Photo by Dan Cooper
Lynn Bechtold, Violinist/Composer
Originally from Pittsburgh, LF co-director, violinist/composer Lynn Bechtold, has appeared in recital throughout the Americas, as well as in Asia and Europe. She has premiered solo/chamber works by composers such as Carter Burwell, Gloria Coates, Alvin Lucier, and Morton Subotnick. Lynn is a member of groups including Miolina, Zentripetal, Quartet Metadata, and SEM Ensemble. Well-versed in all styles of music, she has performed at venues from le Poisson Rouge and Madison Square Garden to Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center, with artists such as Willie Colon, Roberta Flack, Donna Summer, and Sir Simon Rattle. She has appeared on TV shows such as 30 Rock, The CBS Morning Show, and Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, and at festivals such as Kneisel Hall, Pacific Music, both Spoletos, and TriBeCa New Music. Lynn has written over 20 electroacoustic works, and these have been performed at venues such as the Austrian Cultural Forum and Bohemian National Hall in NYC, Institut Finlandais in Paris, Center for New Music in San Francisco, and Monten Hall in Tokyo. As a composer, she has participated in festivals/series such as the Birmingham New Music Festival, Composers Concordance, COMPOSERFest XVIII, JUMP, Music With a View, NWEAMO, and Sound Traffic, and she has collaborated with artist Cecilia Mandrile, and chef Kurt Gutenbrunner. She is a recipient of grants from Japan Foundation NY, Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, NewMusicUSA, New York Women Composers, Queens Council on the Arts, and the Leopold Schepp Foundation. She holds degrees from Tufts University, New England Conservatory of Music, and Mannes-The New School for Music, where she was a student of noted violinist Felix Galimir. She is on the faculties at The Dwight School, Greenwich House Music School. and The Town School, all in Manhattan. Lynn was recently appointed as a board member of New York Women Composers. www.violynn.net
Gloria Coates, Composer
Gloria Coates was born and spent her youth in Wausau, Wisconsin. Her mentors Alexander Tcherepnin and Otto Luening remained her friends until the end of their lives. She has written 16 symphonies, more than any woman in history, and these have been performed by leading orchestras internationally, and praised for their originality by critics and leading musicologists. Naxos produced a box-set of nine of her string quartets, and John Zorn produced the 10th, on his Tzadik label. Much of her life has been spent in Germany living in semi-seclusion. She has been a promoter of American music via a 13 year concert series, numerous radio broadcasts about American music, and musicological articles in periodicals such as 'Die Musik Forschung' and 'Musica.' Her music has reached a greater and wider audience from performances and CDs and its resonance has been like a snowball, rolling as far away as Japan, China and India. Her newest CD on Naxos was reviewed in the Japanese Billboard Magazine, as well as in Europe and the US. Less known in her own country, her music has recently begun to interest the young and avant-garde such as the Jack Quartet, who performed the US premiere of her 'String Quartet No. 8' at Columbia University's Miller Theater last fall, and the Spektral Quartet, who performed her 7th 'Angel Quartet' for organ and quartet in Chicago on October 5th. On October 12th, the Kreutzer Quartet gave the British premiere of her 'Piano Quintet' at St. Johns Smith Square in an American Festival. Coming up, the renowned conductor Ilan Volkov has invited her for a November concert in Glasgow of her Symphonies 1, 7, and 11, by the BBC Scottish Orchestra. The American Composers Orchestra has scheduled her Symphony No.1 for this coming April 2019 at Carnegie Hall.
Kelly Ellenwood , Singer
Kelly Ellenwood starred on Broadway in The Phantom of the Opera as the tour de force diva “Carlotta Giudicelli.” With “a voice that’s positively stunning (Boston)” and “…a voice that shimmers (Seattle),” Kelly performed over 600 performances of this demanding role over 3 years in Los Angeles, Seattle, Dallas, Denver, Boston and New York. She appeared as “Mrs. Fezziwig” in the Madison Square Garden production of A Christmas Carol for four consecutive seasons, performing alongside Frank Langella, Jim Dale, F. Murray Abraham, and Tim Curry. She received the First Prize and Gold Medal singing American Roots music in the Savannah (GA) Music Festival’s “American Traditions Competition” and was awarded the Chicago “Actress of the Year” nod for her performance of “The Witch” in Stephen Sondheim’s Into the Woods. A critic from Gay Chicago Magazine praised her skill in singing Sondheim, calling her performance “an extraordinary reinterpretation of a classic song and a magic moment in the theatre.” In July 2018, she inhabited the role of “Abigail Adams” opposite Craig Shulman’s “John Adams” in a concert reading of 1776, on historic Pollepel “Bannerman’s” Island, in the middle of the Hudson River. A native Nebraskan, Kelly received her BMus from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, and earned an MMus from the University of Illinois Champaign-Urbana. Kelly frequently collaborates with composers in creating new work and is a founding member of indie-classical chamber ensembles Madera Vox and Saint Rita. She proudly served on the Board of Directors of BeaconArts from 2010 - 2018, and in 2017 she received a “Special Citation” from the Dutchess County Executive Arts Awards for her work with BeaconArts. Kelly is on the music faculty at SUNY- New Paltz. Kelly and her partner of 27 years, Timothy Parsaca, are the proud parents of two fierce and confident daughters.
Kirin McElwain, Cellist
Perhaps the only cellist to have ridden a bicycle across the continental United States, Kirin McElwain has a knack for finding cellos to practice on in the unlikeliest of geographic locations. That said, she is still on the lookout for a travel cello capable of being strapped to the back of her bicycle. Passionate about performing the music of our time, Kirin’s current focus is
power : capacity : agency, a multi-year commissioning and performance project on the theme of power involving composers Jenny Beck and Elisabet Curbelo-Gonzalez. Kirin has shared the stage with pianist Judith Gordon, John Vanderslice, Boyz II Men, tune-yards, and Vulfpeck. She was the cellist for the world premiere of “Almost Morning” by Jeff Beal (House of Cards) at the Alvin Ailey Citigroup Theater. Since June 2015, she has been the cellist for the indie rock band Miracles of Modern Science, with whom she has toured the United States, Canada, and Sweden. Kirin has been featured on Indiana Public Radio, the University of Rochester’s WRUR, Portland’s XRAYfm, and UC Berkley’s KALX. Kirin holds a B.A. in Economics from Smith College and a M.M. from Temple University. Kirin lives in Brooklyn, NY with her two cellos, her bicycles, and lots of vegetarian cookbooks. She is also a certified Alexander Technique teacher. She and her cello are often spotted cycling across Manhattan Bridge.
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Beatriz Ferreyra, Composer
Ferreyra was born in Córdoba, Argentina, and studied piano with Celia Bronstein in Buenos Aires. She continued her study of music with Nadia Boulanger in Paris, and Edgardo Canton, Earle Brown, and György Ligeti in Germany. Beatriz worked at O.R.T.F. (French National Television), as a member of the Group of Musical Researches (G.R.M), under the leadership of Pierre Schaeffer (1963-70). She contributed to Pierre Schaeffer’s book "Traité des Objets Musicaux" (1966), and participated in the records realisation from "Solfège de l’Objet Sonore" also by Pierre Schaeffer (1967). Since 1970 she is a free composer. En 1975, Ferreyra became a member of the Collège des Compositors, created by the G.M.E.B. Since 1967 she has had commissions for concerts, festivals, film and TV music, theatre, and video. She writes articles and gives seminars and lectures, and has won prizes. In 2014 she was elected as an Honorary Member of the CIME/ICEM.
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Sibyl Kempson, Playwright
Sibyl Kempson’s plays have been presented in the United States, Germany, and Norway. She launched the 7 Daughters of Eve Thtr. & Perf. Co. in 2015. Productions include Let Us Now Praise Susan Sontag (Abrons Arts Center, NYC), Public People’s Enemy, an adaptation of Enemy of the People, (Ibsen Awards and Conference in Ibsen’s hometown of Skien, Norway), Sasquatch Rituals (The Kitchen, NYC) and 12 Shouts to the Ten Forgotten Heavens, a 3-year cycle of rituals for the new Whitney Museum of American Art in the Meatpacking District of NYC, begun on the Vernal Equinox in March 2016, recurring on every Solstice and Equinox through December 2018. Other current projects include true pearl, a new opera with David Lang for the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston premiering in October 2018 and The Securely Conferred, Vochsafed Keepsakes of Maery S. premiering in NYC in 2019. Kempson is the recipient of a 2018 PEN/Laura Pels International Foundation for Theater Award for American Playwright at Mid-Career. She is also a 2014 USA Artists Rockefeller Fellow and a 2010 MacDowell Colony Fellow. She received four Mondo Cane! commissions from Dixon Place between 2002-11. I Understand Everything Better, with David Neumann/Advanced Beginner Group, received a Bessie Award for Outstanding Production in 2015, the same year her play Fondly, Collette Richland, penned for Elevator Repair Service, premiered at New York Theatre Workshop. Her plays are published by 53rd State Press, PLAY: Journal of Plays, and Performance & Art Journal (PAJ). MFA Brooklyn College under the instigation of Mac Wellman and Erin Courtney. She teaches and has taught experimental performance writing at Sarah Lawrence College, Brooklyn College, and the Eugene Lang College at the New School in NYC.
Debra Kaye, Composer
Composer Debra Kaye’s visceral language blends her classical roots with wide ranging contemporary influences. Born in Detroit, she grew up in Atlanta, and studied in NYC with degrees in piano and composition from Mannes College and N.Y.U. Her catalogue of chamber and orchestral music, art songs, choral and theatrical compositions, continues to expand through her steady stream of commissions. Kaye’s music has been noted in Musical America, NY Concert Review, Times Union, The New York Times, Oregonian, NMC, The New Yorker, Broadway World, Sonograma.org (Spain), and Kathodik.it (Italy), among others - “colorful, witty, profound”, “beautiful exhibition of the art of musical flow”, “intelligent, emotionally expressive”, “sensitivity and raw power… transcendent…”. Honored with ASCAP Plus Awards since 2009, support for her music includes grants from Meet the Composer, Mannes College, Edward T. Cone Foundation, New School University, and residencies at the Millay Colony and Helene Wurlitzer Foundation. She has been commissioned by Empire Viols, Alaria, Fort Wayne Children’s Choir, Portland Youth Philharmonic, Atlanta Music Teachers Association, Classical Saxophone Project, University of Maine, City of Beacon, Howland Chamber Music Circle, and others. This season, Debra is pleased to join Composers Concordance as an associate director. Upcoming highlights include a new solo work for violinist Kinga Augustyn, with performances in NYC and Poland; a new collaboration with the Lincoln Trio; and performances in France and Spain. Kaye’s music has been featured on WFCF radio’s Music of Our Mothers, in interviews on NY’s TWC-TV show Minding Your Business, and in Italian conductor Adriano Bassi’s recent book Guide to Women Composers. Her debut CD, And So It Begins (Ravello Records), produced by Grammy winner Judith Sherman, was included on Ted Gioia’s list of top 100 CD’s, and recognized as “a valuable discovery, given the quality and originality of the music that promises Kaye a bright future.”
Margaret Lancaster, Flutist
“New-music luminary” (NY Times), Margaret Lancaster (flutes) also works as an actor, dancer, and amateur furniture designer. She has built a large repertoire of interactive, cross-disciplinary solo works that employ electronics and mixed media. Performance highlights include Lincoln Center Festival, Spoleto Festival USA, Santa Fe New Music, Art Basel/Miami, Edinburgh Festival, NIME/Copenhagen, Tap City, and the 7-year global run of OBIE-winning Mabou Mines Dollhouse (Helene). A member of Either/Or, Ipse, and Fisher Ensemble, guest appearances include American Modern Ensemble and the New York Philharmonic. She presents solo and chamber music events worldwide and has recorded on New World Records, Mode, World Edition, Innova, Naxos and Tzadik. Recent collaborations include projects with Jean-Baptiste Barrière and Kaija Saariaho, the US premiere of Stockhausen’s KLANG cycle, and touring Morton Feldman’s 5 hour epic For Philip Guston…margaretlancaster.com
Laurie San Martin, Composer
Laurie San Martin writes music that creates a compelling narrative by exploring the intersection between texture and line. Critics have described her music as exuberant, colorful, forthright, high octane, tumultuous, intricate, intense and rumbly. She writes concert music for chamber ensembles and orchestra but has also written for theater, dance and video. Her music has been performed across the United States, Europe, and Asia. Laurie has worked with numerous ensembles, including the San Francisco Contemporary Music Players, Berlin PianoPercussion, Left Coast Chamber Ensemble, eighth blackbird, SF Chamber Orchestra, the Lydian Quartet, Magnetic South Ensemble, Washington Square Contemporary Chamber Players, and others. She has recently received awards from the Academy of Arts and Letters (a 2018 Andrew Imbrie prize) and a 2016 Guggenheim Fellowship. Past recognitions include a fellowship from the Fromm Foundation, the American Academy of Arts and Letters, League of Composers-ISCM, the International Alliance for Women in Music, and the ASCAP Morton Gould Young Composer’s Awards. As a composition fellow, she has attended the MacDowell Colony, the Montalvo Artist Residency, Yaddo, Atlantic Center for the Arts, Norfolk Contemporary Chamber Music Festival and the Composers Conference at Wellesley College. Laurie holds a PhD from Brandeis University in Theory and Composition. She has taught at Clark University and is currently Professor of Music at the University of California, Davis. Her music can be found on the Left Coast Chamber Ensemble’s “San Francisco Premieres” CD, released in 2005, and a recent Ravello CD “Tangos for Piano” performed by Amy Briggs.
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Johari Mayfield, Choreographer/Dancer
Johari Mayfield is a dancer, choreographer, activist, healer, and ACE certified personal trainer living in New York City. After training extensively in ballet with Sylvester Campbell, she received a scholarship to the Ailey School, where she studied for over two years. She has been a performer in NYC with Forces of Nature Dance Theatre, Joan Miller’s Dance Players, and Peggy Choy Dance Company. As a choreographer, her work has been presented at several different venues including HERE Arts Center, The Gatehouse at Aaron Davis Hall, 45 Bleecker Theater, and Dance Theatre Workshop (now New York Live Arts). In addition to dance, fitness, and choreography, Johari has authored two comic books: Wildcard, written with visual artist Teylor Smirl, and Wildlife. Wildcard was publicly presented in January 2011 as part of the Schomberg Center for Research in Black Culture’s conference “The State of African American and African Diaspora Studies: Methodology, Pedagogy, and Research.” She has also conducted research on the therapeutic potential of creative movement training in treating victims of sex trafficking. Johari’s community outreach initiatives have included children’s workshops on healthy eating at Lincoln Medical and Mental Health Center, and movement and fitness with Girls Education and Mentoring Service (GEMS), an organization committed to empowering survivors of sexual exploitation and Reveal NYC, a nonprofit organization that encourages female survivors of domestic violence in self-care. Most recently in October 2017, she travelled to Uganda as a part of Lend a Hand Uganda- USA's team of volunteers to enroll students in a lunch program, build a latrine and a well so that students can grow and thrive in a healthy environment.
OUR GUEST OF HONOR
Valerie Naranjo, Percussionist
Valerie Naranjo’s love of gyil began at age 18, and was rekindled at age 22, when she first heard a recording of the late gyil master Kakraba Lobi. Kakraba mentored Valerie for 17 years, whence they appeared on international CNN. Kakraba and Valerie produced the series’ “West African Music for the Marimba Soloist”; “Joro” a concerto for gyil and orchestra; and “Pure Earth” for gyil, and wind ensemble. In 1988 Valerie affected a decree from the Lawra Council of Elders, that their ban on women playing gyil in public be lifted so that she could participate in their annual Kobine Festival. In 1996, she garnered the only first place award given to a non-West-African musician. RG productions’ film “Knock on Wood” documents this activity, and has appeared internationally. Valerie had been the percussionist for the Saturday Night Live Band for 23 years, and has performed with such artists as Carole King, Glen Velez, David Byrne, Philip Glass, Paul Winter, The National Symphony of Ghana, and Zakir Hussein. Drum! magazine reader’s poll named Valerie “World Music Percussionist of the Year” 2005 and 2008, and “Mallet Player of the Year” 2012. Valerie has recorded the CD “Mandara”; several CDs of gyil music; the indigenous American CD “Orenda”; Lewaa’s Dream (gyil and percussion ensemble); and “Batagyil” (Afro/Cuban). Valerie teaches at New York University, and is a member of NYU’s “Global Institute of Advanced Studies”. She has performed internationally, including nine African countries, and in such places as The 2010 Winter Olympics, The White House, The Kennedy Center, Lincoln Center, City Center, Carnegie Hall, London’s Royal Festival Hall, The Johannesburg Civic Theatre, Ghana's National Theater, Ten Percussive Arts Society International Conventions, Two International Festivals of the Marimba (Mexico), The Vancouver Jazz Festival, The Grahamstown and Arts Alive Festivals, The Edinburgh Festival, “Young Indians” (New Delhi), FESTIBO (Cote D’Ivoire), and television’s “Jay Leno Show.”
Photo by Lara St. John
Milica Paranosic , Composer
A Serbian-born - New York based - world active composer, Milica's music was described as “Amazing...astonishing” (The New York Times), “Like liquor-filled pralines” (Morgenpost), and “A painter, musical Jackson Pollack” (SEAMUS). Her work was supported, commissioned and presented by organizations such as LMCC, NYSCA, New Dramatists, Whitney Museum of American Art, HERE Arts Center, American Composers Orchestra, LVMH Moët Hennessy • Louis Vuitton, VisionIntoArt, Buglisi Dance Theater, Symphony Space, Zankel Hall/Carnegie, Alice Tully Hall/Lincoln Center, Jazz at Lincoln Center, and Bohemian National Hall, among others. Intercontinental highlights include BEMUS (Serbia), EtnaFest (Italy) and UFBA (Brazil).
Milica’s works range from one-woman multimedia shows, theatrical soccer chants, and sound installations, to operatic and symphonic works. Milica holds a Master’s Degree in composition from The Juilliard School, where she was on the music faculty for over 20 years . She is the Music Director of Gallery MC, an advisory board member at Composers Now and Miolina, and founder of the Harlem-based non-profit for music and multimedia, Paracademia Center, Inc.
Photo by Lara St. John
Mioi Takeda, Violinist
Since she settled in NYC, Japanese violinist Mioi Takeda earned her reputation as a soloist, chamber musician, and as a seasoned new music specialist. She serves as a director of violin duo Miolina, who recently became a member of New Music USA's Impact Fund Cohort.
She has performed with new music groups such as North/South Consonance, SEM Ensemble, Composers Concordance, and American Symphony. She also performed with the Orchestra of St. Luke's, Stamford Symphony, and The Japan Philharmonic.
Ann Warren, Composer
I take the clangs of NYC construction, sporadic beep beep of horns, whirring of some type of unidentified machine that never seems to stop, then mix in some occasional cabbie shouting expletives, the bass thump thump thump from a car passing in the night, the bar or stadium cheers for a Yankees home run and..., and am surrounded by music! I try to keep the music great, the story interesting, the visuals stimulating, and the movement fresh - and of course, then wind them into a spectacular melange. I’m grateful to be a part of Ladies First. Thank you Milica for so so many things. Merde! For more information, visit www.AnnWarren.net
PROGRAM NOTES (in concert order)
Keeping the Waters Troubled, Ann Warren/Johari Mayfield
Ida B. Wells (1862-1931) was an investigative journalist and a leader in the early civil rights movements centered on combatting prejudice and violence. She is most famous for her documentation of “mob rule” and lynchings during the 1890s. She worked to show that racial and gender discrimination are linked. In her 1895 book, The Red Record-Tabulated Statistics and Alleged Causes of Lynching in the United States, she stated, “The government which had made the Negro a citizen found itself unable to protect him. It gave him the right to vote, but denied him the protection which should have maintained that right. Scourged from his home; hunted through the swamps; hung by midnight raiders, and openly murdered in the light of day, the Negro clung to his right of franchise with a heroism which would have wrung admiration from the hearts of savages.”
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Vast Steppe, Laurie San Martin
"Vast Steppe" was commissioned by the cellist Rhonda Rider for her residency at the Petrified National Forest in 2016. San Martin uses a "mix of old and new music" to reflect the mix of old and new landscape in the Petrified Forest. She includes references to her memories of Gregorian chants but includes the changed tuning of the cello and the exploration of sounds and harmonics to create "a flexible improvisation that looks forwards and backwards at similar objects, gestures, and phrases." What I love most about this piece is how the mix of different textures and the expanded range of the cello from the scordatura contributes to a sense of verticality and spaciousness.
The New Colossus and Freedom & Truth, Debra Key, text by Emma Lazarus and Margaret Fuller
Through the arts organization BeaconArts, I commissioned Debra Kaye to set the poetry of early feminist Margaret Fuller as part of a celebration honoring the American author, journalist and early women’s rights advocate. The result was “Freedom and Truth” for soprano and violin. Fuller’s “Woman in the Nineteenth Century” is considered to be America’s first feminist book, and its publication profoundly impacted the women’s rights movement, inspiring the 1848 Women’s Rights Convention in Seneca Falls, New York. Margaret Fuller’s legacy is profound. Susan B. Anthony is quoted to say that Fuller “possessed more influence on the thought of American women than any woman previous to her time.”
Debra went on to write a second “freedom” song, a setting Emma Lazarus’ well-known poem, “The New Colossus,” which will be premiered tonight. The poem, which was written to help raise funds for the Statue of Liberty, invokes the pioneering families that have struggled to find footing on foreign soil, welcoming them to their new home. It is inscribed at the base of Lady Liberty.
A third song is planned to complete Debra’s “freedom trilogy.” I am so honored to be singing Debra's work, and cherish our collaboration!
Kelly Ellenwood
The texts for these songs were both written by women who were outspoken pioneers in the early women's movement for suffrage and equal rights. Freedom & Truth, with text by Margaret Fuller, stresses the important relationship of these two ideals. The New Colossus, text by Emma Lazarus, is a setting of the inscription on the Statue of Liberty. Both were written at a time when the very fact of being a woman writer was taboo, yet the strength of their words still rings true today.
Debra Kaye
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Tierra Quebrada (Broken Land), Beatriz Ferreyra
French State Commission for the A.C.I.C., Paris, France.
This sort of « Lamento » is dedicated to a suffering Latin America, mainly to the beginning of the military killing in Argentina. The soloist’s score has been written in collaboration with the violinist and composer Manuel Enriquez.
Very good concert and thank you so much for playing this old piece.
Beatriz Ferreyra
MM Quartet from 12 Shouts to the Ten Forgotten Heavens, Milica Paranosic/Sibyl Kempson
Berceuse, Gloria Coates
"Berceuse" is a movement in my solo violin sonata....commissioned by the late cembalist Egino Klepper. It was inspired by my grandson when he was a baby in the form of this lullaby. It is the only movement from the sonata that I allow to be played alone, as it is sometimes used as an encore.
Gloria Coates