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Philippe Damerval baritone
Philippe was born in 1969 in Nimes, France. He spent his childhood fascinated with classical music and became interested in singing in his late teens when he started to sing with the chorus of the Conservatory in Caen, France. He continued his choral activities in Cape Town, South Africa, understudying roles in Don Giovanni, Cosi fan tutte, Freischuetz, or Sweeney Todd at the Cape Town opera while being posted in the company's stage chorus. He came to Juneau 8 years ago and started studying with Dr. John d'Armand. His involvement started to include principal roles in local opera productions. He has appeared as King Melchior in Amahl and the Night Visitors, The Black Cat and the Armchair in L'enfant et les sortileges, Don Pasquale in Donizetti's Don Pasquale, Dr. Bartolo in The Barber of Seville, and Maurice in Beauty and the Beast. Repeatedly he has given the bass solo part in the Messiah and last year he presented his first solo recital with Schubert's "Winterreise" to great acclaim. During last year's CrossSound Institute Stewart Emerson Summer Course in Haines Philippe worked directly with the composer Peter Child on the song cycle he is presenting on CrossSound's Fault Lines program. This is his first year with CrossSound.
Mike Sullivan alto saxophone
Mike Sullivan is a jazz arranger, saxophonist, and electric bass player from Sitka, Alaska. Originally from Seattle, Washington, he attended the Berklee School of Music in Boston where he majored in arranging and studied saxophone under Joe Viola. He was a staff arranger with the 5th Air Force Band in Tokyo, Japan for 3 years and then continued as a freelance musician. He has performed with many personalities including Sarah Vaughn, jazz violinist Joe Venuti, comedian Red Skelton and Billy Eckstein. He currently is an airline pilot and spends his free time arranging and mentoring young musicians interested in jazz. This is his first year with CrossSound.
Helen West alto saxophone
Helen West is a saxophonist and pianist from Sitka, Alaska. She is currently a junior at Sitka High School and plays with the Symphonic and Jazz Bands. Helen has actively participated in regional and state music groups. During her high school years she has traveled to various communities to perform with the South East Honor and All State Bands. She was lead alto saxophone for the All Alaska Jazz Band this past February in Sitka’s Jazz Festival. Helen also sat first chair in the Sitka High Jazz Band; where last year in Moscow, Idaho at the Lionel Hampton Jazz Fest the band took honorable mention. Helen is actively involved in her community in various ways other than music. She especially enjoys playing in community groups; learning from the more experienced players, along with mentoring Sitka’s younger generation of musicians. This is her first year with CrossSound.
Susan Brandt-Ferguson
baritone saxophone
Susan Brandt-Ferguson (baritone saxophone) lives with her husband and two small children in her hometown of Sitka, Alaska. She has been teaching general music and band at Keet Gooshi Heen Elementary School since 1996. She graduated from Pacific Lutheran University and is certified in the Kodaly philosophy of music education. This is her third year with CrossSound.
Rick Trostel trumpet
Rick Trostel experienced his first joy with music classes, choirs and piano lessons as a young student at Interlochen, National Music Camp (now National Arts Camp) where he spent five summers studying voice, drama, piano, trumpet, orchestra and band. Rick began playing trumpet at the age of ten and has studied with a number of teachers, most notably Ron Hassleman of the Minnesota Orchestra and Richard Pressley of the Seattle Symphony. Rick attended Oberlin College and where he received BA in Biology (in order to get a "real job.") After several years pursuing real jobs, music reared its beautiful head in the form of a music-teaching job at a school in southwestern Alaska. Rick's musical projects include playing principal trumpet in the Juneau Symphony and Juneau Brass Quintet, producing and performing annual trumpet recitals, directing the Juneau Student Symphonies (youth orchestras with no age limit), directing and teaching at Thrush Hill Music (a private lesson studio), and teaching elementary music for the public Montessori elementary classrooms in Juneau. He has performed with CrossSound since its first program in 1999 and loves every aspect of this festival from working with the composers and fellow musicians to the excitement of bringing sparkling new music to life.
Branden Forst trumpet
Branden lives in Sitka where he is a senior in high school. He has been playing the trumpet for seven years, since the fifth grade. Branden has performed at the All State music festival in Anchorage Alaska for the past two years. Since he was a freshman he was accepted into the Southeast honor band in Haines, Petersburg and Wrangell. He has participated in the All Alaska Jazz Band for the past three years and played in the Sitka fine arts camp Jazz and wind ensembles for the past six years.
Philip Munger bugle
Philip Munger was born in 1946 and studied composition at Oberlin Conservatory and at the University of Washington. After working in Seattle, he moved to Alaska in 1973. Munger has sought to address concerns about environmental, humanitarian and social issues in a number of his compositions. He has spoken and written widely on these issues. He has received many prizes and other honors. His works have been performed at the Lincoln Center, Kennedy Center, Juilliard Institute, Cornish Institute, Warsaw Conservatory, the National Gallery, the National Cathedral and several other notable venues. His most recent award, from the service organization Bugles Across America, was in January 2005, for his composition “Shards,” honoring America’s Afghanistan and Iraq Wars’ dead, for which he was awarded their “For Valor” decoration. He currently teaches at the University of Alaska Anchorage and plays trombone in the UAA Wind Ensemble.
Roger Schmidt trombone
Roger Schmidt grew up in his present home, Sitka. As a musician he has
studied music at the Bruckner Konservatorium in Linz, Austria, at Oberlin
Conservatory and at the Aspen Music Festival. His principal teachers
have been Raymond Premru of the Philharmonia Orchestra and Paul Welcomer
of the San Francisco Symphony. He has toured with the Orion Trombone
Quartet, and has worked as a freelance musician in the San Francisco
Bay area playing with various groups in a wide range of musical styles.
He currently teaches music in Sitka. Roger is a former student of the
Sitka Fine Arts Camp, which won the Governor's Award for the Arts under
his direction in 2004. It is his 7th year with CrossSound.
John DePalatis euphonium
Before moving to Alaska, John DePalatis was considered to be the most prolific free improvising euphoniumist in the Pacific Northwest. A frequent contributor to the Seattle improv scene, he regularly performed at venues such as Gallery 1812 and On The Boards. As a founding member of the Tone Action Orchestra, John's commitment to the promotion of new music is unquestioned. His ensembles at Curtis High School and Curtis Junior High were the first to perform in the free jazz idiom at the Frontier Jazz Festival in Tacoma. Currently, John directs the bands and choirs at Sitka High School. As a musician, he is well known for creating extended techniques and maximizing the euphonium's surprising range, creating a unique sonic texture in every ensemble in which he plays. This is John’s first year with CrossSound.
Clemens Hund-Göschel piano
Clemens Hund-Göschel was born 1983 in Frankfurt/Oder in Germany. He went to a music high school in Berlin at the age of 16. There he got a scholarship from the Prade Foundation and won second prize at the German National Competition For Young Musicians. In 2003 he entered the Hanns Eisler Conservatory of Music in Berlin under Prof. Birgitta Wollenweber. In 2005, he played a pianist in the film “Bye, Bye Berlusconi.” In 2006, Clemens won the “Best Chamber Music Artist” award at the German Oberstdorfer Summer Festival. He is a two-time winner of the Hanns Eisler Interpretation Prize. This is his second year with CrossSound.
