Ronald Braunstein
VYOA Music Director & Conductor
email: Braunstein@vyo.org
Ronald Braunstein received his musical background at The Juilliard School, Salzburg Mozarteum, Fontainbleau, and at the Tanglewood Music Center. His teachers were Herbert v. Karajan, Leonard Bernstein, Seiji Ozawa, and Nadia Boulanger. At Juilliard, he studied composition with Elliott Carter and Milton Babbitt and was a winner in the BMI award to Student Composers. Maestro Braunstein later transferred into the conducting program, graduating with a Bachelors of Fine Arts from Juilliard in conducting. His earlier composition studies and interest in contemporary music continued as the leitmotif in all his programming however, his background in the classic masterpieces that he studied with Maestro Karajan form the core of his repertoire. His unbridled enthusiasm for the keystone repertoire has remained a consistent thread throughout his career.
Following graduation from Juilliard, Braunstein won first prize in the Herbert von Karajan International Conducting Competition in Berlin and spent the four years working with Herbert von Karajan and the Berlin Philharmonic. Now, after many years of conducting on an international level, Maestro Braunstein. In Europe and Asia, Ronald has conducted the Berlin Philharmonic, Stuttgart Radio Orchestra, Residentie Orchestra of The Hague, San Francisco Symphony, Israel Sinfonietta, Texas Chamber Orchestra as Music Director, Swiss Radio Orchestra, Auckland Philharmonia, Oslo Philharmonic and the Kyoto Symphony, Osaka Symphony, National Orchestra of Taiwan as Principle conductor and the Tokyo Symphony.
Maestro Braunstein returned to America to serve on the Juilliard conducting staff and the American Opera Center where he performed core orchestral repertoire and operas. During this period Mr. Braunstein was Alan Gilbert's, conducting teacher for three years. During that time, he conducted orchestral concerts, Opera productions, Musicals, and was Music Director of the Juilliard pre-college orchestra for six seasons. Following his work at Juilliard as a conductor and educator, he took on the position of Music Director of the Mannes Philharmonia.
In America he began by conducting some of the smaller American orchestras in Sioux Falls, Amarillo, Savannah, Albuquerque and summer concerts with the San Francisco Symphony. Additionally, Mr. Braunstein was the Music Director of the National Orchestra of Taiwan, the Texas Chamber Orchestra and the Orchestra of the International House in New York.
This is Mr. Braunstein's inaugural year as Music Director and Conductor for the Vermont Youth Orchestra Association.
Jeff Buettner
Conductor, VYO Chorus
email: jeff@vyo.org
Jeff Buettner is conductor of the VYO Choruses, and Director of Choral Activities at Middlebury College. Jeff has conducted high school choral festivals, young college ensembles and children's choirs in Michigan, Iowa, Indiana and Ohio. He has served on the faculties of Earlham, Simpson and Hope Colleges, and prepared opera and oratorio choruses for the Des Moines Metro Opera, the Brevard Music Center and the Richmond (IN) Symphony. He has taught private voice to high school, college and adult singers and adjudicated solo vocal competitions. Jeff's work as an arranger and composer has led to performances by college, community and professional choruses and orchestras, including a performance at a national convention of the American Choral Directors Association.
Jeff received his Bachelor of Music degree from St. Olaf College, where he studied organ and conducting. At St. Olaf, Jeff participated as singer, assistant conductor or accompanist with every choir at the college and was a founding member of the Limestones a cappella group. Jeff received his Master of Music degree from the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music, where he also worked with the College-Conservatory of Music Children's Choir. During his career in Cincinnati, Jeff was bass vocalist and director of several vocal ensembles that performed with the Cincinnati Pops, the Sing Cincinnati! festival, on many concert series and on radio and television programs. Jeff received his Doctorate of Musical Arts from Michigan State University, where he conducted the College Choir, a jazz and popular music ensemble. Jeff began studies in ethnomusicology at Michigan State that led to ongoing research of Romani (Gypsy) music and Gypsy choirs in Ukraine, and he has presented this research at national and international music conferences.
In addition to his work with college and youth choirs, Jeff has served in music directorships of several churches throughout his career and also as recording engineer for WCAL Northfield and WGUC Cincinnati public radio. His engineer credits include broadcasts of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, and a College-Conservatory of Music Philharmonia on Centaur.
Jeff strives to provide young people with an exciting musical experience through diverse repertoire and performance opportunities that encourage vocal and musical excellence and a broad appreciation of their community and their world.
Asiat ("Ace") Ali
Conductor, Presto
email: ace@vyo.org
655.5030 x 302
A lifelong Vermont native, Ace Ali has studied and performed music in Vermont for his entire life. Locally, he has appeared with the Vermont Symphony Orchestra, the Vermont Philharmonic Orchestra, the University of Vermont Orchestra and the Burlington Choral Society. He has also been a guest conductor of district string orchestras in both Vermont and New Hampshire. Ace holds a degree in violin performance from the University of Vermont, where he studied with Thomas and Evelyn Read. He also studied at the Conservatoire National de Region in Rouen, France. Ace is a 1988 graduate of the VYO, where he played the violin with the orchestra for three years. Currently, Ace is the beginning and middle school string instructor in the Essex Junction Public School System; he conducts the Essex High School Orchestra, and he maintains a private studio of violin and viola students.
Anne Decker
Conductor, Vermont Youth Philharmonia
Music Director, Reveille Music Festival
email: anne@vyo.org
655.5030 x 300
Anne Decker joined the artistic staff of the Vermont Youth Orchestra in 1999, as conductor of the Vermont Youth Sinfonia. She has been conducting the Vermont Youth Philharmonia since the fall of 2000. In 2004, Ms. Decker led the VYP in their first international Youth Orchestra exchange with the Sherbrooke Youth Orchestra of Sherbrooke, Quebec.
Ms. Decker teaches at U-32 High School in East Montpelier. Most recently, she conducted the Amateur Musicians Orchestra in Burlington and served as interim conductor of the University Orchestra at the University of Vermont through the 2005-2006 season.
In the summer of 2005, Ms. Decker conducted Tosca with the Middlebury Opera Company. She has also been involved with Vermont Opera Theater, where she conducted Amahl and the Night Visitors and the world premiere of Erik Nielsen's A Fleeting Animal. As a part time assistant conductor for the Amato Opera Company in New York City, Ms. Decker conducted Bizet's Carmen in May 2002.
Ms. Decker holds a Master of Music in Orchestral Conducting from Illinois State University, where she served as Music Director for the musical Cabaret and also conducted Mozart's opera The Magic Flute. She earned a degree in music education from Western Michigan University. She has studied conducting with Glenn Block, Kirk Muspratt, and David Effron.
Photo: Stina Plant
Berta Frank
Director, Vermont Youth Chamber Winds
email: berta@vyo.org
Berta Frank, flutist, is a native of New York City who began her studies at the Y School of music. She attended Performing Arts High School and Juilliard Pre-College in New York City. Before she was 21 she was a soloist in Alice Tully and Carnegie Recital Halls. She holds a Liberal Arts Degree from Sarah Lawrence College where she studied flute with Gerardo Levy and continued her affiliation with the school as an Artist- In-Residence with the Sarah Lawrence Woodwind Quintet. She has participated in numerous music festivals in the United States such as The Aspen Music Festival & The Saratoga School for Orchestral Studies. She has also played flute abroad, performing in a USA Summer Opera Festival Orchestra that toured throughout Italy.
Berta has studied flute with Bob Stallman, Alan Cox, Thomas Nyfenger, Linda Chesis and Murray Panitz, principal flutist with the Philadelphia Orchestra. While holding the position of Conductor and Director of Music at The Hackley School in Tarrytown, NY she also received her Masters degree in Music Education from Columbia University. Once moving to Vermont in 1992 she became very active in the local musical scene. She currently plays principal flute with the Burlington Chamber Orchestra, and piccolo with the Mozart Festival Orchestra. She has been an active member of the Vermont Contemporary Music Ensemble for 15 years, as well as a staff member at VYOA, teaching at their Music Day Camp since 1992. She also teaches flute at Johnson State College, Edmunds Middle School and Missisquoi Valley Union High School.
Berta currently lives in Jericho, VT with her two children, two dogs and one husband. She runs an active flute studio at home, trying her hardest to make Vermont the highest flute playing state per capita in the USA!
David Gusakov
Conductor, Vermont Youth Strings
email: david@vyo.org
655.5030 x 301
David Gusakov, a 1971 graduate of Yale University, has been active on the Vermont music scene since 1973. He has been a member of numerous chamber groups as well as bluegrass and swing ensembles, and can currently be heard playing Parisian-style jazz with the Will Patton Ensemble. He has been a violinist with the Vermont Symphony since 1973. For the last 20 years he has performed with Fiddlesticks!, a VSO ensemble that presents schools concerts throughout Vermont.
As violin teacher, Mr. Gusakov was an adjunct faculty member at Middlebury College from 1982-1994, and currently maintains a teaching studio in his renovated carriage barn in Bristol, VT. As conductor, he led the Amateur Musicians Orchestra from 1993-2004, and has been conductor of Vermont Youth Strings since 1993. He is also the co-founder and conductor of the recently-formed Champlain Philharmonic Orchestra, based in Middlebury. As recording artist, Mr. Gusakov appears on three discs with Scottish folksinger Jean Redpath, and has made numerous recordings with various local artists.
Erik Nielsen
Music Theory Instructor
email: nielsen@sover.net
Annemieke Spoelstra
Accompanist
email: annemiekespoelstra@gmail.com
web site: www.annemiekespoelstra.com