Diane Jones'music has been performed by The Relâche Ensemble, The Da Capo Chamber Players, Trio Casals, and Flautet. She has been commissioned by Mélomanie, the Society for New Music, and the Matilda Joslyn Gage Foundation. Her collaborations with Samba Laranja have garnered two SAMMY awards (Native Orange, 2011 & Pathways, 2014). Her "Three Songs," recorded by Trio Casals and released on their album Moto Continuo has been broadcast throughout the US and internationally. Her work "Dreamcatcher" for trombone and orchestra, is included on "Neue Kraft Fulend," a new album from trombonist Haim Avitsur She has collaborated with choreographers to create new music with dance, written film scores, and completed five residencies in Syracuse area public schools.
Diane is the mid-day host on WCNY-FM, Central New York's Classical Radio Station, and the creator, host, and producer of "Feminine Fusion," a weekly radio program highlighting women in the classical music world. She is former President of the Society for New Music, and her music has been featured on Fresh Ink, the weekly new music broadcast produced by the Society.
A recipient of the Billy Joel Fellowship, a fellowship with the Chamber Music Institute at the University of Nebraska - Lincoln, and awarded the prestigious Grace F. and Theodore Berger Award from the University of Delaware, Diane has also been inducted into Pi Kappa Lambda, the music honor society. Active as a performer as well as a composer, Diane regularly performs with Samba Laranja and the Central New York Flute Choir. She has played flute and piccolo in regional orchestras, and was one half of the flute duo, Flutes of Fancy.
Diane is privileged to have studied with outstanding composers Daniel S. Godfrey, Nicolas Scherzinger, and Jennifer Margaret Barker.
Beth Mehocic (USA, b. 1953, Youngstown, Ohio), composer, poet, visual artist, filmmaker and author received her M.M. and Ph.D. in music composition from Michigan State University, East Lansing and is currently the Music Director/Composer-in-Residence and full professor for the Department of Dance at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.
His music is solid in construction, imaginative in concept, and skillful in orchestration. It appeals to audience and musicians alike.” -Dr. David Daniels, Music Director Emeritus, Warren Symphony Orchestra
This recording of Habanera for Cello and Piano appears on the fourth album produced by Parma Recordings with David Nisbet Stewart’s music. His Concerto for Piano and Orchestra and Suite for Piano-Brass Quartet are on the album Convergence, released in 2012. Five organ pieces are on the album Foundations released in 2014. Fantasy for Viola Solo is on Figments released in 2016.
David is a composer, pianist and organist. His career began in academia and migrated into computer technology from 1979 onward. His style of composing also changed as he pursued a new occupation.
From 1969 to 1979, he taught music theory, composition, and electronic music at Eastern Michigan University and then Kent State University. His last academic post was adjunct professor in the Technology in Music and Related Arts (TIMARA) program at Oberlin College. His style of composition during this period was twelve-tone and aleatoric. Living in Ohio from 1975 to 1985, he was a member of the Cleveland Composers Guild which provided many performances of his chamber music. In these early years he won several prizes for his chamber music.
A self-taught computer programmer, he began studying computer-generated sound in 1969. He produced electronic music both by Moog synthesizer and by computer using the seminal MUSIC4 program on Digital Equipment Corporation PDP-11’s.
From 1979 until retirement in 2013, Stewart worked as a computer systems professional. Having been a church musician most of his adult life, he is currently organist at St. Luke’s Episcopal Church in Ferndale, Michigan.
After leaving college teaching Stewart’s aesthetic changed. He wanted to write more spontaneously the sounds from his imagination – music that was accessible to the performer and audience, while maintaining his stylistic integrity. He became more tonal yet still used twelve-tone and aleatoric techniques when justified.
Stewart was born 1941, in Miami, Florida, and has a B.Mus. degree from Oberlin College Conservatory of Music, 1965, and a M.A. degree from Smith College, 1969. His principal teachers were Bower Murphy, William Klenz, Joseph Wood, Walter Aschaffenburg, and Alvin Etler in composition; David Pizarro on organ; Arthur Dann on piano, all of blessed memory.
He is a member of the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers (ASCAP); American Composers Forum; Society of Composers Inc.; Conductors Guild; and the American Guild of Organists.
Stewart believes that leaving academia for the business world was a great benefit to his art. Music is the business of entertaining. The composer must satisfy, even delight, the paying audience. His compositions connect with the listener’s ear and heart.
Sidney Bailinstarted composing when he was 6. His first piece was in three-part counterpoint, a fact that he still cannot explain. Imitative counterpoint remains a defining characteristic of his music, perhaps because of his early exposure to species counterpoint, which he learned formally at the age of 10.
He entered Juilliard when he was 15, studying piano with Ania Dorfmann and composition with Hall Overton. The following year, he began private piano coaching with Jeaneane Dowis. After high school he enrolled full-time at Juilliard, studying composition with Roger Sessions and Otto Luening. But then, becoming more and more interested in mathematics, he moved to Columbia University, first as a double major in music and mathematics, then dropping the music. Thus started what he now views as a decades-long exile from music.
Eventually, Bailin received a doctorate in Mathematical Logic from the University of Oxford. His activity since then has been wide ranging: publishing papers on computer topics, writing an award-winning film script, working as a skydiving instructor and now, to this day, as a karate instructor. But in 2003 he felt the call to return to composing, and he now finds himself at the top of his compositional and creative powers.
L peter Deutsch is a native of Cambridge, MA, now living in Sonoma County, CA. His early music education included performance and composition for voice, piano, and recorder. After a long detour through a distinguished career in Computer Science, he returned to composition part-time in 1986 and full-time in 2003, including a M.A. degree under Frank La Rocca at CSU Hayward.
GIOVANNI PIACENTINI is a composer whose body of work is as diverse as his cultural background. Born in Mexico City to an Italian opera lover, and a Mexican figurative painter, he was exposed to a wide array of artistic expressions that helped shape his musical vision.
During an immersive two years at the Manhattan School of Music, where he earned his M.A. in Composition, Giovanni wrote his first symphonic work, “Animus”, which was performed under the baton of Dr. David Gilbert. As part of the MSM chamber choir, he performed at Lincoln Center with the New York Philharmonic and at the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C among many other landmark venues.
Giovanni has edited works for guitar commissioned by Sharon Isbin and David Starobin. He assisted his mentor, Dr. Richard Danielpour, with premieres including a piano concerto with the Vienna Philharmonic and a large-scale Oratorio with the Pacific Symphony.
Since then, Giovanni has been very active as a composer receiving commissions from a variety of ensembles including the harp duo, “Duo Scorpio” in NYC, the Irish violin and viola duet “Collailm Duo”, the concert series “Music of Reality” in Boston, MA, and the “Mexiam” festival at the Palace of Fine Arts in San Francisco, CA. He continues to explore ways of pushing the boundaries of the classical guitar, by incorporating subtle electronic elements to the natural acoustic sound. Compositionally, he is experimenting with “modular pieces” which combine elements of information architecture and modular design and sound.
Giovanni recently released his debut album as a composer entitled Chiaroscuro with the Navona Records label. He is currently pursuing a PhD in composition at UCLA.
Award-winning composer (ASCAP) has had her chamber, choral, vocal, orchestral and wind band works performed throughout the United States and across the globe. Before composing her own music in the 1990s, Albert enjoyed a long career as a singer working with composers including Igor Stravinsky, Leonard Bernstein, Philip Glass, Gunther Schuller and many others,. Adrienne’s own music has been supported by noteworthy arts organizations including the National Endowment for the Arts, American Composers Forum, Meet The Composer/Rockefeller Foundation, Subito Awards, Mu Phi Epsilon Fraternity, MPE Foundation, ACME, and ASCAP. Recent commissions include works for The Cornell University Chorus, Harvard-Westlake School, Holyoke Civic Symphony, Mu Phi Epsilon Foundation, Palisades Virtuosi, Zinkali Trio, Pennsylvania Academy of Music, Chamber Music Palisades, Pacific Serenades as well as private individuals.
A graduate of UCLA, Albert studied composition privately with Stephen “Lucky” Mosko, and orchestration with Albert Harris. Her music has been recorded on MSR, Naxos, Navona, Centaur, Little Piper, Albany, and ABC Records and is published by Kenter Canyon Music (ASCAP). Her music can also be found through Falls House Press, FluteWorld, Theodore Front Musical Literature, and Trevco-Varner Music. "Music has a ways been a central part of my life. Whether it has been performing, singing, or composing, it is the thread that weaves through each part of my being. I find joy in every form of music, and have been extremely fortunate in having an extraordinary past which informs my present and makes me look
forward with great enthusiasm to the future.”
Clive’s claim to fame came about a year after the death in 1965 of Sir Winston Churchill. The following year, he established the Churchill Memorial Concerts at Blenheim Palace, Woodstock, Oxon, and conducted the first six concerts, which continue to include celebrated speakers. At about the same time, Clive became interested in Music Therapy. He then founded the Music Therapy Charity, an organization which still exists in England. A Southern BBCTV documentary was shown illustrating his pioneering activities.
In 1970, an unexpected invitation to study Music Therapy at Florida State University, USA, resulted in his becoming a registered Music Therapist with a Master’s Degree in Composition, (MM). This in turn led to a permanent move to the USA as a University Music Therapy Director. Years later, when living in Missouri, he gained his Doctor of Musical Arts {DMA) in Music Composition (1974) from the Conservatory of Music, UMKC in Kansas City. Among his activities in Kansas City, he wrote incidental music for the Missouri Repertory Theater, and became an announcer for the Classical Music Radio Station (KXTR).
After graduating, he became the Music Therapy Director at the College of Saint Teresa, Winona, Minnesota. There, he presented a full length concert of original compositions, and his Chamber Opera, “THE CUNNING MAN.” He played first violin in the Winona State University Orchestra, and was also on the Board. Whilst in Winona, he had his own radio show, “Sounds Healthy” on the Winona State University radio station.
Winona was a rather remote place to be, so he chose to move to Washington DC. Whilst there, he directed a Church Choir in Arlington, played the piano for a ballet class in Montgomery, and played first violin in the Alexandra Symphony Orchestra. Most importantly, he wrote the film music for a Smithsonian Documentary, which was shown nationally.
His next move was to Lynchburg, Virginia, where he became Music Director at the Virginia School of The Arts. This position was followed by an invitation to conduct the Liberty University Symphony Orchestra, and direct their string program for Music Education Majors. He joined the Lynchburg Symphony Orchestra as a first violinist, and was a member of the Board.
Whilst in Lynchburg he developed his own one-man band playing the violin to his own recorded accompaniments. He toured the Eastern Seaboard performing in institutions including: Independent Living, Assisted Living, and Nursing Homes.
Clive then moved to Princeton, New Jersey, in order to set up home with his second wife. From there he continued touring the Eastern Seaboard with his violin. In 2001, he won the “Welcome Christmas” prize in Minneapolis, Minnesota, for a carol written for choir and strings. The recording was heard internationally. For Eleven years he conducted the local SightReading Orchestra resulting in a large conducting repertoire of Classical Music. He is now writing a book for the benefit of Music Therapists and Activity Directors. Additionally, he is concentrating on composition, and is hoping to complete some unfinished operatic works.
“Music is for me an alternate reality. It is an inner world, possibly a ‘magic’ world; it is also play as in playing, or playful or a ‘play’ that is put on. When I am creating some new music, the thrust of my energy revolves around expression and play.” - Joanne D. Carey
Applauded by Aaron Copland, inspired by Desmond Tutu, and mentored by Hugo Friedhofer and Earle Hagen, Bruce Babcock has spent his working life composing music for the musicians of Los Angeles. Successful in both film and television, and the concert hall, he is known for vibrant, sonorous, expressive pieces that immerse audience and performers alike in an inclusive and exuberant celebration of the musical art. Bruce's music has been performed by, among others, Pacific Serenades, the Debussy Trio, the Donald Brinegar Singers, the Santa Barbara Chamber Music Festival, Boston Metro Opera, the Antioch Ensemble, the Space Coast Symphony, and Haga Motettkör of Göteborg, Sweden.
Babcock holds Bachelor of Arts and Master of Arts degrees in music composition from California State University, Northridge (CSUN). While at CSUN, Bruce's Impasse was performed for Aaron Copland during his 1975 residency. Copland's comments on the piece, recorded for posterity, include "an impression of musicality which is very pleasant, indeed...a convincing sense of an overall mood...knows what he wants...sure of what he's doing." Babcock's mentors in Hollywood included Hugo Friedhofer, Paul Glass,and Earle Hagen. He won an Emmy Award for Outstanding Individual Achievement in Music Composition for a Series in 1992, one of eight total Emmy nominations in a ten-year period, as well as eight TV/Film awards from BMI. He has also collaborated as an orchestrator and conductor with some of the biggest names in film scoring, including James Newton Howard, Michael Kamen, and Christopher Young.
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