Artists

With a charismatic blend of technical flair, polish, and grace, Portuguese-Canadian clarinetist Wesley Ferreira is widely considered a gifted expressionist. Equally at ease performing masterworks and contemporary repertoire, he has been praised by critics for his “beautiful tone” and “technical prowess” (The Clarinet Journal) as well as his “remarkable sensitivity” (CAML Review), and Fanfare Magazine notes that he is “clearly a major talent.”

Laudon Schuett is a lutenist and early music specialist. He has been called “a masterful performer ...[and] a brilliant educator” (Classical Voice of North Carolina) with “immaculate articulation and sensitive phrasing” (Fanfare). In addition to performing and expanding the solo repertoire, he formed the lute song duo BEDLAM with Kayleen Sánchez. They have toured the U.S. and recorded two albums, BEDLAM, and Died for Love, both for Soundset Recordings. Schuett has a forthcoming book on the lute being published by Mel Bay, which includes many of his solo works. He studied with Paul O’Dette, Frank Koonce, and Chuck Hulihan. He holds a D.M.A. in Early Music from the Eastman School of Music.

We believe that we have the opportunity to be a living metaphor that celebrates unity. We believe that fostering and embracing the music of emerging composers is critical to our art form. We believe that our community deserves to hear the greatest performances of new choral music. We believe that passion and sincerity should be at the forefront of all musical endeavors. We are Choral Arts Initiative.

Born 1949 in Kingston, Jamaica, Alberga decided at the age of five to be a concert pianist. Five years later she was composing works for the piano. In 1968 she won the biennial Royal Schools of Music Scholarship for the West Indies, which she took up in 1970 at the Royal Academy of Music in London, studying piano and singing. But a budding career as a solo pianist — she was one of three finalists in the International Piano Concerto Competition in Dudley, UK in 1974 — was further augmented by composition with her arrival at The London Contemporary Dance Theatre in 1978. Under the inspirational leadership of its Artistic Director, Robert Cohan, she became one of the very few pianists with the deepest understanding of modern dance and her company class improvisations became the stuff of legend.

Thomas Mann graduated with a B.A. in Music at Texas State University with a focus on piano and composition and completed his Master of Music in Composition in December, 2018. Mann is currently Director of Orchestras and Classical Guitar Ensembles as well as the Fine Arts Department Chair at W. Charles Akins High School in the Austin Independent School District of Texas. Mann is a board member of The National Association of Composers, USA-Texas Chapter as well as an active member of several other organizations and associations. He plays Piano, Hammond Organ, Rhodes, Guitar, and Bass in several genres and with various artists around Texas. Along with teaching and live performances, he does studio work, arranging and composing for pop, jazz, and modern works.

The music of Gary D. Belshaw (ASCAP) has been performed throughout the United States and abroad, including England, Austria, Germany, the Czech Republic, Russia, and Spain. Most notably, Belshaw’s Victory Day Overture for concert band received its world premiere in the Great Hall of the Moscow Conservatory. His Oofdah Fanfare premiered in the Imperial Concert Venue of the Schonbrunn Palace in Vienna, Austria.

Benjamin Shorstein is a composer of classical and jazz music and a founding member of the creative music collective Madre Vaca. He has been named a finalist for several national and international competitions, including the Franz Schubert Conservatory World Championship in Composition, the American Prize for Chamber Music Composition, and the Ernst Bacon Memorial Award for the Performance of American Music. Shorstein’s music has been performed at the New York Musical Theatre Festival, recorded for film, and featured in concerts and recordings. His jazz arrangement of Franz Schubert’s song cycle Winterreise was named one of the best jazz recordings of 2020 by the Chicago Tribune, with critic Howard Reich writing that “Benjamin Shorstein has created the best kind of jazz-meets-the-classics merger, the two worlds intermingling rather than crashing up against each other.”

Founded in 2016, Duo Chinoiserie is a unique pairing that combines the Chinese guzheng and the European classical guitar. This duo reproduces the elegance of the Chinoiserie style and brings the best of Eastern and Western culture together through music. Its bold and carefully handpicked selection of repertoire explores the instruments’ dialogue and complementary textures while uniting contrasting musical styles into a cohesive, well-defined one.

Praised for her “beautifully full and lyrically strong tone” by Gramophone Magazine, Meredith Blecha-Wells is a sought-after performer and instructor. She has played throughout much of the United States, as well as Europe, Australia, South America, and Asia. Currently based in Oklahoma City, Blecha-Wells performs regularly with the Oklahoma City Philharmonic and the Brightmusic Chamber Ensemble.

Kenneth A. Kuhn (Ken) (b. 1954) is a retired electrical engineer specializing in electronic circuit design who had the privilege of growing up with a great appreciation of classical music. Over the years classical music enhanced mental skills valuable for Kuhn’s engineering career. Composing music and designing electronic circuits are very interrelated as each enhances the other. He began composing music in his youth in the 1960s and learned how to compose by carefully listening to the many classical composers. His favorite composers include Anton Bruckner and Gustav Mahler. Ken composes because, “There is music I want to hear but since no one has written it then I must write it myself.”

Called a “bright wom[a]n with big ideas” (Souls in Action), Colorado-based composer Loretta K. Notareschi (b. 1977) seeks to create “compassion” (303 Magazine) and connection through her “powerful” (The Denver Post) and “deeply personal” (5280 Magazine) music. Whether writing for string quartet or symphony orchestra, church congregations or classical ukulele players, she seeks to “connec[t] with the audience” (303 Magazine) and move listeners with music of meaning.

David Osbon is a composer, conductor, and academic whose music has been performed, broadcast, and recorded around the world. Most of this international recognition comes from the years he spent as a researcher and professor in cities as diverse as Philadelphia, The Hague, and Istanbul. Osbon’s compositions have received many awards including the Arts Council of Great Britain DIO Award, the RVW Trust electro-acoustic music award, Hilda K. Nietsche Prize, David A. Halstead Prize, Academy of Music (Vienna), and the New Symphony (Vienna Prize). Still Waiting for the Revolution… for piano trio was a prize winner in both the Franz Schubert and the Clements Memorial prizes for chamber music.

The New London Chamber Ensemble is a wind quintet with a difference. For over two decades the NLCE has challenged traditional ideas of chamber music with their innovative programs combining classic repertoire with semi-staged works incorporating drama, speech, and action.

David Nisbet Stewart 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. He believes that leaving academia for the business world was a great benefit to his art. Music is the business of entertainment; the composer must satisfy, even delight, the paying audience. His compositions connect with the listener’s ear and heart.

Initially a geneticist, Tara Guram (b. 1971) was subsequently a prize-winning postgraduate student at the Royal College of Music. Her music has been played internationally, from the Southbank Centre to Carnegie Hall, and broadcast by the BBC. Guram's pieces have been recorded with Sargasso Records, Navona Records, Ravello Records, and NMC Recordings.

Zhiyi Wang is a multi award-winning composer who has composed a number of works in different genres, including contemporary classical, film and TV score, modern ballet, musical, world music, and pop music. His music has been performed by prestige artists and leading ensembles including Yuri Bashmet, Lang Lang, Lorin Maazel, China National Symphony Orchestra, Brno Philharmonic, Senzoku Gakuen New Philharmonic, Moscow Soloists, Lviv Chamber Orchestra, Eighth Blackbird, Lemberg Sinfonietta, Villiers String Quartet, as well as many others throughout Asia, North America, and Europe.

Originally from Los Angeles, Carla Lucero studied composition at CalArts with composers Rand Steiger, Morton Subotnick, and Leonard Rosenman. Lucero later moved to San Francisco where WUORNOS — her opera about Aileen Wuornos — premiered in 2001 at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, winning “10 Best of Stage” from The Advocate and OUT magazines. She also was awarded a Creative Work Fund grant from the Walter and Elise Haas Fund for the creation of the opera.

Eric Chapelle was born in a village near Paris, France. Music was part of Chapelle’s life from early childhood; he was drawn to the piano in the dance hall while he was boarding in the Russian orphanage in Montgeron at a very early age. The piano soon became his outlet for creative expression and exploration of musical thoughts. Chapelle emigrated to the United States at the age of 7, and spent portions of his life in California, Texas, and India. He received his B. A. in Music with a concentration in composition from Texas State University, training under Russell Riepe, a former student of Nadia Boulanger.

Praised as “gratefully idiomatic” (Los Angeles Times) and for its “subtle virtuosity” (MusicWeb International), Peter Knell’s music is meticulously crafted for instruments and voices. He is deeply invested in musical structure as a crucible to intensify the affective experience. Knell’s music has received numerous national and international awards and has been commissioned by the Fromm Music Foundation, Ying Quartet, Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra, Barlow Endowment, and Lyris Quartet.

In August 2020, Jeffrey Jacob was named Composer-in-Residence with the Philadelphia Virtuosi Chamber Orchestra. He has written six symphonies, three piano concertos, three string quartets, and numerous works for piano and chamber ensemble. Raymond Leppard and the Indianapolis Symphony premiered his Symphony: Winter Lightning. The London Symphony recorded his Symphony No. 3. The Moscow and St. Petersburg Symphonies premiered respectively his Piano Concertos 1 and 2 with the composer as soloist. The Gregg Smith Singers premiered his Sleeping At Last for mixed chorus and solo cello. Jacob’s Persistence of Memory was premiered by the Cleveland Chamber Symphony at the 1999 College Music Society National Convention and was selected by the Charles Ives Center for American Music for a performance by the Charleston Symphony at the 2002 Spoleto Festival.