Artists

Edmund Cionek is a New York-based composer who writes for the theatre and the concert hall. His catalogue of orchestral, chamber, and vocal music reflects a deft blend of classical design, pop elements, and humor mixed in a post-modern style. A student of William Bolcom, he earned the degree DMA in Composition from the University of Michigan. Cionek also studied in Paris with Schoenberg disciple Max Deutsch at the École Normale de Musique. He has served on the Board of Directors of the League of Composers-ISCM, the New York Art Ensemble, and currently The Bar Harbor Music Festival. Edward B. Marks, Carlin America & EDITIONS Amsterdam publish his works. He is a member of ASCAP and AFM-Local 802. He was recently appointed to the College Music Society Music Composition National Advisory Board.

Kong-Yu Wong was born in Canton and he then became a HongKonger. He studies music at different institutes in China and Hong Kong, and was awarded a PhD from the University of York in England. Principal mentors of his include composers Gao Weijie and Nicola LeFanu. Wong’s recent works include a number of vocal compositions in varied forces and different languages. His piano music for young people is especially welcomed by pianists and audiences alike.

American violinist Jae Cosmos Lee, who’s performances have been acclaimed as “Delicate and beautiful,” (Syracuse Post-Standard) and “Bursting with color,”(Boston Globe) is Concertmaster of the Cape Symphony in Cape Cod MA, and co-founder of A Far Cry, the GRAMMY nominated, resident chamber orchestra of the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston. He is also Curator & Director of the Nth Degree Chamber Music Series based in Falmouth MA, first violinist of the Boston-based Pedroia String Quartet, and the Associate Concertmaster of the Boston Philharmonic Orchestra.

George David Keiffer was born in New York City NY, and was raised in the San Francisco Bay area where he studied piano with Val Richie. He graduated with a degree in history from the University of California, Santa Barbara and was named “Outstanding Male Graduate” upon graduation. He received a J.D. degree from UCLA law school and entered the practice of law.

Bruce Crossman’s sound world embraces Asian traditional musics, free form improvisation and European influenced interval-colour sonority towards a personal Pacific identity. He has been mentored by Chinary Ung and studied composition with Ross Edwards, David Blake and Jack Speirs.

The music of Wieslaw Rentowski has been performed at hundreds of international festivals, concerts, and conferences in Europe, Russia, Asia, New Zealand, the United States, and Canada. In 1988, Rentowski was awarded the 1st Prize in the National Competition for Young Composers in Warsaw, Poland. He has received several composition prizes for his orchestra, chamber, and solo works from the Polish Composers’ Union, the Fr. Chopin Academy of Music in Warsaw, the City of Elblag (750th anniversary), Louisiana Music Teachers Association (1st Prize in 1990 & 1998, LMTA All State Competition).

Raised in the Bronx, Grill has been obsessed with music since the age of six, when his mother took him to Carnegie Hall and he was astonished and awestruck by a performance of “La Mer.” While that obsession first took the form of playing piano at every possible moment (when not otherwise engaged in activities typical of a kid growing up in the Bronx of the 1950’s and ‘60s), it was Stan’s music theory studies at the Manhattan School of Music that converted that obsession to writing music – and to finding his own musical voice.

Jon Hynes is a prize-winning pianist of several competitions including the gold medal of the Nena Wideman International Competition, the Eastman Concerto Competition, and the Young Keyboard Artists International Competition.

LARRY WALLACH is a composer, pianist, and musicologist whose compositions, mostly of chamber music, have been performed throughout the United States. He was educated at Columbia University, from which he holds a PhD in Musicology. He currently holds the Livingston Hall Chair in Music at Bard College at Simon’s Rock, where he has taught since 1972. From 2001 to 2014 taught composition in the Bard MFA Program for Conductors. He received an NEH Fellowship to study historical piano performance practices for the year 1977-78 and is a recipient of two “Meet the Composer” grants from New York State. His composition “Echoes from Barham Down” for flute, string trio, and piano, based on an English country dance tune, won the New School of Music, Cambridge, composition prize in 1985.

A native of Texas, Mel Mobley (b. 1966) currently resides and teaches in Monroe, Louisiana. He holds degrees from the University of Texas, University of South Florida, and University of Illinois. Active as a performer, composer, and advocate of new music, Mel has been involved in new music festivals and performances all around the country. Performed here and abroad, his works include orchestral, band, chamber, choral, and electronic music. His largest work to date, a chamber opera titled Sylvan Beach, premiered in the spring of 2010. His percussion trio with piano titled [pleez], (plez), /pliz/ was released on the 2013 Revello Records compact disc, Piano Concerti with Percussion Orchestra.

“Adventurous and passionate,” (The New Yorker) Ukrainian-born American pianist Inna Faliks has made a name for herself through her commanding performances of standard piano repertoire as well genre-bending interdisciplinary projects, and inquisitive work with contemporary composers. After her acclaimed teenage debuts at the Gilmore Festival and with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, she has performed on many of the world’s great stages, with numerous orchestras and in solo appearances. Faliks is currently Professor of Piano and Head of Piano at UCLA. Critics praise her “courage to take risks, expressive intensity and technical perfection” (General Anzeiger, Bonn), “remarkable insight” (Audiophile Audition),“poetry and panoramic vision” (Washington Post), “riveting passion, playfulness” (Baltimore Sun), and “signature blend of lithe grace and raw power” (Lucid Culture).

Jiří Skopal, choral conductor and music educator, was born on August 15, 1947 in Velké Losiny, Czech Republic. Skopal received his first music education from his father, Jan Skopal, a choral conductor of North Moravia’s Teachers’ Association. For his Master’s in Education, he studied in Olomouc from 1965 to 1969, and received his doctorate in 1973. In 1982, he was named Associate Professor at the Charles University in Prague, and in 1994 he became a full Professor.

Jitro, meaning “Daybreak” in Czech, is more than just a concert choir from Hradec Kralove, Czech Republic. It is an organization of 400 children in seven preparatory ensembles, of which only the best 25 or 30 qualify to tour. For the past 45 years they have been admired all over the world for their tonal brilliance, superb intonation, distinctively rich blend of sound, and energetic vitality. Today, Jitro is considered one of the best children’s choirs in the world.

Isak Roux (1959*) was born and raised in the colorful city of Durban, South Africa. The cosmopolitan nature of African folk music fascinated him from an early age. His pianistic career began by playing gospel music at his local church community. As a teenager, this prompted him to embark on vocal arrangement and composition of sacred works. His later close collaboration with Joseph Shabalala and Jake Lerole further influenced his personal stylistic development. As a solo recording artist, he has produced three piano albums to date.

Fabio Aantonelli was born in Rome in 1966 and studied musicology and composition with great Italian composers like Ivan Fedele, Mario Garuti, and Gabriele Manca. He graduated in Musicology at the University of Pavia (Italy) and in Composition from The Como Conservatory of Music (Italy), then he graduated with a Master’s in Composition from The Milan Conservatory (Italy). He’s achieved advanced degrees in Astrophysics and Cosmology from the University of Bologna (Italy). With his work, Antonelli tries to represent the silence of the universe. His music consists of fragments that are isolated and suspended in the Void.

Mark Zanter has appeared on NPR’s Live at the Landmark, WILL, IPR, WVPN’s In Touch With The Arts, is published by Les Productions d’OZ, Schott European American and MJIC, and his works have been performed nationally and internationally at festivals including, MUSIC X, June in Buffalo, Soundscape, NYCEMF, Echofluxx, SEAMUS, the Atlantic Center for the Arts, Generative Art International, Seensound, MIUC, Melbourne, and SPLICE.

Marvin J. Carlton is an American composer of opera, art song, symphonic works, choral works, and chamber music. His micro-opera 3D's DANCE HALL won the audience choice award at The Atlanta Opera's 24-Hour Opera Project in 2013, while his opera PIE, PITHE, AND PALLETTE won the judge's award in 2016. His music has been heard in concerts by Belleville (IL) Philharmonic Chorale, Centralia (IL) Philharmonic Orchestra, The Atlanta Opera, International Double Reed Society, St. Martin Chamber Players, Heart of Illinois Woodwind Quintet, The American Patriot Wind Ensemble, the Southern Illinois Grade School Vocal Music Association, and One Ounce Opera (Austin, Tx).

Ergon is an Athens based contemporary music ensemble created in 2008 for performing works by living composers as well as masterpieces of the 20th and 21st-century avant-garde. Noted for its exciting interpretations and meticulous preparation, it has received praise from critics and audiences alike, making it the leading ensemble of its kind in Greece. An extremely flexible and versatile ensemble, Ergon is based on a core formation that is further reinforced, depending on the project, by a great number of guests and exceptionally talented musicians. Directed by a five-member musician team, responsible for planning, and collaborations, its original and adventurous programming includes chamber and orchestral music, musical theatre works, dance, contemporary opera, and cinema.

Jim Puckett is a career Worship Pastor serving in Richardson, Texas. He is an adjunct professor for the Southern Nazarene University College of Professional and Graduate Studies, and an adjunct member of the music faculty at Mount Vernon Nazarene University.

Gordon Monahan's works for piano, loudspeakers, video, kinetic sculpture, and computer-controlled sound environments span various genres from avant-garde concert music to multi-media installation and sound art. As a composer and sound artist, he juxtaposes the quantitative and qualitative aspects of natural acoustical phenomena with elements of media technology, environment, architecture, popular culture, and live performance. The renowned composer John Cage once said, "At the piano, Gordon Monahan produces sounds we haven't heard before."