Artists

Reviews

After he had finished his studies in piano, church organ and choral conducting in Utrecht, Hans Bakker (b. 1945) took up the profession of piano teaching at various music schools in his native Netherlands.

Apart from his teaching practice he was active in the improvised music scene, and as a choral conductor of two choirs.

His career in music was followed by the study of Sanskrit. After his successful graduation from the University of Amsterdam in 1979, he turned his focus back to music. From then on he became completely occupied by it as a teacher at the Globe Center for Art and Culture in the city of Hilversum. Currently he plays cello in the Naardens Chamber Orchestra and also in a string quartet and a clarinet quintet.

Until 1997 composing was only a minor occupation next to his other work, but from then on it became daily routine for him. He wrote a great number of chamber music works and many choir compositions, among which the Cycle of Choirs Prasasti, consisting of ten parts. He has also written orchestral music.

Hans Bakker is a member of BUMA-STEMRA and of the EPTA. He is a lifetime member of Royal Dutch Musicians Society.

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Lawrence Ball is a versatile and innovative composer who has a multiple focus as a composer, improviser and audio-visual creator. He has collaborated with healers, therapists and counselors as well as writing for dance, film, orchestra, and choir and is as much at home writing a score as creating electronic or computer music. In summer 2008 he completed his 2nd Symphony. He collaborated with Pete Townshend and software engineer Dave Snowdon on the Method Music project, designing music software for a web server which generated over 10000 musical pieces - 'portraits' - over the internet. Pete Townshend also helped Lawrence record a double album "Method Music" now available through iTunes as a download.

His work is largely tonal (in the sense of an identifiable set of notes that are emphasized - rarely changing the key, central note). It is contemporary, in that it has much in it which is formed anew - not directly influenced or inspired from the classical music tradition. It is often associated with meditational or New Age aspects, because of the strong emphasis on its relationship with silence and presence, it makes more use of the space between notes than occurs in classical music. It is in the minimalist genre, in the sense that it borrows the idea of looping and repetition (since over 30 years) from the musical innovations of Terry Riley and LaMonte Young, and seeks deeper experiences through working with constancy, with sustained sounds and small or zero contrasts.

Since 2001 Lawrence has worked with sarod player Lisa Sangita Moskow and vocalist Manickam Yogeswaran on improvised music based on North and South Indian raga scales. He has created 2 multi-media audio-visual installations with the artist Genie Poretsky-Lee: Anonymous Words (2007) and Image Of Sound (2008).

He has developed techniques to deeply integrate audio and visual images with quantum physicist Michael Tusch, collaborating on this since 1993 with Dave Snowdon who created the software "Visual Harmony" to explore this arena; worked with healer/counselor Isobel McGilvray in shaping harmonic tonescapes to aid relaxation, and has worked with choreographers/dancers (ex-Sadlers Wells Royal Ballet) Sheila Styles and (ex-Ballet Rambert) Rebecca Ham on several dance projects. Lawrence Ball has written for the pianists Yonty Solomon, Mark Swartzentruber, Tim Ravenscroft (2 suites), and Alessandra Celletti (Fractal Studies and Mist Sculptures), for The Smith (string) Quartet, the Electric Symphony Orchestra, , the female vocal quartet led by Rosemary Forbes-Butler, Rosy Voices, and he wrote 6 pieces for the violist Robin Ireland (of the Lindsay Quartet) and many more for violist Neil Davis.

He composed music for the film "The Eye of the Heart", a portrait of the life and work of the artist Cecil Collins, and features in the book on Collins and his circle by Nomi Rowe. He has recorded almost 3000 piano improvisations as well as performing many live. Ball's creating in acoustic and electronic media, in composed and improvised methods is one of the broadest of any composer. He has performed in Canada, the US, Latvia, Lithuania, Italy, Switzerland, France and Germany as well as in the UK. He has accompanied the international painting group Collective Phenomena who work 'more than one to a canvas' with marathon keyboard improvisations, at John Calder's La Fonderie in Paris and The Blackie in Liverpool, as well as a Planet Tree Festival London appearance. Ball is a pioneer in music, having addressed meditative and healing presence and state-of-mind, primarily, for over 30 years. In 1996 he founded the Planet Tree Music Festival, which he also directs. He is also a highly sought after private tutor in mathematics. He lives in London.

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Composer Jason V. Barabba's work has been called "deeply meditative" by Fanfare magazine. His music has been performed by such diverse musicians as the Janaki String Trio, clarinetist Richard Stoltzman, the California E.A.R. Unit and Chicago's Quintet Attacca, and at academic institutions across the country. His chamber orchestra work The Abandonment of Pluto was premiered in England at the University of Bristol in 2008 and his String Trio was broadcast on WNYC radio in New York in 2009.

Mr. Barabba has frequently drawn on his love of literature for inspiration. His opera `dentity Crisis was called an "astounding work of the highest artistry" by fellow composer Bernard Gilmore. He has created several works using texts by author Ursula K. Le Guin, including Say I Am Not Far Enough and "The Scarcity of Rhinos" on the television from her book Sixty Odd. Barabba's Three Meditations for Clarinet and Piano draws inspiration from Le Guin's version of the Tao Te Ching. Le Guin has said of Mr. Barabba's work, "Some composers use words as raw material. Like Schubert or Vaughan-Williams, he collaborates with them...the texture of the music and the tension is wonderfully effective; it's spare and airy, but strong."

Recordings of Barabba's music have been commercially released on the Yarlung Records, MMC Recordings and Navona Records labels.

After receiving a Bachelor's degree in Latin American Studies at Occidental College, Mr. Barabba studied music composition at the University of Chicago, University of California at Irvine, and UCLA. His composition teachers have included Andrew Imbrie, John Eaton, David Lefkowitz, Richard Grayson, Christopher Dobrian and Alan Terricciano. He lives and works in Los Angeles.

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Patrick Beckman received his B.M. and M.M. in piano from the University of Illinois – Urbana. After graduation he became Artist-in-Residence at Highland College in Illinois where he later headed the music department. He has also taught at Rockford College. Beckman's works for piano include the albums Songs for Piano (1981); Biscuit Alley (1984); Street Psalms (1985); and Spring Chants (1987). Past CDs include Earth Day Sonata (1992); Piano Pieces (1997); Tavern Tunes (2003); American Scenes Vol. 1 (2006); American Scenes Vol. II (2007) and Street Dance (2008, produced by Bob Lord).

His Homage to Franz Schubert was first performed at the New Music Chicago Festival in 1992. Choral works include the Mass in Memory of Thomas Merton (1994); Latin Trilogy (1995); Easter Mass (first performed at the Vatican in 1996); Song of the Earth (for the NEA/American Composer's Forum Continental Harmony in 2000); Fields in Winter (2000); and Vesper (2000); all of which were first performed by the Highland Chorale in the United States and Europe. Additional works include numerous shorter pieces for vocal solo, chorus, theatre, and dance.

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Marie Nelson Bennett is a Utah composer who earned a music degree from Yale while studying with Paul Hindesmith. She earned her Ph.D. in composition from the University of Utah.

Her orchestral works include eight symphonies, five concertos and the oratorio "Once in Israel." She has also composed a trio for flute, clarinet and piano, a string quartet, various sonatas and numerous songs and choral works, including the scores of seven plays. Her opera "Orpheus Lex" is slated to premier in February 2010 in New York by the New York Virtuoso Singers under Harold Rosenbaum.

The flowing orchestras have premiered or recorded her works: London Symphony, Slovak Radio Symphony, Manhattan Sinfonia, Czech Radio Symphony, New York Chamber Symphony, Seattle Symphony, Corcordia, Prague Symphony, Utah Symphony, Salt Lake Symphony, Paradigm Chamber Orchestra and Boston Modern Orchestra.

Conductors include Gerard Schwarz, Robert Stankovsky, Glen Cortese, Vladimir Valek, Marin Alsop, Joseph Silverstein, Roger Briggs, Gil Rose, Joel Rosenberg, James Caswell and David Cho.

Marie is a recipient of the Merit of Honor Award at the University of Utah, where her works are held in a special collection. She has also been nominated for a Friedheim Award at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C.

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Donald Betts made his New York debut as a pianist and composer at the age of 21, playing his own music along with works by Prokofieff, Liszt, and Schumann. The New York Times called him "a pianist of imagination and poetic feeling". Musical America cited "his tremendous technique and bravura style". Soon after he won The Concert Artist Guild Award and presented two more New York recitals at Town Hall and Carnegie Hall. While attending graduate school at Indiana University School of Music, he was the only piano student given a studio and a roster of music students to teach. Soon after as a Professor of Music at Macalester College in St. Paul, MN, he cofounded The Macalester Trio. The trio's recording of Chamber Works By Women Composers was hailed in 1980 by Newsweek as one of ten of the most important recordings of the year.

Betts is also a composer of over 150 compositions. His works have been performed in Dublin, Ireland and Puebla San Miguel Allerde, Mexico. His works have also been performed in the Conservatory of Music in Siberia and Sarajevo, New York City, Chicago, Washington DC, Pittsburg, Tallahassee, and various colleges and universities throughout the East and Midwest. His recording with the Centaur label, Soundings: Piano Works of Donald Betts, was called "seductively dreamlike and sensuous, filled with mystery and rapture" by American Record Guide. Composer Henry Brant said of his piano music, "In my view these compositions occupy a place of their own in the repertory of 20th century keyboard music." Betts has recorded for Vox, Centaur, CRI, Golden Crest, MMC, Ampria, and Inscape. He is a Professor Emeritus of Macalester College.

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John G. Bilotta was born in Waterbury, Connecticut, but has spent most his life in the San Francisco Bay Area. After receiving his undergraduate and graduate degrees at the University of California, Berkeley, he entered the San Francisco Music & Arts Institute where he studied composition with Frederick Saunders. His works have been performed around the world by outstanding soloists and ensembles including Rarescale, Earplay, Chamber Mix, the Washington Square Contemporary Music Society, the Talea Ensemble, the Avenue Winds, the San Francisco Cabaret Opera Company, VocalWorks, the Oakland Civic Orchestra, and the Kiev Philharmonic, as well as dozens of university and conservatory ensembles. His recorded works have been released by Capstone Records, Beauport Classical, New Music North, Parma Recordings, Vox Novus, and ERM Media. His first chamber opera Aria da Capo was a finalist in a competition sponsored by the New York City Opera. His second chamber opera Quantum Mechanic won the 2007 Opera-in-a-Month Challenge resulting in eight performances in California, Oklahoma, and Utah with more performances scheduled around the country. He has received grants and awards from the American Composers Forum, the California Association of Professional Music Teachers, the Music Teachers National Association, the R. Ernest and Sylvia Shepherd Family Trust, the San Francisco Jewish Community Center, and the California State College Association. John is a member of the Executive Committee of the Society of Composers, Inc., and is editor of SCION, the organization's opportunities newsletter. He is also music director of the San Francisco Chamber Wind Festival held every summer at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, and co-directs with Brian Bice the seven-year-running Festival of Contemporary Music.

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Since its formation 2004, the Boston String Quartet has been a creative leader in contemporary classical music in New England. Having made their professional debut at Weil Recital Hall, Carnegie Hall, the quartet performs their own arrangements of classical chamber music, rock, jazz, world music and more, and is continually "exploring different ways of sparking musical interest" [Boston Globe]. This journey has allowed for collaboration with John Mayer, the Boston Ballet, Jennifer Holliday, Lisa Fisher, Tim Janis, Dave Fiucznyski, as well as opportunity to perform at such venues as the Los Angeles Music Awards, PBS, and the Yankee Homecoming Festival. Committed to music education in the Boston metro area, the members of the Boston String Quartet are currently ensemble in residence at contemporary music school, School of Groove. To date, the Boston String Quartet has released two independent albums — "Spectrum" and "On Christmas Eve" ["a lovely alternative sound for the holiday season" –Audiophile Audition] can be heard over the radio or may be found performing on local television stations — and is currently recording on Navona Recordings.

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Gregers Brinch was born in Denmark to a Danish father and American mother, but spent a substantial part of his childhood and, since returning from Germany in 1994, adulthood in the small village of Row in East Sussex, Great Brittain. At age 20 he felt himself catapulted into a full-blown dedication to the pursuit of musical composition being especially inspired by Mozart and Beethoven in particular whose works he discovered for the first time at this age. Composition would be for him a means by which to penetrate ever deeper into the being of music.

He studied singing and composition with Cecil Cope and later piano with concert pianist Louis Demetrius Alvanis in London, who encouraged him to apply to study at the Royal College of Music. Instead, he chose to study composition in Germany with Elmar Lampson the current President of Music of Hamburg College of Music. He graduated in 1992 with diplomas in composition and piano. He has become versed in creating new works for for the fully accomplished international soloist, as well as for lay-musicians without reading-skills.

'The human Predicament' as a theme continues to challenge and stimulate Brinch. In 1994 Dr. Michael Moll, Hamburg approached him with a request to compose songs to poems written by victims of the Holocaust. That work led to the writing of further songs in 2005 a number of which were performed in Laatzen in Germany at a Holocaust Memorial event in Sept 2008.

This theme finds its latest expression in a more recently completed work, entitled ‘The Word - black 'n white' for Choir and Chamber-ensemble to texts by St. John the Evangelist, Martin Luther King Jr., Charles Darwin and Brinch, which will be performed in the Uk in August 2009. Brinch's works have been widely performed in the UK (including the Wigmore Hall) and Europe and the CD of his pianoworks ‘Blue Harmony', recorded by internationally acclaimed pianist Diana Baker, has been well received both locally and internationally. 2 CDs of chamber works are being released by Claudio Records in the fall of 2009.

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New York pianist and composer Allen Brings has performed extensively both in the U.S. and abroad, especially in programs of music for four-hand piano with Genevieve Chinn, with whom he has recorded for Orion, CRI, and Centaur. His published compositions, which include works for orchestra, band, chorus, various chamber ensembles, piano, organ, harpsichord, guitar, and voice, have been recorded by Capstone, Centaur, Grenadilla, Contemporary Record Society, North/South Recordings, Arizona University Recordings, and Vienna Modern Masters. He is also coauthor of A New Approach to Keyboard Harmony, published by W. W. Norton, and has contributed articles to College Music Symposium, Contemporary Music Newsletter, New Music Connoisseur, Society of Composers Newsletter, New Oxford Review, ComposerUSA, sounding board and Adoremus Bulletin.

He has twice served as chairman of the eastern region of the American Society of University Composers and is currently vice-president of Connecticut Composers. Each year since 1975 he has received an ASCAP Award. In 1988 he was awarded an Individual Artist Grant by the Connecticut Commission on the Arts.

Brings graduated magna cum laude from Queens College in 1955 and earned his M.A. from Columbia University in 1957, where he was a Mosenthal Fellow and a student of Otto Luening. In 1962 he became a Naumburg Fellow at Princeton University, where he studied with Roger Sessions. In 1964 he received a doctorate in theory and composition from Boston University, where he was a student of Gardner Read.

Brings is Professor Emeritus of Music at the Aaron Copland School of Music at Queens College of the City University of New York. He is a director of the Weston Music Center and School of the Performing Arts in Weston, Connecticut, where he has taught since 1960.

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