Woodwinds (Flute, Clarinet, Saxophone)

Flutist Dominique Soucy has enjoyed a growing reputation in New York as both soloist and chamber musician. She has appeared as a guest soloist with several orchestras, most notably l’Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal and the Calgary Philharmonic. Regarding her Montreal debut, The Montreal Gazette and Montreal La Presse wrote, “flutists like Soucy are in short supply…. and we are going to hear a great deal more about Ms. Soucy…with an impressive technique and a brilliant tone… and a very beautiful legato in the slow movement…” The Winnipeg Free Press has described her playing as “a treat”…“Ms. Soucy is a passionate soloist.” In Washington, DC, Ms. Soucy stood out in an ensemble performance where her playing was described in The Washington Post as “remarkable and technically confident”. A winner of Artists International in New York, The Montreal Symphony Competition, The Canadian Music Competition, The Yellow Spring Chamber Competition and The Aevis Young Artist Recording Competition, Ms. Soucy has collaborated with such artists as John Cage, Elliott Carter, John Harbison and Bruce Saylor, while he was Composer in Residence at The Chicago Lyric Opera. As a chamber musician, Ms. Soucy has performed with The London Ballet, The New York Chamber Orchestra, The Toronto Ballet, Les Grands Ballets Canadiens, The New York Bach Soloists and The New Music Consort. Her numerous radio and television performances include several solo recitals for the Canadian Broadcast Corporation as well as appearances on All My Children and Good Morning America for the ABC television network. She is also featured on Richard Termini’s score for the soundtrack of John Turturo’s “Mac,” winner of the Caméra d’Or award at the Cannes Film Festival. More recently, she completed a recording of percussionist/composer Thad Wheeler’s suite The Dancing Bird for Albany Records and also Leo Kraft’s Cloud Studies for CRI. Ms. Soucy is a founding member of Musical Wisdom, a popular concert series for children based in Westchester, NY, where she resides with her husband, flutist Joseph Piscitelli, and their sons, Pierre and Stefano.

Joseph Piscitelli, flutist, made his solo debut at sixteen at New York’s Town Hall and Alice Tully Hall. At the High School of Performing Arts, he won numerous competitions including the B’nai Brith Fellowship and Chancy Memorial Competition. He earned his B.M. and M.A. from Queens College, studying with Ransom Wilson and Robert Stallman. He spent summers in France, tutored by world renown flutists Jean-Pierre Rampal and Alain Marion.

Mr. Piscitelli performs regularly with New York Chamber Orchestra, Solisti New York, Musica Sacra, Long Island Philharmonic, Opera Northeast, Opera Ensemble of New York, Philharmonia Virtuosi, Greenwich Symphony, and Lar Lubavitch Dance Company at City Center. He has toured the US, Canada, Mexico, France, England, and the Netherlands. As a winner of the Artists International Competition, he was presented at Weill Recital Hall. The New York Times hailed his playing as “endowed with a sense of charm and a great deal of inherent musicality.”

He has taught at Queens College, the Manhattan School of Muisc and Pace University. He currently teaches at the Hoff-Barthelson Music School, in Scarsdale, where he is also Director of the Wind Ensemble and the Summer Arts Program.

Susan Altabet has been teaching voice, flute, recorders, and piano for over 30 years privately. She has been on the faculty of the Adirondack Vocal Workshop, the Diller-Quaille School of Music, and since 1998 has been teaching at Crestwood Music Education Center.As a member of the acclaimed Gregg Smith Singers for 30 years she toured the US and abroad and she performs in other choruses, churches, and synagogues throughout the New York metropolitan area.Susan holds LTCL’s in Voice and Flute from Trinity College of Music London and did specialized studies in early music at Koninklijk Conservatorium Den Haag and Schola Cantorum Basiliensis in Basel. Her teachers include Morag Noble, Andrea von Roman, Nancy Wertsch, Lenora Eve, Judith Hall, and Kathleen Nester.

On the Hoff-Barthelson Music School faculty since 2010, Daniel Spitzer has been a leading performer and educator in the New York area for several decades. A longtime member of the American Federation of Musicians, he has performed with most of the area’s major orchestras, in Broadway pits, and at various summer music festivals. He has given masterclasses and performance-workshops internationally.

Since 2006, Daniel has been a member of both the Delaware Symphony and the Hudson Valley Philharmonic, with whom he serves as Principal Clarinet. In 2013, he joined the Chautauqua Symphony Orchestra and is on the faculty of the Chautauqua Festival Music School. At the Chautauqua Institution this past summer, he was honored to perform as a soloist, playing Artie Shaw’s Clarinet Concerto, He has performed numerous times with the New York Philharmonic, the Philadelphia Orchestra, the NYC Ballet Orchestra, and the American Symphony Orchestra. Most recently, Daniel has just returned from a November 2018 tour of Cuba, performing concerts with the Quintet of the Americas at the International Contemporary Music Festival in Havana.

Daniel has served as a clarinet professor at the Rutgers University Mason Gross School of the Arts and has been on the faculties of the University of Mississippi in Oxford, State University in Starkville, and Millsaps College in Jackson, Mississippi. Further, Mr. Spitzer has taught extensively at the elementary, middle and high school levels throughout the tri-state area, and maintains an active private studio.

Since his arrival on the New York scene in 2005, Ken Fowser has continued to steer traditional harmony in uncharted directions. His lyrical approach to line construction and depth of harmonic sensibility allow him to record and play all over the world with such master players and burgeoning stars as David Hazeltine, Ugonna Okegwo, Donald Vega, Willie Jones III, Rick Germanson, Quincy Davis, David Wong, Jason Brown, Dezon Douglas and Rodney Green.

A prolific composer, Fowser has celebrated four cooperative releases on Posi-tone Records, co-led with vibraphone virtuoso, Behn Gillece. His debut release as a leader, Standing Tall earned him the number-one spot on JazzWeek Radio Chart seven weeks in a row. Each track reflects a contemporary treatment of conventional harmonic concepts—a creative manipulation that has become part of his signature sound as a composer and an arranger, as well as a soloist.

Set for release in February 2017, Now Hear This, Fowser’s second release as a soloist for Posi-tone features 11 original compositions and the same chart-topping lineup as Standing Tall: Josh Bruneau, Rick Germanson, Paul Gill and Jason Tiemann. Performing live every Friday night, his blistering quintet headlines the New York nightlife scene at the Django inside the Roxy Hotel on the corner of Walker and Church (http://www.thedjangonyc.com).

Fowser’s fluid phrasing and melodic approach to improvising developed as a result of his exposure to the rich musical legacy of the Philly Sound, following in time with the rhythmic footsteps of John Coltrane, Lee Morgan, McCoy Tyner, Philly Joe Jones, Benny Golson and The Heath Brothers. Attending The University of the Arts in the early 2000s, Fowser studied with Tony Salicandro and Chris Farr, before transferring to William Paterson University in New Jersey, where he studied with NEA Jazz Master, Harold Mabern—an artistic force who remains one of Fowser’s major musical influences, today.

As a grad student at SUNY Purchase, Fowser studied with contemporary legends of the tenor saxophone Ralph Lalama, Grant Stewart and Eric Alexander—the latter with whom he forged a professional relationship, subbing for Alexander on many of his gigs, and playing with him live, in classic two tenor context.

Becoming more visible on the live music scene, in the latter 2000s Fowser enjoyed both downtown and uptown residencies at iconic New York venues. Hosting the session at Smalls Jazz Club every Tuesday for four years, and playing the late set at Smoke Jazz and Supper Club every Friday for two years, he followed headlining sets of such masters as the late Cedar Walton, Buster Williams and perhaps his greatest influence, George Coleman. Fowser has graced the bandstand from New York to San Francisco, playing Fat Cat, Zinc Bar, Chris’ Jazz Café, Ortlieb’s Jazz Haus, The Kimmel Center, Yoshi’s and Dizzy’s Club Coca-cola at Jazz at Lincoln Center.

An Indonesian Grammy nominee, Fowser has achieved international acclaim as the 2008 winner of San Francisco State University’s Int’l Generations Jazz Competition, and the recipient of a prestigious one-year mentorship with Jimmy Cobb, Ray Drummond and Jeremy Pelt. As he continues to expand his artistry as a composer, an educator and a bandleader, Fowser looks forward to finding new creative outlets in 2017.

Marc Phaneuf is a New York based freelance saxophonist and woodwind doubler. He has performed with Quincy Jones and the LA Philharmonic, The Boston Symphony and Boston Pops, John Williams, Aretha Franklin, Clark Terry, Ray Charles, Tony Bennett, Lou Rawls and Natalie Cole and also plays for Broadway, TV, Motion Pictures. He has recorded with the Boston Symphony, Iggy Pop, Deborah Cox, Tony Bennett/Lady Gaga and Vince Giordano and The Nighthawks.

His specialty as a performer and teacher is Jazz and Classical saxophone with an emphasis on improvisation.  He is a  former faculty member at the  University of  Massachusetts, Lowell College of Music. He taught privately and coached jazz ensembles at Boston College, LaGuardia High School of Music, Art and the Performing Arts.

Dr. Ginès-Didier Cano is the director/owner of the Crestwood Music Education Center, a progressive music school for instrumental and vocal studies with innovative programs designed for students of all ages. With over forty highly qualified and experienced teachers, the Crestwood Music Education Center boasts an enrollment of well over six hundred students.

Dr. Cano has served on the faculty of Long Island University, Concordia College, the Manhattan School of Music Preparatory Division, the Sarah Lawrence College Woodwind Quintet Chamber Music Program, the Mannes School of Music Preparatory Division, and the Québec Conservatoire. He received his doctorate from the Manhattan School of Music, a Masters from both the Juilliard School of Music and the Manhattan School of Music and a Premier Prix from the Conservatoire de Musique du Québec. His principal teachers include Stephen Maxym and Gaetan Laberge. Dr. Cano has performed as a soloist and principal bassoonist with the CBC Orchestra, Québec Symphony, Bethlehem Bach Festival Orchestra, New York Concertino Ensemble, New York City Symphony, the Sarah Lawrence College Woodwind Quintet, and the Juilliard Chamber Orchestra. His performances have also been broadcast on various New York and national radio stations, including WQXR, WNCN, and CBC Radio Canada. Dr. Cano has resided in the New York metropolitan area for almost thirty years.