Success Stories

Ayanna Nicole Thomas (in photo on bottom left) is joining the cast of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child on November 12 at the Lyric Theatre, playing the role of Rose Granger-Weasley as one of 9 new cast members. Ayanna studied Musical Theatre at MSM from 2020 to 2023, when she took a leave of absence to join the Broadway cast of How to Dance in Ohio.

Harry Potter and the Cursed Child first opened on Broadway as a two-part experience April 22, 2018. The production would go on to be nominated for 10 Tony Awards, winning five, including Best Play.

The condensed, one-part production of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child opened December 7, 2021, at the Lyric Theatre following the COVID-19 pandemic.

Learn more about the new casting here.

Baritone Justin Austin has been named Rising Star at the 2024 International Opera Awards. The prestigious honour was announced at the gala ceremony held at Munich’s Bayerische Staatsoper on October 2.

Possessing a “mighty lyric voice” (The New York Times) “with a burly, burnished tone capable of striking nuance and color” (Washington Post), he is also the recipient of the 2024 Marian Anderson Vocal Award. Deemed “a natural performer – a star awaiting a galaxy to form around him” (Washington Post), he has been praised for his “intensity and charisma” (Opera), “rich, pointed expressiveness” (Parterre), and “immaculate musicianship” (Seen and Heard International).

Born in Stuttgart, Germany, Justin Austin is an alumnus of the Choir Academy of Harlem, Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and Performing Arts, Heidelberg Lied Akademie, and Manhattan School of Music (M.M. and B.M.). He studied for his bachelor’s degree at MSM with Catherine Malfitano.

More information about Justin’s win here.
More information about the 2024 International Opera Awards here.

Three MSM alumni are featured in the cast of the Met Opera’s production of Rigoletto, on stage now through January 24, 2025:  Soloman Howard (MM ‘10) as Sparafucile, J’Nai Bridges (BM ‘09) as Maddalena, and Eve Gigliotti (BM ‘97) as ​Giovanna.

In addition, three MSM alumni are part of the production’s artistic staff: Thomas Lausmann (PS ‘99) is Director of Music Administration at the Met Opera, Israel Gursky (PS ‘98), Musical Preparation for Rigoletto, and Joseph Lawson (DMA ’02), Stage Band Conductor for Rigoletto.

In the photo above, taken after opening night on September 30, from left to right: Thomas Lausmann, Israel Gursky, J’Nai Bridges, Eve Gigliotti, and MSM President Jim Gandre.

Learn more about the production here.

MSM doctoral violin student William Lee was the featured violinist with the Senior Concert Orchestra of New York at Stern Auditorium at Carnegie Hall on September 29, performing the Bruch Violin Concerto No. 1.

The concert was conducted by MSM former faculty member David Gilbert.

William has performed as soloist with Shanghai Philharmonic Orchestra and Tianjin Symphony Orchestra under the direction of maestro Muhai Tang. He has also been featured on Shanghai Television Station, Qingdao TV Station and Taiwan National Education Radio.

William is in his first year of doctoral studies at MSM, studying with Koichiro Harada and Nicholas Mann.

Learn more about William Lee here.

MSM Jazz voice alumna Motswedi Modiba (MM ’24) is performing with Academy Award- and Grammy-winning composer Hans Zimmer during his Hans Zimmer Live tour across the United States and Canada in September and October 2024.

Motswedi is part of this 20-stop tour, which features works from Zimmer’s most well-known scores, including Gladiator, Pirates of the Caribbean, The Dark Knight, Interstellar, The Lion King, The Last Samurai, Dune, and more!

While at MSM, Motswedi studied with Jean Baylor and was a Hugh Masekela Scholar.

More about the tour here.

Violinist Xuan Yao (PPD ’25) is currently pursuing a Professional Performance Diploma at the Manhattan School of Music, studying under Koichiro Harada and Lucie Robert. Born in Changsha, China, she began violin at age five and later studied at the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing.

She  is an active soloist and chamber musician, performing with the Bay-Atlantic Symphony, Capital Philharmonic of New Jersey, and Symphony in C. Xuan has been playing on a regular basis with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, Princeton Symphony Orchestra, Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia, and New Jersey Festival Orchestra.

Xuan has also participated in international festivals such as Mozarteum Salzburg, Summit Music Festival, and iPalpiti Music Festival.

Critically acclaimed jazz pianist and composer Ted Rosenthal  presents “Rhapsody in Gershwin” with his trio on Sept 26, at 7:30 PM at Birdland Jazz Club in NYC, celebrating the 100th Anniversary of Rhapsody in Blue on Gershwin’s birthday.

The Ted Rosenthal Trio is:
Ted Rosenthal – Piano
Martin Wind – Bass
Tim Horner – Drums

More information and tickets here.
More about Ted Rosenthal here.

An interview with MSM Strings faculty member Lucie Robert appears in the “Teaching & Playing: Techniques” section of the October edition of the respected The Strad magazine.

In the article, Lucie discusses the topic of “Playing from your heart—exploring expressive fingering.”

“Music is a language of ideas and expressive, so expressive fingering is all about our individual connection with the music we play,” she tells interviewer Naomi Yandell in the publication.

The October issue of The Strad can be found here.

MSM Musical Theatre alumnus Willie Clyde Beaton (BM ‘20) will make his Broadway debut as part of the ensemble and as a swing/ understudy in this new musical based on the life of Louis Armstrong. Tony Award winner James Monroe Iglehart stars as the jazz legend and American icon Louis Armstrong.

Previews at Studio 54 begin October 16 with opening night on November 11.

More information on the musical here.

The trio of Slovakian-born jazz pianist, composer, and producer Alan Bartuš (MM ‘25)—who studies at MSM with Jeremy Manasia— was one of two groups opening for jazz singer and bassist Esperanza Spalding at Alice Tully Hall on Sept 22.

The performance was Alan’s US concert debut. In 2023, he was named semifinalist of the Herbie Hancock Institute of Jazz International Piano Competition.

Learn more about Alan Bartuš here.

DMA student Eduardo Gutterres (MM ’23) will play a duo concert on December 1 with former Master’s degree classmate, Gabriele Leite (MM ‘22), at the Teatro Cultura Artistica in São Paolo, Brazil. The theater is considered the most important concert hall in Brazil, and is reopening after a fire damaged it in 2019, with Gutterres and Leite featured in this first innagural season, along with Lang Lang, Joshua Bell, and others.

This summer, Eduardo worked as Sharon Isbin‘s assistant at the Aspen Music Festival coaching guitar ensembles. He also hosts a series of podcasts for the Augustine Strings Wind Up series, and for that program this summer interviewed young guitarist TY Zhang.

Purchase tickets to the concert in Brazil here.
Watch/ listen to the Augustine Strings podcast hosted by Eduardo here.

MSM Vocal Arts alumnus, bass-baritone Le Bu (MM ’22), pictured, won first prize, along with soprano Kathleen O’Mara, in the 2024 Operalia Competition. The two winners also won the competition’s Birgit Nilsson Prize, awarded to singers interpreting arias by Richard Strauss and Richard Wagner. The competition was founded in 1993 “to discover and help launch the careers of the most promising young opera singers.”

Le Bu, who is featured in the 2024–25 Metropolitan Opera season, was a Grand Finals Winner of the Met’s Laffont Competition in 2022 and spent two seasons in the company’s prestigious Lindemann Young Artist Development Program.

The 2024 Operalia Competition took place in Mumbai, India, from Sept. 15 to Sept. 21, at the National Centre for the Performing Arts. The competition has helped launch the careers of many singers, among them Joyce DiDonato, Lisette Oropesa, Brian Jagde, Nina Stemme, Rolando Villazón, Sonya Yoncheva, and Lise Davidsen.

Watch a video of Le Bu’s performance at the competition here.

MSM Orchestral Performance alumna Lynette Wardle (MM ‘98) will continue her role as Lead Harp for The Notebook until the show closes on December 15.

Lynette Wardle is also the Principal Harpist for the Albany Symphony and the Richmond Symphony Orchestra. Lynette was the harpist for the revival of Camelot at Lincoln Center Theatre and her Broadway show credits include Wicked, Sweeney Todd, My Fair Lady, Hello Dolly, and many more.

Learn more about The Notebook here.
Learn more about Lynette Wardle here.

On October 13 in Auburn, Washington, the Auburn Symphony Orchestra (ASO) will perform the world premiere of MSM Viola faculty member Jessica Meyer’s composition Turbulent Flames, commissioned by the ASO.

The concert will also feature classical piano alumnus Dominic Cheli (BM ’14) performing Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 3 with the ASO.

Read more about the concert here.
Read more about Jessica Meyer here.
Read more about Dominic Cheli here.

On September 21, tenor Jonathan Tetelman (BM ’11) will make his Los Angeles Opera debut as “B.F. Pinkerton” in Puccini’s Madama Butterfly; He was interviewed by San Francisco Classical Voice in anticipation of this performance.

Tetelman is a finalist nominee for the 2024 International Opera Awards in the Male Singer category, and will return to San Francisco Opera in November performing the role of Don José in Bizet’s Carmen.

Learn more about Jonathan here.
Read the interview here.

Maestro Troy Quinn (MM ’07) will make his Boston Pops debut this year, guest-conducting the orchestra’s New Year’s Eve Celebration concert featuring Bernadette Peters at Symphony Hall in Boston. Quinn will lead the orchestra for the first half of the performance; Peters’s music director Joseph Thalken will conduct during her performance in the second half of the concert.

Quinn is the music director of the Owensboro Symphony Orchestra in Kentucky, as well as music director of the Venice Symphony in Florida, and the Pops Conductor of the Santa Rosa Symphony in California.

This past summer, Quinn and the Owensboro Symphony were nominated for a regional Emmy Award for their television special A Night at the Oscars.

Learn more about Troy here.

Learn more about the concert here.

The release of the debut solo album of Brazilian guitarist Gabriele Leite (MM ‘22) in Brazil in late 2023 has been followed by a series of high-profile accomplishments in 2024 and now into 2025. Previously, in 2021, she was the first classical guitarist named in the Forbes magazine annual “Under 30” listing of notable talents.

Gabriele Leite’s album Territórios on the Rocinante label in Brazil, features works by Assad, Krieger, Villa-Lobos, and Walton, and has received high-profile reviews, including from one of Brazil’s leading newspapers, Folha de São Paulo. A tour of Brazil followed the release, and in May 2024 she was selected as the Brazilian artist for the ClassicalNEXT 2024 in Berlin, Germany’s largest contemporary classical music festival, held in May 2024.

In June 2024, Gabriele was named a Young Upcoming Artist at the Brazilian Music Awards, and in August, she joined the Pinuts Music Agency in Europe. In summer 2025, she will have her first European tour;  in November 2025, she will play the Villa-Lobos Concerto with the Porto Alegre Philharmonic Orchestra, and she will also play in the Salvador Bahia Jazz Festival.

Learn more about Gabriele Leite here.
Discover her debut album Territórios here.

MSM Vocal Arts alumnus Darnell Abraham (MM ’13) will move into the starring role of Mufasa—the wise father of son Simba—in the on-going North American tour of The Lion King. His first performance will take place on September 24 at the Peace Center in Greenville, South Carolina.

Previously, Darnell played George Washington in Hamilton to critical acclaim in the North American and international tours of the production.

Learn more about Darnell here.
Learn more about the tour here.

In October, Jim Griffith (BM ’85) will assume the role of Executive Director of the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival in New Mexico. He is stepping down from his position as CEO and founder of the Sidney & Berne Davis Art Center in Fort Myers, Florida that he founded in 1997 and grew into a multi-million dollar non-profit organization.

An accomplished violist, Jim continued to perform in Florida orchestras in addition to his work as an arts administrator.

Read more about Jim and his new position here.

The concert of violinist and MSM Precollege alumnus Daniel Rafimayeri (PC ‘18) will take place at 2 PM on November 5, and will feature works by Beethoven, Wieniawski, De Falla and Janáček. Daniel is the 2019 Burdick-Thorne Gold medalist of the Stulberg International String Competition.

He has performed at Carnegie Hall, Alice Tully Hall, the Aspen Music Festival, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and other respected venues.

Buy tickets to the concert here.

MSM Jazz Arts alumna, singer Courtney Cutchins (MM ’16), will release her album Grunge to Grace (Laseryn Music, 2024) on October 18. The album’s concept is a meld of Cutchins’s own compositions with reimagined ’90s Grunge classics by Soundgarden and Nirvana.

Cutchins’s distinctive aesthetical through-line is backed by elite rising Jazz stars: pianist-producer David Cook, guitarist Nir Felder, bassist Matt Clohesy, and new MSM Jazz Arts Faculty member and alumnus, drummer Obed Calvaire (BM ’03, MM ’05)

To learn more about the album, click here.

David Leisner’s recording Charms to Soothe that was released in late May on Azica Records has been receiving positive attention from classical music press.

“Charms to Soothe is a collection of early 19th-century works by Sor, Giuliani, Mertz, Regondi and Schulz, intended to be healing in these turbulent times of ours,” says David Leisner.

“Distinguished by attention to detail, thoughtful consideration of pacing, and clear affection for the music…Leisner’s articulation is unfailingly precise and his interpretations illuminating. Executed with the kind of ease and authority that comes from decades of playing, the material impresses for its melodic richness, warmth, and clarity,” writes Textura.

“This is a disc for anyone, guitar lover or not, with a taste for beautiful and stimulating music in an intimate format, played with taste and devotion,” writes Göran Forsling, Music Web International.

The recording can be purchased here.
The liner notes can be viewed here.

The Ted Rosenthal all-star Sextet played a concert entitled “Bernstein and Bop” at Tanglewood’s Linde Center for Music and Learning, and received a rave review from the Berkshire Edge:

“Ted Rosenthal, has all of Bernstein’s classical chops, plus a virtuosic facility for jazz that Lenny would have envied. His solo rendition of Bernstein’s ‘Somewhere’ had the crowd in tears. Now he owned them.  Rosenthal’s leadership and arrangements are nothing short of brilliant,” writes reviewer David Noel Edwards.

Ted Rosenthal’s Sextet is:

Ted Rosenthal — piano
Noriko Ueda — bass
Dennis Mackrel — drums
Erena Terakubo — alto saxophone
Scott Robinson — tenor saxophone
Gary Smulyan — baritone saxophone

Read the full review here.

The composition Symphony No. 1 “Four Loves” by MSM alumnus and Precollege faculty member Kyle Werner (DMA ‘14) will receive its world premiere on September 19 with the Houston Ballet. The work is his largest to date:  a 33-minute, four-movement work in the symphonic tradition.

The work was commissioned by the Houston Ballet, is choreographed by Silas Farley, and will be performed by 27 dancers from the Houston Ballet, with music performed live by its orchestra conducted by Simon Thew.

Learn more about the event here.

Guitarist Steve Cowen (in photo on right) is following up his second prize win as co-member of the CC Duo at the 2023 Guitar Foundation of American Ensemble Competition—the most prestigious guitar competition in the world—with his guitar partner Adam Cicchillitti (on left) with a new album release on the Analekta label. The duo’s album will feature arrangements of piano miniatures by Grieg, Ravel, Mompou, Tailleferre, Satie, and others.

The CC Duo also commissioned six new works for guitar duo and string orchestra by Steve Goss, Harry Stafylakis, Bekah Simms, Kelly-Marie Murphy, Amy Brandon, and Patrick Roux.  These works were recently recorded with the renowned Montreal ensemble collectif9, and will be released on the Leaf Music label in early 2025.

Steve Cowan is also the newest member of the well-established Canadian Guitar Quartet.  They performed at the 2024 Guitar Foundation of American Convention this summer and are about to release a new album on the Atma Musique label next spring, featuring works by current and former members of the group, as well as arrangements of Bach and Mozart.

Finally, Steve and composer Jason Noble will release One Foot in the Past (Centrediscs, 2025), a 65-minute album weaving together Newfoundland speech and traditional folk music with contemporary techniques of speech-based, timbre-based, and textural composition.

MSM classical trombone student Jacob Ogbu (BM ’25) won the Aspen Music Festival and School (AMFS) Brass Concerto Competition in July 2024, and he’s now featured on the cover of the pamphlet for the 2025 AMFS season.

Jacob Ogbu was one of nearly three dozen MSM students, faculty, and alumni taking part in the AMFS this year.

Read more about the MSM presence at the festival here.

On November 5th at 2 p.m, MSM Precollege violin alumnus Daniel Rafimayeri (PC ’18) will appear as a featured recitalist in Kaufman Music Center‘s Tuesday Matinee series at Merkin Hall. Rafimayeri will perform works by Beethoven, Wieniawski, De Falla and Janáček.

To view the event page, click here.

To view the 2024-2025 Kaufman Music Center Tuesday Matinee series, click here.

Rising star jazz vocalist Julia Keefe (MM ’19) will perform at the 2024 Monterey Jazz Festival on September 29th with her Julia Keefe Indigenous Ensemble. Last month, she and her Quartet performed selections from her Mildred Bailey Project at SFJAZZ’s Joe Henderson Lab as a part of SFJAZZ’s Indigenous Songbook series, paying tribute to this fellow female jazz vocalist with Indigenous ancestry who was an early legend of the genre.

Keefe is a member of the Nez Perce Tribe and grew up on her Tribe’s reservation in Kamiah, Idaho before moving to Spokane, Washington, where she began learning Jazz. In her junior high library, happening upon Mildred Bailey and Bailey’s own Native ancestry was a defining moment for Keene, calling Bailey “her North Star.” In addition to her Mildred Bailey Project, Keefe leads the Julia Keefe Indigenous Big Band (her Ensemble is a nonet version of this project), which will perform at Stanford University’s Bing Concert Hall in February.

Read the San Francisco Classical Voice article here.

Learn more about Julia here.

A trio of saxophonists will join the trio of jazz pianist, composer, and MSM faculty member Ted Rosenthal in Studio E at the Linde Center to play a new program called “Bernstein & Bop: A Saxophone Colossus.”

The musicians will play songs linked to, or written by, Leonard Bernstein.

On alto sax will be recent graduate of MSM, Erena Terakubo. The other musicians in the concert are: Gary Smulyan (baritone saxophone), Scott Robinson (tenor saxophone), Noriko Ueda (bass), and Dennis Mackrel (drums).

Ted Rosenthal speaks in detail about the concert to the publication The Berkshire Edge; the interview can be found here.

Information about the concert can be found here.

The former New York Yankees star helped win four World Series for the franchise and graduated from MSM in 2016 with a Bachelor of Music in Jazz Arts. He is currently an MSM Trustee.

On September 20, Bernie Williams will perform at the 2024 Savannah Jazz Festival. Earlier this year, he made his debut performance with the New York Philharmonic, under the direction of Conductor Gustavo Dudamel, at the Philharmonic’s spring gala at Lincoln Center.

Williams’s Moving Forward was nominated for a Latin Grammy Award for Best Instrumental Album in 2009.

Learn more here.