Musicians

Brian Luce is the Professor of Flute and Associate Director at the University of Arizona and a Yamaha Performing Artist. Dr. Luce has performed as principal flute of the Champaign-Urbana, Midland-Odessa, and Johnstown symphony orchestras and has performed with the Dallas Chamber Orchestra, Dallas Bach Society, Dallas Wind Symphony, Abilene Philharmonic, Keystone Wind Ensemble, and the Tucson Chamber Orchestra. As a soloist, he has performed throughout the U.S., Europe, Korea, Japan, and China. He has been featured at music festivals sponsored by the National Flute Association, British Flute Society, Shanghai International Exposition, Soka International Harp Festival, Texas Flute Society, Florida Flute Association, Mid-South Flute Society, Las Vegas Flute Club, Albuquerque Flute Association, Flute Society of St. Louis, Arizona Flute Society, and Tucson Flute Club. His performances have been broadcast throughout the U.S. and his recordings are recommended references by music education associations including the A.B.R.S.M.

Acclaimed as “an authoritative soloist,” his Albany Records SACD, Music of the Superpowers: Sputnik, Spies, and the Space Race, has been lauded by The American Record Guide: “This release should be of particular interest for the less known, seldom recorded Denisov and Smirnova, though everything on it is enjoyable from beginning to end. Brian Luce plays with flair and intelligence…” He has also made the premiere recording of Anthony Plog's Concerto for Flute and Wind Ensemble with the University of Arizona Wind Ensemble. His release with Carrol McLaughlin, Allume, includes numerous premiere recordings of original works and transcriptions for flute and harp.

He has given recitals and master classes throughout the U.S., Europe, and Korea. Editions BIM and IntegrityInk publish his compositions, arrangements, and realizations. His performance and pedagogy articles have appeared in Flute Talk Magazine, and his dissertation, Light from Behind the Iron Curtain: Style and Structure in Edison Denisov's Quatre Pièces pour flûte et piano, earned the 2001 Morgan Outstanding Dissertation Award from the University of North Texas.

He has previously taught at universities in Illinois, Texas, and Pennsylvania and tutored numerous young flutists across the nation. Brian is a prizewinner of the National Flute Association Young Artist Competition, Myrna Brown Young Artist Competition, Mid-South Young Artist Competition, Kingsville International Young Artist Competition, and University of North Texas Concerto Competition. His principal teachers include Mary Karen Clardy, Kathleen Chastain, Jacob Berg, and David Etienne.

As an Arizona native and avid outdoorsman, Brian enjoys trekking afield the beautiful alpine regions of the state with his family. He volunteers his time as a youth baseball and softball coach for Little League and serves as an executive board member.

Sara Fraker is Associate Professor of Oboe at the University of Arizona and a member of the Tucson Symphony Orchestra. She spends her summers in residence as a Faculty Artist at the Bay View Music Festival in northern Michigan. She is principal oboist of True Concord Voices & Orchestra and a featured soloist on their two recent album releases, one of which garnered two Grammy nominations.

Sara is currently engaged in a diverse array of creative projects. In 2021, she commissioned Australian composer Lachlan Skipworth to create a piece for reed trio and electronics, inspired by tree-ring data and the climate crisis. The piece will be premiered in December 2021 at the UArizona Laboratory for Tree-Ring Research. The recipient of a 2020 UArizona Production Grant, Sara is working with an interdisciplinary faculty group to bring this project to fruition. She is also producing a world-premiere recording of the woodwind music of ultramodernist composer Johanna M. Beyer (1888-1944) for New World Records, with new print editions for Frog Peak Music. In March 2022, Sara will premiere an exciting new commission for oboe and piano by composer S. Maggie Polk Olivo, entitled White Sand & Gray Sand.

Sara was awarded a 2017 Artist Research and Development Grant from the Arizona Commission on the Arts for a solo commissioning and recording project, in collaboration with composer Asha Srinivasan and ecologist Robin Wall Kimmerer. The resulting piece, Braiding, was featured on CBC Radio in 2020. An advocate for interdisciplinary creative work, she recently joined the affiliated faculty of UArizona’s Institutes for Resilience: Solutions for the Environment and Society (AIR).

With pianist Casey Robards, Sara released the album BOTANICA: music for oboe & English horn on MSR Classics in 2019. She has also recorded for Naxos, Summit Records, Toccata Classics, Analekta, and Reference Recordings.

Sara has presented recitals and master classes across the US and in Canada, Mexico, Japan, Australia and the Tohono O'odham Nation. In additon to recitals at five recent conferences of the International Double Reed Society, Sara has also presented her work at the CMS National Conference in Vancouver, BC. At the University of Arizona she has taught oboe pedagogy, reedmaking, oboe techniques for music education majors, Music in World Cultures, and chamber music. Sara is a member of the Arizona Wind Quintet, UA's faculty ensemble-in-residence, which has enjoyed performances across Southern Arizona and in Los Angeles, El Paso, Ciudad Juárez, and La Facultad de Música (UNAM) in Mexico City.

Sara held the Gillet Fellowship at the Tanglewood Music Center and was a participant in the Tanglewood Bach Seminar. She has also performed at the Aspen Music Festival, Shenandoah Valley Bach Festival, Chautauqua, Spoleto Festival USA, and the prestigious Schleswig-Holstein Orchestral Academy in Germany. Sara has played with numerous orchestras, including the Phoenix Symphony, Arizona Opera, Broadway in Tucson, St. Andrews Bach Society, Tucson Pops, Illinois Symphony, Champaign-Urbana Symphony, Brockton Symphony, Newton Symphony, New Bedford Symphony, Gardner Chamber Orchestra, and Sinfonia da Camera.

Raised in New Haven, Connecticut, Sara is a graduate of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (DMA), New England Conservatory (MM), and Swarthmore College (BA). She was a National Merit Scholar and recipient of the Garrigues Scholarship, Peter Gram Swing Prize, and Kate Neal Kinley Memorial Fellowship. Her principal teachers include Robert Botti, John Dee, Mark McEwen, Jonathan Blumenfeld, Sandra Gerster Lisicki, and John de Lancie. Her doctoral thesis, “The Oboe Works of Isang Yun,” explores twenty solo and chamber pieces by the Korean composer, with a focus on tonal language and relationships to East Asian philosophy.

For more information:
sarafraker.com
oboe.music.arizona.edu

Hailed for her “robust playing and virtuosic performance” (San Diego Tribune) and “beautiful and clear tone” (The Clarinet Magazine), Jackie Glazier is an active soloist, chamber musician, orchestral clarinetist, pedagogue, and advocate of new music. As assistant professor of clarinet at the University of Arizona Fred Fox School of Music, Glazier is a committed pedagogue and mentor to future generations of clarinetists, and a member of the Arizona Wind Quintet. As a soloist and chamber musician, she has performed throughout the United States and in China, Mexico, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Croatia, and Carnegie Hall’s Weill Recital Hall.

As a soloist and a founding member of the saxophone / clarinet ensemble Duo Entre-Nous, Glazier is active in commissioning and performing new music. She has commissioned and premiered over 20 pieces with composers from the United States, Canada, France, Italy, Argentina, China, and Australia. Duo Entre-Nous has performed internationally are featured on the album, “Lights and Shadows, Waves and Time,” which was recently released on Parma Records.

As a soloist and chamber musician, Glazier has recorded for Naxos, Toccata Classics, Mark Records, and Navona Records. Her debut solo album, “Magic Forest Scenes” will be released in Fall 2019 on Centaur Records, and contains the music of William Alwyn, Arnold Bax, Eugene Bozza, Paul Richards, Alexander Rosenblatt, and Piotr Szewczyk.

 Glazier performed regularly with the Orlando Philharmonic as principal, second, and e-flat clarinet from 2011-2016. She also served as principal clarinet of the Ocala Symphony, where she served from 2012-2016. Currently she performs with the Tucson Symphony and is principal clarinet of the Grammy Award-nominated True Concord Voices Orchestra. Orchestral collaborations include many internationally renowned artists such as Renée Fleming, Joshua Bell, and Yefim Bronfman. Jackie was the first-prize winner of the International Clarinet Association Orchestral Competition at ClarinetFest 2014.

 An active clinician and educator, Jackie has presented guest master classes at major universities throughout the United States. She has earned degrees from Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music, University of Florida, and Florida State University. Her teachers include Deborah Bish, Ixi Chen, Mitchell Estrin, Jonathan Gunn, Richie Hawley, and Karl Leister. Jackie was named one of the University of Florida’s Outstanding Young Alumni in 2018. She is an artist with Buffet-Crampon and Vandoren, and performs exclusively on Buffet-Crampon clarinets and Vandoren reeds.

Northwestern University, B.M., Yale School of Music, M.M., SUNY Stony Brook, D.M.A.

Known for her compelling and personality-driven performances, Marissa Olegario enjoys an active and diverse performance schedule as a soloist, chamber, and orchestral musician. Marissa has appeared in concerts at Avery Fisher Hall, Carnegie Hall, and the Kennedy Center under conductors such as James Conlon, John Adams, Peter Oundjin, Rafael Payere and Leonard Slatkin. As an avid pit performer, Marissa has performed in productions including Puccini's La Boheme and Madama Butterfly, Mozart's Le Nozze di Figaro, Verdi's La Traviata and Falstaff, as well as the world premiere of Derrick Wang's American comic opera Scalia/Ginsberg. In an effort to marry a variety of art forms, Marissa has collaborated with the Martha Graham Dance Company in a production of The Rite of Spring, performed film scores including Jeff Beal's original score to Buster Keaton's silent film The General, and partnered with Dance for Parkinson's to provide live music for people suffering from Parkinson's disease. Constantly seeking new artistic possibilities, Marissa’s 2018/2019 season includes a multimedia collaboration with New York based projection designer Lisa Renkel and a commission of award-winning composer Shuying Li.

Marissa was a semi-finalist for the 2016 Matthew Ruggiero International Woodwind Competition and was recognized as a recipient of the Yale School of Music Alumni Prize.  She enjoys an eclectic chamber career appearing at the Phoenix Chamber Society Winter Series, the Norfolk Chamber Festival, and the clasclas festival in Spain collaborating with artists such as Guy Braunstein, Gili Schwartzman, and Matan Porat. She actively subs with the acclaimed Breaking Winds Bassoon Quartet and will appear on a Naxos produced album with leading artists including David Shifrin, Stephen Taylor, Frank Morelli, and William Purvis, featuring Beethoven’s serenades for winds to be released in 2020.

Passionate about arts education, Marissa instructs a private studio, teaches in schools and presents masterclasses across the United States. She currently serves as the Assistant Professor of Bassoon at the Fred Fox Music School at the University of Arizona.

Marissa's interests extend to assuming leadership roles in arts entrepreneurship in order to cultivate innovative ways for promoting and preserving classical music. In 2015, she managed the Bringing Music to Life project which promoted the music of J.S. Bach to audiences across Australia including in schools, public spaces, and through a partnership with Dance with Parkinson's.  Recognized as the 2017/2018 Orpheus Chamber Orchestra Bassoon Fellow, Marissa frequently performs in the New York area and works across all core operating functions of a professional chamber orchestra.

Her primary teachers are Frank Morelli, Christopher Millard and Lewis Kirk. 

Artist website: www.marissaolegario.com

Johanna Lundy is the Assistant Professor of Horn at the Fred Fox School of Music. An active performer, she has held the position of Principal Horn with the Tucson Symphony since 2006. Known equally well as a soloist and recitalist, Lundy has appeared as a guest artist with the Aspen Music Festival, Grand Canyon Music Festival, Virginia Arts Festival, St. Andrew’s Bach Society, Tucson Symphony, Sierra Vista Symphony, and the Downtown Chamber Series in Phoenix among others. She has performed with orchestras across the United States, including The Florida Orchestra, Phoenix Symphony, Albany Symphony, New Hampshire Symphony, New Mexico Philharmonic, Des Moines Metro Opera Orchestra and True Concord. She has received critical acclaim for her "robust sound" and her "breathtaking" and "extraordinary" performances.

Lundy’s former students have gone on to varied careers in music, including positions with professional orchestras and other ensembles. She regularly presents master classes and has appeared at conferences and symposia. In 2010, she was named one of Tucson’s “40 under 40” and in 2017, she received a grant from the Arizona Commission on the Arts to pursue a solo project focused on presenting contemporary repertoire and reaching new audiences. Lundy releases her first solo album this fall, featuring music inspired by art, nature, and devotion. Passionate about sharing music with the world, she believes that connecting with audiences creates the ultimate opportunity to take part in deep, expressive experiences. She holds a Bachelor of Music from the Oberlin Conservatory and a Master of Music from the New England Conservatory.