Artists

Unabashedly tonal and delightfully anachronistic, the music of American composer Scott Michal combines lyric, harmonic and rhythmic ingenuity with exceptional craftsmanship in a unique stylistic manner that remains true to the spirit of the great masters. Neo-classic in form and tonality, innovative and original in content, Scott’s music is always fun to listen to, and fun to perform.

Neil Thornock was born in Washington State — the rural, agricultural side — in 1977. He received degrees in organ performance and composition from Brigham Young University and a Doctor of Music degree from Indiana University.

A native of Manitowoc, WI - distinguished composer and pianist Allen Bonde is Professor Emeritus of Music at Mount Holyoke College. A graduate of Lawrence University Conservatory of Music, he has both the Master of Music and (the first) Doctor of Musical Arts degrees from the Catholic University of America. He has received many awards, honors, and commissions, notably a Festival Casals Scholarship, a Yale Graduate Fellowship, an American Composers Project, a Rockefeller Foundation Grant, and was recognized for his outstanding contributions in music with Alumni Achievement Awards from Lawrence University and Catholic University.

Francis Fairman (b. 1923) was born in Annapolis MD. Growing up in a musical family, his father played the violin, his mother the piano, his brother the trumpet, and his sister the violin, Fairman was exposed to music at an early age; he had his first piano lesson in Pittsburgh at the age of 5, and was soon able to sight read and play Beethoven's Sonata Pathetique Op. 13. At age 10, his family moved to Philadelphia, where he continued music lessons under Ms. Gertrude Hamilton, a Curtis Institute graduate.

Composer James Tribble has been writing and playing music for about 30 years, gradually learning his craft. He taught himself piano at 14, creating a lot of bad habits, and he has performed and taught piano, violin and viola since then while improving his own technique.

Portuguese violist Anibal Dos Santos was born in born in Caracas, Venezuela in 1963. He began his musical studies at an early age in his native city with Gianfranco Farina and Mario Mescoli. At age 18, he traveled to Philadelphia PA to study with renowned violist Joseph de Pasquale, obtaining his degree in 1988 at the Curtis Institute of Music. Since then, he has dedicated his career to perform viola repertoire with many orchestras in the Americas, as well as recitals and chamber music appearances.

Sophia Serghi (b. 1972) was born in Nicosia, Cyprus and is now a resident of the United States. She has written works for stage, orchestra, and chamber ensembles, along with her vocal and multimedia works, and her compositions have been performed throughout Europe and the United States.

William Vollinger is predominantly a composer of vocal music, spoken and/or sung, performed by groups such as the Gregg Smith Singers and New York Vocal Arts Ensemble, whose performance of Three Songs About the Resurrection won first prize at the Geneva International Competition. The instrumental work The Violinist in the Mall won the 2005 Friends and Enemies of New Music competition. Sound Portraits is a collection of his vocal works featuring soprano Linda Ferraira recorded by Capstone-Ravello. Raspberry Man was selected for both the 2009 National SCI Conference in Santa Fe NM and the University of Nebraska 2009 New Music Festival.

The music of Peter Van Zandt Lane (b. 1985, Port Jefferson NY) has been described as having "Propulsive rhythms" and "surprising lyricism" and has been praised by musicians and critics alike (Boston Musical Intelligencer) as music that "gives an amazing first impression." A Boston-based composer and bassoonist, Peter writes passionately for ensembles of all types, and often employs the use of electronics in his compositions. With backgrounds in classical performance and rock, contemporary theory and music engineering, he draws on his diverse experiences to create music that is fresh, genuine, and widely appealing.

From the onset of his career, German composer Gerhard Stäbler (b. 1949) has not only been active as a composer, but also involved in the political and organizational arenas. He organized the new music festival Aktive Musik, along with serving as the artistic director of the 1995 World Music Days of the ISCM in the Ruhr Area in Germany. A third vital point of his activities lies in teaching; he has worked with many young international composers in a variety of workshops and seminars. He was a composer-in-residence and visiting professor throughout North and South America as well as in the Middle and Far East.

Lawrence Siegel brings to the writing of KADDISH twenty-five years of experience creating and directing music and music theater projects using texts from oral histories, interviews, and community dialogues. His music has won awards from the McKnight Foundation, the New England Foundation for the Arts, Mid-Atlantic Arts Foundation, the New Hampshire State Council on the Arts, and many others. He has been a fellow in composition at the Tanglewood Music Center and the MacDowell Colony in Peterborough, NH.

Jim Scully (b. 1979) is a composer, performer and educator in the fields of contemporary classical music, electroacoustic music and jazz studies. He is currently a member of the music faculty at CSU Bakersfield, where he is tasked with teaching an array of courses in the fields of Music Theory, Jazz Studies, Composition and Music Technology. In addition, he serves as Director of the CSU Bakersfield Guitar Arts Series, Director of Small Jazz Ensembles, Director of the Audio/MIDI Lab and Assistant Director of the Bakersfield Jazz Festival.

Don Freund is an internationally recognized composer with works ranging from solo, chamber, and orchestral music to pieces involving live performances with electronic instruments, music for dance, and large theatre works. He has been described as "a composer thoughtful in approach and imaginative in style" (Washington Post), whose music is "exciting, amusing, disturbing, beautiful, and always fascinating" (Music and Musicians, London).

Östhammar, Sweden-based Håkan Sundin (b. 1961) leads a varied musical career, working as a composer, freelance flutist and saxophonist, and as a church musician. Sundin received his jazz education from Skurups Folk High School (1980-82), and continued on to the Malmö Academy of Music for flute and composition (1983-88); from there, he continued his education in composition with seminars at the Royal Academy of Music in Aarhus, Denmark (1988-90). In addition to his formal education, Sundin has continued his flute studies with private lessons from flutist Manuela Wiesler, among others.

Composer, teacher and conductor William A. Fletcher can trace his fascination with music to a specific event: a free concert given by a then-new duo, Simon and Garfunkel, when he was 12 years old. He took up guitar that very week, and joyfully played it all day, every day for the next 15 years...

Howard L. Richards Jr. received his first piano lesson when he was six years old and began studying popular piano and trumpet at the age of eight. He attended high school at Culver Military Academy in Indiana and was a member of the Infantry Band for four years. Upon graduating high school, Richards spent one year at the University of Michigan to study Physics, but switched at midyear to major in Music Composition.

Joseph Koykkar (b. 1951), composer, has had his music performed nationally and internationally for the past 30 years, including performances and commissions by many of the leading new music ensembles in the nation including the Relache Ensemble, Present Music, Zeitgeist, New York New Music Ensemble, North/South Consonance, Synchronia, and the C.A.L. Ear Unit.

Warren Gooch's music has been widely performed throughout North America, as well as Europe, Asia and Latin America. His work has been recognized by the National Federation of Music Clubs, Minnesota Orchestra, American Choral Directors Association, Music Teachers National Association, Percussive Arts Society, International Trumpet Guild, College Music Society, Music Educators National Conference, the Composers Guild, Composers and Songwriters International, Collegiate Band Directors National Association, American Composers Forum and numerous other organizations.

R. David Salvage (b. 1978, Boston MA) is a composer and pianist whose piano, chamber, vocal, and orchestral works have been performed by many of America's most gifted musicians, including the Arcturus Chamber Ensemble, the Rosetta String Trio, the Monticello String Quartet, the Cygnus Ensemble, Miranda Cuckson (violinist), Christopher Swanson (tenor), Thomas Meglioranza (baritone), David Thomas (clarinetist), and the Newark-Granville Symphony Orchestra (OH).

Malcolm Hawkins, British composer born in Portugal, has lived in New Hampshire since 1995. He graduated from the Royal Academy of Music, and was subsequently awarded a scholarship to study at the Mozarteum, Salzburg, with Cesar Bresgen, where he won an international song competition Das Neue Lied with 4 Songs for Baritone, Saxophone and Piano. These and a solo piano work were broadcast on Austrian Radio, and his wind quintet was performed in Salzburg and Vienna.