NYCB clarinetist Steven Hartman to perform, teach April 17

Clarinetist Steven D. Hartman makes his Skidmore College performance debut this month, but he has a quarter century of performances behind him as a member of the New York City Ballet Orchestra, and performed with the ballet at Saratoga Performing Arts Center for all but two summer seasons during that time. 

Hartman will play in recital at 3 p.m. Sunday, April 17, in the Arthur Zankel Music Center, Helen Filene Ladd Concert Hall, presenting a program that includes music by Brahms, Finzi and Jeanjean. Collaborating with Hartman in the matinee performance will be pianist Susan Walters, who will play a solo (to be announced) as part of the program. In addition, Skidmore clarinet instructor Susan Martula, faculty sponsor for this event, will join Hartman and Walters to play Poulenc's Sonata for Two Clarinets.

General admission for the concert is $12, $5 for students. Tickets are available online at http://www.showclix.com/.Tickets for the event also will be available at the Zankel box office from noon to 2 p.m. Thursday, April 14, and from noon to 3 p.m. Friday, April 15. 

Hartman and Walters also will present a master class at 6 p.m. Sunday, April 17, in ELM (Zankel room 117).

Principal clarinet for the NYCB Orchestra for the past two years, Hartman is also associate principal clarinet of the New York City Opera Orchestra, and principal clarinet of the Brooklyn Philharmonic, the Opera Orchestra of New York and the New York Scandia Symphony, and a member of Lincoln Center's Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra.

He has recently performed as guest principal with the American Symphony and the Oratorio Society of New York and is a frequent guest artist with the New York Philharmonic, the Metropolitan Opera and the Orchestra of St. Luke's and a former member of the Boehm Quintette, which recorded two volumes of American woodwind music for the Premiere label, and the Music Project Repertory Chamber Ensemble.

Born in St. Louis, Mo., he is a graduate of New York's Juilliard School, where he studied with Augustin Duqu s. After Juilliard, he continued private studies with Kalmen Opperman.

"One of Susan's (Martula) former students, who sometimes plays with me at the NY Scandia Symphony and other places, recommended me to Susan when she was preparing to do the Mozart Concerto with the Albany Symphony a few years ago, and was looking for a coach," Hartman explained, adding that there will be no intermission at this concert.

"I figure that the kids can better use the time to practice or write papers." He says he chose pieces that Skidmore student musicians could study or perform themselves.

Pianist Walters studied at the Curtis Institute of Music and the Mannes College of Music.  Her great love of chamber music was inspired by her studies with Rudolf Serkin, Nathan Milstein, and Felix Galimir, and in 1988 she co-founded the Golden Isles Chamber Music Festival on the Sea Islands of Georgia. 

Walters' collaborations include concerts with Midori; cellists Marcy Rosen, Peter Wiley, and Sharon Robinson; the Mendelssohn String Quartet; the Orpheus Chamber Ensemble; and members of the New York Philharmonic.

She has appeared with orchestras throughout the United States and has been a featured performer at the Caramoor Festival and the Mostly Mozart Festival. Walters has been a solo pianist with the New York City Ballet since 1997 and recently performed "Dances at a Gathering" with the ballet in Copenhagen, Paris, and New York City.

She also premiered the ballet "DSCH" by Alexei Ratmansky at Kennedy Center and Lincoln Center.