UW Symphony with Valerie Muzzolini, harp

Harpist Valerie Muzzolini joined the School of Music faculty in Fall 2011 as a part-time lecturer in the Instrumental Performance division. She has been a member of the Seattle Symphony Orchestra since 2000 and has held the position of Principal Harp of the Seattle Symphony Orchestra since the age of twenty-three.

In demand both nationally and internationally, she has performed as guest Principal Harp of the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France and the Nice Philharmonic, and has also appeared with the Philadelphia Orchestra. She has performed at prestigious festivals worldwide, and has played under the batons of such renowned conductors as Sir Simon Rattle, Wolfgang Sawallisch, Kurt Masur, Seiji Ozawa, and Bernard Haitink.

An active chamber musician and avid proponent of new music, she performs regularly with the Seattle Chamber Players, the Seattle Chamber Music Society, and Music of Remembrance.

Born in Nice, France, she began her musical education at the Nice Conservatory, from which she received top honors. She continued her studies at the Curtis Institute with Marilyn Costello and Judy Loman, followed by graduate work at Yale University with Nancy Allen.

David Alexander Rahbee is an Associate Professor at the University of Washington School of Music, where he is Director of Orchestral Activities and Chair of Orchestral Conducting. He is Music Director and Conductor of the University of Washington Symphony Orchestra and founder of the Campus Philharmonia Orchestras. He is a recipient of the American-Austrian Foundation's 2003 Herbert von Karajan Fellowship for Young Conductors, the 2005 International Richard-Wagner-Verband Stipend, a fellowship the Acanthes Centre in Paris (2007), and is first prize winner in conducting from The American Prize national non-profit competitions in the performing arts for 2020. His work at UW has earned national recognition. In 2021 he was praised by The American Prize as “Consistently one of the most courageous and comprehensive [orchestral] programmers working in higher education in the U.S. today…”

Dr. Rahbee has appeared in concert with orchestras such as the Seattle Symphony, RTE National Symphony Orchestra of Ireland, Orchestre Philharmonique du Luxembourg, Kammerphilharmonie Berlin-Brandenburg, Guernsey Symphony Orchestra, Chattanooga Symphony, Bellingham Symphony, National Chamber Orchestra of Armenia, Orchestre de la Francophonie, the Boston New Music Initiative, Seattle Modern Orchestra, Orquesta Sinfónica de Loja, Cool Opera of Norway, Schönbrunner Schloss Orchester and the Divertimento Ensemble of Milan. His collaborations with the Seattle Symphony include assistant conductor for the performance and recording of Ives’ Fourth Symphony, and as guest conductor for their Native Lands project and the North American premiere of Páll Ragnar Pallson's Quake. He has collaborated with several prominent soloists such as Sarah Chang, Michelle Cann, Jon Kimura Parker and Jonathan Biss. He has taught at the Pierre Monteux School, as has conducted at a number of summer festivals such as the Atlantic Music Festival, Sewanee Music Center, Bar Harbor Music Festival and Hawaii Performing Arts Festival.

Dr. Rahbee was an assistant at the Vienna State opera from 2002-2010. As part of his fellowship and residency at the 2003 Salzburg Festival, where he worked with members of the Vienna Philharmonic. Masterclasses with prominent conductors such as Kurt Masur, Sir Colin Davis, Jorma Panula, Zdeněk Mácal, Peter Eötvös, Zoltán Peskó and Helmut Rilling, and counts Nikolaus Harnoncourt to be among his most influential mentors.

Dr. Rahbeeʼs principal conducting teachers were Charles Bruck and Michael Jinbo at the Pierre Monteux School. He holds a Bachelor of Music degree in violin and composition from Indiana University, a Master of Music degree from the New England Conservatory in orchestral conducting, and a Doctorate of Musical Arts from the University of Montreal in orchestral conducting.  He has also participated in post-graduate conducting classes at the Universität für Musik und Darstellende Kunst, Vienna. His orchestrations of music by Clara Schumann, Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel, Ravel, Debussy and others are published by LeDor; his brass arrangements and an original composition are published by Warwick Music, and his articles on the music of Gustav Mahler have appeared in journals of the International Gustav Mahler Gesellschaft, among others.

In addition to being awarded first prize in conducting from The American Prize for 2020, he was awarded 2nd place in 2019. He has also placed among winners for five consecutive years for The American Prize Vytautas Marijosius Memorial Award for Orchestral Programming, recognizing his programming with the UW Symphony and its affiliated ensembles for every season since he joined the faculty. The UWSO has also been a finalist in the category of orchestral performance in 2018, 2019 and 2020.

Dr. Rahbee is co-editor of Daniels’ Orchestral Music (6^thedition) and Daniels’ Orchestral Music Online (DOMO), the gold standard among conductors, orchestral administrators, orchestra librarians as well as other music professionals and students researching for orchestral programming.