Roomful of Teeth Friday, February 18, 2011 Brooks-Rogers Recital Hall

Composer Biographies

Caleb Burhans Composer, violinist/violist, singer, and multi-instrumentalist was born in Monterey, CA, and has lived in New York since 2003. He has been heralded by the New York Times as, “animated and versatile”, being a, “sweet voiced countertenor” as well as a “new music virtuoso”. His compositions have often been premiered by (and commissioned by) ensembles he works with, including his setting of Psalm 118 (for mixed choir, children’s choir, brass, and organ) commissioned by Trinity Church, Wall Street for Easter 2008; his arrangement of ’s “Coast” from Hoodoo Zephyr commissioned by and (and premiered at Carnegie Hall by AWS in 2006); and his upcoming oh ye of little faith… (do you know where your children are?) commissioned by for the re-opening of Alice Tully Hall, which will be premiered by Alan Pierson and Alarm Will Sound on March 3, 2009. Other compositions include An Advent Song, Commissioned by Trinity Wall Street and premiered on December 7th, 2008, by Robert Ridgell and the Trinity Wall Street Choristers; In a distant place, commissioned by the Bloomingdale School of Music, premiered on June 20, 2008, at Christ and St. Stephens Church by Clay Greenberg and students of the Bloomingdale School of Music; and Amidst Neptune, commissioned by Brad Lubman and premiered by Brad Lubman and Eastman’s Musica Nova at Kilbourn hall in March of 2003 (which was also performed at the Whitney Museum in 2006 by Alan Pierson and Alarm Will Sound as part of ’s 70th birthday celebration and at Carnegie’s Zankel Hall by Alan Pierson and AWS in a concert curated by John Adams). His works have been performed by faculty at the San Francisco Conservatory, Eastman School of Music, University of Wisconsin Madison and Smith College. They have won awards such as the Music Educators National Conference Composition Competition and Eastman’s Bernard and Rose Sernoffsky Prize. He has been featured on newmusicbox.org performing his own works.

His performing activities have included playing or singing (sometimes both) with groups including the All- American Rejects, Anti-Social Music, the Charleston Symphony, the Bach Choir at Holy Trinity, Ensemble21, Ethel, the Madison Symphony, the Michael Gordon Band, the Milwaukee Symphony, the New York New Music Ensemble, Nexus, Ossia, the Philadelphia Chamber Orchestra, the Rochester Philharmonic, the Slee Sinfonietta, SO Percussion, Spring Awakening (On Broadway), Stars of the Lid, the St. Thomas Choir of Men and Boys, The Hold Steady, the Todd Reynolds Situation, Trinity Wall Street Choir, the VOX Vocal Ensemble, the Wordless Music Orchestra, and the Zankel Hall Band. As a soloist, he’s also played with the Beloit Janesville Symphony, Eastman’s Ossia Orchestra, Alarm Will Sound and Eastman’s Collegium Musicum. As a countertenor soloist he’s sung with the Brockport Symphony, Rochester Bach Ensemble, Alarm Will Sound, Trinity on Wall Street Choir, Manhattan School of Music Percussion Ensemble, Eastman’s Musica Nova and Eastman’s Collegium Musicum. As a string player, Caleb has played with the Charleston Symphony, Madison Symphony, Milwaukee Symphony, Philadelphia Chamber Orchestra, Rochester Philharmonic, Steve Reich Ensemble, Michael Gordon Band, Ensemble21, Tactus Contemporary Ensemble, University at Buffalo’s Slee Sinfonietta, Susie Kelly String Quartet, Ensemble Multicolour and the Rochester Bach Ensemble.

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Merrill Garbus/tUne-yArDs tUnE-yArDs is the singular musical project of New England native Merrill Garbus. Possessing an expansive sound that marries a coarse folk ingenuity with the bold pop sensibility of an R&B siren, BiRd- BrAiNs was assembled with a staunch DIY aesthetic.

Recording herself using a digital voice recorder and assembled using shareware mixing software, she was described by Stereogum as “a self-contained Sublime Frequencies compilation, jumping between blues, African tunes, shiny reggae-esque sprawls, and lo-fi folk”, infusing the worldly sonic palette of M.I.A. or post-punk pioneers The Raincoats.

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William Brittelle William Brittelle was raised in the 1980’s in small town North Carolina by his mother, a painter, and his father, a former pro athlete. He has spent the majority of his artistic life attempting to bridge the gap between pop music and NYC’s revitalized downtown classical scene. His primary mentors include Mike Longo, longtime pianist/arranger for Dizzy Gillespie, and Pulitzer prize-winning composer David Del Tredici. In 2003, his piece Seven Songs of Zen, Love, and Longing was released on Peacock Records by Anti-Social Music. With his rock band The Blondes, he performed on stages like Irving Plaza on bills with members of The Ramones, Pere Ubu, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, and Secret Machines. The Blondes’ debut album, produced by legendary punk guitar god Richard Lloyd (Television), was noted a number of top-ten lists and received mainstream and indie radio play. In 2004, Brittelle suffered a career ending vocal injury while performing at NYC’s Knitting Factory, forcing The Blondes to disband and leading Brittelle to start lip-synching his vocal parts. In 2006, Brittelle received an emerging composer grant from the American Composers Forum with funds provided by the Jerome Foundation for the creation of Mohair Time Warp, a full-length art-music concept album featuring live musicians, and lip-synched vocals. Brittelle has since been featured on All Things Considered, in Time Out NY, on WYNC’s Soundcheck (CD pick of the month) and New Sounds, in Seattle’s Icebreaker Festival curated by Alex Ross and Kyle Gann, the Festival Internacional in Chihuahua, Mexico, Pittsburgh’s Music on the Edge series, and New Music New College in Sarasota, Florida. Upcoming composition projects include Future Shock for violist , a new electro-acoustic album with ACME (the American Contemporary Music Ensemble), and the release of his second full-length New Amsterdam release entitled Television Landscape. The apocalyptic yet hopeful concept album features an 18-person mixed-genre ensemble including strings, guitars, horns, saxes, flutes, and choir. In addition to his composing and performing schedule, Brittelle is co-director of New Amsterdam Records.

Performer Biographies

Cameron Beauchamp Cameron Beauchamp, bass, is in demand throughout the country as a soloist and chamber musician. In Boston, Cameron is a member of Blue Heron, Exsultemus, Cut Circle, Schola Cantorum, Boston Secession, and the choir of the Church of the Advent. He also sings with Austin’s Conspirare, Miami’s Seraphic Fire, Atlanta’s New Trinity Baroque, and the Santa Fe Desert Chorale. A native of San Antonio and ten-year resident of the DFW area, Cameron frequently performed with the Dallas Bach Society, Texas Camerata, Orpheus Chamber Singers, Texas Choral Artists, the Helios Ensemble, and the Orchestra of New Spain, and was a regular soloist for the Dallas Symphony Orchestra. He received his musical training from the University of North Texas, where he doubled in voice and jazz . While at UNT, Cameron sang at two national ACDA conventions with the A Cappella choir, and won a prestigious Downbeat award with one of the university’s world famous jazz ensembles. Cameron has participated in recording projects for numerous record labels, including Harmonia Mundi, Edition Lilac, Pro Organo, Klavier, and GIA. He has also performed for BBC Radio, WGBH Boston, and WRR Classical Radio of Dallas. With Conspirare he will perform on a future television project for PBS.

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Dashon Burton Bass Dashon Burton enjoys many different kinds of singing, and has been a student of many disciplines. Raised in New York City, he settled into his current love for music while in high school in Williamsport, PA. Dashon began his professional studies at Case Western Reserve University as a Music Education major before he transferred to the Oberlin College Conservatory of Music. He graduated with a Bachelor of Music in Vocal Perfomance after studying with George Vassos and Gerald Crawford. After leaving Northeast Ohio, he moved out to the Midwest, where he joined the professional men’s vocal ensemble Cantus in 2005. Based in Minneapolis, he traveled all around the country with Cantus (including a few stops in Canada and even all the way to Cameroon) giving concerts, educational clinics, and lectures. He has performed with the , St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, Minnesota Orchestra, and the Boston Pops. Dashon will be moving (yet again) to begin vocal studies at the Yale Institute of Sacred Music in the fall.

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Martha Cluver Martha Cluver has been hailed by the New York Times for her “sweet, pure” and “soulful soprano” voice. Focusing on contemporary music, Cluver performs frequently with the ensembles Alarm Will Sound, Signal, SEM, So Percussion and the Vox Vocal Ensemble. She has performed numerous works by composer Steve Reich under the direction of Brad Lubman, David Robertson and Alan Pierson. Cluver traveled to the Czech Republic in the summer of 2007 for the Ostrava Days New Music Festival, where she performed Neither by Morton Feldman, with conductor Peter Rundel and the Janáček Philharmonic. Cluver has since then returned to the Czech Republic, where she performed the demanding soprano role in George Benjamin’s opera Into the Little Hill with Prague Modern. In September of 2009, she will be premiering the new opera La Douce by Emmanuel Nunes with Rundel and the Remix Ensemble in Porto, Portugal. As a chamber musician, Cluver has premiered works by John Zorn, O&A, Caleb Burhans, and Brad Lubman. She sings regularly with the Vox Vocal Ensemble, Antioch, and the Choir of TrinityWall Street, and has performed under choral directors such as Andrew Megill, Owen Burdick, Stefan Parkman and Simon Carrington. Cluver’s discography includes Nonesuch, Sweet Spot DVD, Cantaloupe, and Tzadik. She holds a Bachelor’s degree from Eastman School of Music in viola performance.

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Eric Dudley Eric Dudley is quickly establishing a profile as a musician distinguished by his versatility. Formerly Assistant Conductor of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra and Pops and Music Director of the Cincinnati Symphony Youth Orchestra for four seasons, he now resides in Brooklyn and enjoys a diverse career as a professional vocalist, pianist and composer in addition to his work on the podium with various ensembles. He is Assistant Conductor of New Jersey’s Princeton Symphony Orchestra, and his work as a guest conductor this season with the New York’s International Contemporary Ensemble involved world- premiere recordings and a tour to Finland for the 2009 Musica Nova Helsinki Festival. While in Cincinnati, he appeared frequently in performance with the CSO, making his critically acclaimed subscription debut in 2007, and earned rave reviews when called upon at the last minute to step in for cancellations on several occasions. His guest conducting engagements have included the orchestra of the 2005 World Piano Competition, the Camerata Orchestra (Bloomington, IN), and the Fort Wayne Philharmonic. As a composer, he most recently served as composer-in-residence for the 2007 Simsbury Chamber Music Festival in his hometown in CT, and as a chamber musician he was a featured artist on multiple concert series during his time in Cincinnati. In New York, he is a member of the acclaimed choir of Trinity Church on Wall Street, and in addition to concerts and recordings at Trinity, he performs with the Collegiate Chorale, the New York Virtuosi Singers and the Clarion Society. He will also appear in the chorus for the Bard Music Festival’s production of Meyerbeer’s “Les Huguenots” this summer. He was a conducting fellow at the Aspen Music Festival in 2003, and holds degrees in composition from the Eastman School of Music, where he was the recipient of the Louis Lane Prize, and in orchestral conducting from Yale, where he graduated with the Dean’s Prize in 2004.

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Estelí Gomez Estelí Gomez, soprano, grew up bilingual in Northern California and joined her first choir at age seven. Having completed her bachelor’s in music cum laude from Yale College in 2008, she currently works as associate producer of the Yale Baroque Opera Project, and productions manager of the Yale Collegium Musicum; she also performs with both groups. In addition to her love of early opera and choral music, she has also performed as a soloist in Opera Theater of Yale College and Yale Dramat productions; as a soloist, ensemble singer, arranger, and solo coach with Mixed Company a cappella; as coach and performer for the undergraduate music department’s composition classes, under Dr. Kathryn Alexander; and as choral scholar and voice coach for St. Thomas’s Episcopal Church, New Haven. Recently, she toured China and Korea singing Bach’s B minor Mass with the Yale Schola Cantorum, and sang in the inaugural concert of the Simon Carrington Chamber Singers in Kansas City, MO. In the fall Estelí will begin a two-year Master’s program in voice, specializing in early music, studying with Sanford Sylvan at McGill University in Montreal.

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Avery Griffin Avery Griffin, baritone, is an ’06 alumnus of the Boston University College of Fine Arts where he studied voice with Phyllis Hoffman and composition with Richard Cornell. He is currently a member of the Trinity Choir at Manhattan’s historic Trinity Church, Wall Street and was featured as a soloist during the choir’s 2008-2009 concert series in Handel’s Messiah and in Buxtehude’s Membra Jesu Nostri. In addition to the standard repertoire Avery also regularly performs twentieth and twenty-first century pieces by composers such as Pascale Criton, Jason Eckardt, and Martin Amlin and has given the world premiere of several new works including Ezra Sims’ Five Songs for Baritone and James Bergin’s “Kyrie” and “De Profundis”. He is a charter member of NotaRiotous, the chamber ensemble of the Boston Microtonal Society, an organization dedicated to exploring sounds outside of the traditional Western chromatic scale as a basis for composition.

Avery is also a teacher and composer. He will return to his position as Theory Coordinator at the Boston University Tanglewood Institute, a summer program for musically gifted high schoolers in Lenox, MA, this coming July. His duties there include structuring curriculum, teaching basic and advanced theory courses to half of the 70-strong vocal students and to the entirety of the piano and harp enrollment and coaching with the young composers of the program on how to write for the voice. As a composer Avery has written, among several other works, a piano trio, four electronic etudes, and an a cappella setting of the “Magnificat” text which was premiered by the Boston University Chamber Chorus in 2006. Avery’s website is http://averygriffin.com.

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Caroline Shaw lives in New York City, where her professional activities include chamber music, contemporary music collaboration, early music performance practice, and improvisation and sound design for ballet and modern dance. She received a BM cum laude from Rice, where she studied violin with Kathleen Winkler and was a Goliard Scholar. Following college, she traveled in France, England and Italy as a Thomas J. Watson Fellow, studying formal gardens. She received an MM from Yale in 2007 and in 2008-09 was a visiting fellow in the Yale Baroque Ensemble under the direction of Robert Mealy. Caroline collaborates as both performer and composer with dancers at NYU and the Ailey School, plays violin with various ensembles such as the Sebastians and Red Light, and sings in the choirs of Trinity Wall Street and St. Mary the Virgin. Her favorite color is green.

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Virginia Warnken Alto Virginia Warnken received her undergraduate degree from the Manhattan School Of Music. She has performed regularly with renowned early music groups such as Vox Vocal Ensemble, Clarion Music Society, Musica Sacra, Trinity Wall Street Choir, and others. Virginia also has a profound passion for solo work, and has recently appeared at Carnegie Hall as the alto soloist in JS Bach’s B Minor Mass with the Oratorio Society of New York, and previously as the alto soloist in Handel’s Messiah. Ms. Warnken will return to Carnegie Hall next season to sing the Soprano II solos in Mozart’s Great Mass in C minor. She has also appeared as a soloist and chorister in Rose Hall/Jazz at Lincoln Center, Merkin Hall, Miller Theater, St. Ignatius Loyola, St. Mary the Virgin, St. John the Divine, and Trinity Wall Street, among others. In addition to performing music Medieval to Baroque, Virginia is also an advocate for Contemporary Music, and has performed with ensembles like So Percussion, Antisocial Music, Yes is a World, and the Tactus Contemporary Ensemble, and has premiered works by many prominent composers, namely Steve Reich, John Zorn, Martin Bresnick, Caleb Burhans, and others. Her 2007 performance of Schoenberg’s “Pierrot Lunaire” with the Tactus Ensemble was given a rave review by Steve Smith of the NY Times, “Virginia Warnken executed lines with exacting diction and riveting presence.”