Exeter, NH (July 6, 2007)—On Wednesday, July 11, 2007, at 7:00 p.m., flutist Julie Scolnik, a 1974 alumna of Phillips Exeter Academy, will perform with harpist Franziska Huhn and violist Marcus Thompson as part of the Phillips Exeter Academy Library’s Summer Concert Series. The concert is the third in a series of six, hosted by The Friends of the Academy Library, and will be held inside Rockefeller Hall, on the first floor of the Class of 1945 Library, located on Front Street. It is free and open to the public.

The evening’s performance will include music by a diverse group of composers -- the Debussy Sonata for Flute Harp and Viola, small gems by Fauré and Ibert, and selections by the sultry Argentine tango composer Astor Piazzolla and the celebrated prolific and provocative American composer, Lowell Lieberman.

Praised by the Boston Globe for her "tonal enchantment," Julie Scolnik has enjoyed a diverse musical career as a soloist, chamber musician, and orchestral flutist. She has performed as principal flute with many of Boston's leading orchestras including: Emmanuel Music, the Boston Pops, Boston Ballet, and Boston Lyric Opera, and toured and recorded with the Boston Symphony. In the chamber music world, she has appeared in celebrated festivals and collaborated with outstanding ensembles and artists including the Borromeo, Lydian and Brentano String Quartets.

Scolnik is the founder and artistic director of the Andover Chamber Music Series and of Mistral, an ensemble-in-residence known for presenting unique thematic programs in informal, imaginative performances. A frequent featured guest on Boston's WGBH radio, she has made over two dozen radio appearances. She received her master’s degree from The New England Conservatory. Presently, she teaches at the Longy School of Music.

Franziska Huhn has given numerous solo recitals throughout the United States, Europe and South Asia. She has participated in the Gustav Mahler Youth Orchestra (1994), the Pacific Music Festival in Japan (2001, 2002) and the Tanglewood Music Center in Lenox, Massachusetts (1999, 2000). Huhn actively performs as a substitute harpist with the Boston Symphony Orchestra.

She studied with Lucile Lawrence at Boston University and with Ann Hobson Pilot at the New England Conservatory of Music, where she completed a master’s degree. In 2003, Huhn was named assistant director of the Harp Seminar at Boston University's Tanglewood Institute, and was recently appointed to the harp faculty at the Longy School of Music and the New England Conservatory.

Marcus Thompson has appeared as viola soloist, recitalist and chamber music player in series throughout the Americas, Europe and the Far East. He was featured as soloist with the Symphony Orchestras of Atlanta, Chicago, Cleveland, Philadelphia, Saint Louis, and the Czech National Symphony. He has recorded the Bartok Viola Concerto and the Bloch Suite with the Slovenian Radio Symphony conducted by Paul Freeman.

Thompson has received critical acclaim for performances of the John Harbison Viola Concerto with the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra and the Chicago Sinfonietta, and for performances of the Penderecki Viola Concerto in Boston and London. He has been a guest of the Audubon, Borromeo, Cleveland, Emerson, Lydian, Muir, Orion, Shanghai, and Vermeer String Quartets, the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center and is a frequent participant in chamber music festivals throughout Europe, Canada and the United States.

He is a member of the Boston Chamber Music Society and earned a doctorate degree at The Juilliard School following studies with Walter Trampler. He is an alumnus of Young Concert Artists, Inc. and currently serves as the Robert R. Taylor Professor of Music at MIT, where he founded and leads programs in chamber music and performance study. He also serves on the viola faculty at New England Conservatory of Music.

For more information, please call Academy Librarian Jacquelyn H. Thomas at (603) 777-3328. For directions to Phillips Exeter Academy, call (603) 777-4330. For more information on other events, contact the Phillips Exeter Academy public events line at (603) 777-4309, or the Academy Library’s events page at http://www.exeter.edu/libraries/4513_4521.aspx or the Academy website at http://www.exeter.edu/. For directions to Phillips Exeter Academy, call (603) 777-4330.

Phillips Exeter Academy is a coeducational, independent preparatory school that was founded in 1781 and originated the system of instruction known as Harkness teaching in 1931. In the spirit of its charter to foster both goodness and knowledge, students come from a wide variety of geographic, economic, racial and religious backgrounds. The diverse student body comes from approximately 45 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands and 26 foreign countries.

Learn more about the 2007 Summer Concert Series.