EL NIÑO: NATIVITY RECONSIDERED

Composer, conductor, and creative thinker—John Adams occupies a unique position in the world of American music. His works stand out among contemporary classical compositions for their depth of expression, brilliance of sound, and the profoundly humanist nature of their themes.

Among Adams’s works are several of the most performed contemporary classical pieces today: Harmonielehre, Shaker Loops, Chamber Symphony, Absolute Jest, Short Ride in a Fast Machine, and his Violin Concerto. His stage works, many in collaboration with director Peter Sellars, include Nixon in China, The Death of Klinghoffer, El Niño, Doctor Atomic, A Flowering Tree, the Passion oratorio The Gospel According to the Other Mary, and Girls of the Golden West. Adams’s most recent opera, Antony and Cleopatra, featuring a libretto adapted by the composer from Shakespeare’s tragedy, receives its European premiere at the Gran Teatre del Liceu in fall 2023 in a production directed by Elkhanah Pulitzer and conducted by Adams himself.

This season, John Adams’s Frenzy for orchestra receives its world premiere with the London Symphony Orchestra and Sir Simon Rattle, who tour the work to multiple cities in Europe.

Adams is the 2019 recipient of the Erasmus Prize “for notable contributions to European culture, society and social science”—the only American composer to be so honored in the prize’s 61-year history. As an advocate of his composer colleagues Adams has premiered over 100 new works ranging from composers such as Glass, Riley, Rihm, Wolfe, and Gordon to works by young emerging composers. He received the 2021 Ditson Conductor’s Award from Columbia University in recognition for his “exceptional commitment to American composers.” Adams has additionally received honorary doctorates from Harvard, Yale, Northwestern University, Cambridge University, and the Juilliard School. Since 2009 he has held the position of Creative Chair with the Los Angeles Philharmonic. A provocative writer, he is author of the highly acclaimed autobiography Hallelujah Junction whose writings have appeared in both The New Yorker Magazine and the New York Times Book Review.

As a conductor of his own works and wide variety of repertoire, Adams has appeared with the Berliner Philharmoniker, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, London Symphony Orchestra, Wiener Symphoniker, the New York Philharmonic and the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and the orchestras of Seattle, Cleveland, and Rotterdam.

In 2022, Nonesuch Records released the 40-disc John Adams Collected Works, a box set of recordings spanning more than four decades of the composer’s career with the label.

Director Peter Sellarshas gained international renown for his groundbreaking and transformative interpretations of classics, advocacy of 20th-century and contemporary music, and collaborative projects. His work illuminates the power of art as a means of moral expression and social action.

He has staged operas at the Dutch National Opera, English National Opera, Festival d’Aix-en-Provence, Lyric Opera of Chicago, Opéra National de Paris, and the Salzburg Festival, among others. He has also collaborated on the creation and production of many works with composers John Adams and Kaija Saariaho.

Recent productions include Tyshawn Sorey’s Monochromatic Light (Afterlife) for the Park Avenue Armory (New York), Heinrich Schütz’s Musikalische Exequien with the Los Angeles Master Chorale, a revival of Tristan und Isolde at the Opera de Paris, and a staging of Sorey’s Perle Noire:  Meditations for Josephine at the Dutch National Opera.  Upcoming in 2023/24 are new productions of Marc-Antoine Charpentier’s Medee in Berlin and Vincenzo Bellini’s Beatrice di Tenda in Paris.

Sellars has led several major arts festivals, including the 1990 and 1993 Los Angeles Festivals and the 2002 Adelaide Arts Festival.  In 2006 he was Artistic Director of New Crowned Hope, a festival in Vienna for which he invited emerging and established artists from diverse cultural backgrounds to create new work in the fields of music, theater, dance, film, the visual arts, and architecture for the celebration of Mozart’s 250^th birthday anniversary.  He served as the Music Director of the 2016 Ojai Music Festival.

Mr. Sellars is a Distinguished Professor in the Department of World Arts and Cultures at UCLA and the founding director of the Boethius Institute at UCLA. He is the recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship, Erasmus Prize for contributions to European culture, the Gish Prize, the Polar Music Prize, and is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences

American classical singer Julia Bullock has headlined opera productions worldwide, including Theodora at Covent Garden and The Indian Queen at the English National Opera, Bolshoi Theatre and Teatro Real. She created leading roles in the premiere productions of Michael van der Aa’s Upload, John Adams’s Girls of the Golden West, and Terence Blanchard’s Fire Shut Up in My Bones, and has starred in The Rake’s Progress, Doctor Atomic, and The Magic Flute, which she performed in concert with the LA Philharmonic and Gustavo Dudamel, and in a production by the late Peter Brook on tour in South America. Bullock has collaborated with the New York Philharmonic, Boston Symphony, Deutsches Symphonie Orchester Berlin, Bayerische Rundfunk, NHK Symphony, Philharmonia and London Symphony Orchestra, and has given extensive recital tours at venues including Carnegie Hall, Wigmore Hall, the Concertgebouw, and Elbphilharmonie. She is a much sought-after collaborator, curator and artist-in-residence by symphony orchestras, festivals, museums and music schools. One of Bullock’s major projects, Perle Noire: Meditations for Joséphine explores the roles of bigotry, prejudice, misogyny, racism, and ultimately finding one’s humanity through the self-empowerment of performance via the lens of Joséphine Baker’s life – conceived with Peter Sellars, Tyshawn Sorey and Claudia Rankine, the work is now finding a home in major operatic spaces. Bullock’s solo album debut, Walking in the Dark, was named among the best of 2022 by the New York Times.

Newly appointed Chief Conductor of the Gävle Symphony Orchestra, Christian Reif has established a reputation for his natural musicality, innovative programming and technical command. 

The 2023/24 season marks Reif’s inaugural season as Chief Conductor of the Gävle Symphony Orchestra, a position he will hold through the 2025/26 season. He leads 7 programs with the orchestra including their season-opening concerts and a Swedish tour in March 2024.

Since 2022, Reif has served as Music Director of the Lakes Area Music Festival in Minnesota, a month-long summer festival committed to commissioning new works and to giving free concerts for the community with programming that ranges from opera and chamber music to symphonic performances.

Highlights of Reif’s 2023/24 season highlights also include subscription appearances with the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, St. Louis Symphony, Seattle Symphony, Milwaukee Symphony, Philharmonia Orchestra, Swedish Radio Symphony and Brno Philharmonic Orchestra plus summer festival appearances at the Grand Teton Music Festival and at Interlochen. Reif will conduct his own arrangement of John Adams’ El Niño with the Cincinnati Symphony, and with the American Modern Opera Company on tour to Stanford University, Yale University, Harriman-Jewel in Kansas City, and at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York.

Jonny Allen is a Grammy-nominated percussionist whose contagious passion for music has been described as “a demonstration of raw power, virtuosity and feeling” by The New York Times. Jonny has won prizes at both the International Chamber Music Competition and the International Marimba Competition in Salzburg, giving respective performances at Carnegie Hall and Schloss Hoch in Flachau, Austria. He has also performed as a drum set soloist with Ghana’s National Symphony Orchestra at the National Theatre in Accra. Jonny performs regularly with his percussion quartet, Sandbox, and is a founding Core Member of the American Modern Opera Company (AMOC*). He is also a committed educator on percussion faculty and in residence at both the University of Missouri-Kansas City and The New School in Manhattan. Jonny holds a Bachelor’s degree and Performer’s Certificate from the Eastman School of Music, as well as a Masters degree and Artist Diploma from the Yale School of Music.

Tia Allen has performed at Carnegie Hall, Alice Tully Hall, Radio City Music Hall, Madison Square Garden, Metropolitan Museum, Royal Opera House of Muscat, and the Teatro Nacional in Santo Domingo. As a freelance artist in New York City she has performed with Tony Bennett, Lady Gaga, The Eagles, Anderson Paak, Nas, Mark Ronson, Miley Cyrus, Cynthia Erivo, Shobean, Halsey, Kygo, Dua Lipa, Michael Bolton, Frank Ocean, Bebe Winans, Seal, and Cee-Lo to name a few. She is currently holding the viola chair in the Broadway show Jagged Little Pill (Broadhurst theatre). Other Broadway performances include My Fair Lady (Lincoln Center theatre), Spongebob Squarepants (Palace theatre), An American in Paris (Palace theatre), and On the Town(Lyric theatre). She has made televised performances on the Late Show with Stephen Colbert, Law and Order: SVU, Saturday Night Live, Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon, The Today Show, Good Morning America, and The Wendy Williams Show. She has appeared in the latest music videos for Bruce Springsteen’s Tucson Train and Western Stars. She has performed in the Joker film starring Joaquin Phoenix, and the modern movie remake of Annie. Per request of Lorin Maazel she has performed as principal violist at his Castleton Music Festival. She is a past fellowship member of Spoleto Festival in Charleston and a six summer veteran of the Aspen Music festival and school where she performed Souvenir de Florence with Julia Fischer in the Benedict Music Tent. She has also performed at festivals in Graz Austria, and Nice France. With a passion for chamber music she is the founder, director, and violist of Diverse Concert Artists with contracted performances at the Kennedy Center and BAM featuring Bryce Dessner’s Triptych (Eyes of One on Another). In addition, she performs with the Harlem Chamber players and the MUNY Program. As educator she teaches with the Harlem School for the Arts and has held an educational chamber music residency at the University of Iowa with Harlem Symphony Chamber Players and University of Massachusets, Lowell with Quatuor Mahogony.

Pianist and coach John Arida has been praised by The Washington Post and The Philadelphia Inquirer for his interpretative prowess. His relationships with some of classical music’s most esteemed performers have led to international recital engagements across the United States, Canada, and Mexico. Notable venues include Carnegie Hall, The Kennedy Center, the Aspen Music Festival and Tanglewood. Arida’s 2023/2024 season include recital appearances with Julia Bullock, Isabel Leonard, Samantha Hankey, and Jack Swanson along with a scheduled return to the Santa Fe Opera working with Harry Bicket. Arida has held fellowships at the Aspen Music Festival and the Music Academy of the West. He holds a master’s degree in collaborative piano from The Juilliard School and a bachelor’s degree in vocal performance from SUNY Purchase. While maintaining a private studio in New York City, John is currently a full-time faculty member in the Vocal Arts division at the Juilliard School.

With over two decades on the cello, Titilayo Ayangade has gracefully navigated classical music’s landscape. A recent awardee of the Chamber Music America Artistic Projects grant, as the cellist of Duo Kayo, continues her history of excellence in chamber music preceded by awards at Fischoff and tours spanning China to Brazil. This season features performances with Sphinx Virtuosi, collaborations with MAD Museum, Caramoor, and more. Titilayo champions BIPOC musicians, advocating for an inclusive musical tapestry. Off-stage, she’s a successful photographer, working with Grammy-nominated artists and renowned orchestras. Explore her journey at www.titilayoandco.com.

Doug Balliett is a composer, instrumentalist and poet based in New York City. The New York Times described his compositions as “brainily bubble gum and lovable shaggy,” his poetry as “brilliant and witty,” and his bass playing as “elegant.” Doug is a professor of baroque bass and violone at The Juilliard School, and he leads the Theotokos ensemble every Sunday at St. Mary’s Church. He plays regularly with Les Arts Florissants, Jupiter Ensemble, ACRONYM, Ruckus, BEMF, Alarm Will Sound, and other ensembles. In 2021 five of his Ovid Cantatas were filmed for Qwest TV with William Christie, Lea Desandre, and Nick Scott. For three years he and his twin brother hosted a weekly show dedicated to living composers on WQXR’s new music channel Q2. Upcoming performances of his work include Beast Fights at Tanglewood with the Boston Symphony bass section, and the annual New Year’s Eve performance of his opera Gawain and the Green Knight.

Praised for her “delightful idiosyncrasy” and “narrative sweep and involving performances” (The Classical Source), violinist Julia Choi is active in many spheres of the music world today. Ms. Choi joined the First Violin section of the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra in 2019. Prior to her appointment, she has appeared with the Philadelphia Orchestra, New York Philharmonic, Minnesota Orchestra, Atlanta Symphony, Detroit Symphony, Montclair Orchestra, New Jersey Symphony, and the San Diego Symphony as a guest musician. Throughout her career, she has worked in various orchestras with world-renowned conductors, and has also won top prizes in several competitions, including the LISMA International, Caprio Young Artist, and New York Competitions. In pursuit of her ultimate goal in becoming a versatile and most well-rounded musician, Julia enjoys her career as a performer, but also as an educator for violin and ear training. Ms. Choi is currently a faculty member at the Manhattan School of Music’s Pre-College Program and Artist-Faculty at the Charles Ives Music Festival, and has given masterclasses for institutions including University of Denver’s Lamont School of Music, Chicago’s DePaul University, Orchestra of the Americas, and Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile. She has previously served for three years as a Teaching Assistant of the Ear Training Department at Juilliard, for both the College and Pre-College Divisions, and is currently residing in New York City, where has maintained her private teaching studio for over a decade. She has received Bachelor’s and Master’s Degrees from The Juilliard School as well as a Professional Degree in Orchestral Performance from The Manhattan School of Music, under the tutelage of Glenn Dicterow, Lisa Kim, Sally Thomas, and Sylvia Rosenberg.

Countertenor Anthony Roth Costanzo began performing professionally at the age of 11 and has since appeared in opera, concert, recital, film, and on Broadway. He was recently awarded a GRAMMY, an Honorary Doctorate from Manhattan School of Music, a visiting fellowship from Oxford University, and the History Makers Award from the New York Historical Society, and in the spring will be a distinguished visiting scholar at Harvard. This season, he returns to the Metropolitan Opera after staring in Akhnaten, in another title role as Gluck’s Orfeo ed Euridice, the Santa Fe Opera for a world premiere, and to the Teatro Real; makes his Paris Opera debut, gives solo recitals at the Kennedy Center and Boston’s Jordan Hall, makes his debut at the Wigmore Hall in London, and appears in Carnegie Hall with the Met Chamber Orchestra. As a producer, he has created projects for Opera Philadelphia, The New York Philharmonic, The BBC Proms, WQXR, and St. Ann’s Warehouse among others. 

A highly acclaimed soloist and collaborator, violinist/violist Miranda Cuckson delights audiences with her performances of music ranging from older eras to the most current creations. She performs at venues ranging from Suntory Hall to the Berlin Philharmonie to the Teatro Colón and Cleveland Museum, the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra’s Liquid Music, and the Ojai, Wien Modern, Grafenegg, Time Spans, Marlboro, Bard, West Cork, Portland, LeGuessWho, and SinusTon festivals. Miranda made her Carnegie Hall debut playing Piston’s Violin Concerto No. 1 with the American Symphony Orchestra, and just recently made her debut at the Vienna

Musiverein with the Haas Violin Concerto No. 2. She has released ten lauded albums, including Nono’s  “La lontananza nostalgica utopica futura”, named a Best Recording of the Year by The New York Times. Miranda is a member of AMOC* and founder/director of Nunc. She studied at Juilliard and teaches at Mannes School of Music.

Alexander Davis (he/him) is a New York City-based bassoonist whose artistic intentions center on space-making, connection, and community-building within classical music. An advocate of creating equity in the arts, Alexander is the founder and Artistic Director of the Sugar Hill Salon, a chamber music series showcasing black and brown wind artistry based in the culturally robust community of Harlem, NY, and on the stolen traditional territory of the Lenape Nation.

Alexander performed in the first all-black orchestra to ever hold a concert in the history of Carnegie Hall’s existence with the Gateway Festival Orchestra in April of 2022. He has played with American Composer Orchestra, St Paul Chamber Orchestra, The Knights, Harlem Chamber Players, Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, Tertulia Chamber Music, Albany Symphony, Detroit Symphony Orchestra, Princeton Symphony Orchestra, American Modern Opera Company, and more.

Alexander is adjunct bassoon faculty at Montclair State University and the Mannes School of Music Prep. He has studied at SUNY Fredonia, Stony Brook University, and Manhattan School of Music. He is currently a Doctoral Candidate of music at Stony Brook University.

Jordan Dodson, described by Performance Today as “one of the top young guitarists of his generation,” is a musician and educator. An advocate of contemporary music, Dodson has given the premiere of hundreds of new works. In 2013 he was the first guitarist to graduate from the Curtis Institute of Music’s new guitar program. In the same year he won Astral Artists’ National Auditions and was selected to be Young Artist in Residence on American Public Media. He has appeared on several commercially available recordings including Jason Eckardt’s Subject and Elliot Cole’s Nightflower and Journals, vol. 1.

Originally from Columbus, Ohio, Dodson is on faculty at EzraGuitar and The Smith School in New York City. He has given masterclasses and lectures and holds degrees from the Curtis Institute of Music, the Manhattan School of Music, and the University of Cincinnati, and his teachers have included Clare Callahan, David Starobin, and Jason Vieaux. Jordan is endorsed by Oasis strings and plays a Gary Lee guitar.

A 2023 recipient of the Avery Fisher Career Grant, Emi Ferguson can be heard live in concerts and festivals with groups including AMOC*, Ruckus, the Handel and Haydn Society, the New York New Music Ensemble, the Manhattan Chamber Players, and as the music director of Camerata Pacifica Baroque. Her recordings Amour Cruel and Fly the Coop: Bach Sonatas and Preludes, celebrate her fascination with reinvigorating music and instruments of the past for the present and have been called “blindingly impressive … a fizzing, daring display of personality and imagination” by The New York Times.

Emi has spoken and performed at TEDx events and has been featured on the Discovery Channel, Amazon Prime, WQXR, and Vox talking about how music relates to our world today. As part of WQXR’s Artist Propulsion Lab, she created the series “This Composer is SICK!” with Max Fine, exploring the impact of syphilis on composers Franz Schubert, Bedřich Smetana, and Scott Joplin, and has guest-hosted WQXR’s Young Artists Showcase. Her book, “Iconic Composers”, co-written with Nicholas Csicsko with artwork by David Lee Csicsko, was released in 2023. Born in Japan and raised in London and Boston, she now resides in New York City.

Carrie Frey is a violist, improviser, and composer based in New York City. Frey is the violist of the Rhythm Method (“a group of individuals with distinct compositional voices and a collective vision for the future of the string quartet” – ICIYL) and a founding member of string trio Chartreuse and string quartet Desdemona. She has appeared with many of New York City’s notable new music groups, including Wet Ink Large Ensemble, AMOC*, Talea Ensemble, Wavefield, and International Contemporary Ensemble, and with Simone Baron’s genre-bending Arco Belo ensemble. Her compositions have been performed by the Rhythm Method, Adrianne Munden-Dixon, Kal Sugatski, and RE:duo. Her solo album Seagrass was released on Gold Bolus Records in December 2023. Carrie is a graduate of Oberlin Conservatory and the Manhattan School of Music Contemporary Performance Program and is currently pursuing a doctorate at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York.

Oboist Roni Gal-Ed has worked with leading conductors such as Zubin Mehta, Kent Nagano, Valery Gergiev, Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos, Christian Thielemann, Sándor Végh, and Yoel Levy. As a chamber musician she collaborated with Daniel Barenboim, Nikolaj Znaider, Johannes Moser, Mathieu Dufour, the Jerusalem String Quartet, and the Carmel String Quartet. Gal-Ed played with the Munich Philharmonic Orchestra under James Levine before becoming the Principal Oboist of the Bavarian Kammerphilharmonie, and a guest Principal Oboist with the Budapest Festival Orchestra under Ivan Fischer. She performed and toured with the Berlin Symphony Orchestra, the Bremen Kammerphilharmonie, the Australian Chamber Orchestra, and was a frequent guest Principal Oboist with the Stuttgart and Munich Chamber Orchestras. Back in her native Israel, she served as the Principal Oboist of the Israeli Opera, and then as Associate Principal with the Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra. In New York, Gal-Ed is a member of the Dorian Wind Quintet, the Jupiter Chamber Players, and the American Ballet Theater Orchestra.

A fierce advocate for the music of today, pianist Conor Hanick has premiered over 200 pieces and collaborated with composers ranging from Pierre Boulez, Kaija Saariaho, and Steve Reich, to the leading composers of his generation, including Nico Muhly, Caroline Shaw, Tyshawn Sorey, Samuel Carl Adams, and Anthony Cheung. He recently performed with the San Francisco Symphony, Seattle Symphony, Alabama Symphony, Orchestra Iowa, and the Boston Modern Orchestra Project, been presented by the Gilmore Festival, New York Philharmonic, Elbphilharmonie, De Singel, Caramoor, Cal Performances, Philadelphia Chamber Music Society, and the Park Avenue Armory, and worked with conductors Esa-Pekka Salonen, Ludovic Morlot, Alan Gilbert, and David Robertson. This season Hanick performed with Jay Campbell, Joshua Roman, Seth Parker Woods, and the Takt Trio.

Hanick is the director of Solo Piano at the Music Academy of the West and serves on the faculty of The Juilliard School, Mannes College, and the CUNY Graduate Center.

Based in New York City, violist Celia Hatton has performed throughout the world. Hatton’s solos as Principal Viola of Experiential Orchestra can be heard on GRAMMY winning album “The Prison.” She is a member of A Far Cry and Co-Principal of Chamber Orchestra of New York. She has performed with the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, Minnesota Orchestra, and St. Paul Chamber Orchestra; and toured with ECCO, The Knights, Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, and Sphinx Virtuosi. She has appeared with the Blair String Quartet, Harlem Quartet, Manhattan Chamber Players, and North Country Chamber Players. An Adjunct Professor at Adelphi University, she has given masterclasses at Colburn Music Academy, New York University, and Vanderbilt University. Hatton earned her Bachelor’s Degree with Kim Kashkashian from New England Conservatory receiving a Presidential Distinction Award Scholarship and her Master’s Degree from Manhattan School of Music with Karen Dreyfus as a recipient of a William Randolph Hearst Scholarship.

JOSH HENDERSON is enjoying a multi-faceted career as a cross-genre violinist, violist, and composer. As a classical soloist, he has performed with many ensembles, including the Cincinnati Chamber Orchestra, China Performing Arts Broadcasting Troupe, and Urban Playground Chamber Orchestra. His compositions include a full length Ballet for Caliince Dance company, “Marie: Embroidering Survival”, premiered at Alvin Ailey Dance Theater, a concerto-grosso for the Cavani Quartet, “A Bop for Bridge”, and his piece, “Veni: A Dystopian Cowgirl Fantasy for violin and fixed electronics” was a winner of the 2022 Tribeca New Music National Competition. Josh has recently released “One More Night”, his debut album featuring an evening length composition for nonet, under the Innova Record Label as a winner of their national call for projects.

Josh studied at the Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music with Prof. Kurt Sassmannshaus, and at New York University with Prof. Naoko Tanaka. He has served on the faculty at the University of Iowa (Grant Woods Visiting Professor), and currently is on the artist faculty at NYU, and The Longy School of Music in Cambridge.

Cellist and performer Coleman Itzkoff stands at the intersection of baroque/classical/new music, contemporary dance, and experimental theater. Whether premiering works by living composers and performing baroque music on historical instruments in the same concert, delivering enigmatic monologues in a piece of avant-garde dance theater, composing, arranging, and recording music for the Amazon film ‘Le Bal des Folles’, or simply playing solo Bach for hospital patients in the time of COVID, Coleman continues to push the boundaries of what it means to be a musician of the 21st century.  

As a soloist, he has been featured soloist with many great orchestras, including recent appearances with the Houston, San Diego, and Cincinnati Symphonies. He is a dedicated member of the early music ensembles Ruckus and Twelfth Night, and is a founding member of AMOC. Coleman holds a Bachelors in Music from Rice University, a Masters in Music from USC, and an Artist Diploma from The Juilliard School. colemanitzkoff.com

Bassist Christopher Johnson began his musical studies with Project S.T.E.P. in Boston at the age of 7 before studying at New England Conservatory with Don Palma and getting his master’s at Manhattan School of Music with Tim Cobb. He’s a member of Rootstock Republic, JP Jofre Quintet, Sphinx Virtuosi, The ReCollective Orchestra, Black Rock Philharmonic, New Haven Symphony Orchestra, Allentown Symphony Orchestra, and Classical Tahoe Orchestra. He has been a substitute bassist with New York Philharmonic, Philadelphia Orchestra, Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, Vermont Symphony Orchestra, Albany Symphony Orchestra, Harrisburg Symphony Orchestra, Wordless Music Orchestra, and Verbier Festival Orchestra just to name a few.  He won 1st place at the International Society of Bassist orchestral excerpt completion, premiered the musical Jagged Little Pill at A.R.T.,  and played on the soundtrack of The Lion King with Hans Zimmer. Chris has performed with stars such as Jon Batiste, Bel Biv Dove, Chaka Khan, Earth Wind and Fire, The Roots, Ms. Lauryn Hill, Salt N Peppa, Joshua Bell, Rene Fleming, Midori Goto,and  Yo Yo Ma, just to name a few. 

Gleb Kanasevich is a clarinetist, composer, and noise/drone musician. He currently works primarily with feedback and modified instruments, while exploring expressive possibilities in very simple electronic processing. He is a permanent member of Hub New Music and often as a soloist and collaborates with composers, other chamber music groups, improvisers, noise musicians, death metal bands, and among others. Since 2013, he has been a core member of Ensemble Cantata Profana, where he served as co-directed for four years with Jacob Ashworth, before being named the ensemble’s Acting Artistic Director for the ensemble’s final 2022/23 season.

Most recently, he was commissioned by Ensemble Intercontemporain, Callithumpian Consort, Ah Young Hong, and No Exit New Music Ensemble. In 2020, he also released a new improvisation project for modified recorder and guitar amplifiers called Capacity. It is survived by fully composed follow-up works for cello and bass clarinet.

Miran Kim joined the first violin section of the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra in 2014. She has held positions in the Houston Symphony and the Grant Park Festival Orchestra. She performs each summer at the Lakes Area Festival in Minnesota, where she serves as Concertmaster for opera performances. 

Kim attended The Juilliard School’s Pre-College Division under the tutelage of Hyo Kang and Catherine Cho. Kim studied at The Juilliard School and The Cleveland Institute of Music, both under the tutelage of Joel Smirnoff, and at Rice University’s Shepherd School of Music, studying with Cho-liang Lin, before she won her position in the Houston Symphony. Additional teachers include Benny Kim, Paul Kantor, Ida Kavafian, and Sylvia Rosenberg. 

Siwoo Kim is an “incisive” and “compelling” (The New York Times) violinist who plays with “stylistic sensitivity and generous tonal nuance” (Chicago Tribune). Siwoo performs as soloist and chamber musician, and he is the co-founding artistic director of VIVO Music Festival in his hometown of Columbus, Ohio.

Siwoo made his Carnegie Hall concerto debut in Stern Auditorium with the Juilliard Orchestra. He has since performed with orchestras around the world including the Staatsorchester Brandenburgisches Frankfurt, Columbus Symphony, Gangneung Philharmonic, Houston Symphony, Johannesburg Philharmonic, Kwazulu-Natal Philharmonic, Orchestre Royal de Chambre, Seongnam Philharmonic, Springfield Symphony, and Tulsa Symphony. Siwoo gave the world premiere performance of Samuel Adler’s violin concerto which was written for him. He recorded the work on Linn Records to commemorate the composer’s 90th birthday, and the BBC Music Magazine praised his “notable fire & impassioned playing.”

Siwoo received his undergraduate and graduate degrees from The Juilliard School where he studied under Robert Mann and Donald Weilerstein with full scholarship. He went on to complete a two-year fellowship with Carnegie Hall’s Ensemble Connect and spent his summers at the Marlboro Music Festival, collaborating with musicians such as Jeremy Denk, Denes Varjon and Mitsuko Uchida. Prior to college, Siwoo studied under Roland and Almita Vamos at the Music Institute of Chicago.

NYC-based horn player Nicolee Kuester divides her time between experimental music and The Older Stuff, recently performing with Talea, the International Contemporary Ensemble, The Knights, and Wet Ink Ensemble in NYC; Ensemble Intercontemporain in Paris; Alarm Will Sound in St Louis; and Kaleidoscope Chamber Orchestra in LA. She is co-founder of MEANINGLESS WORK, a performance series that happily meanders between sounds, performance art, text, and movement theater. Nicolee holds Bachelors degrees in horn performance and creative writing from Oberlin College & Conservatory and graduate degrees in contemporary music performance from UC San Diego.

Violinist Ravenna Lipchik made her debut with the Milwaukee Symphony at the age of eight playing the Bach Double Violin Concerto. Now a Grammy Award-winning artist for her work with the Experiential Orchestra on Ethel Smyth’s ‘The Prison,’ her chamber music career has taken her around the world. She has performed and toured with the New Zealand String Quartet, the American Contemporary Music Ensemble (ACME), and Shattered Glass ensemble. Ravenna is a member of the Overlook String Quartet in NYC. This season’s highlights include touring with Les Arts Florissants production of Fairy Queen and a release of Schumann piano trios on the Deux-Elles label. She received her modern violin training at the San Francisco Conservatory and the Juilliard School, where she is a graduate of both their modern and Historical Performance programs.

Violinist/violist Zoë Martin-Doike is currently in the viola section of the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra and has also frequently joined the Philadelphia Orchestra for tours of Europe and Asia. A passionate chamber musician, Zoë is a member of the critically acclaimed Iris Trio, which toured extensively in Canada, the U.S. and Germany. Previously, she was a founding member of the Aizuri Quartet which garnered top prizes at the Wigmore Hall International String Quartet Competition and held residencies at the Curtis Institute of Music and the Barnes. She also received top prizes at the Primrose International Viola Competition and the Lennox International Young Artist Competition, and most recently won the 2019 Kaleidoscope Chamber Orchestra Competition. Zoë attended the Marlboro Music Festival, the Steans Institute at Ravinia as well as the Sarasota, Norfolk, and Taos Chamber Music Festivals. Zoë did her undergraduate studies at the Curtis Institute of Music, where she served as concertmaster for the 2011-12 school year, and her master’s degree at the Jacobs School of Music at Indiana University.

Violinis Qianwen Shen joined The Metropolitan Opera Orchestra in the 2019 Season. As an orchestra musician, Shen has performanced with Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, Boston Symphony Orchestra, New World Symphony, Minnesota Orchestra, and Montclair Orchestra. She served as concertmaster, Principal Second, and other leadership positions for the New World Symphony, New England Conservatory Philharmonic Orchestra, New England Conservatory Chamber Orchestra, Mannes School of Music, and Tanglewood Music Center. She has appeared in ensemble and solo performances at Carnegie Hall, Boston Symphony Hall, Victoria Theatre and Concert Hall of Singapore, Hong Kong Art Center Concert Hall, National Centre for the Performing Arts in Beijing China, Shanghai Music Hall, Shanghai Oriental Art Center. As a chamber musician, Shen has performed with the musicians from Cleveland Quartet, Emerson Quartet, Julliard Quartet, Takacs Quartet, and Peabody Trio.

Born in Bengbu, China, Shen began playing the violin at age of four. She studied at Shanghai Conservatory of Music, New England Conservatory, and Mannes School of Music.

Heralded as a “singer of immense power and fervor” and “[one] of the most powerful voices of our time” by The Los Angeles Times, the “immensely gifted American bass-baritone Davóne Tines has won acclaim, and advanced the field of classical music” (The New York Times) through his work that blends opera, art song, contemporary classical, spirituals, gospel, and songs of protest, as a means to tell a deeply personal story of perseverance that connects to all of humanity. Called a “next generation leader” by Time Magazine and recently named Musical America’s 2022 Vocalist of the Year, Tines is a path-breaking artist at the intersection of many histories, cultures, and aesthetics.

Jasmin White’s is a current member of the premier Opernstudio at Volksoper Wien, performing from 2022-24 as Mary in Der fliegende Holländer, Frau Reich in Die lustigen Weiber von Windsor, Martha in The Gospel According to the Other Mary, and Dritte Dame in Die Zauberflöte.  In 2023, Jasmin won first place in the Queen Sonja Singing Competition and 2nd place & audience prize in the Queen Elisabeth Competition, debuted at Teatro dell’opera di Roma as Erste Geist in Schumann’s Manfred, and performed as the mezzo-soloist in John Adams’ El Niño with Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra. In 2022, White made their debut as a featured soloist with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, as a soloist and ensemble member at The Metropolitan Opera, and with roles at Cincinnati Opera and Lakes Area Music Festival. 

A citizen of the Cherokee Nation and TERO Certified Indigenous artist, hailing from Grand Ronde, Oregon, White is also a graduate of the Artist Diploma in Opera Studies program at The Juilliard School, the Master of Music in Voice program at Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music, and the Bachelor of Music in Vocal Arts program at the University of Southern California. 

GRAMMY-nominated cellist Seth Parker Woods has established his reputation as a versatile artist and innovator across multiple genres. He is a recipient of the 2022 Chamber Music America Michael Jaffee Visionary Award. Woods serves on the faculty of the Thornton School of Music at The University of Southern California as Assistant Professor of Cello and Head of Chamber Music. He previously served on the faculties of the University at Buffalo, University of Chicago, Dartmouth College, and the Chicago Academy of the Arts and as Artist in Residence at the University of Miami’s Frost School of Music and Northwestern University – Center for New Music. Woods holds degrees from Brooklyn College, Musik Akademie der Stadt Basel, and a PhD from the University of Huddersfield. In the 2020-21 season, he was an Artist in Residence with the Kaufman Music Center, and from 2018-2020 he served as Artist in Residence with Seattle Symphony and Creative Consultant for the interactive concert hall, Octave 9: Raisbeck Music Center. Seth Parker Woods is a Pirastro Artist and endorses Pirastro Perpetual Strings worldwide.

With his work described as “pure poetry” (Boston Globe), stage director, choreographer, and dancer Zack Winokur is recognized as one of the most innovative and exciting talents working in opera today. Recent highlights include: Only an Octave Apart (“a glittering, disarming, poignant reminder of why theater exists”— W Magazine) featuring Anthony Roth Costanzo and Justin Vivian Bond with new arrangements by Nico Muhly at St. Ann’s Warehouse, the NY Philharmonic, and Opera Philadelphia; EASTMAN, a commission from Little Island’s inaugural festival centering the work and life of composer Julius Eastman; his “rich, seamless” (NY Times) production of The Black Clown, at the Mostly Mozart Festival at Lincoln Center and the American Repertory Theater; his “darkly captivating” (NY Times) production of Perle Noire: Meditations for Joséphine, by Tyshawn Sorey and Claudia Rankine, starring Julia Bullock on the grand staircase of the Metropolitan Museum of Art; and other productions at the Festival d’Aix-en-Provence, Santa Fe Opera, Dutch National Opera, Stanford Live. Winokur served as Artistic Director of NYPopsUp, a sprawling state Governor’s initiative to reopen the performing arts across NY State with over 300 free and public performances featuring hundred of artists from February to July 2021; and co-teaches, with Davóne Tines, a transdisciplinary storytelling class at Harvard.

RR Sigel is a performing arts consultant, collaborator, and creative producer who is interested in how media, performance, and interdisciplinary collaborations can be used to create a better understanding of the systems that surround us. Consulting and producing collaborators include:  Sound Postings (the Office of Yo-Yo Ma), From the Top, Cal Performances, and other artists and organizations. In 2021, Sigel was Associate Artistic Director of NY PopsUp – a statewide festival designed to get artists back to paid performance, to bring the public back to connection with live art, and to develop new safety and public health protocols that can allow performance to resume as New York State emerged from the pandemic., Sigel was Executive Director of the International Contemporary Ensemble; a strategic business planning consultant with the National Park Service in the Great Smoky Mountains; and Manager, Social Innovation at the LA Phil where her focus was on the organization’s community-based music education program, YOLA. Additional background includes leadership development and backcountry tripleading. Sigel is a musical utility player – originally a bass player, she now prefers playing acoustic guitar at campfire singalongs. 

Stage Manager Betsy Ayer’s previous projects with AMOC* include El Niño: Nativity Reimagined at the Cloisters and at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in NYC, Eastman, El Cimarrón, Harawi, and The No One’s Rose. Recent projects with director Peter Sellars include Monochromatic Light (Afterlife), Park Avenue Armory; Idomeneo, Salzburg Festival; Only the Sound Remains, White Light Festival; andnumerous semi-staged productions with the San Francisco Symphony, Berlin Philharmonic, London Symphony Orchestra, andLos Angeles Philharmonic. Other recent premieres include Omar, Spoleto USA and Glass Handel, Opera Philadelphia. She has stage-managed for Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM), New York City Opera. Dance stage management credits include: Four Quartets, Bard Summerscape and Barbican Centre, London; Trisha Brown Dance Company, FLEXN at the Park Avenue Armory/ International tour; New York City Ballet. Concerts: Interim Production Manager, Carnegie Hall. She is a graduate of Smith College. 

Christopher Gilmore designs for theatre, opera, live performance, and dance.  Recent designs include “Seven Deadly Spins” (La Jolla Music Society), Luke Hickey’s A Little Old, A Little New (The Joyce @ Chelsea Factory, American Dance Festival, New Victory Dance Festival), With Care (92Y), Ensemble Connect Up Close: Through Movement (Carnegie Hall), CAGE (American Modern Opera Company), Dirty Rotten Scoundrels (New York Film Academy).  Assistant/Associate: Trevor: A New Musical  (Stage42),  Assembly (Armory),  Radio Golf (Two River), Log Cabin (Playwrights Horizons), also multiple productions at American Repertory Theatre and Huntington Theatre Company.  Proud graduate of Emerson College.

Jennifer Chen completed her undergraduate degree at Harvard University (History of Art and Architecture cum laude) and is a 2017 MBA graduate of the Yale University School of Management. Her career has brought her from producing operas in dining halls to working with institutions including the Boston Symphony Orchestra, New York City Ballet, Peabody Essex Museum, Celebrity Series of Boston, Villa I Tatti (the Harvard Center for Italian Renaissance Studies), and Sound Postings (the Office of Yo-Yo Ma). Jennifer is also a Registered Piano Technician and graduate of the Piano Technology program at the North Bennet Street School.

Keir GoGwilt is a violinist, composer, and musicologist who was born in Edinburgh and grew up in New York City, where he currently lives. His work combines research and collaborative experimentation across a range of music and media. Known as a “formidable performer” (New York Times) with an “evocative sound” (London Jazz News) and “finger-busting virtuosity” (San Diego Tribune), he has soloed with the Basel Sinfonieorchester, Orchestra of St. Luke’s, Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra, Chinese National Symphony, Orquesta Filarmonica de Santiago, and the Boston Modern Orchestra Project. Recent composition projects include his album, hope lies fallow, with violinist Johnny Chang on Another Timbre, and Zarabanda Variations, which re-imagines music from New Spain/colonial Mexico. He is a founding member of AMOC and a resident composer with JACK Quartet for the 2023-2025 seasons. His research has been published in the Bach Journal, Current Musicology, and Naxos Musicology.