Robert Lehmann was born and raised in Mexico City.
He is a graduate of the University of the Pacific and the Eastman School of Music, and a 2008 recipient of a doctorate in violin performance from Boston University.

He is Director of String Studies, Associate Professor of Music and Artist Faculty in violin and viola at the University of Southern Maine School of Music.
He Conducts the Southern Maine Symphony Orchestra, the Portland Youth Symphony Orchestra, the North Shore Philharmonic, the Portland Chamber Orchestra, and the White Mountain Bach Festival.

He has been a frequent guest conductor of the Portland Symphony Orchestra as well as other professional orchestras around the world, and is in great demand as a violinist, teacher, adjudicator and conductor.

WMMA is proud to welcome Dr. Lehmann back is Festival Director for the third season.

Ray Cornils is the Municipal Organist for the City of Portland and is also Minister of Music at Parish Church, UCC in Brunswick, Maine. A member of the music faculties of Bowdoin College and the University of Southern Maine, he also teaches organ, harpsichord and related classes. Mr. Cornils graduated from the Oberlin College Conservatory of Music and the New England Conservatory of Music. Ray has concertized throughout the United States and in Germany, France, Spain, Russia, Ecuador and New Zealand. He has performed at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York City, the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C. and Philadelphia’s famed Wanamaker Organ. He has been a featured recitalist for conventions of the American Guild of Organists and the Organ Historical Society. He performs regularly with the Portland Symphony and Musica Tricinia, a group of two trumpets and organ.

The 22nd Bach Festival Opening Concert will take place at Christ Church, Episcopal, Main Street, North Conway on the Casavant free-standing, two manual tracker organ. WMMA is proud to welcome Mr. Cornils back for a second season performing on the Casavant Tracker Organ in North Conway.

Concert ~ Sunday afternoon, August 22 at 4 PM

Christ Church, Episcopal, North Conway
Organist, Ray Cornils
Casavant Tracker Organ

YOUNG ARTIST
Wilson Gabriel Bristol, piano

Seventeen year old Wilson Bristol is no stranger to audiences in Maine. He made his formal recital debut in December 2006 at the age of 14 at the Franco American Heritage Center. He has continued to perform steadily since then at venues around New England and New York. In addition to appearing as a guest soloist with both the Bangor Symphony and Southern Maine Symphony Orchestras, he was invited to perform on the nationally broadcast radio show, “From the Top.”

He has been awarded first prize at the Symphony High School Concerto Competition, the Ocy Downs Piano Competition, the New England Piano Teachers Middle School Competition, and the Pine Tree Piano Competition. He has also been the recipient of two Young Star Awards from Bay Chamber Concerts (The A. H. Chatfield Jr. Piano prize and the Elsie Bixler Junior prize).

He has been invited to participate in several festivals, including the Next Generation Chamber Music Festival in Rockport, the Bowdoin International Music Festival, the Arcady Summer Music Festival Concerts Series, and the Portland Conservatory’s International Piano Festival.

Will began his piano studies at age nine and shortly thereafter became a student of Naydene Bowder with whom he studied for three years. Other teachers under whom he has studied include Frank Glazer, Martin Perry, Inon Barnatan, Martin Canin, Arie Vardi and Yong Hi Moon. An early graduate from high school after attending two years at Merriconeag Waldorf High School in New Gloucester, Will is currently entering his sophomore year at the University Of Southern Maine’s School Of Music studying with Laura Kargul.

Frank Glazer

Frank Glazer has had a long and distinguished career as a soloist, recording artist, chamber musician and teacher. Critics from all over the world have called him "a master musician as well as a virtuoso" and have praised his performances as "formidable", as well as "extraordinary", and "phenomenal". Mr. Glazer studied with the great pianist and Beethoven interpreter Artur Schnabel in Berlin where he met the composer Arnold Schoenberg with whom he also studied. His New York debut when he was 21 was a notable success, as was his first appearance three years later with a major symphony orchestra, the Boston Symphony led by Serge Koussevitsky. Since then he has played in 24 countries with the world's finest
orchestras including the New York Philharmonic, the Chicago Symphony, the Cincinnati Symphony, and many of the finest ensembles abroad. Mr. Glazer was a founding member of the Eastman Quartet and, as a chamber musician, has performed with the Fine Arts Quartet, the Cleveland Quartet, and the New York Woodwind Quintet, among others. He was on the faculty of the Eastman School of Music for 15 years before coming to Maine. He is Artist-in-Residence at Bates College, and continues to perform, conduct master classes and lecture frequently in Maine, throughout the United States and abroad.

The 94-year-old Glazer, a pianist of international renown,
has been an artist in residence at Bates College, Maine since 1980.
In a era whose pianists often strive for the gloss of mechanical precision and a big sound, Glazer instead makes all else secondary to the music's own message.

"He has thought everything through and tried to get at the core of what the music is about. Everything he does is about that," says colleague James Parakilas, a pianist himself and the James L. Moody Jr. Family Professor of Performing Arts at Bates. "And he has a wonderful way of making a line sing."

JOHN ADAMS , BASS-BARITONE

Bass-baritone John David Adams has enjoyed acclaim as a concert soloist as well as for diverse opera and stage roles. His concert repertoire ranges from cantatas and oratorios by Bach, Handel and Haydn to premieres of new works, appearing with ensembles such as the San Francisco Symphony, Berkeley Symphony, Berkeley Lyric Opera Orchestra, Marin Chamber Orchestra, Midcoast Symphony, Arlington Symphony, North Shore Philharmonic, New England Wind Symphony, Maine Music Society, Longfellow Chorus, Masterworks Chorale and Oratorio Chorale. His musical stage credits range from Cosi fan tutte to Sweeney Todd in productions by Boston Opera, Granite State Opera, San Francisco Lyric Opera, Berkeley Opera, Port Opera, Apollo Opera, SOLO Opera, Maine Grand Opera, New England Light Opera and Maine State Music Theater.

EMILY MARVOSH , SOPRANO

Emily Marvosh, mezzo soprano, is active in opera and oratorio in the Boston area. As a soloist, she has performed with Boston Lyric Opera, the Back Bay Chorale, L’academie, Longwood Opera and Intermezzo Chamber Opera; she, also, is a frequent soloist with the Marsh Chapel Choir Bach Cantata Series. In 2005 Miss Marvosh sang the role of Meg in the New England premiere of Mark Adamo’s Little Women, and also recently premiered the song cycle In the Sky She Floats. Recent concert performances include solo appearances with the Charlotte Symphony Orchestra, Harvard University, the Providence Singers and Seraphic Fire and Firebird Chamber Orchestra. 2010 engagements include the Oregon Bach Festival under the direction of Helmut Rilling and the Berkshire Choral Festival She holds degrees from Central Michigan University (B. Music) and Boston University (Master of Music).

BRUCE FITHIAN, TENOR

Bruce Fithian, tenor, made his debut at Carnegie Recital Hall and has established a career both in this country and abroad. As tenor soloist with the Boston Camerata, he made seven recordings with that ensemble for Erato, Nonesuch and Harmonia Mundi. He has sung with the Boston Handel and Haydn Society, the Boston Cecilia Society, Boston Cantata Singers, and was a featured soloist in the international Boston Early Music Festival under Roger Norrington.

He has performed at Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall with the New York "Concert Royal" and given recitals throughout the United States. In Europe he sang with the Paris Opera (Orfeo), le Nouvelle Orchestre Philharmonique under Pierre Boulez, Centre Polyphonique de Paris (Sir David Willcocks), and as an oratorio and concert artist in Germany, Israel, Portugal, Spain (Teatro Reale), Italy (Accademia di Santa Cecilia di Roma, Villa Medici, Florence), and England (London Opera Centre). His recordings of Musiques au Temps de Philippe Auguste (Erato) won the Grand Prix Audiovisuel de l'Europe. He has often appeared on national broadcasts of the French national radio and his television work includes performances for the French national television. In America he has also been associated with the Aston Magna Festival at Rutger's University, New Jersey, both as artist and artist faculty member. As a composer he has written an opera, orchestral works and especially vocal music. His song cycle, "My Splendors are Menagerie" was reviewed in the Journal of Singing.

In the 2009-2010 season, Ashley Emerson will be seen at the Metropolitan Opera as Barbarina in Le nozze di Figaro and Young Lover in Il Tabarro. For her Seattle Opera debut, she will create the role of Young Amelia in the world premiere of Daron Hagen’s Amelia. Concert engagments include the Mozart Requiem in a joint project with the Choral Art Society of Maine and Portland Ballet; as well as Blonde in Die Entführung aus dem Serail with Boston Symphony Orchestra at Tanglewood Music Festival, conducted by James Levine.

This past season, Ms. Emerson was a Gerdine Young Artist with the Opera Theatre of St. Louis, where she covered Florestine in The Ghosts of Versailles. In concert, Ms. Emerson was a featured soloist with the Bangor Symphony Orchestra singing arias from Mozart’s Zaide, where she was described as “sweet, defiant, and sensual, Emerson has the deep, gutsy sense of urgency that lends any opera singer an air of dramatic authenticity (Bangor Daily News).”

A recent graduate of the Metropolitan Opera’s Lindemann Young Artist Development Program, Ms. Emerson appeared at the Met in new productions of La Rondine and Macbeth, and made her professional stage debut there in Le nozze di Figaro. She was also featured in the “Met in the Parks” summer concert series in 2009 and recently appeared as Despina at the Verbier Festival.

Ms. Emerson won First Prize in the Junior Division at the 2006 Palm Beach Opera Competition. In the summer of 2006, Ms. Emerson participated in the Maine Emerging Artist Program with PORTopera, singing Auretta in Mozart’s L’oca del Cairo. Ms. Emerson completed her undergraduate studies at the University of Southern Maine, where her roles included Pamina in Die Zauberflöte, Adele in Die Fledermaus, and Isabelle/Madeline in The Face on the Barroom Floor.

Brendan Daly, Tenor

Tenor Brendan Daly has sung a wide range of roles on stages across the country, specializing in Mozart, the high-flying bel canto works of Rossini and Donizetti, and contemporary opera.

As a 2009 Ensemble Artist with Opera Colorado, he appeared on the mainstage as Ferrando in Così fan tutte and toured the state as Don Ramiro in La Cenerentola and Ivan in Richard Wargo’s The Music Shop.
At the 2008 Aspen Music Festival, he collaborated with the composer Mason Bates and appeared as the central character in his new opera California Fictions. His twentieth-century music credits include appearances as Candide with the Boston Pops and the Wise Man in Hindemith’s Hin und Zurück at Tanglewood. He has also sung principal roles in Spanish zarzuela productions in Napa, California.

Brendan was Almaviva in Boston Lyric Opera's 2007 Barber of Seville tour, and in 2008 he sang Ernesto in Don Pasquale at Longwood Opera.

In the 2009-10 season, Brendan returns to Opera Colorado as a Young Artist, singing Almaviva in the mainstage matinee of the Barber of Seville and touring with The Music Shop and Gounod’s Romeo and Juliet.

A native of Atlanta, GA, Brendan earned his BA from Harvard in Music and Romance Languages and Literatures before beginning vocal training at the Longy School of Music, where he received his masters in 2004. He has been a Tanglewood Fellow and recently completed the Young Artist Program with Opera Theatre of Saint Louis.

Described as “…a rare artist; one who is a consummate musician and brilliant virtuso.” Has appeared as a guest artist of the Philadelphia area’s top musical organizations; performed the premiere of several solo compositions for trumpet and has been a featured soloist at International Brass Conferences. Honors: Bachelor of Music degree from the University of Delaware; Master of Music degree (majoring in music performance & literature) from the Eastman School of Music; released a solo
CD: Barbara Prugh, Trumpet Artisty.