Bios

Lanette Lind - Artistic Director, Composer, Arranger, Pianist
Lanette Lind has composed concert music, as well as music for theatre, dance, and documentary films.  Major orchestras including the St. Louis Symphony, Milwaukee Symphony, Syracuse Symphony, and Rochester Philharmonic have performed her symphonic works.  A Celebration of Spirituals, for chorus and orchestra, was recently performed at the National Museum of Women in the Arts.  Her musical theater works have been presented at the American Music Festival and Lincoln Center among others.  She has received numerous commissions and awards, including the National Music Theater Network, Raleigh Medal of Arts, ASCAP, Marquis'Who's Who, Cornell University, the United Arts and the North Carolina Arts Commission. She is presently happily engaged in writing a work for rock band and symphony orchestra.

Patty Haines - Flutes
Patty has performed with numerous chamber ensembles and orchestras in the Triangle area as well as in Chicago.  Ms. Angevine is also the current Principal Flutist with the Raleigh Symphony Orchestra.  A semi-finalist in the National Flute Association Competition, she also holds a certificate from the Chautauqaua Institute (NY) and Bachelor of Music Degree from Houghton College (NY).  In her spare time, she is a Sales Forecast Analyst at Cooper Hand Tools.

Irene Burke - Flutes
Irene Burke has a Bachelor’s Degree in Music from the Crane School of Music in New York and performs professionally with several arts groups in the Raleigh Area.  She has also performed with other orchestras in the Northeast as well as being a member of the Raleigh Symphony Orchestra since relocating to this area in 1986.  Ms. Burke was a student of Samuel Baron and Donald MacDonald.  Special performances include Piccolo Spoleto in Charleston, SC,  the Biltmore Estate, and holiday performances at the White House and Colonial Williamsburg.  Currently, Ms. Burke is the Executive Director of the Raleigh Symphony and is also certified by the State of North Carolina as a CPA with her own private CPA firm.     

Wayne Leechford - Saxophones, Clarinets
Wayne Leechford is a multi-instrumental musician and music instructor from Raleigh, NC. He received his Bachelor of Music and Master of Music from the North Carolina School of the Arts. His professional experience spans over twenty years and has been very diverse. Including studio recording, live TV and radio, musical theater, and live performances with nationally touring artists and other professional ensembles. He performed for President Bill Clinton at the White House in 1995. His studio credits include work for Warner Brothers, Discovery Health Channel, South Carolina Public Radio, and North Carolina State University among others. He teaches saxophone and clarinet at NC State University and at his private studios in Raleigh and Cary. He has taught as guest instructor for Wake and Durham County Schools, Durham School of the Arts, NC School of Science and Math, Saint Augustine’s College, and Shaw University. In addition to Free Spirits, he has performed with New Century Saxophone Quartet, NC Wind Orchestra, NC Theatre, Broadway Series South, and SunTrust Broadway Series.

Jane Salemson - Cello
Principal Cellist for the Raleigh Symphony Orchestra, Ms. Salemson is also a member of the Musica Trio and Quartet.  She has played with the Haifa Symphony Orchestra in Israel, The Huntington, Queens, Greensboro Symphony Orchestra and the Durham Symnphony Orchestra.
A graduate of Dartington Hall and the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in England, Jane is one of the founders of Musica, a booking agency for professional musicians.  In 1991, Ms. Salemson founded the Chapel Hill Chamber Music Competition to encourage young musicians in discovering the art of chamber music playing and performance.

Izabela Spiewak - Violin
Ms. Spiewak started her international musical career as a winner of the Wieniawski/Lipinski International Young Violinists’ Competition at the age of 17 in Lublin, Poland.  Born in Eastern Poland, Ms. Spiewak is a graduate of the State Music School for the gifted children which she joined at the age of 7, and was a part of for 12 years on a full scholarship.  Subsequently she completed Performing Artists’ Degree and graduated with honors from the acclaimed Warsaw Music Academy, Poland.  She studied with the leading Eastern European violin pedagogues, including Mr. Oskar Ruppel, a pupil of the legendary virtuoso Eugene Ysaye. Still as a student, Mr. Spiewak recorded classical and popular music for the Polish Radio and TV and was a part of the Polish Radio and Television Orchestra.  Under the auspices of the Polish Performing Artists’ Management, Ms. Spiewak relocated to Central America and toured all over the world with the Mexico City Philharmonic.

Upon her arrival to the United States, Ms. Spiewak was offered a full scholarship to the Los Angeles Philharmonic Institute under the direction of Leonard Bernstein and Michael Tilson Thomas.  She studied chamber music and performed under the guidance of such distinguished masters as Menahem Pressler, Martha Argerich, Lynn Harel, Heiicheiro Ohyama, Yehudi Menuhin, and Pinchas Zuckerman.  She was also a member of the Florida Philharmonic Orchestra, Miami Grand Opera and Miami Chamber Symphony, and served as a concertmaster of the Sinfonica Nacional (Sto. Domingo, D.R.) and for the Chamber Orchestra of the Triangle (Raleigh, NC)  She was instrumental in forming the Arcangelo Piano Quartet www.ArcangeloPianoQuartet.com with which she is performing as a leader since 1997, and the Duo Appassionato.  She is an avid recitalist on the North Carolina Touring Artists roster and also a recipient of the Regional Artists Grant from the State of North Carolina.

Jim Williams - Clarinet, Arranger
Jim plays principal clarinet in the Raleigh Symphony Orchestra, the Tar River Orchestra, and the Chamber Orchestra of the Triangle.  Mr. Williams also plays with the North Carolina Wind Orchestra and the North Carolina Symphony.  He holds a Bachelor of Music Education from the University of Florida and a Master of Music in Clarinet Performance from the New England Conservatory of Music.  He taught instrumental music and theory at North Carolina Wesleyan College and clarinet at East Carolina University.

Xi Yang - Violin, Viola
Xi Yang began his distinguished music career when he was a student at the Conservatory of Music in Beijing, China where he studied both Violin and Viola Performance.  He had his first solo debut when he was 9.  By the age of 12 he made an average of 200 solo appearances a year in China.  He won the National Violin Competition in Shanghai and made his solo debut with the Beijing Youth Symphony as a soloist and concertmaster.  At the age of 17 he was the youngest participant and a semi-finalist in the prestigious Jacques Tibaud International Violin Competition in Paris, France which earned him a place in the “Encyclopedia of Major Events in Modern Chinese History”. 

Arriving in the United States, Mr. Yang won a National Strings Competition in Arkansas and has performed numerous solo recitals, chamber music concerts and gave master classes to young string players from public schools and colleges. A graduate of the Indiana University School of Music, he studied violin and chamber music ensemble from the Baroque to the contemporary composers under the guidance of James Buswell, Nelli Shkolnikova, Josef Gingold and Rostislav Dubinsky. “Mr. Yang has the ability and potential to become one of the greatest solo violinists in the world today…”  (Isaac Stern, Indiana University 1987).  Mr. Yang was a Principal Violist for the Florida Philharmonic Orchestra, Florida Grand Opera, and the Symphony of the Americas.  We established also as a solo violinist, currently he is the Assistant Concertmaster with the Raleigh Symphony Orchestra, North Carolina.  He is also a violist with the Arcangelo Piano Quartet since 1997 and violist/violinist of the Duo Appassionato which is on the roster of the North Carolina Tourist Artist Directory.

Dan Zehr - Bass
Principal Bassist with the Raleigh Symphony Orchestra and has freelanced in the Triangle area for many years in many orchestras and chamber ensembles.