ChamberFest Brown County would not be possible without audience contributions.
Community
Outreach
Painting by Lory Williams Winford
Great Art Belongs To All
Reaching out to the community is at the heart of our mission at ChamberFest Brown County. We believe that people of all ages and walks of life can appreciate and be enriched by classical music if given the opportunity to experience outstanding performances.
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We also realize the vital importance of engaging youth through exposing students to the fine arts, and are committed to music education of the highest quality.
To this end, it is with great joy that ChamberFest is collaborating with Brown County Schools by presenting our festival artists on their campuses and at special children's concerts in the community.
Mooch the Magnificent
A Children's Opera in One Act
ChamberFest Brown County is delighted to present the children’s opera “Mooch the Magnificent” at 12:30 pm on August 22 at Parkview Church, Nashville.
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Mooch the Magnificent is a 40-minute opera on a libretto by Scott Russell Sanders.
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Synopsis:
The opera takes place in a zoo of robot “animals” in a dome-covered city that is part of a worldwide network of such cities, connected by travel tubes, sealed off from the outside. The time is the late twenty-first century, after humans, afraid of the wild outside, have moved indoors.
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The setting is a futuristic zoo populated not by animals but by robots in animal form. Mooch, an orphan girl, convinces the zookeeper to hire her to fix the robots when they break down, but she secretly reprograms them to be increasingly wild.
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Composer and Conductor: Lauren Bernofsky
Director: Ansley Valentine
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Cast:
​MOOCH: Sara Dailey, soprano
UNICORN: Danielle Long, mezzo-soprano
LION: Ben Rardin, tenor
ORLANDO: Steven M Warnock, baritone
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Instrumental Ensemble:
Susan Archibald, piano
Keith Northover, clarinet
Eunice Kim, cello
Ford Smith, percussion
LAUREN BERNOFSKY, COMPOSER & CONDUCTOR
Hailed by Lukas Foss as “a master composer,” Lauren Bernofsky has written well over a hundred works, including solo, chamber, and choral music, as well as larger-scale works for orchestra, film, musical, opera, and ballet. Her music has been performed across the United States as well as internationally in major venues from Carnegie Hall to Grieg Hall in Bergen, Norway.
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Bernofsky strives to capture the unique expressive potential of each instrument, an approach that has made her work popular with performers looking for new works to showcase their abilities. Her philosophy of composition is simple: music should be a joy to play and hear.
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Over seventy of her works are in print from Theodore Presser, Alfred, Carl Fischer, Boosey & Hawkes, FJH, Hal Leonard, Grand Mesa, Balquhidder, Fatrock Ink, and Wingert-Jones. Her music is often heard at major festivals and conferences, including Tanglewood, The Midwest Clinic, and the International Women's Brass Conference, and it has been played by members of The Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Atlanta Symphony, New York Philharmonic, Philadelphia Orchestra, and many others. Recordings of her music can be heard on the Polarfonia, Emeritus, Blue Griffin, MSR Classics, Mark Records, Summit, and Albany labels.
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Lauren Bernofsky holds degrees from The Hartt School, New England Conservatory, and Boston University, where she earned a doctorate in composition. She has taught at Boston University, The University of Maryland Baltimore County, The Peabody Institute, and Interlochen, and she regularly serves as a clinician and guest conductor at schools, universities, and regional festivals.
ANSLEY VALENTINE, DIRECTOR
Ansley Valentine is a professional director and choreographer for the theatre and musical theatre and an educator with experience teaching professionally at the collegiate level and in both public and private performing arts high schools. Ansley is currently a proud Stage Directors and Choreographers Society (SDC) member.
Ansley is a graduate of the Arts Midwest Minorities in Arts Administration Fellowship, a program funded by the Ford Foundation to increase minority representation in leadership roles at American not-for-profit organizations. After his fellowship at The Cleveland Play House in marketing and development, he went on to serve as Theatre School Director at Studio Arena Theatre, a LORT C theatre in Buffalo, New York. Ansley oversaw a wide variety of youth arts programming in Western New York. The Theatre School’s flagship program, The Creative Empowerment Program, sought to teach inner-city youth non-violent conflict resolution skills as well as playmaking. The program was consistently funded by the New York State Council for the Arts. Other programs he maintained included interactive arts education as well as touring shows to schools unable to travel to Buffalo to see a production. An accomplished playwright, Studio Arena Theatre School produced educational tours through Western New York and Pennsylvania of many of his shows. Titles included the docu-drama Lest We Forget the Holocaust and the original rock musical Antigone with music by Dan Acquisto.
SUSAN ARCHIBALD, PIANO
Pianist Susan Archibald, is originally from Nova Scotia, Canada. Her playing as a collaborative pianist has been described as being performed, “musically and sympathetically” (Globe and Mail, Toronto). She has been working as a collaborative pianist for the past few decades, first in Toronto (Canada) at the University of Toronto and the Royal Conservatory of Music. In 2001, she was hired at the Shepherd School of Music, Rice University in Houston, TX, where she worked for 13 years. She lives in Bloomington, Indiana, and works as a collaborative pianist at Butler University in Indianapolis.
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At age 18, she was a top prize winner in the Canadian Music Competitions. She has also accompanied top prize winners in the Munich International Competition, Montreal International Competition, as well as other international and national competitions for strings and winds. She has performed in recitals with members of the Cleveland, Philadelphia, Toronto, Houston, Dallas, San Diego, National Symphony and other orchestras in the U.S. and Canada.
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SARA DAILEY, MEZZO-SOPRANO
Sara Dailey is a mezzo-soprano from Chicagoland with a passion for performing new and underperformed works. Sara has sung new and/or modern pieces with the likes of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra Chamber Series, Fulcrum Point New Music Project, Earlham College, and others. She has appeared on the Indiana University Opera Theater stage as Meg Page in Falstaff, Alma March in Little Women, and the Mistress of the Novices in Suor Angelica. She frequently lends her voice to oratorio works, both as chorister and soloist. She is a former member of
NOTUS, IU’s choral ensemble dedicated to performing new choral works, with whom she sang the world premieres of several new pieces. Sara earned her Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees from Indiana University.
EUNICE KIM, CELLO
Cellist Eunice Kim’s performances and masterclasses have taken her to Indiana University, New England Conservatory’s Jordan Hall, Orford Musique, the Banff Center, Music@Menlo, Aspen Music Festival, the Philadelphia International Music Festival, the Colorado College Summer Festival, and Ball State University. She also performed J.S. Bach’s Cello Suite No. 3, Prelude,” for Indiana University’s “Mies in Indiana” exhibit featured at the Grunwald Gallery, sharing the story of the architect’s history in the state.
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As an educator, Eunice serves as cello faculty and chamber music coach of the Indiana University String Academy and Summer String chamber music coach. She also teaches college students at the university as an associate cello instructor. She has also served as a teaching artist for the Boston Philharmonic Orchestra, teaching students in the Greater Boston Area.​
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DANIELLE LONG, MEZZO-SOPRANO
Danielle Long has performed with, among others, the Cedar Rapids Opera Company, Lakeshore Players Theater, Expressions Theater, Northern Starz Children’s Theater, the Merrill Arts Center Players, Orange Players Theatre, the Gilbert and Sullivan Very Light Opera Company, and Opera Reading Project. She studied at the International Vocal Academy in Austria, the Lotte Lehmann Akademie in Germany, and the Università per stranieri di Perugia. Danielle attends Jacobs School of Music at Indiana University, recently earning her Masters of Music in Voice Performance. Opera roles include Zinnia in L’étoile; Isabelle in Pirates of Penzance; Macduff and King Duncan in Macbeth; Rhiannon in Rhiannon’s Condemnation. She was featured as the alto soloist in Beethoven’s Messe in C, Handel’s Messiah, and Haydn’s Lord Nelson Mass.
KEITH NORTHOVER, CLARINET
Keith Northover graduated from Indiana University, where he studied with Howard Klug and Eric Hoeprich. He is currently on faculty at Indiana University, teaching historical clarinets. Previous posts include teaching at the University of Florida, St. Vincent de Paul School, and the College of Central Florida. Before IU, he completed his Master’s and Bachelor’s degrees from the University of Florida, where he studied with Mitchell Estrin.
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Recent career highlights include premières and performances at Clarinetfest in Belgium, Denver, and Reno, the NACWPI Conference in Vancouver, and the American Reed Summit in South Carolina. Additionally, he has toured the world with chamber music tours in Europe and Brazil and is a founding member of the Novacane Clarinet Quartet and the Æther Reed Quintet. He also performs regularly with orchestras in the Midwest and South.
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In addition to his active performance schedule, Keith is an active teacher and researcher. His research and performance interests include pursuing and advocating the use of the auxiliary clarinets, Mozart and the Basset Horn, low clarinets in Opera and Film, and historical instruments and performance practices.
BEN RARDIN, TENOR
Ben Rardin began singing opera for kids in 2010 during his first year of undergrad at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville and never stopped. After moving to Bloomington for his master’s at Indiana University, he quickly joined ROK and has been performing outreach with them since 2016. Ben is an okay husband, proud father, and somewhat competent firefighter/EMT with the White River Township Fire Department when he isn't goofing off in front of hundreds of kids.​
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FORD SMITH, PERCUSSION
Ford Smith is a percussionist, timpanist, and drummer hailing from Louisville, Kentucky. He has performed at the Midwest Band and Orchestra Clinic, the Percussive Arts Society International Convention, and the Jihlava Mahler Festival. He has served as principal timpanist for the Prague Summer Nights festival orchestra and principal percussionist for the IU Conductor’s Lab Orchestra. He appears as a big band drummer on the CD “Elvis Is Still In The Building”. He also has worked as a marching percussion instructor in the Central Kentucky area, teaching at several schools and serving as head percussion coordinator for Paul Laurence Dunbar High School. He graduated from the University of Kentucky, The Kentucky Governor’s School for the Arts, and the Youth Performing Arts School in Louisville. He is attending Indiana University pursuing a Master’s degree in music.
STEVEN M WARNOCK, BARITONE
Scottish baritone Steven M Warnock is a classically trained singer working in a broad range of styles. He performs in operas and musicals, engages with his community through music-forward volunteering and arts administration, and collaborates regularly with composers and creatives to bring new works to life. Warnock is determined to broaden exposure and access to the arts through his performances and engagement in global communities​
