Hailed by the Baltimore Sun as “performing with a thrilling abandon,” flutist Robert Cart was recently appointed to Philadelphia’s Network for New Music. Robert is an international soloist, chamber musician, and orchestral player who has toured as soloist throughout Europe, Asia, and the Americas, and has worked with Bernstein, Leppard, Muti, Previn, and Zinman. He has performed at festivals, including Tanglewood, Ravello, and Aldeburgh, and as solo recitalist at The Kennedy Center, Carnegie Hall, and Lincoln Center. An advocate for new music, he has premiered more than 50 solo, chamber, and orchestral works by Jennifer Higdon, Gary Schocker, and others, and will soon be heard on the Albany and Centaur labels in premiere recording of works by Eugène Ysaÿe, Coleridge Taylor-Perkinson, Danbiel Dorff, and David Loeb. As a chamber musician, he is the founding flutist of the Éxi Chéria, a flute viola, and cello chamber ensemble, and PhillyQ, a woodwind quartet. Each summer, Robert serves as a faculty member at the Atlantic Music Festival, where he is also flutist and coordinator of the Contemporary Music Ensemble. As a Powell Flutes Artist, Dr. Cart presents clinics and master classes worldwide. His degrees include the Bachelor of Music (DePauw University), the Master of Music (Indiana University), and the Doctor of Musical Arts (University of Maryland College Park). His teachers have included Francis Fuge, Peter Lloyd, James Pellerite, and Gary Schocker, and he has taken additional studies and master classes with Alberto Almarza, Jeffrey Khaner, Marcel Moyse, Michael Parloff, and Jean-Pierre Rampal. Dr. Cart plays a vintage flute made in 1938 by Verne Q. Powell for Joseph LaMonaca, Associate Principal Flute of the Philadelphia Orchestra.

Reverend Pedro Alberto Sánchez, OSA

Reverend Pedro Alberto Sánchez OSA was born in Salamanca, Spain. His earliest music training was as a member of the famous boys’ choir at the Real Monasterio de San Lorenzo de El Escorial, and he studied in the music conservatory of Madrid “Arturo Soria”, where he graduated with the degree of Organ Professor. He then moved to Rome to attend the well-known Conservatorio Santa Cecilia, specialising in organ and composition under the tutelage of such masters as Ottorino Baldassarri, Jiri Lecjian and Federico del Sordo; he was also a member of the Schola at Saint Peter’s Basilica. He later continued his studies at the Pontificio Instituto de Música Sacra in Rome where he specialised in Gregorian chant and improvisation. Father Sánchez received a Master’s Degree in Organ Pedagogy from the Real Conservatorio Superior de Musica in Madrid, where his mentor was Dr D. Miguel Bernal Ripol. He has performed organ concerts in Spain, Mexico, Poland, Switzerland, Italy, Panama, Belgium and the United States of America. Father Sánchez is a priest of the Augustinian order, having pursued his religious studies at the Estudios Eclesiásticos por la Universidad Pontificia de Salamanca and Pontifical University of Saint Thomas Aquinas in Rome (Canon Law). He holds the positions of Music Director and Organist at the Real Monasterio del Escorial and Director of the Semana Internacional de Organo de Madrid.

The GRAMMY® Award-winning vocal ensemble Chanticleer has been hailed as “the world’s reigning male chorus” by The New Yorker, and is known around the world as “an orchestra of voices” for its wide-ranging repertoire and dazzling virtuosity.  Founded in San Francisco in 1978 by singer and musicologist Louis Botto, Chanticleer quickly took its place as one of the most prolific recording and touring ensembles in the world, selling over one million recordings and performing thousands of live concerts to audiences around the world.

Chanticleer’s repertoire is rooted in the renaissance, and has continued to expand to include a wide range of classical, gospel, jazz, popular music, and a deep commitment to the commissioning of new compositions and arrangements. The ensemble has committed much of its vast recording catalogue to these commissions, garnering GRAMMY® Awards for its recording of Sir John Tavener’s “Lamentations & Praises”, and the ambitious collection of commissioned works entitled “Colors of Love”.  Chanticleer is the recipient of the Dale Warland/Chorus America Commissioning Award and the ASCAP/Chorus America Award for Adventurous Programming, and its Music Director Emeritus Joseph H. Jennings received the Brazeal Wayne Dennard Award for his contribution to the African-American choral tradition during his tenure with Chanticleer.

Named for the “clear-singing” rooster in Geoffrey Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, Chanticleer continues to maintain ambitious programming in its hometown of San Francisco, including a large education and outreach program that recently reached over 8,000 people, and an annual concert series that includes its legendary holiday tradition “A Chanticleer Christmas”.

Chanticleer—a 501(c)(3) non-profit corporation—is the current  recipient of major grants from the Ann and Gordon Getty Foundation, The William & Flora Hewlett Foundation, The Dunard Fund/USA, The Bernard Osher Foundation, The National Lottery through the Arts Council of Northern Ireland,    The Bob Ross Foundation, Grants for the Arts/San Francisco Hotel Tax Fund, and The National Endowment for the Arts. Chanticleer’s activities as a not-for-profit corporation are supported by its administrative staff and Board of Trustees.

Dr. Philip Brisson is Director of Music and Organist at the Catholic Cathedral of the Assumption in downtown Louisville, the third oldest Catholic Cathedral in the country. In addition to leading the Cathedral’s worship program, he also manages the Cathedral’s Concert Series, which includes the Kelty Endowed Organ Recitals which have further recognized the Cathedral for not only musical excellence in liturgy but also for outstanding concerts in the Louisville community. Philip has led the Cathedral Choir on international concert tours to England, Ireland, Germany, and Austria. Recently, the choir traveled to Washington DC for performances in the Arlington area and at the National Shrine. Locally, the Cathedral Choirs have performed with the Louisville Orchestra, have been featured on television, and have appeared annually for concerts in collaboration with Louisville’s Christ Church Episcopal Cathedral and Calvary Episcopal Church under the title “Louisville’s Three Choirs Festival.” Recent solo performing experiences have included being “Organist in Residence” at Christ Church Cathedral in Oxford, England; appearing on the L’Organo Recital Series at the Piccolo Spoleto Festival in Charleston, SC; and concertizing in Hasselt, Belgium and Rome, Italy.

Dr. Brisson was instrumental in the founding of the Louisville Master Chorale, a premier chorale ensemble which performs the great chorale literature with orchestra in local churches throughout the Louisville area, where he was Organist and Associate Director for its first five years. Prior to his work with the LMC, he was Chorus Master for the Kentucky Opera and prepared choruses for performances which included Puccini’s Turandot and Madame Butterfly, Verdi’s La Traviata, Il Trovatore and Otello, Poulenc’s Dialogues of the Carmelites, Saint-Saëns’ Samson et Dalila, Sullivan’s Pirates of Penzance, Massenet’s Werther, Floyd’s Of Mice and Men, Humperdinck’s Hansel and Gretel, Leoncavallo’s I Pagliacci, Mascagni’s Cavalleria Rusticana, Tchaikovsky’s Iolanta, and Donizetti’s L’elisir d’Amore.

As an organ soloist, he has given recitals in all 50 states. He has appeared with the Lexington Philharmonic, the Oratorio Society of Queens, and with the Louisville Orchestra as guest soloist performing the Saint-Saëns Organ Symphony with Raymond Leppard conducting. In the summer of 2011, Philip was also a featured performer for the Region V AGO Convention in Lexington, KY and the NPM National Convention in Louisville, KY.

As a teacher, Dr. Brisson served on the faculty of Bellarmine University where he taught organ performance and a Church Music Internship at the Cathedral. Until taking over the Kentucky Opera Chorus, he oversaw the choral program at Indiana University Southeast, where he conducted the Concert Choir, the Community Chorus, and taught choral conducting. He has also presented workshops to the American Guild of Organists and to the National Association of Pastoral Musicians at both the regional and national level.

Originally from New York City, Philip received his BM in Organ Performance from the Aaron Copland School of Music at Queens College, CUNY. While at Queens, he studied organ and conducting with Paul Maynard, the former director of the New York Pro Musica. After being accepted into graduate organ performance programs at Juilliard, Indiana, and Michigan, Philip decided to attend Westminster Choir College in Princeton, New Jersey, where he earned a Masters in Sacred Music. While at Westminster, he studied organ with Robert Carwithen and choral conducting with Allen Crowell. He was also fortunate to regularly sing under Joseph Flummerfelt in the Westminster Symphonic Choir which performed Stravinsky’s Symphony of Psalms with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, conducted by Esa-Pekka Salonen and Hindemith’s Requiem with the Philadelphia Orchestra, conducted by Wolfgang Sawallisch. In 2005, Philip earned a Doctorate in Organ Performance from the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York, where he studied organ with David Higgs and received a choral conducting minor while studying conducting with William Weinert.

Philip Brisson is active in the American Guild of Organists, has served on the Louisville Chapter’s Executive Committee and has held both the Sub-Dean and Dean positions for the Guild. He is also the National Association of Pastoral Musicians Organist Liaison for the Louisville Archdiocese, has served as Membership Chairman of the Roman Catholic Conference of Cathedral Musicians, and is a member of The Honorable Order of Kentucky Colonels. Dr. Brisson also founded the concert artist cooperative EastWestOrganists.com, which represents several prominent young American organists in the United States. Philip, his wife, and their eight-year-old daughter reside in Old Louisville, the nation’s largest Victorian Historic District.