Informed by Afrological principles of drum ensemble playing, Lesley Mok performs on a percussion kit assembled especially for the ensemble. She combines bongos, cowbells, temple blocks, cymbals, and floor tom, and employs diverse performance techniques to produce a dynamic range of timbres and orchestrations. A true experimentalist, she has been mentored by Vijay Iyer, Henry Threadgill, Danilo Perez, Terri Lyne Carrington, and others.
A soloist and chamber musician based in San Antonio, Texas, pianist Daniel Anastasio combines an intellectual curiosity with “technical prowess and emotional sensitivity” (Rivard Report). His performance of Beethoven’s Piano Concerto no. 3, conducted by Leon Fleisher with the Ithaca College Chamber Orchestra, was “the highlight to everyone’s ears, if the full-house of standing ovation were any indication” (ECM reviews). Anastasio was a concerto competition finalist at Cornell University, Stony Brook University, and Juilliard, where he won the Mieczyslaw Munz Scholarship. He received fellowships to Music Academy of the West, Kneisel Hall, Tanglewood Music Center and Yellow Barn Music Festival. Anastasio is the co-founder of Unheard-of//Ensemble, a group dedicated to commissioning composers and premiering their works.
Portland-based composer Ryan Francis has cultivated a deeply personal aesthetic across a wide array of musical projects ranging from an extensive catalogue for piano solo to a series of works for diverse synthesizers. His music has been described as “shimmering,” “focused” and “warmly lyrical.” (New York Times) Recent and ongoing projects include Prophet Cycle for the Prophet-6 synthesizer with pianist Conor Hanick, The Living Fabric, a collaborative composition with violinist and composer Emily Wells, and Quartet for four monophonic synthesizers. Francis’s works for dance include two collaborations with choreographer Pontus Lidberg, SNOW(2015), and Stream (2013). Other notable performances and commissions have come from Metropolis Ensemble, the American Composers Orchestra, Fear No Music Ensemble, and Pittsburgh New Music Ensemble, and his collected works for piano are available from Tzadik Records, performed by pianist Vicky Chow. Francis holds a M.M. and D.M.A in composition from the Juilliard School and a B.M. in composition from the University of Michigan. He teaches at Portland State University and Pacific University.
“Quietly transfixing” composer / producer Emily Wells is known for her varied use of classical and modern instrumentation, “a master of blending the worlds of classical and electronics” (NPR) and “dramatic, meticulous and gothic songs” (New York Times). On stage Wells’ builds a “new instrument” out of acoustic and electronic drums, synth, violin, and her evocative performances leave audiences equal parts dancing and grieving. Wells’ latest work, This World is Too _____ For You released in March has been hailed by NPR as “breathtaking” “mind-blowing” and “visionary”. The ten song album, arranged for chamber ensemble by composer Michi Wiancko, was commissioned by Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra’s Liquid Music Series and Metropolis Ensemble who performs on the album along with drummer / composer Shayna Dunkelman (Du Yun, Xiu Xiu).
Composer, multi-instrumentalist, and interdisciplinary artist Darian Donovan Thomas was born in San Antonio, Texas and is currently based in Brooklyn, New York. He is interested in combining genres and mediums into a singular vocabulary that can express ideas about intersectionality (of medium and identity). Necessarily, he is interested in redacting all barriers to entry that have existed at the gates of any genre - this vocabulary of multiplicity will be intersectional, and therefore all-inclusive.
Matthew was born in Boston, Massachusetts and raised in Birmingham, Alabama, where he was exposed early to the music of Cannonball Adderly, Miles Davis, John Coltrane and Ornette Coleman. He began playing saxophone at the age of 9, and quickly began learning the music of his heroes by ear. In college, he was introduced to the music of Igor Stravinsky and Arnold Schoenberg, which opened his ears to the world of modern classical music. After a five year stint touring as a founding member of Sony Music recording artist Moses Mayfield, Matthew moved to Miami in 2009 to focus on composition.
Since his relocation, Matthew’s music has been premiered in Miami, New York City, San Francisco and Cortona, Italy and performed by the Imani Winds, The Cleveland Orchestra, and the Detroit Symphony Orchestra. Matthew has also been involved in fruitful collaborations with dancer/choreographers Priscilla Marrero, Katherine Kramer, and Joanne Barrett, musicians Elliott Sharp and Tatsuya Nakatani, and artists Pablo Cano and Ferrán Martin. He also was a founding member of Fridamusiq, an ensemble of four composers interested in free improvisation. Matthew is also a co-founder of the Vanguard Miami Festival of New Music. He now serves as Professor of Music at Middlebury College.
Avneesh Sarwate is a software engineer and musician working with computer music and interactive art, based in ATL and NYC. In particular, he is interested in interfaces for musical performance, and has recently started working with interactive visuals. He is also a member of Grind Arts Company and an alumnus of the Princeton Laptop Orchestra.
Israeli American cellist Inbal Segev is a true original. Combining “thrillingly projected, vibrato-rich playing (not to mention a beautifully judged range of color and dynamics)” (Washington Post) with “rich tone, secure presence and complete technical mastery” (Jerusalem Post), her performances are distinguished by their artistic maturity, intense focus and rare interpretive depth. Besides making solo appearances at leading international venues and with preeminent orchestras and conductors worldwide, she is, with former New York Philharmonic concertmaster Glenn Dicterow and violist Karen Dreyfus, a founding member of the Amerigo Trio.
Celebrated for her fresh insights into music’s great masterworks, she is equally committed to reinvigorating the cello repertoire, and has commissioned and premiered major new works from an international who’s who of today’s foremost contemporary composers, including Timo Andres, Anna Clyne, Avner Dorman, Gity Razaz and Dan Visconti. She has co-curated the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra’s New Music Festival since its inception in 2017.
Kelly Moran is a classically trained composer and musician based in New York. While she has composed music for many instruments, and performed in several avant-rock groups and experimental ensembles, she has received the most attention for her solo albums marrying prepared piano arrangements with ambient electronics. Following the critical success of 2017's Bloodroot, she released the improvisation-based Ultraviolet in 2018 on Warp Records.
Paula Matthusen is a composer who writes both electroacoustic and acoustic music and realizes sound installations. In addition to writing for a variety of different ensembles, she also collaborates with choreographers and theater companies. She has written for diverse instrumentations, such as “run-on sentence of the pavement” for piano, ping-pong balls, and electronics, which Alex Ross of The New Yorker noted as being “entrancing”. Her work often considers discrepancies in musical space—real, imagined, and remembered.
Choreographer/Director Raja Feather Kelly is the artistic director of New Brooklyn Theatre. In 2009, he founded the dance-theatre-media company the feath3r theory. The two companies merged in 2018. Raja has been awarded a Creative Capital Award (2019), a National Dance Project Production Grant (2019), a Breakout Award from the Stage Directors and Choreographers Foundation (2018), Dance Magazine's inaugural Harkness Promise Award (2018), the Solange MacArthur Award for New Choreography (2016), and is a three-time Princess Grace Award winner (2017, 2018, 2019). He was born in Fort Hood, Texas and holds a B.A. in Dance and English from Connecticut College.
Molly Joyce’s music has been described as “serene power” (New York Times), written to “superb effect” (The Wire), and “impassioned” (The Washington Post). Her work has presented at TEDxMidAtlantic, Bang on a Can Marathon, and in Pitchfork. She often performs with her toy organ, an instrument which engages with her disabled left hand, and studied at Juilliard, Royal Conservatory in The Hague, and Yale School of Music.
September 24, 2023
18 newly commissioned works celebrating the etudes of György Ligeti.
Juno Award-winning composer Vivian Fung has a unique talent for combining idiosyncratic textures and styles into large-scale works, reflecting her multicultural background. “One of today’s most eclectic composers” (NPR), she has a deep interest in exploring cultures and is passionate about fostering the talent of the next generation.
September 24, 2023
18 newly commissioned works celebrating the etudes of György Ligeti.
Jakub Ciupinski is a Polish composer living in New York City. Although his music is often associated with electronics and interactive performances, he has written numerous pieces for traditional acoustic forces. He has collaborated with a variety of artists, musicians, choreographers and film directors, including Oscar-winning director Andrzej Wajda, and scored the music for United Nations documentary “Opening Doors.”
Since 2013 he has been teaching at Purchase College, State University of New York where he served as head of Studio Composition program as well as artistic director of Purchase Orchestra Electric, an innovative multimedia project combining live orchestra with electronics, lights and and video projection mapping.
Tyondai Braxton is an American composer and electronic musician. He has been writing and performing music under his own name and collaboratively, under various group titles, since the mid 1990’s. His music incorporates electronic and modern orchestral elements, ranging from solo pieces to large-scale symphonic works.
The former front man of experimental rock band Battles, Braxton has since focused on his own work, including his critically acclaimed album Central Market– which has been performed by world-renowned orchestras such as London Sinfonietta, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and the BBC Symphony Orchestra.
Born and raised in Casablanca, Morocco, Amino Belyamani began playing the piano by the age of six. Throughout his childhood and adolescence, he participated in many national and international piano competitions and received several awards and first prizes from renowned international pianists such as France Clidat. Before even graduating from high school, he had acted the lead role in a short movie directed by Lahcen Zinoun entitled Le Piano, where he performed as the lead piano player with Morocco’s national philharmonic orchestra. After a couple of years spent in France, Belyamani left for the United States to absorb improvisational musical forms at the California Institute of the Arts.
Jenny Beck is a composer who is interested in listening and breathing. She writes music for instruments, voices, electronics, and found objects in a variety of small and large ensembles. Her work reflects her interests in nature, meditation, ambience, and ambiguity. Jenny is currently pursuing a PhD in music composition at Princeton University.
Brad Balliett and Doug Balliett — identical twin composers and performers from Massachusetts — have been performing together and collaborating for nearly thirty years. As bassoonist and double bassist (respectively) they perform as a duo and with groups all around New York, including the new music ensembles Deviant Septet, Metropolis Ensemble, Argento, Signal, and Alarm Will Sound, with chamber ensembles The Declassified and Ensemble ACJW, with symphonies such as Handel & Haydn and the Hartford Symphony, and a host of other diverse ensembles.
Dedicated rappers, the brothers, along with Elliot Cole, make up The Oracle Hysterical and create pioneering hip-hoperas, rap cantatas, poperas, and so forth. Performances of these works have taken them around the world.
Holland Andrews (they/them) is an American vocalist, composer, and performance artist whose work focuses on the abstraction of operatic and extended-technique voice to build soundscapes encompassing both catharsis and dissonance. Frequently highlighting themes surrounding vulnerability and healing, Andrews arranges music for voice, clarinet, and electronics. Andrews harnesses these instruments’ innate qualities of power and elegance to serve as a cohesive vessel for these themes. As a vocalist, their influences stem from a dynamic range including contemporary opera, theater, and jazz, while also cultivating their own unique vocal style which integrates these influences with language disintegration and vocal distortion. Andrews previously performed solo music under the stage name Like a Villain.
In addition to creating solo work, Andrews develops and performs soundscapes for dance, theater, and film, and their work is still toured nationally and internationally with artists such as Bill T. Jones, Dorothee Munyaneza, Will Rawls, and poet Demian Dinéyazhi. Notable musical collaborations have been with composers and artists such as Son Lux, Christina Vantzou, William Brittelle, Peter Broderick, and is one of the first artist on releasing on the label Leiter, a Berlin-based record label spearheaded by composer, Nils Frahm. Andrews has gained recognition from publications such as The Wire, The New York Times, Electronic Sound, Uncut Magazine, Le Monde, and BBC Radio. Holland Andrews is currently based in Brooklyn, New York. In addition to creating solo work, Andrews develops and performs the soundscapes for dance, theater, and film, and whose work is still toured nationally and internationally. Andrews has gained recognition from publications such as The Wire, The New York Times, Uncut Magazine, BBC Radio, and more. Holland Andrews is currently based in New York City.
Timo Andres is a composer and pianist who grew up in rural Connecticut and lives in Brooklyn, NY. A Nonesuch Records artist, his album of orchestral works with Metropolis Ensemble, Home Stretch, has been hailed for its “playful intelligence and individuality,” (The Guardian) and of his 2010 debut album for two pianos Shy and Mighty (performed by himself and duo partner David Kaplan), Alex Ross wrote in The New Yorker that “it achieves an unhurried grandeur that has rarely been felt in American music since John Adams came on the scene… more mighty than shy, [Andres] sounds like himself.”
September 21, 2024
An intimate evening of solo piano works from composer/pianist Timo Andres and works by Duke Ellington, Philip Glass, Frederic Rzewski, and Gabriella Smith.
