Music faculty welcomes six new members in 2001

Six new faculty members joined the School of Music beginning Fall Semester 2001 -- three in the String area, and one each in the areas of Horn, Music Education and Music History.

Born in Belgium, Assistant Professor of Cello Thomas Landschoot began studying the cello at the age of six with his father. In 1995, he won fourth place and a special prize in the International Cello Competition in Bucharest, Romania. He performs virtually the entire standard cello repertoire, as well as works by contemporary composers such as Witold Lutoslawski, Kristof Penderecki and Bernd Alois Zimmermann. Several composers have chosen to dedicate their works to him. Landschoot has played numerous recitals in Europe, the United States and Japan, both as a soloist and in chamber music settings. He is a founding member of the Chamber Ensemble Bloomington, a piano trio that tours Japan annually. His performances and interviews have been broadcast on European and Japanese radio. Landschoot holds a Master of Music degree from the Conservatory in Antwerp, Belgium, a Master of Music degree from the University of Michigan, an Artist Diploma from Indiana University and an Artist Diploma (cum laude) from the Conservatory of Maastricht, Netherlands. His major teachers include Erling Blondal Bengtsson, Antonio Meneses and Tsuyoshi Tsutsumi (for whom he served as a teaching assistant). Since 2000, he has been the apprentice of Bernard Greenhouse. Devoted to communicating his art to his students, Landschoot served on the faculty at the University of Michigan prior to his appointment at ASU. He has given master classes at conservatories and universities throughout the U.S., Europe and Japan. He spends his summers in Vermont, teaching and performing at the Killington Music Festival and has been recently appointed to the faculty of the Music Academy of the West.

Carol Rodland, Associate Professor of Viola, is a native of New Jersey. She began her musical studies with the violin at age four, piano at seven and viola at thirteen. Since making her debut as viola soloist with the Philadelphia Orchestra in 1985, Rodland has performed to critical acclaim throughout North American and Europe. From 1996 to 2001, Rodland was on the viola faculty of the Musikhochschule "Hans Eisler" in Berlin, Germany. In August 2001, she joined the School of Music faculty, bringing with her from Berlin a number of viola students, as well as her cats. Rodland is the recipient of numerous prizes and awards, including the first prizes at the 1994 Washington International Competition, the 1994-1995 Julliard Concerto Competition, and the 1996 Artists International Auditions, and a special prize at the 1997 Lionel Tertis International Viola Competition. She holds a Pre-College Diploma and Bachelor and Master of Music degrees from the Julliard School, where she was a full scholarship student, as well as the assistant to her teacher, Karen Tuttle. While at Julliard, she served as Principal Violist of the Julliard Orchestra under such eminent conductors as Kurt Masur and Stanislaw Skrowacewski and upon graduation was awarded the Lillian Fuchs Prize in Viola. As a Fulbright Scholar and Beebe Fund grantee at the Musikhochschule Freiburg from 1992 to 1993, Rodland studied with Kim Kashkashian, whose teaching assistant she also later became. The school awarded her an Aufbaustudium Diploma "with excellence" in 1993. Recent engagements as a soloist have included recitals in Merkin Concert Hall and Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall in New York, at the Hessisches Staatstheater in Wiesbaden, at the Phillips Collection in Washington, D.C., as well as concerto appearances in Berlin's Konzerthaus with the European Chamber Ensemble, at the Stuttgart Mercedes Forum with conductor Dennis Russell Davies and the Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra, and at the Davos Festival with the Davos Festival Orchestra. She has also performed live on radio stations WNYC in New York City and WGTS in Washington, D.C. An active chamber musician, Rodland has appeared as guest violist with the Petersen Quartett at the Schwetzinger Festspiele (broadcast on Suddeutsche Rundfunk) and with the Manon Quartett at the Joseph Abs Saal in Frankfurt and on the Bonhoeffer Series in Berlin. Under the auspices of the Musikforum am Gendarmenmarkt at Berlin's Konzerthaus, Rodland performed the complete chamber works of Brahms and works of Penderecki, Berio and Travinsky, with her colleagues from the Musikhochschule "Hanns Eisler" Berlin. Recent chamber music partners have included Philip Setzer, Antje Weithaas, Ariadne Daskalakis, Karl Leister, Stephan Picard, Ulf Wallin and Stephanie Sant' Ambrogio. For the past two summers, she has performed and taught chamber music at the Cactus Pear and Mimir Chamber Music Festivals in Texas and, since 1995, has performed regularly as violist of the Craftsbury Chamber Players in Vermont. As guest violist of the Henschel Quartett during the 2000-2001 season, Rodland performed at the Frick Collection and at Merkin Concert Hall in New York City, at the Vancouver Playhouse for a CBC broadcast, at the Alte Oper in Frankfurt, at the Philharmonie in Warsaw and at the Alte Glyptothek in Copenhagen. An active proponent of contemporary music, Rodland performed recently in a concert of Rome Prize fellow Chris Theofanidis' music at the Villa Aurelia in Rome, premiering a new chamber work and also performing a solo viola work written especially for her. Last season, she gave the European premiere of Kenji Bunch's Suite for Viola and Piano. As an orchestra musician, Rodland has substituted with the Berlin Philharmonic, Ensemble Oriol Berlin, the Phoenix Symphony and the Orchestra of St. Luke's.

Jonathan Swartz

Jonathan Swartz, Assistant Professor of Violin, is from Toronto, Canada. He has appeared as a performing artist in New York City, Houston, Cleveland, Santa Barbara, Halifax, Montreal and Toronto. As both soloist and chamber musician, he has appeared in Canada under the auspices of Les Jeunesses Musicales du Canada, the Mooredale Concert Series and the Seniors' Jubilee Series at Roy Thompson Hall sponsored by the Royal Bank of Canada and Roy Thompson Hall. Swartz often collaborates with his sister, Jennifer Swartz, Principal Harpist of The Montreal Symphony Orchestra. As an orchestral player, he has performed with the Houston Symphony Orchestra and is currently a member of the IRIS Chamber Orchestra in Germantown, Tennessee. He has worked under conductors Christoph Eschenbach, Robert Spano, Larry Rachleff, Michael Stern, Jeffrey Tate and Kurt Masur. Swartz spent several summers at The Musicorda Summer String Program, most recently as Director of its Outreach Program. In addition to giving master classes throughout North America, he has served as Assistant Visiting Professor of Violin and Viola at the University of Texas at El Paso and is on the summer faculty of the Interlochen Center for the Arts. Swartz has a Bachelor of Music degree cum laude from Rice University, a Master of Music degree from the Mannes College of Music and is currently a doctoral candidate at Rice University. He has worked with artists Julius Levine, Norman Fischer, John Perry, Philippe Muller, Sergiu Luca and Felix Galamir. His principal violin teachers include Kathleen Winkler, James Buswell and Ani Kavafian.

John Ericson

John Ericson has joined the SOM faculty as Assistant Professor of Horn. During summers, he is artist-faculty at the Brevard Music Center in North Carolina. Prior to joining the faculty at ASU, Dr. Ericson served as third horn in the Nashville Symphony from 1991 to 1998 and taught at The Crane School of Music, State University of New York (SUNY) College at Potsdam, from 1998 to 2001 where he taught horn, conducted the Crane Horn Ensemble, coached chamber music, and performed in the Potsdam Brass Quintet and the Potsdam Woodwind Quintet. Ericson also currently serves as managing editor of The HIS Online, the web site of the International Horn Society. An active teacher and performer, during his years in the Nashville Symphony, Ericson also performed in the Nashville Symphony Woodwind Quintet, was a freelance performer in the recording studios and taught at Western Kentucky University. He has been a member of the Evansville Philharmonic and the National Repertory Orchestra, and has performed with ensembles including the Indianapolis Symphony and the Rochester Philharmonic. During the 1995-1996 academic year, Ericson served as Visiting Associate Professor of High Brass at Tunghai University in Taiwan; he has also served on the faculty of the Bay View Music Festival and was a graduate teaching assistant (assistant instructor) at Indiana University. A native of Emporia, Kansas, Ericson earned his Doctorate in Brass Pedagogy from Indiana University, a Master's Degree in Performance and performers Certificate from the Eastman School of Music, and a Bachelor's Degree in Performance from Emporia State University. His major teachers include Michael Hatfield, Verne Reynolds, David Wakefield, and Nicholas Smith, with natural horn study under Richard Seraphinoff. While pursuing a very active performance and teaching schedule, Ericson has also maintained a deep interest in the history of the horn. An active performer on the natural horn, he has published articles on the horn in the nineteenth century in The Horn Call, The Horn Call Annual, and The Historic Brass Society Journal and has given presentations on this topic at events, including the 33rd and 31st Annual Symposiums of the International Horn Society, the 1999 Northeast Horn Workshop, the International Symposium on Historic Brass Research, Pedagogy, Performance and Conservation in Paris in March of 1999, and at the Early Brass Festival in both 1997 and 1993. His recent article "Crooks and the Valved Horn" was awarded the 2000 Harold Meek Memorial Award by the Advisory Council of the International Horn Society. Ericson may be heard on recordings with groups including the Potsdam Brass Quintet, the Nashville Symphony, the Nashville String Machine, the Eastman Wind Ensemble and the Eastman Philharmonia.

Alexander Lingas, Assistant Professor of Music History, holds the Ph.D. in Historical Musicology from the University of British Columbia and a Bachelor of Arts degree in Music Composition and Russian from Portland State University. Prior to his appointment at ASU, Lingas was a member of the music faculty at the University of Oxford and a British Academy Research Fellow at St. Peter's College, Oxford, as well as the Visiting Fellow at the European Humanities Research Centre at Oxford University. A specialist in early music, Lingas' research centers on Byzantine chant. He has published articles and contributed chapters in a number of journals and books. He has presented at conferences and universities throughout the UK, Eastern Europe and America, and his book, An Introduction to Byzantine Chant, is to be published by Yale University Press in 2003. Lingas is also the music director of the professional early music ensemble Cappella Romana. He speaks French, Greek and Russian; and also reads German, Old Church Slavonic and Latin.

Margaret Schmidt

Margaret Schmidt is Assistant Professor of Music Education and director of the ASU String Project, which is getting under way Spring Semester 2002. Schmidt holds the Ph.D. in Music Education from the University of Michigan, the Master of Music in Violin Performance from the State University of New York at Stony Brook and the Bachelor of Music Education from Lawrence University. Prior to her appointment at ASU, Schmidt was associate professor of music education and chairperson of the Music Department at St. Cloud State University. A specialist in string education, she is the director and founder of the Spiritoso Strings at St. Cloud State and has held public school string positions in Naperville, Illinois; Jackson, Michigan; Albuquerque, New Mexico; and Austin, Minnesota. Schmidt is a prolific author having published articles in leading education journals including the American String Teacher and the Bulletin of the Council of Research in Music Education. She is a frequent presenter at conferences including the College Music Society, Music Educators National Conference and the American Orff-Schulwerk Association. She has performed as a violinist with the St. Cloud Symphony Orchestra and the Amadeus Chamber Orchestra.

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