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Marathon Details
Date: Saturday, March 30, 2019 | 9:00am-5:00pm
Location: Gruss Hall, Austin Arts Center, Trinity College
The Music Marathon, is a full-day celebration of high-quality works by women composers. Pieces are selected from a competitive call for performers, garnering applications from across the globe.
Schedule
*Please Note: Because of the continuous nature of the event, times are approximate and may be subject to change
9:00 am
D’un Matin de Printemps for piano trio, Lili Boulanger (1893-1918)
Forget?, Kerensa Briggs (b. 1991)
Undercurrent, Blair Boyd (b. 1990)
Study in Mixed Accents for solo piano, Ruth Crawford Seeger (1901-1953)
Confluere, Laura Shipsey (b. 1992)
Lullaby for violin and piano, Grazyna Bacewicz (1909-1969)
Etching Circles, Sarah Westwood (b. 1989)
Shades of Rain, Angela Elizabeth Slater (b. 1989)
1914 piano trio, Morfydd Owen (1891-1918)
Illuminate Concert Series: Angela Eizabeth Slater, Director
Prism Trio: Anna Arazi, piano; Timothy Paek, cello; Subaiou Zhang, violin
Variations on a Laundry Song, world premiere
Deborah Yardley Beers, composer and pianist
The Mourning, Kakia Gkoudina
Three Women, Kakia Gkoudina
Kendra Wheeler, saxophone and electronics
Pioneer Women: From Skagway to White Mountain, Barbara Harbach (b. 1946)
Six Japanese Songs, Margaret Garwood (1927-2015)
Whistling Hens: Jennifer Piazza-Pick, soprano; Natalie Groom, clarinet; Ying-Shan Su, piano
BREAK
11:00 am
Deconstructed Riff No. 1
Washing is how the day begins
Kirsten Lies-Warfield, composer and pianist
The Seven Veils
Rise over Ruin
Elizabeth Capra, composer and pianist
Lythraceae: Punica Granatum for Piano Trio, Melikah M. Fitzhugh (b. 1972)
Oblivious for Piano Trio, by Melika M. Fitzhugh
Fitzhugh Trio: Stan Antonevich, violin; Anna Seda violoncello; Melinda Fields, piano
BREAK
1:00 pm
Aure Volanti, Francesca Caccini (1587-c.1630), ed. Carolyn Raney
Longest Shadow of the Year, Ellen Voth (b. 1972)
Wild Embers, Melissa Dunphy (b. 1980)
Song of Miriam, Elaine Hagenberg
Voice on the Wind, Sarah Quartel (b. 1982)
Choir Matrix Women’s Ensemble: Sarah Kaufold, Director
3×2 for flute and clarinet, Lita Grier (b. 1937)
Steam, Chelsea Komschlies (b. 1991)
Belter Murphy Duo: Babette Belter, clarinet; Erin Kendall Murphy, flute
Dawn Above the Sea
When I See You
Katherine Loo, composer and violinist
This Much and More, Rami Levin
Michelle Fiertek, soprano; Michael Korman, piano
BREAK
3:30 pm
Collocation for solo percussionist, Seong Ae Kim
Joshua Perry, percussion
Only the Words Themselves Mean What They Say: Go Away, Kate Soper (b. 1981)
Changing Light, Kaija Saariaho (b. 1952)
American Folk Suite, arr. Cersie Leiter
I. Fair and Tender Ladies
III. Johnny Has Gone for Soldier
V. Jubilee
Jennifer Bryant Pedersen, soprano; Misty Theisen, flute
Vox feminae: A survey of music by women composers before 1800: Hildegard of Bingen, Maddalena Casulana, Barbara Strozzi, and more
UCONN Collegium: Dr. Er Rice, Director
Bios
Illuminate’s ensemble-in-residence: – Prism Trio
Anna Arazi (pianist)
Israeli classical pianist Anna Arazi is an active performer, speaker and educator. Among her interests are 20th- and 21st-century piano music, research on Israeli composer and pianist Verdina Shlonsky, and promotion of ergonomically scaled piano keyboards. Anna performed numerous premiers by composers including Ketty Nez, Gregory Brown, Talia Amar, Vera Ivanova, Andras Hamary and Adam Berndt. Anna is a prize-winner of the Dallas International Piano Competition 2015 and American Protégé International Piano competition 2014, among others. She performed with the Sinfonietta Beer-Sheba and Boston University Symphony orchestras, and recently had her Carnegie Hall debut. Her entrepreneurial and concert activities were praised in Boston Musical Intelligencer, Theater Jones and Symphony Magazine. Anna received her doctoral degree from Boston University in 2015, supported by the honorable Richmond scholarship, and her bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the Jerusalem Academy of Music in Israel. In 2018 Dr. Arazi joined the leadership committee of Women in Music – a non-profit organization dedicated to promote, empower, support and advance women in the music industry. She is the current president of the Massachusetts Chapter of the World Piano Teachers Association.
Timothy Paek (cellist)
Cellist Timothy Paek is an enthusiastic musician with a passion for chamber music. He believes in and champions an ideal: chamber music can better the world. Timothy is a founding member of the Meadowlark Piano Trio, which recently advanced to the semi-final round of the Fischoff International Chamber Music Competition, This season, the trio serves as artist fellows for the Music for Food organization, a musician-lead initiative to fight hunger in our local communities.
Subaiou Zhang (violinist)
Subaiou Zhang was born in Tianjin, China and started to play the violin at age 3. At age 7, she won the first prize of the 3rd China National Violin Competition for Young Musicians in 1995. She entered Boston University’s School of Music to pursue a Master of Music degree in the fall of 2013. During her studies at Boston University, Subaiou frequently performed as concertmaster with Boston University Symphony Orchestra, and won the annual Bach Competition at Boston University in 2015. Subaiou currently studies modern violin with Professor Yuri Mazurkevich and baroque violin with Jane Starkman.
Subaiou performs actively in the Greater Boston area on both modern and baroque violins, including recent solo performances with the Wellesley Symphony in 2016 and the Brookline Symphony in 2017. In addition to orchestral performance, Subaiou also founded and performs with the Loki String Quartet. In residence at Worcester Polytechnic Institute, the quartet performs chamber music concerts in both concert hall and outreach settings in the Greater Boston area, presenting standard chamber music repertoire as well as new works by contemporary composers.
Illuminate Composer Biographies:
Angela Elizabeth Slater is a UK-based composer. She is also the founder and artistic director of the Illuminate concert series, celebrating the works of women composers from the past and present. In her AHRC-funded PhD in composition at the University of Nottingham, Angela developed an interest in incorporating different aspects of the natural world into her compositions. She has been working on a series of works that engage with the natural world, musically mapping certain aspects into the fabric of her music.
Angela has worked with many professional and amateur musicians, and enjoys working with both groups with equal passion and enthusiasm. Recently she has worked with the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, Bozzini Quartet, Assembly project, Aurea Quartet, BBC Singers, and Psappha, amongst others. Angela is passionate about the promotion of new music for amateur and professionals and particularly about raising the profile of female musicians and composers.
Angela participated in the St Magnus Composition Course 2017, working with Alasdair Nicholson and Sally Beamish and the Britten-Pears Young Artists Composers’ Course 2017, where she worked with Oliver Knussen, Colin Matthews and Michael Gandolfi. Her work Soaring in Stasis was premiered at the 2018 Aldeburgh Festival. Angela also took part in the 2018 Cheltenham Composers Academy working with the Juice vocal ensemble and composer Michael Zev Gordon. She has recently become London Firebird Orchestra’s Young Composer of the year 2018 and has completed a new work for them, to be premiered in June 2019. She is also delighted to be the winner New England Philharmonic’s 2018 call for scores, they will premiere her piece Roil in Stillness in April 2019. Angela has recently become a 2018 Mendelssohn Scholar and will continue her studies with Michael Gandolfi in Boston in Spring 2019.
Sarah Westwood writes acoustic and electronic music. Her compositions have a focus toward reflection and memory, with meditative lyricism. In 2015, she was awarded The Bliss Trust Scholarship for Artistic Development to USA, and has since received commissions, performances and invitations from ensembles and festivals in Europe, Asia and USA; with performances by Moscow Contemporary Music Ensemble, Hong Kong New Music Ensemble, Onix Ensamble and L’Imaginaire Musiques d’Idées, amongst others. This autumn, she has been commissioned by Eleven Farrer House to write dance music Circle of Perpetual Choirs at Siobhan Dance Studios, funded by Arts Council England, and commissioned by Après l’Histoire for a music- theatre work The Artists Kintsukuroi, at Constellations Chicago. Sarah is an artist on Ablaze Records, has been broadcast on Resonance FM and is being published by Tetractys Publishing. She has participated in residencies in France, UK and Madeira. Having studied at Trinity Laban, Bangor University and now Goldsmiths (MPhil/PhD), Sarah has also been a visiting scholar to UCSD and studied Theory and Analysis of Contemporary Music at Eastman School of Music. She has participated in shorter courses; Cheltenham Composers Academy, Phoenix Dance Theatre’s Choreographer and Composers Lab, and Ircam Academy’s In Vivo Danse with Xavier Leroy, as well as residencies in France, UK and Madeira. Since 2012, her composition mentor has been Patricia Alessandrini (Associate Professor, Stanford University). Alongside composing, Sarah is Co-organiser for Illuminate Women’s Music Concert Series, and is Event Coordinator and Guest Artist for Estalagem’s Contemporary Music and Electronic Residency in Madeira. www.sarah-westwood.com
Blair Boyd is an American composer currently based in the UK whose highly energized compositions engage with physical movement and the perception of time. Most recently her work has been performed by members of the Heath Quartet, Dr. K Sextet, and Cardiff University’s Contemporary Music Group. She has also worked extensively with Bristol CoMA who performed her piece for flexible ensemble Tracing Outside the Lines at both Bristol University’s Victoria Rooms and Colston Hall in 2014. In 2016 Shadow Woman, recently recorded for future release, was premiered by harpist Gwenllian Llyr and soprano Sarah Dacey as part of a collaboration with the Coma & Disordersof Consciousness Research Centre at Cardiff University.
She was also commissioned by the Girls’ Day School Trust to compose and conduct the finale piece for the GDST Young Musician of the Year Competition in 2018. Boyd holds degrees from the University of Tennessee (BMus) and the University of Bristol (MA). She has also studied with Michael Zev Gordon (Cheltenham Composers’ Academy), Judith Weir (Dartington), and Kenneth Hesketh (MusicFest Aberystwyth) on summer festival courses. Her piece for string quartet Juncture was recently presented in masterclass with Helmut Lachenmann as part of the HighSCORE New Music Festival in Pavia, Italy, where she also received tuition from Amy Beth Kirsten, Sarah Kirkland Snider, and Dmitri Tymoczko. Currently a postgraduate at Cardiff University, Boyd is writing her first chamber opera The Yellow Wallpaper under the supervision of Dr. Arlene Sierra. She is also co-organizer of Illuminate Women’s Music Concert Series, a new project to promote the work of emerging women composers and performers.
Laura Shipsey is a composer based in Hertfordshire whose music draws on: narrative, imagery, the boundaries between performer, composer and audience, and contemporary approaches to melody and line. Laura recently completed her Masters degree in composition at Cardiff University with Arlene Sierra, having first studied composition at Durham University under the supervision of Sam Hayden and Eric Egan. She is grateful also for advice and encouragement received along the way from Peter Wiegold, Michael Finnissy, and Richard Blackford. Laura is currently working with the Ligeti Quartet and Aldworth Philharmonic Orchestra.
Kerensa Briggs is an award-winning composer based in London. Her music has been performed internationally and recorded for broadcast on BBC Radio 3 and BBC Radio Scotland by ensembles such as The Tallis Scholars, the Royal School of Church Music Millennium Youth Choir, St Salvator’s Chapel Choir and the Choirs of Hereford, Worcester and Gloucester Cathedrals. Kerensa’s music also features on the St Salvator’s Chapel Choir CD, ‘Annunciations’. Kerensa is winner of the National Centre for Early Music Young Composers Award 2014 and the ‘Passiontide at Merton’ Composition Competition 2017. Judges of this competition, chaired by Professor Robert Saxton, praised Kerensa’s ability to write with a ‘great feel for choral sonority and textures’. She was also a finalist in the ‘European Re-imagining Old Hispanic Musical Culture Competition’ in association with the choirs of Christ Church, Oxford and Bristol Cathedral.
Kerensa is a member of the TheoArtistry Composers scheme at St Andrews’ Institute for Theology and The Arts, mentored by Sir James Macmillan. She was recently selected as one of the composers for The John Armitage Memorial Trust ‘Music of Our Time’ concert and recording with the Choir of Selwyn College, Cambridge, which received over 130 applications. Her love of sacred music emanated from her choral background, singing in the Gloucester Cathedral Youth Choir and later for choirs including the Choir of Trinity College Cambridge and the Chapel Choir of King’s College London, where she currently holds a Choral Scholarship and is continuing postgraduate studies in Composition.
Deborah Yardley Beers has performed as solo pianist with five different symphony orchestras, including the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, Kansas City Philharmonic Orchestra, and Boulder Philharmonic Orchestra. As past semifinalist in the Ima Hogg National Youth Artists Audition in Houston, Texas, and winner of a Spencer Penrose Scholarship from the Central City Opera House Association, she has performed in solo and chamber recitals in this country and abroad. She now serves on the piano faculty of Rivers School Conservatory in Weston, MA, and is an Artist Teacher in piano at the Cambridge Music Consortium. Her website is www.deborahyardleybeers.com
Kakia Gkoudina is a Master’s student in Composition, at Michigan State University. She earned her Bachelor’s degree in Film Studies in Aristotle’s University of Thessaloniki (2015) with specialization in Film Music, while studying Harmony ( 3 years) and Counterpoint of the 16th Century and Baroque (2 years) in a private conservatory. She has directed various short films and a documentary that was successfully projected in the 18th International Thessaloniki Documentary Festival at 2014. Furthermore, she has composed music for plays and performed live on stage, as well as for films and documentaries. Finally, she has sound designed interactive performances and films.
Whistling Hens
Natalie Groom is currently clarinetist of Wavelength Winds and a substitute clarinetist of the Annapolis Symphony and Huntington Symphony Orchestras. A freelance musician, business consultant, private instructor, and Junior Board member of Washington Performing Arts, she is a doctoral student studying with Robert DiLutis at the University of Maryland. She is a published contributor to the International Clarinet Association journal. She is also a concerto competition winner, performing Louis Spohr’s Concerto No. 1 with the White Mountain Symphony Orchestra in 2017, and the recipient of numerous competitive scholarships, grants, and awards from music festivals and universities.
Soprano Jennifer Piazza-Pick has been an active performer in the United States and Europe. She has performed with National theater Mannheim, Ithaca Opera, Long Beach Opera, Pacific Chorale, Cincinnati Opera, Opera Piccola of San Antonio, Alamo City Ballet, the Princeton Festival, the Dallas Choral Festival, Richmond Ballet, the Charlottesville Symphony and the Oregon Bach Festival. Ms. Piazza-Pick is the winner of Hawaii Public Radio’s Art Song Contest, the George Cortes Award for Classical Singing by the Artist Foundation of San Antonio and was a finalist for the American Prize in the women’s art song division. She is currently a D.M.A. student at the University of Maryland, College Park.
Taiwanese pianist Ying-Shan Su is a third-year doctoral student in Collaborative Piano under Professor Rita Sloan at the University of Maryland. After serving as a staff accompanist at Lee University in Cleveland, Tennessee, she devoted herself to piano collaborating, which had been a hobby and a good way to make friends up to then.
Ms. Su holds two Master’s degrees in Piano Performance from Lee University, National Chiao Tung University, and a Bachelor’s degree in Piano Performance from National Taiwan Normal University. She received the Young Musician Scholarship from Lee University, where she studied with Ning An and Gloria Chien.
Kirsten Lies-Warfield
Elizabeth Capra is a composer/performer/teacher residing in New Mexico, whose work has been featured in many films and documentaries. She is the winner of the 2019 International Piano Composition Competition Special Category Award. Awarded 2nd and 3rd prizes in the Golden Key International Composition Competition, Capra performed at the historic Ehrbar Hall in Austria in the World Composer’s Concert in 2018 and 2017. Her work has been commissioned by the Santa Fe High Desert Saxophone Quartet. She scored the 2019 NM Women in Film annual charity project, a PSA for Enlace Communitario and mentored young composers on a making-of-film. She was the composer/ mentor on the 2017 George R.R. Martin grant project, NM Girls Make Movies. Capra founded the NM Composers Showcase, now in its inaugural year. She created the Nob Hill Community Concert in the Park series, now in its third year. Classically trained, Capra won the MTNA Honors Piano Competition for NM at the age of sixteen. Theatre and piano performance studies at the University of New Mexico plus extensive world travel paved the way for rediscovery of a childhood passion for composition, now a major component of her performance and teaching studio. Her students have garnered national and international awards in composition and performance. Influences ranging from Chopin, Debussy, Granados and Dvoȓak to Sinatra, Cesaria Evora, and Sting can be seen in her “neo-classical” compositions.
For the 2019 WCFH Music Marathon, Capra’s two solo piano pieces combined with striking visuals will transport the audience into a state of reflection. The Seven Veilsis a piece about the current political regime and tells the story of several immigrants who have just been deported. Through the images that will be displayed behind the piano and the music, the feelings of shock, anger, confusion, loss, and betrayal will emerge the audience in the experience that currently faces many in the United States.
Rise over Ruinis a more esoteric piece, connecting a modern wanderer to an ancient magical place. The slides and music will provide a colorful and romantic emersion into a different time and place.
Fitzhugh Trio
Stan Antonevich: Violin
Anna Seda: Violoncello
Melinda Fields: Piano
Violinist Stan Antonévich grew up in Latvia. He has won multiple competitions, including National Youth Violin Competition, International Dvarionas Violin Competition in Lithuania, and International Bacewicz Chamber Music Competition in Poland. He has performed with the Israel Chamber Orchestra, among others, and has premiered many new compositions, several of which were dedicated to him. After undergraduate studies at the Latvian National Conservatory, Stan obtained two Masters Degrees, in Violin Performance and in Modern American Music, and Artist Diploma in Solo Performance, all from the Longy School of Music. He currently serves as Founder and Director of Newton Violin Studio (www.newtonviolin.com).
Cellist Anna Seda performs and records internationally. Notable opportunities include a fellowship with the Singapore Symphony, core membership with Boston New Music Initiative, a guest appearance at Peru’s Bienal De Violoncello, and musical theater with Gloucester Stage Company. Upcoming work includes a record contract for works of Arvo Part with Paraclete Press, Don Giovanni at the Ben Franklin Institute, and an independent project of solo looped compositions. Anna holds a Bachelor of Music from University of Colorado At Boulder and a Master of Music from the Boston Conservatory. A full calendar listing of upcoming performances can be found at annasedacello.com.
Currently an adjunct faculty member in the music department at the University of Connecticut in Storrs, pianist Melinda Fields holds performance degrees from Memphis State University and Northern Illinois University and also did extensive post-graduate work at the University of Texas in Austin. Her recent performance activities include a deep dive into the music of the Balkans and she leads a six-piece group, Balkan Fields, dedicated to those traditions.
Choir Matrix is a new community choral ensemble open to all self identified women, located in northeastern Connecticut. Our parent organization, Consonare Choral Community, is working to offer choral programs at a low cost and also sponsors a tandem children’s choir that rehearses at the same location and time as Choir Matrix to allow all self-identified women the option to participate in building community together through choral singing. An important component of Choir Matrix is inclusivity as well as nurturing the creative potential of and empowering every singer. Our programming this year was created with compositions that empower women to exercise their “voice”, either through compelling texts and/or through the incorporation of female/femme composers and/or lyricists. At its core, our program will offer audiences the opportunity to experience the music of living female composers crafted by a community of women who will be sharing their voices for sheer joy and love of singing. Choir Matrix is able to maintain its inclusivity through its status as a non-auditioned chorus; however, we strive for artistic excellence through providing additional resources and extra rehearsals for our budding singers. As a result of our inclusivity, we have the unique opportunity to bring the captivating compositions of female/femme composers to newer audiences. Many of our singers are not professional musicians and since we are connected with a children’s choir, we are more likely to engage a non-choral consuming audience as a result of their connection with a singer. Our open choral participation means we have an opportunity to extend further into the community and begin to shift the paradigm of choral music and composers thereof with a new generation.
Belter Murphy Duo
Babette Belter, Artist-Teacher of clarinet at Oklahoma State University enjoys a career as a solo, chamber, and orchestral musician, performing in Asia, Central America, Europe, Israel, Canada, and the United States. As principal clarinet with the Signature Symphony, she has appeared as a soloist on numerous occasions. A Southwestern Bell Foundation Fellow, Professor Belter researched Hungarian chamber music in Budapest. She served as an American Cultural Specialist in Costa Rica through the United States Information Agency, and as a clinician in Israel through the Rothchild Foundation. She has performed and presented clinics at numerous professional conferences, at home and abroad.
Flutist Erin Kendall Murphy frequently performs with orchestras, in chamber music collaborations, and as a soloist throughout the U.S. and abroad. Dr. Murphy holds degrees in flute performance from the University of Wisconsin-Madison (DMA), Northwestern Uniersity (MM with honors), and the University of Michigan BM, James B. Angell Scholar). Inaddition, she earned a performance certificate while studying in Kent, England at Trevor Wye’s international flute studio. Erin performs frequently with Chicago’s Lakeshore Rush ensemble as a duo with clarinetist Babette Belter. Dr. Murphy is the Assistant Professor of flute at Oklahoma State University. Visit www.erinkmurphyflute.com for more information.
Kirsten Volness is a composer, pianist and educator who grew up outside a small town in southern Minnesota — a place that fostered in her a keen interest in the outdoors and the wonders of nature. The magic to be found in the natural world informs and inspires her creative work as do various spiritual philosophies, social and environmental issues. She collaborates often: as co-founder/director and pianist of new music ensemble/concert series Verdant Vibes (Providence), as pianist/multi-instrumentalist for Hotel Elefant (NYC), as co-director of homeless advocacy group Tenderloin Opera Company, as composer/performer in Meridian Project, a multimedia performance/lecture series exploring astrophysics and cosmology, and as an affiliated artist of Sleeping Weazel.
Katherine Loo is a senior at the University of Rhode Island working towards a degree in Music Composition and Orchestral Performance on Viola. She grew up in Rhode Island and has always loved the arts. Inspired by film scores, her talented friends, and art in general, Katherine hopes for audiences to feel connected through her music. Katherine has composed for the URI Ram Band, URI Percussion Ensemble, and the Warwick Symphony Orchestra. As a musician, Katherine believes she has learned, and is still learning, how to see the world differently and how to portray emotion beyond the spoken word through the music she performs and also composes.
Soprano Michelle Murray Fiertek is an active performer and teacher of wide-ranging styles from traditional classical repertoire to contemporary musical theater and pop/rock. Fiertek has received the University of Hartford Sustained Excellence in Teaching Award (2018) for her work in the Hartt School’s Vocal Studies Division, trained with Sheri Sanders (Rock the Audition), the famed “rock musical guru” of NYC, as both a performer and teacher (2017-2018), and been nominated in the “Best Featured Actress in a Musical Production” category by Broadway World Connecticut (2015) for her performance as Miss Pinkerton/June Jinkins in Hartford Opera Theater’s double bill of “The Old Maid and the Thief” (Menotti) and “An Embarrassing Position” (Shore).
Michelle began her career in musical theater, opening “The Voyage of the Little Mermaid” for Disney’s Hollywood Studios as one of the original Ariels. She went on to work as the lead singer aboard the S. S. Discovery I, and was the first American singer to be invited to perform both Japanese and American music in residence with a production company in the Gunma-ken prefecture of Japan.
An accomplished recitalist, Fiertek specializes in Spanish art song and contemporary American art song, performing across the U.S. and in Madrid and Granada, Spain. She has released two albums on the Summit Records label: Blue: The Complete Cabaret Songs of William Bolcom and Arnold Weinstein, described as “exemplary” by BBC Music Magazine and named “CD of the week” by the Arizona Republic and KBAQ-FM, and The Juliet Letters. Michelle made her Carnegie Hall debut in December 2005 with a solo performance of Bolcom’s music described as “First rate – engaging and authentic” in New York Concert Review. A champion of Spanish art song, Michelle has studied under such famed musicians as pianist Miguel Zanetti and mezzo-soprano Teresa Berganza as part of the celebrated Interpretation of Spanish Song program, as well as returned to the program in subsequent years as a guest artist. She continues to return to Spain to study with Jorge Robaina, pianist and vocal coach at the Escuela Superior de Canto in Madrid.
She has been a faculty and guest recital artist at venues across the country, and the featured soloist in many large-scale choral works, including Fauré’s Requiem, Mozart’s Coronation Mass and Mass in C Minor, Vivaldi’s Gloria, Bach’s B Minor Mass and Handel’s Dettingen Te Deum and Messiah. Professor Fiertek currently serves on the voice faculty of The Hartt School, University of Hartford. Additionally, she is adjunct voice faculty for Hartt Community Division and Manchester Community College, program director for the HCD Summer Musical Theatre Intensives, and Executive Director of Hartford Opera Theater. Fiertek holds two B.M. degrees from Arizona State University, an M.M. from California State University, Long Beach, a D.M.A. in Vocal Performance from The Hartt School, University of Hartford, and is a proud member of Actors’ Equity Association. Lastly, having recently completed the Advanced Teacher Training, she is one of only a handful of teachers nationwide (and the only teacher in CT) certified by Sheri Sanders to teach “Rock the Audition” curriculum. For more information please visit www.michellemurrayfiertek.com
Rami Levin received her B.A. from Yale University, an M.A. from the University of California, San Diego, and a Ph.D. from the University of Chicago. Her works include pieces for orchestra, chorus, chamber ensembles, and solo instruments, and have been performed internationally. Levin served as president of American Women Composers, Midwest and was Founding Director of the chamber music series, Lake Forest Lyrica. She served as Chair of the Department of Music at Lake Forest College, Associate Dean of Faculty, and in 2005, was named Composer-in-Residence. The recipient of a Fulbright award in 2008, she spent a semester teaching and composing in Brazil. She lived in Brazil from 2010-2017 before moving to Connecticut. For a full list of works and recordings, please visit www.ramilevin.com.
This Much and More (2018) is a song cycle, settings of three poems by American women poets: Sara Teasdale (1884-1933), Djuna Barnes (1892-1982) and Ella Wheeler Wilcox (1850-1919). The piece was written for Michelle Fiertek. The performance at the WCFH Music Marathon is the world premiere.
Acclaimed by the New York Times as a “creative percussionist,” Joshua Perry is a passionate advocate for contemporary music and interdisciplinary performance mediums. Perry is a member of Iktus Percussion, Ensemble Mise-en, Hotel Elefant, and has recently performed with the Metropolis Ensemble, Argento Ensemble, and Mantra Percussion. A proponent for composer-performer collaboration, he consistently works with living composers and has premiered over 100 works for percussion and mixed ensemble. Past collaborations include working with composers John Luther Adams, Stefano Gervasoni, Annie Gosfield, Paula Matthusen, and Daniel Wohl. Perry has performed and given workshops at the Eastman School of Music, Princeton University, UC Davis, Michigan State University, Oberlin College, New College, and more. Recent notable performances include the Audio Trading Manual Festival in Seoul, Korea, the Festival Internacional de Inverno do Jordao in Brazil, and the Bang on a Can Marathon in NYC. He earned his B.M. from the University of Massachusetts-Amherst under the instruction of Ayano Kataoka and Thomas Hannum. Perry is currently completing his Doctorate of Musical Arts at Stony Brook University, where he studies with Eduardo Leandro.
Jennifer Bryant Pedersen, soprano, maintains an active schedule as a soloist and teacher throughout the Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern region. Her performance highlights include, a solo cabaret performance with Ricky Ian Gordon, Konstanze in Die Entführung aus dem Serail, and Daphne Colgate in the world premiere of Gregory Vayda’s Georgia Bottoms with the Huntsville Symphony Orchestra. Jennifer is the 2010 and 2014 NATS Artist Award winner for the state of Alabama and a semi-finalist in the 2013 NFMC Biennial Young Artist Competition in Greenville, South Carolina. Jennifer is an Assistant Professor of Voice at Mars Hill University outside Asheville, North Carolina.
Misty Theisen, multiple woodwind specialist, is an accomplished musician based in western North Carolina where she is professor of woodwinds/music education at Mars Hill University. A tireless advocate of contemporary classical music, Theisen has given the world premiere of several compositions commissioned by and dedicated to her. With her chamber ensembles she has toured throughout the country, performed at the 2016 U.S. Navy International Saxophone Symposium, and lectured at the 2017 Mid-South Flute Festival. Her forthcoming album scheduled for release in January of 2019 will feature new music for flute by 20th-century and contemporary American composers.
Founded by the late Dr. Bruce Bellingham in 1976, the UCONN Collegium consists of around twenty-four singers and fifteen instrumentalists. Its purpose is to promote an understanding of the music of the late Middle Ages, Renaissance, and Baroque period with regard to style, performance practices, and cultural milieu through rehearsal and performance.