Artists

Christopher Biggs is a composer and multimedia artist residing in Kalamazoo, MI, where he is Associate Professor of Music Composition and Technology at Western Michigan University. Biggs’ recent projects focus on integrating live instrumental performance with interactive audiovisual media. His compositions reflect on extramusical concepts, including climate change, physics, philosophy, and politics. Biggs is a co-founder and the director of SPLICE Institute, a weeklong intensive summer program for performers and composers to experience, explore, create, discuss, and learn techniques related to the creation and presentation of music for instruments and electronics.

Born in Moss Point, Mississippi, on July 9, 1953, Steve Rouse has composed and performed music since childhood. Growing up on the Gulf Coast of Mississippi, his musical experiences and influences were wildly diverse. In addition to hearing the varieties of indigenous folk music of the area, his performing experiences included choirs, R&B, jazz, and rock bands (keyboards and woodwinds), and symphonic bands and orchestras (bassoon). In addition to formal training on piano, bassoon, and saxophone, he taught himself rudimentary to intermediate skills on many other instruments.

The music of Phillip Schroeder (b. 1956, Rancho Cordova CA) for soloists, chamber ensembles, live electronics, orchestra, band, and choir has been described by critics as "wonderfully evocative," "ethereal," "rich in subtle detail," and "full of elegant nuance." He has appeared as a guest composer, lecturer, and performer at venues throughout the United States and Europe and has been very active and dedicated New Music advocate as performer, producer, and festival/conference host.

Brian Belet lives in northwestern Oregon (USA) with his partner and wife Marianne Bickett. His music is recorded on audio CDs published by Capstone, Centaur, Frog Peak Music, IMG Media, Innova, New Ariel Recordings, PARMA Recordings (Navona and Ravello imprints), SWR Music/Hänssler Classic, and the University of Illinois labels; with research published in Contemporary Music Review, Organised Sound, Perspectives of New Music, Proceedings of the International Computer Music Conference, and Proceedings of the International Web Audio Conference. Dr. Belet retired from San Jose State University as Emeritus Professor of Music in 2020.

Composer, saxophonist, and educator Demetrius Spaneas has been a featured soloist and composer at major concert venues and international festivals in the U.S., Eastern Europe, and Asia. He was formerly Composer-In-Residence for both the New York City Con Edison and the Bay Area Chamber Symphony Orchestra in San Francisco, California.

Beth Mehocic (USA), composer, poet, visual artist, filmmaker and author received her B.M. in music composition from the Dana School of Music, Youngstown State University and her M.M. and Ph.D. in music composition from Michigan State University, East Lansing.  She is currently the Composer-in-Residence, Music Director and Full Professor for the Department of Dance at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.

Stephen Ruppenthal San Francisco Bay Area Composer/performer Stephen Ruppenthal is co-Principal trumpet and Contemporary Music Advisor for Redwood Symphony. He studied trumpet with Chris Bogios of the San Francisco Symphony and Opera. Ruppenthal holds a Performance Degree and a Master of Arts Degree in Contemporary Musicology from San Jose State University, studying composition and electro-acoustics with Allen Strange and ethnomusicology with Lou Harrison.

Leonard Lehrman (b. 1949) (ASCAP, GEMA), former Critic-at-Large of The New Music Connoisseur, Associate Editor of Opera Monthly, Editor of Opera Today, and Assistant Chorus Master of the Metropolitan Opera, founded the Jewish Music Theater of Berlin and the Metropolitan Philharmonic Chorus, and is the composer of 226 works to date, including 11 operas (4 based on works of Russian literature), 7 musicals, 79 individual instrumental pieces, 90 for chorus, and 255 for solo voice, as well as 64 translations (from French, German, Hebrew, Yiddish, and especially Russian – including the operas  Женитьба, Жизнь за царя, and ;Русалка) and 18 adaptations.

Joel Mandelbaum (b.1932) (ASCAP) is Professor Emeritus at Queens College, C.U.N.Y., where he has taught since 1961. He has degrees from Harvard, Brandeis and Indiana Universities, where he studied composition with Walter Piston, Irving Fine, Harold Shapero and Bernhard Heiden, augmented by summer studies with Dallapiccola and Copland. Other influential teachers were Angela Diller, Helen Grant Baker and Tibor Kozma.

Canadian musicians Allen Harrington, saxophone and Laura Loewen, piano, established the Harrington/Loewen Duo in 2002. Praised for their musicality, tight ensemble, and virtuosic performances, the Harrington/Loewen Duo has performed throughout North America, and in Europe, Asia, and South America. Recipients of grants from the Canada Council for the Arts and the Manitoba Arts Council, they are committed to exploring the standard repertoire and actively commissioning new works. Allen is in high demand as a soloist, adjudicator, chamber and orchestra musician on both saxophone and bassoon.

Holly Roadfeldt is a versatile performer whose concerts regularly mix newly composed music with established masterpieces. Equally adept at both languages, Roadfeldt’s mission is to inspire and advocate for piano music of the highest caliber. Her most recent project celebrates the piano prelude. The goal for this endeavor is to commission new preludes to be performed alongside works from the standard repertoire. As part of her Preludes Project, new preludes were premiered by Roadfeldt at Oklahoma State University, Wichita State University; the Peabody Institute; University of Nebraska-Kearney; Mars Hill University; Western Carolina University; Carson-Newman University; the College of Southern Maryland; Westminster College; the University at Albany; and Manchester University.

Aidan Andrew Dun spent a fantastical childhood in the West Indies and knew his calling for poetry from an early age. Returning to London as a teenager to live with his inspirational grandmother, dancer Marie Rambert, founder of the Ballet Rambert, he briefly attended Highgate School but left without academic qualifications after taking (perhaps too seriously) the role of the rebel-chieftan Aufidius in Coriolanus. After three years travelling the world with a guitar AAD was drawn back to London to explore the psychogeography of Kings Cross, magnet to other visionaries before him. Vale Royal, gestated over twenty-three years, dreams of transforming an urban wasteland into a transcultural zone of canals at the heart of London. When Goldmark published the epic poem in 1995, Allen Ginsberg flew in from New York to perform - with Paul McCartney - at the launch of Vale Royal at the Royal Albert Hall (in a reprise of the Wholly Communion event of thirty years earlier).

Lucie Rejchrtová is a pianist and keyboard player from Prague. Classically trained and influenced by her minister-father's love of jazz and gospel music, she enjoys playing different styles including jazz, blues, rock, ambient/electronic and her own compositions. She has gigged and recorded with a number of Czech and UK bands and musicians, e.g. Joe Carnation Band and The Crazy World of Arthur Brown.

Michael Laurello is a composer, pianist, and recording engineer based in Northwest Ohio. His compositions reflect his fascination with temporal dissonance and emotional immediacy, and have been presented at Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, MATA, PASIC, Bang on a Can Summer Festival, Norfolk Chamber Music Festival, Carlsbad Music Festival, Music from Angel Fire, NASA, National Conference of the Society of Composers, Inc., and other venues and festivals. He has collaborated with ensembles and soloists such as icarus Quartet, Nashville Symphony, Sō Percussion, arx duo, HOCKET, Grand Valley State University New Music Ensemble, Yale Percussion Group, and Ensemble Repercussion featuring the Duisburger Philharmoniker and Deutschen Staatsphilharmonie Rheinland-Pfalz.

Born in Lisbon, November 1984. After completing a degree in economics in the Universidade Nova de Lisboa (2006), he began in 2007 a degree in classical guitar in the Escola Superior de Música de Lisboa with Piñero Nagy, and he completed his graduation in 2010 in the Sevilleʼs Conservatorio Superior under the guidance of Francisco Sanchez Bernier. In 2015 André fi nished his degree in composition in the E.S.M.L. and had António Pinho Vargas, Carlos Caires, and Luís Tinoco as his teachers.

Ed Martin (b. 1976) is an award-­winning composer whose music has been performed worldwide at events such as the ISCM World New Music Days, International Computer Music Conferences, World Saxophone Congresses, the Seoul International Computer Music Festival, Confluences – Art and Technology at the Edge of the Millennium in Spain, and the International Electroacoustic Music Festival Santiago de Chile. His works have been heard at numerous venues throughout U.S. by ensembles such as the Minnesota Symphony Orchestra, Ear Play, the Empyrean Ensemble, the Synchromy Ensemble, Musical Amoeba, the Bells of the Cascades, and duoARtia. His music is released on Ravello Records, Mark, Centaur, innova, Emeritus, and SEAMUS labels, and has received first prize awards from the Percussive Arts Society, Musical Amoeba, the Electro-­Acoustic Miniatures International Contest, the Craig and Janet Swan Composer Prize for orchestral  music, and the Tampa Bay Composers’ Forum.

Robert J. Martin is known for music projects based on images and metaphors from the world at large. Martin's composition titles and, in the case of multi-movement works, movement titles are image-based, giving listeners a puzzle to solve or an idea to listen for. Examples of Martin's image-centered pieces include works for soloists such as Limoncello Suite for cello; My Mind's Attic for tenor pan; Hommage Á Tom et Jerry for soloist alternating between flute and piccolo (recorded by Ronda Ford Benson, available from rondaford.com); Ten Thousand Things Moving for flute; Two for One, for soloist alternating between alto and soprano saxophone; and a body of piano works, including the two works in this set: 100 Views of Mt. Fuji: 100 Pieces in One Hundred Minutes - Homage to Hokusai and stone & feather. Ensemble image-based pieces include Here There Be Dragons for brass choir; Palace of the Winds for flute choir; Embrace the Wind: A Celebration of Wind and Wind Energy, a seventy-five minute cycle for string quartet; and The Owl and the Pussycat for harp and flute.

A long-time advocate of new music, F. Gerard Errante has enjoyed a performance and recording career spanning decades.  A native New Yorker (Brooklyn), he began his music career like so many do – in a public school music program.  His love for music and his aptitude for woodwinds drove his pursuit of music all the way to college.  Most of his family had advanced careers in medicine; Gerry’s calling was music.  He became a dedicated student and scholar of music first at Queens College (BA), then at Wisconsin, (MA).  He did his doctoral work at the University of Michigan (Ann Arbor), and completed his DMA there in 1970.

Illinois native Scott Brickman (b. 1963) was educated in the Chicago Public Schools and holds a B.M. from the University of Wisconsin and a Ph.D. in Music Composition and theory from Brandeis University. Brickman learned under both Chester Biscardi and Yehudi Wyner, whom he regards as his most important and influential composition teachers. Since 1997 he has taught at the University of Maine at Fort Kent, where he is Professor of Music and Education.

Eight Strings & a Whistle has been committed to presenting and expanding the repertoire for the unique combination of flute, viola, and cello since 1998. A cutting-edge presence, the Trio champions Baroque, Classical, and Romantic repertoire  and collaborates regularly with a wide roster of living composers, premiering and performing their pieces throughout the concert season.