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“intelligent, out of the ordinary programming”
The Boston Musical
Intelligencer, Vance R. Koven, May 19th 2010
Ms. Woods emerged as a conductor to
notice from the moment she began her career. Within a
year of finishing her studies the Orchestras of the
Worcester Consortium invited her to lead
their combined forces of 119 in Stravinsky’s daunting
masterwork, Le Sacre de Printemps. That same
year Ms. Woods was one of the elite few to be a finalist
for Leonard Slatkin’s National Conducting Institute
at the Kennedy Center. Since then, Ms. Woods has become
an established voice in the conducting community.
Beyond her duties as a Music Director she is a busy
guest conductor. She has traveled across two
continents, performing coast to coast in the U.S. and in
countries such as England, Scotland, Bulgaria and the
Czech Republic.
Woods’ commitment to new music
spans her entire career. As a student she had the
opportunity to study with icons such as George Crumb and
John Corigliano. As a Music Director she has strived to
make contemporary music fresh, approachable and exciting
to her orchestras and audiences. Recent highlights
include: a two day lecture /performance residency with
Grammy Award winning composer Joan Tower and Montreal
International Violin Competition winner Peter Zazofzky,
for the Boston premiere of Tower’s Concerto for
Violin; CSO’s 35th anniversary
commission and premiere of Emerald Waltz by Rome
Prize winner Lisa Bielawa and the premiere of a new
arrangement of Alec Templeton’s Pocket Size Sonata
by Larry Wolfe of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. Ms.
Woods was also honored to be a Fellow at the prestigious
Atlantic Center for the Arts to further her study of
composition.
Ms. Woods performs in all idioms
including opera, choral, chamber and symphonic
orchestra; from her “haunting” performance of
Shostakovich’s Chamber Symphony op. 110a to her first
Beethoven Symphony NO. 9 with Boston Globe’s 1995
“Musician of the Year” baritone Robert Honeysucker, she
has received ovations and acclaim from audience and
critics alike.
Ms. Woods began her musical studies
as a violinist, focusing heavily on chamber music. Her
undergraduate quartet scholarship at the University of
Colorado- Boulder allowed her to study side by side with
the Grammy award winning Takacs String Quartet.
Additional work with members of the celebrated Muir and
Stanford String Quartets followed. Eventually she
turned her attention to the podium earning an M.M. and
Artist Diploma from the Hartt School of Music where she
was the recipient of the Dean’s Talent Scholarship Award
for the duration of her study there. Her major teachers
include Michael Morgan, Harold Farberman and Daniel
Lewis with additional study with Gunther Schuller and
David Effron.
Ms. Woods was appointed to her
current position in 2006.
The
first piece played was “Upbeat!” …conducted by Cynthia
Woods the outcome was dynamic and immersing.
John
Galigour, Sun Valley News, OR, 2/25/2001
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