Reviewers

In addition to being respected writers, our reviewers—quite uniquely—are all accomplished musicians:

 

Anthony Aibel
Anthony Aibel is active professionally as a writer, editor, teacher, conductor, instrumentalist and composer.  He is the Managing Editor and a writer for New York Concert Review, and he has been published in The New York Times. Mr. Aibel earned his Masters Degree with honors, taking the Juilliard/Columbia University Exchange Program, and he was also a graduate student at Yale University for two years. He has been a teacher for over 25 years.

Barrett Cobb
Mezzo-soprano Barrett Cobb has performed as soloist with the Brooklyn Philharmonic Orchestra, the National Chorale, the Sine Nomine Singers and Baroque Orchestra, the AIMS Orchestra, and the Orchester Landesteater Dessau. Opera roles she has performed include Azucena (Il Trovatore), Dryade (Ariadne auf Naxos),  Marcellina (Le Nozze di Figaro),  Marthe (Faust) and Suzuki (Madama Butterfly).  Her singing has been described by Bernard Holland in the New York Times as “deeply moved and moving.” Ms. Cobb has served as principal flutist with numerous orchestras, including The Jupiter Symphony, The American Chamber Orchestra, The Royal Winnipeg Ballet Orchestra, and the Orquesta Sinfonica de Colombia. She was a founding member of the Quintet of the Americas, with whom she performed extensively under the auspices of Columbia Artists. She has appeared as soloist in concerti with the Westchester Chamber Orchestra, The American Chamber Orchestra, the Nashville Symphony, and the Orquestra Sinfonica de Colombia, among others. Ms. Cobb holds a Bachelor of Music degree from the Oberlin Conservatory and a Master of Musical Arts Degree from Yale University.

David La Marche
Mr. La Marche is a conductor and music administrator for American Ballet Theatre, Music Director of the Limon Dance Company, and a frequent guest conductor in the United States, Canada, and Japan. In addition to his work as a conductor, he maintains an active career as a chamber music pianist.

Edith Eisler
Ms. Eisler writes reviews for Stereophile Magazine and writes articles and reviews for Strings Magazine; her interviews with string quartets have been collected and published. In her youth, she studied violin in Vienna, Prague, London and New York, and she has performed in solo and chamber music concerts in Europe and America. In addition to writing about music, she currently teaches violin, viola and chamber music at her home.

 

Emily White’s career as piano soloist has taken her to London’s Wigmore Hall and South Bank Centre, New York’s Carnegie Hall (Isaac Stern Auditorium), and to countries in Western and Eastern Europe and Asia, as well as the U.S. and Canada. A top prizewinner at the International Young Concert Artists Competition of Royal Tunbridge Wells (U.K.), the International Mozart Competition (Austria), and the Chopin Competition of Greater New York, Dr. White has taught at The Juilliard School and has appeared as teaching artist in Hong Kong, the Philippines, Romania, and American institutions including SMU and the Universities of Washington and Oregon. Broadcasts include spots on the RAI in Italy, Strasbourg’s ACCENT-4, New York’s WQXR and WNYC radio, and stations in Philadelphia, Omaha, and Knoxville. Her Grammy-nominated all-Szymanowski recording on Arabesque is available through Amazon.com along with a new digital mini-release of American works. Dr. White, ARAM, holds degrees from the University of Maryland, Juilliard, the Manhattan School of Music, and the Royal Academy of Music. As adjudicator, she has chaired the Undergraduate Performance Scholarships for Sigma Alpha Iota, an organization which recently awarded her Member Laureate status, and has served on the jury of the Mannes International Keyboard Institute and Festival. Her writing can be found at the International Piano Archives and on CD liner notes for Arbiter Records.

Harris Goldsmith
Mr. Goldsmith is a pianist, author and musicologist, and has written for numerous major publications such as The New York Post, Musical America, High-Fidelity, Opus, Strad, The Musical Times (London), and Keynote. He has contributed to New York Concert Review, Inc. since its very first issue, Vol. 1 No. 1. He is presently on the faculty of the Mannes College of Music and has several acclaimed recordings to his credit.

Harry Saltzman
Mr. Saltzman is one of those rare native New Yorkers who has spent his entire creative life in the city of his birth. In 1962, after earning his MA in musicology from the University of California at Berkeley, he returned to New York and joined the faculty of Brooklyn College. During his 37 years at the college, Professor Saltzman conducted the College Chorus, Chorale, Chamber Chorus, Collegium Musicum, and the Conservatory Orchestra. In 1968 he founded the Sine Nomine Singers, a chamber chorus that was in the forefront of the early music movement. Allen Hughes of the NY Times said” “If there is any chorus New York that can sing renaissance music as well as the Sine Nomine Singers, this listener is not aware of it.” Their recordings appear on the Turnabout and Newport Classic labels. With the Sine Nomine Singers Baroque Orchestra, they presented the first U.S. performance with period instruments of Handel’s oratorios Jephtha, Theodora, Hercules, The Choice of Hercules, Alexander’s Feast, and Israel in Egypt  (complete three part version.) In 2009 he made his operatic debut, conducting Gluck’s Orfeo ed Euridice with the Brooklyn Repertory Opera.

Howard Aibel
A winner of the Busoni and Naumburg Awards, Howard Aibel has given Master Classes and performed worldwide. His piano studies were with Mme. Rosina Lhevinne at Juilliard, and later became her assistant for ten years. He made several recordings and served on the faculties of the North Carolina School of the Arts and The Juilliard School. Howard Aibel celebrated the 50th anniversary of his Town Hall debut as winner of the 1959 Naumburg Award with a performance at Merkin Concert Hall in 2009. His highly acclaimed CD, Howard Aibel, pianist, A 25th Anniversary Concert recently released on the Impromptu Classics label, is now available at the Juilliard Bookstore and amazon.com and iTunes.

Jeffrey Williams
Mr. Williams has been a music executive for nearly ten years, and a performer, composer, arranger, researcher, and collector for over three decades. He has appeared as a soloist, accompanist, and chamber musician, both as a pianist and as a trumpeter. Equally at home in many musical styles, he has been sought after for Classical, Jazz, and Broadway styles, playing at the Shrine Auditorium three times while still in his teens. He has taught privately and is currently the Executive Producer and Director of Impromptu Classics, which has released four critically acclaimed CD recordings.

Rorianne Schrade
Dr. Schrade has reviewed concerts for New York Concert Review since 2006. She has performed as a pianist since age five with the celebrated Schrade family of pianists (the first family to be included on Steinway’s global artist roster), including at the Sevenars Music Festival in Massachusetts (cited as “one of the best small music festivals in the USA” by Time Magazine) and in critically acclaimed concerts at Lincoln Center in New York. As one of the outstanding soloists of her generation, Rorianne has been highly praised for her live performances in the U.S. and Europe, and for her recordings of a wide range of virtuoso masterpieces and novelties. Winner of an impressive array of prizes (from Concert Artists Guild International Competition, Washington International Competition, the Liederkranz Foundation, the National Arts Club, Artists International, N.Y. Chopin Foundation Council, and others), Rorianne has been likened to “a whirlwind unleashed” (Gannett Press). Her numerous performances at Carnegie’s Weill Hall in New York City have inspired glowing reviews from the press and her three CDs (released by Centaur and, in 2008, by Impromptu Classics) have garnered rave reviews from the American Record Guide, the All Music Guide, and others. An avid researcher with a doctorate from Temple University, as well as her Master and Bachelor degrees from Juilliard, she teaches and performs regularly as a Steinway Artist.

Magdalena Baczewska
Praised by the American Record Guide for her “world-class playing,” Polish-born  pianist and writer Magdalena Baczewska holds a Doctor of Musical Arts degree from the Manhattan School of Music and holds Bachelor and Master of Music degrees from Mannes College New School for Music. She started piano instruction at the age of five, and at twelve made her orchestra debut. Her performances, hailed as “eloquent and technically flawless” (The Washington Post), have been broadcast internationally on radio and television. Dr. Baczewska serves on the faculty of Montclair State University in New Jersey and the International Keyboard Institute and Festival in New York City.  She was among the jurors of the International Chopin Competition at Columbia University and the Pulaski Scholarship Committee in New York. Her recordings and publications are available at www.MagdalenaBaczewska.com.

Timothy Gilligan
Mr. Gilligan has written articles for numerous publications including The Piano Quarterly magazine. He is a pianist himself, and was a founding member of the Rosamunde Chamber Players.  Mr. Gilligan has served as an artistic administrator in both symphony and opera, and he started Timothy Gilligan Artists Management in 1993.

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Mimi Melkonian
Executive Assistant

The highly respected and versatile Lebanese pianist Mimi Melkonian received her post-graduate training from the Conservatoire de Boulogne-Billancourt in Paris as well as pursuing a graduate program in Statistical Studies at London University College.  She is a professor emerita of the Lebanese National Higher Conservatory of Music, where she taught for ten years, and currently teaches piano, voice and Arabic at the Convent of the Sacred Heart in Greenwich, Connecticut.  Fluent in five languages, she was appointed Good Will Ambassador by the governor of Arkansas. Ms. Melkonian and her husband, Howard Aibel, regularly perform as a piano duo.