WILLIAM CORBETT-JONES

Also see A Passion for Music, and article by Donna Kline.

Dr. Corbett-Jones has studied at the University of Southern California, the Juilliard School in New York, the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, the Accademia Chigiana in Siena, Italy, and privately. His teachers have included Adolph Baller, Alexander Lieberman, Egon Petri, Lili Kraus, and Dario de Rosa, pianist of the Trio di Trieste.

He has audited master classes given by Olga Samarof, Ernest Bloch, Pablo Casals, Lotte Lehmann, Rosina Lhevinne, Ilona Kabos, Janos Starker, Christoph Eschenbach, Malcolm Frager, Jean Phillipe Collard, Adele Marcus, and Guido Agosti.

A distinguished artist/professor at San Francisco State University, William Corbett-Jones has performed throughout the United States, Canada, Mexico, Europe, Africa, Australia, and Asia as soloist with orchestra, recitalist, and in collaboration with internationally renowned colleagues. His performances in Asia have included numerous tours, recitals, and master classes in China, Taiwan, Singapore, and the Philippines.

He has made seven trips to China and has taught and performed in several cities, including Shanghai and Beijing, where he gave master classes and a recital at the Central Conservatory in 2004, and at the China Conservatory and the Changsha School of Music in 2007. He has been particularly active teaching and performing in the Xinjiang region of Western China in Urumqi, Hami, Kashgar, and Yining.

With Henri Temianka and the Paganini String Quartet, Dr. Corbett-Jones made four films on musical form at the USC Film Department. These films, in which he performed several chamber works, were funded by the Ford Foundation and were shown nationally on public television. Also, with Henri Temianka and the Temianka Little Symphony he had two American tours comprising over 100 concerts.

He was soloist at the Kalamazoo Bach Festival, where he performed and conducted two Bach Concerti. In 1985, he organized a festival in honor of the 300th birthday of Bach, where he presented three Bach recitals and had his students present the entire Well Tempered Clavier at SFSU.

He has been an active member of the American Liszt Society and performed at several of its festivals. In 1991, he was director of the American Liszt Society Festival, which was held at San Francisco State University.

During his sabbatical year in 1992, he was invited to serve as artist in residence at the LaSalle College of the Arts in Singapore. While in Singapore, he was invited to give a recital in the home of the American Ambassador to Singapore, Mr. Jon Huntsman. During that year he also performed a recital and masterclass on Mozart at the National Music Teachers’ Convention in Miami. Also, in 1992, he was invited by the daughter of famed photographer Ansel Adams to give a recital in their home as a gift to her parents on the occasion of their golden wedding anniversary. In 1993, he was guest professor for a semester at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music in Australia.

In 1999 he was invited to teach and perform at the High School of Music in Damascus, Syria.

Since 2001, he has given many recitals as duo partner with famed violinist Jassen Todorov in California, Wyoming, and Bulgaria. These recitals have included all the sonatas of Bach, Mozart , Beethoven and Grieg, as well as the complete works for Violin and Piano by Schubert.

In 2006, Dr. Corbett-Jones gave two lecture recitals on Mozart: one in Santa Rosa and another at the Mendocino Music Festival.

His performances in Europe have included recitals in most of the major capitals with orchestras such as the Lausanne and Winterthur. He is widely known as a masterclass teacher. Dr. Corbett-Jones has performed for the BBC, Hilversum, Basel, Cologne, Paris, Brussels, and Istanbul radios, and has appeared many times in festivals such as the Salzburg Chamber Music Festival and the Meiringen Festival in Switzerland. He has been soloist three times with the Orchestra of Maggio Musicale of Florence under the direction of Kurt Masur, conductor of the New York Philharmonic.

William Corbett-Jones has been a member of three distinguished touring chamber music ensembles: the California Trio (with violinist Jacob Krachmalnick and cellist Robert Sayre, both principals of the San Francisco Symphony), The Crown Chamber Players at UC Santa Cruz, where he was a member of the group for ten years and Music Director for five, and the Alma Trio, with violinist Andor Toth and cellist Gabor Rejto. With this trio he toured extensively in the USA, Canada, and Africa for eight years.

He was piano duo partner of the distinguished pianist Sylvia Jenkins and had several tours of the USA and Europe with her.

He has performed on four cruise ships: the Rotterdam, The QE2, the Stella Solaris, and, most recently, the Norwegian Dream.

In 1984, Dr. Corbett-Jones was invited to be guest professor for a semester at the Taiwan National Academy of Arts in Taipei. He made concert tours of Taiwan and the Philippines as recitalist and as soloist with orchestra.

In addition, Dr. Corbett-Jones served as artist-in-residence at the University of Southern California with his colleagues of the Alma Trio. His numerous recordings are detailed in the Recordings section of this site.

He is the recipient of a Fulbright Grant and the Alfred Hertz Scholarship from the University of California, Berkeley. He was a faculty member and an honorary fellow of Crown College at the University of California at Santa Cruz.

Mr. Corbett-Jones has presented several cycles of the complete works of Mozart and Chopin, as well as all the sonatas of Beethoven and Schubert. His vast repertoire includes almost all the standard solo and chamber music literature.

Dedications:
William Corbett-Jones has been honored in dedications from eminent composers including Kirke Mechem (Sonata for Piano), Roger Nixon (Twenty-four Preludes for Piano, John Sharpley (Etude for the Left Hand), and Dean Witter (Music for Piano).

Adjudication and Student Activity:
Dr. Corbett-Jones has participated frequently as a jury member in local and international competitions including the MTNA competitions, Pacific Music Club competitions, Berkeley Piano Club competitions, California Youth Orchestra Carmel Chamber Music and Piano Competitions, the renowned Gina Bachauer Competition and many others. Additionally, some of his students have been prize-winners in international competition. Yoko Oe won first prize in the Kingsville, Texas International Competition, and is now a doctoral candidate at the Peabody Institute. Joseph Liu won third prize in 1995 at the Paris International Amateur Competition.

Many of Dr. Corbett-Jones’ students have gone onto careers in music. The late Calvin Simmons became conductor of the Oakland Symphony, John LoPiccolo became conductor of the symphonies of Helena, Montana, and Idaho Falls, Idaho. Philip Kelsey now occupies a high administrative position at the Seattle Opera. Robert Schwartz, (D.M.A. Juilliard) now teaches at Skyline College and performs widely. Inara Morgenstern is a member of the SFSU School of Music and Dance faculty. Three of his students are on the faculty of the Community Music School in San Francisco. Three of his students have completed doctoral programs at the university of Iowa, the Peabody Institute, and the University of Texas at Austin. Two of his students, Elenor Barcsak and Kwei-Ling Pomerleau, have served as president of the Marin County Music Teachers Association, and another student, Donna Kline, has written an acclaimed biography of America’s first native-born female concert pianist, Olga Samaroff. Another student, Gary Leuenberger is now on the faculty at SFSU, teaching electronic music. Jefferson Packer is now the manager of the San Francisco Youth Orchestra. Most recently, a current student, Holly Bowling, has recently won both the Ross McKee award and the Michael Avalos award, the two most coveted prizes in our Piano Department.

Courses taught at San Francisco State University:
Piano Performance Practicum
Sight Reading
Keyboard Literature
Piano Ensemble
Piano Accompaniment
Special Courses Taught:
The Piano Music of Mozart
The Sonatas of Beethoven
The Songs and Piano Music of Schubert
The Piano Music of Chopin
Faculty Positions Held:
Lecturer at UC Berkeley Extension
Faculty member, San Francisco Conservatory of Music
Lecturer and Fellow of Crown College, UC Santa Cruz
Professorships:
Taiwan National Academy of the Arts
La Salle College of the Arts, Singapore
Sydney Conservatorium of Music, Australia
Xinjiang Normal University, Urumqi, China
Xinjiang College of the Arts, China
Yining University, China
San Francisco State University
Guest Professor at Central Conservatory , China Conservatory, Beijing, and Changsha
School of Music, China

Distinguished colleagues with whom Dr. Corbett-Jones has performed:
Violinists Henri Temianka, Berl Senofsky, Salvatore Accardo. Tossy Spivakovsky, Christian Ferras, Hansheinz Schneeberger, Mischa Elman, Jacob Krachmalnick, Andor Toth, Camilla Wicks, Pierre D’Archambeau, and Jassen Todorov. He was also rehearsal pianist for Josef Szigeti and Yehudi Menuhin.

Violists: Paul Yarbrough, Andras Toszighi, and Ernst Wallfisch.

Cellists: Laszlo Varga, William Van Den Burg Claude Starck, Christine Walevska, Josepf Shuster, and Margaret Tait.

Clarinettists: David Glazer, Rosario Mazzeo, and Rudolf Stalder.

Flutists: Paul Renzi, Peter Lukas Graf, Michel Dubost, and Linda Lukas.
Oboist: Heinz Holliger

Singers: James McCracken, Hilde Rossl-Majdan, Robert Weede, Marilyn Horne, and Arthur Loosli.

Concertos performed include:
Bach: Concerto in D Minor
Bach: Concerto in F Minor
Bach: Brandenburg Concerto No.5
Mozart: Concerto in D Minor, K.466
Mozart: Concerto in E Flat Major, K.449
Mozart: Concerto in C Minor, K.491
Mozart: Concerto in B Flat Major, K.595
Beethoven: Concerto in C Minor
Beethoven: Concerto in G Major
Beethoven: Concerto in E Flat Major
Chopin: Concerto in E Minor
Schumann: Concerto in A Minor
Brahms: Concerto in D Minor
Grieg: Concerto in A Minor
Rachmaninoff: Concerto in C Minor
Stravinsky: Concerto for Piano and Winds
Hindemith: The Four Temperaments
Prokofiev: Concerto No.3
Bartok: Concerto No.3
Janacek: Concertino for Piano Left Hand and Winds

Multiple Piano Concerti performed:
Bach: Concerto in C Major for Two Pianos
Mozart: Concerto in E Flat Major for Two Pianos
Mozart: Concerto in F Major for Three Pianos
Beethoven: Triple Concerto for Piano, Violin and Cello
Beethoven: Choral Fantasy
Saint-Saëns: Carnival of the Animals
Poulenc: Concerto in D Minor for two Pianos
Bartok: Concerto for Two Pianos
Britten: Scottish Ballad for Two Pianos

Orchestras with which he has performed include:
San Francisco Symphony
Berkeley Symphony
Santa Rosa Symphony
Vallejo Symphony
San Leandro Symphony
Ukiah Symphony
Peninsula Symphony
Temianka Little Symphony
El Paso, Texas Symphony
Helena, Montana Symphony
Kalamazoo, Michigan Symphony
Victoria, B.C. Symphony
Mexico City Symphony
Durban. Symphony, S.A.
Pretoria Symphony, S.A.
Taipei Symphony, Taiwan,
Manila Philharmonic, Philippines
Johannesburg Symphony S.A.

Doctoral Equivalency established in 1973 at San Francisco State University, California.

Languages:
Dr. Corbett-Jones is fluent in German and has considerable background in French and Italian. He is currently studying Mandarin and frequently uses this language in lessons and master classes in the United States and China.

Personal Information:
Dr. Corbett-Jones is married to Louise DiMattio, Nurse Manager of the Birth Center at SF General Hospital. They have one daughter, Laura Jones, who lives in New York City. Dr. Corbett-Jones’ hobbies include cats, exploring Italy, travel, world history, and reading in foreign languages. He is also a member of the Northern California Great Books Association. At the annual retreat devoted to Don Quixote in 2002, he presented a lecture entitled “Spain in the Time of Cervantes.” In 2003, at a retreat devoted to Ford Maddox Ford’s Parade’s End, he presented a lecture on the origins of World War I. In 2006, he presented a lecture on the “American Expatriates,” contemporaries of Henry James. The event was held during a seminar on The Ambassadors by Henry James

Contact: wmcorbjones@aol.com