Photography by Matt Dine
GLICKMAN ENSEMBLE
The Musicians
Lisa Alexander, bassoonist, is a solo recitalist and chamber musician in the New York metropolitan area and currently holds positions with The Ridgefield Symphony and The Little Orchestra Society and has performed with the New York City Ballet Orchestra, American Symphony Orchestra, Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra, New York Choral Society and many others. She is a founding member of the Loren Glickman Ensemble. Ms. Alexander is an adjunct professor of bassoon at Hofstra University.
Jill Dispenza, is a freelance bassoonist in the Chicago metropolitan area. She holds a Master of Music Degree from The Juilliard School where she studied with Loren Glickman and a Bachelors of Music from North Carolina School of Arts where she studied with Mark Popkin. Jill plays principal bassoon with the South Bend symphony in Indiana and with the Central City Opera Festival in Colorado. Jill has performed with Tulsa Opera, Chicago Light Opera Works, Elgin Symphony, the Chicago Ensemble, the Memphis Symphony, Key West Symphony, Texas Opera Theater, Virginia Symphony and Opera and the National Symphony in Washington DC, and Wolftrap at the Barns Opera Orchestra. She has worked with conductors Leonard Bernstein, Jorge Mester, Sixten Ehrling and David Zinman. Noted performances include the American Premiere of Benjamin Britten’s Glorianna and the World Premiere of the opera Gabriel’s Daughter by Mollicone. Jill has recorded for Newport Classics and can often be heard on National Public Radio broadcasts of the Central City Opera.
Pej Reitz, pianist, is a native of the Binghamton Area. She received her Bachelor and Master of Music degrees in piano performance with accompanying emphasis. She attended Boston University, New England Conservatory and Binghamton University. She has studied piano with Jean Casadesus, Victor Rosenbaum, Seymour Fink and Walter Ponce and accompanying with Allen Rogers. She has accompanied throughout the United States, England, South America, Spain and at the American Institute of Musical Studies in Graz, Austria. She was a winner of the Artistic Ambassadors Program by the United States Information Agency in partnership with the John F. Kennedy Center for the performing arts. She is currently on the faculty at Binghamton University since 1991 and Ithaca College School of Music since 1999. She is Treasurer of the local District VII Music Teachers Association and is an active adjudicator for the National Piano Guild Organization.
Edwin Cabrera, Eddie, has led a diverse career. His pre-conservatory training was at The Manhattan School of Music and his Undergrad/Graduate degree at the Aaron Copland School of Music, in Queens College, where he studied with Loren Glickman. He was an active freelancer in NY for 15 years, working with orchestras/ensembles such as The Mostly Mozart Festival Winds, Dance Theatre of Harlem, Queens Symphony, the New York Repertoire Orchestra, the Brooklyn Symphony and Brooklyn Philharmonic. Eddie has performed the Mozart and Weber Bassoon concerti with the Brooklyn Symphony, The Doctor's Orchestra and Madrid Music festival in Spain. In 1994, Eddie changed careers and became a technologist. His career has included the following roles, VP at Morgan Stanley, VP at Deutsche Bank, Associate Director at Skadden Arps and Deputy Program Manager in charge of the NYC Wireless program at Northrop Grumman.
Andrea Herr has enjoyed a varied career as bassoonist and contrabassoonist. Her orchestral engagements include the Little Orchestra Society, American Symphony, the New Jersey Symphony and New York City Opera. On Broadway she has played in the orchestra's for the New York productions of Phantom of the Opera, Beauty and the Beast, Fiddler on the Roof, Nine, Into the Woods, West Side Story among others. She has recorded for PBS, Radio Espana, Pantheon Records as well as TV/Radio jingles for Disney, Visa, Highmark and Pepsi-Cola. Andrea held Principal Bassoon positions in Spain with the Orquesta Sinfonica Galicia and Opera Teatro Galicia. Noted performances include the American Premiere of Prima Donna by Rufus Wainwright with New York City Opera, the New York Premiere of Disney's Fantasia Live in Concert and Premieres of new chamber music works by Lalo Schifrin, Joan Tower and Keith Jarrett with the Dakota Wind Quintet. An Adjunct Professor at Kean University and New Jersey City University, Andrea has also taught and given master classes at Drew University, the Tainan Cultural Center in Taiwan, Juilliard Pre-College and the NJ Youth Symphony.
Harold Wevers plays principal bassoon with the Thunder Bay Symphony Orchestra in Thunder Bay, Ontario since 1975. He is also a composer with a catalogue that consists of over seventy original works for voice, mixed chamber ensemble, solo concerti and orchestra. Harold's first meeting with Loren was in 1967, at Canada's National Youth Orchestra and they have become life-long friends. He is a founding member of the Glickman Ensemble and for the past twelve years has set all of Loren's hand-written arrangements into the Finale program before they are sent off to be published.
Lisa Alexander
Edwin Cabrera
Jill Dispenza
Andrea Herr
Pej Reitz
Harold Weaver