February 22, 2009 Jan Hus Church 351 East 74th Street New York, New York 10021

The Composer’s Voice Concert Series is an opportunity for contemporary composers to express their musical aesthetic and personal “voice” created in their compositions. Composer's Voice presents premieres of french based artists Drake Mabry and Catherine Schneider as well as the work of Composer/Singer/Cellist Jody Redhage.

Title Composer Performer Otherwise words by Jane Kenyon (2009) Christian Carey Jody Redhage - singing cellist Ancient Star, words by William Carlos Williams (2009) Jody Redhage Jody Redhage - singing cellist Silent Durations XXVIII (2009) for piano four hands – premiere dedicated to Robert Voisey Drake Mabry Catherine Schneider - piano and Drake Mabry - piano Stillness (1993) for piano solo – US premiere Drake Mabry Catherine Schneider, piano Four Excursions (2002) - premiere a. Jeux b. Passages c. Résonances d. Obsessio Catherine Schneider Catherine Schneider - piano

Composers Christian Carey is active as a composer, performer, and theorist. He received a Ph.D. in theory and composition from Rutgers University (where he studied with Charles Wuorinen), an M.M. in composition from Boston University (where he studied with Lukas Foss), and a B.M. in voice from the Juilliard School. He studied at the Aspen Music Festival with Bernard Rands and Jacob Druckman. His compositions have been performed by the New York New Music Ensemble, the Cassatt String Quartet, the Aspen Contemporary Ensemble, Ionisation, and the Helix! New Music Ensemble, at Lincoln Center, the June in Buffalo Festival, the Music Academy of the West, the Aspen Music Festival, Two River Theater Company, the Montclair Art Museum, the Progressions Series in Baltimore, Maryland, and Music '99 at the University of Cincinnati. He won the 2004 Music Festival of the Hamptons Composition Competition; the Festival subsequently commissioned Mourning Madrid, a work for orchestra and live locomotive; it was premiered July 2004 in Bridgehampton, New York by the Atlantic Chamber Orchestra and the Long Island Railroad. His research focuses on Post-War American composers; he has written about Babbitt, Carter, Feldman, Rakowski, and Wuorinen. His articles and reviews have been published in Musicworks, Signal to Noise, Sequenza 21, Muso, and All about Jazz. File Under ?, his column on experimental music, ran for three years at Splendidmagazine.com, an online daily where he also served as Managing Editor. This past spring he gave a lecture on Morton Feldman and Samuel Beckett at Monmouth University as part of Two River Theater Company's festival commemorating the Beckett Centennial. He has recently been asked to contribute an article on Ralph Shapey's late music to Contemporary Music Review. Jody Redhage - Called an “adventurous cello songstress” (Time Out New York), cellist, composer, and vocalist Jody Redhage's dual passions for chamber music and new music have led her to participate in an array of cutting-edge projects. Praised for her “exceptional technical command,” (Steve Smith, Night After Night), Jody has premiered over 100 works, including many of her own compositions for chamber ensembles, as well as premieres of fellow composers' works. Jody has also spent the past seven years developing the ability to simultaneously sing and play complex, rhythmically intricate and independent musical lines. As recipient of the 2005 Hertz Grant, Jody was able to develop this project by commissioning a repertoire of 21st century art song for voice, cello, and electronics from some of today’s most talented emerging composers. Her debut CD on New Amsterdam Records (www.newamsterdamrecords.com), All Summer in a Day, has been called “a freewheeling, slightly edgy and altogether "different" kind of musical experience…highly rewarding and worthwhile” (Dave Lewis, All Music Guide). Jody graduated with her master's degree from the Manhattan School of Music in May 2005, and she now resides in Brooklyn. Her interest in a wide variety of musical genres has led her to regularly perform with classical, jazz, rock, and pop groups in New York City and throughout North America. Jody has worked with composers Pierre Boulez, George Crumb, Richard Danielpour, Michael Gordon, David Lang, Steve Reich, Terry Riley, and Julia Wolfe and additional notable collaborations include performances with members of the Bang on a Can All-Stars, the Flux Quartet, Sequitur, Tactus Contemporary Ensemble, Neil Diamond and band, Jay-Z, Beyonce, Meatloaf, the Roots, Ciaran Sheehan, Clay Aiken, Enya, Duncan Sheik, Guster, and Sufjan Stevens. Jody has appeared on TV playing on ABC's The View, the CBS Early Show, and NBC's The Today Show, Conan O’Brien, and the Rockefeller Christmas Spectacular. Her own compositions and music from her CD have been aired on several NPR stations, including WNYC's Evening Music and WFMU. Presented in collaboration by Vox Novus Remarkable Theater Brigade Jan Hus Church Drake Mabry - "in contemporary music, version Drake Mabry, inspiration is everywhere"- French TV, M6 Découverte Drake Mabry has made his home in France since 1988 and has worked as a performer, composer and teacher. From 1999 to 2006 he was director of the French government subsidized CEFEDEM School of Music in Poitiers, France. He is also a member of the French Ministry of Culture's expert commission. His musical studies were with Harold Gomberg (oboe) at the Juilliard and Manhattan Schools of Music where he received his Bachelors degree in 1971. He holds a Masters of Music degree in composition from Rice University and a Doctorate in composition from the University of California in San Diego. His principal composition teachers were Will Ogdon, Paul Cooper, Krysztof Penderecki, and John Cage. In 1971 he began his musical career as principal oboe with orchestras in the United States, Canada, and England. In 1975 he pursued his interests in the jazz world playing saxophone, flute and clarinet in the Aspen Music Festival Big Band and in his own quintet. Since 1978 he has concentrated on composition and improvisation. Drake Mabry has written over 100 works including 50 commissions (7 Commandes de l'Etat) for soloists, ensembles, and orchestras. He has received numerous performances of his music in the United States, Israel, Asia, and Europe. He is regularly invited as composer in residence and received the "Bourse de la Création 1996" from the Conseil Général des Vosges. His music is published by Editions Musicales Européenes, Editions Henry Lemoine, Editions Transatlantiques, Shawnee Press and Drake Mabry Publishing. His music is recorded on the compact disc labels: Musique Française d'Aujourd'hui Radio France, Neuma, l'Atout Vosgien, Hopi, and Berlioz Historic Brass. He has taught at Rice University, and Dartmouth College in the US and at the University of Strasbourg, University of Rennes, and the University of Poitiers in France. He performs regularly with his wife and pianist, Catherine Schneider, in the improvisation ensemble Convergences playing his own bamboo clarinets (sopranino to contrabass) as well as the single reed oboe, wood saxophone, serpent and darbouka. In 1995 Radio France broadcast a 5-part series on his compositions and improvisations. He is a published poet and his poetry and paintings have been used by theatre groups and composers as resources for improvisation and composition in their concerts. Catherine Schneider- "With a touch rich in nuances, Catherine Schneider possesses a remarkable capacity to sense her musical partners which makes for marvellous chamber music." - Gérard Condé, Le Monde Catherine Schneider studied piano at the Nice Conservatory (first prize in piano, chamber music, solfege, and sight-reading), St. Maur Conservatory (Prize of Excellence in piano and chamber music), and Curtis Institute of Music where she obtained her diploma in 1985. Her piano teachers have included Catherine Collard, Anne Queffelec, Vitalij Margulis, and Vladimir Sokoloff. In chamber music she has worked with Pierre and Nelly Pasquier, Paul Tortelier, and the Fine Arts Quartet. Trained in the French, Russian, and American schools of piano playing, she has performed worldwide in concert halls in Paris, New York, Moscow, and Belgrade. She has appeared on numerous French and American radio and television broadcasts and recently performed on the soundtrack for the film “Silence de la Mer” by Pierre Boutron. She has appeared with such artists as Henryk Szeryng, Aaron Rosand, Bruno Pasquier, and Pierre-Yves Artaud. Equally at home with the piano, pianoforte and harpsichord, her repertoire encompasses music from the Renaissance to music of today. In addition she is a consummate improviser and performs both solo as well as with the newly formed improvisation ensemble ‘tri-impro.cbm’. Interested by contemporary music, she has premiered numerous works written especially for her and her own music is published by Editions Henry Lemoine and Editions Musicales Européennes, and Drake Mabry Publishing. Currently tenured professor of piano and assistant director at the Conservatory of Music in Angoulême, she has also been a coach at the Paris Conservatory of Music and is a teacher for professional training organizations. She is frequently invited to give workshops on piano, improvisation, and piano pedagogy.

Drake Mabry: Stillness for piano solo (1993) US premiere Stillness consists of several large waves of sound which evolve before returning to an abbreviated version of the original. Within the large waves there are numerous smaller waves, each with detailed register and timbral references. Catherine Schneider: Four Excursions for piano solo (2002) World premiere Four Excursions consists of four different pianistic voyages. Jeux is a playful dialogue; Passages and Obsession are based on irregular time signatures and their interaction with melodic phrases; Résonances, as the name implies, explores the relationship between piano sounds and their resonances. As a pianist, Catherine Schneider has played music from every classical stylistic period as well as tangos, improvised music and French “varieties” music. These influences can be seen in these four brief compositions. Drake Mabry: Silent Durations XXVIII for piano four hands (2009) World premiere Silent Durations XXVIII for piano four hands was composed in January 2009 and is dedicated to Robert Voisey. This work is part of a series, begun in 2003, in which the place of silence is highly developed, elaborated and specifically notated. He considers his music as a layer of silence on which he places his sounds with both sharing an equal place in the work’s architecture. His paintings and poetry also reflect this interest in sound and space. As Drake Mabry has told audiences, “silence has always been an important part of my music but recently it has taken on much greater proportions”. The Composer’s Voice Concert Series is an opportunity for contemporary composers to express their musical aesthetic and personal “voice” created in their compositions. Vox Novus collaborating with the Remarkable Theater Brigade and Jan Hus Church to produce a monthly concert series promoting the chamber works of contemporary composers.Vox Novus produces and promotes new music. They are dedicated to contemporary music, the musicians who perform, and the composers that write the music of today. Their mission is to cultivate a music community and make their work available to the greater public. Remarkable Theater Brigade founded by Christian McLeer, Dan Jeselsohn and Monica Harte, creates and produces new operas and musicals and takes children’s versions out to special-needs and at-risk children.

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