Ethan Cowburn, percussion
Coming from a musical family, percussionist Ethan Cowburn (b. 2000, Liverpool, NY) has harbored a passion for music for as long as he can remember. Diagnosed with severe hearing loss at age seven, his audiologist recommended percussion as a substitute for other wind instruments. Falling in love with drumming at the age of eight, his passionate commitment to contemporary music blossomed at Ithaca College under the tutelage of Gordon Stout, Conrad Alexander and Dr. Mike Truesdell. Dr. Truesdell in particular instilled in Cowburn a mission-driven sense of advocacy for under-represented composers, a vision that underscored his 2021 junior recital featuring music exclusively by living black composers. Now an advocate for people with hearing loss, Cowburn continues to seek proper accommodations for all those with disabilities at a collegiate level, as he confronts ableism within his own life.
Recent featured solo performances include appearances on the 10th Anniversary NIU New Music Festival (Alexis Lamb’s “Post-Lightened”) and an NIU Percussion program honoring the musical legacy of percussionist and composer Christopher Deane on which he performed Deane’s “Mourning Dove Sonnet.” Cowburn has also been invited to co-direct the 11th annual NIU New Music Festival in the Fall of 2023.
Violinist Noelia Cruz is an award-winning musician and poet, a composer and artist, and a fashion designer and youth instructor whose music is the golden thread that weaves her work together. In the early 2000’s, Noelia served as first violinist for the Puerto Rico Philharmonic Orchestra, a role she held for 10 years. She has performed with renowned musicians—including Plácido Domingo, Andrea Bocelli and Marc Anthony—in the U.S. and the Caribbean. When she was 16, Roosevelt University’s College of Performing Arts awarded her its prestigious Violin Performance Scholarship, and in 2012, the School of the Art Institute of Chicago granted her its Distinguished Scholar Award. She also interned with the Performances Department at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago for two years. Her solo exhibitions have featured her artworks that incorporates gestural painting, sculpture, media, sound, composition, violin performance and poetry. Ever one to push boundaries, Noelia, a boxer, also won the 2017 Golden Gloves Boxing Championship in Chicago, despite managing chronic pain for the past 15 years. Born in Humacao, Puerto Rico, Noelia calls Chicago home. Her new projects include “Síncopas,” a verbal-core poetry book with original compositions, and “Trecena,” a media- and original-music composition series about grief.
Tyler Eschendal, composer
Tyler Eschendal is a composer and percussionist originally from the suburbs of Detroit and now resides in Los Angeles. A fascination with adapting sample-based procedures found in electronic music to acoustic instruments heavily influences his music. Fluency, malfunction, speech, and stuttering are topics at the core of his percussion-based works, which are often explored through the music video medium.
Tyler's music has been performed at institutions across the U.S. including Indiana University, George Mason University, Boston University, Manhattan School of Music and internationally at Soochow University in China. His compositions have been showcased at the Percussive Arts Society International Convention (PASIC), American Composers Orchestra (ACO), Andriessen Festival, Young Composers Meeting (NL), New Music Gathering, The Ear Classical, Nief-Norf Summer Festival, Norfolk Chamber Music Festival and has worked with such ensembles as Sō Percussion, ymusic, Shattered Glass, Grand Rapids Symphony Orchestra, orkest de ereprijs, and the Los Angeles Percussion Quartet.
Tyler holds a B.M. in music composition from the College-Conservatory of Music at the University of Cincinnati studying with Michael Fiday, and a M.M. in composition from the University of Southern California studying with Ted Hearne, Sean Friar and Don Crockett.
Tyler is an active videographer in Los Angeles and a lecturer in music technology at Chapman University.
Andres Guerra, guitar
Claudia Fuller, violin
Claudia Fuller, 29, splits their time between the UK and Germany. After an upbringing centred around the practice of classical music, they have broadened their work into contemporary music and performance art practices, finding joy engaging in a number of genres and the grey spaces between them. As a violinist, they have worked with groups varying from classical (WDR Sinfonieorchester, Philharmonia Orchestra), to the contemporary (Ensemble Musikfabrik, Shadwell Opera, Scordatura Ensemble) and everything in between. Alongside this work Claudia is also active as a conductor and performance artist, having enjoyed opportunities to develop these skills at projects such as New Music on the Point in Vermont and Time of Music Festival in Viitasaari, Finland.
DR. KATHRYN VETTER is an internationally award-winning clarinetist based in New York City. She performed at the 66th Festival Internazionale di Musica Contemporanea during La Biennale di Venezia, where she was awarded “Best Performance.” As a soloist, Kathryn won the 2018 Contemporary Performance Competition at the Cortona Sessions in Cortona, Italy and regularly performs solo recitals at the International Clarinet Association’s annual ClarinetFest. Kathryn is the founding clarinetist of Sputter Box, a clarinet, voice, percussion ensemble and Nu Quintet. Sputter Box was a 2022 recipient of the Queens Arts Fund and 2021 recipient of the Chamber Music America Ensemble Forward Grant, and they have been guest artists at the University of Florida and University of Massachusetts–Amherst. Nu has been featured in the Flute Center of New York’s Salon Series, regularly performs at Chelsea Market, and were guest artists at the University of Florida. Dr. Vetter currently teaches at Five Towns College and Mannes Prep–The New School. She completed her doctorate in clarinet performance at Stony Brook University, master’s degrees in clarinet performance and music theory at the University of Oklahoma, and bachelor’s in music education at Michigan State University. Originally from New Jersey, she now resides in Brooklyn.
Noelia Cruz, violin
Venezuelan composer, arranger and not-so-classical guitarist Andres Guerra is a New York City-based concert artist who aims to break down the stigmas of classical music and bring his multifaceted musical and artistic influences forth to shed a new light on the classical guitar. He has shared the stage and collaborated with a wide variety of artists, some of the caliber of Grammy-winning Carlos Vives, Aida Cuevas, Berta Rojas, Paquito d’ Rivera and the Simon Bolivar Symphony Orchestra of Venezuela.
He Graduated with a summa cum laude, dual-major Bachelor’s Degree in Film Scoring and Performance from the prestigious Berklee College Of Music where he studied with the world-renowned concert artist Berta Rojas. He was awarded a Tuition Scholarship by the institution itself, as well as a Gifted Tuition Scholarship by the Latin Grammy Cultural Foundation. He also was awarded the William Leavitt Achievement Award by the Guitar department at Berklee, on of the most prestigious awards the institution offers its students since its based on anonymous nominations.
With the help of another Latin Grammy Scholarship as well as a generous scholarship by the institution itself, Andres is currently enrolled at Mannes School of Music at The New School in New York where he is a candidate for the Master’s of Music in Classical Guitar Performance under the study of Dr. Joao Luiz Rezende Lopes, from the groundbreaking Brasil Guitar Duo.
Max Hammond, Piano
Max Hammond, 22, is a solo and collaborative pianist whose passion lies in new music. He has performed as a soloist with Yale Symphony Orchestra, the Pasadena Community Orchestra, with the Los Angeles Doctors Symphony Orchestra, with the SYMF Orchestra, and with the Bellflower Symphony, and alongside ensembles like Akropolis Reed Quintet and Mirror Visions Ensemble. An avid player of contemporary music, Max has premiered works by dozens of composers like Fran Trester, Carlos Simon, and Harold Meltzer. A junior at Yale College, Max currently study with Wei-Yi Yang at the Yale School of Music, Lisa Moore, and Julian Martin. At Yale, he is the managing director of the Opera Theatre of Yale College, and the co-artistic director of Yale's only new music focused chamber orchestra, YUCO. In this upcoming season, Max is slated to tour Mirror Vision Ensemble’s art song re-imagined project “Midnight Magic” in Europe and across the United States.
Noel Holloway, percussion
Ari Sussman, composer
Noel Holloway is a percussionist whose goal is to curate and perform within a diverse and accessible setting for contemporary music. The focus of their art utilizes a combination of visual and sonic arts. Trained as a classical percussionist, Noel recently graduated from the University of Miami with a master’s in performance. They are also a graduate of the Eastman School of Music where they received a certificate in arts leadership alongside their bachelor’s degree.
As a contemporary musician, Noel has premiered works by Charles Wourinen and Maria Schneider. They have also performed internationally in Italy, Taiwan, and Mexico. In 2022, Noel performed two major works that utilize an element of sonic and visual art. The first performance was of Juan Trigos’ opera, Ella-Miao, in Guadalajara as part of the 25th Annual Festival de Mayo in tandem with the puppet company La Coperacha. The second major collaboration was a curated performance alongside painter Lexi Hannah, hailed as one of Vanity Fair’s A-List Artists of 2022. In the performance, Noel played a solo percussion recital that curated various contemporary percussion and theater pieces, with the penultimate work being a solo percussion work set to a new watercolor work by Ms. Hannah.
Michelle Hromin is a Croatian-American multidisciplinary artist, specializing in contemporary
clarinet performance, writing, and curation. She uses mediums such as spoken word, electronics, and
improvisation alongside her playing to explore her identity, heritage, and human relationships.
Recent engagements include touring “A Steve Reich Celebration” with the Colin Currie Group and performing on CNN’s 4th of July Special. She has performed in venues such as Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, Iklectik, and Cafe Oto and worked with groups such as Fifth House Ensemble, Lisa Bielawa’s Broadcast from Here series, Explore Ensemble, Audentia Ensemble, and International Contemporary Ensemble. An advocate for new music, Michelle has commissioned and performed dozens of new works, including as a 2022 fellow with Bang on a Can, and is a 2023 eighth blackbird Creative Lab Fellow. Her 2021 performance project Kalendar: 12 Miniatures for 2021 with Macedonian-Canadian composer Michael Spiroff brought awareness to her Croatian heritage through improv-based clarinet works informed by the months of the Slavic calendar. The two-volume EP was self-released on Bandcamp. Michelle is the Artistic Director of standard issue, a new music collective aiming to explore the archetypal boundaries within music and its culture. She performs, curates, and commissions new works with the group to promote experimental music accessibility and inclusivity. Through her writing practice, she analyzes human connection and our creative ecosystem. She is a contributing writer with I Care If You Listen, Which Sinfonia and New Music Box.
Asuka Kakitani, composer
Anna Murray, composer
Japanese-born composer Asuka Kakitani's deep love for nature inspires her to transform her vision into musical stories. Her mostly-programmatic music results from the inspiration evoked by her surroundings interweaved with her perspectives and imagination. Kakitani's projects span jazz big bands, orchestras, chamber ensembles, soloists, and collaborations with choreographers. Kakitani was described as "[a] musical impressionist and supreme colorist" (Hot House Magazine) and her music as "the overflowing world of inspirational melody" (DownBeat Magazine) and "absolutely superb" (All About Jazz). Kakitani's 2013 debut record, Bloom, was acknowledged as one of the year's best debut albums by DownBeat Magazine Critics' Poll and NPR Music Jazz Critics' Poll. As an advocate of original music, Kakitani co-founded the Twin Cities Jazz Composers' Workshop and Inatnas Orchestra after relocating to MN in 2016. Kakitani has been the recipient of grants, fellowships, and awards, including the McKnight Composer Fellowship, the Jerome Fund for New Music Grant from the American Composers Forum, Composer Assistance Grants from the American Music Center, the BMI Charlie Parker Jazz Composition Prize, the Manny Albam Commission, Brooklyn Arts Council Grant, Minnesota State Arts Board Artist Initiative and Creative Support Grants, and was a finalist for the Jerome Hill Artist Fellowship.
Daniel Knapp, cello
Originally from Minnesota, Daniel is a Cellist and Arts Manager studying at Oberlin College and Conservatory of Music. His musical training started with renowned cellist and Alexander teacher, Käthe Jarka, and has led him to Oberlin where he currently studies with Dmitry Kouzov. Also at Oberlin, Daniel has developed his own Major in Arts Administration & Concert Design and is the Founder of The Musikos Collective, a student-led presenting organization working to expand Oberlin’s involvement in its larger community.
Daniel strives to perform and constantly explore the world of new music, collaborating frequently with composers at Oberlin, NEC, and BOCO at Berklee, as well as being a frequent member of The Cello Seminar with Rhonda Rider. Daniel has commissioned and premiered over 25 works through his own recitals and the concerts of The Musikos Collective.
While performance has given Daniel his passion for music, he also is excited to be pursuing a career in Arts Management. In his studies, he has worked alongside The Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, Pink Noise Agency, and Meadowmount School of Music to explore and learn about eclectic programming, concert production, and artistic direction.
Alexandra Koi, voice
Alex Koi is a Brooklyn-based vocalist working at the intersection of electronic, improvised, and genre-fluid mediums. She heads her eponymous project and is the vocalist and co-composer for art rock band saajtak.
She has performed with musicians, visual artists, and dancers including Shara Nova, Chris Bruce, Morley Kamen, Theo Bleckmann, Nathan Thatcher, Joo Won Park, Toshi Reagon, Nicole Mannarino and Ragnar Kjartansson. Her professional theater debut has been in the Off-Broadway and National Tour of Octavia E. Butler’s Parable of Sower, for which she plays the combined role of Tracy Dunn/Jillian Gilchrist.
She has performed at venues such as the Guggenheim Museum, Joe’s Pub, Museum of Contemporary Arts Detroit, Detroit Symphony Orchestra, Toronto Jazz Festival, Detroit Institute of Arts, and more. As a Guest Artist, she's worked with hundreds of students through the University Musical Society and at various colleges such as Carnegie Mellon University’s Ideate Program, Hobart and William Smith Colleges, the University of Mary Washington, and the University of Michigan’s Performing Arts Technology Program. Saajtak’s debut album, For The Makers, was released in June 2022 via Chicago-based American Dreams Records and she serves as a resident demo-maker for Red Panda Lab guitar pedals.
Wenbin Lyu, composer
Sophie Mathieu, composer
Christian Quiñones is a Puerto Rican composer who explores personal and vulnerable stories through the lens of cultural identity. From sampling to auto-tune, and to body percussion, Christian is interested in interacting with existing music to create intertextual narratives.
Recently Christian was selected as a composer in residence at the Copland House, and as a fellow for the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra Workshop, Cabrillo Festival, and the Bang on a Can Summer Festival. In 2020 he was selected for the Earshot Underwood Orchestra Readings where he worked with the American Composers Orchestra.
He has received commissions from the New York Youth Symphony, Albany Symphony’s Dogs of Desire, Transient Canvas, the icarus Quartet, the Bergamot String Quartet, Chromic Duo, and the Victory Players where Christian was the 2018-2019 composer in residence.
His music has been performed by Dal Niente, Hub New Music, Charlotte Mundy, Yarn-Wire, Loadbang, Unheard-of Ensemble, Victory Players, the American Composers Orchestra, and René Izquierdo.
Christian graduated from the Conservatorio de Música de Puerto Rico (B.M.) and the University of Illinois (M.M), where he was the recipient of the Graduate College Master’s Fellowship. Currently, Christian is a Ph.D. President’s fellow at Princeton University.
Eliza Shephard, flute
Michelle Hromin, clarinet
Sophie Mathieu is a composer and cellist based in Austin, TX, currently pursuing a masters degree in composition at the University of Texas. Sophie’s work is ethereal and textural, exploring the concepts of vastness and timelessness, as well as the intersection of beauty and danger in the natural world. Sophie has collaborated with ensembles including yMusic, line upon line percussion, and andPlay, and she recently earned an honorable mention from the ASCAP Morton Gould program for her orchestra piece, moons. As a cellist, Sophie is passionate about bringing the works of living composers to the forefront, appearing regularly with the UT Austin New Music Ensemble, Density512, and Less Than 10. Sophie also plays viola da gamba with UT Austin’s Early Music Ensemble and plays cello in Middle Sattre, an Austin-based folk band. Outside of music, Sophie enjoys cooking plant-based food, playing Sid Meier’s Civilization V, and watching horror films.
Anna Murray is a mixed-media composer and artist from Ireland. She has an interest in language and text-based composition, the creation of sound spaces, as well as graphic combined with live electronics. Her work revolves around an examination of music and meaning, particularly focussed on a study of Japanese Noh theatre. In 2019 she was awarded the Japanese Government MEXT Scholarship to attend Tokyo University of the Arts as a research student, studying Noh with Takeda Takashi 2019-2021.
Graphic scoring is a core part of Murray’s work, and she is a regular performer of live improvised electronics. She has released four albums of electronic music, and an album of field recordings with interventions, City Shadows, on Café OTO’s Takuroku label. She curates and hosts the experimental music concert series and CAMP.fr radio show, Kontakt.
Recent works and releases include: ‘Aioi’ for Quiet Music Ensemble; ‘The moon sets and birds cry / 月は落ち、鳥が鳴いて’, an album of improvisatory piano/electronics reflections inspired by Noh; ‘Crosstalk’, created for Crash Ensemble; ‘my little Force explodes’ (commissioned by Ergodos and performed by Michelle O’Rourke and Lina Andonovska), based on the ‘envelope poems’ of Emily Dickinson; and music for three productions with Yokohama Theatre Group.
Christian Quiñones, composer
Winner of the ABC Young Performers Award, Eliza Shephard is a vibrant performer based in Melbourne and is quickly paving her way as an educator, improviser, and collaborator. Her project ‘March of the Women’ celebrates female composers and 2023 is the fourth rendition of this honouring. A fervent contemporary musician, Eliza has established a course on experimental flute techniques, ‘The Extended Flute’, and is a specialist on the Glissando Headjoint. Her talents as a flute player and creative artist earned her the position of a finalist in the Classical Freedman Fellowship in 2021, and she has received many accolades for the boldness and imagination she brings to her projects.
Kathryn Sloat, harp
Kathryn Sloat, “whose harp playing evokes the angels (Brooklyn Discovery),” is a contemporary harpist and improvising musician. She is a member of harp duo Lilac 94 with whom she recently won third prize in the International Harp Contest in Italy. Kathryn has played in pit orchestras for Off-Broadway and regional theater productions including Once Upon a Mattress and The Beast in the Jungle, as well as Radio City’s Christmas Spectacular. In 2021 she was awarded an artist residency with Stonehenge NYC in which she gave performances and created music through improvisation and sound collage. In addition to her performance work, Kathryn is a dedicated harp teacher. She has taught individual and group lessons as a faculty member at the Diller-Quaile School of Music for five years. She has also taught harp at the Connecticut Valley Harp Intensive, Luzerne Music Center, and Blue Lake Fine Arts summer camps. Kathryn has given educational performances and workshops as a soloist as well as a member of Lilac 94. In her free time she enjoys knitting, reading, and walking up and down mountains. She lives in New York City with a cat named Wolfgang and a growing collection of plants.
Praised for his work that “weave(s) a trance-like mystical aura” (Zamir Chorale), Ari Sussmanis a Philadelphia based pianist, clawhammer banjoist, and composer of vocal, chamber, orchestral, choral, and electronic music. Kabbalah, the natural world, cosmology, meditation, metaphysics, ancient and contemporary poetry, the human condition, and Interactionism are among Sussman's non-musical influences and interests. As a result, Sussman's music illustrates equivocal worlds of sounds that are ambient, euphonious, and ethereal in nature.
Sussman has won a “First Music” commission from the New York Youth Symphony, an ASCAPMorton Gould Young Composers Award, a BMI Student Composer Award, and the Leonard BernsteinFellowship in composition from the Tanglewood Music Center.
Sussman holds degrees from the New England Conservatory of Music and the University of Michigan. His primary musical mentors include Michael Gandolfi, Kati Agócs, Evan Chambers, and Kristin Kuster. Sussman is currently an Adjunct Professor of Music Theory and Composition at Temple University and the West Chester University of Pennsylvania.
Sussman enjoys long walks, playing basketball, drinking tea, Curb Your Enthusiasm, mancala, cheesecake, and avidly rooting for Philadelphian and University of Michigan sports teams. Sussman is a member of BMI and the Landscape Music Composers Network.
