Artists

William Coble’s premieres include the Richmond Symphony, Hudson Valley Philharmonic, Syracuse Symphony, Moravian Philharmonic, Concerto Soloists Chamber Orchestra, Composers Conference Chamber Orchestra, Contempo Chamber Orchestra, eighth blackbird, New York New Music Ensemble, Alea III, and the Pacifica String Quartet. He has been performed by Matt Albert, David Tanenbaum, Scott St. John, Steve Harlos, Charles Mokotoff, Daphne Gerling, Susan Synnestvedt, William Hite, Jay Morrissey, Walter Huff, Elizabeth McNutt, Sharon Garvey-Cohen, Chuong Vu, Janelle Ott, Lisa Kaplan, Judy Pannill, and Heran Yang.

Fredrick Kaufman is the composer of over 130 published compositions that have been performed worldwide by orchestras such as the Warsaw Philharmonic, Israel Philharmonic, Czech Radio Orchestra, Lithuanian Philharmonic, London Sinfonietta, National Orchestra of Brazil, Los Angeles Philharmonic, New World Symphony and the Pittsburgh Symphony orchestras. Kaufman is a former Fulbright Scholar, and recipient honors and fellowships from the Endowment of the Arts, the Rockefeller, Guggenheim and Ford Foundations.

Peter Vukmirovic Stevens is a composer, pianist, and multimedia artist. Stevens’ illustrative music covers an extensive palette of sensibilities from concert to sound art. He is the founder of Ensemble Ex Materia. Stevens lives in Paris.

Winner of the 2015 Astral Artists National Auditions, and Gold medalist at the 2012 New Orleans International Piano Competition, Viktor Valkov has been highly acclaimed by the critics as “lion of the keyboard” and “sensational”. Among numerous chamber music and solo appearances, during the last few concert seasons Mr.Valkov also performed with the Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra, Baton Rouge Symphony Orchestra, Acadiana Symphony Orchestra, and West Virginia Symphony Orchestra.

Hailed for the "awesome purity of his playing" (New York Concert Review) and described as a "prodigiously skilled protagonist", Bulgarian cellist Lachezar Kostov has performed as an orchestral soloist, recitalist and chamber musician in USA, Japan and Europe. In 2006 Mr. Kostov was the National Winner at the MTNA competition. Lachezar Kostov gave his Carnegie Hall debut in 2009 together with his longtime friend and chamber music collaborator pianist Viktor Valkov.

The Skyros Quartet has performed extensively, traveling around Asia and North America. In their hometown of Seattle, the quartet has concertized at Benaroya Hall as part of the Seattle Chamber Music Society, has been featured artists numerous times at Resonance at Soma Towers, and are seen in frequent performance around the Puget Sound region. They have been heard at the Aspen Music Festival and School (Aspen, Colorado) and the Sunflower Music Festival (Topeka, Kansas). In 2014, Skyros was invited to Ontario, Canada, where they were guest artists at QuartetFest 2014 at Sir Wilfrid Laurier University (Waterloo, Ontario) and performed at the Kitchener-Waterloo Chamber Music Society (Ontario, Canada).

Taking its inspiration from the exquisite rugged natural beauty of the Pacific Northwest, the Saint Helens String Quartet embraces a sense of musical adventure, exploring an often uncharted sonic territory in which contemporary classical music intersects with genres including jazz, pop, rock, folk and world music. Called the "Saint Helens adventurous four" by the Seattle Weekly, the group makes a practice of commissioning and performing works by 20th century composers.

Cellist Paige Stockley is known for championing the music of living composers from the Pacific Northwest and is on faculty at Cornish College of the Arts in Seattle. Paige holds a master's degree from the Manhattan School of Music. Her early training was at the University of Washington, where she studied with cellist Toby Saks while earning a double major in Political Science and English. She has also played in orchestras around the world: from Connecticut to Spain, Mexico City, Prague and Krakow, spending a year at the European Mozart Academy playing under the baton of Sandor Vegh and studying with Steven Isserlis.

Brian Noyes grew up in Cardiff, South Wales, and began his music education by studying the classical guitar at the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama, subsequently freelancing as a performer and teacher until his interest in composition took him to University College Cardiff and then Goldsmiths' College, London. This was the time, in the late 1970s and early 1980s, when his first pieces were performed by ensembles such as Lontano, Music Projects London, Singcircle, etc., and also, pivotally for him as a composer, when he attended Dartington Summer School, under the tutelage of Sir Peter Maxwell Davies, and Aldeburgh School of Advanced Studies, with Sir Harrison Birtwistle.

Nicholas Anthony Ascioti was born in Syracuse NY on May 30th, 1974. He attended the College of St. Rose in Albany NY where he earned degrees in Composition and Conducting. He earned his Master of Fine Arts degree in Composition from Bennington College in Vermont. Asciotis has studied with Allen Shawn, Dr. Amy Williams, and Stephen Siegel.

"Doron Kima utilizes some extremely arresting musical gestures and makes good use of jazzy rhythms, with effective use of contrasts between sections. The composer is clearly in control of the material and instruments" (The American Prize Composition Competition). Kima's catalogue includes works for orchestra, chamber ensembles, solo, voice, electro-acoustic, and film scores.

Aleksander Sternfeld-Dunn (b. 1980, Vallejo CA) grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area, was educated on both coasts and now finds himself in the middle of the country. His music combines a frenetic rhythmic language, lean textures and lyrical sensitivity. His music has been recorded and performed throughout the United States, Europe, Canada, and Asia by ensembles and organizations including the Kiev Philharmonic, The Contra Costa Chamber Orchestra, Huntsville Alabama Army Band, Composers Inc, Conundrum, The Yale Brass Trio, Scott/Garrison Duo, and Vox Novus.

Zae Munn is Professor of Music at Saint Mary's College in Notre Dame, Indiana where she has taught composition and theory courses since 1990. She is the Director of the Summer Composition Intensive at Saint Mary's College and has taught at Interlochen Arts Camp, Bowdoin College, Transylvania University, and Lehigh University. Her DMA and MM degrees in composition are from the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana and her BM in composition is from Chicago Musical College of Roosevelt University.

An active soloist and chamber musician, American pianist Kate Boyd has performed solo recitals at Weill Hall at Carnegie Hall, Schubert’s birth house in Vienna, the National Concert Hall in Dublin, the Musikhalle Hamburg, in addition to many places throughout the US, Greece, Ireland and Canada. As a faculty member at Butler University, she has appeared as a soloist with each of the University’s large ensembles in performances ranging from Beethoven’s Choral Fantasy to Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue.

Pianist Kathryn Goodson, an international performer, teacher and coach, has performed collaborative recitals with vocalists and instrumentalists throughout the United States, Europe and Japan. In 2013-2014, she was a recital partner at the Detroit Institute of Arts, the Italian Embassy in Washington, D.C., Stanford University, the Grand Teton Music Festival and the first-ever Alumni-Konzert at Karlsruhe Musikhochschule in Germany.

Patrick Hawkins holds degrees in performance from the Peabody Conservatory at Johns Hopkins University, East Carolina University, and Arizona State University. Post-graduate studies in music education were taken at California State University, Los Angeles, and at the University of Washington, Seattle. His major teachers have included Janette Fishell, Peggy Haas Howell, Kimberly Marshall, and Carole Terry (organ); Shirley Mathews, and Webb Wiggins (harpsichord); and Shuko Watanabe and Joseph Rackers (piano).

Composer Gerald Cohen has been praised for his "linguistic fluidity and melodic gift," creating compositions with "a strong sense of tradition- one that embraces Brahms, Bartok, and Britten on one hand and his own Jewish heritage on the other" (Gramophone Magazine). His deeply affecting compositions have been recognized with numerous awards and critical accolades.

Founded in 1997, the orchestra is comprised of over 65 local professionals, educators, dedicated amateurs, and advanced students drawing audiences and members along the Seacoast from Newburyport MA to York ME and west to Bedford NH. The orchestra presents four main concerts each season at The Music Hall in Portsmouth NH, along with numerous chamber music and school concerts throughout the year.

Mitch Hampton was born in 1967 in New York City, was educated at Interlochen Arts Academy and received a Bachelor's and Master's from New England Conservatory of Music. His piano teacher and mentor while there was Stanley Cowell. His composition instructor was Thomas McKinley.

Marvin Schluger (1923-2004) was born into a poor immigrant Jewish family in Philadelphia PA. His father had been a coppersmith in the Old World but found it difficult to make a living in America, so Schluger's mother worked to sustain the family. It seemed, however, that there was always an extra dollar-and-a-half for Schluger and his sister to take weekly music lessons. Piano studies with Joseph Levine, and subsequently with Maria Carreras, were the focus of this early music education, while Schluger's explorations in composition were largely self-taught.