principal
of the Portsmouth Symphony Orchestra. Her song, "For Hands, One Heart", written for violin and
guitar was rated the "Most Requested Song At Guitar Center" and can be heard in Guitar Centers
nation wide as well as downloaded on iTunes.
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Angelynne Hinson
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Angelynne Hinson leads a very active life as a vocal artist, performing opera, choral and song
recitals, church music, and cabaret and revues throughout New England. Now in her tenth season with
Cantata Singers of Boston, she has served as a soloist as well as a member in its main stage and
chamber series. She has toured the Boston schools with the Cantata Singers outreach program, I
Never Saw Another Butterfly: Songs of Terezin Concentration Camp. As a member of the critically
acclaimed vocal duo Sirens' Song, she has appeared in numerous regional concert series, as well as
in a recent recital series in London. Ms. Hinson is an avid scholar of the history of the American
musical theater, writing and performing in revues featuring the music of George Gershwin, Cole
Porter, and Stephen Sondheim. Currently a host of classical music programs on WSCA, Angelynne also
has an interest in contemporary American classical song. Ms. Hinson holds a law degree from the
Franklin Pierce Law Center in Concord and a B.A. in English and American Literature from Harvard
University.
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Karen Luttik
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Clarinetist Karen Luttik has recently relocated to New Hampshire after performing and teaching in the Netherlands for 20 years
among others with Trio Aleotti and Musicaleren. Her studies were in
Manhattan School of Music with Charles Russo, the Royal Conservatory of Music in the Hague and the Sweelink
Conservatory of Music in Amsterdam, where she worked with George Pieterson. She has served as principle clarinet
for the Singapore Symphony Orchestra and has performed regularly in the New England area with the Boston Modern
Orchestral Project, Musicaleren, Aliento Chamber Players and the Nashua Symphony Orchestra. Karen has a clarinet
studio in Nashua and also teaches at the Nashua Community Music School, and at Nashua Christian Academy.
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Melinda McMahon
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Melinda McMahon, mezzo-soprano is an accomplished artist in opera, oratorio and operetta. She has a B.M.E. in choral studies with a minor in harp
performance from the University of Kansas and a M.A. in music history with vocal performance emphasis from UNH. She has appeared as a soloist in
Austria at the American Institute of Musical Studies (AIMS) and has performed throughout New England and the Midwest. She has appeared as a solo
artist with a variety of groups here in New Hampshire.
A member of the critically-acclaimed Renaissance group, Capella Alamire, she has performed throughout the northeastern United States and Canada,
including appearances at the Monadnock and Boston Early Music Festivals. She has recorded three CD’s on the Titanic and Dorian Discovery labels. In
addition, Melinda is an accomplished harpist, appearing regularly with the New Hampshire Philharmonic Orchestra and other chamber groups in New
England.
Melinda has been teaching voice and harp for more than 25 years. While on the faculty at Berwick Academy, she worked privately with young aspiring
voices and directed the upper school chorus. She has been on the faculty at Summer Youth Music School at UNH, directing a Gilbert & Sullivan revue.
Currently, she teaches for the Humanities Program at the University of New Hampshire.
With Sirens' Song, she has appeared on numerous regional concert series and festival programs including a full-length recital at The Music Hall,
Portsmouth, Concerts on the Hill, Mill Pond Center for the Arts, and Ogunquit Chamber Festival. Sirens' Song is dedicated to performing duets from
a wide range of vocal literature - classical and modern opera to oratorio, contemporary and Romantic art songs to operetta, musical theatre and folk
song.
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Beth Pearson
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Beth Pearson, cellist, is a graduate of Oberlin Conservatory and a Tanglewood Fellow. Beth is a founding member of Apple Hill Chamber
Players. She has been a soloist with the Brockton Symphony, New England String Ensemble, Nashua Chamber Orchestra, Brookline Symphony
and Boston Lawyers Orchestra at the Esplanade. She has performed and recorded throughout the United States and has 40 years' experience
teaching cello and coaching chamber music.
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Alexander Romanul
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Violinist Alexander Romanul was born in Boston into a distinguished musical family of historic
Romanian lineage. After making his debut at age 13 playing the Mendelssohn Violin Concerto with
the New England Conservatory Orchestra under the direction of Gunther Schuller, he was
invited by Arthur Fiedler to play as a soloist with the Boston Pops, soloed with the Boston
Symphony Orchestra in Symphony Hall as winner of the Youth Concerts Concerto Competition, and
performed as soloist with the National Symphony of Ecuador, where critics acclaimed him a
poet of the violin. Subsequently Romanul was awarded fifth prize in the Wieniawski International
Violin Competition in Poland and has performed widely as soloist and chamber musician in Europe
and the Americas.
Romanul's honored professori include Ivan Galamian, Alfred Krips, Joseph Silverstein,
and Josef Gingold. Philosophically inclined, autodidact and dedicated individualist, Romanul
pursues a wide range of interests. He has a special affection and affinity for the mountains
and small towns of rural Vermont.* Biography courtesy of Summer Music From Greensboro
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"With the performance of pianist Mary Towse-Beck, the Aliento Chamber Players series at Christ
Episcopal Church has become Exeter's answer to Carnegie Hall" Lois Yopp former faculty of music, Northwestern University
"Thanks so much for giving such an enjoyable performance. If Brahms had been in the audience, I’m sure he would have been pleased!" Jackie Linder
4 Main Street
East Kingston, NH 03827
(603) 944-7070
alientochamber at comcast dot net
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