Meeting House To Host A Second Celebration Of The Arts

Celebration Of The Arts II will be presented at Newtown Meeting House on Sunday, May 23, at 3 pm. This multi-discipline event will introduce the building’s new Yamaha Concert Grand Piano to the community with an afternoon of beautiful classical and contemporary music and fine art.

The introduction is a celebration: Meeting house trustees have worked with the public for a few years to raise funds to purchase the piano so that groups who wish to perform in the beautiful historic building can go in knowing that there will be a strong instrument on which to perform.

“We to make the public aware that Newtown Meeting House now has a world-class piano, offers a warm and intimate setting for all kinds of performing artists, and is available to everyone,” says meetinghouse administrator Sherry Paisley.

 The program will include classical pianists Margarita Nuller and Rosaleen Rhee. Vocalists Pamela J. Hoffman (soprano) and Boyd Schlaefer, bass-baritone, will sing well-loved classical and contemporary music. Fine artists Betty Christensen, Ruth Newquist and Dimitry Shibayev will display and sell their paintings.

During intermission, guests will be invited to browse through the collections of paintings and speak with the painters. At the close of the program, refreshments will be served and guests are invited to meet the musicians and speak further with the artists.

Tickets are $15 in advance; $18 at the door. Call 270-8293 or send email to nmh1792@hotmail.com for reservations.

A portion of any art sold at the event, as well as all tickets sales, will benefit the Newtown Meeting House Music Fund.

 

The Performers

 Margarita Nuller was born in St. Petersburg, Russia and, as a child, was surrounded by music at home.  Her father was a music lover and connoisseur; her mother taught classical piano.  Margarita is a graduate of the St. Petersburg Conservatory.  Since her arrival in the United States in 1990, she has performed extensively as a soloist and chamber musician in the New York metropolitan area and New England.

Ms Nuller made her debut at Weill Recital Hall in Carnegie Hall in 2000, as winner of the Artists’ International Auditions. She was an artist-in-residence at Shandellee Festival in the Catskill Mountains, and Kent-Silver Bay Festival in Kent.

Previously Ms Nuller taught at Hartt College/University of Hartford, and currently she is on the faculty of The Kent School. She also teaches privately.

 Her CD of Russian music, Daisies, was released on L’Art label in 2003. Next month, she will perform in her native Russia as guest soloist with the St. Petersburg Symphony. She lives with her family in New Fairfield.

 Rosaleen Rhee is a senior at The Kent School. She has been accepted at Brown University for the fall 2004 semester. She is also a piano student of Margarita Nuller.

Miss Rhee began playing piano at age five and participated in her first recital at age six. She is interested in all kinds of music, including jazz and Dixieland, and is vice president of the Kent School Concert Band.  Additionally, she provides music for Catholic Church services when a substitute is needed. 

 In 2003, Miss Rhee won the Danbury Symphony Concerto competition, playing Chopin’s Concerto #1, and continued to perform with them through the winter.  She received third prize at the Audrey Thayer Competition in spring 2003, and also was winner of the Connecticut Teachers’ Association competition.

This year Miss Rhee received first prize at the Ridgefield Symphony Concerto Competition, and played Beethoven’s Concerto #3 with the orchestra in April.

 Soprano Pamela J. Hoffman attended the American Conservatory of Music in Chicago. While working on her Bachelor of Arts degree, she was the recipient of several awards and scholarships. One of the most important was the Bel Canto Foundation Award, which sent her to Italy to study with Carlo Bergonzi and Renata Tebaldi.

Upon her return to Chicago, Ms Hoffman made her debut in Orchestra Hall, singing the Requiem by Brahms and Gloria by Poulenc. Before coming East, Ms Hoffman appeared with the Chicago Opera Theatre, singing Ludmilla in Smetana’s Bartered Bride.

She has performed on opera and concert stages across the country, including a three-month tour with the New York City National Opera Company in the title role of Puccini’s Tosca. Ms Hoffman made her debut in Carnegie Hall singing Mendelssohn’s Elijah, under the direction of David Randolph.  She continues to concertize, and teaches voice in her Brookfield studio.

Bass-baritone Boyd Schlaefer is currently in his 14th year as a member of the New York City Opera. At NYCO, he has sung roles in Sweeny Todd, The Visit (Stationmaster), The Dreyfus Affair (Judge), Esther (Teresh), Die Soldaten (The Officer) and is a member of the Regular Chorus.

He was seen this past year as the Swedish Lumberjack and First Crony in the PBS Live from Lincoln Center broadcast of Paul Bunyan. Mr Schlaefer also performs with the NYCO Education Department. For nine years, he performed in the Metropolitan Opera Guild productions of Gianni Schicchi, Don Pasquale and The Barber of Seville.

 His professional credits also include several roles with Seattle Opera Association, where he was a recipient of the Cecilia Schultz Award for young artists.

Mr Schlaefer is artistic director and founder of Northwest Opera In Schools, Etc. (NOISE), a Seattle based company which has been presenting educational opera programs in the Northwest for the past 20 years.  He is also on the music faculty at Western Connecticut State University.

Mr Schlaefer and his wife, the soprano Michele McBride, live in Brookfield with their two children.

Accompanist Susan Anthony-Klein has performed with the St Cecelia Chorus at Carnegie Hall for five years, and toured nationally with the Norman Luboff Choir and the Robert DeCormier Singers.

Currently she is an accompanist and piano instructor at Western Connecticut State University, Director of Music at Salem Covenant Church in New Preston, and accompanist with Connecticut Choral Society.

Ms Anthony-Klein and her husband, Kevin, and their twin sons, Aaron and Maxwell, live in Brookfield.

 

The Painters

Betty Christensen, a consistent prize-winning artist, recently added the Edgar A. Whitney Award from the Hudson Valley Art Association to a long list of recognitions, which include Gold Medal awards from Audubon Artists, New York and Grumbacher.  She is a member of the American Watercolor Society, Allied Artists in New York, the Hudson Valley Art Association, Connecticut Watercolor Society, Northeast Watercolor Society and Kent Art Association, where she has exhibited frequently.

Mrs Christensen studied at Philadelphia College of Art and worked in advertising in Pennsylvania before settling in Connecticut.

Her first love is watercolor, although she has recently turned to painting in oil en plein aire.

Mrs Christensen’s work has been published in Connecticut Magazine, The Artist’s Magazine and Prize Winning Art. She has exhibited at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Butler Institute of American Art, and is listed in Who’s Who of American Art.

She is a long-time Newtown resident.

 Ruth Newquist embarked on a life-long journey in painting at a tender age. She attended Moore College of Art in Philadelphia, earning a bachelor of fine arts degree while studying with such great painters as Ranulph Bye, Reginald Marsh and Frank Reilly.

Mrs Newquist also attended the Art Students’ League in New York City. She says of her work, “color is my focus – it creates the mood. And each of my paintings has its own mood.”

Mrs Newquist has become known for her New York SoHo cityscapes, as well as New England rural and urban landscapes.  She is a signature artist member of National Watercolor Society; an artist member of the Salmagundi Club in New York City; the Catharine Lorillard Wolfe Art Club; Hudson Valley Art Association; North Shore Art Association (Gloucester, Mass.); and Connecticut Watercolor Society.

Mrs Newquist’s work was featured on the “Watercolor Pages” in the June 1999 issue of American Artist Magazine. She is also represented in Best of Watercolor III, a hard cover book published by Rockport Publishers, 1999.

Mrs Newquist works out of her Newtown studio and exhibits her paintings throughout New England, Pennsylvania, New York and on the West Coast. She has won many awards, including the Thomas C. Picard Award for an oil painting in the 2002 Salmagundi Club Annual Members’ Exhibition, and the top watercolor award in the 2004 Salmagundi Club Annual Members’ Exhibition.

Dimitry Shibayev was born in Chisinau, Moldova (formerly part of the USSR), and exhibited a talent for art at an early age. He attended Junior Art School, received a bachelor of arts degree from the I.E. Repin State Art College, and did graduate work at Chisinau College of Architecture and Design.  He became an active member of the Union of Soviet Artists and made painting trips to Siberia, the Russian Far East (bordering Alaska), the Carpathian Mountains, and Taimyr — the northernmost tip of Siberia.

Mr Shibayev emigrated to the United States in 1995 and lived at Holy Trinity Monastary, Jordanville, N.Y., and the Hermitage of Our Lady of Kursk, in Brewster, N.Y., studying as a seminarian, until 2003.

He has exhibited his work throughout Russia, Italy, Moldova, Romania and Ukraine. In addition, he has participated in solo and group exhibits in the United States at Round Pond Gallery in Maine; Smithy-Pioneer Gallery in Cooperstown, N.Y.; the Nevsky Gallery in Cohoes, N.Y.; and Canajoharie Art Gallery, Canajoharie, N.Y..

Mr Shibayev’s work has also been presented at Yager Museum at Hartwick College, Oneonta, N.Y.; River Gallery, Damariscotta, Me.; Nutmeg Gallery in Kent (Conn.); Schoolhouse Gallery, Croton Falls, N.Y.; HIOS Gallery, Brooklyn, N.Y.; Fine Arts Center, Mahopac, N.Y.; and Williams-Proctor Arts Institute Sidewalk Show, Utica, N.Y.

His works have been purchased by the National Art Museum of Moldova, and by museums in Moldova, Russia, Romania and Japan. They are also found in private collections in Russia, Ukraine, Romania, Moldova, Bulgaria, Hungary, Italy, Israel, France, Germany and the United States.

Mr Shibayev now lives and works in New Fairfield.