Bang on a Can

Gregg August (Bass)

Gregg August lives in New York and is actively involved in the classical as well as latin and jazz scenes. He performs with the Orchestra of St. Luke's and Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, and is the assistant principal bass of The Brooklyn Philharmonic. He has performed chamber music with The Brentano Quartet, the Lincoln Center Chamber Music Society, and for 2 years was the principal bassist of La Orquesta Ciutat de Barcelona in Spain. At the same time he has played and recorded with Ray Barretto, Paquito D'Rivera, James Moody and Kenny Burrell. At present heps the bassist with Ray Vega and his Latin Jazz Sextet. Gregg will be releasing a record of original music in the spring of 2004 featuring Ray Barretto and Frank Wess. He received his Bachelor and Masterps degrees from The Eastman School of Music and The Juilliard School respectively.

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Michael Gordon (Composer, Bang on a Can Co-Artistic Director)

Michael Gordon's compositions demonstrate a deep exploration into the possibilities and nature of rhythm and what happens when rhythms are piled on top of each other, creating a glorious confusion. John Adams, who has conducted Gordon's works with the London Sinfonietta and Ensemble Modern, calls these raw and complicated sounds "irrational rhythms." Gordon's special interest in adding dimensions to the concert experience has led to frequent collaborations with artists in other media. For example, in DECASIA, a multimedia orchestra piece with films by Bill Morrison and spectacle by Ridge Theater, the audience stands in the middle of a three-tiered, triangular structure surrounded by an orchestra and large projection scrims. DECASIA was commissioned by the Basel Sinfonietta and premiered at European Music Month 2001. Gordon's most significant recent project is a new CD for Nonesuch, "Light is Calling". The music here is sonic and sensual with layers of violins, electric guitars and voice in counterpoint with studio-based electronic creations. Other recent works include POTASSIUM for the Kronos Quartet, TRANCE for Icebreaker, and WEATHER, written for the young Hamburg-based string orchestra Ensemble Resonanz. Gordon's music has been presented at BAM, Lincoln Center, the Kennedy Center, Royal Albert Hall, the Bonn Oper, the Sydney 2000 Olympic Arts Festival, and the Holland, Rotterdam, Edinburgh, St. Petersburg, and Settembre Musica festivals, and in choreography of The Royal Ballet, Eliot Feld, Emio Greco/PC, among others. His CDs include LIGHT IS CALLING (Nonesuch), DECASIA (Cantaloupe), WEATHER (Nonesuch) and LOST OBJECTS (Teldec).

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David Lang (Composer, Bang on a Can Co-Artistic Director)

"There is no name yet for this kind of music," writes Los Angeles Times music critic Mark Swed, but audiences around the globe are hearing more and more of David Lang's work: in performances by such organizations as the Santa Fe Opera, the New York Philharmonic, the San Francisco Symphony, The Cleveland Orchestra, and the Kronos Quartet; at BAM, Tanglewood, the BBC Proms, The Munich Biennale, the Settembre Musica Festival, the Sydney 2000 Olympic Arts Festival and the Almeida, Holland, Berlin, and Strasbourg Festivals; in theater productions in New York, San Francisco and London; in the choreography of Twyla Tharp, La La La Human Steps, The Nederlands Dans Theater and the Paris Opera Ballet. Lang's music was recently heard at BAM in The Most Dangerous Room in the House for choreographer Susan Marshall, for which he received a Bessie Award in 1999. Lang is composer-in-residence at the American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco. Recent projects include monumental musical environments like the dark and meditative amplified orchestra piece THE PASSING MEASURES; THE DIFFICULTY OF CROSSING A FIELD - an opera for the Kronos quartet with libretto by Mac Wellman and direction by Carey Perloff; the critically acclaimed opera MODERN PAINTERS about the curious and tragic life of art critic John Ruskin and the evening-length piano solo PSALMS WITHOUT WORDS. He is currently working on ANATOMY THEATER, an opera with visual artist Mark Dion, director Bob McGrath and the Ridge Theater, and concertos for percussionist Evelyn Glennie and pianist Andrew Zolinsky. The CD recording of THE PASSING MEASURES (Cantaloupe) was named one of the best CD's of 2001 by The New Yorker magazine. Other CDs include the introspective chamber work CHILD (Cantaloupe) and other works on Sony Classical, BMG, Point, Chandos, Argo/Decca, Caprice, CRI and Cantaloupe labels.

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Brad Lubman (Conductor)

Conductor/composer Brad Lubman has played a vital role in modern music for two decades. He has worked with a great variety of illustrious musical figures including John Adams, Luciano Berio, Pierre Boulez, Elliott Carter, Elvis Costello, Oliver Knussen, Meredith Monk, Steve Reich, and John Zorn. Lubman has appeared with numerous orchestras and ensembles including Ensemble Modern, Musik Fabrik, Hamburg Symphoniker, Deutsches-Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, Los Angeles Philharmonic New Music Group, Brooklyn Philharmonic, and the Steve Reich Ensemble. He has recorded for BMG/RCA, Bridge, CRI, Koch, and Nonesuch. Lubman's music has been recorded on the Tzadik label. Mr. Lubman was a Fellow in Composition at the Tanglewood Music Center in 1990 where he studied with Oliver Knussen. Lubman is Associate Professor of Conducting and Ensembles at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester (www.rochester.edu/Eastman), New York. He is represented by Karsten Witt Musik Management (www.karstenwitt.com). Please also visit www.bradlubman.com

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Nicholas Photinos (Cello)

Nicholas Photinos, cellist, is a founding member of the Grammy Award-winning chamber music ensemble eighth blackbird. As a member of the group, he has won numerous competitions, including the Naumburg and Concert Artists Guild Competitions, has been featured on CBS's Sunday Morning and in the New York Times, performed throughout the US, Asia and Europe and currently gives 40-50 concerts annually. He teaches at the University of Richmond and the University of Chicago. Nicholas has taught at the 2007 Bang on a Can Summer Festival has also performed as a member of the Canton and Columbus Symphony Orchestras. He has toured with Bjrk as part of the Icelandic String Octet, and his interest in jazz had led him to perform with violinist Zach Brock and singer Grazyna Auguscik, among others. Solo work includes recital performances throughout the country and appearances as soloist with orchestras in California and Ohio. His principal teachers include Andor Toth, Jr., Irene Sharp, Lee Fiser, Hans Jorgen-Jensen, and Grace Vamos. Nicholas is a graduate of Northwestern University, the Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music and the Oberlin Conservatory of Music. He has recorded for the Cedille and Naxos labels.

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Vicki Ray (Piano)

Pianist Vicki Ray performs widely as a soloist and collaborative artist. She is a member of the award winning California E.A.R. Unit and Xtet. As a founding member of PianoSpheres, an acclaimed solo piano series dedicated to exploring the less familiar realms of the piano repertoire, her playing has been hailed by the Los Angeles Times for "displaying that kind of musical thoroughness and technical panache that puts a composer's thoughts directly before the listener." A long-time champion of new music Ms. Ray has had works written for by composers John Adams, Paul Dresher, Stephen Hartke, Kamran Ince, Shaun Naidoo and many others. In 1989 she was the first place winner in the National Association of Composers USA competition for performers of contemporary music. Ms.Ray has been featured on the Los Angeles Philharmonic Green Umbrella Series, with Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, the German ensemble Compania and the Blue Rider Ensemble of Toronto with whom she made the first Canadian recording of Pierrot Lunaire. Ray has played on various national and international festivals including the Salzburg Festival, the Berlin 750 Jahre Festival and the Ojai Festival where she premiered a new concerto with the Los Angeles Philharmonic and Sir Simon Rattle. Her solo recording from the left edge, a collection of works written for her by composers living in California can be found on the CRI label. As a pianist who excels in a wide range of styles Ms.Ray's numerous recordings cover everything from the semi-improvised structures of Wadada Leo Smith to the twisted groove base of John Adam's Road Movies, from the elegant serialism of Mel Powell to the austere beauty of Morton Feldmans' Crippled Symmetries. Ms. Ray has been a member of the piano faculty at the California Institute of the Arts since 1991.

Todd Reynolds (Violin)

Todd Reynolds is violinist and assistant conductor for Steve Reich and Musicians and The Walter Thompson Orchestra. He was a student of the late Jascha Heifetz, a student at the Eastman School of Music, former Principal Second Violin of the Rochester Philharmonic, and holds a Master's degree from SUNY at Stony Brook. As an improviser and solo interpreter of new musics from classical to jazz and pop, Mr. Reynolds has appeared and/or recorded with such artists as Anthony Braxton, Uri Caine, John Cale, Steve Coleman, Joe Jackson, Dave Liebman, Graham Nash, Greg Osby, Steve Reich, Marcus Roberts, Wayne Shorter and Cassandra Wilson. In addition to his solo appearances at home and abroad, Mr. Reynolds appears as guest artist with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center and is often featured as violin soloist and chamber musician with Bang On A Can. Mr. Reynolds has premiered countless numbers of compositions by composers including Michael Gordon, John King, Steve Reich, Elliot Sharp, Julia Wolfe, and Randall Wolff, and recently appeared as soloist with Yo Yo Ma in Tan Dun's Water Passion after St. Matthew at the Barbican Center in London. He is a co-founder of Ethel, New York's hippest string quartet, and as composer/performer, Mr. Reynolds is currently developing Still Life With Mic, a theater piece which incorporates with his own composed and improvised music, elements of video and theater arts. He has recorded for Nonesuch, CRI, and Atlantic Records and can also be heard on Tan Dun's soundtrack for the film Fallen, starring Denzel Washington. On Broadway, he originated the role of "The Fiddler", playing and dancing on stage in the Tony Award-winning revival of Irving Berlin's Annie, Get Your Gun, starring Bernadette Peters and Reba McEntire. Currently he tours as part of the Mahavishnu Project, a five-piece jazz-fusion band which centers around the music of John McLaughlin's Mahavishnu Orchestra, performs often with The Betty Buckley Band, alongside Kenny Werner, Billy Drewes, Tony Marino, Jamey Haddad, and, of course, Ms. Buckley herself. Mr. Reynolds recently returned from a week of educational residencies in our nation's capitol with Yo Yo Ma's Silk Road Project, performing and teaching with composer Bright Sheng, ethnomusicologist Ted Levin, and Yo Yo Ma, culminating in a season opening performance at the Kennedy Center.

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Christine Southworth (Gamelan)

Christine Southworth, through her work with robots and automated music systems as co-founder and Director of Ensemble Robot, is dedicated to making music based on the interaction between science, technology and creativity. Employing sounds from man and nature, from Van de Graaff Generator to honeybees, Balinese gamelan to seismic data from volcanoes, Southworth's works are performed worldwide by Gamelan Galak Tika, Ensemble Robot, and The Calder Quartet. Her collaborations with The Calder Quartet and Andrew W.K., including performances with robots, live honeybees and aerial dancers, have been dubbed "sinister and athletic" and "pleasingly post-minimalist" by the L.A. Times and "strange as hell... pretty much ruled" by Metal Edge Magazine. Christine is currently writing a new piece for Kronos Quartet and Gamelan Galak Tika's Electro Gamelan (designed by Alex Rigopulos of Harmonix Music). Southworth received a B.S. from MIT in 2002 in mathematics and M.A. in Computer Music & Multimedia Composition from Brown University in 2006. She composes for Western ensembles, Balinese gamelan, and mixed ensembles of gamelan, western instruments, electronics, and robots. Her compositions draw from her interests in modern American and European music, jazz, Balinese music, and rock and roll, and have received awards and recognition from the LEF Foundation, American Composers Forum, Meet the Composer, New England Foundation for the Arts (NEFA), The Explorers Club, Carlsbad Music Festival, the MIT Eloranta Fellowship, and Bang on a Can. Her music is available on Airplane Ears recordings Zap! (2008) and Gamelan Galak Tika: Bronze Age Space Age (2009) Website: www.kotekan.com

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Mark Stewart (Guitar)

Multi-instrumentalist, singer, composer and instrument designer Mark Stewart has been heard around the world performing old and new music. Since 1998 he has recorded, toured and been Musical Director with Paul Simon. A founding member of the Bang on a Can All-Stars, Mark is also a member of Steve Reich and Musicians, The Fred Frith Guitar Quartet, Arnold Dreyblatt's Orchestra of Excited Strings, Zeena Parkins' Gangster Band and the manic duo Polygraph Lounge with keyboard & theremin wizard Rob Schwimmer. He has also worked with Anthony Braxton, Bob Dylan, Charles Wourinen, Cecil Taylor, Meredith Monk, Stevie Wonder, Phillip Glass, Hugh Masakela, Iva Bittova, Bruce Springsteen, Bobby McFerrin, Ornette Coleman, The New York Philharmonic, Edie Brickell, Don Byron, Paul McCartney, the Everly Brothers, Alison Krauss, David Byrne, James Taylor, The Roches, Marc Ribot & Simon & Garfunkel. He has worked with the choreographers Eliot Feld, Susan Marshall, and Yoshiko Chuma and has worked extensively with composer Elliot Goldenthal on music for the feature films The Tempest, Across the Universe, Titus, The Butcher Boy, The Good Thief, In Dreams, and Heat, often playing instruments of his own design and construction. His New York lower east side "Lab" is home to an instrument workshop and sonic salon where traditional, neglected and original instruments cohabitate. Stewart can be heard on Warner Bros., Sony, Sony Classical, Point/Polygram, Nonesuch, Label Bleu, Resonance Magnetique, Cantaloupe and CRI recordings.

Ken Thomson(clarinet, saxophone, improvisation)

Ken Thomson, Brooklyn-based clarinetist, saxophonist, and composer, plays saxophone and writes for the NY-based punk/jazz band Gutbucket, with whom he has toured internationally to 19 countries and 32 states over seven years, and released 3 CDs for Knitting Factory, Enja, and Cantaloupe Records. He is a founding board member of Anti-Social Music, a non-profit organization dedicated to promoting the work of emerging composers with a punk aesthetic. He is a frequent collaborator with chamber orchestra Alarm Will Sound (Benedict Mason, Michael Gordon, Nancarrow, etc.), the Bang on a Can All-Stars (Europe 2007), percussion wizards So Percussion (Reich, Lang, Andriessen), and more. As a composer, he has been commissioned to write a work for the American Composers Orchestra+Gutbucket that will debut at Carnegie Hall's Zankel Hall in October 2007. His through-composed rescoring of the 22-minute 1936 British film "Night Mail" was called "a masterful re-imagining of an old classic" by Indiewire.com upon its debut in March 2007 at the True/False Film Festival. His arrangement of Aphex Twin's "Gwely Mernans" for Alarm Will Sound was recorded on their acclaimed CD Acoustica (Cantaloupe Music), premiered at Lincoln Center Festival 2005, and later choreographed by Chicago's Hubbard Street Dance Company. He has had two works released on CD by Anti-Social Music, including "Song" (ASM Sings the Great American Songbook/Peacock Recordings), and an arrangement of Bob Massey's "The Mountain" (The Nitrate Hymnal/Lujo Records). In the July/August 2006 issue of the German-Dutch Sonic magazine, he was the "Top Interview," garnering a four-page feature in which critic Ulrich Steinmetzger remarked about his "intense performances" which "left behind astounded audiences... [who] witnessed him blow raw energy from the stage like few others can." The Boston Globe has called his improvisation "dazzling;" and Time Out New York has called him a "manic sax dervish." He has also performed in a variety of jazz, rock, chamber music and other settings; he is a member of the internationally-touring punk/cabaret band World/Inferno Friendship Society, klezmer duo Bop Kaballah, and the kids-rock band Dirty Sock Funtime Band (with 4 videos out now on Nickelodeon).

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Julia Wolfe (Composer, Bang on a Can Co-Artistic Director)

Julia Wolfe's music is muscular and kinetic and experienced through the body. She creates journeys like unfolding dramatic landscapes, a music meant to be entered into by the listener. Wolfe's work is distinguished by this intense focus on sound, the power of sound, the ways in which sound is related to memory and experience, the possibilities for new harmonies between familiar chords and micro tonal tunings or sounds found in nature and the urban world. With a care and attention to detail that is both masterful and highly respectful, Wolfe's music celebrates the extraordinary qualities contained within something as specific as a gesture or an inflection. Julia Wolfe's music is heard around the world in performances at the Next Wave Festival at BAM, the Sydney Olympic Arts Festival, Settembre Musica (Italy), the Holland Festival, Theatre de la Ville (Paris), the San Francisco Symphony, and more . Upcoming works include a string quartet concerto for Kronos quartet and Orchestra, a new work for the Munich Chamber Orchestra, a new work for music with film for the Asko Ensemble, an accordian concerto commissioned by the Miller Theater. Recent collaborations include the provocative theater piece, House Arrest, with playwright and performing artist Anna Deavere Smith; The Carbon Copy Building with comic book artist Ben Katchor, the Ridge Theater Company and composers Michael Gordon and David Lang; and Lost Objects, an oratorio with Gordon, Lang, and writer Deborah Artman that will receive it's first staged production under the direction of Francois Girard at BAM's Next Wave Festival 2004. For The Carbon Copy Building, she received the 2000 Village Voice OBIE Award for Best New American Work. Wolfe received a 2001 OBIE for the music to Jennie Ritchie, a collaboration with playwright Mac Wellman and Ridge Theater. Her recent recording "Julia Wolfe - The String Quartets" was released on the Cantaloupe label. Her music has also been recorded on Teldec, Universal, Sony Classical, and Argo/Decca.

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Evan Ziporyn (Clarinet, composition)

Evan Ziporyn has toured the globe with the All-stars since 1992. He is also founder and Artistic Director of Gamelan Galak Tika, a Boston-based Balinese music and dance troupe devoted to new works by American and Balinese composers. With Galak Tika, he has presented his groundbreaking Balinese/western fusion works in venues as diverse as New York's Zankel Hall and and the Balinese International Arts Festival. He is the recipient of the 2007 USA Artists Walker Fellowship and the 2004 American Academy of Arts and Letters Goddard Lieberson Award. His music has been commissioned and performed by Yo-yo Ma's Silk Road Project, the Kronos Quartet, Wu Man, the American Composers Orchestra, the American Repertory Theater (their acclaimed 2004's "Oedipus Rex"), Maya Beiser, and the Boston Modern Orchestra Project, with whom he recorded his 2006 orchestral CD, "Frog's Eye." His works have been released on Cantaloupe, Sony Classical, New Albion, New World, Koch, Innova, and CRI; his 2001 solo clarinet CD, "This Is Not A Clarinet," made numerous Top Ten lists and was featured on All Things Considered and PRI's The World. He has also recorded for Nonesuch (including Steve Reich's New York Counterpoint and the Grammy Award winning Music for 18 Musicians), Thirsty Ear, and Point; his music provided the soundtrack for the PBS film "Tail-enders", and his playing was featured in Tan Dun's soundtrack for the film "Fallen." With the All-stars, a partial list of collaborators includes Brian Eno, Ornette Coleman, Thurston Moore, Meredith Monk, Iva Bittova, Philip Glass, Terry Riley, Don Byron, Louis Andriessen, Cecil Taylor, Henry Threadgill, Wayan Wija, Kyaw Kyaw Naing, and Pamela Z. He has also recorded with Paul Simon, Matthew Shipp, So Percussion, and Ethel. He is Kenan Sahin Distinguished Professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and has two children, Leo (14) and Ava (7). His opera, "A House in Bali," featuring the All-stars and a full Balinese gamelan, was recently premiered in Bali and Berkeley.

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Ashley Bathgate (Cello)

American cellist Ashley Bathgate was born in 1985 in Saratoga Springs, N.Y. and began cello studies at age 12. As a recitalist and chamber musician, she has appeared at the Saratoga Chamber Music Festival, Barge Music, Le Poisson Rouge, Merkin Hall, and Carnegie's Zankel Hall, to name a few. She made her official New York Debut in Carnegie's Weill Hall with noted pianist Todd Crow in 2008. Ashley has also been a featured artist on WMHT FM, WQXR FM's 'Young Artist Showcase', and NPR's 'Performance Today'. She has frequently been invited to perform as a soloist with orchestra, including appearances with the Lake Placid Sinfonietta, the Woodstock Chamber Orchestra, the Windham Chamber Players and in performances of the d'Albert and Barber cello concertos with the American Symphony Orchestra, directed by Leon Botstein. Most recently she appeared as a guest artist with the Greater Newburgh Symphony and the Yale Philharmonia. She is also a member of the internationally acclaimed new music ensemble, the Bang on a Can All Stars. Ashley was a full scholarship student at Bard college and recently received her Master's Degree and Artist Diploma from the Yale University School of Music where she studied with renowned cellist and professor, Aldo Parisot. Among her many awards are a grant from the New York Philharmonic Players Fund sponsored by Stephen and Elaine Stamas, top prizes in the Lois Lyman concerto competition ('99 & '01, an unprecedented achievement), the Hugo Kauder Memorial Strings competition in 2006 and the 2008 Yale University School of Music Woolsey Hall concerto competition. Most recently, Ashley's newly formed Lorien Trio received the Bronze Medal at the 2009 Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition.

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Vicky Chow (Piano)

Canadian pianist Vicky Chow has performed extensively as a classical and contemporary soloist, chamber musician, and ensemble member, and been hailed as 'brilliant' by the New York Times (Anthony Tommasini). She has performed at Carnegie Hall, Alice Tully Hall at Lincoln Center, The Guggenheim Museum, The Stone, Le Poisson Rouge, Chelsea Art Museum, Symphony Space, Tonhalle in Zurich, Orpheum Theatre, Roy Thomson Hall, Chan Center for the Performing Art, the Vancouver Playhouse Theatre, and has been a guest artist in the Irving S. Gilmore International Keyboard Music Festival, Golandsky Institute International Piano Festival, the f(x) New Music Marathon in Miami, Desert Chamber Music Society, Seattle Chamber Music Society, and Las Vegas Music Festival. She has received grants and support from Canada Council of the Arts, British Columbia Arts Council, and the Vancouver Foundation. Ms. Chow made her orchestral debut at the age of 10 with the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra. She has appeared since with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, the Juilliard Symphony, The Vancouver Academy Orchestra, White Rock Festival String Orchestra and the B.C. Sinfonietta. In addition to performing new music, Ms. Chow also produces and curates concert programs of new compositions by emerging composers in New York City. In 2010, she will be releasing her first solo piano album of music by composer Ryan Anthony Francis under John Zorn's label 'tzadik.' Ms. Chow is currently in the Professional Studies program at Manhattan School of Music where she completed her second master's degree in Contemporary Piano Performance studying with Christopher Oldfather. She received her Bachelor and Master of Music in Piano Performance at The Juilliard School, where she studied with Dr. Yoheved Kaplinsky and Julian Martin. Previously, she studied at the Vancouver Academy of Music with Lorraine Ambrose. Ms. Chow resides in New York City.

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Jody Elff (Sound)

Jody Elff is a sound artist living and working in Clintondale, NY. His explorations into alternative systems for the control and manipulation of sound have led to the development of an on-going series of sonic installations and sculptures. Jody's works have been shown at PS122, Dance Theater Workshop, The Kitchen, and with the Post Media Network at Moving Image Gallery in New York City. His international presentations include participation in "New York, New Sounds, New Spaces" show at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Lyon, France, and the 2003 Dublin Fringe Festival. Jody has always been fascinated with the marriage of sound and technology. As a student at Berklee College of Music, he focused on electronic music and the use of computer systems for music and sound manipulation. During his time at Berklee, he found that working as an audio engineer provided a professional resource, as well as a means to continue the exploration of sound. Since then, he has had the opportunity to work in a variety of environments, including concert broadcasts and tapings for MTV, live music broadcasts for cable and network television, and TV talk shows. In addition to his work in New York City, he has had the pleasure of working and traveling around the world with such diverse artists as Laurie Anderson, Yo Yo Ma's Silk Road Ensemble, Bang On A Can All Stars, Paul Simon, Tan Dun, Diana Krall, Paul Winter and Lou Reed, as well as many others. He is the resident Sound Designer for the National Theater of the United States of America, and with the company was awarded an Obie award for Design in 2006. His theater sound design work also includes the 2005 Los Angeles premier of the "Theater of the New Ear", featuring new work by Charlie Kaufman, music by Carter Burwell and performances by a diverse cast including Meryl Streep and Jennifer Jason Leigh.

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Jim Findlay (Design)

Jim Findlay (Design) is a member of Accinosco, a founder of the Collapsable Giraffe and has been an associate artist of the Wooster Group since 1994. He continues to collaborate with and design for a number of other companies including Ridge Theater, Bang on a Can and Riot Group. Notable awards include an Obie for the Giraffe/Radiohole space--Collapsable Hole; Bessies for the design of The Wooster Group's House/Lights and co-design of Must Don't Whip 'Um, and a Princess Grace Award.

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Ted Hearne (Composition/Conducting)

Ted Hearne is an active composer, conductor, and performer of new music in the New York and Chicago areas. He is Artistic Director of Yes is a World, a nonprofit organization working to promote peace and social change through musical diversity and the collaboration of young artists. Since their inception in January 2002, Yes is a World has produced seven performances integrating music and text from different artistic traditions, including a production of Tony Kushner's one-act play, Only We Who Guard the Mystery Shall Be Unhappy, and Kiss the Speaker Wire, an exploration of protest music from America and South Africa. Yes is a World most recently produced Body Soldiers, a concert about the ways South Africans are using choral music in the fight against HIV-AIDS. Ted's piece Katrina Ballads is the recipient of the 2009 Gaudeamus Prize. Premiered to rave reviews at the 2007 Piccolo Spoleto Festival in Charleston, South Carolina, this hour-long work is scored for 5 singers and 11 instrumentalists, and sets entirely primary-source texts from the week following Hurricane Katrina. This includes the words of Barbara Bush, Dennis Hastert, Mary Landrieu, Kanye West, Anderson Cooper, and George W. Bush's emblematic "Brownie, you're doing a heck of a job," as well as testimonies from survivors and relief workers. 2008 saw first performances of Katrina Ballads in New York and Chicago, and in May 2009, was included alongside the works of seven other composers in New York City Opera's contemporary opera series VOX 2009: Showcasing American Composers. A recording, produced by Lawson White, will be released in August 2010 on Naxos, through New Amsterdam Records, and is currently in the works as a theatrical production featuring film by Bill Morrison and scenic design by Jim Findlay. Ted was a recipient of the 2008 Charles Ives Scholarship from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. He was also chosen for participation in the 2008 Minnesota Orchestra Composer Institute, during which his work Patriot was performed on a subscription concert under the direction of Osmo Vanska. Performances in 2009 include a new commission from Chicago's Third Coast Percussion and the New York premiere of his work Cordavi and Fig by The Knights on the 2009 MATA Festival. Upcoming commissions include a trumpet concerto for Chris Coletti and the Hunstville Symphony, works for the Calder Quartet, Volti Choral Arts Laboratory, and the Yale Glee Club and Yale Symphony Orchestra. His band Your Bad Self debuted at The Stone in Septmber 2008, performed at the 2009 Bang on a Can Marathon and recently completed a tour to the Carolinas. He has worked with ICE, TACTUS, Bang on a Can, Ridge Theatre, Newspeak, New Music Collective (Charleston), J.G. Thirlwell and Peter Schreier, among others.

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Lauren Radnofsky (Cello)

Cellist Lauren Radnofsky is gaining notice as a persuasive advocate of contemporary music. She has performed at venues ranging from Carnegie Hall, the Lucerne Festival, and the Ojai Music Festival to the Bang on a Can Marathon, Joe's Pub, (Le) Poisson Rouge, Wordless Music Series, and The Stone in New York City. She has worked with a wide range of artists including Pierre Boulez, Steve Reich, Bang on a Can All-Stars, Helmut Lachenmann, Annie Gosfield, and the Ensemble Intercontemporain. Radnofsky is cellist and founding co-artistic director of the new music ensemble Signal. Signal made its first appearances in Spring 2008 at the Bang on a Can Marathon in NYC, earning praise from The New York Times for its "auspicious debut... a powerful account of Steve Reich's Daniel Variations," and at the Ojai Music Festival in California, where it was lauded for "deeply committed performances" (MusicalAmerica.com) of "gripping vehemence" (LA Times). Ms. Radnofsky holds degrees from the Walnut Hill School and The Eastman School of Music, where her principal teachers were Benjamin Zander, Pamela Frame, and Steven Doane. Lauren also attended the HFK Bremen, Germany, where she studied with Alexander Baillie.

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