Up first, the folks you might not see on the stage:
Musician and composer, Paul Fejko:
Provocative,
Challenging and Iconoclastic, Paul Fejko
has always been quite fond of extremes. He can often be found treading on the
boundaries of accepted limits and traditions. Art is exploration and
provocation; improvisation is a wonderful vehicle for both. He is often
chastised for mixing improvisation into repertoire ('taking too many
liberties'), but it seems a one way comment; never has there been a charge
leveled against the reverse - adding repertoire to improvisation.
Fej finds the
pipe organ to be his favorite solo instrument. It can muster more power and
subtlety than an entire orchestra while having a responsiveness impossible from
a large group of people. He is constantly challenging (often to the point of
annoyance!) people to shed their preconceived notions of the organ as merely an
instrument of religion, and to realize that in the first half of this century
almost every movie house and many concert halls had organs. A good pipe organ
is a virtuoso instrument of vast capabilities!
Fej divides
his time among many endeavors, most notably with theater and dance as a
composer and conductor, but also as a concert organist and pianist.
To this one must add his work as a sound and lighting designer, photographer
(the covers of three of his ARKAY releases - Incantation, Tyme's Escape
and OUTBURST!), audio systems designer, auto mechanic and sometime sculptor
(witness the cover of ‘On Making the Flowers Dance’ - designed by Fejko with
flowers by Gretchen Ernest.
As of this
time, he has recorded 13 CDs of large European and American organs, covering a
wide range of existing repertoire and his own improvisations.
He has been the long-time musician at
historic Gloria
Dei (Old Swedes') Church in Philadelphia, PA and is a musician
with the Dance and Theatre departments at Muhlenberg College in Allentown, PA. In 2003 he
founded and is now the Artistic Director of 'The
Chester Performing Arts Project', a foundation dedicated to
bringing world class performing arts to the formerly depressed industrial city
of Chester, PA. His André Café Acoustique in Chester is
becoming well known in the region.
Fej is a
product of The Curtis Institute of Music (class of '75) where he studied with
Alexander McCurdy, Rudolf Serkin and Max Rudolf. His first taste of opera came
at Curtis from Dino Yannapoulos - a long-time stage director at the Met in NY.
In 1987, Dino
commissioned an opera from Fejko - Matteo Falcone - for the Academy of Vocal
Arts in Philadelphia where Dino was Artistic Director at the time. A review of
Matteo can be found on the Press/Reviews page at this site.
After Curtis,
he connected with renowned dance scholar and pedagogist Nadia Chilkovsky and
became music director at her Philadelphia Dance Academy - a source of many
well-known dancers from the 50's through the mid 70's. During this time, he
spent summers at the famed Marlboro Music Festival. In 1980 he headed east to
become a musician with Maurice Béjart's Ballet of the Twentieth Century in
Brussels, Belgium. From there he headed south to become Music Director of The
Ballet of Lyon in France. During much of the 80's his time was passed between
these two positions, but not without many forays into Italy and Germany for
work with other smaller theater and dance groups. There were also many various
and sundry organ and piano concerts! Because of this he is now able to converse
in five languages.
Fej has won
first prizes for improvisation in Lyon (1981) and San Anselmo, CA (1990). At
their Atlanta convention in 1992, the American Guild of Organists awarded him a
second prize.
Ellen S Rosenberg is a free-lance photographer
living primarily in the Philadelphia Pennsylvania area. She spends about 3
months a year in New Orleans, Louisiana. Ellen earned her BS degree in Exercise
Physiology, followed by an entry level master’s degree in Occupational therapy
from Temple University School of Allied Health. She has been juried into the
National Association of Woman Artists. Her work has been shown in over 100
juried international art shows, as well as invitational and solo exhibitions.
Although originally a film photographer, developing and printing her own work
in her studio, Ellen has transitioned to digital photography, continuing to
print her own work on archival paper, maintaining a personal creative vision
that she initiated years ago while shooting in film. Photography is art, and
can be viewed in that way. Ellen excels in a range of genre - from musicians,
landscape, abstract, body builders, drag queens, and her latest passion, dance.
Her studies in various body’s of work are ongoing, recognizing that each
moment, there is a shift in how one may view the dancer, the musician, the
landscape, forever changing, never the same. She seeks to reveal an emotional connection in her work, allowing
the viewer to have a personal response to the story told in her photographs. “I
am a story teller, I welcome you to join me on this visual journey”. www.ellenrosenbergphotography.com
Easton
native Charles Stonewall’s signature
work ranges from theater and dance to social justice
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