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Composer and conductor Lee Actor has won a number of awards for his compositions, most recently for Concerto for Horn and Orchestra, which was the First Prize Winner in the 2007 International Horn Society Composition Contest. Variations and Fugue for Orchestra was a finalist in both the Columbia Orchestra's 2007 American Composer's Competition and the Holyoke Civic Symphony's 2005 Composition Competition, and Prelude to a Tragedy was selected as a finalist in the Columbia Orchestra's 2005 American Composer's Competition.
Actor's orchestral music is characterized by its dramatic impact and emotional expressivity, featuring striking use of harmony, counterpoint, motivic development, and lyricism with a fresh, modern flavor. These attributes are most prominent in Actor's large-scale dramatic works. Referring to Actor's Concerto for Violin and Orchestra, Keith Kreithman of the San Mateo County Times wrote "this is a major work deserving of national attention…this concerto verges on masterpiece". His work has been characterized by conductor Kirk Trevor as "music of the highest quality in craftsmanship, inventiveness, and imagination."
A former violinist with the Albany Symphony Orchestra, Actor has advanced degrees in both engineering and music composition. He has studied composition with Donald Sur, Brent Heisinger, Charles Jones, and Andrew Imbrie, and conducting with Angelo Frascarelli, David Epstein and Higo Harada. Actor was named Composer-in-Residence of the Palo Alto Philharmonic in 2002, following his appointment as Assistant Conductor in 2001, and named Assistant Conductor of the Nova Vista Symphony in 2008. Actor's past releases include a CD of orchestral works released by MMC Recordings in June 2005 and a second orchestral CD released by Albany Records in April 2008.
He is a member of the American Music Center and ASCAP, who recently named Actor the recipient of an ASCAPlus award for the sixth consecutive year.
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A graduate of UCLA in music and the child of European trained professional violinists, Adrienne began studying the piano at age 4 and composition at 10. She had the good fortune to have had great teachers: for piano, Jacob Gimpel and Aube Tzerko in Los Angeles, Joanna Graudan at the Aspen Music School and early composition studies with Saul Kaplan and Leonard Stein. After enjoying a lengthy hiatus performing other people's music, she returned to studying composition with Stephen "Lucky" Mosko at CalArts and orchestration with Albert Harris.
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