Artist Bios
Marga Richter
Snow Mountain
Marga Richter (b.1926) pianist and composer, was born in Reedsburg, Wisconsin and received her early musical training in Minneapolis. She earned her bachelor's and master's degrees at the Juilliard School, studying composition with William Bergsma and Vincent Persichetti and piano with Rosalyn Tureck. Among the sources of her many grants, commissions and awards are the National Endowment for the Arts, Martha Baird Rockefeller Fund, Harkness Foundation, Meet the Composer, National Federation of Music Clubs and ASCAP. Richter's works, noted for their expressiveness and economy of means, have been performed by 50 orchestras, including the Buffalo Philharmonic, London Philharmonic, Minnesota Orchestra, and the Milwaukee, Atlanta, Oakland, Oklahoma, Oregon, and Maracaibo Symphonies.
David Wells, renowned cellist and winner of both the American Artists and Harold Bauer Awards, is best known for his mastery of the Bach Suites for unaccompanied cello, and for his much-lauded performances with orchestras around the world. He has performed in the United States and Europe with the Manhattan Trio, Columbia Concert Trio, and the Hartt String Quartet. As a soloist known for his "intensely felt performances," he has been heard in the great repertoire from the Baroque through the Twentieth Century in major cities throughout the world.
As founder and artistic director of the Yellow Barn Music Festival and School in Putney, Vermont, Wells has been responsible for presenting works by a number of American composers. He is Professor of Cello and Ensemble at the Hartt School of the University of Hartford and a faculty member at the New England Conservatory in Boston. He was formerly head of the Chamber Music Department at the Manhattan School of Music. Mr. Wells is a native of East Chicago, Indiana.
Acclaimed around the world for his extraordinary artistry, Daniel Heifetz has appeared with leading American orchestras including the Philadelphia and Cleveland Orchestras and the Los Angeles Philharmonic. He has been featured on CBS television (Art of the Unaccompanied Violin), PBS (The Mind of Music), and NPR (All Things Considered). He teaches at the Peabody Conservatory in Baltimore, Maryland. Raised in Southern California, Daniel Heifetz began violin studies at the age of six. At sixteen he entered the Curtis Institute where he studied with Efrem Zimbalist. He has also studied with Jascha Brodsky and Ivan Galamian.
Heifetz was a prize-winner in both the Merriweather-Post Competition and the Sixth International Tschaikovsky Competition in Moscow. An artist who has always demonstrated a deep social commitment, he stunned the Tschaikovsky Competition officials and the Soviet government when he met with Alexander Ginsburg's wife and donated his prize money to the families of jailed dissidents Ginsburg and Shcharansky. As a result of this humanitarian gesture, the governor of Pennsylvania held a state dinner in his honor.
A graduate of Columbia University where he studied with Niels Østbye, Michael Skelly has pursued an active and varied career in music both as soloist and accompanist, including many duo-piano performances with his mother, Marga Richter. In addition to this recording he has recorded with the New Calliope Singers on Finnadar and CRI and is preparing a new CD with guitarist Winslow Browning as part of the "Guitar Among Others" series. Mr. Skelly was born in New York City and grew up in Huntington, Long Island. He is on the piano faculty at Columbia University.
