Meet the Conductor

Celebrating her fifth season as music director of The Williamsburg Symphonia, Janna Hymes has a well-regarded reputation throughout the nation as conductor. 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 holiday pops concerts to sell-out crowds, arranged a family concert that filled the hall and served as honorary chair of First Night 2006. 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.

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: 2007-2008 Season

Jennifer Frautschi, violin
An Avery Fisher Career Grant recipient, Frautschi is rapidly achieving acclaim as an adventurous performer with a wide-ranging repertoire. As the Chicago Tribune recently wrote, "the young violinist Jennifer Frautschi is molding a career with smart interpretations of both warhorses and rarities. " Equally at home in the classical repertoire as well as twentieth- and twenty-first-century works, in the past few seasons she has performed the Britten Concerto, Poul Ruders's Concerto No. 1, Steven Mackey's Violin Sonata, and Mendelssohn's rarely played Concerto in D Minor, along with standards such as the Mozart, Tchaikovsky and Berg concerti.
More details...

Göran Marcusson, flute
Marcusson did not embark upon his musical career until the age of twenty-four, having worked previously as a bricklayer and tram driver. He earned international acclaim for the first time in 1987 when he won the National Flute Association's Young Artist Competition, which was followed in rapid succession by an award at Crussellweek in Finland and a prize at the 1991 Bodensee Music Competition. In 1992, the same year he was granted his Soloist Diploma from the University of Gothenberg, he was awarded a Waterford Crystal flute, the prize for his outstanding performance at the Vienna Music Competition in the master class taught by James Galway.
More details...

Mike Runyan, harmonica
Mike Runyan was born in San Diego and raised in Denver. He began taking piano lessons at age six and played trumpet and horn in grade school. While he was pianist for his high school swing choir, Runyan purchased a chromatic harmonica and learned to play the obbligato offered in one of the choir's songs. Intrigued by the instrument's "button," he wrote a series of pieces exploring the possible styles the harmonica could express.
More details...

Matt Haimovitz, cello
Born in Israel, Haimovitz made his debut in 1984 at the age of thirteen, as soloist with Zubin Mehta and the Israel Philharmonic. At seventeen he made his first recording, performing the Saint-Sans, Lalo, and Bruch concerti with James Levine and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, for Deutsche Grammophon. Haimovitz has since gone on to perform on the world's most esteemed stages, with such orchestras and conductors as the Berlin Philharmonic with James Levine, the New York Philharmonic with Zubin Mehta, the English Chamber Orchestra with Daniel Barenboim, the Boston Symphony Orchestra with Leonard Slatkin and the Cleveland Orchestra with Charles Dutoit. More details...

Joyce Yang, piano
In June 2005, at nineteen years of age, Yang was awarded the silver medal at the Twelfth Van Cliburn International Piano Competition. The prize package included $20,000, three years of U.S. concert engagements and a compact disc recording on the harmonia mundi usa label. The youngest of the Cliburn Competition's participants, she was the recipient of both the Steven De Groote Memorial Award for the Best Performance of Chamber Music as well as the Beverley Taylor Smith Award for the Best Performance of a New Work. Of her spectacular finish at one of the world's most prestigious showcases for young talent, she told reporters, "I'm still dreaming."
More details...

Our Musicians

First Violin
Akemi Takayama, Concertmaster
James A. Leavengood Charitable Fund, Concertmaster Chair
Stephanie Markowitz , Assistant Concertmaster

Steve Hakel

Margie Heath

Arkady Heifitz
Rex Britton

Second Violin
Susy Yim, Principal
Linda Anderson, Assistant Principal

Susan Bedell

Francoise Moquin
Tim Judd
Sharla Gordon

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
Paul Lafollette, Principal

ROY E. HOCK, Principal HORN Chair
Marlene Ford

Trumpet
Wendell Banyay, Principal
Robert Spaeth

Trombone
Ron Baedke, Principal

Piano
Christine Niehaus

Harp
Vince Zetner

Timpani
Ray Breakall, Principal

Percussion
Dan Knipple, Principal

Want to know more about getting involved? Visit Support Us.