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School of Music welcomes new faculty for 2011-12

Submitted by Humanities Web Project on September 29, 2011 - 12:00am

The School of Music welcomes three new additions to its faculty for 2011-12, enhancing faculty offerings in Jazz Studies, Instrumental Performance, and Voice.

Gina Funes, Voice

Gina Funes joins the School of Music faculty in Fall 2011 as a part-time lecturer in Voice. Her professional singing career has included roles in Mimi, La Boheme, The Magic Flute, and The Marriage of Figaro with the Seattle Little Opera Company and the University of Washington Festival Opera Company as well as engagements with the Seattle and Portland Symphony Orchestras.

As a nightclub performer, she has appeared with such artists as Glenn Yarborough, Miriam Makeba, George Burns, Connie Stevens, Tony Bennett, the Modernaires, Pete Barbutti, Johnnie Ray, and Mel Torme.She has worked as a featured singing artist at Seattle’s Fairmont Olympic Hotel and frequently performs around the world as guest vocalist for the Harry James Orchestra, directed by her husband, Fred Radke.

Valerie Muzzolini Gordon, Harp

Valerie Muzzolini Gordon joins the School of Music faculty in Fall 2011 as a part-time lecturer in Instrumental Performance. 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.

Fred Radke, Jazz Studies

Fred Radke joins the School of Music faculty in Fall 2011 as a part-time lecturer in Jazz Studies. A well-known big-band conductor and authority on big-band history, Radke will direct the University of Washington’s big band, the UW Studio Jazz Ensemble.

A professional musician since the age of fifteen, Radke has toured extensively around the world as leader and member of the Harry James Orchestra. He has also performed as lead trumpeter with many other well-known ensembles and performers, including the Glenn Miller Orchestra, the Dick Jergens Orchestra, the Modernaires, Johnnie Ray, Ella Fitzgerald, Mel Torme, and numerous others.

In addition to his professional career as a trumpeter, conductor, recording artist, composer/ arranger, and producer, Radke is a musical clinician and educator who most recently has served as the resident instructor of Jazz Studies at North Seattle Community College.

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