Deborah Sobol, Principal
Deborah Sobol’s 40-year career in the arts world is comprised of distinctive elements in concert performance, arts advocacy and community building. In addition, she is a highly sought-after music educator and arts organization consultant.
Principal of Studio 1301, Ms. Sobol generates and implements ideas for new ways to bring the fulfilling experience of art into people’s everyday lives. She heads a studio in Chicago serving all ages and backgrounds, where she is in demand for private piano instruction, chamber music coaching, career mentoring, masterclasses and seminars. She authors a wide range of educational materials and works with arts organizations to generate clear vision and strategy.
Ms. Sobol enjoys both a solo and chamber music career as a concert pianist, partnering in international venues with artists such as Larry Combs, Earl Wild, Nobuko Imai, Anner Bylsma, Gary Karr, Yang Wei, Mathieu Dufour, and Hila Plitmann. She has recorded for Cedille and Summit Records. Her articles on music and the piano have appeared in Clavier magazine and London’s Piano Journal. Ms. Sobol has also served as an adjudicator for the Ravinia Festival’s Steans Institute, and the Beethoven Piano Society of Europe’s Intercollegiate Piano Competition.
As a veteran community builder, Ms. Sobol has conceived numerous out-of-the-box programs and organizations to both create community through great music and to redefine the ways in which music has traditionally been presented in communities. She was the founding Artistic Co-Director of The Chicago Chamber Musicians in 1986, introducing to Chicago the then-unique concept of a mixed chamber ensemble of internationally recognized artists, sharing their gifts with a broad spectrum of citizens in Chicago. Under her tenure as Artistic Co-Director and Executive Director, she brought the new organization to a place of critical acclaim in Chicago among traditional concertgoers and new audiences alike. Her creative vision fostered the establishment of ten distinct programs of artistic nurture, educational and community in-reach, recording and touring. Ms. Sobol’s leadership laid the groundwork for the national reputation the organization enjoys today, including Grammy nominations and nationally syndicated broadcasts on National Public Radio’s Performance Today.
Ms. Sobol repeated her role as innovative creator in 2000, establishing the nationally recognized Rush Hour Concerts, a free summer-long series of “great music for busy lives” at St. James Cathedral in downtown Chicago. Rush Hour draws capacity crowds of nearly 700 attendees weekly, 30% of whom are under the age of 40. Under her leadership as Artistic and Executive Director, it has been recognized by both the “Artbeat” series on PBS' NewsHour, and on the “What Works” series of the NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams. The series is broadcast live to over 250,000 listeners in the Chicago area and worldwide via 98.7 WFMT FM. Over the last twelve years, Rush Hour has come to serve as a model for attracting younger audiences and making great classical music more relevant to everyday life.
In 2011, Rush Hour Concerts inaugurated Make Music Chicago, a free, citywide festival on the summer solstice that celebrates the ability of everyone to make music. Inspired by France's "Fête de la Musique," which celebrated its 30th anniversary in 2011, Make Music Chicago joined over 460 cities in 110 countries in this daylong celebration. 450 musicians of all ages and musical genres - amateurs, professionals, and marquee artists alike - shared music with 10,000 people across Chicago and hundreds of thousands more via live radio broadcast and streaming by 98.7 WFMT. The second annual Make Music Chicago will take place on Thursday, June 21, 2012.
An educator and long-time advocate for improving arts education, Ms. Sobol joined the faculty of the Chicago College of Performing Arts at Roosevelt University in 2009, and has previously held faculty posts in piano and chamber music at the Longy School of Music and Northwestern University School of Music. She was the creator of the award-winning arts education program of The Chicago Chamber Musicians for the Chicago Public Schools.
Ms. Sobol is devoted to preparing students and young professionals for careers in music in the 21st century, working to develop students' artistic and entrepreneurial skills to fulfill the needs of the communities around them. She was the architect of The Chicago Chamber Musicians' Professional Development Fellowship Program for young professional ensembles, for which she continues to serve as career mentor. She is a sought-after lecturer on career development topics at colleges and universities and provides a series of intensive seminars to help students meet their professional development goals.
Ms. Sobol graduated magna cum laude from Smith College and was inducted into the Phi Beta Kappa Honor Society. She received her Diplom in Klavier Konzertfach from the Hochschule fuer Musik in Vienna, and her pedagogy degree at London’s Royal College of Music. She was a member of the first public international masterclasses of Alfred Brendel in London in 1975. Her teachers have included Anne Liva, Lory Wallfisch, Hans Petermandl, Carola Grindea, and Leonard Shure.
Ms. Sobol serves on the board of The Solti Foundation US, and served on the board of The Chicago Chamber Musicians from 1986 – 2005. She has further worked in the community through strategic planning for the St. James Cathedral Youth Ministry Program, planning events and directing fundraising projects for Near North Montessori and Phillips Academy Andover, and through her marketing and public relations, event planning, and media production volunteer work for the Arthritis Foundation.
She makes her home in Chicago with her husband, Dr. Rowland W. Chang. Together, they have two children.
Julie Hutchison, Associate Principal
Julie Hutchison is Associate Principal of Studio 1301 and Managing Director of Rush Hour Concerts at St. James Cathedral.
Ms. Hutchison co-founded Studio 1301 with Deborah Sobol in 2008 and brings great skill as an editor, connector of concepts and strategy, and creative organizer. She edits educational materials, manages the studio’s private instruction and immersion courses, and works with organizations to create success planning out of vision.
Ms. Hutchison has served as Managing Director of Rush Hour Concerts at St. James Cathedral since 2004 and oversees marketing, public relations, audience development, and concert production. She was instrumental in creating the groundbreaking format of the Rush Hour series. She co-created Rush Hour’s innovative internship program in 2006 and founded Fanfare, a group of young professionals devoted to expanding Rush Hour’s outreach to new audiences, in 2007. Under her tenure, Rush Hour’s audience has increased 150% to a capacity crowd of nearly 500 attendees weekly, 25 percent of whom are under age 40, and Rush Hour has gained national recognition through the “What Works” series on NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams and the “Artbeat” series on PBS' NewsHour with Jim Lehrer. Ms. Hutchison found additional notable success in attracting a new community demographic through technological avenues, designing and programming the series’ website, blog, e-newsletters, and podcast series and launching the series’ innovative “In-A-Flash” initiative.
Ms. Hutchison graduated summa cum laude from Berklee College of Music with a B.M. in Film Scoring. Her work as a freelance music editor has included Buena Vista Pictures’ Under the Tuscan Sun and the independent film Little Erin Merryweather. A soprano, Ms. Hutchison performs with several Chicago choral ensembles, including the Grant Park Music Festival Chorus and the St. James Cathedral Choir, and appears on numerous independent rock albums. She has also taught voice, music theory, and composition privately.
Ms. Hutchison’s community volunteer work has included outreach projects through the Boston Arts Academy and Berklee Cares in Boston, the Bill Foundation in Los Angeles, and St. James Cathedral in Chicago. She and her husband, attorney William Chang, live in Chicago.
Claudia Eisen Flack, Guest Instructor
Claudia Eisen Flack is an active piano teacher, performer and consultant to arts organizations in Chicago. Ms. Eisen Flack is a 2008 graduate of the Music Conservatory at Roosevelt University where she earned a degree in piano performance with honors as a student of Dmitry Rachmanov and Ludmila Lazar.
She maintains an active teaching studio, is on the piano faculty of Accessible Contemporary Music and is a guest instructor at Studio 1301. Ms. Eisen Flack is also active as a performer and has performed in both solo and chamber recitals at Ganz Hall at Roosevelt University and at the Self Help Home in Chicago.
In addition to her career as a musician, Ms. Eisen Flack has had a twenty-year career in management, marketing and consulting at Young & Rubicam Inc. and at McKinsey & Company where she advised companies on issues related to branding, marketing and strategy. She serves on the Board of Accessible Contemporary Music and has provided consulting services to Accessible Contemporary Music and Rush Hour Concerts at St. James Cathedral.
In addition to her music degree, Ms. Eisen Flack holds a B.A. in Economics, magna cum laude, from Barnard College and an M.B.A. in Marketing from the Wharton School of Business. She lives in Chicago with her husband, Stuart, and is the mother of a high school sophomore and a college freshman.