Music

Presented By: The Bates Department of Music: Whereas there is great merit to a carefully curated ‘meal’ with a progression of related dishes, oftentimes, a smorgasbord buffet affords a similarly satisfying experience. The pieces on tonight’s concert fall into the latter category, works chosen by the performers because; we like them, we enjoy sharing them with our audience, and we enjoy trying out some new things as well as tried and true favorites.

Performer Bios:

Robert Lehmann is Professor of Music at the Osher School of Music at the University of Southern Maine where he is Director of String Studies, teaches violin and conducts the Southern Maine Symphony and the Portland Youth Symphony Orchestras. In addition to his duties at USM, he is Music Director of the North Shore Philharmonic Orchestra, the White Mountain Bach Festival and conductor of the Maine State Ballet. He holds degrees in Violin Performance from the University of the Pacific where he studied with Warren Van Bronkhorst, the Eastman School, studies with Peter Salaff and the Cleveland Quartet, and Boston University, studies with Dana Mazurkevich and David Hoose, and has been a fellow at the Aspen Festival’s American Academy of Conducting and at the Conductors Institute at Bard College. Dr. Lehmann has concertized as violinist and conductor, in his native Mexico, throughout the US, Central America, Europe, and Ukraine. He has been of frequent guest conductor with the Portland Symphony, Portland Ballet, and has conducted All-State and Festival Orchestras from Maine to California and Hawaii. He has been an adjudicator the National Orchestra Festival at the ASTA National Convention and is in demand as a performer, conductor, teacher, speaker, and is listed in Who’s Who in American Music.

He has performed as first violinist of the Meliora Quartet and concertmaster of the Opera Maine Orchestra and the Choral Art Society. His CD, “Chamber Music for String by Manuel M. Ponce” was issued by Centaur Records in 2009. Prior to his appointment at USM, he was Music Director of the Mozart Society Orchestra at Harvard, and on the conducting staff of the Greater Boston, Rhode Island, and Empire State Youth Orchestras. He has given numerous word and regional premieres including Elliot Schwartz’s’ “Concerto VI: Mr. Jefferson”, Portland Ballet’s “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” and most recently Daniel Crozier’s double clarinet concerto “Sprit”, and Daniel Sonenberg’s ‘kintuskuroi’. His 2012 performance of Mahler’s Symphony No. 3 was named the top performance event of the Portland concert season by The Portland Press Herald. 

Recent highlights have included return engagements to perform recitals at the American Church in Paris and the Assisi Performing Arts Festival (Italy). With BMOP (Boston Modern Orchestra Project) he has recorded and performed in Jordan Hall and Carnegie Hall. Together with his USM colleague Dr. Elizabeth Goryunova, Dr. Lehmann recently published an article focusing on leadership “lessons” gleaned from the world of conductors and symphony orchestras as they pertain to wider, global leadership applications. Achieving Harmony: Leadership and Followership Lessons from the Orchestra, was recently published in The Springer Handbook of Global Leadership and Followership: Integrating the Best Leadership Theory and Practice.  Subsets of this research were also published in the “From the Podium” on-line journal in 2022 and presented virtually at the International Leadership Association’s Annual Global Conference in Geneva, Switzerland in October 2021.

A recent sabbatical afforded Dr. Lehmann the opportunity to guest conduct the Concord Orchestra, perform recitals tours in California, Germany and Switzerland and to be Artist in Residence with the Camerata Medica in Vienna Austria. Recent highlights include recitals at USM, solo concerto appearances of the Mozart Sinfonia Concertante with the Midcoast Symphony, the Joseph du Boulogne violin concerto in G with the North Shore Philharmonic, and guest conducting appearances with the Portland Symphony and the Maine Music Theater.

Dr. Lehmann primarily plays a 2014 Benjamin Ruth (Swampscott, MA) violin and resides in Gorham, Maine with his wife Kim, a violist with the Portland Symphony Orchestra, and his partner in the “Lehmann Duo”. 

Chiharu Naruse has performed as a soloist and a chamber musician throughout the United States, Germany, France and Japan. Her broad range of orchestral repertoire include performances of Shostakovich, Rachmaninov, Beethoven, Mozart and Schumann piano concertos with multiple orchestras. Naruse has also performed with the Da Ponte Quartet, Portland String Quartet, Venti Cordi and the Portland Ballet. Her musical projects range from German classical repertoire to regular collaboration with contemporary composers in the interpretation and performance of their compositions. Naruse is frequently contracted by recording companies to record contemporary music. To date, she has several recordings with Navona Records and, most recently, released a solo album of compositions by Kenneth Kuhn from Big Round Records.

In addition to maintaining a regular performance schedule, Naruse is also a well respected teacher, chamber music coach and competition adjudicator with many of her students receiving competition awards and gaining acceptance to major music conservatories. Naruse is currently a Collaborative Pianist and member of applied music faculty at Bates College and the faculty of the Portland Conservatory of Music.

Naruse is a graduate from Hochschule für Musik “Hanns Eisler” in Berlin, Germany where she studied piano with Klaus Bäßler, art song collaboration with Wolfram Rieger and chamber music with Suzanne Glützmann. She is also a former student of Frank Glazer.