Soothing Serenades

Jonathan Phillips MS '99 (color science), native of Rochester, NY, is returning to accept the RIT Distinguished Alumni Award from the RIT Alumni Association for his accomplishments in color and imaging sciences. In conjunction, he is performing a viola recital, "Soothing Serenades", which features the world premiere of The Great Ocean of Truth by Shelbie Rassler with text by Sir Isaac Newton.  Additional recital works are by Schumann, Milhaud, Brahms, and Bridge. The performance includes NYC mezzo-soprano Kara Dugan, winner of the 2020 Rochester Oratorio Society's International Vocal Competition among other accolades, and esteemed pianist David Lutz, professor emeritus at the University of Music in Vienna, Austria. The recital is being held on Sunday, April 16, 3 p.m. at St. Paul's Episcopal Church, 25 Westminster Rd. in Rochester.

Click here to view the concert program.

Jonathan Phillips

Violist Jonathan Phillips, a native of Rochester, NY, began Suzuki violin studies in first grade at Rochester Christian School. He switched to playing viola during his undergraduate studies at the Wheaton College Conservatory of Music in Illinois. His principal violin teachers were Nancy Hunt and Sungil Lee of the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra and Lee Joiner at Wheaton. His primary viola teacher has been George Taylor at the Eastman School of Music after initial studies with Lee Joiner and Elizabeth Richey.

His collaborations have included performances with the Dean of Juilliard, Stephen Clapp, as well as faculty from the Manhattan School of Music, the Eastman School of Music, and the Wheaton Conservatory of Music, including Linda Chesis, David Geber, George Taylor, Phillip Ying, and Lee Joiner. Jonathan's orchestral experience has included the Googler Orchestra, Stanford Philharmonia, South Bay Symphony, Orchestra of the Southern Finger Lakes, Western New York Chamber Orchestra in Fredonia, University of Rochester Symphony, Penfield Symphony, and Wheaton College Symphony Orchestra. He has performed chamber music concerts with the Cooperstown Chamber Music Festival, pianoSonoma, Manhattan School of Music Amateur Chamber Musicians Festival, and the Chamber Music Conference and Composers' Forum of the East during its Bennington College years.

Jonathan's technical career has included over 20 years at Kodak from environmental chemist to principal scientist positions, 10 years in image science lab manager roles at NVIDIA and Google in Silicon Valley, and his current responsibilities as Vice President of Imaging Science at Imatest, a leading company in image quality testing based in Boulder, Colorado that supports camera development for many of the world's top companies across many industries, including automotive, mobile electronics, security, aerospace, and medical imaging. During his career, he has been a key contributor to the launch of the Advanced Photo System and Advantix Film, the Kodak/Lexmark Picture Maker, and the EasyShare Printer Dock family at Kodak, the camera ISP in NVIDIA's Tegra chip, and the cameras and displays of the Google Pixel smartphone series.  His awards have included the International Imaging Industry Association (I3A) Achievement Award for groundbreaking work in modeling camera phone image quality, the Kodak Research Scientific Council Silver Team Achievement Award for the Orion (Advantix Film) Support Coatings Launch Team, and the RIT Distinguished Alumni Award.  Jonathan is co-author of Camera Image Quality Benchmarking, part of the Wiley-IS&T Series in Imaging Science and Technology. Kodak sponsored his Master's and Ph.D. work in color science at Rochester Institute of Technology's Munsell Color Science Laboratory. His undergraduate studies in chemistry and music were at Wheaton College (Illinois).

Kara Dugan

Mezzo soprano Kara Dugan has been praised by The New York Times for her "vocal warmth and rich character." Her versatile career ranges from oratorio to world premieres. She made her Kennedy Center debut with Michael Tilson Thomas conducting his piece Four Preludes on Playthings of the Wind with the National Symphony Orchestra. Her work with living composers also includes In a New York Minute: Miniatures for Voice and Piano, a newly commissioned song cycle with WQXR comprised of 5 one-minute songs by women composers and poets highlighting some of the joys and challenges faced by New Yorkers during the pandemic. Additional work with living composers includes her debut with the Albany Symphony singing This Land Sings by Michael Daugherty, and performances in the roles of Amadora/Stelladora in John Musto's opera Bastianello for Festival Napa Valley. She can also be heard as a guest host on WQXR.

A passionate recitalist and chamber musician, she often performs with her husband, pianist Peter Dugan. Last season they were presented by New York Festival of Song, Boston's Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Portland Chamber Music Festival, Emerald City Music, and WQXR's Greene Space. They have also been featured performers on PBS Great Performances “Now Hear This,” and performed as part of the Wigmore Hall’s Bollinger International Song Competition.

Recent awards include first prize in the Rochester International Vocal Competition, Regional finalist of the Metropolitan Opera's Laffont competition, a finalist prize with the James Toland Vocal Arts competition, and in 2021 she was named a member of WQXR’s Inaugural Artist Propulsion Lab. Ms. Dugan has sung with the San Francisco Symphony, Philadelphia Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Buffalo Philharmonic, New World Symphony, Marlboro Music Festival, Ravinia Steans Institute, Boston Early Music Festival, North Country Chamber Players, Wolf Trap Opera, Alice Tully Hall, and Aspen Music Festival. She is a graduate of the Juilliard School.

David Lutz

Pianist David Lutz was born in Reading, Pennsylvania and studied at the University of Delaware and at Boston University. From 1978 to 2001, he taught classes in Lied and Oratorio and in Vocal Accompanying at the Konservatorium der Stadt Wien (Conservatory of the City of Vienna, Austria). In 1994, he began as Professor of Vocal Accompanying at the Universität für Musik und darstellende Kunst Wien (University for Music and Applied Arts in Vienna, Austria). David was promoted to Full Professor in 2001.  Since 2015, he is now Professor Emeritus.

He has accompanied acclaimed artists such as Lucia Popp, Robert Holl, Thomas Hampson, Hermann Prey, Nicolai Gedda, Ildikó Raimondi and many others. He has also appeared at the Salzburg Festival, the Vienna Festival, the Summer Music Vienna (Klangbogen), the Schubertiade Hohenems, the Hermann Prey Schubertiade in Vienna, the Romantic week at Schloss Grafenegg, the Carinthian Summer, the Feast of Hellbrunn, the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, the Festival di Carpi, the Festival Musica da camera Old Jaffa / Tel Aviv, at the Dresden Music Festival and the Savonlinna Opera Festival. Concerts have taken Professor Lutz to most of the countries of Europe, to the USA, Canada, Israel, Syria, South Korea, Japan, China and Australia. He has also led master classes of vocalists and their accompanists in many cities in Europe, the USA, Canada, South Korea and Australia.

Many radio and television recordings document the diverse repertoire of David Lutz. His discography includes recordings with Robert Holl, Ellen van Lier, Thomas Hampson, Gabriele Fontana and Peter Weber.

Shelbie Rassler

Shelbie Rassler, recently named Truthspaper's Young Woman of the Year, is an award-winning composer, conductor, and multi-instrumentalist. Shelbie is globally recognized for her CBS Award-Winning viral production of What the World Needs Now, featured on CNN's Fourth of July Primetime Special, along with interviews on The Today Show, Forbes, GMA, SiriusXM and many others. Shelbie was on the music production team of the Emmy Award-Nominated Celebrating America 2021 Presidential Inauguration Concert, and her production of Georgia on My Mind, featuring countless Tony Award-Winning Broadway performers, landed on the Top 50 Billboard charts. She has since helped to raise over $6 million through musical fundraisers, in large part as a Music Video Producer on Seth Rudetsky's hit show, Stars in the House. Shelbie has been nominated for an American Academy of Arts and Letters Award, was a Finalist for the Golden Hornet String Quartet Competition, and recently won the Eugene New Music Festival Call for Scores. Shelbie's recent commissions include the New World Symphony Orchestra, Decoda (Carnegie Hall's Ensemble-in-Residence), the Vail Dance Festival, the New York City Ballet Choreographic Institute, the Female Quotient, the Broward Health Foundation, University of Kansas and University of Colorado, among many others.

Shelbie has written arrangements for notable performers such as Yo-Yo Ma, Anthony McGill, and Lara Downes, as well as several SONY Artists. Shelbie has worked on various episodes and commercials for Netflix, HBO Max, PBS, and others, as well as theme music for notable figures/companies such as celebrity Chris Olsen, the Fempower Beauty line, and multiple podcasts/tv shows. She has had premieres and recognition at notable venues/events such as Carnegie Hall's Second Sunday Series, Feinstein's 54 Below, the Female Quotient's Global Pack, SXSW, the Cannes International Film Festival, and the New York Musical Festival.

After graduating from the Boston Conservatory at Berklee in 2020 as the institution's Presser Scholar, Shelbie graduated summa cum laude from The Juilliard School with a Master's in Music Composition, studying with Pulitzer Prize Winner John Corigliano, as a proud Juilliard Career Advancement Fellow. Shelbie has held residencies at the pianoSonoma Music Festival (Composer-in-Residence '22 and '23), the Vail International Dance Festival (Music Associate '22, Music Director '23), the New York City Ballet Choreographic Institute, The Juilliard School (Guest Artist), University of Kansas and University of Colorado Denver, where she recently arranged the institution's new Alma Mater. Shelbie is the Co-Founder of the music production company, Jenkins & Rassler, LLC, alongside award-winning composer and producer Katie Jenkins. They are proud Satellite Collective Fellows who employ over 40 artists on the J&R Artist Roster. As a motivational speaker, Shelbie served as one of the 19 Featured Speakers at the 2021 Imagine Solutions Conference. She has spoken at countless conferences and dozens of panels and masterclasses at organizations such as the College Music Society, Maestra Music, Emerson College, Berklee College of Music and many others.