Faculty Recital Series

Featuring Ronald Barron on trombone, assisted by Larry Wallach and Allan Dean, featuring soprano Maureen O’Flynn in Eric Ewazen’s song-cycle “Summer’s Journey.”

Also included on the program are works by Philip Wharton, John LaMontaine, Otto Luening, Joseph Turin, and Tommy Dorsey.

RONALD BARRON was Principal Trombonist of the Boston Symphony Orchestra from 1975 until 2008. He joined the orchestra in 1970 after being a member of the Montreal Symphony Orchestra, and also served as Principal Trombonist of the Boston Pops for thirteen seasons. Mr. Barron is a graduate of the College-Conservatory of Music of the University of Cincinnati, where he studied with Ernest Glover. During his college years, he also toured with the American Wind Symphony.   In 1974, Ronald Barron shared the highest prize awarded at the Munich International Competition. This included a solo appearance, where he performed the Frank Martin Ballade for trombone and orchestra with the competition sponsor, the Bavarian State Radio Orchestra. Mr. Barron was a frequent soloist with the Boston Pops Orchestra and appeared with a number of New England area orchestras and bands. As a recitalist he has performed across the U.S., Europe and Japan. In addition to numerous recordings with the Boston Symphony and the Boston Pops, Mr. Barron has recorded and performed with the Canadian Brass, Empire Brass, and Summit Brass, and has nine successful solo recordings.

Acclaimed singer/actress MAUREEN O’FLYNN has enjoyed a more than 28 year international career singing leading soprano roles in virtually every major opera house in the world including the Metropolitan Opera, Vienna Staatsoper, La Scala, Deutsche Oper Berlin, Hamburg Opera, Opera Bilbao, Minnesota Opera, New York City Opera, and the Maggio Musicale di Firenze.  She has garnered enthusiastic praise from critics, peers, and audiences not only for her brilliant, soaring voice, but also for her dramatic interpretation. Of her Violetta in La Traviata, Richard Dyer of the Boston Globe called her “a complete and compelling singing actress.” After her opening night performance at the Metropolitan Opera of Juliette in Romeo and Juliet, The New York times said the soprano “…won a deserved ovation from the audience”, and Variety exclaimed “…not only a superb technician, with a full coloratura arsenal at her disposal, but a sensitive interpreter.”

Miss O’Flynn is regarded as one of the finest interpreters of Gilda in Verdi’s Rigoletto, having performed the role with the Metropolitan Opera under the baton of Placido Domingo, the Arena di Verona, La Fenice, Covent Garden, Houston Grand Opera, and many others.  In addition to Violetta and Gilda, Miss O’Flynn has sung more than 35 operatic roles including Mimi in La Boheme, Magda in La Rondine, Massenet’s Manon, Lucia di Lammermoor, Susanna in Le Nozze di Figaro, Maguerite in Faust, Elvira in I Puritani, Amina in La Sonnambula, and Leila in Le Pecheurs de Perles. She has sung under the batons of eminent maestros such as Riccardo Muti, James Conlon, Antonio Pappano. She has shared the stage with colleagues Renee Fleming, Samuel Ramey, Marcello Giordani, Marcello Alvarez, Leo Nucci, Denyce Graves, Jerry Hadley, Nicolai Ghiarov, Ramon Vargas, Fernando de la Mora, and Natalie Dessay.

ALLAN DEAN is Professor of Trumpet (Adjunct) at the Yale School of Music and also teaches in the Community Music Program of Simon’s Rock.  He is a member of Summit Brass, the St. Louis Brass and the Yale Brass Trio.  He performed with the New York Brass Quintet for eighteen years and the Contemporary Chamber Ensemble for ten years. Involved in Baroque and Renaissance music performed on original instruments, Mr. Dean is a founding member of Calliope: A Renaissance Band as well as the New York Cornetto and Sacbut Ensemble. He performs and teaches each summer at the Mendez Brass Institute and the Norfolk Chamber Music Festival. He can be heard playing both modern trumpet and early brass on over eighty recordings for major labels including RCA, Columbia, Nonesuch, Pro Arte, CRI, Musical Heritage, and Summit.

LARRY WALLACH is the Livingston Hall Chair in Music at Bard College at Simon’s Rock.  He is a performer, composer, musicologist, and educator whose interests span the history of Western music up to the present day, with particular focus on baroque and modern repertories.  He has published articles about Charles Ives and Johannes Brahms, and as pianist performed all the Ives violin sonatas. Dr. Wallach is active as a keyboard player on harpsichord, organ, and piano, collaborating with Nancy Bracken, Ronald Gorevic, the Avanti Wind Quintet, John Cheek, Daniel Stepner, Stephen Hammer, Lucy Bardo, Paul Green, Susanna Ogata, Allan Dean, Ronald Barron, the Berkshire Bach Society chorus, Crescendo, and with Anne and Eva Legêne.  He has organized and performed in concerts for the Bard Retrospective Festival for Charles Ives in 1996, for the Housatonic River Festival Concert in 2004, for the Boston Early Music Festival in 2009, and for a program of music for four harpsichords that was performed in Norfolk CT, Great Barrington, MA, Albany NY and Hunter NY in 2009 and 2010.   His compositions, primarily of chamber music, have been performed in New York, New England, Texas, California, and elsewhere.  A new orchestral work, “Berkshire Rhapsody,” was premiered last April in Milford, Massachusetts.