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NotaRiotous Musicians |
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A strong advocate for new music, Jennifer has participated in countless premieres and recordings for composers active in the Boston area and beyond. At New England Conservatory she studied with Mark St Laurent and Lucy Shelton, receiving the Doctor of Musical Arts in Vocal Performance in May 2006. She also holds the Master of Music in Vocal Pedagogy from NEC. She received the Bachelor of Music from the Hartt School of Music in Voice Performance and Music Education. A current lecturer at College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, MA, Jennifer has also taught at NEC. A frequent performer of chamber music, she is a member of the flute and soprano duo Prana with Alicia DiDonato. She performs regularly with the Callithumpian Consort led by Steven Drury. Recent performances include two premieres with the Firebird Ensemble at NEC's Jordan Hall, and the Fromm Festival at Harvard. Upcoming projects include the performance of a new opera by Eric Chasalow at the Boston Cyber Arts Festival.
Recognized as a risk taker and cited for an "ideal combination of all-stops-out abandon and sure-footed technical control" by 21st Century Music, she is a grant recipient of the Yvar Mikhashoff Trust for New Music and top prizewinner of the International Gaudeamus Competition 2001. Sarah is also a recipient of the St. Botolph Club Foundation's 2005 Grant-in-Aid Award, an honor that recognizes the quality of her work and artistic merit, and is a consistent recipient of the Aaron Copland Fund for Music Supplemental Program on behalf of the New Gallery Concert Series. Sarah has performed in venues around the world, from Holland's De Doelen to New York City's Carnegie Hall, and her 2006-07 season includes performances at Lincoln Center's Alice Tully Hall in New York City, the National Gallery of Art in Washington D.C. and the Chan Centre of Performing Arts in Vancouver, B.C. Sarah graduated with honors from the University of Michigan School of Music and soon after received her masters degree from the New England Conservatory under the tutelage of Stephen Drury. She can be heard playing the music of Lee Hyla on the Tzadik label, Curtis K. Hughes on Cauchemar Records and collaborations with the Boston Modern Orchestra Project on New World and Oxingale Records. For more information, please go to www.sarahbob.net.
As a cancer survivor, Gabriela is committed to cancer research and treatment. She has lent her talents to a wide range of related programs and organizations, including the American Cancer Society, the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society, Hasbro Children's Hospital, Beth Israel Hospital and Mount Auburn Hospital, The Race for the Cure, OnCare, Inc., the Columbus Medical Center, and the Egleston Children's Hospital at Emory University in Atlanta. Last year Gabriela was a recipient of a grant from the Albert Schweitzer Foundation. This grant enabled her to begin organizing a series of chamber music concerts in cancer units at various hospitals in Boston called the Boston Hope Ensemble. In addition to these hospital concerts, Gabriela organized two benefit concerts for cancer research organizations. Gabriela has attended the Aspen Music Festival, the Sarasota Music Festival, and has performed at the Kingston Chamber Music Festival, the Rockport Chamber Music Festival, Vail Valley Bravo Music Festival, and the Lucerne Festival Academy, among others. Devoted to contemporary music, she has been fortunate to work with many significant living composers, namely Pierre Boulez, Magnus Lindberg, Frederic Rzewski, Alvin Lucier, John Zorn, Osvaldo Golijov, Michael Gandolfi, Lee Hyla, and Helmut Lachenmann. In 2003 she won the BMOP/NEC concerto competition, playing John Zorn's Contes des Fees with the Boston Modern Orchestra Project. Gabriela became the youngest person to ever record the Ligeti Violin Concerto, recorded for Mode Records with New England Conservatory's Contemporary Ensemble (not yet released). She received her Bachelor's degree from the New England Conservatory of Music, studying with James Buswell. At graduation, she was awarded the John Cage Award for her contribution to new music, and the Chadwick Medal, the highest award bestowed on undergraduates at NEC. She has currently completed her second year of Master's study at NEC.
Avery began his vocal studies with Peter Elvins at the age of thirteen in his home town of Belmont, MA. During his middle and high school years, he toured London, Paris, Italy, Austria, the Czech Republic, and Cuba with the New England Conservatory Youth Chorale and participated in District, All-State, and All-Eastern choral ensembles. Avery continued his voice studies at the undergraduate level at Boston University's College of Fine Arts, where he studied with Phyllis Hoffman. While a sophomore at BU, he received first place in Division 2 of the National Association of Teachers of Singing Boston chapter competition. He received the Harold Zulallian Jr. scholarship awarded to a junior for distinction in performance and academic achievement, and was one of two seniors selected to present the annual Ellalou Dimmock honors recital. Avery was a member of both the BU symphonic and Chamber choirs under the direction of Ann Howard Jones. While in these ensembles, he was featured in quartets and solos in works such as the Magnificat of Heinrich Schütz, Haydn's Paukenmesse, Debussy's Trois Chansons, and Handel's Messiah. He was also one of eight choral scholars at Boston University's Marsh Chapel Choir under the direction of Scott Allen Jarrett. Avery is actively committed to the performance of new music. As a member of Time's Arrow, one of BU's student new music ensembles, he performed works by Dominick Argento, Wolfgang Rihm, Martin Amlin and James Radford. His work with NotaRiotous includes the world premieres of James Bergin's Kyrie and Ezra Sims' Im Mirabell . His senior recital at BU featured the world premiere of Vartan Aghababian's A Legende of Echoes . As a member of Kantorei, Avery was involved in the world premiere recording of John Magnusson's Psalm in February of this year.
Ms. Lieurance holds a Master's degree in Piano Performance from the New England Conservatory and Bachelor's degrees in Oboe and Piano Performance from Western Michigan University. She also studied for two years at the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki, Finland under a fellowship from the Paloheimo Foundation. Her teachers have included Silvia Roederer, Margit Rahkonen, and Gabriel Chodos.
His performances have taken him to distinguished concert venues throughout the United States and Europe, including Vienna's Musikverein, Moscow's Tchaikovsky Philharmonie Hall, New York City's Carnegie Hall, Merkin Hall, Metropolitan Opera and Miller Theatre, Boston's Jordan and Symphony Halls, St. Louis' Sheldon Concert Hall, Festival Casals de Puerto Rico and the Aspen Music Festival. Recent seasons have included world premieres of works written for him by Michael Finnissy, Chris Dench and Pozzi Escot, domestic and international recital tours, radio appearances on Boston's WGBH, recordings for the Mode, Gasparo, Canteloupe and Cauchemar labels and performances with leading contemporary music groups, including Klangforum Wien, Boston Modern Orchestra Project, Columbia Sinfonietta, Fromm Players at Harvard, Boston Musica Viva, Callithumpian Consort, Ensemble 21 and Pittsburgh New Music Ensemble. He has also given a series of East Coast recitals with pianist Marilyn Nonken, recitals on the West Coast with pianist Tyson Deaton, with the composer, a Boston performance of the music of Magnus Lindberg and a performance of Mozart's Clarinet Concerto with the Kalistos Chamber Orchestra, in honor of the 250 th anniversary of the composer's birth. A dedicated and persuasive champion of the music of our own time, Mr. Norsworthy has given premieres of over 80 works in collaboration with composers Harrison Birtwistle, Elliott Carter, Chris Dench, Pozzi Escot, Brian Ferneyhough, Michael Finnissy, Lukas Foss, Hans Werner Henze, Magnus Lindberg, Ralph Shapey and Marc Anthony Turnage, among many others. As soloist, he has performed an extensive repertoire of concerti, ranging from Mozart to Ferneyhough, with the Aspen Contemporary Ensemble, Callithumpian Consort, NEC Contemporary Ensemble, Pottstown Symphony, Soria Chamber Players, Southern Illinois Symphony and Symphony Pro Musica, while audiences have heard his numerous recitals in Boston, Cambridge, Chicago and St. Louis. He has also collaborated with Tony Arnold, Patrick Demenga, Stephen Drury, Aleck Karis, John Zorn, the Borromeo String Quartet, Orpheus Chamber Orchestra and the Boston Modern Orchestra Project. Conductors he has worked with include Boulez, DePriest, Knussen, Levine, Muti, Robertson, Ozawa, Tilson Thomas and many others. Mr. Norsworthy is the recipient of numerous awards and distinctions, among them: The John Cage Award, Borromeo String Quartet Guest Artist Award and Southern Illinois University's Chancellor's Research and Creativity Award, grants from the Yvar Mikahashoff Trust for New Music, St. Louis Artist Presentation Society and St. Botolph Club Foundation, as well as a fellowship from the Aspen Music Festival. He holds advanced degrees from New England Conservatory and Southern Illinois University at Carbondale, and has attended Michigan State University. His teachers included Elsa Ludewig-Verdehr, Eric Mandat, Kalmen Opperman and Richard Stoltzman. Beginning with the 2005-2006 season, he is artist in residence at Harvard University with the Harvard Group for New Music; in the fall of 2006, he began service on the faculties of both The Boston Conservatory and Columbia University. He also maintains a respected private studio for advanced students in the Boston area. Mr. Norsworthy plays on Buffet Clarinets and mouthpieces by Kalmen Opperman. He is a performing artist for Buffet Crampon, the Parisian firm that is the world's oldest and most distinguished clarinet maker. For more information, please visit: www.michaelnorsworthy.com.
Ms Richman has received particular praise for her interpretations of new music and has collaborated closely with a wide range of composers, including John Luther Adams, Pierre Boulez, George Crumb, Brian Ferneyhough, Sofia Gubaidulina, Lee Hyla, David Lang, Alvin Lucier, Jeffrey Mumford, Matthias Pintscher, Bernard Rands, Augusta Read Thomas, Ken Ueno, Christian Wolff, and Hillary Zipper. In 2002, she and percussionist Timothy Feeney gave the fully-staged American premiere of Luciano Berio's Naturale on the International Contemporary Ensemble's all-Berio concert at Theater Building Chicago. Ms. Richman can be heard on Albany Records, AURec, Between the Lines, Bloodshot Records, Mode Records, and NAXOS. Ms Richman has appeared at such summer festivals as Aspen, Bravo!, Norfolk, San Juan, and Yellow Barn. In the summers of 2005 and 2006 she worked with Pierre Boulez and the Ensemble Intercontemporain at the Lucerne Festival Academy, focusing on 20 th - and 21 st -century repertoire. A graduate of the Oberlin Conservatory, where she studied viola with Jeffrey Irvine and Peter Slowik and voice with Marlene Rosen, Ms Richman received her master's degree from the New England Conservatory of Music, under the guidance of Kim Kashkashian and Carol Rodland. She has been recognized in the Primrose, American String Teachers Association, Chicago Viola Society, Civic Music of Milwaukee and Ruggeri competitions. She currently resides in Boston and serves as assistant principal viola with the Portland (Maine) Symphony Orchestra. In Boston, she performs with the Radius Ensemble, Boston Modern Orchestra Project and the Callithumpian Consort. She also teaches violin and viola privately, at St. George's School in Newport, RI, and at the University of Massachusetts-Dartmouth. Ms Richman is a founding member of the International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE), who perform regularly in New York and Chicago and are Artists-in-Residence at Columbia College in Chicago. ICE is a collective of young performers and composers committed to bringing contemporary classical music to a wider audience (www.iceorg.org).
A strong advocate and performer of new music, he has performed with such ensembles as Phantom Arts Ensemble for American Music, Dinosaur Annex, Collage New Music, Boston Modern Orchestra Project, Music on the Edge, AUROS Group for New Music, Firebird Ensemble, the Cleveland Chamber Symphony, Stony Brook Contemporary Chamber Players, and the Fromm Foundation Players at Harvard. He is a founding member of Furious Band, an ensemble devoted to the exploration and performance of works by young composers. Furious Band was the 2000 contemporary ensemble in residence at the Aspen Summer Music Festival. Mr. Russell has premiered numerous works by living composers such as Eric Moe, Tamar Diesendruck, Andrew Rindfleisch, John Fitz Rogers, Laurie San Martin, Edward Cohen, Eleanor Cory, Kurt Rohde, Allen Anderson, Roger Zahab, Roshanne Etezady, Jerome Miskell, Alton Clingan, Edwin London, Shi-Hui Chen and Francis Thorne. Recent projects include the premiere of Ricardo Zohn-Muldoon's chamber opera Comala at the Bellas Artes in Mexico City, performances at Miller Theater at Columbia University, the American Academy in Rome and the Rotterdam Conservatory, U.S. premieres of works for solo cello by Harold Meltzer and Judith Weir, recordings of new works by Eric Moe, Eric Chasalow, Laurie San Martin, Allen Anderson and Edward Knight, masterclasses at the University of California-Davis, the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and the University of Alaska-Fairbanks and residencies at the University of South Carolina-Columbia and Tufts University. He teaches at the Cello Seminar, a summer program for study of contemporary cello music associated with Music from Salem and developed by Rhonda Rider. Mr. Russell frequently tours with recitals of new works for solo cello and has recently appeared at the Boston Conservatory, the University of Pittsburgh, the University of California-Davis, the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, Millikin University, the College of Wooster and Mount Union College. His playing can be heard on the Albany Records, New World Records and Composers Recordings labels. He obtained his D.M.A. in 'cello performance at the State University of New York at Stony Brook, studying with Timothy Eddy, and holds degrees from the Eastman School of Music, the University of Akron and Brandeis University. His previous teachers have included Steven Doane, Michael Haber and Rhonda Rider.
Named the Baltimore CITYPAPER's Critic's Choice for Classical Music in 2002 for his evocative and engaging performances of music by Luciano Berio and Karlheinz Stockhausen, Mr. Sacawa has premiered over forty new works for saxophone by both established and emerging composers, including Philip Glass, Michael Gordon, Bright Sheng, Jo Kondo, Oliver Schneller, Beata Moon, Ken Ueno, Hillary Zipper, Keeril Makan, and David T. Little, among many others. Sacawa's commitment to expanding and developing the instrument's repertoire also impacts his desire for new music to reach and connect with new audiences, which is reflected in his efforts to reinterpret the traditional concert format. Mr. Sacawa's versatile career has led to appearances with the St. Petersburg (Russia) Philharmonic, the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, New World Symphony, Other Minds BRINK Series, Bargemusic, Harvard Group for New Music, New Music Brandeis, and at important musical venues across the United States, including Carnegie Hall's Weill Recital Hall, Merkin Concert Hall, the Krannert Center for the Performing Arts, and Columbia University's Miller Theater. He has performed under the baton of internationally acclaimed conductors Leonard Slatkin, Yuri Temirkanov, James Conlon, and Neeme Järvi and with performances broadcast nationwide on National Public Radio. His festival credits include performances at recent meetings of the Berkeley Edge Festival, SEAMUS National Conference, the ISU Contemporary Music Festival, World Saxophone Congress, North American Saxophone Alliance, and New England Saxophone Symposium. In addition, Mr. Sacawa has lectured at the Manhattan School of Music, New York University, the University of Michigan, and Indiana State University. With percussionist Timothy Feeney, Mr. Sacawa is the co-founder of the new music duo Non-Zero. In only its first season, Non-Zero has amassed a heady list of credentials, including ten world premieres, performances in New York City, Boston, Michigan, and New Hampshire, and a residency at New York University as part of NYU's First Performance concert series. Mr. Sacawa holds degrees from the University of Michigan, the Peabody Conservatory, and the University of Massachusetts – Amherst, where he studied with Donald Sinta, Gary Louie, and Lynn Klock. He has recorded for the Innova, Equilibrium, NAXOS, and BiBimBop record labels. Mr. Sacawa has served on the faculty at the University of Arizona and currently teaches at the University of Maryland Baltimore County.
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Described as "the kind of vocal velvet you don't often hear in contemporary music" displaying "rock solid technique" (Boston Phoenix), Jennifer Ashe, soprano , has been hailed by the Boston Globe as giving a performance that was "pure bravura...riveting the audience with a radiant and opulent voice" for her 
Director James Bergin. 
Hailed as "sumptuous and eloquent" by the Boston Globe, pianist Sarah Bob is an active soloist and chamber musician noted for her colorful playing and diverse programming. A strong advocate for new music and considered a "trailblazer when it comes to championing the works of modern composers and combining art media in the process..." (Northeast Performer) , she is also the founding director of the New Gallery Concert Series, a series devoted to commissioning and uniting new music and contemporary visual art with their creators. She is an original member of many ensembles including her piano/percussion group, Primary Duo, the 20th and 21st century focused Firebird Ensemble, and Radius Ensemble, a fresh and creative chamber music collective that presents both the traditional and cutting edge. 
Violinist Gabriela Diaz , a native of Georgia, began her musical training at the age of five, studying piano with her mother, and the next year, violin with her father. Shortly before her sixteenth birthday, she was diagnosed with Hodgkin's Disease, a type of lymphatic cancer. She was treated with chemotherapy and radiation at Egleston Children's Hospital in Atlanta and the Medical Center in Columbus. 
Flutist Alicia DiDonato gives a "drop-dead performance," according to the Boston Globe; the New York Times calls her rendering of Boulez "beautiful." Known for her versatility, vibrancy, and exuberantly fluent playing, Ms DiDonato enjoys a varied career as a solo, chamber, and orchestral musician. She is consistently praised for her distinctive takes on modern classics and her command of extended technique. 
Percussionist Tim Feeney seeks to explore and examine the timbral possibilities inherent in everyday found and built objects. He treats his percussion setup as a friction instrument, using bows, scrapers, and rosined drumheads to capture and amplify frequencies that go unheard when an object is struck with a traditional mallet. He supplements this acoustic console with an electronic instrument, arranged from no-input mixers, contact microphones, and effects pedals, that synthesizes and alters the spectral characteristics of low-fidelity sine tones, feedback, and noise. 
Baritone Avery Griffin is currently pursuing a master's degree in vocal performance/pedagogy at Westminster Choir College in Princeton, NJ, where he studies privately with Elem Eley and is a member of both the Westminster Choir, run by Dr. Joe Miller, and Kantorei, a chamber ensemble dedicated to the performance of early and modern choral music directed by Dr. Andrew Megill. In addition to his studies, Avery is also an active church musician, singing with Trinity Church, Princeton, under Tom Whittemore and the St. Thomas men and boys choir on 5 th avenue in Manhattan, under John Scott. 
An acclaimed soloist and widely sought-after chamber music collaborator, clarinetist Michael Norsworthy has emerged as one of the most gifted artists of his generation. 
Hailed by The Washington Post for her “fresh and idiomatic” performances with “a brawny vitality,” violist Wendy Richman has appeared as a soloist and chamber musician across the U.S. and Europe. She has performed at venues from American Repertory Theatre to Miller Theatre, MassMoCA to the Phillips Collection, and Symphony Space to the Gewandhaus. Recent and upcoming appearances include Boston's Jordan Hall, Oberlin Conservatory of Music, the American Academy in Rome, Longy School of Music, St. Paul's Chapel and Merkin Concert Hall in New York City, and the Lucerne and Edinburgh Festivals. Ms Richman appeared on WCRB-Boston's Tuesdays at Noon series, and she has also been heard on WGBH-Boston, WFMT-Chicago, WQXR-New York, and WETA-Washington, D.C. Since 2005, she has been a member of White Rabbit, Artists-in-Residence with the Harvard Group for New Music at Harvard University. 
Cellist David Russell maintains a vigorous performance schedule both as soloist and as collaborator in the U.S. and Europe. He was appointed to the position of Assistant Principal 'cello with the Tulsa Philharmonic in 2000 and served on the teaching faculty of Oklahoma City University from 2001 to 2003. He has been on the faculty of Wellesley College. As a member of the Grammy-nominated Eaken Trio, formerly in residence at Dickinson College, Carlisle, PA, he has toured extensively in France, Germany, Italy and England. He is busy performer in the Boston area, serving as Principal Cello of Opera Boston, the Hingham Symphony, and making regular appearances with such ensembles as Pro Arte Chamber Orchestra of Boston, the New England String Ensemble, Cantata Singers and Ensemble and Emmanuel Music. 
Praised by The New York Times as "an inventive musician," "fresh and surprising," and "vividly lyrical," saxophonist Brian Sacawa (born 1977) has firmly established himself as an important contemporary voice for his instrument. He is the saxophonist on the Grammy-winning album Songs of Innocence and Experience , becoming one of only a handful of concert saxophonists to have ever received the accolade. A winner of awards for solo performance from both national and international competitions, his sensitivity and finesse, virtuosic flair, and cutting edge technical mastery have led to characterizations of his playing as "consistently intense and energetic . . . just sensational" ( Sequenza21 ). 
Bulgarian violinist Biliana Voutchkova has concertized for a worldwide audience as a recitalist, chamber musician and soloist with orchestras such as the Munich Chamber Orchestra, the New England String Ensemble, the Tokyo Metropolitan Orchestra, and the Bulgarian National Radio Symphony Orchestra. Her performances have taken her to some of the world's most celebrated concert venues, including Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall in New York, Jordan Hall in Boston, Suntory and Casals Halls in Tokyo, Symphony Hall in Osaka, National Concert Hall in Taipei, as well as Manuel de Falla Auditorium in Granada.