Faculty

• Kathrine Handford, organ
  

  Lecturer in Music and University Organist

  Kathrine Handford joined the faculty of Lawrence University’s Conservatory of Music in 2004. In addition, she was appointed Director of Music and Organist at the historic Central Presbyterian Church in downtown St. Paul, Minnesota in the spring of 2006 after serving the church in an interim capacity for nearly a year.  From 2000-2004 she was Director of Music and Organist at  Hamline United Methodist Church in St. Paul, Minnesota. She holds the Master of Music degree in Organ Performance and Literature and the highly coveted Performer’s Certificate in Organ from the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York, where she is currently pursuing a doctorate in organ. Her principal teachers include the late Russell Saunders, David Craighead, David Higgs, Jerry Evenrud, Paul Manz and Grethe Krogh in Copenhagen, Denmark.

  A musician of wide ranging interests and accomplishments, Ms. Handford has appeared in recitals in the United States, Canada, England and Scandinavia. She has been a featured artist at the Bergen International Festival in Norway, the St. Olaf Festival in Trondheim, Norway, the Lahti International Music Festival in Finland, and at the International Organ Festival in Arona, Italy. Ms. Handford was the winner of the 35th International J.S. Bach Competition held at the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C. in 1993. In the same year, she received first prize in the John R. Rodland Scholarship Competition, sponsored by the New Jersey Chapter of the American Guild of Organists. She has been the recipient of many other grants and awards, including the National Endowment for the Arts. She has appeared as soloist with the Minnesota Orchestra in Saint-Saëns Symphony No. 3 in C Minor and with the Kansas City Chamber Orchestra performing Poulenc’s Concerto in g minor at the Association of Lutheran Church Musicians National Convention held at The Temple of The Community of Christ in Independence, Missouri. She has performed numerous recitals with the Swedish natural trumpet virtuoso Niklas Eklund. Her interest in new music has led to premieres of several new works for organ, including Stephen Paulus’s Toccata for Organ, Ketil Hvoslef’s Toccata for Organ, Robert Starer’s Angel Voices, and David Liptak’s Sonata for Violin and Organ which was commissioned by Benedictinus 2000 and premiered in Rome during the Jubilee. In the Twin Cities, Ms. Handford is active as a free-lance musician. She has been a Visiting Assistant Professor at St. John’s University in Collegeville, Minnesota, and has led numerous sessions during the summer Liturgical Music Workshops which draws individuals from throughout the United States and Canada.

  Contact by e-mail: kathrinehandford@me.com or kathrine.handford@lawrence.edu

• Catherine Kautsky, piano, chair
  

  Professor of Music

  Pianist Catherine Kautsky returned in Fall 2008 as Professor of Music and Chair of Keyboard Studies at Lawrence after a six-year hiatus as Professor of Music and then Chair of the Piano Department at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. 

  Ms. Kautsky has concertized throughout the United States and abroad as a recitalist, soloist with orchestra, and chamber musician, appearing in venues such as Alice Tully Hall and Carnegie Recital Hall in New York, Jordan Hall and the Gardner Museum in Boston, the Phillips Collection in Washington D.C., and the Cultural Center in Chicago.  She has soloed with the St. Louis Symphony, Milwaukee Chamber Orchestra, and Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra, performed chamber music at the Aspen, Tanglewood, and Grand Teton summer music festivals, and appeared frequently on the radio in Chicago, New York, Washington D.C., St. Louis, Pittsburgh, and Madison, often providing conversational commentary on music she performs.  Ms. Kautsky is the winner of the Passamaneck Competition in Pittsburgh, the C.D. Jackson Master Award at Tanglewood, and the Association Amicale d’Ecole Normale de Musique de Paris Prize of the French Piano Institute in Paris.  Three years ago, she was awarded the 2005 Arts Institute Creative Arts Award at UW-Madison for her work connecting music with other disciplines, particularly literature. Ms. Kautsky has traveled widely, performing frequently in France and England, and presenting concerts and classes most recently in China, Korea, and South Africa. Her articles have appeared in such journals as Clavier, American Music Teacher, and International Piano, and her CD of three pieces for piano and narrator, in which she both performs and speaks, was issued by Vox Classics.  She has recently completed a CD of the Debussy Preludes, to accompany a projected book on the genesis of that music and Debussy’s role in early 20th century Paris.  Very seriously committed to teaching, Ms. Kautsky held a grant for the last three years to take her studio touring, performing community outreach concerts in collaboration with dancers, actors, and students from other disciplines.

  Ms. Kautsky holds a bachelor’s degree from the New England Conservatory, a master’s degree from the Juilliard School, and a doctoral degree in performance from the State University of New York at Stony Brook, where she studied under Gilbert Kalish.  Following her New York debut, the New York Times called her “a pianist who can play Mozart and Schubert as though their sentiments and habits of speech coincided exactly with hers...She gave these pieces nuances that made them meaningful on a human everyday level.  The music spoke directly to the listener, with neither obfuscation nor pretense.”

  Contact by e-mail: catherine.c.kautsky@lawrence.edu

  Personal Homepage

• Michael Mizrahi, piano
  

  Assistant Professor of Music

  Pianist Michael Mizrahi has won acclaim for his compelling performances of a wide-ranging repertoire and his ability to connect with audiences of all ages. He has appeared as concerto soloist, recitalist, chamber musician, and teaching artist across the United States and abroad.

  Mr. Mizrahi has performed in the world’s leading concert halls including Carnegie Hall, Toyko’s Suntory Hall, the Kimmel Center in Philadelphia, Jordan Hall and the Gardner Museum in Boston, the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC, the Chicago Cultural Center and Houston’s Jones Hall. He has performed as soloist with major orchestras including the Houston Symphony, National Symphony, Haddonfield Symphony, Sioux City Symphony, and Prince Georges Philharmonic. He has given solo recitals at the Phillips Collection in Washington, DC and has made repeated appearances on the Dame Myra Hess Concert Series in Chicago. His chamber music festival appearances include Music@Menlo, Verbier, the Yellow Barn Music Festival, and the Steans Institute at the Ravinia Festival. Mr. Mizrahi won First Prize and the Audience Choice Award in the Ima Hogg International Competition, as well as first prizes in the International Bartók-Kabalevsky Competition and the Iowa International Piano Competition. He won third prize in the San Antonio International Piano Competition in 2006. Mr. Mizrahi appeared for many years on the active roster of Astral Artists.

  An enthusiastic promoter of music education, Mizrahi has presented lecture-recitals and master classes at The American School in Switzerland (TASIS), the University of North Carolina at Wilmington, and the University of Nebraska at Omaha. As a member of Carnegie Hall’s prestigious Academy program and Teaching Artists Collaborative, Mr. Mizrahi spent several hours a week as a teaching artist in New York City public schools.

  Dedicated to the music of our time, Mr. Mizrahi has commissioned and given world premieres of several new works for piano and frequently collaborates with composers and instrumentalists in the performance of 21st-century music. He is a founding member of NOW Ensemble, a chamber group devoted to the commissioning and performing of new music by emerging composers. NOW Ensemble released its second album, Awake, to critical acclaim in 2011. Mr. Mizrahi will release an album of newly commissioned works for solo piano on the New Amsterdam Records label in Spring 2012.

  Mr. Mizrahi is a also founding member of the Moët Trio, which is quickly establishing itself as one of today’s most exciting young piano trios. The Moët Trio recently completed a residency at the New England Conservatory.

  Michael Mizrahi received his bachelor’s degree from the University of Virginia, where his concentrations were in music, religion and physics. He holds master’s and doctoral degrees from the Yale School of Music, where he studied with Claude Frank. After his Philadelphia debut recital, the Philadelphia Inquirer wrote that “…the performance had transparency, revealing a forward-moving logic and chord voices you didn’t previously realize were there … textures were sumptuous.”

  Contact by e-mail: michael.d.mizrahi@lawrence.edu

• Anthony Padilla, piano
  

  Associate Professor of Music

  Anthony Padilla, recognized internationally as a pianist of remarkable sensitivity, refined interpretation, and dazzling technique, made his debut with the Seattle Symphony at the age of sixteen. Mr. Padilla has been performing extensively ever since, as guest artist with orchestras and at concert series throughout the world. Performance highlights include New York's Merkin Concert Hall, the La Jolla Chamber Music Society, the Ravinia Festival, Chautauqua, Schleswig-Holstein, Holzhausen, Victoria, Sarasota, Cascade, the Bay View and San Luis Obispo Mozart Festivals, and solo and collaborative appearances throughout the United States, Germany, Italy, and China.

  Mr. Padilla joined the Concert Artists Guild's distinguished roster of soloists as the top prize winner in the 2000 Concert Artists Guild International Competition, and his New York debut recital met with enthusiastic public and critical acclaim. Awarded the prestigious Beethoven Fellowship by the American Pianists Association in 1991, Mr. Padilla is also a laureate of the Gina Bachauer, Cleveland, William Kapell, and Walter Naumburg International Piano Competitions. In addition, he has won highest honors from the National Foundation for Advancement in the Arts, the Society of American Musicians, the Music Teachers National Association, the National Chopin-Koszciuszko Foundation, the Harvard Musical Association, and the Theodore Presser Foundation.

  Mr. Padilla has been Artist-in-Residence at the Bay View Music Festival since 1996. A graduate of the Eastman School of Music, he studied with Nelita True, Jeffrey Kahane, Natalya Antonova, BŽla S’ki, Donald Walker, and the late Jorge Bolet. An active member of the Music Teachers National Association, he is in constant demand for his engaging master classes and clinics, and his lecture-recital entitled "The Element of Humor in Classical Music" stirred great interest at the MTNA National Convention in Los Angeles. His students regularly receive highest awards at state and national auditions.

  Mr. Padilla's debut recording of Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson's "Statements: Sonata No. 2 for Piano" is now available on the CRI label. He also collaborates with his wife, pianist Sooyeon Kwon, for duo-piano performances.

  See Professor Padilla's homepage for more information.

  Contact by e-mail: anthony.p.padilla@lawrence.edu

• Bill Carrothers, jazz piano
  

  Lecturer of Music - Jazz Piano

  Bill Carrothers has been a professional pianist for 31 years. He has played many venues throughout the U.S. and Europe including the Village Gate, Knitting Factory, Birdland, Blues Alley, New Morning (Paris), the Audi Jazz Festival in Brussels, the Nevers Jazz Festival (where he shared the bill with Abbey Lincoln), the Montreal Jazz Festival, Jazz Middelheim, and the Marciac Festival in France. In October of 2000, Mr. Carrothers headlined the prestigious Rising Star Tour throughout Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. More recently, Bill headlined a week with his trio at the famed Village Vanguard in New York City as well as two solo performances at the Gilmore Keyboard Festival.

  He has been a leader on twenty recordings, all of which have received critical acclaim. His sideman credits have included some of the greatest names in jazz including Scott Colley, Buddy DeFranco, Dave Douglas, Curtis Fuller, Eric Gravatt, Drew Gress, Tim Hagans, Billy Hart, Billy Higgins, Ari Hoenig, Freddie Hubbard, Lee Konitz, James Moody, Gary Peacock, Dewey Redman, Charlie Rouse, James Spaulding, Bill Stewart, Ben Street, Ira Sullivan, Toots Thielemans, and Benny Wallace.

  Critical praise for Bill Carrothers:

  "The relentlessly inventive pianist Bill Carrothers' harmonic sophistication has to be heard to be believed."
  - Chicago Tribune

  "The pianist of the 21st century."
  - Liberation (France)

  "One of the most underrated jazz pianists around"
  - Pacific Sun

  "The new monster of the piano."
  - Telerama (France)

  "Carrothers' discs are epistles of taste and derring-do."
  - Village Voice

  "Bill Carrothers is standing on the threshold of being the great hope of the piano."
  - Jazzman Magazine (France)

  "Carrothers is a class act, already endowed with a formidable breadth of experience, and able to fit in with most contemporary jazz situations."
  - Penguin Guide To Jazz (9th edition, 2008)

  Bill Carrothers' personal webpage: http://www.carrothers.com/

• Nick Towns, collaborative piano
• Mary Van De Loo, piano pedagogy and coordinator of keyboard skills
  

  Instructor in Music

  Mary Van De Loo teaches piano pedagogy and coordinates the keyboard skills program at the Lawrence Conservatory, as well as maintaining a studio of pre-college students. A member of MTNA, she is a sought-after workshop clinician and adjudicator, and she has had articles published in Clavier and Keyboard Companion magazines. Prior to her position at Lawrence, Ms. Van De Loo was Director of the Division of Preparatory Music at Indiana State University, where she taught piano and coordinated all activities for the pre-college piano program. She holds a Bachelor of Music degree in piano from Lawrence University and a Master of Music degree in piano and piano pedagogy from the University of Oklahoma. She has studied piano with Theodore Rehl and Digby Bell and pedagogy with Kathleen Murray, Jane Magrath, and E.L. Lancaster.

  Contact by e-mail: mary.f.vandeloo@lawrence.edu

Video

More Conservatory Video

Links

• Keyboard Department Jury Form
  [If more than five copies are needed, send an email request to the Office.]

Visiting Artists

Each year, Lawrence brings outstanding performers to campus, exposing students to the very best of the international music scene. Frequently, students are able to work with these artists in a master class or lesson setting. Recent artists have included the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center; Peter Serkin, piano; Emanuel Ax, piano; The Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, and Richard Goode.

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