Meet the Conductor

Celebrating her seventh season as music director of The Williamsburg Symphonia, Janna Hymes has established an outstanding reputation for her exciting and dynamic conducting style and creative programming. In the short time she has been associated with Williamsburg and the Symphonia, Hymes has overseen an expansion of the subscription season from four to five concerts, presented a variety of pops concerts to sell-out crowds and served as honorary chair of First Night 2006.

A native of New York City, Hymes has conducted throughout the United States, including the symphony orchestras of Houston, Madison, North Carolina, Omaha, Richmond, Spokane, Springfield, and Florida West Coast; the Cincinnati and Chappaqua Chamber Orchestras; and the San Francisco's Women's Philharmonic. Her international guest conducting credentials include performances with France's Orchestre National de Lyon and Besançon Chamber Orchestra, The Netherlands' Delta Ensemble and Messiaen Academy, Orquesta Sinfónica del Estado de México and Orquesta Sinfónica Nacional de Costa Rica where she will return this season.

A Fulbright Scholar, Hymes holds degrees from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music, from which she received a Distinguished Alumna Award. She has studied at the Tanglewood Music Center, Aspen Music Festival, the Festival at Sandpoint and the Conductor's Guild Institute, and she counts among her teachers Leonard Bernstein, Gustav Meier, Otto Werner-Mueller and Gunther Schuller. A frequent guest speaker, she was also speaker and honoree at the Women to Watch Celebration 2000, sponsored by the Indianapolis Business Journal. She regularly teaches at the American Symphony Orchestra League's annual conducting workshops.

About Our Soloists: 2011-2012 Season

Steve Lippia, Vocalist
Music Under the Stars, September

Steve Lippia, in "Simply Sinatra, " has become one of the most prominent, in-demand vocalists and has quickly established his place among the finest interpreters of "standards" and traditional pop music in the nation. Steve's youthful energetic talent and powerful show creates a perfect blend of "classic" with "today." His show introduces a new generation to this timeless music, while appealing to long-time listeners.
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Holly Hunt and Limelight
Music Under the Stars, September

Holly Hunt, Limelight's vocalist, and her husband, Norm (Limelight's drummer) formed the group in 2006 with longtime friend and saxophonist Jim Harney. She also coordinates the business and performance scheduling for Limelight. Locally she has performed for Busch Gardens, The Old Dominion Opry and The Music Theatre of Williamsburg
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Grace Fong, Piano
Masterworks, January

Grace Fong has been praised as "positively magical," an artist of "rare eloquence and grace," and enjoys a career as an international concerto soloist, recitalist, chamber musician and teacher. She has gained critical acclaim in the United States, Canada, Europe, and Asia, making appearances at major venues around the world, including Weill Hall at Carnegie Hall; Lincoln Center; the Kennedy Center; Phillips Collection; Hollywood Bowl; Great Hall in Leeds, UK; Severance Hall in Cleveland, Ohio; the Liszt Academy in Budapest; and Konzerthaus Dortmund, Germany, among others.
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Akemi Takeyama, Violin
Masterworks, February

Born to musical parents in Tokyo, Japan, Akemi Takayama began her violin studies with her mother at the age of three. Her professional violin career began in Japan at the age of fifteen. Ms. Takayama is currently in her thirteenth year as violinist for the internationally renowned Audubon Quartet, and tours regionally and nationally with the group. She has also served as the concertmaster of the Roanoke Symphony Orchestra since 2004. Her recent solo performances include Daugherty's Fire and Blood and Ladder to the Moon, Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons, Paert's Fratres, Beethoven’s Violin Concerto and Brahms’s Double Concerto for violin and cello.
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Irina Muresamu, Violin
Masterworks, February

UIrina Muresanu, violin, has won the hearts of audiences and critics alike with her exciting, elegant and heartfelt performances of the classic, romantic and modern repertoire. The Boston Globe has come to praise her as "not just a virtuoso, but an artist", and the Los Angeles Times has written that her "musical luster, melting lyricism and colorful conception made Irina Muresanu's performance especially admirable," while Strad Magazine called her Carnegie/Weill Hall performance a " a first-rate recital." Irina Muresanu's performances have been frequently cited as among the "Best of" classical music performances by the Boston Globe, and her recital in the Emerging Artist Celebrity Series was named one of the Top 10 musical events by the TAB Magazine.
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Lisa Edwards-Burrs, Soprano
Masterworks Opera Program, March

Lisa Edwards-Burrs, soprano, who has been described as "a soprano of crystalline beauty," received degrees in Vocal Performance from Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, Virginia, (B.M. and M.M.) and The Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C., (D.M.A.). An accomplished lyric-coloratura soprano, her performances in recital, oratorio and chamber music are extensive.
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Robert McPherson, Tenor
Masterworks Opera Program, March

Robert McPherson, tenor, has been acclaimed by the New York Times for his "robust voice, agility and confidence." His engagements in the 2010-11 season include his first performances of Idreno in Semiramide with Vlaamse Opera and in subsequent performances at the Edinburgh Festival, Nadir in Les pêcheurs de perles with Cleveland Opera and Tonio in La fille du regiment in a return to New Israeli Opera, in addition to his returns to the role of Lindoro in L'italiana in Algeri with Florentine Opera and to the roster of the Metropolitan Opera for Wozzeck.
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Branch Fields, Bass
Masterworks Opera Program, March

Branch Fields, bass, has been described by Opera America as "a bass of resonant richness" and by the New York Times as "a gifted young bass," Mr. Fields was recently chosen to understudy the role of Emile de Becque in South Pacific at the Lincoln Center Theater, a Bartlett Sher-directed production which has won seven Tony Awards.
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Tai Murray, Violin
Masterworks, April - May

Tai Murray has been acclaimed as "superb" by the New York Times and is regarded as a rising star of her generation, increasingly in demand for both recitals and orchestral engagements. She has performed on the stages of Berlin's Konzerthaus, Chicago's Orchestra Hall, Copenhagen's Tivoli Gardens, Shanghai's Concert Hall and New York's Carnegie Hall, and has collaborated with a wide range of conductors and instrumentalists, including Marin Alsop, Alan Gilbert, Richard Goode, Jaime Laredo, Hannu Lintu, Dmitry Sitkovetsky and Mitsuko Uchida.
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Our Musicians (April-May 2012)

First Violin
Akemi Takayama, Concertmaster
James A. Leavengood Charitable Fund, Concertmaster Chair
Sonya Chung, Assistant Concertmaster

Stacy Markowitz

Steve Hakel

Alana Carrithers

Francoise Moquin

Second Violin
Ellen Cockerman, Principal
Linda Anderson, Assistant Principal

Arkady Heifitz

Rex Britton

Tim Judd

Susan Bedell

Viola
Stephen Schmidt, Principal
Jena Chenkin, Assistant Principal
Kim Spaar

Amy Davis

Cello
Jason McComb, Principal
John & Lisa Hewett, Principal Cello Chair
Ryan Lannon, Assistant Principal

James E. Hinish, Jr., Assistant Principal Cello Chair

David Gee

Kelley Mikkelson

Bass
Paul Bedell, Principal
Michael Jaesson, Assistant Principal

Flute
Jennifer Debiec Lawson, Principal

Ann Choomack

Mary Ann Archer

Oboe
Shawn Welk, Principal
Victoria Hamrick

Clarinet
Ralph Skiano, Principal
Donald & Linda Baker, Principal Clarinet Chair
Jared Davis

Nick Hecker

Bassoon
Jonathan Friedman, Principal
Lynda Edwards

Horn
Debbie Fialek, Principal

Roy E. Hock, Principal Horn Chair
Marlene Ford

Trumpet
Wendell Banyay, Principal
Robert Spaeth

Trombone
Ron Baedke, Principal
Scott Winger

Scott Cochran

Tuba

Richard Serpa

Timpani
Ray Breakall, Principal