David Fulmer

David Fulmer

 

David Fulmer

Winner of the 2019 Academy Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, David Fulmer has garnered numerous international accolades for his bold compositional aesthetic combined with his thrilling performances. A Guggenheim Fellow, and a leader in his generation of composer-performers, the success of his Violin Concerto at Lincoln Center in 2010 earned international attention and resulted in immediate engagement to perform the work with major orchestras and at festivals in the United Kingdom, Europe, North America, and Australia. Fulmer made his European debut performing and recording his concerto with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Matthias Pintscher in 2011. That same year, Fulmer made his debut at Tanglewood appearing with the work. A surge of recent and upcoming commissions include new works for the New York Philharmonic, Ensemble Intercontemporain, Berlin Philharmonic, Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen, ProMusica Chamber Orchestra, Carnegie Hall, Alte Oper Frankfurt, BMI Foundation, Concert Artists Guild, Washington Performing Arts, Kennedy Center, Fromm Music Foundation, Koussevitzky Foundation, and Tanglewood.

Fulmer was recently the recipient of both the Charles Ives Fellowship from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and the Carlos Surinach Commissioning Award from BMI. He is the first American recipient of the Grand Prize of the International Edvard Grieg Competition for Composers. He has also received the ASCAP Morton Gould Young Composer Award, the BMI Composer Award, the Charles Ives Scholarship from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, a special citation from the Minister of Education of Brazil, the Hannah Komanoff Scholarship in Composition from The Juilliard School, and the highly coveted George Whitefield Chadwick Gold Medal from the New England Conservatory. Fulmer appears regularly and records often with the premiere new music ensembles in New York, including the International Contemporary Ensemble, Talea Ensemble, Argento New Music Project, Speculum Musicae, the Group for Contemporary Music, and the New York New Music Ensemble. His work has been recorded by the Ensemble Intercontemporain. He has appeared recently on the Great Performers Series at Lincoln Center, The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, and Live from Lincoln Center broadcasts. He graduated from The Juilliard School.

 
 
 

Fjóla Evans

Fjóla Evans

 

Fjóla Evans

Fjóla Evans is a Canadian/Icelandic composer and cellist. Her work explores the visceral physicality of sound while drawing inspiration from patterns of natural phenomena. Autocorrect describes her work as a “texturing fog.” Commissions and performances have come from musicians such as Bang on a Can All-Stars pianist Vicky Chow, Grammy-winning ensemble eighth blackbird, and the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra. Her work has been featured on the MATA Festival, Bang on a Can Marathon, Gaudeamus Music Week, Cello Biennale Amsterdam 2020, Ung Nordisk Musik, and the American Composers Orchestra's SONiC Festival.

As a performer, she has presented her own work at Cluster Festival of New Music, (le) poisson rouge, Mengi in Reykjavík, and at Toronto's Music Gallery. Fjóla has participated in residencies at the Banff Centre for the Arts, and KulturKontakt Austria, among others. She has studied composition with Julia Wolfe, cello performance with Matt Haimovitz, and completed a master’s degree in composition at the Yale School of Music in 2018. In September 2019 she began doctoral studies in composition at Columbia University where her research is supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.

Recent projects include a new song cycle for Dúplum duo based on a taxonomy of Icelandic plant life, the premiere of Self-Care by Fonema Consort, VC2 cello duo’s rendition of Ridge & Furrow featured on the album Beethoven’s Cellists, a performance of Lung as part of Gaudeamus Music Week 2021 by the Residentie Orkest, cellist Maya Fridman’s performance of Reið-Hagall-Bjarkan out on TRPTK, and the release of Bearthoven's recording of Shoaling on Cantaloupe Music. Fjóla is the 2017 winner of the Robert Fleming Prize from the Canada Council for the Arts.

 
 
 

Jessie Cox

Jessie Cox

 

Jessie Cox

One of the world’s most brazenly experimental composers, Swiss artist Jessie Cox makes music about the universe - and our future in it. Through avant-garde classical, experimental jazz, and sound art, he has devised his own strand of musical science fiction, one that asks where we go next. Cox’s music goes forward. When he describes it, he compares it to time travel and space exploration, likening the role of a composer to that of a rocket ship traversing undiscovered galaxies. He is influenced by a vast array of artists who have used their music to imagine futures, and takes Afrofuturism as a core inspiration, asking questions about existence, and the ways we make spaces habitable. Known for its disquieting tone and unexpected structural changes, his music steps into the unknown, and has been referred to by the New Yorker as a nebulous and ever-expanding sound world that includes ‘breathy instrumental noises, mournfully wailing glissandi, and climactic stampedes of frantic figuration’.

 
 
 

Victoria Cheah

Victoria Cheah

 

Victoria Cheah

Victoria Cheah (b. 1988, New York, NY) is a multi-disciplinary composer interested in boundaries, sustained energy, and social/performance rituals. Her work has been commissioned / presented by andPlay, Yarn / Wire, Wavefield Ensemble, MATA Festival, Guerilla Opera, Ensemble Dal Niente, Vertixe Sonora, Marilyn Nonken, Trio Okho, Transient Canvas, Trio de Kooning, PRISM Quartet, and performed by others. She has attended academies including Sommerakademie Schloss Solitude, Darmstadt, Fontainebleau, VIPA, SICPP, The Walden School, and others. Her teachers and mentors include David Rakowski, Eric Chasalow, Yu-Hui Chang, Steven Takasugi, Chaya Czernowin, Philippe Leroux, Shafer Mahoney, Shawn Crouch, as well as her students and colleagues.

Cheah holds a B.A. in music from City University of New York Hunter College & Macaulay Honors College and a Ph.D. in music composition & theory at Brandeis University. She has taught music, research, and writing related courses as an instructor at Longy School of Music, Brandeis University, and as a teaching fellow at Harvard University. From 2011-2015, Cheah served as the founding executive director of Sound Icon and has worked with new music organizations Talea Ensemble, Manhattan Sinfonietta, Argento Chamber Ensemble, Composit, and others towards the realization of contemporary music events. She currently serves as Assistant Professor at Berklee College of Music, a co-director of Score Follower, and a bartender at Winnie’s.

 
 
 

Shiuan Chang

Shiuan Chang

 

Shiuan Chang

Describe as " spiritual, light and comforting." by Classic Agenda (FR), Shiuan Chang is the winner of 2018 Chicago Civic Symphony Composer Prize, 2021 Asian Cultural Council award, and the 2021 Djerassi Artist Residency. Shiuan views that the performance is birth; the following applause is death, and the performers’ acknowledge bow is reincarnation. His recent major production including "Sounding Light (2020)" collaborating with the Cloudgate Contemporary Dance company; Two flagship productions of the Taiwan International Festival of Arts : "I-Village (2021)" collaborating with the Sheng-Xiang Rock Band and the National Symphony Orchestra, and "A thousand stages, Yet I have never quite lived (2021)" collaborating with the Beijing Opera artist Hei-Min Wei and National Symphony Orchestra, directed by Kengsen Ong. CHANG Shiuan’s music have been performed nationally and internationally at Carnegie Hall, Merkin Hall (New York), Suntory Hall (Tokyo), Jordan Hall (Boston), Moscow Philharmonic Chamber Hall, Berlin Philharmonic Chamber Hall, Chicago Symphony Center, Taiwan National Concert Hall, Bartok Hall (Hungary), ODC Theater (San Fransisco), Le Phenix Valenciennes (FR), Royaumont (Paris), Archipel Festival (Geneva), Tenso Music Days (Belgium), Boston Early Music Festival, Innovation Series Taipei, Grafenegg Festival, and the Bartok Festival (Hungary). He has worked with the Cloudgate Contemporary Dance Company, Tonkunstler Orchestra, Taiwan Philharmonic, Taipei Symphony Orchestra, Chicago Civic Symphony Orchestra, Moscow Contemporary Music Ensemble, Asasello Quartett, TANA Quartet, Mivos Quartet, Atlas Ensemble, Ensemble Multilaterale, Ensemble Musicatreize, Earplay Ensemble, signal ensemble, Antico Moderno, Neue Vocalisten Stuttgart, Ekmeles Ensemble, Les Metabole, Princeton Singers, and Orkest de Ereprijs,.

CHANG studied with Malcolm Peyton at New England Conservatory during undergraduate. He has also studied with Chaya Czernowin, Stefano Gervasoni, and Maestro Peter Eotvos.

 
 
 

Nick Bentz

Nick Bentz

 

Nick Bentz

Nick Bentz (b. 1994) is a composer and violinist whose art is drawn to the remote fringes and recesses of experience. In his work he seeks to render intimately personal spaces imbued with an individual sense of storytelling and narrative. Finding inspiration in historical materials, Nick's work often explores the destructive relationship between sound artifacts and time. His art centers around the blurring, juxtaposition, and amalgamation of stylistic idioms into singular sonic statements. Nick's music has been performed by leading artists including yMusic, flutist Marina Piccinini, HOCKET, Charleston Symphony, Suzhou Symphony Orchestra, New Opera West, LIGAMENT, NYsoundCircuit, Jacksonville Symphony, TEMPO Ensemble, SONAR New Music Ensemble, Occasional Symphony, and Symphony Number One, and featured at Copland House CULTIVATE, the Center for Contemporary Art – Shanghai, FSU Festival of New Music, Bowdoin Music Festival, the Chengdu Museum, New Music on the Point, and the Sounding Now Festival. Current projects include works for International Contemporary Ensemble, Wigmore Hall, Thornton EDGE, and multimedia collaborations with visual artist Sicheng Wang and filmmaker Ian Kent. His work has received top honors from the Tribeca New Music Festival, the American Prize, the iSING International Young Artists Festival, Boston New Music Initiative, Hartford Opera Theater, and American Composer’s Orchestra’s EarShot Readings. Nick was previously a Composition Teaching Artist Fellow at the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra.

Nick is currently a Ph.D. candidate at Brown University, pursuing a doctorate in Music and Multimedia Composition. He received a master’s degree in composition from the University of Southern California. Nick also earned a master's in violin from the Peabody Conservatory, receiving bachelor's degrees in violin and composition. His mentors include Wang Lu, Eric Nathan, Anthony Cheung, Nina Young, Kevin Puts, Donald Crockett, Ted Hearne, Andrew Norman, Felipe Lara, and Yiorgos Vassilandonakis.

 
 
 

Lindsay Kesselman

Lindsay Kesselman

 

Lindsay Kesselman

Hailed by Fanfare Magazine as an “artist of growing reputation for her artistry and intelligence...with a voice of goddess-like splendor” Lindsay Kesselman is a two time GRAMMY-nominated soprano who passionately advocates for contemporary music.

Recent and upcoming highlights include the premiere of the wind transcription of Caroline Shaw’s Is a Rose, Energy in All Directions by Kenneth Frazelle with Sandbox Percussion at the Saratoga Performing Arts Center, the role of Anna in Kurt Weill’s The Seven Deadly Sins with the Charlotte Symphony, the role of Ada Lovelace in a new opera, Galaxies in Her Eyes by Mark Lanz Weiser and Amy Punt, Astronautica: Voices of Women in Space with Voices of Ascension, ongoing performances of two works written for Kesselman by John Mackey with orchestras and wind symphonies across the country, the John Corigliano 80th birthday celebration at National Sawdust (2018), Quixote (Amy Beth Kirsten and Mark DeChiazza) with Peak Performances at Montclair State University (2017), a leading role in Louis Andriessen’s opera Theatre of the World with the Los Angeles Philharmonic and Dutch National Opera and an international tour of Einstein on the Beach with the Philip Glass Ensemble (2012-2015).

Kesselman is featured on several recent recordings: Chris Cerrone’s The Arching Path (2021, In a Circle Records), Russell Hartenberger’s Requiem for Percussion and Voices (2019, Nexus Records), Chris Cerrone’s The Pieces That Fall to Earth with Wild Up (2019, New Amsterdam Records), Mathew Rosenblum’s Lament/Witches’ Sabbath with the Pittsburgh New Music Ensemble (2018, New Focus Recordings), Louis Andriessen’s Theatre of the World with the Los Angeles Philharmonic (2017, Nonesuch), and Jon Magnussen’s Twinge with HAVEN (2016, Blue Griffin).

 
 
 

John Taylor Ward

John Taylor Ward

 

John Taylor Ward

John Taylor Ward’s performances have been praised for their “Stylish abandon” (Alex Ross, The New Yorker) and their “finely calibrated precision and heart-rending expressivity” (Washington Post). He performs regularly with the world’s finest baroque musicians and ensembles, including Christina Pluhar and L’Arpeggiata, Paul O’Dette, Steven Stubbs and the Boston Early Music Festival, William Christie and Les arts florissants, and Sir John Eliot Gardiner and the English Baroque Soloists. In 2016, he was featured in the U.S. premiere of Claude Vivier’s Kopernikus, directed by Peter Sellars at the Ojai Festival, and he began a series of recitals at Joe’s Pub with Cantata Profana. In 2017 he made his debuts at the Salzburg, Berlin, and Luzerne Festspieles. Upcoming highlights include Berio’s Sinfonia with the New York Philharmonic and Nick Shadow in Igor Stravinski’s The Rake’s Progress, conducted by Barbara Hannigan in Gothenburg, Sweden. Taylor holds a BM from the Eastman School of Music and an MMA from Yale School of Music; he is the founding Associate Artistic Director of the Lakes Area Music Festival, an Associate Artist of Heartbeat Opera, and an avid Sacred Harp singer.

 
 
 

Andrew Turner

Andrew Turner

 

Andrew Turner

Andrew Turner is a Pittsburgh Opera Resident Artist tenor. His roles this season included First Priest/First Armored Man in The Magic Flute, The Beloved in The Rose Elf, Policeman / The Man in In A Grove, Ramendado in Carmen, and Policeman/Buddy #1 in Blue.

A native of Tacoma, WA, Andrew holds a BM in Vocal performance from Washington State University and an MM from University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. While attending University of Illinois, he performed the roles of Don Ottavio in Don Giovanni, and Male Chorus in The Rape of Lucretia.

Mr. Turner recently finished his second season at Des Moines Metro Opera as an apprentice artist performing the role of Tchaplitsky in The Queen of Spades and covering the role of Tobias Raggs in Sweeney Todd. In 2019, he made his debut as Parpignol in DMMO’s production in La Boheme.

Other engagements included his role debut as Boy 1 in Trouble in Tahiti with Virginia Opera, Tamino in The Magic Flute with Opera Iowa, touring performances as Ranger Dudley in Little Red’s Most Unusual Day and The Prince in The Littlest Mermaid, and concert appearances as the tenor soloist in Mozart’s Coronation Mass and Vivaldi’s Lord Nelson Mass with the Berkeley Community Chorus and Orchestra.

 
 
 

Chuanyuan Liu

Chuanyuan Liu

 

Chuanyuan Liu

Praised for his "otherworldly flourish" (The Wall Street Journal), "intense stage presence" (Classical Voice North America), and "natural, sensitive feel with embedded lyrical nuance" (The Millbrook Independent), Chinese countertenor Chuanyuan Liu (刘川源) is proving himself a strong presence amidst the new generation of countertenors. His deep passion for story-telling inspires him to connect with his audience through empathy, authenticity, and creativity. Raised in China, but having spent his adulthood in the US, Chuanyuan is dedicated to seeking out musical projects that celebrate both the commonalities and the differences of the two worlds. He will begin his 2023-24 season with one such project, performing the title role in White Snake Projects' world premiere of Monkey by Jorge Sosa and Cerise Jacobs.

During the 2022-23 season, Chuanyuan returns to Toledo Symphony Orchestra as the alto soloist in Handel's Messiah, and to Pittsburgh Opera for his role debut of Polinesso in the Pittsburgh premiere of Handel's Ariodante. Later in the season he debuts the role of Ottone in a new production of Handel's Agrippina with CCM Opera. He also makes his company and role debut with Victory Hall Opera in their innovative Orpheus & Erica: a Deaf opera, playing Amore and covering Orfeo. In summer 2023, Chuanyuan will be a Renée Fleming Artist at the Aspen Opera Theater and VocalARTS (AOTVA) program, debuting the role of César in Jimmy Lopez and Nilo Cruz's Bel Canto.

The 2021-22 season provided a wonderful outlet for Chuanyuan’s passion for contemporary music, seeing him in three world premiere operas. He made his professional operatic debut at Pittsburgh Opera in Christopher Cerrone and Stephanie Fleischmann's critically acclaimed In a Grove (The Priest/The Medium), and made his Verizon Hall and Philadelphia Orchestra debut in the concert version of Kevin Puts and Greg Pierce’s The Hours (Man Under the Arch/Hotel Clerk). Chuanyuan then covered the leading role of Song Liling in Huang Ruo and David Henry Hwang's imaginative and intersectional work, M. Butterfly 蝴蝶君 during Santa Fe Opera’s summer 2022 season.