Barbara Honn, Director

Barbara Honn, soprano, has performed in opera houses in Germany, Portugal, Spain, Hungary, Switzerland, Austria, Belgium, the Netherlands, and the United States. A few of the roles that she has sung to critical acclaim are: Donna Anna, Don Giovanni; Amelia, Un Ballo in Maschera; Ariadne, Ariadne auf Naxos; Marie, Wozzeck; and Elizabeth, Tannhäuser. As recipient of the West Deutscher Rundfunk Award, she has been heard in radio performances of the Verdi Requiem, Brahm's Ein Deutsches Requiem, Dvorak's Requiem, Beethoven's Symphony No. 9, and Mahler's Symphony No. 2, and Symphony No. 8 (Symphony of a Thousand). She was also awarded the Rheinisches Westfallen Medale die Kunst.

Mrs. Honn has been a Professor of Voice at the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music since 1986. She serves as director of the Grandin Festival, a vocal/instrumental chamber music festival that is held annually in August.

Mrs. Honn has taught at the Israel Vocal Arts Institute, Tel Aviv, Israel; L'Opera Bastille, Paris, France; The American Institute of Musical Studies, Graz, Austria; Lucca Opera Theater, Lucca, Italy; The Institute of Vocal Arts, Chiari, Italy; Canta in Italy, Florence, Italy; Academy of Vocal Arts, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Wichita State University, Wichita, Kansas; The University of Texas, Austin, Texas; Glimmerglass Opera, New York and has also given master classes, concerts and recitals worldwide.

Mrs. Honn's students are teaching in universities and conservatories in the United States, Puerto Rico, Korea, Spain, China, Canada, and Belgium. She also has students that perform in Opera houses around the world such as: The Metropolitan Opera, Houston Grand Opera, Florida Grand Opera, San Francisco Opera, Chicago Lyric Opera, Spoleto Festival, United States and Italy; Staatsoper Hamburg, Cologne Opernhaus, Frankfurter Opernhaus in Germany: Staatsoper in Vienna, Austria; Covent Garden, London, England; and La Scala, Milan, Italy. | top

Donna Loewy

Donna Hallen Loewy is Professor of Accompanying and Accompanist-in-Residence at the College-Conservatory of Music in Cincinnati, Ohio. Ms. Loewy has prepared and accompanied many top prize winners of the National Federation of Music Clubs Artist Competition, NATS Artist Awards, as well as the D'Angelo Competition and Montreal Concours International de Musique. She is much in demand as a collaborative pianist, coach, and master class teacher, performing frequently throughout the United States.

“A superlative accompanist” (Virginia Gazette), Ms Loewy is the official accompanist for the Metropolitan Opera Auditions, Southern Ohio region, and has held similar positions with the International Clarinet Conference, the Congress of Strings, the International Double Reed Society, the Yamaha Young Performing Artists Winners Recital, Tubamania in Sydney, Australia, and the International Tuba and Euphonium Conference. Donna has worked as an opera coach with the Israel Vocal Arts Institute in Tel Aviv, the Opera Theatre and Music Festival of Lucca, Italy, the International Institute of Vocal Arts in Chiari, Italy, Cincinnati Opera and Dayton Opera. She also coaches vocal chamber music for the Grandin Festival in Cincinnati every summer.

With tenor Daniel Weeks, Donna was presented by the Marilyn Horne Foundation in recitals and residencies at the Kosciusko Foundation in New York, the Cleveland Art Song Festival, the Mozart Society of Carmel, California and other venues. In 2005-8, baritone Andrew Garland and Ms. Loewy were presented by the Horne Foundation in New York, Hammond, Louisiana, Huntsville, Alabama, and Fort Worth, Texas, and performed recitals of Living American composers at the Phillips Gallery in Washington, DC, Art Song of Williamsburg, Cal State, Fullerton and Cerritos, California. They will present a world premiere song cycle by Tom Cipullo, and other NY premieres at Weill Hall on Nov. 21st, 2008 on Great Singers III: Evenings of Songs Series.

Ms. Loewy is the voice consultant and co-author of the Inner Game of Music Vocal Workbook, written with Barry Green, author of the Inner Game of Music | top

Allen Otte

Allen Otte came to the University of Cincinnati in 1977 with The Blackearth Percussion Group, which he co-founded in 1972; in 1979 he founded Percussion Group Cincinnati. The three members of the Group are faculty and ensemble-in-residence at the conservatory with an international touring schedule of concerts, concerto appearances, masterclasses, and childrens programs. A large body of new and often experimental music has been created specifically for the Group throughout its history, which has included special relationships with John Cage, Herbert Brun, John Luther Adams, and Qu Xiao-song. Otte is professor of percussion, teaches eurhythmics, composition, various literature seminars, and coaches and conducts traditional and contemporary chamber music. He is a regular summer faculty member at Oberlin where he has also done a course in traditional and creative music for Javanese gamelan. With and without the Group he has concertized, recorded and taught throughout North America, Europe, and in Asia, including solo concerts and guest presentations in Shanghai, Saarbrucken, Aukland, and at Tanglewood. As both percussionist and composer he works with soprano Audrey Luna, poet Don Bogen, German composer/instrument builder Volker Staub, and in computer music with Mara Helmuth; he has also worked in Lucca, Italy with opera director Malcolm Fraser creating experimental music theater pieces. The evening-length monodrama CLOTHO for percussionist, soprano, and computer, based the life of Camille Claudel, was premiered in 2001; music for Shakespeare's The Tempest in '02. A CD of 5 collaborative works with Mara Helmuth is available on EMS; Percussion Group Cincinnati is recorded on Mode and their own label, ars moderno. | top

Barbara Paver

Soprano Barbara Paver has been featured in performances with the Tucson Symphony, the Orchestra of Northern New York, Sun City Symphony, and the Rochester Symphony in such works as Britten's War Requiem, Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, and Barber's Knoxville, Summer of 1915. An avid performer of contemporary music, Ms. Paver was featured in the Crane New Music Festival where she performed Libby Larsen's orchestral songs Sonnets from the Portuguese and selections from George Crumb's Madrigals in direct collaboration with the composers. Ms. Paver's operatic repertoire includes the roles of Donna Anna in Don Giovanni, Alice Ford in Falstaff, Fiordiligi in Così fan tutte, and the title role in Suor Angelica. She was awarded by the Metropolitan Opera Council as a finalist in the Western Region, and as a district winner in San Francisco Opera's Merola auditions. Her students have performed internationally in opera, musical theater, and recital, both in young artist programs and professionally.

Prior to her appointment to the Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music in 2004, Ms. Paver held a teaching internship with National Association of Teachers of Singing, and was assistant professor of voice at The Crane School of Music in Potsdam, New York, and at The University of the Pacific in Stockton, California. She is a graduate of The University of Arizona (B.M.) where she studied with Elizabeth Mosher, and CCM (M.M) where she studied with Barbara Honn. | top