Our artists

David Felberg is currently the associate concertmaster of the New Mexico Symphony Orchestra and was named Concertmaster of the Santa Fe Symphony. A native of Albuquerque, he performs regularly throughout the Southwest as concerto soloist, recitalist and chamber musician. He has performed as concerto soloist with the New Mexico Symphony Orchestra, Albuquerque Philharmonic, Noisy Neighbors Chamber Orchestra, Tucson Symphony, and the Chautauqua Music School Festival Orchestra. David has performed solo recitals in Albuquerque, Santa Fe, Los Alamos, Clovis, Portales, and most recently on the Outstanding Artists Recital Series for the Emerald City Opera in Steamboat Springs, Colorado. In June of 2005, David will make his New York City recital debut in Merkin Hall. As a chamber musician, he has been a faculty/performer with the Apple Hill Center for Chamber Music, and from 1993-97 was a member of the Helios String Quartet. He is a regular on every chamber music series throughout New Mexico, including The Albuquerque Chamber Soloists, Noisy Neighbors, Taos Chamber Music Group, Serenata of Santa Fe, Los Alamos Coffee Concerts, and the Placitas Artists Series, and has performed the Mendelssohn Octet with the Takacs Quartet in Boulder, Colorado in April of 1998. Also active as a conductor, David has conducted the New Mexico Symphony Orchestra in performances of The Nutcracker ballet, and he made his operatic conducting in the summer of 2003 in The Emerald City Opera's production of The Magic Flute, He is also currently the music director of the Albuquerque Philharmonic, and founder and conductor of Chatter, a chamber ensemble, a group dedicated to performing 20th and 21st century music. David received a bachelor of arts in History from the University of Arizona, and a masters of music from the University of New Mexico, and has taken advanced string quartet studies at the University of Colorado.

Ruth Bacon, an Albuquerque native, recently completed her undergraduate degree at the University of New Mexico in vocal performance and string pedagogy. She has been playing violin with the New Mexico Symphony, the Santa Fe Symphony, and Santa Fe Pro Musica, among other regional orchestras over the last few years. She has been a concerto soloist with the Albuquerque Youth Symphony, the Las Cruces Symphony, and the University of New Mexico Symphony Orchestras. Ms. Bacon has attended and performed at the Aspen Music Festival, the Brevard Advanced Chamber Music Seminar, the New York String Orchestra Seminar, and the Schlern International Music Festival. In addition to orchestral playing, Ruth also enjoys teaching and performing chamber music in her ensembles, the Heiligenstadt Quartet and the Sandia Trio. She will be starting her Master’s Degree this fall at the Cleveland Institute of Music with William Preucil.

Born in Saitama, Japan, Ikuko Kanda began her violin studies at the age of four. Two years later she began studying with Toshiya Eto, a former faculty member at the Curtis Institute of Music. In 1984, she won the Saitama Prefecture New Figure Concert Audition, and played the first movement of the Symphonie Espagnole by Lalo. In 1994, she performed Mendelssohn™fs Violin Concerto with the University of Wyoming Symphony Orchestra. She received her bachelor™fs degree in performance from Toho Gakuen School of Music in Tokyo in 1994. She has played with the Shinsei Nihon Symphony and the Gunma Symphony Orchestras in Japan, the Chamber Orchestra of Albuquerque, the Santa Fe Festival Ballet, the Musica de Camera Orchestra in Santa Fe, the Cheyenne Symphony Orchestra, and the Colorado Music Festival Orchestra. She was a founding member of the Bella Cosi String Quartet, and performed for the Keller Hall Series and the Albuquerque and the Santa Fe Chamber Music Outreach Education Programs. Also she has appeared in chamber music events such as the Noisy Neighbors, Chatter A. Chamber Ensemble, the Santa Fe New Music Performance Series, and the Placitas Artists' Series. Currently she is a member of the New Mexico Symphony Orchestra and the Santa Fe Symphony Orchestra.

Cellist Felix Wurman is the founder of the Church of Beethoven. In it he has found a perfect recipe for a Sunday "service". Other ensembles he has founded include The Noisy Neighbors and Domus - a group with its own portable concert hall. He performs on a custom-made 5-string cello and plays works not only for cello but violin and viola as well. Wurman was a student of Jacqueline duPre, Anner Bylsma. and violinist Sandor Vegh. His string teaching method, developed with David Felberg is known for its excellent and rapid results. He is the owner of EspressoArtists and can be seen driving his all-electric 1966 VW.

Maureen Seaton is the author of a memoir, Sex Talks to Girls (Living Out Series, University of Wisconsin Press) and six books of poetry—most recently, Cave of the Yellow Volkswagen and Venus Examines Her Breast (Carnegie Mellon University Press). She is the recipient of an NEA fellowship, the Audre Lorde Award, the Lambda Literary Award, the Iowa Poetry Prize, and the Pushcart. She teaches poetry at the University of Miami. She is taking sabbatical in Albuquerque this year and will be participating in STIR: A Festival of Words in September.

Lisa Gill is the author of two books of poetry, Red as a Lotus
and Mortar & Pestle. A third book Caput Nili is forthcoming with
Burning Books and will include both poetry and prose. Lisa is
also a student in the MFA program at UNM and the recipient of a
National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship in Poetry.