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Manchester Music Festival Guest Artists
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Heather Braun, violin
Former MMF Young Artist
Thanksgiving Concert 2011
Violinist Heather Braun currently studies with Peter Zazofsky at Boston University
where she is pursuing her Doctoral of Musical Arts degree. An avid freelancer in the
New England area, she performs regularly with Cantata Singers, Back Bay Chorale, and
Firebird Ensemble, and has appeared as concertmaster and soloist with the Orchestra of
Emmanuel Music. Twice a Tanglewood Music Center fellow, she received the Jules C.
Reiner Violin Prize in 2005 and served as concertmaster under Seiji Ozawa and Herbert
Bloomstedt. Heather performs as the first violinist of the Arneis Quartet, and has attended
quartet programs at Juilliard, the Banff Center, Stanford University, and Park City,
Utah. She received her bachelors degree from the Eastman School of Music, studying
with Mikhail Kopelman, and her masters degree from Boston University. Heather has
appeared in concert with the Ying Quartet, Menahem Pressler, Peter Zazofsky, and
Bayla Keyes. She currently teaches private lessons for Brookline Public Schools and is a
chamber music coach for the Boston Youth Symphony Orchestra.
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Benjamin Elton Capps, cello
Thanksgiving Concert 2011
Exciting young American cellist Benjamin Capps enjoys a versatile performing career.
His playing has been praised as “most appealing” by Bernard Holland of the New
York Times and “rich . . and human” by the New York Sun. He has performed at such
prestigious venues as Carnegie’s Stern, Weill and Zankel Halls, Avery Fisher Hall,
Alice Tully Hall, the Kennedy Center, Mann Hall (Tel Aviv), Meyerson Hall (Dallas),
the Palace of Fine Arts and Sala Nezahualcoytl (Mexico City), and has been featured
on WQXR’s Young Artist Showcase. His has appeared as soloist with Philharmonic
Orchestra of the Americas, the Juilliard Pre-College Symphony, the Manhattan School
of Music Composer’s Orchestra, and his performance of the Schumann Cello Concerto
at the 2010 Music Festival of the Americas in Vermont was hailed as “virtuosic and
impassioned” (Barre Montpelier Times). A recent career highlight, in March, 2010 he
traveled by invitation to Peoples Republic of China and presented recitals and master
classes in Xiamen, Fuzhou, and Gulangyu. Mr. Capps has given numerous premier
performances of new cello works, including Daniel Vezza Pulsations for Cello and
Chamber Orchestra (composed for Mr. Capps), Marcus Paus Cello Sonnets, Anna
Klein Fits and Starts, Daniel Vezza Circles, and Robert Karpay’s Cello Concerto. His
recording of Andrew Violette’s Songs and Dances for unaccompanied cello (Innova
Recordings) was released in June 2010.
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