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.

The 2010-2011 season begins on Saturday, October 2, when jazz guitarist John Pizzarelli will join the Symphonia for the third "Music Under the Stars" event in Merchants Square during An Occasion for the Arts weekend. Performances of the first concert of the Masterworks Series take place on November 1 and 2; season subscriptions are on sale now. A dynamic and versatile musician, Hymes says that her goal is to mold The Williamsburg Symphonia into the pre-eminent chamber orchestra in the Hampton Roads area.

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: 2010-2011 Season

John Pizzarelli, guitar
October "Music Under The Stars" Guest Soloist

John Pizzarelli, the world-renowned jazz guitarist and singer, was called “Hip with a wink” by Town & Country, “madly creative” by the Los Angeles Times and “the genial genius of the guitar” by The Toronto Star. After his recent smash success with the Boston Pops, he was hailed by the Boston Globe for “reinvigorating the Great American Songbook and re-popularizing jazz.” And the Seattle Times called him a “tour de force” and “a rare entertainer of the old school.
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Jason Vieaux, guitar
January Guest Soloist

One of America’s leading guitarists, Jason Vieaux is changing the face of guitar programming and has earned a devoted international fan base along the way. As a result of his reputation for making “the single guitar seem like a body of instruments at work…an orchestra of sound…” (The Philadelphia Inquirer), Mr. Vieaux plays over fifty engagements each year across the U.S. and abroad.
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Christine Niehaus, piano
April Guest Soloist

Christine Niehaus holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees in music from the Peabody Conservatory.  She has performed in the U.S., Russia, Sweden, France, Italy and Yugoslavia. Ms. Niehaus has been honored as “one of the 28 Leading Washington Women Performers” (The Washingtonian) and as a performer of one of the “Ten Best Concerts of the Year” (The Columbia Flyer). In 1985 she won Grand Prize in the International Piano Recording Competition.
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Akemi Takayama, violin

Symphonia Concertmaster
April Guest Soloist

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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Our Musicians

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

Alana Carrithers

Susan Via

Arkady Heifitz

Sharla Gordon

Second Violin
Susy Yim, Principal
Linda Anderson, Assistant Principal

Tim Judd

Francoise Moquin

Susan Bedell

Rex Britton

Viola
Stephen Schmidt, Principal
Kim Buschek, Assistant Principal
Jena Chenkin
Tom Stevens

Cello
Neal Cary, Principal
John & Lisa Hewett, Principal Cello Chair
Jason McComb, Assistant Principal
Ryan Lannon
Kelly Mikkelson

Bass
Paul Bedell, Principal
Michael Jaesson, Assistant Principal

Flute
Jennifer Debiec Lawson, Principal
Margaret Carlson

Oboe
Shawn Welk, Principal
Victoria Hamrick

Clarinet
Nicholas Lewis, Principal
Donald & Linda Baker, Principal Clarinet Chair
Jared Davis

Bassoon
Jonathan Friedman, Principal
Lynda Edwards

Horn
Rachel Vilvikis, Principal

Roy E. Hock, Principal Horn Chair
Marlene Ford

Mark Biondillilo

Trumpet
Wendell Banyay, Principal
Robert Spaeth

Trombone
Ron Baedke, Principal

Timpani
Ray Breakall, Principal

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