.png)
The Halcyon Myth
Halcyon derives from the mythological bird (associated with the kingfisher)
which brings calm seas, peace and prosperity during the winter solstice.
According to Greek myth, Alcyone, upon hearing of her husband’s drowning, threw herself into the sea, and was transformed into a bird-- the kingfisher. Her father Aeolus, guardian of the winds, commanded the seas to be calm during the winter solstice, so that her brood may safely hatch. This two-week period is well-known by mariners of the Mediterranean region,
especially near Sicily from where this belief originated.
The halcyon days are days of peace and prosperity.
They have been alluded to by the Roman authors Pliny and Ovid, and later,
by Shakespeare (Hamlet), Milton (On the Morning of Christ’s Nativity);
and Keats, in Endymion, who writes:
O Magic Sleep! O comfortable bird
That broodest o’er the troubled sea of the mind
Till it is hushed and smooth.
GVRphoto.com
Eve Friedman, Flute
Eve Friedman has recently performed as flutist with the Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia, Opera Philadelphia, the Delaware Symphony, and the world music ensemble EZUZ. as well as with Tempesta di Mare, American Bach Soloists, and Tafelmusik on historical flutes. Her solo playing has been called “particularly fine” by the Washington Post. About her book, Tone Development on the Baroque Flute, the journal Early Music America wrote, “This carefully researched, imaginative book should be on every baroque flutist’s bookshelf.”
Friedman serves on the National Flute Association's Historical Flutes Committee, and has also been a judge/guest artist for the American Musicological Society, San Francisco Conservatory, and the Flute Society of Greater Philadelphia.
She received her Master of Music from Boston University and holds a Doctor of Music from Indiana University. Currently, Friedman is on the faculties of Drexel, Temple, and Rowan Universities, and spends each summer performing and teaching at the Summerkeys festival in Maine.
Guillaume Combet, Violin
Guillaume Combet, an internationally acclaimed violinist, has been heralded in his most recent recording for his “perfect technique, fidelity to the music, and impeccable articulation." Recorded in London at the Menuhin Hall and released by SOMM Recordings in 2021, the Carlock-Combet Duo's Romantic Violin Sonatas received a 5-star review by the French magazine Classica citing their “constant insights from beginning to end…their generous and rich colour palette" and Mr. Combet's “rich, captivating sound."
In addition to his work with the Carlock-Combet Duo, Mr. Combet has devoted himself to orchestral playing, chamber music, and pedagogy. He has performed with numerous orchestras and chamber ensembles in Paris, Chicago and Philadelphia— Orchestra de l'Opéra de Paris Bastille, Les Virtuoses de France, Lyric Opera of Chicago, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Chicago Civic Orchestra as concertmaster under Barenboim and Boulez, Network for New Music, Opera Philadelphia, Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia, Philly Pops, Academy of Vocal Arts, Black Pearl Chamber Orchestra, New Music Delaware, and Pennsylvania Ballet. As a pedagogue, Mr. Combet is an Associate Professor at the University of Delaware and currently teaches at Temple University Music Preparatory Division.
Mr. Combet graduated with a Premier Prix (First Prize) in Violin and Chamber Music from the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique de Paris where he studied with Gérard Poulet and Sylvie Gazeau, and received his Advanced Certificate in Violin Performance from The Juilliard School where he studied with Joel Smirnoff, Robert Mann and William Lincer. Mr. Combet currently lives in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania with his wife, Helen Eaton, Chief Executive Officer of Settlement Music School, and has two adult children pursuing careers in clinical psychology and theatre.
GVRphoto.com
Roberto Pace, Piano
Roberto Pace is a composer, music director, pianist and educator. His works have been played, and he has performed throughout the U.S.and Europe, as well as Canada and Japan.
Pace studied at the New England Conservatory of Music with Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Donald Martino. He holds an M.F.A. in composition from SUNY Purchase, where he was the first to be awarded the Anthony Newman Prize for artistic and academic excellence.
Pace's recent commissions include the American Opera Projects, The Greenwich Village Orchestra, the canonization of Padre Pio, the Viola Society of Philadelphia, the baroque/contemporary ensemble Mélomanie, Chamber Music Now!, the Elysian Camerata and the American Composer's Forum of Philadelphia. His work has received public as well as critical success: "…a fantasm of shifting moods, featuring eloquent writing for strings" (NY Times); and " a kaleidoscope of colors wrapped in rhythms that leap with energy" (Philadelphia Inquirer). In 2011 Pace was elected to the Association for the Promomtion of New Music (APNM) which will publish several of his scores through Subito Music.
He has been pianist for many major dance companies and choreographers including the Dance Theater of Harlem, Jerome Robbins, Alvin Ailey, Suzanne Farrell, Peter Pucci, and Patrick Corbin.
A successful educator as well, Pace directed the music program of Fordham at Lincoln Center and lectured for the New York Philharmonic. He currently teaches theory and composition at the Settlement Music School of Philadelphia, is an adjunct instructor at Rowan University, and gives concerts and lectures at the Summerkeys Festival in Lubec, Maine.
Lawrence Stomberg, Cello
Hailed for "style and elegance" and “drama and rhetoric” (Strings Magazine), and “lyrical yet impassioned interpretation” (Fanfare Magazine), Lawrence Stomberg enjoys a wide-ranging career as soloist, chamber musician and pedagogue. He has been a featured performer as faculty at the Eastern Music Festival and Texas Music Festival, and performs annually at the Techne Music Festival and Master Players Festival, and was cellist of the acclaimed Serafin String Quartet for thirteen years. Recent seasons have brought him to venues across four continents, performing as soloist and collaborator in London, Vienna, and Bogotá, as well as cities and towns across the United States. As a recipient of the 2018 Delaware Division of the Arts Established Artist Fellowship, Stomberg turned his performance activity to musical outreach and community engagement through his project, Bach in Wilmington, which paired the six Suites for Solo Cello of J.S. Bach with recorded interviews of residents of Wilmington, Delaware (his current home), and commissioned works responding both to Bach and Wilmington, by violinists and crossover artists Mazz Swift and Alisa Rose. He has recorded for the Naxos, Ravello, VAI and Centaur labels.
Stomberg has served as Professor of Cello at the University of Delaware since 2004. Lawrence Stomberg lives in Wilmington, Delaware with his wife, cellist and pedagogue Jennifer Crowell Stomberg. They have three children currently in college, as well as an animal menagerie (not in college) of five cats, a dog, and a turtle.
Renee Warnick, Viola
Violist Renee Warnick is an active orchestral, chamber, and recording musician in the greater Philadelphia region. She is Assistant Principal Viola of the Bay-Atlantic Symphony and the Lancaster Symphony and has toured nationally and internationally as a member of the Philadelphia Virtuosi Chamber Orchestra. She performs frequently with such groups as Black Pearl Chamber Orchestra, Delaware Symphony, Kennett Symphony, Opera Philadelphia, Ocean City Pops, Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia, Reading Symphony, and the Endless Mountain Music Festival. A devoted chamber musician, she is a member of the Elysian Camerata and has been a guest artist with the Gabriel Chamber Ensemble. Ms. Warnick has played in the pit orchestra for Broadway at the Kimmel Center and Arden Theater productions and was featured as an on-stage musician for the 2012 American premier of Love Story, the Musical at the Walnut Street Theater. She has recorded numerous commercial string tracks at Milk Boy, Minor Street, and Morningstar Studios and with the Dark Horse Orchestra, including tracks for the 2014 Michael Jackson album Xscape.
Ms. Warnick holds Bachelor and Masters of Music degrees from Temple University, where she studied with Philadelphia Orchestra Principal Violist Chong-Jin Chang. Ms. Warnick is a member of the music faculty at Germantown Friends School and has previously been on the string faculties of Temple Music Prep and Settlement Music School. She currently maintains a private teaching studio in Chestnut Hill, where she resides with her husband and two children. Other interests include yoga, cooking, traveling, and knitting.