MANNES COLLEGE OF MUSIC PRESENTS A MASTER CLASS
WITH BASSIST DONALD PALMA ON TUESDAY, MARCH 18, 2003 AT NOON

(New York, NY –February 5, 2003) Mannes College of Music, a division of New School University, will present a master class with bassist Donald Palma on Tuesday, March 19, 2003 at 12:00 noon. The master class, which is free and open to the public, will take place at Mannes College of Music, Goldmark Hall, 150 West 85th Street, NYC. (Take the #1 train to 86th Street.) For further information on Mannes College of Music events, call 212-496-8524.

Native New Yorker Donald Palma has been a bassist with the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra for the past 30 years and was one of the founding members of the group. He has toured worldwide with Orpheus and has recorded extensively with them on Deutsche Grammophon. He is a former member of the Los Angeles Philharmonic and was also principal bass of the Brooklyn Philharmonic and the American Composers Orchestra.

Palma has performed chamber music with the Lincoln Center Chamber Music Society, Da Camera Society, The Juilliard Quartet, in recital with Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau and Jean-Pierre Rampal, and at festivals such as Cape and Islands, Bridgehampton (New York), and La Jolla (California). He was principal bass for Leonard Bernstein in his recording of "West Side Story" and was featured on Kathleen Battle's CD "Grace."

As Music Director of the San Francisco Contemporary Music Players, Palma has received two ASCAP/CMA Awards for Adventurous Programming. He continues his commitment to contemporary music as conductor/bassist with Speculum Musicae. He has participated in the premieres of scores of compositions and has over twenty-five recordings of new works to his credit.

Palma is currently on the faculties of Yale University and the New England Conservatory where is he is Director of the NEC Chamber Orchestra. Palma graduated from The Juilliard School, where he studied double bass with Fred Zimmermann, Orin O'Brien, Robert Brennand, and Homer Mensch.

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Mannes College of Music, founded in 1916, is one of the world's major conservatories of music. A division of New School University, Mannes offers undergraduate and graduate degree programs, as well as a Professional Studies Diploma program. Notable alumni from Mannes include soprano Frederica von Stade, pianists Murray Perahia and Richard Goode, and conductors Semyon Bychkov, Myung-Whun Chung, JoAnn Falletta and Julius Rudel. Joel Lester is Dean of the College. For further information on Mannes, call (212) 580-0210 or go to the Web site at www.mannes.edu.

New School University, with 7,000 matriculated students and 25,000 continuing education students, is a New York City university committed to critical scholarship, artistic integrity, and ethical responsibility in the social sciences, humanities, the arts and design. It is comprised of a liberal arts foundation of three schools: The New School, Eugene Lang College and the Graduate Faculty of Political and Social Science, and five professional schools: Parsons School of Design, Mannes College of Music, Actors Studio Drama School, Milano Graduate School of Management and Urban Policy, and the Jazz & Contemporary Music Program. New School Online University offers one of the largest selections of online courses in the nation. For further information about admission to New School University, call (877) 5Ave-321 or go to the Web site at www.newschool.edu.