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Here are a few notes about each of the composers we have commissioned: Robert Dennis Robert Dennis's commissions and performances include pieces composed for the Denver Project, the New York City Opera, I Cantori, Cerddorion, the Jubal Trio, the American Brass Quintet, Calliope, the New York Women's Chorus and the Lincoln Center Institute. His music for orchestra has been performed by the Cleveland, Chicago and Louisville Orchestras. Mr. Dennis has also composed extensively for theater and film, including scores for productions at (among others) the Arena Stage, the Guthrie Theater and Circle in the Square. Three of his eight scores composed for Pilobolus were performed on the PBS series "Dance in America." "Man in the Moon," a CD of Mr. Dennis's works composed for the Western Wind Vocal Ensemble has recently been recorded and released by the group. (http://www.westernwind.org/default.asp?pageid=11&recordid=66 ) David Lang "There is no name yet for this kind of music," writes music critic Mark Swed, but audiences around the globe are hearing more and more of David Lang’s work in performances by such organizations as the Santa Fe Opera, the New York Philharmonic, the San Francisco Symphony, The Cleveland Orchestra and the Kronos Quartet; at Tanglewood, the BBC Proms, the Munich Biennale, and the Sydney 2000 Olympic Arts Festival; as well as in the choreography of Twyla Tharp, La La La Human Steps, The Nederlands Dance Theater, and the Royal Ballet. Recent projects include monumental musical environments such as the amplified orchestra piece The Passing Measures; an opera for the Kronos Quartet, The Difficulty of Crossing a Field, with libretto by Mac Wellman and direction by Carey Perloff; the critically-acclaimed opera Modern Painters, about the curious and tragic life of art critic John Ruskin; the evening-length piano solo Psalms without Words; the bittersweet comic book opera The Carbon Copy Building; and World to Come, a Carnegie Hall commission for cellist Maya Beiser, which Ms. Beiser is performing on an international tour. He is currently working on the opera Anatomy Theater with visual artist Mark Dion. Lang is co-founder and co-artistic director of New York’s legendary music festival, Bang on a Can, and Composer-in-Residence at the American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco. Born in Los Angeles in 1957, Lang holds degrees from Stanford University and the University of Iowa, receiving his doctorate from the Yale School of Music in 1989. He has studied with Jacob Druckman, Hans Werner Henze and Martin Bresnick. His work is recorded on the Sony Classical, BMG, Point, Chandos, Argo/Decca, CRI and Cantaloupe labels. Elliot Z. Levine Elliot Z. Levine has been awarded five Meet-the-Composer grants. His most recent large commission from Cerddorion, Un Prodigio Les Canto, has just been performed by the Yale Camerata under the direction of Marguerite Brooks. His Cantata of the Animals, commissioned by The Harmonium Choral Society, has been performed by Westminster Choir College Choir, the Yale Camerata and the Studio Arsis Chorus of Tokyo. He has been composer-in-residence at New York City’s Church of St. Thomas More and for the schools of Delmar, New York. Since its inception in 1969, Mr. Levine has been baritone for the Western Wind Vocal Ensemble. He has appeared as a featured soloist with such groups as Musica Sacra, the Rome Opera, La Fenice, the Mannes Camerata, the Ensemble for Early Music, and the Folger Consort and the Kalamazoo Bach Festival. Mr. Levine is also the cantorial-soloist at Temple Emanuel in Great Neck, N.Y. He received his Master’s degree from the Manhattan School of Music and his B.A. from Queens College, pursuing further studies in music education at the Orff School in Salzburg, in conducting with Robert Hickok, and in composition with Robert Starer at Brooklyn College. For 25 years, he has been a conductor and coach at Western Wind Workshops at such institutions as Dartmouth and Smith Colleges and the University of Massachusetts, as well as at American Choral Directors Association conferences around the country. Lisa Bielawa Composer-vocalist Lisa Bielawa often takes inspiration for her work from literary sources and from close artistic collaborations. A 1990 graduate of Yale University with a B.A. summa cum laude in Literature, she explores the ritual and phenomenological nature of music-making and listening, employing instrumental forces in ways that are both dramatic and intimate in their use of time and space. Ms. Bielawa’s Hurry, for soprano and chamber ensemble, was commissioned by Carnegie Hall and premiered in October 2004 as part of Dawn Upshaw’s Perspectives series. The inaugural season of Zankel Hall included the premiere of her work The Right Weather by American Composers Orchestra and Van Cliburn prize-winning pianist Andrew Armstrong. Upcoming projects include a piano quintet for pianist Jon Nakamatsu and the Miami String Quartet. In 2006, Ms. Bielawa will begin a three-year residency with Boston Modern Orchestra Project under the auspices of Music Alive, a national program jointly designed and managed by Meet the Composer and ASOL. A recipient of the 2001 Aaron Copland award for emerging composers, she is one of the founders and co-artistic directors of the MATA Festival in New York, which was named #1 Classical Pick of the Year by Allan Kozinn of The New York Times. Her symphonic work Roam has been performed by the Minnesota Orchestra (2002), ACO (2002), and the New England Conservatory Philharmonia (2003). Ms. Bielawa has appeared as a vocalist of her own work at the Pacific Music Festival in Sapporo, Japan (2000); at the INFANT Festival in Novi Sad, Yugoslavia (2000); and at the 1999 Bang on A Can Festival, among others. She has received grants, fellowships and awards from groups including the Alpert-Ucross Foundation, the Civitella Ranieri Foundation in Italy, The Fund for U.S. Artists at International Festivals, and The New York State Council for the Arts. An enthusiastic advocate for her field, Ms. Bielawa serves on the board of the American Music Center and teaches composition through the New York Youth Symphony Making Score Program. As a vocalist, she has premiered and recorded countless works by her composer colleagues. |
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