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| Guillermo Figueroa |
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Violinist Guillermo Figueroa has been Music Director of the New Mexico Symphony and serves as Music Director of the Music in the Mountains Festival in Colorado as well as Principal Guest Conductor of the Puerto Rico Symphony.
Figueroa was a founding member and concertmaster of the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra and concertmaster of the New York City Ballet.
As part of Puerto Rico's most distinguished musical family, he has appeared with the Figueroa Chamber Ensemble at Carnegie Hall, Alice Tully Hall and the Kennedy Center. He studied at the Conservatory of Music of Puerto Rico with his father and uncle. At the Julliard School his teachers were Oscar Shumsky and Felix Galimir. His conducting studies were with Harold Farberman in New York.
Figueroa and his wife, violinist Valerie Turner, are the Founders and Artistic Directors of the Festival de Musica Rondeña chamber series in Albuquerque.
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| Valerie Turner |
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Violinist Valerie Turner, a native New Yorker, received her musical education at the State University of New York at Purchase.
Prior to coming to New Mexico, she taught both privately and in schools for over twenty years as well as performing with many orchestras in the New York area as well as the Santa Fe Opera, Charleston Symphony, Stamford Symphony, Albany Symphony, Connecticut Grand Opera, Stamford Chamber Orchestra, Virginia Opera Association, the Center for Contemporary Opera, and the Craftsbury Chamber Players.
In New Mexico Turner performed regularly with the New Mexico Symphony Orchestra; performs with the Santa Fe Symphony and the Music in the Mountains Festival Orchestra in Durango, Colorado.
Turner and her husband, Guillermo Figueroa, are the Founders and Artistic Directors of the Festival de Musica Rondeña chamber series.
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| Ivonne Figueroa |
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Pianist Ivonne Figueroa began her musical studies at the age of five with her father Guillermo and other members of Puerto Rico’s most distinguished musical family; later a pupil of Pablo Casals, Rudolf Serkin, Claude Franck and Felix Galimir. In 1966 Ms. Figueroa was awarded the Pablo Caslas Scholarship by the maestro himself.
She won the coveted Robert Schumann International Piano Competition in East Germany; has performed in Europe, Central America and the Caribbean. Figueroa has performed at Carnegie Hall, the Kennedy Center, Alice Tully Hall, Weill recital Hall, Merkin Hall and the Festival Casals in Puerto Rico. She has been a soloist with orchestras in New York, Germany(DDR), Michigan, Puerto Rico and New Mexico; with brother violinist Guillermo Figueroa, toured as the Figueroa Duo. Also under the direction of her brother, she toured the Dominican Republic with the PR Symphony last April. She performed with the Figueroa Quartet at the 50th anniversary celebration of the Casals Festival in February.
At present Dr. Figueroa works at the education department of the University of Puerto Rico, Rio Piedras Campus.
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| Joan Zucker |
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Cellist Joan Zucker, the New Mexico Symphony Orchestra's Principal Cellist, is a native New Yorker who holds music degrees from Bennington and Ithaca Colleges.
She was first heard by New Mexicans in the mid-seventies, as jazz cellist with the Johnny Gilbert Quartet and Principal Cellist of the Orchestra of Santa Fe. Since then she has performed in many of New Mexico's ensembles from the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival and Opera, to Willy Sucre and Friends and the Santa Fe Chorale.
She has performed with numerous chamber groups, orchestras, and festivals in the United States and in Venezuela, her home for four years.
A versatile musician, she has taught extensively (cello, recorder, voice, orchestra, chamber music, theory, composition and improvisation), both privately and at various institutions including UC Santa Cruz, Ithaca College, and UNM.
Zucker plays a Benjamin Banks cello made in Salisbury, England in 1788.
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