Nicholas Szucs attended Manhattan School of Music and Montclair State University, where he studied with Burton Kaplan and Oscar Ravina. Other important teachers include Betty-Jean Hagen and John Forconi. In addition to being soloist with the Montclair State University Symphony, he also performed as concertmaster and soloist with the Congress of Strings festival orchestra in its final year (1989). He also performed as concertmaster and soloist for the Montclair Chamber Ensemble in the year of the orchestra’s inception (1990), and in 2003. Mr. Szucs has worked with symphonies all over the United States, including Dallas Opera, Shreveport Symphony, Hudson Valley Philharmonic, Albany Symphony and Syracuse Symphony. He served as concertmaster for the Fort Smith Symphony, East Texas Symphony, Garland Symphony, and Monmouth Symphony. In 2005 he participated in the Festival Orchestra in Jimena de la Frontera, Spain. Since the summer of 2006, Nicholas performs in the Wintergreen Summer Music Festival Orchestra as chamber musician, festival orchestra and chamber music coach. Currently he is an assistant concertmaster of the Roanoke Symphony Orchestra and a member of the Norwalk Symphony and Key West Symphony. In addition to his career as a symphonic violinist, Mr. Szucs also performs regularly as a recitalist and soloist. In January 2007 he performed a complete unaccompanied solo recital at Wesley Hall in Montgomery, NY, which included works by Bach, Ysaÿe and Paganini. Mr. Szucs has also performed as soloist with the Greater Newburgh Symphony Orchestra with a world premier of Margoshes’ New Hungarian Rhapsody, also in 2007 where the Times Record Herald stated, “It was a melodic delight, full of sensual, sonorous and appealing effects, and the audience greeted it with bravos and a standing ovation.” In 2009, Szucs performed the Beethoven Violin Concerto with the Cortlandt Chamber Orchestra and in January 2010 he played the Mendelssohn Violin Concerto with the Northern Westchester Symphony Orchestra. More recently in May, 2010 he performed Sarasate’s Carmen Fantasy and Massenet’s Meditation from Thaïs with the Gateway Orchestra to which a critic wrote, “Time and space do not allow for a more insightful review of Nicholas Szucs’s spectacular playing.. Szucs’s virtuosity combined with a natural flair made for absolute magic in a dazzling display of style, substance and showmanship!” Raised in Willowick, Ohio, a suburb east of Cleveland, Keith Robellard began piano at the age of 4 and learned to read music at age 5. He studied piano with his father, a piano teacher. At 12, He continued his studies with Edith Reed, a gifted pianist and teacher at the Willoughby School of Fine Arts. At 14, He spent a summer at the Chautauqua Institution in upstate New York studying piano with Henry Rauch from the Eastman School of Music. Upon graduating from high school, he performed a full recital. He attended Baldwin-Wallace College Conservatory of Music in Berea, Ohio where his father had graduated from in 1948. He majored in piano performance and minored in organ. While at B-W, Keith won the concerto competition in 1979, performing Rachmaninoff’s Rhapsody on a theme by Paganini with orchestra. After moving to New York City, Keith worked for the Manhattan School of Music eventually becoming the Director of Chamber Music. In 1983, he became Director of Music at the First Reformed Episcopal Church in New York City. In 1989, he became Director of Music at First Congregational Church in Chappaqua. Since becoming music director there, he has conducted over 40 major choral pieces and appeared as harpsichord soloist with the Chappaqua Chamber Orchestra in Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto No.5. In 1995, he performed with the Chappaqua Orchestra performing a Handel organ concerto and the Poulenc Concerto for Organ. Keith joined the faculty at Rippowam in 2004. In addition to directing musicals, choruses and Revelry every year, Keith coordinates the new music lab on campus. This CD was made possible by a Master Teaching Grant awarded in 2009 from the Alumni Association of the Rippowam Cisqua School.