Judge Member
Stanley Cornett
The 2015 recipient of the Johns Hopkins University Alumni Association Excellence in Teaching Award, Dr. Stanley Cornett, tenor, is beginning his thirty-second year this fall as a member of the voice faculty at Peabody. He often serves as Adjudicator for major vocal competitions, consultant for various articles and publications, and is featured in master classes and summer residencies. Since 2014, he has been a regular member of the voice faculty (and master class presenter) at The Amalfi Coast Music & Arts Festival in Maiori, Italy. He was previously Co-Director of the Seagle Music Colony in Schroon Lake, New York for five years, and was a featured teacher at the ARIA International Summer Music Academy in London, Ontario, the Bel Cantanti Summer Opera Festival, the Bethesda Summer Music Festival, and the Young Artists of America vocal program. He is regularly listed as a biographee in Who’s Who in America.
As a performer, Stanley Cornett has enjoyed a versatile career of more than thirty-five years, in repertoire spanning nine centuries and myriad genres. He has consistently been praised by the press for his beauty of tone and elegant style. Performing over thirty operatic roles, he has appeared with the New York City Opera, the Washington Opera, the Baltimore Opera, Hawaii Opera Theatre, Syracuse Opera, Mobile Opera, Dayton Opera, Chautauqua Opera, Skylight Opera, and Summer Opera of Washington. He has been soloist with many of America’s major orchestras with conductors Robert Shaw, Christopher Hogwood, Eduardo Mata, David Atherton, Hugh Wolff, Gustav Meier, Christian Badea, Martin Isepp, David Stahl, Peter Bay, Kenneth Schermerhorn, Jeffrey Rink, Robert Shafer, Norman Scribner, J.Reilly Lewis, Robert DeCormier, Lyndon Woodside, Thomas Dunn, Tom Hall, Richard Westenburg, Carl St. Clair, and John Oliver. Orchestral appearances include the symphony orchestras of Dallas, Atlanta, San Diego, Baltimore, Rochester, Syracuse, Omaha, Des Moines, Charleston, and New Mexico, as well as the National Symphony, the Shinsei-Nippon Symphony in Tokyo, the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, the Pasadena Chamber Orchestra, and the Pacific Symphony. On the oratorio stage, Cornett has performed as soloist in New York at Carnegie Hall, Avery Fisher Hall, and Alice Tully Hall for the Oratorio Society of New York and Musica Sacra, in Boston at Symphony Hall and Jordon Hall with the Handel and Haydn Society and Chorus Pro Musica, and extensively in Washington and Baltimore at the Kennedy Center, the National Cathedral, and Meyerhoff Hall, and with every major choral group in the area. He has appeared with Washington’s Theater Chamber Players, the Folger Consort, the Smithsonian Chamber Players, and the Library of Congress Concert Series’ radio broadcasts. Festival appearances include the Bethlehem Bach Festival, the Rochester Bach Festival, the Washington Bach Festival at the Kennedy Center, and the Aldeburgh Festival in England. Cornett has been featured in the national television broadcast “The Glory of Christmas” with the Louisville Bach Society as well as numerous other broadcasts on PBS and NPR. He was previously Winner of the Oratorio Society of New York Competition, and Finalist in the prestigious Walter Naumburg Competition and the Young Concert Artists Competition, among others. As a performer, Cornett was represented by IMG Artists Management.
Neil Rutman
The Washington Post has written of Neil Rutman that his playing “met the highest standards and his spotless articulation gave the whole program unusual polish and virtuoso marks” and the New York Times stated that “he won the audience over for himself with exquisite performances- both commanding and full of character.”
As a young man pianist Neil Rutman with Aiko Onishi and distinguished himself as a top prize winner in several International Competitions including the Busoni, Kapell, Casadesus, Joanna Hodges, Concert Artist Guild, and International Johann Sebastian Bach Competition. He has appeared in Carnegie Hall, Alice Tully Hall, Queen Elizabeth Hall, Tokyo’s Bunka Kaikan and the Schola Cantorum in Paris with concert tours of the United Kingdom, Europe, New Zealand, Japan, and the Persian Gulf and a 2016 invitation to give the closing recital at the World Piano Conference in Novi Sad, Serbia. Recordings include two Mozart Piano Concerti, an all Poulenc CD, with Emmy Award winning actor Tony Randall providing the narration in ‘The Story of Babar the Little Elephant’, and his recent all Chopin release on the Pro Musica label. Mr. Rutman has authored articles for the Piano Quarterly, The Piano Teacher, Clavier, and is a contributing author to the book ‘Piano Masterpieces’ published by Oxford University Press. His best-selling book ‘Stories, Images, and Magic from the Piano Literature’ was published in late 2015 and listed as #3 Hot New Release on Amazon.
A native of California and graduate of the Eastman School and Peabody Conservatory, Neil Rutman is Artist-in-Residence at the University of Central Arkansas. Since 2005 his students have won top prizes in the East West Artist Auditions in New York City, the Clara Wells Competition, the Memphis Beethoven Club, and the Tulsa National Rotary Competition.
At age nineteen Neil Rutman spent two years overseas as a non-paid volunteer missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints in Scotland. A former collegiate boxer, Neil Rutman also coaches the University of Central Arkansas Boxing Team and runs a Court Appointed boxing/mentoring program for teenagers in the Juvenile Court of Faulkner County. Recently Mr. Rutman was awarded the Barack Obama Drum Major Award for his work with at risk youth youth in Arkansas. For more information about Mr. Rutman view his DVD’s on You Tube or visit www.neilrutman.net.
Ronald J. Gretz
Ronald J. Gretz is celebrating his 34th season as Artistic Director and Conductor of the Annapolis Opera, a position that he has also held with both the Chesapeake and Harford Opera companies. Mr. Gretz served as chorus master and assistant conductor with the Baltimore Opera and Chautauqua Summer Opera in New York and has conducted Baltimore Opera’s Summer Opera. A graduate of the Peabody Conservatory, Mr. Gretz returned to his alma mater for five years [1995-2000] as an Opera Coach. In 2012 he was again appointed to the Vocal faculty as a Vocal Coach where he remains as a part-time faculty member.
In addition to his work in opera, he has conducted musicals with Cock-pit-in-Court and various area dinner theaters. Internationally he has performed twice at the Kanagawa Theater Festival in Japan as well as in Shanghai, China. In 1994 Mr. Gretz was appointed conductor of the Gettysburg Symphony Orchestra, a position he held for 10 years. In 2004 he founded the Maryland Philharmonic Orchestra and continued as artistic director and conductor until 2008. Mr. Gretz was named Professor Emeritus upon retiring from teaching at CCBC where he taught music theory for 41 years. His theory textbook “Music Language and Fundamentals”, published by McGraw Hill is used throughout the U.S. and Canada. Mr. Gretz is also the organist and choir director at the University Baptist Church in Baltimore, a position that he has held for over 25 years.
Vera Danchenko-Stern
Vera Danchenko-Stern was born in Moscow into a family of professional musicians. She graduated from the Gnessin Institute of Music in Moscow with honors in piano, solo performance, chamber music, vocal and instrumental accompaniment.
Danchenko-Stern taught at the Gnessin Institute and toured as an accompanist throughout Russia and Europe before emigrating to Canada in 1979, where she joined the faculty of the Royal Conservatory of music in Toronto. She has performed highly acclaimed concerts with her brother, violinist Victor Danchenko, in major cities for sold-out houses throughout the world.
Since moving to Washington, D.C. in 1990, Danchenko-Stern has been heard often here and in Baltimore. Concert appearances include accompanying Pavel Pekarsky’s Kennedy Center debut, the Washington debut of Ilya Kaler (triple prize gold medal winner of the Tchaikovsky, Paganini, and Sibelius competitions), and voice recitals with Medea Namoradze, Mikhail Manevitch, Sergei Leiferkus, Jerome Barry and Nikita Storojev, to name a few. Other artists such as violist Rivka Golani and violinist Martin Beaver engaged her as an accompanist. In 1997, she accompanied soprano Carmen Balthrop singing Rachmaninoff’s romances at the Carnegie Hall gala in honor of the 850th anniversary of the founding of Moscow. After Danchenko-Stern started teaching the course ‘Singing in Russian’ at the Peabody Conservatory, she induced the entire voice faculty into participation in the “Evening of Slavic Songs” sung in five different Slavic languages.
Danchenko-Stern has completed several tours in Russia. In 2001, she brought her singer-students of the Peabody Conservatory (soprano Pamela Hay – student of Phyllis Bryn-Julson, and baritone Timothy Mix – student of John Shirley-Quirk) for the Golden Ring Russian tour with performances in St. Petersburg, Moscow, and Yaroslavl.
Danchenko-Stern serves as a Russian diction coach for the Washington National Opera. Her repertoire includes participation in the production of Tsar’s Bride by Rimsky-Korsakov (1994), Boris Godunov by Mussorgsky (1997), Queen of Spades (2001), and The Maiden of Orleans (2005) both by Tchaikovsky. In 2003, Danchenko-Stern was invited by the Honolulu Opera Theater to coach the soloists and chorus for the first Russian opera in the company’s repertoire for Evgeniu Onegin by Tchaikovsky. She was also engaged in this capacity to work with the Baltimore Symphony chorus for the production of Prokofiev’s Ivan the Terrible under the baton of Maestro Yuri Temirkanov. Deeply committed to the development of young artists, Danchenko-Stern continues to serve on the faculty of the Peabody Conservatory of Johns Hopkins University and the Catholic University of America. She is sought after as a judge, master teacher, and chamber pianist and teaches piano at her private studio in Alexandria, Va. Her recent master classes were presented at Princeton University and at Michigan State Universities. With two alumnae of the Peabody Conservatory, soprano Susan Harwood and mezzo-soprano Patricia Green, Danchenko-Stern has founded a group called Trio Lyrica.
She has been included into the centennial edition of Who’s Who in American Women and is a “National Associate Artist of SAI.”
Eileen Cornett
Eileen Cornett established the graduate Vocal Accompanying Program in Collaborative Piano at Peabody Conservatory, and is currently enjoying her twenty-fourth year as principal coach with Peabody’s Opera Theatre Program. She performs as a collaborative pianist, opera coach, solo and orchestral pianist, music director, and conductor.
Ms. Cornett began her professional career as musical director of the Croswell Opera House in Adrian, Michigan, leading productions including Sweeney Todd, The Pirates of Penzance, and South Pacific. Subsequently, she has conducted and coached internationally for the Amalfi Coast Music and Arts Festival (Italy), Tanz und Gesang Studio at the Theater an der Wien (Vienna, Austria), Creaton Opera Company (Kaohsiung, Taiwan), Baltimore Opera’s Young Artist Program, Annapolis Opera, Fairbanks (AK) Summer Arts Festival, Lake Placid Institute, and the Seagle Colony Summer Vocal Program, where she served as co-director.
Ms. Cornett led Peabody Chamber Opera’s U.S. premiere of Jonathan Dove’s Mansfield Park, cited by the Baltimore Sun as one of Baltimore’s best classical music productions of 2015, and recently conducted the newly revised version of Jake Heggie’s Out of Darkness: Two Remain, with the composer in residence. A featured solo pianist with the National Symphony Orchestra (Saint-Saëns Carnival of the Animals), she has performed as orchestral pianist for conductors James Levine, Marin Alsop, Leonard Slatkin, Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos, Eve Queler, Paul Gemignani, Bill Conte, and Marvin Hamlisch in concerts with Renee Fleming, Anna Netrebko, Bryn Terfel, Frederica von Stade, Brian Stokes Mitchell, and the late Rosemary Clooney. She joined James Levine and the Three Tenors with the Kennedy Center Opera Orchestra at their performance in the MCI Center, soloing with Luciano Pavarotti. She accompanied mezzo-soprano Denyce Graves in a benefit recital at the National Portrait Gallery in Washington DC and joined soprano Sylvia McNair and stage director Tim Nelson of the American Opera Theatre as musical director and pianist for Songspiel of Kurt Weill at American University and Baltimore’s Theatre Project.
Yearly, Ms. Cornett accompanies all finalists for the Annapolis Opera Competitions’ Preliminary and Final Concerts, and has served as an official accompanist for the International Marian Anderson Vocal Arts, Baltimore Opera, and the Rosa Ponselle “All Marylanders” Competitions. She has accompanied master classes for Mignon Dunn, Margo Garrett, Phyllis Bryn-Julson, Cristina Deutekom, Victoria Livengood, Luigi Alva, Paul Sperry, Patrice Munsel, Jennifer Lane, Louise McClelland, and Sherill Milnes. She shared the stage with Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice at the Kennedy Center’s Terrace Theatre in a benefit concert for the Pulmonary Hypertension Association. In Baltimore, she joined Irish tenor Finbar Wright in a solo recital for Governor Martin O’Malley and the National Board for Irish Tourism.
As a collaborative pianist, Ms. Cornett has performed in recital at the Kennedy Center’s Terrace Theatre, Merkin Hall, National Portrait Gallery, Embassies of France and Russia, Strathmore Hall’s “Music in the Mansion” series, and the Candlelight Concert Society, as well as international venues such as the Museo Correale in Sorrento, Palazzo Mezzacapo in Maiori, Chiesa Madre di S. Margherita in Lauro (Italy), National Concert Hall (Taipei, Taiwan), and the Kinepolis in Oostende, Belgium.
With her chamber music trio, Northern Accord, she has given recitals and master classes at Dartmouth University, St. Olaf College, Luther College, the University of Utah, Butler University, the University of New Hampshire, Brigham Young University, Middle Tennessee State University, Lipscomb University, and the University of Mississippi. For over eight years, she toured nationally throughout the United States with the political satire group The Capitol Steps.
Jack Dou
Award-winning pianist and educator Yuezhi Dou has emerged as one of the diverse, sought-after pianists and collaborators in the United States. In the past six years, he has performed almost a hundred recitals as soloist or collaborator and has worked with Grammy and Emmy award winners including Miguel Harth-Bedoya and William Sharp, as well as world-renowned artists such as Denyce Graves, and Phyllis Bryn-Julson. Recent appearances include Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra, and recital performances with artists such as Brian Bowman, Jeremy Wilson, Adam McCord, Matthew Taylor, and Marisa Corsino; he was also featured on WWFM Radio’s “Celebrating our Musical Future” program.
He is the First Prize winner of the 2017 Baltimore Piano International Festival Competition and a 2019 winner of the Piano Texas International Academy & Festival Concerto Competition. Mr. Dou also had the privilege of participating in masterclasses with notable artists such as Arie Vardi, Leon Fleisher, Richard Goode, Dmitri Alexeev, and Anton Kuerti. He is also a recipient of the prestigious “Clara Ascherfeld Award” for excellence in collaborative piano.
A passionate educator, Mr. Dou has taught for over ten years, especially devoting himself to nurturing young talents. He co-founded a team to establish an after-school arts program offering free private piano lessons at Baltimore’s Thomas Johnson Elementary Middle School and is a jury member at the American Youth Musician Union. He served as a competition judge for the Darwin R. Kirchhof Memorial Competition, the Lea Mirabella Senior Award, and the Gottlieb and Chase Piano Competition in Maryland.
Yuan Qi
Yuan is currently serving as the acting principal viola of the Utah Symphony/Utah Opera and the Assistant Principal Viola in the Delaware Symphony. Prior to joining the USUO, Ms. Qi was a member of New World Symphony, serving as principal viola under the batons of Michael Tilson Thomas and others. She has also made regular appearance with the Philadelphia Orchestra and performed with the New York Philharmonic as a Global Academy Zarin Metha Fellow. As an orchestral musician, Ms. Qi had privilege to perform with some world-renowned conductors include Alan Gilbert, Marin Alsop, Seiji Ozawa, Valery Gergiev, Yannick Nézet-Séguin and others.
With the passion of chamber music, Ms. Qi was a former founding member of JANA quartet under the tutelage of Tokyo String Quartet, makes frequent appearances throughout cities in China and Japan. The series of performances got recognized and highly praised by local TVs and newspapers. Yuan was selected to participate the ARD International Music Competition Munich in 2012 with JANA quartet. Ms. Qi is also a founding member Duet Amici, a first prize winning string duo, and performed at Carnegie hall as a prize winner.
As a soloist, Yuan is a 2nd prize winner of the Hugo Kauder Competition for Viola 2015. Ms. Qi is a dedicated performer whose passionate artistry has been heard and embraced by many music festivals including Seiji Ozawa Music Academy, serving as co-principal viola(Orchestra 2009, 2011, 2012), Seiji Ozawa International Chamber Music Festival in Okushiga Japan (2011, 2012), Kneisel Hall Chamber Music Festival (2013), Norfolk Chamber Music Chamber Music Festival (2014, 2015), Music Academy of the West, principal viola ( 2017).
Ms. Qi holds a graduate performance diploma from Peabody Institute where she studied with the Choong-Jin(C.J.)Chang , a master’s degree from Yale School of Music as a student of Ettore Causa and a Bachelor’s degree from Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing under the instruction of Changhai Wang.
Chunfeng Li
Bass-baritone, vocal educator Chunfeng Li has a unique reputation as an esteemed interpreter of classic works and a champion of new music. In recent years, as an opera singer who is good at interpreting the works of Mozart, Rossini, and Donizetti, he continues to make his mark on operatic and concert stages around the world since his graduation from the Peabody Institute and Martina Arroyo Foundation Young Artists Opera Center in New York. He had the fortune to be mentored by maestro Richard Bonynge and Martina Arroyo, and has signed contracts with many American opera houses such as Florida St’ Petersburg Opera House and New York Lyric company. In 2019, he was invited to serve as a judge for the American Music Talent Competition and the American Classical Young Musician Award held by the American Youth Musician Union. Mr. Li is an outstanding vocal educator, his Maryland Music Talent Program has cultivated many outstanding vocal talents, his students have won many first places in two different singing competitions hosted at Carnegie Hall. The organizers of these events recognized Mr. Li’s exceptional tutelage and extraordinary dedication to the field of music education.
Mr. Li’s career operatic highlights include performances at Le Nozze Di Figaro, Don Giovanni and La traviata , Il Barbiere di Siviglia in Italy. La Bohè me, La Fille du Regiment, and Madama Butterfly at the Martina Arroyo Foundation. Die Entführung Aus Dem Serail at St Petersburg Opera Co., Faust and Madama Butterfly at Shang Hai Opera Theater, Macbeth, Così fan tutte, Carmen, Philemon et Baucis, and Tosca in France. Notable concert appearances include Handel’s Messiah with the Virginia Symphony, Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, Philadelphia Symphony, and Beijing Philharmonic Orchestra.
Equally at home in orchestral, recital, and operatic repertoire, Mr. Li brings his powerful poise, expansive voice, and instinctive acting faculties to stages around the world. He had cooperated with well-known musicians including Richard Bonynge 、Martina Arroyo、Jaems Morris、 Eric Owens、Mark Rucker、Stella Zambalis、Jona Kruege、Kathy Olsen、 Vera Danchenko-Stern、Patrick D’doonnell、Mark Sforzini、Willie Anthony Waters、Laura Alley、Charles Caine、Ian Campbell、Michael Fennelly、 Brad Lemons、Loup Fancois、Jessica Sandige、Jeff Byrnes.