Second Fridays: Guitar & ... Performers

Peter Argondizza holds a Doctor of Musical Arts degree from the Yale University School of Music. He received the Andres Segovia Scholarship to attend the Banff School of Fine Arts and was awarded a scholarship to study at the Aspen Music Festival and School, where he was the featured guitar soloist in Hans Werner Henze's Kammermusik 1958. He has studied North Indian classical music under Sri Vasant Rai at the Alam School of Indian Classical Music and jazz guitar with Howard Morgan. Peter performs regularly in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Canada as a soloist and multi-instrumentalist. He was the mandolinist with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra for Luciano Pavarotti's only appearance in Scotland and in the Hebrides Ensemble's performance of Schoenberg's Serenade. He played mandolin in Agon and in Moses und Aron with the BBC Symphony Orchestra, guitar in II Barbiere di Siviglia with the Scottish Opera, and electric guitar in a concert performance of LaLa Land. He conducted Steve Reich's Electric Counterpoint with the composer present. Recent guitar performances include Rodrigo's Concierto de Aranjuez, Berio's Sequenza XI, and Ginastera's Sonata for Guitar. He also appears regularly on Baroque guitar \Vith the New York City Continuo Collective. Peter headed the department of Creative and Contextual Studies at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, also teaching guitar and lute and historic performance and directing the guitar orchestra. He has served as adjudicator and external examiner for the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, the Associated Board of the Royal School of Music in London, and the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. He lives in New York City. argondizzaguitar.com

Chad Austino lives in NYC and teaches classical languages and humanities in Brooklyn. He began his journey with the mandolin in 2022 and is excited to perform publicly for the first time. Chad holds a PhD in Classical Studies and has always been drawn to the rustic, Mediterranean sound of the mandolin. Fittingly, the piece he will perform today, as a mandolin-guitar duet, is Recuerdos de la Alhambra - composed by Francisco Tárrega in 1899. The sustained tremolo of the piece evokes the haunting memories, ruins, and histories of Alhambra, Spain, and the sunkissed monuments of the Mediterranean’s past and present.

Flutist Suzanne Bona earned her Bachelor of Music degree in flute performance from The University of Connecticut. Her private teachers included Martin Orenstein, Thomas Nyfenger at Yale, and Harold Bennett. She performs frequently as a soloist and chamber musician, and has performed in concerts across the U.S., in Guam, and at the Mendelssohn House Museum in Leipzig, Germany. Suzanne is also the host and executive producer of Sunday Baroque, a syndicated weekly radio show of Baroque music. She originated the program in 1987 on WSHU in her hometown, Fairfield, Connecticut. Sunday Baroque has been distributed nationally since 1998, and is currently heard by nearly half a million listeners every week on 277 public radio stations and networks across the country. When she is not hosting her radio show or playing the flute, Suzanne’s hobbies include reading, traveling, running, cooking, and baking. She is also passionate about the cause of literacy, serving as a volunteer tutor, community adviser, and board member of various literacy agencies.

During a 35-year career, Richard Goering has performed as a classical guitarist and fingerstyle soloist, with orchestras and chamber music groups, and with classical and popular vocalists in concerts throughout the United States, in Spain, and in Italy. An accomplished arranger and improviser, his playing prompted one critic to write, “The guitar is for our time but it is also for all time” (Louisville Courier Journal). As the Alegria Duo, Richard and Suzanne Bona, flute, have performed in concert series in Ohio, Kentucky, Indiana, Vermont, and New York. With soprano Audrey Luna, Richard and Suzanne perform as Alegria. Richard and violist Steve Rosen perform as the Levassor Duo. They have recorded two CDs and perform extensively. Richard holds degrees from the College Conservatory of Music and the Yale School of Music, and he has studied at the Instituto Oscar Espla in Alicante, Spain with Jose Tomas. His teachers include Clare Callahan, Oscar Ghiglia, Jose Tomas, Ben Verdery, and Robert Guthrie. Richard has been a Kentucky Arts Council Performing Arts Directory Artist for 18 years.

Mezzo-soprano Ruth Ginelle Heald is equally at home singing opera, musical theater, pop, and jazz. Operatic credits include Mrs. Soames (Rorem's Our Town), Arlen Specter (Dunphy's Gonzales Cantata), She (Purcell's King Arthur), The Woman (cover, Seth Boustead's La Jetee), and the title role in Carmen. Musical theater highlights include Belle in Beauty and the Beast, Rose in Secret Garden, and the title character in the world premiere of Jason Heald's Constance, a musical about Oscar Wilde's wife, Constance Lloyd. Ruth has appeared as a soloist with Chicago Choral Artists (Vaughan Williams' Mass in G Minor), Portland Symphonic Choir (Rachmaninoff s All Night Vigil), Umpqua Chamber Orchestra (Purcell's Dido and Aeneas), Willamette Master Chorus (Handel's Messiah), and Lake County Symphony Orchestra (music of Antonio Carlos Jobim). Ruth regularly sings with Chicago Symphony Chorus, Grant Park Chorus, and Florentine Opera Chorus. Ruth was the mezzo-soprano in "New now next: 21st century music for voice and piano," presented at the 2019 Central Region Conference of the National Association of Teachers of Singing. She curated and performed "Forces of Nature," a recital of music by women composers as part of Musicians Club of Women's Artist in Recital series at Fourth Church. At Chicago's Rhapsody Theater, Ruth recently performed a staged version of Dominick Argento's Miss Manners on Music, a song cycle based on texts of etiquette columnist Judith Martin. Ruth's endeavors as a "singing drummer" have taken her around the world, including tours in Spain, Ireland, England, and China. She enjoys providing drums and vocals for various bands, including Goldfoot, her Portland-based funk-rock group, and Local Motive, a soulful staple of the rock scene in Chicagoland. Ruth earned a Master of Music in Voice Performance at Chicago College of Performing Arts while serving as the Opera Graduate Assistant. A native Oregonian, Ruth completed her bachelor's degree at Willamette University, where she was a Rogers Scholar and Carson Grant recipient. ruthginelleheald.com/about

Dr. Jason Heald serves as Director of Music at Umpqua Community College, and is an active composer, educator, and clinician in the Pacific Northwest. He holds a Ph.D. in composition from University of Oregon, a Master’s degree from University of Portland, and a Bachelor’s degree from Lewis and Clark College. Dr. Heald is a prolific composer, with works published by Augsburg Fortress, Choral Web, UNC Jazz Press, Plymouth Music, and Sound Music Publishing. Premieres and commissions include performances by the Oregon Musical Theatre Festival. Shreveport Opera, Vanguard Voices, Delgani Quartet, Consonare, Kantorei, The Singers – Minnesota Choral Artists, and the Willamette Singers. Awards include Grand Prize winner, Cascadian Choral Composition Competition (Seattle, WA); Longfellow Chorus Award of Distinction in Choral Composition (Portland, ME); Vanguard Premieres Composition Contest (Detroit, MI); Sacred Voice Arts Song Finalist (Salt Lake City, UT); Finalist, 21st Annual Ithaca College of Music Choral Composition Competition; Grand Prize Winner, Eventide Arts Songfest (Dennis MA); and Project Encore Composer (New York, NY).

Represented by Gerald Bland Inc. in New York City, John Rosis is an accomplished artist and instructor with a notable career spanning decades. He currently teaches at the Rockland Center for the Arts since 1999, and previously taught at the State University of New York and the Art Students League in New York. His work has been featured in numerous group exhibitions, including early 1980s shows in the East Village, including Club 57, NYC. Recent group exhibitions include the 2024 Rockland Center for the Arts Benefit, the Garrison Art Center Benefit in New York, and Kino Saito benefit in Verplank, New York. His work has also been part of exhibitions at institutions such as the Museum of Modern Art in New York and the Edward Hopper House. In addition to his group exhibitions, John Rosis has held several solo exhibitions, including notable shows at Mount Wachusett Community College in Massachusetts and Westchester College in New York. John Rosis earned his Master of Fine Arts from Hunter College in 1990 and has received prestigious awards throughout his career, including grants from the Pollock-Krasner Foundation, New York State Council on the Arts, the Wurlitzer Foundation and Artists Space, New York. His work is part of numerous private and public collections including the New York University Children’s Hospital and the Spencer Museum of Art, University of Kansas. https://www.johnrosis1.wixsite.com/studio instagram.com/johnrosisartist