Musicians

Brian Luce is the Professor of the Flute Performance Program, Associate Director of the School of Music 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 trained flutists across the nation. Brian is a prizewinner of the National Flute Association Young Artist, Myrna Brown Young Artist, Mid-South Young Artist , Kingsville International Young Artist, and University of North Texas Concerto competitions. His principal teachers include Mary Karen Clardy, Kathleen Chastain, Jacob Berg, and David Etienne.

Brian serves as the fine arts consultant for the board of directors for Salpointe Catholic High School. As a native Arizonan and avid outdoorsman, Brian enjoys trekking afield the beautiful alpine regions of the state with his family. He has coached youth baseball and fastpitch softball for over a decade and is currently a USSSA, USA, and PGF softball coach. 

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's innovative collaborations often explore intersections of music and ecology. She collaborated with dendrochronologist Margaret Evans (UA Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research) and Australian composer Lachlan Skipworth to commission Pine Chant (2021) for reed trio and electronics, a project inspired by tree-ring data and climate crisis. The piece was featured in the podcast For The Wild, the Arizona Republic, Arizona Daily Star, and won "Work of the Year – Chamber Music" at the 2023 Australian Art Music Awards. 

She served as executive producer, score editor and oboist for two recent recording projects, Johanna Beyer: Music for Woodwinds (New World Records, 2022; editions published by Frog Peak Music) and Hans Winterberg: Chamber Music (Toccata Classics, 2018). Sara recently premiered and recorded an exciting new commission for oboe and piano by composer S. Maggie Polk Olivo, entitled White Sand & Gray Sand (2020). In 2024, she played the North American premiere of Lachlan Skipworth's Oboe Quartet (2020) for oboe, violin, cello and piano.

Sara was awarded an 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 is a member of affiliated faculty of UArizona’s Institute for Resilience (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. With the Arizona Wind Quintet, she played has 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 associate 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 North America, Europe and Asia at many prestigious venues, including the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao and Carnegie Hall’s Weill Recital Hall.

Glazier is a founding member of the clarinet and saxophone ensemble, Duo Entre-Nous, with Belgian-based saxophonist Don-Paul Kahl. The duo is active in commissioning, performing, and recording works for clarinet and saxophone, and has been responsible for the creation of over 20 new works for the genre since 2016. In April 2021, they released their debut album, Fresh Ink, on Equilibrium Records, which received acclaim by The Saxophonist magazine.

Much of her work is connected to contemporary performance and intercultural arts research. Her performances have featured many world premieres, experimentation with choreography, multimedia, technology and exploration of scientific fields and the human experience. As a soloist and chamber musician, Glazier has recorded for Parma, Centaur, Naxos, Toccata Classics, Mark Records, Equilibrium Records, New Sound Records, and Navona Records. In addition, Glazier is a frequent orchestral performer, having played with orchestras across the country as guest principal, second, Eb and bass clarinetist.

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. 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.

Bassoonist and educator, Dr. Marissa Olegario is Assistant Professor of Bassoon at the University of Arizona and Principal Bassoon of the Tucson Symphony Orchestra. She spends her summers in Durango, Colorado as second bassoon of the Music in the Mountains Festival Orchestra. Other orchestral engagements include the San Diego Symphony, Phoenix Symphony, Augusta Symphony, and GRAMMY nominated ensemble True Concord Voices & Orchestra. As a soloist, she has performed with the Sierra Vista Symphony, Tucson Repertory Orchestra, Arizona Symphonic Winds, and the University of Arizona Symphony Orchestra. 

Beyond her orchestral career, Olegario engages in a multitude of creative projects. Her work as a chamber musician in particular devotes significant time to collaborating with living composers and promoting and elevating the experiences of underrepresented artists. A member of the Arizona Wind Quintet (AWQ), she has performed recitals celebrating American female composers on the 19th Amendment’s 100th Anniversary. In an effort to acknowledge their place in a borderland, AWQ programmed a recital of Mexican composers which they performed at the Mexican Consulate of Tucson and took on tour in the Southwest region. Separately, Olegario has premiered two climate and nature-focused chamber works: Lachlan Skipworth’s Pine Chant for reed trio and electronics, and a work by Sarah Gibson for clarinet and bassoon premiered at the Tucson Botanical Garden. In 2023, Pine Chant was awarded the  Australasian Performing Right Association's (APRA AMCOS) "Chamber Music Work of the Year". Olegario also remains an active sub with acclaimed ensemble The Breaking Winds Bassoon Quartet, performing on tour with the ensemble since 2016. Olegario’s chamber performances can be heard on the Naxos, New World Records, and Soundset Recordings labels. 

Olegario believes that music is for and should be accessible by anyone and therefore much of her time is devoted to thoughtfully engaging with her community. This principle on community engagement formed during her time as a 2017-2018 Orpheus Chamber Orchestra Performance Fellow, where she received mentorship and professional development for emerging artists from underrepresented backgrounds. Moved by her experience, her creative activity and pedagogy center these same artists. As a mentor for the JustArts Fellowship, she performed in a concert of Mexican music hosted by her student, presented by the Association of Academic Programs in Latin America and the Caribbean. Separately, Olegario also led an effort by the UA to commission the Double Reed Dish consortium to commission 4 new pieces for double reeds by a diverse group of American composers. She currently serves on the International Double Reed Society DEIB committee. 

Olegario’s pedagogy incorporates community engagement activities. As part of her curriculum, her students participate in community projects which have included: organizing a concert to benefit the Community Food Bank of Southern Arizona; volunteering for Tucson’s River Restoration Project to extract arundo donax, an invasive species that is also the material that makes reeds; and perform at an annual School of Music community outreach event organized and led by Olegario, Musical Murals, taking community members on a tour of 10 murals around downtown Tucson, coupled with music by student chamber ensembles from the University of Arizona. After a massive turnout of over 600 people, Musical Murals’ landmark success led to a feature on the Arizona Arts Signature Series. In addition, Olegario hosted the 2022 Meg Quigley Vivaldi Competition Symposium.  

A successful pedagogue, Olegario was nominated for the University of Arizona’s “Five Star Faculty Award” in 2021. Her students have won professional orchestral positions, been awarded grants and fellowships, gone on to top graduate programs, built private teaching studios and work administrative jobs. She received her doctorate from SUNY Stony Brook (D.M.A.), and also attended Northwestern University (B.M.) and the Yale School of Music (M.M.), the latter of which awarded her its Alumni Prize. Her principal mentors are Frank Morelli, Christopher Millard and Lewis Kirk.

(520) 621 3088
molegario@arizona.edu 

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.