Within my Soul

Jessica Bowers

Jessica Bowers has performed with Utah Opera, Anchorage Opera, Opera Boston, Central City Opera, and Ohio Light Opera. Roles include Rosina in The Barber of Seville, Hansel in Hansel and Gretel, The Mother Abbess in The Sound of Music, Nicklausse in The Tales of Hoffmann, and The Queen in John Harbison’s A Full Moon in March. Recently she has performed with Cygnus Ensemble, Taconic Music, Poetica Musica, L’Artiste Ordinaire, Dali Quartet, Composers Concordance, and Satori Ensemble. Most frequently, she plays with guitarist Oren Fader as The Bowers Fader Duo, which produces the annual concert series “New American Art Songs for Mezzo and Guitar,” performed three times each year in New York City. Their debut album, Between Us All, was recently released on the Naxos label through New Focus Recordings. For more information, please visit www.jessicabowers.net

Marilyn Nonken

Marilyn Nonken his recognized as “one of the greatest interpreters of new music” (American Record Guide). Her nearly 30 releases include Tristan Murail: Complete Piano Music, Voix Voilées: Spectral Music for Piano, and Morton Feldman: Triadic Memories. She records for Metier, New World, Mode, Lovely Music, Albany, Divine Art, Hanging Bell, Harrison House, Innova, CRI, BMOP Sound, New Focus, Kairos, Ravello, Tzadik, and Bridge. Composers who have written for her include Richard Carrick, Jason Eckardt, Michael Finnissy, Michael Kuehn, Tristan Murail, Christopher Trapani, and Nina C. Young. She is also known for her writings on music, which include The Spectral Piano: From Liszt, Scriabin and Debussy to the Digital Age (Cambridge, 2014) and Identity and Diversity in New Music: The New Complexities (Routledge, 2019). A graduate of the Eastman School, where she studied with David Burge, she received her Ph.D. from Columbia University. Now Associate Professor of Music at New York University, Nonken is a Steinway Artist. www.marilynnonken.com

Toshihiro Sakuma

Born in the Miyagi prefecture in Japan in 1957, Toshihiro Sakuma completed graduate school at the Tokyo University of the Arts, receiving his M.F.A. in 1982.

Sakuma started a quiet installation art series called “healing” in 1993. He regarded exquisitely dimmed light bulbs’ ON/OFF as the ON/OFF of life. He placed them in items used in daily living such as old furniture, futons, family trees, and vinyl houses, meant to remind viewers of the chain and disconnection of life.

Gregory Beyer

Gregory Beyer: Fulbright Scholar, composer, educator, and “prodigiously talented percussionist” (Chicago Classical Review), Gregory Beyer is a contemporary music specialist who blends the disciplines of orchestral, jazz, and world music into a singular artistic voice. He is Artistic Director of Arcomusical, an organization dedicated to the Afro-Brazilian berimbau. Arcomusical released its first album, MeiaMeia, in 2016 on Innova Recordings and has subsequently appeared on WNYC, WBEZ, and NPR’s Weekend Edition Sunday. Arcomusical received a 2016 Chamber Music America Classical Commissioning Grant to create the 20-minute, four-movement “Roda” with composer Elliot Cole. “Roda” has received over two dozen performances and most recently was performed as a concerto with the Arizona State University Symphony Orchestra as “Roda Grande.” In March 2019 on National Sawdust Tracks, Arcomusical released its second album, Spinning in the Wheel.

The University Of Illinois Chamber Singers

The University Of Illinois Chamber Singers is the premiere choral ensemble at the University, comprised of experienced and outstanding singers from across the entire student body. The ensemble, conducted by Dr. Andrew Megill, explores a broad range of choral music, from Medieval chant to newly commissioned works, while demonstrating the highest level of musical excellence. Performances in past seasons have included collaborations with Bang on a Can All Stars, Venice Baroque Orchestra, Champaign Urbana Symphony Orchestra, Urbana 415, and a performance tour of Vienna and Budapest with the Anton Webern Chor of the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna. The Chamber Singers share a passion for enriching the lives of their audiences and the University community, regularly reaching out to connect with public school programs and concert series across the state.

Andrew Megill

Andrew Megill is recognized as one of the leading choral conductors of his generation. He currently teaches at the University of Illinois (Urbana-Champaign) and conducts three of North America’s finest professional vocal ensembles: the Montreal Symphony Orchestra Chorus, the Carmel Bach Festival Chorale, and Fuma Sacra. His performances have been praised for their “power, subtlety, and nuance” and “profound spirituality” (Le Devoir, Montreal), and have been described as “piercing the heart like a frozen knife” (Monterey Herald) and “leaving the audience gasping in amazement” (Classical NJ).

William Moersch

William Moersch is Professor and Chair of Percussion at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Internationally renowned as a marimba virtuoso, chamber and symphonic percussionist, recording artist, and educator, he has appeared as soloist with orchestras and in recital throughout North and South America, Europe, the Far East, and Australia. A regularly featured artist at international percussion festivals, Moersch has performed on more than 70 recordings and is perhaps best known for commissioning much of the prominent modern repertoire for marimba. He has been honored by National Endowment for the Arts Recording and Consortium Commissioning grants and was the first marimbist to receive an N.E.A. Solo Recitalist Fellowship. Currently, he is Principal Timpanist of Sinfonia da Camera and the Champaign-Urbana Symphony Orchestra, Artistic Director of New Music Marimba, and an Artist Endorser for Pearl / Adams Percussion, SABIAN cymbals, Grover Pro Percussion, and Innovative Percussion mallets.