a very small consortium is based at the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay and is dedicated to the performance of miniature masterpieces. We do more with less. We get to the point. We do small music, but we have big plans. This iteration of a very small consortium will consist of Courtney Sherman, soprano; Lada Gaines, soprano saxophone; Adam Gaines, trumpet, Michelle McQuade Dewhirst, horn; John Edward Cantrell, piano; Michael Dewhirst, cello.

A performer who is comfortable with many genres, John Edward Cantrell, is known to his colleagues as a "musician's musician." From Carnegie Hall to Rock Arenas, John has performed as an organist, pianist, and multi-instrumentalist throughout the United States, England, Ireland, and Western Europe. John holds a Master of Music degree in Organ Performance from Yale University and a Bachelor of Music degree from the University of Louisville. His teachers have included noted performers and scholars Melvin Dickinson, Thomas Murray, and Martin Jean. While at Yale, John received private coaching sessions with artists Susan Landale, Ludger Lohman, and Charles Kriegbaum. John is the Choirmaster & Organist for St. Michael’s Episcopal Church in the Upper West Side of Manhattan.

Michael Dewhirst, cellist performs and teaches in the Green Bay area. Co- founder of the Chicago Miniaturist Ensemble, and 'a very small consortium', he is also active in several orchestras, rock/jazz bands, and chamber ensembles. Additionally, he serves as ad-hoc music faculty at UWGB, the Fine Arts Institute at East High School, and clinician with the Green Bay Symphony Youth Orchestras.

Michelle McQuade Dewhirst studied horn and composition at Ithaca College and earned her master’s and Ph.D. in composition at the University of Chicago. An active horn player, Michelle specializes in contemporary solo repertoire and performed her own 15 Minutes of Fame for solo horn in March of 2012. She is on the faculty of the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay.

Adam Gaines is an Associate Professor of Music at the University of Wisconsin - Green Bay. In addition to teaching the trumpet studio, Dr. Gaines directs the Jazz Ensemble II and the New Music Ensemble, and teaches jazz history, brass methods, and music technology courses. Dr. Gaines has performed as a soloist in his native Kentucky, as well as throughout Indiana, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Slovakia, Austria, and at the Montreux and North Sea Jazz Festivals. He holds degrees from the University of Louisville (Bachelor of Music, 1999) and Ball State University (Master of Music, 2001 and Doctor of Arts, 2005). Dr. Gaines frequently travels to Slovakia to perform in jazz and classical idioms and to spend time with his wife Ladislava’s family.

Ladislava Gaines (soprano saxophone) is originally from Humenne, Slovakia, and now lives in Green Bay, Wisconsin. Before moving to the U.S. in December 2011, Lada lived and worked in the Slovak capital Bratislava at the Music Centre Slovakia, a government agency devoted to the creation and dissemination of Slovak music. Lada holds a master's degree in musicology and a doctoral degree in saxophone performance. She is an active performer on both saxophone and accordion.

Courtney Sherman, soprano, holds a Master's degree in opera/musical theatre performance and a Doctorate in voice performance from Arizona State University. She did her undergraduate work in music at Michigan State University and Western Michigan University. Her role credits include Susanna in The Marriage of Figaro, Pamina in Die Zauberflöte, Adina in L’elisir d’amore, and Blanche in Dialogues of the Carmelites. Dr. Sherman has performed soprano solos in Bach’s Mass in B-Minor, Orff's Carmina Burana, Mozart's Vesperae solennes de confessore, and Handel’s Messiah, among others, and has performed a wide range of art song repertoire. She is Assistant Professor of Voice at UW-Green Bay, teaching courses for both the Music and Theatre programs. Dr. Sherman was recently seen as the conductor and music director for UW-Green Bay's production of Cabaret in the Weidner Center's Cofrin Family Hall, and also as the soprano soloist for The Dudley Birder Chorale of St. Norbert College’s performance of Mozart’s Requiem.

New York and Boston based saxophonist Geoffrey Landman is a performer, teacher, and advocate of the saxophone and new music. Having performed across North America, France, Germany, Scotland, Switzerland, Thailand, and in some of New York City’s most well-known music venues, he has collaborated with ensembles such as Either/Or, Talea Ensemble, the Metropolis Ensemble, Fireworks Ensemble, Opera Cabal, and is a founding member and soprano chair of the New Thread Quartet.

Geoffrey has worked with composers such as Bernhard Lang, Christian Lauba, Karin Rehnqvist, Richard Carrick, Roberto Kalb, Anthony Gatto, and Davíd Brynjar Franzson among others. Geoffrey holds degrees from the University of Michigan (BM), University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music (MM), Post-graduate work at the Musik-Akademie der Stadt Basel in Switzerland, and is currently working toward his Doctoral degree at the New England Conservatory as the first DMA candidate in saxophone performance in the schools history. His principal teachers are Donald Sinta, Marcus Weiss, James Bunte, and Ken Radnofsky.

Geoffrey has won many competitions including Yamaha Young Performing Artist Competition, University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music Concerto Competition, Cincinnati Arts Association Overture Award, as well as prizes at the Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition.

Originally from the greater Philadelphia area, Kristen McKeon currently resides in New York City. She performs primarily as a concert saxophonist, chamber musician, and clinician, and is thrilled to be working as a Product Specialist and Artist Relations Representative for D’Addario and Company’s Woodwind Division.

Major field appearances include performances at the Navy Band Saxophone Symposium, the New England Saxophone Symposium, the Aeolus International Wind Competition in Düsseldorf, Germany, a world premiere of Gabriel Lubell’s He Guards the Vision of the Sunset Sky for Solo Saxophone and String Quintet at the 2010 North American Saxophone Alliance Biennial Conference, and the 2012 World Saxophone Conference in St. Andrews, Scotland. Kristen has enjoyed opportunities to be billed on several concert series including Carmel Music Society’s Summer Subscription Series in Carmel, California, thingNY’s “Seven Immediacies Series”, the New England Conservatory Composers’ Series, and the Composers Now Festival in New York, NY. She has had the great pleasure of performing alongside Kenneth Tse, Lynn Klock, David Pope, h2 Quartet, Matthew Evans, Dana Booher, and Ogni Suono Saxophone Duo (Phil Piernick and Noa Even).

An experienced clinician, current projects include nation-wide lecturing on instrument accessories manufacturing for Rico Reeds, careers in music, and the exploration of methods by which musicians most effectively collaborate with the music industry in our modern age.

Kristen holds a Bachelor of Music degree from the University of Massachusetts Amherst, and a Master of Music & Pedagogy degree from Indiana University’s Jacobs School of Music, where she worked as renowned saxophonist, Otis Murphy’s, Associate Instructor of Saxophone.

Based in New York City, composer and saxophonist Erin Rogers is dedicated to the compositional process while specializing in improvisatory performance practice and the interpretation and proliferation of new music.

Her works have been performed worldwide at the Círculo de Bellas Artes, Madrid; Museum Concert Hall, Taiwan; Le Cité Universitaire, Paris; and most recently at the World Saxophone Congress in St. Andrews, Scotland, with premieres by groups including the Gotham Ensemble, Anubis Quartet, Jessica Mathaes, Lost Dog Ensemble, IKTUS Percussion Quartet, Ursula’s End and the Warszynski Trio. Guitarist Colin David will premiere Erin’s latest piece, Another Sky, at the Guitars International Guitar Weekend, Cleveland Institute of Music, in May 2013.

Erin is a composer and founding member of thingNY, an exciting new music collective. The New Yorker’s Alex Ross called new music uber-group, thingNY, part of the city’s burgeoning avant-garde classical music scene “striking an attitude of resistance to mainstream culture,” oscillating between the “sweeter sounds” and the “punishingly loud”. Debuting in October 2006, at Jersey City’s landmark Loew’s Jersey Theatre, thingNY has gone on to produce five seasons of experimental music including a radio play by Beckett, a collaborative opera, a comic book album, a mobile home installation, and dozens of premieres as part of its mass e-commission, marathon performance project, SPAM. In 2013, thingNY will premiere Erin’s work, Trajectories, featuring 5 choreographed vocalists/instrumentalists, a communal harp, and electronics. From 2006 to 2011, Erin held the position of Artistic Director of Random Access Music (RAM), a composers’ consortium based in New York City, committed to bringing new music to the greater metropolitan area. Since its inception, RAM has premiered over 50 new works by living composers, conducted three international calls-for-scores.

An established saxophonist, Erin has toured worldwide as a soloist, chamber musician, and guest artist, with performances ranging from solo recitals in France, to instrumental pop shows in South Korea, to cover bands in Australia. She regularly teams up with chamber, pop and indie groups in New York City, headlining the scene’s hottest venues including The Stone, Cake Shop, The Bitter End, and Le Poisson Rouge.

Born and raised near Edmonton, Canada, Erin completed her undergraduate studies at the University of Alberta and, in 2005, received master’s degrees in composition and performance from Bowling Green State University. From 2002-2004, Erin was a teaching fellow for Distinguished Artist/Research Professor, John Sampen. Erin has been invited to give lectures, music clinics and masterclasses worldwide. She has directed private music studios in Canada and the US since 1995 and, in July of 2004, was the first female featured guest artist and instructor at the annual Taiwan Saxophone Camp in Taipei, Taiwan.

In 2006, Erin joined the publishing team at Peermusic Classical, International Music Publishing, located in midtown Manhattan.

Based in New York City, saxophonist Zach Herchen performs contemporary, jazz, and rock music. He has premiered dozens of pieces ranging from Japanese noise rock to jazz tone poems to multimedia works. Recently Zach released his first CD, Emerging Voices, featuring commissioned works for voice and sax with opera singer Elisabeth Halliday. He performs with First Construction, New Thread Sax Quartet, Emerging Voices Project, Rhymes With Opera, Quiet City, and Man Down.

Zach has served on staff at NEC’s Summer Institute for Contemporary Performance Practice and was an artist-in-resident at Wildacres Retreat. He has performed at BU’s Spectral Summer Professional Performance Workshop, the SEAMUS National Conference, Third Practice Electroacoustic Festival, the 4th International Master-Class for Classical Saxophone, and the Look & Listen Festival. Zach has performed as a soloist in Italy, Sweden, Germany, and at various American institutions.

Zach holds a MM and BM in Saxophone Performance (and BM in Recording Arts Engineering) from The Peabody Conservatory of the Johns Hopkins University where he received the Richard Franko Goldman Prize for performance. He has studied with Gary Louie, Gary Thomas, Timothy McAllister, Arno Bornkamp, Vincent David, Jan Schulte-Bunert, and Ties Mellema.

Michelle McQuade Dewhirst studied horn and composition at Ithaca College and earned her master’s and Ph.D. in composition at the University of Chicago. An active horn player, Michelle specializes in contemporary solo repertoire and performed her own 15 Minutes of Fame for solo horn in March of 2012. She is on the faculty of the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay.

Zach Seely is a composer, conductor, and guitarist/improvisor from New York. He is currently a master's student at Bowling Green State University in Ohio, majoring in music composition and studying with Elainie Lillios. Zach's primary composition teachers have included Claus-Steffen Mahnkopf, Arthur Kampela, and Annette LeSiege. His music often explores silence coupled with complex rhythms and a wide range of timbres employed through the use of extended-techniques. When describing his compositional goals, Zach says “I want my music to be honest. It serves as an extension of my life, which is my ultimate artwork.” More information about his work can be found on www.zachmusicseely.com

Jeff Weston (b. 1986) composes music at the University of Pittsburgh, where he works toward a PhD. His music is concentrated on exploring modes of expressivity through the interactions of balance, repetition, space and physicality. Teachers have included Amy Williams, Eric Moe, Louis Andriessen, Christopher Dietz, Mikel Kuehn and Elainie Lillios. Weston has garnered performances and fellowships at such venues as the International Young Composers’ Forum, Cal State University New Music Festival, Red Note New Music Festival, North American Saxophone Alliance National Conference, Contagious Sounds Series, Iowa Composers’ Forum, Bowling Green State University New Music Festival, University of Alberta NCounters Festival, University of Toronto, soundSCAPE Festival in Maccagno, Italy and Radio France.

A native of Hong Kong, Viola Yip is a New York-based composer and performer, who tries to find the boundaries and push them in her sound world.

Her compositions are not limited to acoustic music, electronic music, graphic scores and structured improvisations. Recent works have appeared in ArtX at Bowling Green State University, Women Composers Festival of Hartford, Ravinia Festival, Fresh Inc Festival, soundSCAPE Festival, TEDXSMU, University of Florida, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, NASA saxophone conference, ThingNY spam v3.0 concert, Quiet City concert, Vox Novus Concert, Musicarama concert series (Hong Kong) and PAUSA Art House (Buffalo).

Her teachers include Richard Carrick, Christopher Coleman, Christopher Keyes, Derek Johnson, Christopher Dietz and Elainie Lillios. The materclasses/ individual lessons with Josh Levine, David Rakowski, Amy Beth Kirsten, Dániel Péter Biró, Claus-Steffen Mahnkopf has also imposed a significant influence on her music.

As a new music advocate, she performs contemporary works regularly as a pianist, speaker and improviser. Her recent interest falls on using her own voice as an instrument and exploring the expressivity and musicality of the human natural voice.

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.