Gulf Coast Chamber Orchestra and Gulfshore Ballet

April 3

Music & Arts Community Center

2020-2021 Season Sponsor: Gunterberg Charitable Foundation – Culliton Family

Conductor

Dr. Andrew M. Kurtz

Dancers

Gulfshore Ballet

Program

Suite from Pulcinella

STRAVINSKY

Appalachian Spring Suite

COPLAND

Dancers

Carly Anderson

Annette Gorny

Isabella Hernandez

Courtney LaPlatte

Savannah Redman

Sabrina Ruff

Chloe Sierra

Annalisse van Zanten

Zachary Yoshida

Radu Munteanu

Gulfshore Ballet is Southwest Florida’s premiere not-for-profit school of classical ballet. The school has an internationally acclaimed teaching faculty and offers area students the unique opportunity to study with professional instructors of the highest caliber.

Training at Gulfshore Ballet combines Cuban, American, and Russian techniques and brings a quality of excellence not normally found outside major metropolitan cities. Gulfshore Ballet prepares students for professional dancing careers and promotes academic, athletic, cultural, and social growth.

Gulfshore Ballet strives to increase accessibility to classical ballet and to develop a stronger appreciation of classical ballet throughout the greater community. Beyond receiving ballet training of the highest caliber, Gulfshore Ballet students learn self-discipline, concentration, focus and creative expression—all of which serve to build character, confidence and a positive self-image.

Franklin Gamero & Iliana Lopez, Artistic Directors

Franklin Gamero and Iliana Lopez began their career at home in Venezuela and continued through the San Francisco Ballet, the Cleveland Ballet and as soloists with the Deutsche Opera Berlin and the Deutsche Opera am Rhein in Dusseldorf. Then in 1987 they became principal dancers with the Miami City Ballet where they remained for eighteen successful years.

Trinka Lowe, President & Chair of the Board

Andrew M. Kurtz

Music & Executive Director

Gulf Coast Symphony founder Dr. Andrew M. Kurtz enters his twenty-sixth season as the Symphony’s Music & Executive Director, and conductor. His deep rooted commitment to new work, community and education, combined with a vibrant artistic vision has led to creating and nurturing one of the most dynamic arts organizations in the region. His conducting has been called “passionate, expansive, expert, and musical.” He was named the 2007 Performing Artist of the Year at Lee County’s Angel of the Arts Awards. Kurtz’s repertoire encompasses a wide range of music styles from baroque to contemporary, and multiple genres including symphonic, opera, ballet, musical theater, jazz, cantorial, and symphonic pops.

An avid arts educator, Maestro Kurtz was Resident Music Director at the Luzerne Music Center. Kurtz is a past-president of the board of the Lee County Alliance for the Arts. In 2001, he won First Prize in the Dell’Arte di Firenze International Conducting Competition, and made his European conducting debut in Florence. In 1995, Kurtz made his international operatic debut in Tel Aviv while working as a staff conductor at the Israel Vocal Arts Institute. In 1997, he conducted the Metropolitan Opera Guild’s educational tour production of The Best of Puccini. He was a scholarship conducting student at the prestigious Aspen Music Festival, and boasts numerous other conducting credits, including the Pennsylvania Opera Theater, the Pennsylvania Ballet, the Charlotte Symphony, Gonzaga Symphony, and the Ocean City Pops.

Kurtz completed his doctoral studies in conducting at the Peabody Conservatory and is a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of the University of Virginia where he received his master’s degree in music history and a bachelor of arts in music and drama. A native of Philadelphia, Kurtz has called Southwest Florida home for more than 28 years, where he currently resides with his wife, Julie, and their son, Benjamin.