Relâche Ensemble Members
Bob Butryn, clarinets & sax
Bob Butryn studied clarinet at Temple University. He has performed with numerous classical, jazz and rock ensembles in the Philadelphia area, including a progressive klezmer band called Klingon Klezmer, and has his own band called the Bob Butryn Orchestra. Bob is also a dancer. He has arranged and choreographed a music/dance show called Crazy Rhythm, Fancy Feet which is based on a wide variety of American music and dance styles and forms. You can learn more about the show on the web at www.crff.net.
Andrea Clearfield, piano & keyboards
Andrea Clearfield has been playing with Relache since the early 1990’s. Andrea is an award winning composer of music for orchestra, chorus, chamber ensembles, multi-media and dance. She has been praised by the New York Times for her “graceful tracery and lively, rhythmically vital writing,” the Philadelphia Inquirer for her “compositional wizardry” and “mastery with large choral and instrumental forces” and by the L.A. Times for her “fluid and glistening orchestration." Her works are performed widely in the U.S. and abroad. Recent premieres include Kawa Ma Gyur, a chamber work inspired by her 2010 trek documenting the Tibetan music in the restricted Himalayan region of Lo Monthang, Nepal, commissioned by Network for New Music. She was awarded a fellowship at the prestigious American Academy in Rome from the American Composers Forum, 2010 and has been a fellow at Yaddo, The MacDowell Colony and The Virginia Center for the Creative Arts among others. She serves on the composition faculty at The University of the Arts. She is also the founder and host of the Salon concert series featuring contemporary, classical, jazz, electronic and world music, celebrating its 25th year and winner of Philadelphia Magazine’s 2008 “Best of Philadelphia” award. More info at www.andreaclearfield.com.
Chris Hanning, percussion
Chris Hanning is the Director of Percussion Activities at West Chester University. He is the principal percussionist/timpanist with the Lehigh Valley Chamber Orchestra and timpanist with the Bach Festival Orchestra of Bethlehem. He also performs drum set with the jazz trio M.P.H. featuring saxophonist Gunnar Mossblad, and with the Peter Paulsen Quintet. Chris has performed on numerous recordings for NFL Films including two Emmy Award Winning projects. His most recent recordings include soundtracks for My Father’s Gun and Blood From a Stone (History Channel Movies), various selections for the closing ceremony of the 2006 Super Bowl, a CD with legendary saxophonist David Leibman and the Manhattan Saxophone Quartet titled The Seasons Reflected (Soul Note), a CD by the M.P.H. Trio titled Curves (GPC Records), and a CD by the Bach Choir of Bethlehem (Dorian). Recent reviews of Chris Hanning’s performance on The Seasons Reflected note “…drummer Hanning is magnificent” (Wire Magazine, England) and “…profound African drumming” (All about Jazz).
Chuck Holdeman, bassoon
Bassoonist Chuck Holdeman is also a composer. He has written songs, works for band, orchestra, and small ensembles, film and educational music. He and his librettist partner Vince Marinelli wrote and premiered their one-act opera Agostino and the Puccini Clarinet in 2007, with a revival in May 2008. In ‘06 his oboe concerto was commissioned and premiered by the Philadelphia Classical Symphony with Richard Woodhams, principal oboist of the Philadelphia Orchestra, as the soloist. In ‘09 Relâche commissioned Chuck to write music to accompany the silent film At Land, for a concert honoring pioneer experimental film-maker Maya Deren. Quintetto was premiered in Birmingham, England last July, and At the Bend, based on poems of W. S. Merwin last April in Round Top, Texas.
Chuck is principal bassoonist for the Bach Festival of Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, since 1969. He is a graduate of the Curtis Institute of Music, where he studied with Sol Schoenbach; he later studied the French-system bassoon with Maurice Allard in Paris. He was a member of the Buffet Trio for more than 20 years, also performing, touring nationally and internationally with Relâche from ’85 to ’95, having rejoined Relâche in 2007.
He was chosen 1999 Composer of the Year by the Pennsylvania and Delaware State Music Teachers Associations, and in 2000 was the first recipient of the Delaware Division of the Arts Master Artist Fellowship. In 2003 Chuck received the Beekhuis Award for outstanding service and performance in the Delaware Symphony, from which he retired last May.
Chuck has produced two CD’s, one featuring Buffet Music, commissioned by Hampden-Sydney College for the Buffet Trio, and the other an all original solo album, partially recorded in the Cistern, an empty 2 million gallon water storage tank in Port Townsend, Washington, with a 20-40 second reverberation time, enabling the bassoon to play chords among other magical effects. A CD of his recent chamber music compositions is in progress.
Chuck Holdeman has been an artist-in-residence at hospitals, schools, colleges, and senior centers, and has worked with students from Headstart through all grades. His sponsors have included Meet the Composer, American Composers Forum/Philadelphia, ASCAP, the Delaware and Washington State Arts Councils, Soundhouse, ArtsAware, and Wolf Trap for Early Childhood.
Michele Kelly, flutes,
Co-Artistic Director
Michele Kelly joined Relâche in 1998. The New York-born, Houston-raised flutist is an experienced chamber musician, performing with numerous ensembles varying in size and style. A strong advocate of a broad-based and culturally diverse music education system, Michele is a highly regarded clinician, ensemble coach, and studio teacher. She plays an active role at the University of Pennsylvania’s College House music program, a unique teaching and mentorship program within a residency environment. As ensemble coach, master clinician, studio teacher, and adviser, she is an indispensable resource for college musicians interested not only in instrumental performance in its traditional model, but also in the organic experience of musicians’ lives, and the cultural climate in which they are able to thrive. Away from Penn, Michele continues to nurture young musical talent in the form of her active and committed private studio. Michele received her M.M. from the University of Michigan, where she also earned a post-Master’s Specialist degree in chamber music performance. Away from the flute, Michele maintains an active interest in health and nutrition. The daughter of noted abstract expressionist painter James Groff lives with her husband, multi-instrumentalist Darin Kelly, sons Eamon and Eoin and daughter Maureen in the Fairmount section of Philadelphia.
Amy Leonard, viola
Philadelphia native Amy Leonard received viola performance degrees from the Oberlin Conservatory and the Manhattan School of Music, and has studied baroque viola at Oberlin’s Baroque Performance Institute. Principal teachers have included Leonard Mogill, Jeffrey and Lynne Ramsey Irvine, Karen Ritscher, Charles Bruck, and Jane Starkman.
Though much of her career has been devoted to the teaching and performing of orchestral music, Amy is also an active recitalist and chamber musician, participating in a number of music festivals in North America and Europe such as Aspen, Banff, Spoleto USA, and Mostra Mozart in Venice, Italy. Amy also enjoyed a decade-long relationship with the Pierre Monteux School in Hancock, Maine, first as student, then as administrator and director of the school’s chamber music series. Past orchestral positions have been with the Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra, the New World Symphony (Miami Beach, FL), and as assistant principal violist with the National Symphony Orchestra of Ireland, where Amy performed with the internationally recognized contemporary ensemble Nua Nos, or “New Noise”. Amy taught viola at Southeastern Louisiana University in Hammond, Louisiana for four years; her students are now members of the Mississippi and Baton Rouge Symphonies.
Currently, Amy maintains a large and lively studio teaching viola and violin at the Music School of Delaware, the Shipley School in Bryn Mawr, PA and at home. Recent recital appearances have been at Calvary Episcopal Church in Wilmington, DE, and at the Philadelphia Ethical Society. In addition to performing with Relâche, Amy often performs with the Delaware Symphony Orchestra, the baroque ensembles Tempesta di Mare and Brandywine Baroque, the Pennsylvania Ballet Orchestra, Philly Pops, Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia, Princeton Symphony and Opera Delaware.
Douglas Mapp, bass
Douglas Mapp is a graduate of the Philadelphia College of the Performing Arts and the Temple University Graduate School of Music. He is principal bassist with the Reading Symphony, Kennett Square Symphony and Opera Delaware. Douglas is also a member of the Delaware Symphony and has performed with the Philadelphia Orchestra in Philadelphia, Saratoga, NY and on one of their recent European tours. He has performed under the batons of Riccardo Muti, Klaus Tennstedt, Wolfgang Sawalisch, Lukas Foss, Phillippe Entremont and Charles Dutoit. Douglas is an active chamber musician having performed with the Mendelssohn String Quartet and the SEM Ensemble of New York. He has performed with numerous jazz artists including Terrance Blanchard, Patti Austin, Natalie Cole, Ernie Watts, Randy Brecker, Sean Jones, Doc Severison, Billy Childs, Denis DiBlasio, Jimmy Bruno, Donald Byrd, Bobby McFerrin and James Moody. Douglas is an Assistant Professor of Jazz Studies at Rowan University.
Lloyd Shorter, oboe & English horn,
Co-Artistic Director
Lloyd Shorter has played with Relâche since 1990. As a soloist, he’s performed under the direct consultation of many major composers, including John Corigliano, Joan Tower, and Simon Bainbridge. Lloyd’s performances with Relâche have included the Prague Spring Festival, concerts in Berlin, Vienna, Warsaw, Cracow, Amsterdam, Vilnius, Seattle, Phoenix, New York City and Venezuela. He has received grants from the State of Delaware for solo work and touring, from the University of Delaware for Internet2 research, and was a Salzburg Seminar fellow to debate the future of classical music. Lloyd has been a member of the Delaware Symphony for over 30 years and is on the faculty at the University of Delaware, where he teaches oboe and English horn, along with numerous courses on music and cultural history, with an emphasis on contemporary music. At the University, he is also involved in research using Internet2 for music instruction featuring live class interviews with some of the most interesting creative artists of our time.