Violist Mary Ferrillo joined the Boston Symphony Orchestra in the fall of 2019. She was previously an active freelancer, playing with the Philadelphia Orchestra, Kansas City Symphony and the Rhode Island Philharmonic. She had been a regular substitute violist with both the BSO and the Boston Pops Orchestra for several years prior. As a soloist she had the honor of giving the world premiere of Ulysses Kay’s Sonatine for Viola and Piano, which she performed alongside the Rebecca Clarke Viola Sonata for the 2020 Virtual Tanglewood BSO Musicians in Recital series. As a chamber musician she performs often in the Boston and Berkshire areas, actively combining contemporary and classical repertoire to create engaging and unique programs. With this mission in mind she and frequent collaborators Francesca McNeeley and Samantha Bennett formed the Chroma Trio in 2019. Ms. Ferrillo spent three summers from 2012-2014 as a fellow at the Tanglewood Music Center, where she received the 2014 Maurice Schwartz Prize by Marion E. Dubbs. She returned to Tanglewood as a New Fromm Player in 2016 and 2017, premiering works by John Harbison, Joseph Phibbs, Kui Dong, and Mark Neikrug, among others. In previous summers she performed at the Spoleto Festival USA, Japan’s Pacific Music Festival, the National Orchestral Institute, and the Green Mountain Chamber Music Festival. As a student, Ms. Ferrillo studied primarily with Katherine Murdock, Roger Tapping, and Edward Gazouleas - other teachers and mentors have included Cathy Basrak, Robert Vernon, Michael Tree and Carol Rodland.
Haitian-American cellist Francesca McNeeley has received critical acclaim as a collaborator and soloist, and enjoys an eclectic career in the Boston area. She has premiered dozens of works, solo and chamber music—including pieces by John Harbison, Augusta Read Thomas, and Joseph Phibbs. Recent musical collaborations have included performing as soloist with the Boston Landmarks Orchestra, and performing for the Kennedy Center as cellist with Castle of Our Skins. She appears frequently on the New Gallery Concert Series and the Celebrity Series of Boston. She has performed with the Boston Symphony and Sarasota Orchestras, and can be heard on BMOP/sound. She graduated Princeton University Phi Beta Kappa, and went on to receive scholarships to attend the Shepherd School of Music at Rice University and the New England Conservatory. She has attended the Music Academy of the West, Kneisel Hall Chamber Music Festival, Toronto Summer Music, and the Tanglewood Music Center, where she also served as a New Fromm Player. With her Fromm colleagues she has founded the Chroma Trio, championing modern string trio repertoire. She has been awarded multiple grants from the Sphinx Organization, and now serves on The Artist Council for the National Alliance for Audition Support. Her teachers and mentors have included Tom Kraines, Darrett Adkins, Norman Fischer, Yeesun Kim, and Astrid Schween.
Dorothy Rudd Moore (b.1940), has received commissions from the National Symphony, Opera Ebony, and the Buffalo Philharmonic, among many solo artists. Considered one of her generation's leading composers of color, her music has been performed and recorded world-wide, and includes chamber pieces, song cycles, orchestral music, and an opera, and is admired for its high level of artistry and its seriousness of purpose. Other awards she has received include an American Music Center Grant, 1972; New York State Council on the Arts Grant, 1985; and several Meet the Composer grants. Two of her works, Dirge and Deliverance, and Songs From the Dark Tower were released by Performance Records in 1981. In 1985, the world premiere of her opera, Frederick Douglass, took place in New York City.
Moore's parents fully supported her ambitions to be a composer. She studied piano at the Wilmington School of Music and became a student of Harry Andrews. Moore learned to play clarinet so that she could join the all-male band at Howard High. She graduated from Howard University in 1963 where she studied with Dean Warner Lawson, Thomas Kerr, and Mark Fax. She received the Lucy Moten Fellowship to study in France where she continued her studies with Nadia Boulanger in Paris in 1963 and then with Chou Wen-Chung in New York in 1965. In 1968 she became a co-founder of the Society of Black Composers in New York City. As an educator, she has taught voice, piano, and ear training courses at Harlem School of the Arts, 1965-66; New York University, 1969; and Bronx Community College, 1971.
Moods - Dorothy Rudd Moore
Recorded at home in New York, NY, December 2020
Mary Ferrillo, viola
Francesca McNeeley, cello
Mastered by Mary Ferrillo.
Produced in collaboration with Castle of our Skins.
Property of Shelter Recording Project, American Composers Alliance.
