April 27, 2014

Biographies

Pianist Deborah Grimmett’s performances have been heard throughout Canada and Europe in major concert halls such as Auditorium Santa Croce (Italy), Norges Musikkhøgskole (Norway), Espace Carpeaux (France), Ganz Hall, and Sherman Clay Steinway Hall (US), Centennial Theatre, and The Chan Centre for the Performing Arts (Canada). She was a finalist and prizewinner in both the Vancouver Academy Provincial Senior Secondary Competition, and the BC Piano Competition.

Iman Habibi has successfully established his career as a composer as well as a pianist. He is recognized by critics as a “confident player,” (Prince George Citizen) and a “giant in talent” (The Penticton Herald). His compositions have been programmed by many prestigious concert organizations such as The Marilyn Horne Foundation (New York), The Canadian Opera Company (Toronto), Tapestry New Opera (Toronto), Atlantic Music Festival (Maine), the BCScene Festival (Ottawa), The Sonic Boom Festival, and the Powell Street Festival (Vancouver).

Guest Curator Masatora Goya is a composer writing extensively in the areas of chamber music and theater. Trained as a vocal performer first, he explores the musical landscape of drama, space, and emotion. Masatora received a BA in Integrated Human Studies from Kyoto University and studied music at Koyo Conservatory. Since relocating to the United States, he earned a MM in Composition from New Jersey City University and studied in the BMI-Lehman Engle Musical Theatre Workshop, and is completing a DMA in Composition at Five Towns College. Masatora was a 2011-12 Diversity Doctoral Fellow at SUNY Purchase where he taught and developed a music theater project about Douglas MacArthur’s five-year reign of Japan.

Molly Aronson has a diverse, up-and-coming career as a cellist and teacher. She has performed as a part of the Mohawk Trails Concerts, Interlochen Faculty Chamber Series, has appeared as a concerto soloist with Holyoke Civic Symphony, and has performed in concert with pop singers Micahel Buble, and Josh Groban. With a great enthusiasm for new music, she has premiered numerous works by award-winning students and faculty composers. Molly has taught at Purchase College, Interlochen Arts Camp, New York State Summer School of the Arts – Orchestral Studies. In her own studies, after earning a Performer’s Certificate, Molly began her Master’s degree in Performance at the State University of New York at Purchase, under the tutelage of Julia Lichten, and graduated with Bachelor’s of Music in Performance from the University of Massachusetts Amherst, studying with Astrid Schween.

Nate Festinger is a composer whose background in pop and musical theater has cultivated a unique classical language. Born in 1987 and raised by two Los Angeles jazz musicians, he learned piano from his mother and began writing music soon after. Nate moved to New York City at 18, where his theater-inspired pop songs won him acceptance into the BMI Musical Theater Workshop. In 2013, Nate co-authored, composed, produced and performed in "A Concert Drama”, which fused his new instrumental chamber works with lighting and staging, conveying a dramatically cohesive narrative. Nate has studied composition under composer and pedagogue Ronn Yedidia and theoretician Donna Doyle. He is currently a teaching artist at the New York Piano Academy. www.natefestinger.com

Brandon Gianetto, a violist from Syracuse, New York, enjoys a varied career as a chamber and orchestral musician. An alumni of The Boston Conservatory, SUNY Purchase, and Manhattan School of Music, Brandon's principal teachers include Patricia McCarty, Ira Weller, as Karen Dreyfus, and he has also performed in master classes for Mischa Amory, Craig Mumm, Steve Larsen, Carmit Zori, and members of the New Zealand, Tokyo, Orion, Emerson, and Manhattan quartets. Brandon is currently a core member of the Binghamton Philharmonic and a substitute with Symphoria Syracuse, and in 2013 he participated in the Tuscia Opera Festival in Viterbo, Italy, serving as principal.

As a freelance percussionist and composer, Dan Granda frequents numerous musical scenes in the New York and New Jersey area. He has performed with the NJ Symphony Orchestra, the NJ State Opera Orchestra and the Princeton Symphony Orchestra, as well as for the Off-Broadway show Falling For Eve and the concept album Dark Beauty Project. Dan is also a co-founder of the (Un-named) Percussion Duo with fellow percussionist Greg Muller. As a composer, Dan has created the score for the award winning film Red Scare and the upcoming Web series Lost and found. Most recently, Dan has taken on the role of artistic director of the concert series 662 Center Sounds, sponsored by CSLNJ. Dan received his BM and MM in percussion performance and composition from New Jersey City University. His principal teachers include Nick Cerrato, Randy Hicks, Dave Fein, Greg Giannascoli and David Nyberg.

Tim Hansen is an Australian composer who has been engaged by a diverse range of companies and individuals to create new works for theatre and music, and has had pieces performed in Australia, New Zealand, the UK, the US, Belgium, France and Mexico. In the US, Tim has worked with Transit, the JACK string quartet, Cadillac Moon Ensemble, the NYU Symphony Orchestra, the NYU Contemporary Music Ensemble, and has been a composition fellow at the Bang on a Can Summer Institute and the Norfolk Contemporary Music Festival. He has been awarded the Frank Ponton Memorial Prize, the Darwin International Guitar Festival Composition Prize and an ArtStart Grant from the Australia Council for the Arts. He is a founding director of both ExhAust New Music and the W4 New Music collective in New York. Tim currently lives in Newtown, Sydney.

Madeleine Jansen is a violinist based in New York City. Her performance engagements have taken her across the United States, Canada, and Europe, where she has performed in venues such as Carnegie Hall, the Kennedy Center, Boston's Symphony Hall, and London's St. John's Smith Square. Madeleine earned her BM in violin performance from Boston University, graduating Magna Cum Laude. She completed her MM at University of Massachusetts and received the prestigious Julian Olevsky Memorial Award for excellence in violin performance upon graduation. Madeleine has performed with Michael Buble, Josh Groban, and rock band Trans-Siberian Orchestra. She recently performed on NBC's Today Show and as a featured soloist for MAC Cosmetic corporate events. Madeleine has taught violin at Interlochen Arts Camp, UMass Amherst.

Tristan McKay is a New York-based contemporary pianist and multimedia artist. Celebrated for his “dramatic” and “assertive” playing (New York Times), he has this season premiered over three-dozen works at iconic and underground New York venues alike, including John Zorn’s The Stone, The Flea Theater, The Firehouse Space, The Tank and The Apollo Theater. This season also brought him to Brisbane, Australia, where his trio Dead Language premiered works by Gust Burns, Ryan Krause and David Bird, and spent a week as ensemble-in-residence at the Queensland Conservatorium. A graduate of New York University and the Contemporary Performance Program at the Manhattan School of Music, Tristan’s principal teachers have included Christopher Oldfather, Anthony de Mare and Marilyn Nonken.

Gregory Mueller was born and raised in Huntington Beach, CA. He began studying percussion in his sophomore year of high school. Under guidance of Gerald Carlyss, Greg completed his undergraduate studies at Indiana University in 2008. He then studied with Alan Abel and Markus Rhoten to complete his master’s degree at Rutgers University. Since coming to New Jersey in 2008, Greg continues to perform as a percussionist in different scenes and styles. Greg performs chamber percussion duets with Dan Granda, and appears as conga player with psychedelic AfroCuban jazz quartet "El Noordzo" and rock band "The Dancing Goats". Greg also works as a recording and mixing engineer for musicians and venues in New Jersey, New York and Geneva, Switzerland.

A native of São Paulo, Brazil, Dr. Felipe Salles is an Assistant Professor of Jazz and African-American Music Studies at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Felipe is a winner of the French American Jazz Exchange Grant from FACE, Chamber Music America, and a winner of the Chamber Music America New Works: Creation and Presentation Grant Program. He has been awarded First Place in the Concurso SGAE de Jazz “TETE MONTOLIU”, with the his “The Return of The Chromo Sapiens”. Felipe has had arrangements and compositions performed by The Metropole Orchestra, Westchester Jazz Orchestra, Cayuga Chamber Orchestra, Helsinki Philharmonic Violas, Meta4 String Quartet, UMass Amherst Jazz Orchestra and Studio Orchestra, Manhattan School of Music Jazz Orchestra and Jazz Philharmonic Orchestra, and New England Conservatory Jazz Orchestra and Jazz Band.

Jennifer Shaw began playing the cello at age nine in Taipei, Taiwan. Her various experiences have brought her to perform with the Dave Brubeck Quartet and the Eagles, and in NYC venues including Carnegie Hall, Avery Fisher Hall, and the Beacon Theater. Recent projects around NYC include performing with Vivian Sessoms and Tiger Darrow, as well as teaching with the Union City Music Project. Jennifer received her M.M. as a student of Edward Arron at New York University, where she also taught cello as an adjunct instructor. She graduated with her B.A. in Music Performance and a supplementary major in German Language and Literature from the University of Notre Dame, where she studied with Karen Buranskas.

Program Notes

Presenters:

Remarkable Theater Brigade

Jan Hus Church

Vox Novus