Infinite Joy

Marc Fink joined the Madison Symphony Orchestra in 1973 as English hornist and was named principal oboist in 1988 succeeding the late Catherine Paulu. In his long tenure he has had a front row seat to the incredible growth of the organization, performing with such a wealth of soloists (Itzhak Perlman, Gil Shaham, Olga Kern, Emanuel Ax and Vladimir Spivakov to name but a few). Marc, himself, has been soloist with MSO on several occasions, performing concertos of Richard Strass, Vivaldi, JS Bach, Cimarosa, and Marcello.

Marc’s distinguished career includes 40 years on the faculty of the UW-Madison Mead-Witter School of Music. He was oboist in the faculty Wingra Quintet, performing outreach throughout the state as well as nationally (Carnegie Recital Hall, Fairbanks, Alaska, Chicago, Minneapolis, Florida). His many students at the university have gone on to successful careers in public school teaching, college/university teaching, and professional performance. He particularly enjoyed teaching the course, Music in Performance, originated by Gunnar Johansen, a course which introduced classical music to thousands of undergraduate students. Marc was invited to perform and present master classes at many universities and music schools, including Iowa, Georgia, Northwestern, Brigham Young, Arizona State, and Oregon.

In the 1980’s Marc was invited by Gordon Wright (founder of the Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra) to tour as soloist with the Arctic Chamber Orchestra, Fairbanks, Alaska. His tours with the ACO took him to many small Native villages (such as Togiak, Iliamna, New Stuyahok, Naknek) as well as larger communities of Pt. Barrow and Kenai-Soldotna. In many cases, audiences were listening to a symphony orchestra for the first time. Cultural exchanges often followed the orchestral performances with the Alaskan youth performing traditional music for drums and dancing.

Marc was elected president of the International Double Reed Society and served from 1998-2002 also serving as conference host in Madison and co-host in Banff, Canada. He was featured soloist in several international double reed festivals, including “Oboes of the World in St. Petersburg,” Kazan “Kremlin” Festival, Tokyo Double Reed Festival, Rio Winds, the Pushechnikov Festival (Moscow) and the Chengdu (China) Double Reed Festival. In addition, he has performed at IDRS international conferences in Birmingham, Buenos Aires, Granada, Melbourne, Banff, Frankfurt, and Rotterdam. In 2014 he was awarded the President’s Award in recognition of distinguished service to the society.

Marc has performed Mozart’s Oboe Concerto several times, including at the South Bohemian Music Festival in České Budějovice, Czech Republic, conducted by friend and colleague James Smith, music director emeritus of Wisconsin Youth Symphony Orchestras. He and his wife Marcia have three grown daughters, Leah, Anna, and Ellie, four grandchildren, and a playful pug puppy, Melody. He enjoys playing tennis with his buddies, an occasional round of golf, and international travel with his family.

Marc has recorded with the Pro Arte Quartet (music of Crusell, Mozart, Britten, and Harbison) and with the Russian Folk Orchestra (20^th century oboe music by Russian composers). He has published band transcriptions of concertos by Pasculli, Hummel, and Cimarosa, as well as a series of works for oboe by Russian composers of the 20^th century.

In spring, 2022, Marc served as adjunct music faculty member at Luther College, Decorah, Iowa, where he taught oboe performance. Marc currently serves on the Boards of Directors for Madison Symphony Orchestra and Wisconsin Youth Symphony Orchestras.

Marc would like to say how greatly appreciative he is of the MSO community, colleagues, staff/board, and audience members. Thank you for 48 years of wonderful artistic collaboration.

Soprano Laquita Mitchell consistently earns acclaim on eminent international opera and concert stages worldwide. In her compelling début as Bess in Porgy and Bess with the San Francisco Opera, Opera News said “Laquita Mitchell, in her first outing as Bess, dazzled the SFO [San Francisco Opera] audience with her purity of tone and vivid theatrical presence.” Ms. Mitchell performed as the soprano soloist in the world première of Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Paul Moravec’s Sanctuary Road at Carnegie Hall with Oratorio Society of New York which was nominated for a 2021 Grammy for Best Choral Performance. Additional recent performances include the title role in Tom Cipullo’s Josephine with Opera Colorado, as well as The Promise of Living, a concert program conceived by Ms. Mitchell, Bess in Porgy and Bess with Grange Park Opera in the UK, Lithuanian State Symphony, Detroit Symphony, and Baltimore Symphony, a reprisal of Sanctuary Road with the Columbus Symphony, a Gala Concert for Colorado Symphony, and Mahler’s Symphony No. 4 and Barber’s Knoxville: Summer 1915 with the Augusta Symphony.

Kirsten Lippart is a lyric mezzo-soprano based in Madison, WI. She frequently performs operatic, musical theatre, and concert stages, both in choral groups and as a soloist. During the 2019-20 season, Ms. Lippart was the Studio Artist with the Madison Opera. With a wide range and vocal flexibility, she has performed a variety of operatic and musical theatre roles such as Alisa, Lucia di Lammermoor; Third Wood Sprite, Rusalka; ​Fox, The Cunning Little Vixen; Lola, Cavalleria Rusticana; Third Spirit, The Magic Flute; and Flora, La Traviata; among others.

Hailed by The New York Times as “a bass with an attitude and the goods to back it up,” Matt Boehler is a singer equally at home on the international opera stage as well as the concert platform. He has appeared as a principal artist with The Metropolitan Opera, New York City Opera, Dallas Opera, Théâtre Royal de la Monnaie, Theater St. Gallen, and Canadian Opera Company, as well as a soloist with the New York Philharmonic, Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, Minnesota Orchestra, and the New York Festival of Song, among many others. Frequently in demand as a collaborator and interpreter of new music, Matt’s discography features many world premieres. A native of Minneapolis, Minnesota, he trained as an actor at Viterbo College, an opera singer at Juilliard, and as a composer at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music.

Filipino-American tenor, Jared Esguerra, is a dedicated performer of vocal works ranging from opera to concert repertoire and musical theater. The Chicago native has been praised for his “pleasing tenor” voice and continues to be in high demand. In addition to his role debut as Fenton in Verdi’s Falstaff at the Crested Butte Music Festival in 2018, he has portrayed Miles in The Turn of the Screw with Chicago Fringe Opera and Ferrando in Cosi fan tutte with the Floating Opera Company. He has also sung Pirelli in Sweeney Todd with the Janiec Opera Company at Brevard Music Center, the Messenger in Il Trovatore at Sarasota Opera, and the Englishman in Angélique, Luiz in The Gondoliers, and Eisenstein in Die Fledermaus all at DePaul University, of which he’s an alumnus. On the concert stage, Jared recently appeared as the tenor soloist with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in Now Let’s Sing and with Chicago Sinfonietta in its MLK Tribute concert series. After a sold-out run of West Side Story as A-Rab at the Edinburgh International Festival, Jared returned to appear with Chicago Opera Theater (COT) in the critically acclaimed world premiere of Freedom Ride in 2020. He also covered the role of Giovanni in COT’s live-streamed production of La hija de Rappaccini in April 2021.