Composers
James Lentini
Award-winning composer and classical guitarist James Lentini is a recipient of the Andrés Segovia International Composition Prize, the Atwater-Kent Composition Award (first Prize), the McHugh Composition Prize, a grant from "Meet the Composer," a Hanson Institute of American Music composer-performer grant, and multiple awards from the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers (ASCAP). He has been a Visiting Artist at the American Academy in Rome, and his compositions have been performed and recorded by international ensembles, including the Sofia Philharmonic Orchestra, the Bohuslav Martinů Philharmonic Orchestra, the Orquesta Sinfónica Universidad de Concepción (Chile), and the Krakow Philharmonic Orchestra.
Lentini’s composition for solo guitar, Westward Voyage, was commissioned by guitarist William Kanengiser of the Los Angeles Guitar Quartet and is published by Editorial de Música Española Contemporánea (EMEC). The piece was awarded the Andrés Segovia Composition Prize in 2002 at the International Andrés Segovia Guitar Competition held in La Herradura, Spain. The following year, he was invited to serve on the jury of the Segovia Guitar Competition and Composition Competition alongside the renowned composer-guitarist Leo Brouwer. Lentini’s work for piano trio entitled Opposites Attract was commissioned and recorded by the Rawlins Piano Trio for their CD on the Azica label entitled Attracting Opposites, a title inspired by Lentini’s composition. After hearing the work in a live performance and reviewing the album, author-musician Barry Green (author of the Inner Game of Music) wrote in a review: “The complexity of the Lentini makes for an exciting piece and their live performance was so good it could have been the CD!”
Holding a position as a voting member of the National Academy of Recording Arts & Sciences GRAMMY awards, Lentini’s recordings appear on the Azica, Capstone, CRS, and Naxos recording labels. His suite for guitar entitled The Four Seasons for Guitar is published by Mel Bay, and is recorded on an album that includes duo performances with his wife, soprano Dana Lentini. Gramophone Magazine has called James Lentini an “American classical music success story,” while calling his composition Scenes from Sedona “…perhaps the best piece for viola and cello since Beethoven’s ‘Eyeglasses’ Duet.”
Lentini studied composition with Morten Lauridsen and Robert Linn at the University of Southern California (D.M.A. 1990), Jere Hutcheson at Michigan State University (M.M. 1984), and James Hartway at Wayne State University (B.M. 1982), in addition to guitar studies with William Kanengiser, Joe Fava, and Charles Postlewate. He later held the position of Professor of Music and Associate Department Chair at Wayne State University (1988-2003) and eventually moved into leadership positions as Founding Dean of the School of Art, Media, and Music at The College of New Jersey (2003-2007) and as Dean of the School of Fine Arts at Miami University, OH (2007-2103). Since 2013, Lentini has held the position of Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs and Provost at Oakland University (Rochester MI), where he is also a Professor in the Department of Music, Theatre, and Dance. photo: Sarah Griffith
James Lentini Reviews can be found at this link.
rain worthington
“There is a deep interiority to this music . . . Worthington has an instantly recognizable sound, an austere sensuality not quite like anyone else . . . a composer of considerable imagination, emotional expressiveness, and poetic sensibility.” – American Record Guide
Performances of Rain Worthington’s compositions have spanned the globe from Brazil to Iceland, Armenia to Korea, with premieres in Tokyo, Oxford University, and Delhi, India. Her work takes “. . . ideas of American musical style to a new place – like a walk in a familiar, yet very different park” – Chamber Music
Self-taught in composition, her catalog includes works for orchestra, chamber ensembles, duos, solos and miniatures. Inspirations for pieces have ranged from sounds of “NYC trucks late into the night, to the two-note expression of a sigh, to a dream of a careening bike ride through dark fog.”
In 2016 Navona Records released Worthington’s album of orchestral works, DREAM VAPORS, to critical acclaim. “Rain Worthington is a contemporary voice that demands to be heard. The present first collection [DREAM VAPORS] establishes her as a unique orchestral exponent, an inspired artist saying something definite and compelling today.” – Gapplegate Classical-Modern Music Review
She was a guest composer for two Missouri State University Symphony premieres of her orchestral works, Tracing a Dream and In Passages. The MSU performance of Tracing a Dream was awarded an Ernst Bacon American Prize in 2018.
In 2018, Maestro Claudio Scimone led I Solisti Veneti in the Italian premiere of In Passages, and the South American premiere was presented at V Encontro Internacional de Cordas Festival in Brazil. Conductor Miran Vaupotić recorded In Passages with the Croatian Chamber Orchestra for the 2019 PARMA Recordings release, BENEATH THE TIDE.
Worthington has received grants from Meet The Composer, ASCAP, American Music Center, NYFA, and American Composers Forum, and serves as Artistic Administrator/Composer Advocate for the New York Women Composers.
For more information about Worthington and her work, including audio clips and score samples, visit rainworthington.com.
photo: Mark Berger
Jan Järvlepp
Jan Järvlepp was born in Ottawa Canada of Estonian and Finnish parents in 1953. He began playing pop guitar at the age of 12 and took up cello in high school at the age of 14. He also learned to play bass guitar and harmonica. At the University of Ottawa, McGill University, and the University of California, San Diego he majored in composition while developing his cello playing skills. His composition teachers were Luis de Pablo, Alcides Lanza, Roger Reynolds, and Will Ogdon. As his studies progressed, he realized that he was not on the same wavelength as his Modernist composition teachers. Once outside of the university environment, he began composing in a newer style of neo-tonal music that would not be acceptable among the academics. The result has been a series of refreshing and accessible pieces of music that appeal to a surprisingly wide cross-section of the public.
In 1981 Järvlepp returned to Ottawa having completed his doctoral studies in music at UCSD. He joined the Ottawa Symphony Orchestra and has been active as a composer, teacher, freelance cellist, recording technician and as a contractor for chamber music groups. In 1993, the OSO under David Currie performed his Camerata Music to a very receptive audience and in 1996 premiered his percussion concerto, the Garbage Concerto, to a wildly appreciative audience. It has now been performed and broadcast around the world. His quintet Pierrot Solaire was a hit at the Ottawa Chamber Music Festival and has become his most popular chamber music work.
Navona Records has previously released works by Jan Järvlepp. In Memoriam for string orchestra was included on the 2017 release TOMORROW’S AIR and Suite for Strings was included on the 2018 release LEGENDS AND LIGHT.
photo: Claudette Bockstael
Peter Castine
“...multiple layers superimposed one upon another... polyrhythmic, polystylistic... hints of
veiled tonality... dance-like and even jazzy moments... a very sensuous music.” — Berliner
Tagesspiegel
“...uses instruments skillfully ... varied tone colors arise...” — Neue Musikzeitung
“...combines language and music so that their qualities permeate each other...” — Bonner
Stadtanzeiger
“An independently thinking, eloquent musician.” — Berliner Tagesspiegel
“Brilliant!” — Flutewise
Peter Castine was born in New York City on a Sunday in the year of the snake. He received his first piano lessons at the age of seven and soon began writing songs and piano pieces. Formal studies began at Stony Brook University, where he studied music and mathematics, and continued in Berlin, where he studied composition with Frank Michael Beyer at the University of the Arts, accompanied by courses and workshops with Gerald Humel, Cristobál Halffter, Brian Ferneyhough, Isang Yun, Witold Szalonek, and John Chowning. After completing his studies in composition, he worked as a freelance composer, performer, and concert organizer. Anticipating the advent of computer music, Castine completed a Master’s degree in computer science, followed by a Ph.D. in musicology and communication sciences. He taught for many years in Berlin at the Technical University and at the University of the Arts, as well as lecturing in courses and workshops at universities and conservatories across Europe and North America.
Castine’s musical œuvre spans opera, orchestral, chamber, vocal, and electroacoustic works, often featuring imaginative theatrical elements. Castine is also known for his work in the field of computer music. As a developer of music software he has programmed enhancements for the software products Max and Finale and has worked with companies including Skoog Music, Native Instruments, and DSPAudio. His publications include contributions to the German music encyclopedia Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart and research papers presented at the International Computer Music Conference, the Journées d’Informatique Musicale, the Convegno Europeo di Analisi Musicale, and other international conferences. Past projects include the Berlin Arts Company (cofounder) and the International Computer Music Conference 2000 (chair).
Castine currently lives in Berlin, where he composes, plays organ and piobaireachd, and contributes to Computer Music Journal as managing editor.
photo: Sheila Frießer
Beth Mehocic
Dr. Beth Mehocic is currently the Composer-in-Residence, Music Director, and Full-Professor for the Dance Department at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. She has written over 100 works for orchestra, concert band, chamber music, dance ensembles, theatre, and film. Her works have been performed throughout the United States, Japan, China, Korea, and Europe, and she has produced works in several Las Vegas Hotels including The Mirage, Caesar's Palace, and the Las Vegas Hilton. Several of her works have been recorded for PARMA Recordings.
From 2000-18, several of her music compositions written for choreography have been performed
at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in Edinburgh Scotland, the Adelaide Fringe Festival in Adelaide Australia, and for joint concerts between UNLV and the Korea National Sport University in Seoul Korea. Her video dance poem Perpetual Motion with original music for vibraphone quartet, was also performed in Seoul Korea and the video is in the Jerome Robbins Dance Library of the NYC Library at Lincoln Center. Shadows, a dance poem with her original music, and her video dance poem, Hands, were presented at the 2005 International Taishan Congress of Cultures and the 19th World Congress of Poets in Tai’an City, Shandong Province, China, for which she was awarded a “Gold Medal in Innovation” for digital poetry, dance, and music by the People’s Republic of China.
As a multimedia performing artist, her music, poetry, visual art and dance were presented in her one-woman exhibit entitled Poetic Visions which was on tour in the Clark County Library Galleries in Las Vegas.
She has received several grants from The Nevada State Council on the Arts as well as receiving a grant for her participation in the China Conference. Her other grants include awards from New Music
Across America, the Southwest Gas Corp., The Western States Arts Foundation, and Meet-the-Composer as well as awards in music composition from ASCAP.
Her article "Learning to Dance with Live Music" was published by Dance Teacher Now and her article "Chamber Music in Las Vegas" was featured in the directory edition of Chamber Music America.
She was proclaimed "Distinguished Composer" of the City of Las Vegas by Former Mayor Jan Laverty Jones and received commissions from New Music Across America, the Sierra Woodwind Quintet, and the University of Utah for the score to a documentary film that commemorated 50 years of dance history at that university. She has also received commissions from Artists Embassy International and the Natica Angilly Poetic Dance Theater.
She was awarded the First Performing Artist's Fellowship in Music Composition from the State of Nevada and became a founding member for the International Guild of Musicians in Dance, the first guild in western history devoted to the advancement of concert dance music and musical education of dancers. She was also the founding editor for the Guild's Journal for three years.
photo: Louis Kavouras
performers
Iliana Matos
Guitarist Iliana Matos is a winner of 11 major international competitions, including first prizes in the Andrés Segovia in Palma de Mallorca, Luys Milán, and Manuel Ponce International Guitar Competitions. She made history by becoming the first woman to win the prestigious S.A.R. La Infanta Doña Cristina International Guitar Competition, and is the only person to win the special prize for Best Interpretation of Spanish Music in two consecutive years, 1995 and 1996.
Her highly acclaimed GSP album “Angels in The Street” has earned universal acclaim from critics, placing her among the elite of today's classical guitarists: “Her name deserves to go down in guitar history as one of the great players of our time" (Classical Guitar Magazine); "a match-made-in-heaven recording that is about as perfect as guitar records get... she simply, radiantly shines, a virtuoso in service to the music" (American Record Guide); "she has sufficient of all credentials necessary to take her place in the annals of guitar as one of its truly gifted and outstanding exponents" (Musicweb-international.com), "it's impossible while listening to 'Angels' to believe that her name will not someday ring the same peal of recognition as does Bream and Williams" (Minor7th.com).
María Luisa Anido, when hearing Matos play, wrote: “I am impressed by your wonderful guitaristic art, and I am proud to know that a woman (and a Cuban woman!) came to such a degree of artistic perfection.”
As part of her world tour "Celebrating 30th Anniversary as a Performer," Matos completed a tour of 19 cities in China, including a concert at the prestigious Shenyang International Guitar Festival. North American tours have included concerts in 23 cities, being featured by prestigious universities, guitar societies, and festivals. In Mexico, she completed a tour of 7 cities, including a concert and masterclass at the International Guitar Festival organized by the Conservatory National of Mexico.
With her love of contemporary music and desire to develop the guitar repertoire, Matos has premiered works by numerous composers, including Leo Brouwer, Carlos Rafael Rivera, Eduardo Morales, Tomás Marco, Zulema de la Cruz, Gabriel Estarellas, Flores Chaviano, Ileana Pérez, Madays Andino, Ñico Rojas, Yalil Guerra, Luis Mario Ochoa, and Eduardo Martín.
A native of Cuba, Matos was a resident of Spain for 20 years, contributing to the development of a new generation of Spanish guitarists while teaching at the Royal Music Conservatory of Madrid, Conservatory of the Balearics, and the Conservatory of Salamanca. She regularly gives master classes all over the world and has performed extensively throughout Latin American, the United States, Europe, Africa, Asia, and the Middle East. Currently, Matos serves on the faculty at the University of Lethbridge Faculty of Arts & Science (Canada) where she is head of guitar studies.
photo: Susan Fan Brown
Barbara Hill
New Zealand flutist Barbara Hill graduated from Auckland University Conservatorium of Music and was a member of the prize-winning trio that won the National Chamber Music Award in the year of her graduation. She pursued postgraduate studies at the Guildhall School of Music in London with Peter Lloyd and William Bennett, and in Berlin, Germany, with James Galway. Berlin became her main base, where she lives as an established recital artist, chamber musician, flute teacher at the Berlin State Music School, and orchestral musician.
In duo collaboration with guitar she has toured extensively across South Korea, China, and New Zealand, as well as performing in numerous concerts in Italy and Germany. Her two albums The Sea Suite and Carmen and other Surprises received international acclaim. The German Flute Society magazine Flöte Aktuell reviewer wrote ". . . her playing develops the whole emotional breadth that Bizet composed into the opera Carmen . . . an amazing feat of articulation." The University of Shenyang in North China invited the duo to give a series of concerts and masterclasses at their Conservatory and awarded both musicians guest professorships.
With the trio Serenata a Tre she presented a program of early 19th-century chamber music for concerts in Germany, Italy, and New Zealand.
The Waikato Times (NZ) wrote: "In Giuliani's Grand Duo Concertante, Barbara Hill's gold flute provided a seamless andante cantabile through the florid passages with an exquisite sense of phrasing." The Otago Daily Times (NZ) wrote: "Some superbly articulated passages were a highlight."
After performances of the flute and harp Duo Aurum in Potsdam, Germany, the reviewer of the newspaper Potsdamer Neueste Nachrichten wrote that "her high, pure, and faultless flute tone blended with the sounds of the harp, producing an expressive melange of colors."
Several composers have dedicated flute compositions to her, including works for solo flute and alto flute by Argentinian composer Jose Cibils. The trio for flute, horn, and harp by Gisberth Näther was premiered by Barbara and colleagues and has since been performed on numerous occasions.
At festivals in northern Germany she is a regular performer with the Syrinx Trio (flute, bassoon, and harp), the Consortium Artis Wind Quintett, the Berlin Flute Quartett, the Aurum Duo, and the Baroque and Blue Quintett. She presently plays solo flute with the New Symphony Orchestra Berlin and does extensive annual orchestral tours through China.
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