Composer's Voice
Halloween Concert

October 31, 2010

Jan Hus Church

351 East 74th Street

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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.

Kenji Haba is a guitarist who is exclusively sensitive to timbres in appreciating and expressing the beauty of guitar. Haba believes that the guitar is the perfect instrument to express his musical ideas because of its beautiful tones and its countless timbres. Recently, he has been focusing on impressionistic music, especially that of Claude Debussy, Maurice Ravel and Toru Takemitsu. In 2006 Haba began studying classical guitar under renowned guitarist, Kevin R. Gallagher and Oren Fader. With his passion driving his learning ability, after one year of studying, he was accepted into the Manhattan School of Music in Master of Music, and there worked with Mark Delpriora.

Jerry (Chiwei) Hui has written a wide variety of music that ranges from serious concert art music to light-hearted choral arrangements. His music has been performed in the United States, Indonesia and Hong Kong by community choirs, campus ensembles, and professional groups. His composition has won prizes including the Robert Helps Prize 2008, and the University of Wisconsin-Madison Concerto Competition. Jerry Hui is active as a performer, singing in small vocal ensembles and has often appeared as a baritone or tenor soloist. Mr. Hui has sung Renaissance and contemporary music as a bass, tenor and countertenor. He has recently performed in a production of Handel's Clori, Tirsi e Fileno (Fileno), and a production of Thoroughly Modern Millie (Ching Ho). He has also established Eliza's Toyes, a new early music group in Madison.

Percussionist Laura Jordan seeks out new projects and commissions across genres and in unorthodox venues. Laura was featured as a marimba soloist on the 2008-2009 Music on MacDougal Series, which featured the world premiere of Mark Janello's Sonata for Violin and Marimba. She gave the Western premiere of Menachem Zur's Translations for Percussion and Electronics. Laura is faculty at the Bronx Conservatory of Music, Long Island Music Conservatory, Finger Power Music, and director at Washington Heights Percussion, a school she founded in 2005. Laura serves as the Secretary of the New York State Chapter of the Percussive Arts Society, and chairs the committee to create the New York City International Marimba Competition.

Laura Mitchell is a California born soprano and recent graduate of CCM in Cincinnati, Ohio. She obtained an Artist Diploma there and performed as Fiordiligi in Cosi fan tutte, Musetta in La Boheme, and Alcina in Handel's Alcina. Ms. Mitchell recieved her B.A. from UC San Diego, where she performed many times as a soprano soloist with the La Jolla Symphony and Chorus, the Bach Collegium, and a world renowned percussion ensemble based out of the university, as well as performing in Le nozze di Figaro as Susanna, and as Mlle. Silverpeal in the Impresario. She has been a member of the Sarasota Opera Apprentice Program, the International Vocal Institute in Croatia, and Oper Schloss Laubach in Germany.

Singer, actor and writer James D. Sasser's career spans the operatic and Broadway/musical theatre stage, with an emphasis on new work. New operas range from Mel Marvin's Guest from the Future, Randall Eng's Florida and Henry's Wife, to experimental work like I/O by Joe Diebes and Phil Soltanoff. James has been involved in the development of dozens of new musical works with such organizations as Manhattan Theatre Club, The Eugene O'Neill Center, Sundance Theatre Lab, The Vineyard Theatre, Playwrights Horizons, and New Dramatists. A graduate of the Manhattan School of Music, he holds a certificate from the Royal Academy, and is a Frank H. Buck Scholar. He is currently a master's candidate at the NYU-Tisch Graduate Musical Theatre Writing Program. www.jdsasser.com

Angela Scherrah

Composer and vocalist Leaha Maria Villarreal creates music with particular attention to space, resonance, and silence. Past composition teachers include Dr. Steven Kazuo Takasugi, Chinary Ung, Roger Reynolds, and Tania Leon. Leaha holds a B.A. in Music Composition from UC San Diego with a minor in Philosophy. She is co-founder of the New-York based contemporary music ensemble, The Audio & Music Project [AMP]. www.audioandmusicproject.com

Harpist and violist, Lindsey Warford, has entertained a wide range of audiences with over 500 performances as a solo harpist and with various ensembles. She has been a highly sought out artist since 1999 for community orchestras, choirs, corporate events, therapeutic settings, churches, and school assemblies from across the east coast. Lindsey holds a bachelors degree in harp performance from the University of North Florida, a Master's of Arts Administration from Florida State University, and has studied harp under the direction of Kayo Ishumaru, Dr. Roslyn Rensch-Erbes, and Mary Roman.

Roger Blanc, M.M., studied with David Diamond and taught Ear Training at Juilliard for three years. His music has been performed at Alice Tully Hall, The Whitney Sculpture Court, and overseas. He has worked in music for television (Tonight Show), film (Frida), recording (Barbra Streisand), and live performance (Miles Davis).

Douglas DaSilva is a composer, guitarist, educator and music curator in New York City. As Artistic Director of the Composer's Voice Concert Series and Premiere Salon Concerts he is dedicated to promoting new music and living composers. He has been curator for concerts in New York, Rio de Janeiro and Valencia. As a guitarist he has performed at places as diverse as Lincoln Center's Rose Ballroom, the Jan Hus Church, The Bitter-End, and The Cutting Room. As a composer of chamber music with a background in jazz, rock and blues, Douglas composes in variety of styles from the hummable to highly experimental. Much of his music is influenced by Brazilian music and self-inflicted stress. His extensive and daily work with preschoolers (where he is known by his nom de guerre: Mr. Doug) manages to keep him sane while giving him the opportunity to share his love for music with future generations. His chamber music has been performed throughout the US, Europe and Brazil.

DaSilva piece Sarabande for flute & guitar was recorded with flautist Kathleen Nester, and was featured on the Vox Novus 60x60 New York Mix. His electronic pieces: How to Build a Totalitarian State; Contrails; camp des feuilles; and Did I Hear It on the Composer's Voice have been included in 60x60 projects.

2011 featured premieres by Jasmin Bey Cowin, harp; Kai Watanabe, guitar; ThingNY ensemble; Kenji Haba, guitar & Gregory Durozel, violin; Conway Kuo, violin; and Alyssa Reit, harp.

Hailed as "one of the most brilliant young composers of his generation" (Mark Greenfest, New Music Connoisseur), Randall Eng has devoted his career to mining the territory between opera, music-theatre, and jazz. His opera Florida with librettist Donna DiNovelli received its first full production at Lyric Opera Cleveland in 2006; reviews praised the score as "brilliant", "captivating", "luminous", "thrilling", "beguiling", "haunting", "delectable", "a significant, snazzy work" (Donald Rosenberg, Cleveland Plain Dealer). Florida was previously presented at New York City Opera's VOX festival and the Public Theater's New Work Now! festival.

He is currently working with librettist Alexis Bernier on an opera entitled Henry's Wife, which has had readings, workshops, and presentations at the Center for Contemporary Opera, Tapestry New Opera Works (Toronto), American Opera Projects, and the Virginia Arts Festival. Other theatrical works include Cocktails (Circle East Theater), Castor & Pollux (Eugene O'Neill National Music Theatre Conference), Usher, Falling (Opera Vindaloo Festival), and the video opera The Woman in the Green Coat (Edinburgh Fringe Festival). His non-theatrical works include commissions for Albany Symphony Orchestra's Dogs of Desire, Mirror Visions Ensemble, and baritone Marcus DeLoach.

Randall has been awarded grants and residencies from the American Music Center, the American Composers Forum, the Civitella Ranieri Foundation, the Ucross Foundation, the Millay Colony for the Arts, the Atlantic Center for the Arts, the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, the Bang on a Can Summer Institute, the John Duffy Composers Institute at the Virginia Arts Festival, American Opera Projects, the Eugene O'Neill Music Theatre Conference, Tapestry New Opera Works, the Frederick Loewe Foundation, and New Dramatists. He is a graduate of Harvard University, Cambridge University, and New York University (GMTWP), and has studied with Anthony Davis, Mark Adamo, and Wadada Leo Smith. A Staten Island native, he lives in New York with his wife Katie and their two-year-old daughter Olive.

Rebekah Driscoll was born in Lebanon, New Hampshire in 1980. As a child she taught herself to play several musical instruments, and as a teenager she began composing music without formal instruction. She later studied flute, voice, and composition at Sarah Lawrence College and composition at Brooklyn College Conservatory, City University of New York. Her composition teachers include Chester Biscardi, Jason Eckardt, and Tania Leon. She is a member of the American Music Center (AMC) and the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP).

Rebekah enjoys writing for unusual combinations of instruments and voices, exploring the connections between language and music. She often writes her own texts or creates texts from diverse sources, such as using excerpts from six different plays by Shakespeare to illustrate themes of darkness in The Mask of Night. Her mobile-form Driscoll Alphabet for chorus, a winner of the 2009 Essentially Choral competition, allows singers to spell out words of their choice with music, creating pieces that uniquely suit the performers' tastes and abilities. She also studies various foreign languages and sings with choruses throughout the New York City area.

Not only a musician, Rebekah is an active proponent of sustainability and alleviation of poverty. To that end, she has been involved with several environmental groups, served with AmeriCorps in the South Bronx, and volunteered at a women's health clinic in Nicaragua.

Faye-Ellen Silverman began her music studies before the age of four at the Dalcroze School of Music. She first achieved national recognition by winning the Parents League Competition, judged by Leopold Stokowski, at the age of 13. She holds a BA from Barnard, cum laude and honors in music, and an AM from Harvard and a DMA from Columbia, both in music composition. She spent her junior year of college at Mannes College. Her teachers have included Otto Luening, William Sydeman, Leon Kirchner, Lukas Foss, Vladimir Ussachevsky, and Jack Beeson. Seesaw Music, a division of Subito Music, publishes about 75 of her compositions. Zigzags is available on Crystal Records, Taming the Furies is available on Capstone, and Passing Fancies, Restless Winds, and Speaking Alone are on New World Recordings. An entire CD of her chamber works has recently been released by Albany Records.

Silverman's awards include the selection of her Oboe-sthenics to represent the United States at the International Rostrum of Composers/UNESCO, resulting in international radio broadcasts (1982); winning the Indiana State [Orchestral] Composition Contest, resulting in a performance by the Indianapolis Symphony (1982); a Governor's Citation (1982); and having September 30, 1982 named Faye-Ellen Silverman Day in Baltimore by Mayor Donald Schaeffer. Additionally, she has been the recipient of the National League of American Pen Women's biennial music award (2002), yearly Standard Awards from ASCAP (now known as ASCAPlus) since 1983, several Meet the Composer grants, and an American Music Center grant. She has been a fellow at the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts (2007), a resident scholar at the Villa Serbelloni of the Rockefeller Foundation (1987), a Composers' Conference Fellow (1985), a Yaddo Fellow (1984), and a MacDowell Fellow (1982). She is currently a Founding Board Member of the International Women's Brass Conference (for which she has served as composer-in-residence), and a founding member of Music Under Construction, a composers' collective.

The Baltimore Symphony, the Brooklyn Philharmonic, the Greater Bridgeport Symphony, the New Orleans Philharmonic, the International Experimental Music Festival in Bourges, ISCM - Korea section, Nieuwe Oogst (Belgium), Grupo Musica Hoje (Brazil), the Monday Evening Concert series (L.A.), and the Aspen Music Festival have performed Dr. Silverman's works. She has received commissions from the Edinboro University Chamber Players, Seraphim, Philip A. De Simone (in memory of Linda J. Warren), Larry Madison, Thomas Matta, the International Women's Brass Conference, the Monarch Brass Quintet, the Sylvia and Danny Kaye Playhouse, the Great Lakes Performing Artist Associates, the Con Spirito woodwind quintet, the Greater Lansing Symphony Orchestra, the Fromm Music Foundation, the Chamber Music Society of Baltimore, and a joint commission from the American Brass Quintet, the Catskill Brass Quintet, the Mt. Vernon Brass Players, and the Southern Brass quintet (under the National Endowment for the Arts Consortium Commissioning Program). She has also created pieces at the request of flutist Nina Assimakopoulos (Laurels Project), Sergio Puccini (Argentina), and the Corona Guitar Quartet of Denmark, and Volkmar Zimmermann, among others.

Silverman is also the author of several articles, record reviews for The Baltimore Sun, and the 20th century section of the Schirmer History of Music. She has taught at the Alvin Ailey American Dance Center, the Aspen Music Festival, and the Peabody Institute of The Johns Hopkins University, Goucher College, several branches of the City University of New York and Columbia University. She has been a member of the Mannes College The New School for Music faculty since 1991, and of its Extension Division since 1995. She also teaches at the Eugene Lang College The New School for Liberal Arts.

An accomplished pianist as well, former student of Irma Wolpe and Russell Sherman, she has recorded for Radio Cologne (WDR), and has performed at the International Festival of Experimental Music in Bourges, the Library of Congress, and as soloist with the Brooklyn Philharmonic.

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 free of charge.

Remarkable Theater Brigade creates and produces new works including operas, orchestral pieces, ballets, musicals, and electro-acoustic works and co-produces the Composer's Voice Concert Series concerts. Remarkable Theater Brigade was founded in 2002 by Christian McLeer, Monica Harte, and Dan Jeselsohn.

This is the place you were welcome, long before you arrived!
www.janhus.org

Vox Novus promotes contemporary music and its creators through concerts, recordings, publications, broadcasts, and online publicity. Vox Novus believes strongly in the intrinsic value of contemporary music, recognizing it as a force in the advancement of culture and art. Our goal is to keep music alive by strengthening the connection between composer and audience, providing greater exposure to new music.

Funding also provided by the Puffin Foundation, "...continuing the dialogue between art and lives of ordinary people."