Schubert Club Concerts

Artist Bios:

THELMA HUNTER
Pianist Thelma Hunter has an active career as a recitalist, soloist and chamber musician.  She has served on the faculty of the University of Minnesota School of Music and has appeared as soloist with the Minnesota Orchestra, the Minnesota Sinfonia and the Minneapolis Civic Orchestra.  She received her undergraduate degree from Cornell College where she was a student of the legendary pianist Egon Petrie, and completed her Master’s Degree at the Eastman School of Music.  Mrs. Hunter has served on the boards of numerous arts organizations in the Twin Cities including the Schubert Club, the Dale Warland Singers, the American Composers Forum, the University of Minnesota School of Music and the Jerome Foundation.  She frequently champions the creation of new music and has premiered many works by Minnesota composers, including Stephen Paulus, Paul Schoenfield and Stanislaw Skrowacewski.

LAURA  SEWELL
Cellist Laura Sewell founded the award-winning Lark Quartet in 1984 and was its cellist for five years, performing over 80 concerts a year in most of America’s major cities, as well as in Europe and the Far East. Since leaving the group and returning to the Twin Cities, Ms. Sewell has played as a substitute cellist with the Minnesota Orchestra and the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, appears regularly with the Chamber Music Society of Minnesota and performs in a duo with jazz pianist Butch Thompson, with whom she has recorded a cello and piano CD. She has taught at the MacPhail Center for the Arts and is on the faculty of the Madeline Island Music Camp. Currently, she serves as the Chair of Chamber Music America, the national service organization for chamber musicians.  Ms. Sewell was trained at the Juilliard School and the Cleveland Institute of Music, and her teachers have included Leonard Rose and Jacqueline duPre.  

FREDERICK SEWELL
Violinist Frederick Sewell served as concertmaster of both the Minnesota Opera Orchestra and the Plymouth Music Series (new VocalEssence) for over 30 years.  He was a founding member of the Musical Offering chamber ensemble, and has appeared as soloist with the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, the Bach Society and the Minneapolis Civic Orchestra.  Mr. Sewell trained at the Curtis Institute of Music where he was a student of the renowned violin pedagogue, Ivan Galamian.  In addition to his career in music, Mr. Sewell was President of Cole Sewell Corporation, a manufacturing company in St. Paul, until his retirement several years ago.

JESSE BLUMBERG
Baritone Jesse Blumberg will make his Minnesota Opera debut this weekend as Connie Rivers in the world premiere of Ricky Ian Gordon’s The Grapes of Wrath.  He has performed with The Santa Fe Opera, Glimmerglass Opera, and Chicago Opera Theater. Last season, as a member of the Marilyn Horne Foundation’s artist roster, he presented an On Wings of Song recital with pianist Martin Katz, which has since been broadcast on classical radio stations around the country.  He made his Lincoln Center debut in the world premiere of Lisa Bielawa’s new song cycle, The Lay of the Love and Death, with pianist Jocelyn Dueck and violinist Colin Jacobsen, a performance which received critical acclaim from the New York Times.  Also last season, he and pianist Thomas Bagwell gave a recital of songs by Hugo Wolf at the Austrian Embassy, which the Washington Post described as “no less than revelatory.”
 
Mr. Blumberg has also toured with the Waverly Consort and the Mark Morris Dance Group.  He has been recognized in several competitions, and most recently was awarded second place in the new Lieder Division of the 2006 Liederkranz Foundation Awards.  
 
Mr. Blumberg holds undergraduate degrees in music and history from the University of Michigan, and a graduate degree from the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music.  He has participated in intensive song and chamber music programs at the Aspen, Bowdoin, and Ravinia Festivals.
 
The remainder of Mr. Blumberg’s current season includes an appearance in the title role of Monteverdi’s The Return of Ulysses with Opera Vivente in Baltimore, and a debut with American Bach Soloists in the San Francisco Bay area.  He will also give recitals in New York, Iowa, DC, and Southern California, and reprise his role in The Grapes of Wrath with the Utah Symphony and Opera.

ANDREW FLESER
Andrew Fleser has performed as a soloist and accompanist throughout The United States and Europe. Mr. Fleser has worked with such musical luminaries as pianist Martin Katz, vocalists Sharon Sweet and Zehava Gal, and composers John Harbison and Jake Heggie. He has served as a vocal coach on the faculties of Grand Valley State University (Allendale, MI), and the CoOPERAtive summer opera program (Princeton, NJ).

Hailing originally from Grand Rapids, Michigan, Mr. Fleser received a master's degree in Piano Accompanying and Coaching from Westminster Choir College of Rider University in Princeton as a student of JJ Penna and Dalton Baldwin, and a bachelor's degree in Piano Performance from Aquinas College in Grand Rapids. Currently a doctoral student at the University of Minnesota, he studies Collaborative Piano with Timothy Lovelace.