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photo by Glenn Moody

VCME Core members: (L to R) Berta Frank - flutes, Thomas Read - violin, Paula Ennis - piano, Steven Klimowski - clarinets/director, Jill Hallett Levis - mezzo soprano, Elaine Greenfield - piano, Paul Orgel - piano, Bonnie Thurber Klimowski - cello

Vermont Contemporary Music Ensemble
Core members' bios

Paula Ennis - piano

Paula Ennis, pianist, holds a Doctor of Music degree from Indiana University where she was a graduate teaching assistant to Menahem Pressler. A very active performer in Vermont, she has performed solo and chamber music throughout Europe and the U.S. After study in Koln, Germany, on a Fulbright Grant, she taught on the music faculties of SUNY at Albany, NY; Williams College, MA; Lawrenceville School, NJ; and Johnson State College, VT. Her recordings of solo and chamber music appear on Grand Prix, Musical Heritage Society, and Coronet Recording labels. The New York Times has characterized her playing as "versatile and highly communicative."

Berta Frank - flutes

Berta Frank is a native of New York City who holds a degree from Sarah Lawrence College and an MA from Columbia University. Ms. Frank has been a soloist in both Alice Tully and Carnegie Recital Halls. She moved to Vermont in 1992, where she has played with the Bach Wind Philharmonia, The Champlain Flute Quartet, and the Celtic music ensemble, Sheefra. A faculty member of Johnson State College, she runs an active music studio and is the director and founder of The Vermont Flute Camp.

Elaine Greenfield - piano

Pianist Elaine Greenfield is one of the founding performers of VCME.
Visit her web site at www.elainegreenfield.com.

Bonnie Thurber Klimowski - cello

Bonnie Thurber Klimowski, cellist, is a graduate of the University of Vermont and also holds a Master of Music degree in Cello Performance from Kent State University in Ohio. She performed with the Mexican State Orchestra for three years and is presently a member of the Vermont Symphony Orchestra, the Polacca String Trio, the Vermont Contemporary Music Ensemble and the Klimowski Chamber Music Ensemble. Bonnie enjoys folk music and is featured on three of Jon Gailmor's albums. She also tours with the VSO string trio, "Fiddlesticks", presenting programs for children.

Steven Klimowski - clarinetist/founder and artistic director

Mr. Klimowski played for three years with the State of Mexico Symphony Orchestra and continues to concertize in a solo and chamber music capacity, premiering several works for solo clarinet. In addition to his solo career, he is a member of Raising Cane, the woodwind trio of the Vermont Symphony Orchestra. He is founder and director of the Vermont Contemporary Music Ensemble and teaches clarinet and saxophone at the University of Vermont and St. Michael's College. In 1987 and again in 1990 Mr. Klimowski was honored with an individual artist's fellowship and in 2002 he was awarded a citation of merit from the Vermont Arts Council.

Jill Hallett Levis - Soprano

Jill Hallett Levis, soprano, has been performing with Vermont's professional music groups for the past 20 years. She appears regularly with the Vermont Mozart Festival, the Vermont Contemporary Music Ensemble and the Vermont Symphony Orchestra. Ms. Levis has studied with teachers at the Juilliard and Manhattan Schools and currently takes coaching, at McGill College, with the internationally famous countertenor Allen Fast. In 1987, Jill was the featured singer on the Vermont Mozart Festival's Recording, "Magical Mozart". In 1988, she was selected to participate in the prestigious American Music Competition at Carnegie Hall. Currently, Jill is touring with a recital of music composed entirely by women, entitled, A SONG OF HER OWN.

Paul Orgel - Piano

Born in New York City, Paul Orgel has concertized throughout the United States and Eastern Europe as a recitalist, soloist with orchestra, and chamber musician. He has given notable concerts in such venues as New York's Merkin Hall, the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C., Jordan Hall, and the Gardner Museum in Boston, the Ordway Theater in St. Paul, and the San Francisco Conservatory. Critics have praised his playing for its "subtlety and attention to nuance" (Philadelphia Inquirer), "rare pathos" (New York Times), and "brilliant technique, sense of humor and fantasy" (Bridgeport Post).

A versatile musician with wide-ranging interests and an extremely varied repertoire, Orgel has been associated with many composers including Messaien, Cage, Rochberg, and T. L. Read. He can be heard on recent recordings of music by Louis Moyse on the CRI label (a 2003 Grammy nominee) and on the Capstone label (Keyboard Fantasies by Curt Cacioppo). He has specialized in Czech music, performing programs of the complete piano music of Janacek and music from Terezin; and, as a scholar of classical performance practice, Orgel has given recitals of Haydn and Beethoven on the Viennese fortepiano.

As a chamber musician, Paul Orgel has been associated with the Yellow Barn Festival, was a founding member of the Interlochen Trio, an original member of Music at Eden's Edge (an ensemble based in Boston's North Shore), and has collaborated with such artists as Jaime Laredo, the Chicago String Quartet, and the Quartetto di Venezia.

Orgel was educated at Oberlin, the New England Conservatory, and Boston University. He holds a doctorate in piano performance from Temple University. Among his piano teachers were Russell Sherman, Lillian and Irwin Freundlich, and Harvey Wedeen. He is currently a member of the music faculty at the University of Vermont and is Artist-in-Residence in the Humanities at Saint Michael's College.

Thomas L. Read – Composer & Violinist

Thomas L. Read, composer and violinist, was born in 1938 in Erie, Pennsylvania. He studied violin and conducting at the Oberlin, New England, Marzarteum and Peabody Conservatories with such noted musicians as Andor Toth, Richard Burgin, Daniel Majeske, Leon Fleisher, Benjamin Lees, F. Judd Cooke and Bernhard Paumgartner. As a violinist he has been a member of the Erie Philharmonic, The Baltimore Symphony, the Boston Symphony and the Saratoga Festival of Baroque Music. He is Professor of Music at the University of Vermont and continues to appear as violin soloist, conductor and clinician. Dr. Read has composed music for small ensembles, full orchestra, solo voice, chorus and musical theater. His work is published by C.F. Peters Corp., Tunbridge Music and the American Composers Alliance. Recently, Alcyone, and hour-long melodrama for narrator, chorus, accordion, marimbas, steel drums and synthesizer, written in collaboration with the noted author F. D. Reeve, enjoyed a successful premiere in London at the Barbican Centre as bart of that organization's "Inventing America" Festival. The American premiere of this very dramatic work was given in November, using abridged instrumentation, in 1998, at Harvard's Yenching Library. A full-scale performance is set for October, 2001, at Wesleyan University.