Shudong Braamse has appeared on stages in Canada, Italy, Austria, Estonia, Spain, Finland, Latvia, Singapore, Taiwan, and China. She has premiered a number of vocal works, including Gary Nash’s cycle Peace, Love and Prosperity premiered in Nashville in 2010, and Michael Bulychev-Okser’s Spanish art song Romance de la Luna premiered in 2014 in Tallinn, Estonia.
Braamse has a passion for sharing the traditions of Western vocal music with her native China and sharing developments in Chinese concert music with audiences and students in the United States. She has given numerous concerts and master classes in China. The books she has translated, Complete Preparation: A Guide to Auditioning for Opera by Joan Dornemann and Basics of Vocal Pedagogy by Dr. Clifton Ware, have been published by People’s Music Publishing House in Beijing. These publications are kept in most university libraries and sold in major bookstores in China.
Braamse’s recording, Silvery Night, in collaboration with Charles Hulin, introduces American listeners to the songs of Yao Qi, a composer from Singapore. Her album VOIX SUPRÊME, also in collaboration with Charles Hulin, features French Art Songs by Jules Massenet. VOIX SUPRÊME was praised by reviewer Gerald Fenech in Music and Vision: “Shudong Braamse has the perfect voice for this repertoire, and her performances are excellent throughout – faultless, even…” VOIX SUPRÊME was released on the Navona label in spring of 2017 with a high number of streams and downloads, and received airplay from radio stations such as KALX, UC Berkeley, WRUV, Vermont, and KMUN, Oregon.
Braamse received her B.A. from Fuyang Teachers College in China, and M.M. and D.M.A. from Michigan State University. Currently she is a professor of voice at Southeastern University in Lakeland FL. She was an Artist Faculty member of the Alion Baltic International Music Festival in Tallinn, Estonia in past years. She will be an Artist Faculty member at the InterHarmony International Music Festival in Acqui Terme, Italy in the summer of 2019.
Teresa Ancaya is a piano soloist and accompanist in the Tampa Bay area. She holds a Bachelor and Master of Music in piano performance from the University of South Florida, Tampa. She continued post-graduate piano accompaniment study at Salzburg University, Austria.
Ancaya has accompanied faculty and students at several universities and colleges. She was a soloist with The Florida Orchestra and Imperial Symphony Orchestra. In 2013, she performed at Carnegie Hall with USF Chamber Singers. In addition to playing the piano, Ancaya sang in the chorus of Opera Tampa’s Cavalleria Rusticana, Pagliacci, and Aida. She has accompanied and performed for VOICExperience, a program founded by Sherrill Milnes.
Currently she serves as a staff accompanist at USF. Ancaya also works closely with St. Petersburg Opera Company, Opera Tampa, The Master Chorale of Tampa Bay, and The Florida Orchestra, and has performed in countless operas and musicals.
Since making his solo guitar debut to a sold-out Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall, Robert Phillips has performed in a diverse range of venues – from traditional concert halls, including New York’s prestigious Town Hall and Lincoln Center, to jazz nightclubs. He has appeared as a guest soloist with numerous orchestras and as a guest artist at the Miami International Guitar Festival, the Guitar Foundation of America, and the American String Teachers’ Association, as well as many regional level performing arts series.
Phillips’ most recent recording, Lo Mestre, The Music of Miguel Llobet, is available on Centaur Records. His newest project is commissioning new solo pieces for classical guitar by Jorge Morel, Benoit Glazer, Charles Griffin, Troy Gifford, Howard Buss, and Rex Willis.
Phillips directs the guitar department at the Lois Cowles Harrison Center for the Visual and Performing Arts. He is also an adjunct professor at Southeastern University, where he maintains a classical guitar studio and directs the classical guitar ensemble. With nearly 40 years of teaching experience, Phillips’ former students have been admitted to Manhattan School of Music, Florida State University, the University of Miami, the State University of New York at Stony Brook, Belmont University, Brooklyn College, Hofstra University, and Yale University. His students have won numerous competitions including the UT Brownsville Guitar Ensemble competition, the Southern Guitar Festival and Competition in Columbia SC, and the GFA Ensemble Showcase.
Phillips is a recipient of the Distinguished Service Award from Hofstra University’s George M. Estabrook Alumni Association, and of a Japan Fulbright.
Guitar Extra described Phillips as “…a dynamic performer who breathes life into the music he approaches…Phillips exploits the music’s physical vigor with virtuosic playing and a perfect sense of timing.”
Dr. Suzanne R. Draayer, soprano, holds a Doctor of Musical Arts in vocal performance, pedagogy, and literature from the University of Maryland where she studied with James McDonald and George Shirley. She is professor emerita at Winona State University, Winona MN.
An avid advocator of Spanish music, Draayer has published numerous articles in the Journal of Singing and the Classical Singer on Castilian Spanish song repertoire, Cuban art song repertoire, and other related topics Her books on Spanish art song, published by Scarecrow Press, are A Singer’s Guide to the Songs of Joaquín Rodrigo, (1999), the three volumes of Canciones de España—Songs of Nineteenth-Century Spain (Scarecrow Press, 2003, 2005, 2007), each published in high and low voice, and Art Song Composers of Spain: An Encyclopedia (2009). Draayer’s CD, Under a Spanish Moon, includes 33 of Joaquin Rodrigo’s 87 songs.
Draayer presented Spanish song sessions at many NATS state, regional, and national conferences. She presented at three International Congress of Voice Teacher symposiums—Vancouver (2005), Paris (2009), and Brisbane (2013). Draayer contributed more that 750 Spanish song texts to IPA Source, the largest collection of literal translations and International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) transcriptions on the web.
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