Michael Hershkowitz, Director of Concerts and Community Education
Executive Director of the Stony Brook Community Music Program

A lifelong musician, Michael has a diverse background including public education, marketing, publicity, graphic design, arts administration, stage management and artist relations. After graduating from James Madison University with a degree in Music Education, he taught for four years in public schools. Michael completed his Masters Degree in Music at Stony Brook University and made the move into the business world as a marketing associate for Connolly and Co., an orchestral products company, and later as the Artist Relations Manager for Thomastik-Infeld strings, Vienna, signing such clients as Glen Dicterow, the Shanghai Quartet and Hillary Hahn.

In addition to his work at Stony Brook, Michael maintains an active schedule of trombone performance and private instruction. In 2004 he founded the Long Island Symphonic Winds, a wind ensemble dedicated to performance of original, contemporary composition.

Dorothea Cook, Director of Children's and Adult Programs

A native of Seattle, Washington, Dorothea Cook (”Deede” to her friends) majored in performance at the University of Washington where she studied violin with Vilem Sokol and Emanuel Zetlin.

In 1991 Deede moved to Long Island to be with her husband, Peter Winkler, where she taught privately and completed a multidisciplinary bachelor’s degree in music and psychology at Stony Brook University. Her studies included jazz improvisation with Todd Coolman and continuo realization with Arthur Haas. Her search for a holistic approach to music education led her to the pedagogy of Emile-Jacques Dalcroze, which she studied in New York City at the Dalcroze School of America and the Diller-Quaile School of Music, working with Robert Abramson, Ruth Alperson, and Anne Farber. She has taught Dalcroze Eurythmics at the Lucy Moses School of Music and Dance, the Stony Brook Summer Music Festival, the Diller-Quaile School of Music, and is director of the Music Basics for Kids program at Stony Brook University.In addition to her teaching activities, Deede plays Baroque violin and viola in period music ensembles, including the Stony Brook Baroque Players, and performs with the violin/piano duo Silken Rags with her husband, Peter Winkler.

Marc Levine, chamber, violin

Adam Meyer, chamber, viola

Adam Meyer is the founding violist of the Bryant Park Quartet, based in New York City. In addition to his work with the Bryant Park Quartet, Adam has performed chamber music with such artists as Itzhak Perlman, David Finckel, Ronald Leonard, Merry Peckham, and Rohan DeSilva. A dedicated teacher, Adam is on faculty at the Stony Brook University Pre-College Program, the New York Youth Symphony Chamber Music Program, and is faculty and co-founder of a summer chamber music camp for elementary students in his hometown of Des Moines. His strong belief in community and school outreach has led to frequent collaborations with "New Performing Arts" in Kentucky to present chamber music in underserved public schools as part of rural residencies throughout the state. In addition to his work as a violist, Adam serves as the Program and Development Manager for The Perlman Music Program, a non-profit organization he has been involved with since 2003. Adam holds degrees from the Oberlin Conservatory, and The Juilliard School, and is currently finishing his Doctorate of Music Arts degree at Stony Brook University. His teachers have included Heidi Castleman, Kathy Murdock, Peter Slowik, and Hsin-Yun Huang.


Tomoko Fujita, chamber, cello

Tomoko Fujita is the founding cellist of the Bryant Park Quartet and a musician of wide-ranging interests. Tomoko has presented solo and chamber music recitals at many venues including the Staller Center for the Arts, Alice Tully and Paul Recital Halls of Lincoln Center, the Kosciusko Foundation, and Duncan Recital Hall. An award-winner as a Tanglewood Music Center fellow, she was also a member of the New Fromm Players, Tanglewood's contemporary music ensemble-in-residence. Tomoko has recently performed baroque cello in the Boston Early Music Festival and the Naumburg Orchestral Concerts series. In addition to teaching at the Stony Brook University Pre-College Program and the Port Jefferson Music Academy , and maintaining a private studio, she has served on the faculty of the Zephyr International Chamber Music Course and Festival in Courmayeur , Italy. Tomoko graduated summa cum laude from Rice University with a double degree: a B.M. in cello performance as a student of Norman Fischer; and a B.A. in psychology. She earned a M.M. at The Juilliard School while studying with Joel Krosnick and Darrett Adkins. She is currently working with Colin Carr in the D.M.A. program at Stony Brook University.


Gabe Shuford, jazz, theory

Gabriel Shuford is an accomplished jazz pianist and a prize-winning harpsichordist. Recently, he was awarded top prize at the 6th Irving and Mae Jurow International Harpsichord Competition held at the University of North Texas in March 2007. He has performed with leading ensembles such as the Orchestra of St. Luke’s, Past Perfect, and the Texas Early Music Project. Since receiving a scholarship in Jazz Studies at Lawrence University, he has gone on to perform with several well-known jazz musicians including Ray Anderson and Paquito D’Rivera. This is his ninth year of teaching the Jazz Workshop in the Pre-College program at Stony Brook University—an experience that he says has been rich and rewarding.



Phil Salathé, theory, composition

Phil Salathé is a composer, musician, teacher, and writer. His music has been performed in the United States and Europe, and ranges widely in scale and scope, from miniatures for solo instruments (Eight Pieces for Piano), to multi-movement compositions for large ensembles (Divisions for soprano saxophone and chamber orchestra). His recent works include several pieces written specifically for younger musicians (Islands for guitar orchestra, A Canon in Dorian Mode for string orchestra). He has penned articles and reviews for the Hartford Courant and Masstransfer magazine, among other publications, and recently contributed several musical analyses to an upcoming book about Syd Barrett of Pink Floyd.


Kevin Kwan Loucks, chamber, piano

Pianist Kevin Kwan Loucks has performed in The Kennedy Center, Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall, La Maison Française Embassy of France in Washington D.C., and on NPR's Performance Today, live from Aspen's Harris Concert Hall. He was featured in recital at Prösels Castle in Italy, and as soloist performing concertos of Liszt and Tchaikovsky with the U.C. Irvine Symphony Orchestra, and Beethoven with the Bratislava Chamber Orchestra in Austria. Recent New York appearances include Music at the Grazhda, Bargemusic, the Salon of Arts and Ideas at The Polish Consulate, the Rabi-Warner Concert Series at Columbia University, and Juilliard's Evening of Chamber Music and Wednesdays at One in Alice Tully Hall. As a chamber musician, he has been featured in collaboration at the Moulin d'Andé in Normandy, The American Church in Paris, and in Prague's Lichtenstein Palace with principle members of the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra. He has also collaborated with artists such as Frank Morelli, Edgar Meyer, Yoko Matsuda, and the Rusquartet. Mr. Loucks has participated in the Aspen Music Festival, Music@Menlo, and multiple programs at The Banff Centre including the Chamber Music Residency, Collaborative Piano Internship, and Piano Master Classes. A recent graduate of The Juilliard School and the University of California, Irvine, he is currently a candidate of the Doctor of Musical Arts degree at SUNY Stony Brook where he is also on the faculty of Stony Brook's Pre-College division. His teachers include Julian Martin, Nina Scolnik, and Christina Dahl. For more information, please visit www.kevinloucks.com

Mario Gotoh, violin, chamber

Mario Gotoh has appeared extensively as violin soloist with orchestras since the age of 12, performing the concertos of Bach, Barber, Dvorak, Glazunov, Mendelssohn, Sibelius, and Vivaldi, amongst other solo appearances. She has been concertmaster of numerous orchestras and a recipient of fellowships and awards from the Banff Centre, Aspen Music Festival, Music Academy of the West, Harvard Music Association, NFAA's National ARTS Week, Philharmonic Society of Arlington, and First Place in numerous solo and chamber music competitions. Her performances have been broadcast on NPR, CBC, PBS Television, and radio stations across North America, Europe and Asia. She has organized and performed numerous outreach concerts for schools, hospitals, and retirement communities throughout North America, promoting music and music education.

Ms. Gotoh equally performs on baroque violin, having performed with Paul O'Dette and studied with Monica Huggett, and also on the viola. She holds a Bachelor of Music and Performance Certificate from the Eastman School of Music, and a Master of Music from SUNY, Stony Brook. She has studied chamber music with the Takacs, Brentano, St. Lawrence, Petersen, and Ying String Quartets. Ms. Gotoh is a doctoral candidate and teaching assistant at SUNY, Stony Brook under the guidance of Pamela Frank, Philippe Graffin, Philip Setzer, and Soovin Kim. She teaches chamber music in the Stony Brook Precollege Program while maintaining a private studio of violin students in New York.

Iryna Krechovsky, violin, chamber

Violinist Iryna Krechkovsky began her music studies in Ukraine with her father, Orest Krechkovsky. Winner of numerous competitions, she was a laureate of Kocian International Violin Competition in Czech Republic at the age of eleven. Iryna later moved to Canada where she was a student at the Young Artists Performance Academy of the Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto. Other competitions include top prize at the national finals of Canadian Music Competition, winner of the Royal Conservatory of Music Concerto competition, and most recently, winner of the Cleveland Institute of Music Concerto competition. Iryna completed her Bachelor’s and Master’s Degrees in Violin Performance at the Cleveland Institute of Music as a student of David and Linda Cerone, where she was a recipient of Dr. Jerome Gross Prize in Violin. While completing her studies in Cleveland, Iryna was a teaching assistant to Linda Cerone as well as an ensemble assistant to the Preparatory Department of the Institute.
Iryna has spend her summers participating in various music festivals including ENCORE School for Strings, National Orchestral Institute, Schlern International Festival in Italy, ChamberArtsFest in Moulin d’Ande, France (as a member of chamber music faculty), as well as artist-in-residence of Young Composer’s Program at CIM.

Currently, Iryna is in her first year as a DMA candidate in Violin Performance at SUNY Stony Brook as a student of Phil Setzer, Phillippe Graffin, and Pamela Frank.

Andrea Christie, piano, chamber

Canadian pianist Andrea Christie is a versatile performing artist with a passion for late-romantic Russian works and contemporary compositions. She is currently a member of ‘Mimesis’ Ensemble, a New York City based contemporary music ensemble dedicated to performing works by living composers. In summer 2008 Ms. Christie completed a residency as a Piano Fellow at the Tanglewood Music Center, where she collaborated with the Mark Morris Dance Group and performed in the Festival of Contemporary Music: Elliott Carter Centenary Celebration. In 2007 she was a recipient of the Johann Strauss Foundation Scholarship, which sponsored her studies in Austria at the Mozarteum International Summer Academy and the International Summer Academy Prag-Wien-Budapest. Participation in other festival programs includes Icicle Creek Chamber Music Institute, Morningside Music Bridge, Orford Academy, Salt Spring Piano Festival, and Vancouver International Song Institute.

A Native of Victoria, British Columbia, Ms. Christie has been playing piano since the age of four. Her formal training began at the Victoria Conservatory of Music, where she made her solo orchestral debut at age 14, performing Rachmaninoff’s Second Piano Concerto. Ms. Christie holds a Bachelor of Music degree in piano performance from the University of British Columbia, where she was a student of renowned Canadian pianist Jane Coop. She is currently pursuing a Master of Music Degree in Piano at SUNY Stony Brook as a student of Christina Dahl.

Jonathan den Herder, cello, chamber

Born in The Netherlands, violoncellist Jonathan den Herder has an intensive international concert schedule that has brought him as soloist and chamber musician to Germany, the United States of America, Canada, Great Britain, France, Italy, Belgium, Austria and Switzerland, in venues such as the Weill Hall in New York and the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam. Mr. den Herder has been broadcasted live on National radio and television in The Netherlands, and has been awarded prizes at numerous national and international competitions, among which a second prize at the Dutch National Violoncello Competition, organized by the SJMN. As a chamber musician he has collaborated with, amongst others, Ani Kafavian, Kathy Murdoch, Chris Trakas and members of the Emerson Quartet, the Brodsky Quartet and the Chilingirian Quartet.

Currently Mr. den Herder is pursuing a Doctorate degree at Stony Brook University with Colin Carr. Recently he has broadened his involvement in the education of the next generation of talented musicians, accepting positions at the faculty of the Stony Brook pre-college division and as the teaching assistant to the Emerson String Quartet. Mr. den Herder plays on a Jaap Bolink cello, made available to him by the Dutch National Musical Instrument Foundation.


Administration
Katherine Hasard, Graduate Assistant
Judy Lochhead, Faculty Advisor
Peter Winkler, Faculty Advisor