(alphabetical by event)
Women Composers Forum
Amanda Bono (b. 1987) is an active composer of works for the concert hall and stage, and her music is frequently programmed on concerts and during festivals in the United States and abroad. Recent commissions include works for VIPA, the Etchings Festival, highSCORE Music Festival, Atlantic Music Festival, New Voices @ CUA, and The Atlantic Center for the Arts. Additionally, she has also been commissioned to create stage works for Synetic Theatre, The Shakespeare Theatre Company, and CUAdrama. In addition to writing music, her research interests include the music of the twentieth and twenty-first century, particularly the works of Ellen Taaffe Zwilich and other contemporary American women composers. Amanda teaches Music Theory at Shenandoah Conservatory, as well as The Catholic University of America, where she received her D.M.A. in Music Composition in May 2016. Amanda is a member of ASCAP, The College Music Society, and The Society for Music Theory.
Liane Curtis (Ph.D., Musicology) is the founder and President of both Women’s Philharmonic Advocacy (www.wophil.org) and the Rebecca Clarke Society (www.rebeccaclarke.org), and a Resident Scholar at the Women’s Studies Research Center at Brandeis University. Her many publications about Rebecca Clarke include A Rebecca Clarke Reader, which she edited. She is involved in a wide range of projects that celebrate women’s accomplishments in classical music, including WPA’s Performance Grants, which support orchestras in programming music composed by women. WPA is celebrating its 10th anniversary (and is always looking for guest bloggers)!
In 2000, Liane collaborated with the Boston Women’s Heritage Trail to have the name of composer Amy Beach added to the 87 names of male composers that adorn the Hatch Shell on the Esplanade. The unveiling of Beach’s name took place with a performance by the Boston Pops Orchestra that included music by Beach. In 2017, WPA released a new edition of Beach’s great Symphony, op. 32 (Gaelic), for which Liane provided the Preface.
Samantha Ege is a pianist and music teacher at the United World College of South East Asia, Singapore. She is from England and has taught internationally for six years. She holds a B.A. in Music from the University of Bristol, during which time she was also an exchange student at McGill University. She is conducting her Ph.D. in Music at the University of York. Her research focuses on the aesthetics of Florence Price. In Spring 2018, Samantha will be releasing an album with Wave Theory Records that spotlights the piano music of Florence Price, Ethel Bilsland, Vítězslava Kaprálová and Margaret Bonds.
A native of South Korea, Kowoon Lee is pursuing her DMA in Piano Performance at the University of Missouri-Kansas City, where she studies with Robert Weirich. She earned her MM and PD from Indiana University and her BM from Sookmyung Women’s University in Seoul, South Korea. At age 16, she made her solo debut with the Chungnam Symphony Orchestra and has since performed internationally with many orchestras and ensembles, including the Seoul National University Orchestra, the Romanian Banatul Timisoara Philharmonic Orchestra, the Sookmyung Festival Orchestra, the Janacek Concert Chamber Orchestra, and the Kansas City Ballet. Ms. Lee is a strong advocate of new music and has performed numerous times on UMKC’s Musica Nova and Composers’ Guild concerts. Working with Dr. Chen Yi, Ms. Lee was invited to perform at the 2017 national conference of the Society of Composers, Inc. She also was selected to present her research “Tools and Techniques to Improves Sight-Reading Skills” at the MTNA 2017 national conference. As the winner of UMKC’s prestigious Chancellor’s Competition, she will perform Saint-Saëns Piano Concerto No. 5 with the UMKC Conservatory Orchestra at the iconic Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts in May 2018.
Alexis Lowder is a graduate teaching assistant at Emporia State University (Kansas), where she has received numerous grants and scholarships in support of her research on women composers. She also teaches choir and voice at Allen Community College in Iola, Kansas.
In addition to historiographical research on women composers such as Ethel Smyth, Amy Beach, Clara Schumann, Fanny Hensel, and Florence Price, Lowder’s research endeavors include forays into German Romanticism (especially the War of the Romantics), psychedelic/acid rock on the 1960s, and trends within the Billboard Hot 100 chart.
Dr. Sarah Masterson is currently Assistant Professor of Piano and Music Theory at Newberry College in Newberry, SC, where she also serves as Director of Department Social Media, Freshman Faculty Mentor, and founding Artistic Director of the W. Darr Wise Piano Competition. Dr. Masterson’s recent research focuses on the work of 20th-century American women composers, and she presented related lecture-recitals at the 2015 Women Composers Festival of Hartford and 2016 CMS Mid-Atlantic Conference. Dr. Masterson also maintains an active solo and collaborative performance schedule throughout New England, the Midwest, and Southeast.
2017 Mississippi Honored Artist, pianist Julia Mortyakova has performed around the world: Assisi Performing Arts (Italy), Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity (Canada), Musica Nueva Malaga (Spain), Symphonic Workshops (Bulgaria), Yaroslavl Art Museum (Russia), Zhytomyr’s Musical Spring (Ukraine), Aspen Music Festival, Clayton Piano Festival, College Music Society, Eastern Music Festival, Music Teachers National Association (MTNA), Natchez Festival of Music, National Association of Composers USA (NACUSA) and Women Composers Festival of Hartford. For the past five years she has appeared as soloist with the Assisi (Italy) and Starkville Symphony orchestras.
Dr. Mortyakova is the Chair of the Department of Music at the Mississippi University for Women and the Founder/Artistic Director of the Music by Women Festival. The Mortyakova/Bogdan Piano Duo are the Second Prize winners of the 2017 Ellis Duo Piano Competition. Julia is a laureate of the 2014 American Prize for her performance Cecile Chaminade, and the winner of the 2012 Sigma Alpha Iota Career Performance Grant. Dr. Mortyakova’s research focuses on the existentialism of Jean-Paul Sartre and the life of Cecile Chaminade. She regularly presents papers at conferences and festivals. Dr. Mortyakova is a graduate of Interlochen Arts Academy, Vanderbilt University, New York University, and the University of Miami.
Music Marathon
Eliane Aberdam received her B.M. in composition from the Rubin Academy in Jerusalem in 1988. In 1989, she studied with George Crumb at the University of Pennsylvania (M.A.1992). She pursued Composition at U.C. Berkeley (Ph. D.1998). In 1998-1999, she taught composition, theory and Music technology at the University of Northern Iowa. Her works are performed in Israel, Europe, and the United States. She attended music festivals such as The Bartok Seminar in Hungary, June in Buffalo, the Académie d’Été in Paris, and Voix Nouvelles in Royaumont (France). In 1995, she was selected by IRCAM (Institute of Research & Coordination Acoustic/Music) for the Annual Course in electronic music, and composed PaRDeS, an electro-acoustic work for chamber ensemble and live electronics. In 2000, the Ensemble Inter-Contemporain (Paris) commissioned the chamber orchestra piece, Quoi? Ce point. In 2006, she wrote Tamar, an opera in 3 acts (libretto by Maurya Simon, based on the biblical story of Tamar and Amnon). Aberdam’s most recent works include Shahrazad for harp, soprano and actress (monodrama), Encounter, a ‘duet’ for pianist and Disklavier, and Souvenir des Alpes for cello solo. She has been teaching composition and theory at the University of Rhode Island since 2001.
Portuguese pianist Miguel Campinho has performed as a soloist and as a collaborative pianist extensively throughout Europe and the USA. Piano Journal writes that “Campinho’s playing is always powerful with a purposeful direction. His technique serves him well through lucid phrasing, uncannily clearly executed passages, judicious pedaling, all combined with a sensibility for this music that brings it to an exciting and vivid life. Campinho is a pianist to watch.” He is a lecturer in collaborative piano at the Butler School of Music, University of Texas at Austin.
Dr. Campinho has played the US premieres of many compositions by Portuguese composers. He has recorded the complete sonatas and sonatinas of Eurico Tomás de Lima. In 2015, US Senator Christopher Murphy, the State of Connecticut, and the Portuguese American Leadership Council of the United States presented Miguel Campinho with certificates of recognition and accomplishment for his work promoting Portuguese culture, arts, and heritage.
Dr. Campinho holds Master of Music, Artist Diploma, and Doctor of Musical Arts degrees in piano performance from The Hartt School, where he was a protégé of Luiz de Moura Castro. Dr. Campinho was inducted into Pi Kappa Lambda and is a member of the American Liszt Society.
Currently based in Somerville, Stephanie Duzdevich is a composer and performer from New York. She completed her undergraduate degree at NYU and her Master of Music at New Jersey City University. She has worked with renowned early music soprano and pedagogue, Julianne Baird, at the Queens Conservatory’s Baroque Opera Workshop. She has sung the music of Menotti, Poulenc, and Bernstein at Berklee’s David Friend Hall for The New England Opera Intensive, in addition to singing the role of Despina in Sing Through Central’s Cosi fan tutte, by Mozart. A frequent performer at New York City’s Cornelia Street Cafe, Stephanie has performed solo concerts there as well as presented a musical program about the intersection of science and art, for David Sulzer and nobel laureate Roald Hoffmann’s Entertaining Science. Upon moving to the Boston area, she began studying composition with Marti Epstein. Inspired by her Latin American heritage, she is currently composing a song cycle based on the poetry of 19th century Cuban poetess, Juana Borrero, whose impassioned words and enigmatic persona emerged during an unstable, revolutionary time when women’s artistic and political voices were especially stifled. As part of her commitment to outreach and education, she reviews Boston-area performances for the Boston Music Intelligencer. In addition, she writes about the work of other classical musicians on her blog, www.sopranointhecity.com. In January 2018, she started a graduate diploma in composition at the Longy School of Music, studying with Dr. Osnat Netzer.
A native of Stafford, Virginia, Melika M. Fitzhugh (A.B. Harvard-Radcliffe, M.M. Longy School of Music of Bard College) studied conducting and composition with Thomas G. Everett, Beverly Taylor, James Yannatos, Julian Pellicano, Roger Marsh, Jeff Stadelman, and, most recently, John Howell Morrison. Per compositions have been commissioned by John Tyson, Catherine E. Reuben, John and Maria Capello, Laura and Geoffrey Schamu, and the Quilisma Consort, and have been performed by those artists as well as the Radcliffe Choral Society, Berit Strong, Miyuki Tsurutani, Libor Dudas and Aldo Abreu. Mel, who has composed music for film and stage, was a member of Just In Time Composers and Players and is currently a member of world/early music ensemble Urban Myth, in addition to playing bass guitar with acoustic rock singer/songwriter Emmy Cerra, the ambient rock band Rose Cabal and the Balkan folk dance band Balkan Fields.
Violist Micaela Fruend is an active chamber musician and music educator, based on Long Island, New York. In recent years, she has performed in the Four Seasons Chamber Music Festival Next Generation Concert Series, Madeline Island’s Fellowship String Quartet Program, Astona International Summer Music Academy, and Esno Quartet’s chamber music workshop at Music Mountain. As a member of Long Island’s Kocham Trio, Fruend is part of an effort to commission new works for the ensemble from composers in the area.
Fruend is currently pursuing a Doctor of Muscial Arts degree from Stony Brook University under the tutelage of Nicholas Cords and Lawrence Dutton.
Nathaniel Gworek is on the faculty at Georgia College and State University where he teaches percussion ensemble, percussion methods, private lessons, and music history. He continues to work with the percussion community commissioning new music and performing recitals and clinics in the area. He also is on the advisory board of directors for the Women Composers Festival of Hartford and is a member for the Percussive Arts Society Health and Wellness Committee. Interested in playing many different styles of music, he has toured the Northeast with Percussion Ensembles, Orchestras, Wind Ensembles, Rock and Jazz bands, Mexican and African music groups, and a Renaissance Music Ensemble. Dr. Gworek has had the pleasure to play with the Finger Lakes Symphony Orchestra, UConn Opera Company, and the Hartford City Singers. He has studied with Jim Tiller of the Rochester Philharmonic, Kay Stonefelt, female pioneer on Broadway, and Keith Aleo. He has previously worked as an instructor at Stephen F. Austin State University, Manchester Community College, and as a student, was a Teacher’s Assistant at the University of Connecticut, SUNY Fredonia, the New York Summer Music Festival, and the Interlochen Center for the Arts.
Violinist Jiwon Kim received Bachelor of Music and Master of Musicd egrees from The Juilliard School where she studied with Professor Hyo Kang and Dr. I-Hao Lee. Her world premiere performance of Roberto Sierra’s Duo Concertante for violin and viola as part of the Summergarden series at the Museum of Modern Art was reviewed by The New York Times and New York Classical Review as “high-energy” and “high quality.”
An avid chamber musician and performer of new music, Jiwon has performed at distinguished venues including Carnegie Hall, Alice Tully Hall, and Avery Fisher Hall in Lincoln Center with New Juilliard Ensemble, Juilliard Orchestra, and Sejong Soloists. She has premiered numerous pieces working with eminent composers and contemporary ensembles. She has participated in Gil Shaham’s 1930s Violin Concertos project with Sejong Soloists, and “Pacific Mirrors – New Music from Asia and the United States” project by Japan-America Institute for New Music. Dedicated to reaching out to local and global communities with arts outreach activities, Jiwon has performed in the United Nations Headquarters sharing classical music with visitors from all over the world.
Dr. Jenn Kirby is a composer, performer, lecturer and music technologist. She works as the Programme Director for BA Music Performance and Production at the University of Wales Trinity Saint David, where she teaches composition and music technology. Her output includes contemporary instrumental composition, electroacoustic music, sound art, noise music, laptop orchestra performance and solo live electronics. Jenn is very active in the performance of electronic music as a performer and a software developer. She builds software and re-purposes games controllers as musical interfaces to create and perform theatrical and often humourous live electronic music.
Boja Kragulj is known internationally for her sensitive performance of both the standard and contemporary clarinet repertoire. She is an advocate for new music and the founder of the Bold City Contemporary Ensemble. A Fulbright Scholar and Ambassador also recognized for her use of non-Western extended techniques, Kragulj breaks the boundaries of East-West traditions. With a doctorate in performance and second master’s degree in music technology and production, her performing career exists at the intersection between tradition and innovation. She maintains an active performing schedule and studio of over 40 clarinetists. Read more at: www.bojakragulj.com
Dr. Sarah Masterson is currently Assistant Professor of Piano and Music Theory at Newberry College in Newberry, SC, where she also serves as Director of Department Social Media, Freshman Faculty Mentor, and founding Artistic Director of the W. Darr Wise Piano Competition. Dr. Masterson’s recent research focuses on the work of 20th-century American women composers, and she presented related lecture-recitals at the 2015 Women Composers Festival of Hartford and 2016 CMS Mid-Atlantic Conference. Dr. Masterson also maintains an active solo and collaborative performance schedule throughout New England, the Midwest, and Southeast.
Acclaimed for her electrifying performances and compositions, pioneering electro-acoustic violist, Martha Mooke is highly regarded for her artistry, innovative educational programs and music advocacy. She transcends musical boundaries, enhancing classical training with extended techniques, technology and improvisation.
A Yamaha Artist and leading clinician on electric and progressive string playing, Mooke has performed with Barbra Streisand, David Bowie, Philip Glass, Elton John, Trey Anastasio, Lou Reed, Iggy Pop, Laurie Anderson, Peter Gabriel, Andrea Bocelli, Star Wars in Concert, Tony Bennett and many others.
Mooke is Founder and Artistic Director of the Scorchio Quartet featured on David Bowie’s Heathen CD. Scorchio is the house quartet of the annual Tibet House Benefit Concerts at Carnegie Hall produced by Philip Glass.
Her genre-defying recordings include Enharmonic Vision, Bowing’s Cafe Mars, and her latest, No Ordinary Window, produced by multi Grammy winner Cynthia Daniels. Mooke has performed solo concerts throughout the US, Europe, Japan and Cuba.
Mooke received the prestigious ASCAP Concert Music Award for creating and producing ASCAP’s new music showcase THRU THE WALLS featuring boundary defying composer/performers. She serves on the Grammy Career Day and Advocacy Committees of the Recording Academy and on the Composers Now Advisory Board.
Described as “stark” by WNPR, Iranian composer Niloufar Nourbakhsh‘s music has been commissioned and performed by Symphony Number One, Spark and Echo Project, Women Composers Festival of Hartford, Pianist Erika Dohi for Metropolis Ensemble Piano Series, Calidore String Quartet and Cassatt String Quartet at numerous festivals including Atlantic Music Festival, Seal Bay Festival of American Chamber Music, New Paltz Piano Summer, institute, Stony Brook Chamber Music Festival, New Music for Strings, University of Tennessee Contemporary Music Festival and more. Nilou is a strong advocate of music education. She has worked as the site coordinator of Brooklyn Middle School Jazz Academy sponsored by Jazz at Lincoln Center. She is currently a Teaching Artist for NY Philharmonic Young Composers program.
Nilou is a Global Citizen Scholarship recipient of Goucher College as well as a Mahoney and Caplan Scholar from University of Oxford. Among her teachers are Lisa Weiss, Laura Kaminsky, Sheila Silver and Daria Semegen. She is currently pursuing her Doctorate degree in music composition at Stony Brook University under the supervision of Daniel Weymouth.
Emily O’Brien is a native of Washington, DC where she played recorder from a young age. She studied recorder and french horn at Boston University, and recorder and Baroque flute at the Hochschule für Musik in Karlsruhe, Germany. She performs in recorder ensembles and historical chamber music, as well as English Country Dance bands. As a teacher, she works with private students and ensembles in the Boston area as well as teaching at various summer workshop such as CDSS’s Early Music Week at Pinewoods (where she is the current program director) and Amherst Early Music Festival. Emily’s solo album, “Fantasies for a Modern Recorder” explores the variety and possibilities over four centuries of repertoire offered by the Helder Harmonic Tenor recorder. In her spare time, she enjoys long distance cycling.
Flutist Eun Hae Oh currently attends the Stony Brook University for her Doctorate degree under Carol Wincenc. Ms. Oh debuted with the A&B Symphony Orchestra at the Young San Art Hall in Korea.
An avid chamber musician, Ms. Oh is a member of KOCHAM trio consisting of flute, violin, and viola. This past summer, she was also invited to the Qinling Mountains International Guitar Festival in Xi’an, China as a guest chamber musician and competition judge.
Passionate advocate of contemporary music, Ms. Oh also worked with composer Sungji Hong and gave a lecture recital on her piece for flute and electronics “Shine.” She premiered several flute and piccolo pieces in U.S. since 2015.
Misha Penton is a contemporary opera singer, experimental vocal composer, media artist, performance creator and director. Her work investigates the intersections of new music, postopera, classical and extended vocal techniques, and audio-video composition. Recent projects include Anecdote of the Spirit, an experimental work created for the Rothko Chapel; Threshold, a site specific experimental postopera created for a cavernous old rice factory in Houston; and Quatre (Mallarmé), a new audio collaboration with fellow composer Chris Becker inspired by the French avant-garde. Professional affiliations include Houston Grand Opera, Museum of Fine Arts Houston, Dallas Museum of Art, Menil Collection Houston, and University of Houston Center for Creative Work. Upcoming projects: The Lighthouse, a collaborative opera project with Austin-based composer Brent Fariss; and Misha’s fifth music video release, Threshold, under her direction with an audio score and text created by Misha. Voice mentors include Katherine Ciesinski, Lois Alba, and experimental vocal pedagogue Richard Armstrong. Misha is based in Houston, Texas and is a doctoral candidate in music at Bath Spa Unviersity, UK. mishapenton.com
Since making her orchestral debut with the Toledo Symphony Orchestra at the age of 13, Holly Roadfeldt has continued to be an active solo pianist and chamber musician performing standard and eclectic recital programs in the United States, Europe, and Asia. Holly’s mission is to inspire and advocate for piano music of the highest caliber and she regularly mixes newly composed music with established masterpieces. For her recent three-year endeavor “The Preludes Project”, she commissioned 16 composers to write preludes to be performed alongside works from the standard repertoire. Holly premiered 65 preludes in 17 states as a guest artist at multiple venues.
The Preludes Project CD is Holly’s debut solo album and was released by PARMA Recordings in November 2016. The double CD includes Chopin’s Op. 28 Preludes and Kirk O’Riordan’s Twenty-Six Preludes for Solo Piano (2014). Holly’s performance on this CD has been lauded as “utterly convincing [with]…every note of her Chopin sound [ing] fresh and alive — and all are conjured up with a breathtaking sense of elation.” (Raul da Gama, World Music Report). Núria Serra of Sonograma Magazine says the double album deserves “all our highest praise” for Holly’s “expression, agility and perfect articulation.”
Flutist and Yamaha Performing Artist Sophia Tegart is a founding member of the Cherry Street Duo and Pan Pacific Ensemble. She is Clinical Assistant Professor of Flute at Washington State University, where she also performs with the Solstice Wind Quintet. Helena Kopchick Spencer is Assistant Professor of Music History and Bassoon at the University of North Carolina Wilmington, where she is also Affiliated Faculty in Women’s and Gender Studies. Tegart and Spencer have collaborated as a duo since 2005; recent performances include conferences of the International Alliance for Women in Music, National Flute Association, and College Music Society.
Nanette Kaplan Solomon, pianist and Professor of Music Emerita from Slippery Rock University, performs frequently as soloist and chamber musician. She has performed at numerous national and international conferences on five continents. Dr. Solomon’s involvement with the works of women composers has led to invitations to perform lecture recitals at festivals and conferences throughout the United States. She has been a soloist with orchestras in Connecticut, New Jersey, Massachusetts, as well as featured artist with the Butler (PA), Youngstown and Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestras. Dr. Solomon has also performed at the Phillips Collection and the French Embassy in Washington, D.C., Wigmore Hall in London, the Lincoln Center Library in New York City, and the Mozarteum in Salzburg, Austria. Her four compact discs- piano music of Nikolai Lopatnikoff (Laurel), Character Sketches and Sunbursts (Leonarda) and Badinage: Piano Music of Mana-Zucca (Albany) have received critical acclaim. Dr. Solomon received her early training as a scholarship student at the Juilliard School. She received a B.A. degree magna cum laude from Yale College, where she was elected to Phi Beta Kappa, an M.M. from the Yale School of Music and a D.M.A. from Boston University.
Beth Wiemann was raised in Burlington, VT, studied composition and clarinet at Oberlin College and received her PhD in composition from Princeton University. Her works have been performed around the U.S. and internationally by the ensembles Continuum, Parnassus, Earplay, ALEA III, singers Paul Hillier, Susan Narucki and others. Her compositions have won awards from the Orvis Foundation, Copland House, the Colorado New Music Festival, New York Treble Singers, American Women Composers, Marimolin and others as well as various arts councils. She teaches clarinet, composition and theory at the University of Maine. A CD of Wiemann’s music, Why Performers Wear Black, was released on Albany Records and other works of hers also appear currently on the Raviello, Capstone, innova and Americus record labels. Her music is available from American Composers Alliance in New York.
Opera Scenes
Allan Ballinger has been a cellist with Cuatro Puntos since 2014. Allan is an assistant professor and content coordinator for the Humanities at Goodwin College where he teaches music history, US and world history, and women’s studies. He earned his Doctor of Musical Arts degree from the University of Connecticut in cello performance, with a minor in music history. While at the University of Connecticut he studied cello with Dr. Katie Schlaikjer, now cellist of the Penderecki String Quartet. Dr. Ballinger did his undergraduate studies in cello performance at the University of Cincinnati’s College Conservatory of Music, where he studied with renowned solo artist Lynn Harrell and Lee Fiser of the LaSalle Quartet. He has also studied with Lee Kang-ho, now of the Korea National University of the Arts, Julie Ribchinsky of the Connecticut Trio, and Mussie Eidelman of the Youngstown (OH) Symphony. Allan has master’s degrees in both history and music education from Central Connecticut State University. He taught instrumental and vocal music for many years in Connecticut public schools, and is currently an adjunct professor of cello at Bay Path University.
Violist Kevin Bishop is Executive Director of Cuatro Puntos. He has performed, conducted, and taught masterclasses in Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, England, Germany, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Afghanistan, and both coasts of the USA. He has played viola in everything from the complete chamber music of Brahms with the Southern California Brahms Festival to on stage with the Foo Fighters at the Grammy Awards. He has appeared on NPR’s Morning Edition and All Things Considered, and on BBC Radio in the UK. During his tenure as Director of Orchestras at the Afghanistan National Institute of Music in Kabul, he led the country’s only orchestras in ground-breaking performances for world leaders in Afghanistan, major European concert halls, and at the World Economic Forum in Davos. As an international competition winner, Kevin has played solo recitals and chamber music at Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center. He appears as a solo violist, chamber musician, and composer on the Toccata Classics label. He has three times been conductor of the CMEA Connecticut All-State Elementary Honor Orchestra, and is currently on faculty at Calvary Music School in Stonington, CT. Primary viola teachers include Helen Callus, Donald McInnes, Patricia McCarty, and Steve Larson.
Erik Bloomquist is a two-time New England Emmy® Award winner (Outstanding Director and Outstanding Writer), eight-time nominee, and Top 200 Director on HBO’s Project Greenlight. His nationally syndicated drama series, The Cobblestone Corridor (for which Erik served as creator, showrunner, writer, director, and lead actor) is the winner of three New England Emmy® Awards and recipient of nine nominations. His critically acclaimed short films have played internationally on television, at festivals, and on demand.
Theatrically, Erik has directed at prominent regional and educational institutions across the country including Ivoryton Playhouse, Ozark Actors Theatre, Priscilla Beach Theatre, Clark University, and Trinity College. A member of Actors’ Equity Association, his stage acting credits include the American premiere of Calendar Girls at the Ivoryton Playhouse and the world premiere of Rear Window at Hartford Stage (starring Kevin Bacon and directed by Darko Tresnjak).
In addition to teaching masterclasses throughout the northeast, Erik has served as adjunct faculty at Trinity College, Artist-in-Residence at Avon Old Farms School, and Visiting Artist at Miss Porter’s School. He graduated cum laude from Trinity College and is an alumnus of the London Dramatic Academy in London, England.
Portuguese pianist Miguel Campinho has performed as a soloist and as a collaborative pianist extensively throughout Europe and the USA. Piano Journal writes that “Campinho’s playing is always powerful with a purposeful direction. His technique serves him well through lucid phrasing, uncannily clearly executed passages, judicious pedaling, all combined with a sensibility for this music that brings it to an exciting and vivid life. Campinho is a pianist to watch.” He is a lecturer in collaborative piano at the Butler School of Music, University of Texas at Austin.
Dr. Campinho has played the US premieres of many compositions by Portuguese composers. He has recorded the complete sonatas and sonatinas of Eurico Tomás de Lima. In 2015, US Senator Christopher Murphy, the State of Connecticut, and the Portuguese American Leadership Council of the United States presented Miguel Campinho with certificates of recognition and accomplishment for his work promoting Portuguese culture, arts, and heritage.
Dr. Campinho holds Master of Music, Artist Diploma, and Doctor of Musical Arts degrees in piano performance from The Hartt School, where he was a protégé of Luiz de Moura Castro. Dr. Campinho was inducted into Pi Kappa Lambda and is a member of the American Liszt Society.
Nathaniel Gworek is on the faculty at Georgia College and State University where he teaches percussion ensemble, percussion methods, private lessons, and music history. He continues to work with the percussion community commissioning new music and performing recitals and clinics in the area. He also is on the advisory board of directors for the Women Composers Festival of Hartford and is a member for the Percussive Arts Society Health and Wellness Committee. Interested in playing many different styles of music, he has toured the Northeast with Percussion Ensembles, Orchestras, Wind Ensembles, Rock and Jazz bands, Mexican and African music groups, and a Renaissance Music Ensemble. Dr. Gworek has had the pleasure to play with the Finger Lakes Symphony Orchestra, UConn Opera Company, and the Hartford City Singers. He has studied with Jim Tiller of the Rochester Philharmonic, Kay Stonefelt, female pioneer on Broadway, and Keith Aleo. He has previously worked as an instructor at Stephen F. Austin State University, Manchester Community College, and as a student, was a Teacher’s Assistant at the University of Connecticut, SUNY Fredonia, the New York Summer Music Festival, and the Interlochen Center for the Arts.
Blake Hansen has built a reputation as an active performer and collaborative artist throughout New England. He has performed in notable venues in the U.S., Europe, and South America, including
Steinway Hall in New York City, Teatro Municipal de Niteroi, Brazil,and the Illsley Ball Nordstram Hall in Seattle, WA. Mr. Hansen holds the positionof rehearsal and performance accompanist for the CT Lyric Opera, Hartford Opera Theater, and the Greve Opera Academy in Italy. He also is frequently engaged to perform with choirs throughout CT, including the Hartt School Choirs, CONCORA, Manchester Community College, Griswold Community Chorus, and New Haven Chorale. Mr. Hansen is a staff accompanist for the vocal divisions of both Hartt School and CCSU.
Amanda Kohl, lyric soprano, holds a Bachelor of Music degree and Artist Diploma from the Hartt School of Music and a Master’s of Music degree from Indiana University. Throughout her study as a classical singer she has performed in many Oratorio and Operatic works and studied with renowned teachers including, Metropolitan Opera soprano Carol Vaness, Joanna Levy of the Hartt School of Music and is currently a student of James Doing, Master Teacher for NATS. Ms. Kohl was seen as Soprano Soloist in Handel’s Messiah with the Orchestra of the Southern Finger Lakes, and made her debut in the role of ‘Susanna’ in Mozart’s, Le Nozze di Figaro, with Connecticut lyric Opera. In December of 2017, she joined CLO again, portraying the the role of ‘Pamina’ in Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte. A strong advocate for new music, Amanda is featured on Navona Records ’Pendulum’ (2014) with Julliard String Quartet violinist, Joseph Lin, in ‘Wing Over Wing’ by award winning composer Eric Nathan and also on the same labels’ ‘Polarities’(Jan. 2014), singing ‘Vox dilecti mei,’ for Soprano, and chamber orchestra by Katherine Saxon. Ms. Kohl is thrilled to be joining the Women Composers Festival in the American premiere of excerpts from Canadian composer, Tawnie Olsons’ opera “Sanctuary and Storm.” www.AmandaKohlSoprano.com
Canadian mezzo-soprano Evanna Lai is at home on both the operatic and concert stage. Recently, she made her professional European and radio debut at the Amsterdam Concertgebouw as Nancy T’ang in Nixon in China with the Dutch Youth Orchestra, and her Elm City Consort debut as Calliope in the première performance of La Lira Muta, a 17th century pastiche opera.
Ms. Lai is a recipient of a Canada Council for the Arts grant in 2018. She was a finalist in the 2017 George London Foundation Awards Competition and is the recipient of a Sylva Gelber Music Foundation grant and a BC Arts Council scholarship. She is a thrice-named fellow at the Toronto Summer Music Academy and a protégée of the Chamber Music Northwest Festival. She is a two-time recipient of both the Johann Strauss Foundation Scholarship and the Vancouver Women’s Musical Society Bursary. In 2015, she was a semi-finalist at the Belvedere International Singing Competition, as well as a finalist at the Metropolitan Opera National Council district auditions.
She holds a bachelor of music from the University of British Columbia, and a master of music and artist diploma from the Yale School of Music
Lydia McClain is a multi-faceted soprano whose repertoire ranges from early music to contemporary song. Most recently, Lydia performed Elizabeth Austin’s Sandburg Songs with the Dance Collective at the Wadsworth Atheneum. This Fall, Lydia performed the World Premiere of Austin’s Frauenliebe und –leben, sung in English, at the National Opera Center. Other recent performances include Hartford Opera Theater’s New In November Festival, a recital debut at the Hill-Stead Museum, the US Premiere of Tawnie Olson’s Sailing to Byzantium with the Foot In the Door Ensemble, and the World Premiere of Aphrodite, by Daniel Mertzlufft. Lydia was a fellow at the Fall Island Vocal Arts Seminar under the direction of Stephanie Blythe and Alan Smith. There she presented songs by living American composers, including a gala featuring the music of composer-in-residence, Ricky Ian Gordon. A native of Pennsylvania, Lydia holds a Bachelor of Music from The Hartt School of Music and a Masters in Music from Florida State University. She lives in Simsbury, CT where she currently maintains a private studio and is on the music faculty of the Ethel Walker School. www.lydiamcclain.com
Dr. Amelia Nagoski is Assistant Professor and Coordinator of Music at Western New England University, where she conducts three choirs and teaches courses in music history, theory, and psychology. She is co-author of Burnout (Ballantine, 2019), the forthcoming book about intersectional feminist wellbeing described by an editor at Random House as “a guidebook through the hellscape.”
Violinist Aaron Packard maintains a varied career, performing music of many genres and periods. He is an avid improviser and proponent of new music, working closely with composers such as Ellen Lindquist, Elizabeth Adams, and Ted Hearne, to find and experiment with new sound ideas. Having studied period performance with Arthur Haas at SUNY Stony Brook, his interpretations are also informed by the strength of tradition and history. He currently teaches at the Joy of Music Program in Worcester, MA, and at the Groton School in Groton, MA. Performance collaborators include Avery Ensemble, Orfeo Duo, Mantra Percussion, Colin Carr, Gabe Shuford, David Yang, Vita Wallace, and Nick Walker. Since 2007 Aaron has been honored to perform in and around Saranac Lake, NY as a part of the Loon Lake Live concert series. Major violin teachers include Greg Fulkerson and the late Mitchell Stern, but he is proud to say he was really started on the path toward becoming a listener by the incomparable pianist Gil Kalish, and Tim Eddy of the Orion String Quartet. While at home, Mr. Packard spends time meditating on breath and movement, raising chickens, and loving life with his wife and two young children. Aaron is a founding member of Cuatro Puntos.
Sarah Paquet is the Director of Choral Activities at Avon Old Farms School in Avon, CT, where she oversees three all-male choral ensembles including the school’s touring choir, the Riddlers. Her past appointments include director roles at the University of Detroit Jesuit High School (Detroit, MI) and St. Mary Student Parish (Ann Arbor, MI). She has conducted the Yale Glee Club, Marquand Chapel Choir of Yale Divinity School, St. Thomas Episcopal Church Choir of New Haven, CT, and Cantata Academy Chorale of Detroit, MI. Sarah’s primary teachers include Marguerite Brooks, Jeffrey Douma, and David Hill. She holds the Bachelor of Music degree in music education from the University of Michigan and the Master of Music degree in choral conducting from Yale University.
Mahlon Peterson holds a BM in music performance from UNC Greensboro, and an MM in piano performance from Northwestern University. He has done doctoral work in collaborative piano at the Hartt School and Catholic University, and worked with professional theater and choral groups all over the northeast as music director, conductor, accompanist, and coach. Known for his artistic sensitivity and ability to connect with singers and conductors, Mahlon is currently director of music at Somers Congregational Church and accompanist of the Children’s Chorus of Springfield. He is enjoying retirement from thirty years of conducting some of the most accomplished high school choirs in Connecticut public schools, both in Weston and Naugatuck, CT, living in in Hampden, MA with his wife, Amelia Nagoski
Violinist Annie Trépanier‘s playing has been hailed by The Boston Globe as “supercharged, clear-headed, yet soulful.” As a founding member of the acclaimed Avery Ensemble and a core member of the Hartford-based chamber music collaborative Cuatro Puntos, she has performed across Canada, North and South America and Europe. Her recent Avery Ensemble CD of piano quartets by Mahler, Schnittke and Brahms was an obvious favorite of one classical.net reviewer: “gorgeous… the performers clearly have passionate feelings about what they are playing. This is what loving music is all about.” She has been heard regularly in national broadcasts on Radio-Canada, CBC and NPR and has recorded for Toccata Classics, Navona Records and Zephyr Labels. Since 2015, Ms. Trepanier performs in the summers at the chamber music festival Loon Lake Live! in the Adirondack. She holds degrees from McGill University in Montreal, Quebec and the University of Ottawa, Ontario.
Sybil on the Rhine
Ensemble Musica Humana specializes in imaginative and historically informed musical performances that seek to creatively engage with history through music, bringing to life a myriad of ancient musical traditions. The ensemble has presented concerts in Boston, Montpelier, Washington DC, Philadelphia, Houston, Montreal and New York City and its core members have also performed abroad in Norfolk, England and Lucerne Switzerland. Since 2012 the group has recorded four full albums (Turlough O’Carolan: A Life in Song, Twelve Cotillions by Giovanni Gallini, Country Dances by Thomas Skillern 1781, and Al Alba de España), has been featured in the BEMF Fringe Festival, SoHip concert series, the Jane Austen Society of North America annual conference, has headlined the annual Carolan Festival, and their recordings were featured on the BBC series Poldark. Funded by local cultural councils, Ensemble Musica Humana produced two fully staged productions of Hildegard von Bingen’s Ordo Virtutum in Boston and Northampton, MA. This past year, Ensemble Musica Humana hosted numerous acclaimed early music ensembles at their third annual “Pioneer Valley Early Music Day,” an all-day festival of free pop-up concerts of early music in public spaces. Recently they produced the St. John Passion in collaboration with St. John’s Episcopal Church in Williamstown MA, and were in residence at the Weston Priory producing a new program of Hildegard’s music (“Sybil of the Rhine”), which premiered in 2017.