[ Composer's Voice ]
Composer's Voice Concert
A Celebration of Women's History Month
March 6, 2011
Jan Hus Church
351 East 74th Street
New York
,
New York
10021-3798
The Composer's Voice Concert Series is an opportunity for contemporary composers to express their musical aesthetic and personal "voice" created in their compositions. This concert features Women's History Month

Program:

Performers/Composers

Lynn Bechtold

Violinist Lynn Bechtold has appeared in recital throughout the U.S., Canada, Holland, and Switzerland. An advocate of contemporary music, she has worked with composers Gloria Coates, George Crumb, John Harbison, and Morton Subotnick, and has premiered works on the Princeton Composers' Series and Composers Concordance. In 2001, she gave the premiere of "Violynn," a work for violin and electronics written for her by Alvin Lucier. As a member of the Lumina String Quartet, the East Village Opera Company (rock/opera band), the SEM Ensemble, and the New York Symphonic Ensemble, among others, Ms. Bechtold has performed around the world. Other programs have been with the Absolute Ensemble, North/South Consonance, Parsons Dance, the Paul Taylor Dance Company, the Vermont Symphony, and the VOX Opera Readings.

Valerie Coleman

By the age of fourteen Valerie Coleman had already written three full-length symphonies and won several local and state flute competitions. Coleman is the founder/resident composer of the Grammy-nominated wind quintet Imani Winds, widely recognized for their significant contributions to the world of chamber music repertoire. With a Carnegie Hall debut in 2004, she began to focus on chamber music and writing for Imani Winds. Coleman's catalogue of wind quintet works have taken their place in standard wind quintet repertoire: UMOJA (listed as one of the "Top 100 American Chamber Works" by Chamber Music America), the Afro Cuban Concerto for wind quintet, The Josephine Baker Suite, Red Clay & Mississippi Delta, and her arrangements can be heard on radio stations via syndicate throughout the world.

Jasmin Bey Cowin

Dr. Jasmin Bey Cowin, harpist, educator and lecturer, graduated from at the Staatliche Hochschule fuer Musik in Karlsruhe with a Diploma for Education and Orchestral Harpist. She studied at the University of Houston American harp music through a Fulbright scholarship. A subsequent scholarship in Graduate Studies at Rice University in Houston, Texas enabled her to further explore harp repertoire of all periods and musical styles. Eventually she left for New York where she received her Masters and her Doctorate in Education from Columbia University. She currently teaches at the Center for Living & Learning and is enrolled for a Certificate Program at the Center for Modern Psychoanalysitc Studies. www.operalectures.com

Emily Doolittle

Composer Emily Doolittle was born in Halifax, Nova Scotia, educated at Dalhousie University, Indiana University, the Koninklijk Conservatorium (the Hague), and Princeton University, and has been assistant professor of music composition at Cornish College of the Arts in Seattle since 2008. Her research interests include bird and other animal songs, traditional musics, and community music-making.

Alexandra Frederick

Alexandra Frederick is a British-American vocalist/pianist based in Manhattan. She has also appeared in Europe and the UK, entertained on cruise ships, and performs in all kind of venues in the Tri-State area. Recent appearances include: Tomi Jazz Club; Lotos Club; Lenox Hill Neighborhood House; The UN Permanent Mission to India; Firebird Russian Restaurant (Times Square); Salt Creek Grille (Princeton); W Hotel (Times Square); Dag Hammarskjold Plaza; Short Hills Hilton; Rye Hilton; and Olympic Towers Atrium (Midtown). This summer Alexandra was a Metrostar competitor and had a track selected for Women of Substance Radio (WOSR). She is resident vocalist at Alouette French Bistro on the UWS (www.alouettenyc.com) and you can catch her next performance of Jazz and French cabaret music on March 15th. Info at: www.sonicbids.com/AlexandraFrederick.

Claudia Montero

Claudia Montero started her musical education in Alberto Ginastera Conservatory, Buenos Aires, graduating in Musical Pedagogy/Composition. She has worked with the most prestigious orchestras in Argentina, Spain and the rest of Europe. Founder of "Women in Art" Association in Valencia, her aim is the promotion and diffusion of works carried out by women, giving concerts and conferences in the Music Palau in Valencia. Her latest project, a Tribute to Alfonsina Storni, has had a great response internationally, in New York, Buenos Aires, Valencia and Bremen. She works with violinist Yi-Fang Huang creating the O2 Platform of Cultural Exchanges, with performances at "From the End of the World" in Taiwan, Argentina and South Africa.

Milica Paranosic

Belgrade born Milica Paranosic lives in New York City as an active composer, performance artists, educator and producer. A "free-wheeling, performance-art-type cat" (Kyle Gann), Milica has gained audiences of widely different profiles, form opera goers to soccer fans, from small children to life-long music lovers, from conventional to eccentric, and has both performed and had her works performed at traditional and alternative spaces worldwide, prompting comments just as diverse as Milica's art: "...amazing....astonishing... (Jack Anderson, New York Times), ...like liquor filled pralines. ... (Von Martina Helmig, Morgenpost, Germany), ... "Intoxication profusion of seemingly unrelated impressions" (Steve Smith, Time Out New York). Her passion for education and her humanitarian nature had recently led to Give to Grow, Milica's education and cultural exchange initiative based in Ghana.

Sophia Yan

Pianist Sophia Yan performed at age 4 in Carnegie Hall and at 9 at the Kennedy Center. Sophia is a four-time first prizewinner of the Steinway Society Competition and winner of International Concert Alliance and International Young Artist Competitions. Neil Genzlinger of The New York Times writes, "...the music literally pulls her off the piano bench; she ranges up and down the keyboard so quickly and with such ferocity that mere sitting will not do." Yan has appeared in Lincoln Center, Steinway Hall, CAMI Hall, Chateau de Fontainbleau (France), St. Nicolo's Auditorium (Italy) and Niagara Courthouse (Canada). Recognized as an exceptional artist by the National Foundation for Advancement in the Arts.

Program Notes

Support from the Puffin Foundation "...continuing the dialogue between art and the lives of ordinary people."

Vox Novus is a collective of composers, musicians, and music enthusiasts collaborating together to create, produce, promote, and enjoy the new music of today. Our members are from a variety of composers committed to the creation and dissemination of new music. Their music is of a variety of styles, aesthetics, and ideologies. Vox Novus produces and promotes new music. They are dedicated to contemporary music, the musicians who perform, and the composers that write the music of today. Their mission is to cultivate a music community and make their work available to the greater public.

Remarkable Theater Brigade founded by Christian McLeer, Dan Jeselsohn and Monica Harte, creates and produces new operas and musicals and takes children's versions out to special-needs and at-risk children free of charge.

Presenters:

Remarkable Theater Brigade

Remarkable Theater Brigade founded by Christian McLeer, Dan Jeselsohn and Monica Harte, creates and produces new operas and musicals and takes children's versions out to special-needs and at-risk children free of charge.

Remarkable Theater Brigade creates and produces new works including operas, orchestral pieces, ballets, musicals, and electro-acoustic works and co-produces the Composer's Voice Concert Series concerts. Remarkable Theater Brigade was founded in 2002 by Christian McLeer, Monica Harte, and Dan Jeselsohn.

Jan Hus Church

This is the place you were welcome, long before you arrived!
www.janhus.org

Vox Novus

Vox Novus promotes contemporary music and its creators through concerts, recordings, publications, broadcasts, and online publicity. Vox Novus believes strongly in the intrinsic value of contemporary music, recognizing it as a force in the advancement of culture and art. Our goal is to keep music alive by strengthening the connection between composer and audience, providing greater exposure to new music.

Funding by

Puffin Foundation

Funding also provided by the Puffin Foundation, "...continuing the dialogue between art and lives of ordinary people."