Making Music for 25 Years
C.W. Post Chamber Music Festival Celebrates Milestone Silver Anniversary

Twenty-five years ago, as MTV was launching a new genre of musical entertainment, two music professors at the C.W. Post Campus were preparing to launch an annual festival that would thrive and grow, helping to shape the way chamber music is studied, played and celebrated on Long Island. Founders Susan Deaver and Maureen Hynes remain at the helm of the C.W. Post Chamber Music Festival as it enters its 25th Season stronger than ever, with an international list of participants and renowned guest artists.

This year, approximately 120 musicians will gather at C.W. Post from Monday, July 10 through Friday, July 28 to hone their skills and perform on string instruments, woodwinds, brass and piano as part of the 25th Annual C.W. Post Chamber Music Festival. Participants will include young professionals, teachers, college and high school students and pre-formed chamber music groups. The three-week intensive workshop includes chamber ensembles, chamber orchestras, master classes, a conducting program, a concerto competition and a series of faculty and student concerts.

That's quite different from the inaugural event, which included 35 students for a two-week event. In 1981, Susan Deaver and Maureen Hynes were adjunct professors in the music department at the C.W. Post Campus of Long Island University. They had just joined The Pierrot Consort, a faculty ensemble-in-residence on campus. Chamber music was experiencing a world-wide growth with programs in abundance at Lincoln Center and many colleges and universities sprouting summer programs. Deaver, a flutist, and Hynes, a cellist, were eager to share their love of the style, and at the urging of their department head, founded the C.W. Post Chamber Music Festival.

Since that time, the festival has developed into an international event, attracting musicians from all over the United States and places as far away as Korea, Japan and Bulgaria.

This year the festival will feature three guest artists:

�œ The Imani Winds is an African-American/Latino woodwind quintet whose most recent album, The Classical Underground, was nominated for a 2006 Grammy Award for Best Classical Crossover.

�œ Larry Dutton is a member of the Emerson String Quartet, one of the world's foremost chamber ensembles. The group has amassed six Grammy Awards, including two unprecedented honors for Best Classical Album, and three Gramophone Magazine Awards.

�œ Timothy Eddy is a cellist for the Orion String Quartet. He has received top honors at the Gaspar Cassado International Violoncello Competition held in Florence, Italy. He has also won prizes in the Dealey Contest (Dallas), the Denver Symphony Guild Competition, the North Carolina Symphony Contest, and the New York Violoncello Society competition.

"We're so pleased to have such great artists performing with us," Hynes said. "It is a testament not only to how far we've come as a program and as an event, but how much chamber music has grown in recent years. For those who love chamber music, a festival like ours is not to be missed."

Over the years, students and former faculty members at the Festival have gone on to successful careers in Chamber Music. David Alan Miller, the first conductor of the festival in 1981, is conductor of the Albany Symphony and Charles Barker, a former faculty member, is the Principal Conductor for American Ballet Theater, currently performing at the Metropolitan Opera House.  Distinguished alumni include: Richard King of the Cleveland Orchestra, Jessica Guideri of the Fry Street Quartet, Danielle Guideri of The Veronika Quartet, Jeff Scott of The Imani Winds as well as the orchestra for "The Lion King" on Broadway, Jessica Meyer of Counterinduction, and Roumi Petrova and Kalin Ivanov, members of the Bulgarian Piano Quartet and the Forte String Quartet.

“It’s wonderful and so gratifying to see the success of former students,” Deaver said. "Every year we'll hear about two or three of our former participants who have gone on to have fulfilling musical careers."

What makes this festival so successful is undoubtedly the infectious enthusiasm of the event’s founders and organizers for the past quarter century. Susan Deaver and Maureen Hynes are members of The Pierrot Consort, C.W. Post’s faculty ensemble-in-residence. Deaver, the Director of Woodwind Studies at C.W. Post, has performed throughout the United States, Europe and Asia in recital as a flute soloist with symphony orchestras and at chamber music performances. She was the principal flutist of the Washington Chamber Symphony at the Kennedy Center from 1981 to 2002 and has appeared with numerous orchestras, including the Long Island Philharmonic, the Brooklyn Philharmonic, the Queens Symphony Orchestra, Philharmonia Virtuosi and on Broadway in the Phantom of the Opera.  She has received fellowships from the Bach Aria and the Tanglewood Festivals and has recorded for New World records, CRI and Arabesque Recordings. She is the conductor and music director of the North Shore Symphony Orchestra, and was appointed in 2001 as the conductor of the University Orchestra at SUNY Stony Brook. She has guest conducted in Scotland, England, Spain and Korea and is experienced in working with young musicians and music educators as both conductor and clinician.  She is the Principal Guest Conductor of the Long Island Youth Orchestra and was a conductor for Manhattan School of Music’s Contemporary Ensemble from 1987 to 1989.  For the past eight years, she has assisted Tilles Center in coordinating the New York Philharmonic’s educational residency with the C.W. Post Orchestra.  Her bachelor’s and master’s degrees are from Manhattan School of Music where she also earned her doctorate in Musical Arts.

Hynes, a Professor of Cello, Director of String Studies and Director of the Merriweather Consort, enjoys an active career as a practicing musician and teacher in New York musical society. She performs regularly with the American Ballet Theater, the American Symphony Orchestra, the Opera Orchestra of New York, American Composers Orchestra, New York Virtuosi, the Westchester Philharmonic and the Long Island Philharmonic. She has also appeared with the Royal Ballet, the San Francisco Ballet, at the Spoleto and Aspen Festivals and at the Lake George Opera Festival. Her work in New York has included substitute work on Broadway in Les Miserables and The Lion King.  She has performed in Europe, Canada, Korea and Hong Kong both as cellist and gambist. In January of 2003, she was invited to conduct Division III of the Nassau All-County Festival at Tilles Center.  She is a graduate of Manhattan School of Music, where she received her bachelor’s and master’s degrees.

C.W. Post’s faculty ensemble-in-residence, The Pierrot Consort, is also celebrating this milestone anniversary and will be performing at the festival. In addition to its regular concert series at Long Island University, the Pierrot Consort has performed at Merkin Concert Hall, Weill Recital Hall, the Kennedy Center, the Bartok Society at Saranac Lake, the Bruce Museum in Greenwich, Connecticut, and the Stockbridge Chamber Concerts in Great Barrington, Massachusetts. Current members of the Pierrot Consort are Susan Deaver (flute), Dale Stuckenbruck (violin), Veronica Salas (viola), Maureen Hynes (cello) and Heawon Kim (piano)

Participants for the Festival are selected by audition during the spring and may enroll on a non-credit basis or for high school, college or graduate credits. For additional information, call the C.W. Chamber Music Festival office at 516-299-2103, or visit www.liu.edu/svpa/music/

Posted July 19, 2006