About the Artists
Jim Walker
Master Teacher
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Few flutists today could be called living legends, yet Jim Walker is surely among those few. Jim counts among his successes careers as an orchestral flutist, concert artist, jazz flutist, recording artist for hundreds of motion picture soundtracks, ethnic flutist, author, and renowned educator. His tireless contributions to the flute community have raised the visibility of the flute as a medium of expression. He has performed to great acclaim with some of the greatest classical and non-classical artists of our time, including James Galway, Leonard Bernstein, Wayne Shorter, Dudley Moore, and Paul McCartney. His students now have successful careers themselves and are performing, teaching, and contributing to their communities in places around the world over.
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Diana Morgan
Young Performer Teaching Faculty and Program Director
Diana Morgan was acting piccolo/3rd flute of the San Diego Symphony from 2014-2015, and again from 2017-2019. Ms. Morgan performers with the Los Angeles Philharmonic and Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, and is a recurring guest principal flute of the Santa Barbara Symphony. Ms. Morgan can be heard playing piccolo on the ABC series Fresh Off the Boat. She has performed at numerous festivals, including Mainly Mozart, Arizona MusicFest, the Artosphere Festival, and Spoleto Festival (USA). Ms. Morgan received a Graduate Certificate in flute performance from the University of Southern California and her master’s degree from Carnegie Mellon University. She is a sought after teacher, and is a flute and piccolo faculty member at the Colburn Community School for the Performing Arts, and an adjudicator for the Colburn Conservatory flute auditions. For the past eleven years, Ms. Morgan has been the program director and young performer faculty at Jim Walker’s "Beyond the Masterclass" at the Colburn School. Alumi of her private studio have attended such institutions as the Colburn Con- servatory, USC, UCLA, Manhattan School of Music, Dartmouth College, Brown Univer- sity, Carnegie Mellon University, Yale University, and many others. Ms. Morgan is excited to meet and work with aspiring, dedicated flutists, regardless of age of level, and has taught beginner and advanced students for over 15 years. www.dianamorgan.net.
Marina Piccinini
Guest Artist
Hailed by Gramophone as “the Heifetz of the flute,” Marina Piccinini is widely recognized across the world as a daring, dynamic artist with varied musical interests. She is internationally-acclaimed for her interpretive skills, intensely communicative performances, technical command, and powerfully magnetic stage presence, with a distinct and global perspective that informs her work as one of the most compelling advocates of both traditional and new works. Much sought after as a soloist, chamber musician, and recording artist, she has garnered special attention for her commitment to the music of our time and for expanding the repertoire of her instrument.
Growing up in a multi-national, multi-lingual household brimming with Italian, Brazilian, and Swiss cultural ties, and having resided in the far-flung locations of Sao Paulo, Zurich, Newfoundland, Toronto, New York City, and Vienna, the flutist brings the vibrant spirit of her rich heritage to all of her artistic endeavors. Ms. Piccinini’s artistic tapestry is also woven with threads both musical and non-musical, ranging from her love of Bachian intricacies and her talents in the visual arts, to her dedication to kung fu and Buddhist thought. As a 36th-generation Shaolin Fighting Monk, she relishes an ideology that inspires self-discovery, discipline, finding joy, and having no limits – all of which she brings to her instrumental artistry.
Ms. Piccinini’s repertoire is among the most diverse of today’s preeminent artists. Collaborating with some of the foremost living composers, she has commissioned and premiered works by John Harbison, Lukas Foss, Michael Colgrass, Paquito D’Rivera, Matthew Hindson, Michael Torke, David Ludwig, and Roberto Sierra, among many others. These projects have taken her across multiple continents, including a tour of her most recently commissioned work, a flute concerto written for her by Pulitzer Prize–winning composer Aaron Jay Kernis, which she premiered with the London and Rochester Philharmonics, Chautauqua Symphony, and Detroit Symphony, and recorded for Naxos with the Peabody Institute Orchestra conducted by Leonard Slatkin.
Recent and upcoming season highlights include a return engagement with the London Philharmonic conducted by Dennis Russell Davies for a recording of Miguel Kertsman’s Flute Concerto; the World Premiere of Kernis’ Air for flute and orchestra with the Korean Chamber Orchestra conducted by Patrick Gallois at Seoul Arts Center; tours with Musicians from Marlboro, including concerts at Carnegie Hall, Philadelphia’s Kimmel Center, The Smithsonian in DC, and Boston’s Gardner Museum; collaborations with the Brentano Quartet, the Beijing Guitar Duo, and with Vienna Philharmonic Principal Harpist Anneleen Lenaerts at the Aspen Music Festival and for Mozart’s Flute and Harp Concerto with conductor Bruno Weil and The Bruckner Orchester Linz, Austria and at the Moritzburg Festival in Dresden; a North American recital tour with pianist Andreas Haefliger at the Kennedy Center, Rockefeller University, Dallas’s Nasher Sculpture Center, and in Akron, Ohio; and appearances with guitarist Meng Su in San Francisco’s Herbst Theatre. Her trio, Tre Voci, appears at London’s Wigmore Hall, premiering a new work written for it by Toshio Hosokawa, and in Mexico City, Philadelphia, Boston, Los Angeles and beyond.
Acclaimed for her “intent, glittering musicianship” (Sunday Times [London]), she is a familiar and much-admired figure at the world’s foremost concert venues. She has appeared as soloist with the Boston, Hong Kong, Vienna, Vancouver, Tokyo, Saint Louis, Montreal, Toronto and National Symphonies, London and Rotterdam Philharmonics, and Ravenna Chamber Orchestra, and has worked with some of the world’s most celebrated conductors, including Esa-Pekka Salonen, Seiji Ozawa, Kurt Masur, Pierre Boulez, Myung-whun Chung, Gianandrea Noseda, Jukka-Pekka Saraste, and Alan Gilbert. She has also performed with the Tokyo, Mendelssohn, and Takács Quartets, NEXUS percussion ensemble, and the Beijing and Brasil Guitar Duos. A regular partner of pianists Andreas Haefliger and Mitsuko Uchida, she is a longtime Resident Artist at the Marlboro Festival, and performed at Japan’s Saito Kinen Festival at Ozawa’s personal invitation.
A prodigious recording artist, she can be heard on the Avie, Claves, and ECM labels, including Tre Voci’s debut CD of works by Tōru Takemitsu, Claude Debussy, and Sofia Gubaidulina; a DVD of Schoenberg’s Pierrot Lunaire from the Salzburg Festival, along with an accompanying documentary entitled Solar Plexus of Modernism; Bach’s complete flute sonatas and solo partitas with the Brasil Guitar Duo; the flute sonatas of Prokofiev and Franck with pianist Andreas Haefliger; and Belle Époque, with pianist Anne Epperson; sonatas by Bartók, Martinů, Schulhoff, Dohnányi, and Taktakishvili; and an acclaimed recording of her dazzling new arrangement of the Paganini Caprices (published by Schott Music).
Her intense commitment to education inspired her to create the Marina Piccinini International Masterclasses (MPIMC), which, after a decade at Baltimore’s Peabody Institute, has recently moved to the New World Center in Miami, launching an exciting new partnership with the New World Symphony. She is currently on the faculty of the Peabody Institute of Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, and was formerly Professor at the Hochschule für Musik, Theater und Medien in Hannover, Germany. She also regularly gives masterclasses worldwide in conjunction with her performances.
Ms. Piccinini was the first flutist to win the coveted Avery Fisher Career Grant. Her career was launched when she won First Prizes in the CBC Young Performers Competition in Canada and the Concert Artists Guild International Competition in New York City.
Marina Piccinini was born into a family of distinguished scientists. She studied with Jeanne Baxtresser and Aurèle Nicolet, and received her Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees from The Juilliard School, where she worked with the legendary Julius Baker. She lives with her family in Vienna and New York.
Growing up in a multi-national, multi-lingual household brimming with Italian, Brazilian, and Swiss cultural ties, and having resided in the far-flung locations of Sao Paulo, Zurich, Newfoundland, Toronto, New York City, and Vienna, the flutist brings the vibrant spirit of her rich heritage to all of her artistic endeavors. Ms. Piccinini’s artistic tapestry is also woven with threads both musical and non-musical, ranging from her love of Bachian intricacies and her talents in the visual arts, to her dedication to kung fu and Buddhist thought. As a 36th-generation Shaolin Fighting Monk, she relishes an ideology that inspires self-discovery, discipline, finding joy, and having no limits – all of which she brings to her instrumental artistry.
Ms. Piccinini’s repertoire is among the most diverse of today’s preeminent artists. Collaborating with some of the foremost living composers, she has commissioned and premiered works by John Harbison, Lukas Foss, Michael Colgrass, Paquito D’Rivera, Matthew Hindson, Michael Torke, David Ludwig, and Roberto Sierra, among many others. These projects have taken her across multiple continents, including a tour of her most recently commissioned work, a flute concerto written for her by Pulitzer Prize–winning composer Aaron Jay Kernis, which she premiered with the London and Rochester Philharmonics, Chautauqua Symphony, and Detroit Symphony, and recorded for Naxos with the Peabody Institute Orchestra conducted by Leonard Slatkin.
Recent and upcoming season highlights include a return engagement with the London Philharmonic conducted by Dennis Russell Davies for a recording of Miguel Kertsman’s Flute Concerto; the World Premiere of Kernis’ Air for flute and orchestra with the Korean Chamber Orchestra conducted by Patrick Gallois at Seoul Arts Center; tours with Musicians from Marlboro, including concerts at Carnegie Hall, Philadelphia’s Kimmel Center, The Smithsonian in DC, and Boston’s Gardner Museum; collaborations with the Brentano Quartet, the Beijing Guitar Duo, and with Vienna Philharmonic Principal Harpist Anneleen Lenaerts at the Aspen Music Festival and for Mozart’s Flute and Harp Concerto with conductor Bruno Weil and The Bruckner Orchester Linz, Austria and at the Moritzburg Festival in Dresden; a North American recital tour with pianist Andreas Haefliger at the Kennedy Center, Rockefeller University, Dallas’s Nasher Sculpture Center, and in Akron, Ohio; and appearances with guitarist Meng Su in San Francisco’s Herbst Theatre. Her trio, Tre Voci, appears at London’s Wigmore Hall, premiering a new work written for it by Toshio Hosokawa, and in Mexico City, Philadelphia, Boston, Los Angeles and beyond.
Acclaimed for her “intent, glittering musicianship” (Sunday Times [London]), she is a familiar and much-admired figure at the world’s foremost concert venues. She has appeared as soloist with the Boston, Hong Kong, Vienna, Vancouver, Tokyo, Saint Louis, Montreal, Toronto and National Symphonies, London and Rotterdam Philharmonics, and Ravenna Chamber Orchestra, and has worked with some of the world’s most celebrated conductors, including Esa-Pekka Salonen, Seiji Ozawa, Kurt Masur, Pierre Boulez, Myung-whun Chung, Gianandrea Noseda, Jukka-Pekka Saraste, and Alan Gilbert. She has also performed with the Tokyo, Mendelssohn, and Takács Quartets, NEXUS percussion ensemble, and the Beijing and Brasil Guitar Duos. A regular partner of pianists Andreas Haefliger and Mitsuko Uchida, she is a longtime Resident Artist at the Marlboro Festival, and performed at Japan’s Saito Kinen Festival at Ozawa’s personal invitation.
A prodigious recording artist, she can be heard on the Avie, Claves, and ECM labels, including Tre Voci’s debut CD of works by Tōru Takemitsu, Claude Debussy, and Sofia Gubaidulina; a DVD of Schoenberg’s Pierrot Lunaire from the Salzburg Festival, along with an accompanying documentary entitled Solar Plexus of Modernism; Bach’s complete flute sonatas and solo partitas with the Brasil Guitar Duo; the flute sonatas of Prokofiev and Franck with pianist Andreas Haefliger; and Belle Époque, with pianist Anne Epperson; sonatas by Bartók, Martinů, Schulhoff, Dohnányi, and Taktakishvili; and an acclaimed recording of her dazzling new arrangement of the Paganini Caprices (published by Schott Music).
Her intense commitment to education inspired her to create the Marina Piccinini International Masterclasses (MPIMC), which, after a decade at Baltimore’s Peabody Institute, has recently moved to the New World Center in Miami, launching an exciting new partnership with the New World Symphony. She is currently on the faculty of the Peabody Institute of Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, and was formerly Professor at the Hochschule für Musik, Theater und Medien in Hannover, Germany. She also regularly gives masterclasses worldwide in conjunction with her performances.
Ms. Piccinini was the first flutist to win the coveted Avery Fisher Career Grant. Her career was launched when she won First Prizes in the CBC Young Performers Competition in Canada and the Concert Artists Guild International Competition in New York City.
Marina Piccinini was born into a family of distinguished scientists. She studied with Jeanne Baxtresser and Aurèle Nicolet, and received her Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees from The Juilliard School, where she worked with the legendary Julius Baker. She lives with her family in Vienna and New York.
Mitsuko Morikawa
Pianist
Pianist Mitsuko Morikawa has been an active soloist, accompanist and chamber musician in United States as well as in Asia. She has collaborated with highly acclaimed musicians from a vast array of genres spanning instrumental music, vocal music, musical theater and chamber ensembles. Some of the artists that Ms. Morikawa has performed with include Julia Migenes, Rodney Gilfry, Kristinn Sigmundsson, Timothy Mussard, Michel Debost, James Walker, Leone Buyse, Carol Wincenc, Jean Ferrandis, Marianne Gedigian, Martin Chalifour, Roberto Cani, Megumi Kanda, Randy Hawes, and Rodell Rosel. Ms. Morikawa has also recorded music for the New World Records label and has been featured on radio programs such as KUSC, WCLV, Cleveland and NHK-FM, Japan.
Apart from her accomplishments as a performer, Ms. Morikawa has also distinguished herself as a unique and highly regarded coach/accompanist. She has served on the faculties at Occidental College, Santa Monica College, the Meadowmount School of Music, Idyllwild Arts Academy Summer Program, National Flute Association Annual Convention, Oberlin College Conservatory, the Oberlin Flute Institute, Baldwin Wallace College Conservatory and the ENCORE School of Strings. She is currently working as an accompanist at the Colburn School, UCLA and Los Angeles Children’s Chorus.
Ms. Morikawa’s degrees consist of a B.M. in piano performance from the Toho School of Music, Japan, an M.M. in piano performance from the Manhattan School of Music, a Professional Studies Certificate in piano performance from The Cleveland Institute of Music and a D.M.A. in Keyboard Collaborative Arts at the University of Southern California. Some of Ms. Morikawa’s teachers include Alan Smith, Norman Krieger, Sergei Babayan, Cheng-Zong Yin, Paul Schenly, Sara Davis Buechner and Hisako Ueno.
Apart from her accomplishments as a performer, Ms. Morikawa has also distinguished herself as a unique and highly regarded coach/accompanist. She has served on the faculties at Occidental College, Santa Monica College, the Meadowmount School of Music, Idyllwild Arts Academy Summer Program, National Flute Association Annual Convention, Oberlin College Conservatory, the Oberlin Flute Institute, Baldwin Wallace College Conservatory and the ENCORE School of Strings. She is currently working as an accompanist at the Colburn School, UCLA and Los Angeles Children’s Chorus.
Ms. Morikawa’s degrees consist of a B.M. in piano performance from the Toho School of Music, Japan, an M.M. in piano performance from the Manhattan School of Music, a Professional Studies Certificate in piano performance from The Cleveland Institute of Music and a D.M.A. in Keyboard Collaborative Arts at the University of Southern California. Some of Ms. Morikawa’s teachers include Alan Smith, Norman Krieger, Sergei Babayan, Cheng-Zong Yin, Paul Schenly, Sara Davis Buechner and Hisako Ueno.
Vivian Fan
Pianist
Vivan Fan currently holds the staff accompanist position at the Colburn Conservatory. Prior to this position, she was on the piano faculty at the Idyllwild Arts Academy and was a teaching assistant to Professor John Perry at USC. She was accompanist at the International Music Course of Benidorm in Spain, the Hawaii Performing Arts Festival, and the Montecito Summer Music Festival, and was awarded the “Best Accompanist Award” by The Edith Knox Performance Competition in 2009 and 2010.
As a solo pianist, Fan has performed with conductors Jorge Mester, Jung Ho Pak, Mario Miragliotta, Sharon Lavery, Peter Askim, and Marc Riley. Her performances have been broadcasted on KTLA and KNBC television as well as KUSC and WFMT radio. Her recent performances include recital collaborations with artists such as Paul Coletti, Shigenori Kudo, Lindsay Deutsch, Paul Wiancko, John Hayhurst, and Richard O’Neill in venues such as Camerata Pacifica, the Dame Myra Hess Memorial Concert Series, the Maestro Foundation Chamber Music Series, the LA Phil Affiliates Recital Series, the Music in the Mansion Concert Series, and Violafest Los Angeles. In the summer of 2006, Fan gave a symposium presentation at the ISME World Conference in Malaysia. She receives her DMA from the USC Thornton School of Music in May 2011, where she was awarded the Michael Kamen Music Scholarship.
As a solo pianist, Fan has performed with conductors Jorge Mester, Jung Ho Pak, Mario Miragliotta, Sharon Lavery, Peter Askim, and Marc Riley. Her performances have been broadcasted on KTLA and KNBC television as well as KUSC and WFMT radio. Her recent performances include recital collaborations with artists such as Paul Coletti, Shigenori Kudo, Lindsay Deutsch, Paul Wiancko, John Hayhurst, and Richard O’Neill in venues such as Camerata Pacifica, the Dame Myra Hess Memorial Concert Series, the Maestro Foundation Chamber Music Series, the LA Phil Affiliates Recital Series, the Music in the Mansion Concert Series, and Violafest Los Angeles. In the summer of 2006, Fan gave a symposium presentation at the ISME World Conference in Malaysia. She receives her DMA from the USC Thornton School of Music in May 2011, where she was awarded the Michael Kamen Music Scholarship.
Emma Neiman
Program Administrator
Originally from California, Emma Neiman currently resides in the New York Hudson Valley where she studies with Tara Helen O’Connor at the Bard College Conservatory of Music. She is in the process of completing the conservatory’s dual-degree program, pursuing a Bachelor of Music in Flute Performance and a Bachelor of Arts in Sociology. In 2014, she became the program assistant for Jim Walker’s Beyond the Masterclass in Los Angeles, and in 2016, she began to work as a faculty member and the program coordinator for Mid Peninsula Music Academy in Redwood City, California. She attended the woodwind masterclass series at the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity in 2013 and 2014, and she attended Beyond the Masterclass as a performer in 2012 and 2013. Her woodwind quintet performed for Milan Turkovic in the Master Class Series at the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center in 2017. Prior to Bard, Emma lived in Los Angeles where she studied with Diana Morgan and volunteered at the Harmony Project as a teaching aide for flute and clarinet, as well as an administrative assistant. Emma graduated from Idyllwild Arts Academy in 2013 after attending for two years.
Past Guest Artists
2019: Catherine Ransom Karoly, Elise Henry (Shope)
2018: Denis Bouriakov
2017: Rose Lombardo, Ben Smolen, Denis Bouriakov & Bryan Pezzone (Piano)
2016: Denis Bouriakov and Jose Valentino
2015: Sarah Jackson
2014: Catherine Ransom Karoly, Elise Shope
2013: Catherine Ransom Karoly, Richard Beene
2012: Greg Pattillo, Sarah Jackson, Benjamin Smolen, Heather Clark, Rose Lombardo
2011: Molly Barth, Demarre McGill, Greg Milliren, Jed Wentz, Phil Ayling
2010: Cathy Ransom-Karoly, Jed Wentz, Heather Clark, Sarah Jackson, Steve Kujala, Greg Milliren
2009: Elizabeth Rowe, Heather Clark, Sarah Jackson, Steve Kujala
2008: Viviana Cumplido, Heather Clark, Phil Ayling
2018: Denis Bouriakov
2017: Rose Lombardo, Ben Smolen, Denis Bouriakov & Bryan Pezzone (Piano)
2016: Denis Bouriakov and Jose Valentino
2015: Sarah Jackson
2014: Catherine Ransom Karoly, Elise Shope
2013: Catherine Ransom Karoly, Richard Beene
2012: Greg Pattillo, Sarah Jackson, Benjamin Smolen, Heather Clark, Rose Lombardo
2011: Molly Barth, Demarre McGill, Greg Milliren, Jed Wentz, Phil Ayling
2010: Cathy Ransom-Karoly, Jed Wentz, Heather Clark, Sarah Jackson, Steve Kujala, Greg Milliren
2009: Elizabeth Rowe, Heather Clark, Sarah Jackson, Steve Kujala
2008: Viviana Cumplido, Heather Clark, Phil Ayling
