Composer Bios

PIERRE BOHEMOND My name is Pierre Bohemond and I am an orchestral and chamber music composer. My style ranges from modern classical to modern romantic with musical influences spanning from Rimsky-Korsakov and Igor Stravinsky to progressive rock. I started playing the guitar at an early age. In the 1970’s I was an established rock musician composing and producing recordings for Arista/Buddah and Sutra records notably collaborating with Tony Camillo (Best know as the producer of Gladys Knight and the pips). I also studied songwriting with Albert Hague in NYC in 1978 & 79 (Albert Hague is a Tony award-winning composer, best known for his role in the movie and television series “Fame”). I continued composing and producing records until the mid-1980s. In 2014, I successfully composed and publish a ballet “Dreams Interrupted” choreographed by Trinette Singleton, a former Joffrey Ballet alumna and artistic director at the Repertory Dance Theater in Allentown, PA. The premiere of the ballet was performed by the American Repertory Ballet of Princeton, NJ, and received exceptional reviews (https://www.arballet.org/repertory/dreamsinterrupted/). I am currently dedicating my time to composing orchestral and chamber music. To listen to some of my selected pieces, check out https://soundcloud.com/pierrebohemond. LAWRENCE FLYNN Lawrence Flynn received a B.A. in Music Composition and a B.S. in Music Education from the Indiana University of Pennsylvania. Mr. Flynn took the role as Band Director at L.E. Direuff High School in the fall of 2017. Prior to this, he directed an Elementary Strings program spanning the whole of Allentown, PA, and created several after-school performing ensembles for students through high school. Lawrence was honored with the ‘Award for Excellence in Arts Education’ from the Lehigh Valley Arts Council in 2011, and in 2016 he received the Allentown Arts Commission’s ’Outstanding Educator in the Arts’ award. Mr. Flynn encourages his students to create original works and arrangements for Pep Band, Marching Band, Concert Band and Music Theory. Lawrence performs regularly with the folk trio, Woodside Avenue, and with his brother, Mike, in a duo, The Flynn Brothers. After composing extensively for decades within the folk genre, the piece, ‘Emerson’s River’ is Lawrence’s first movement back toward a Modern Classical work, though tonally and stylistically, the folk genre was certainly not abandoned. PAUL SALERNI Paul Salerni’s music has been described by the New York Times as “impressive” and “playful.” Henry Fogel has said “It is…music that sings and dances.” Salerni’s one-act opera Tony Caruso’s Final Broadcast won the NOA’s Chamber Opera competition and its recording appears on Naxos. Two CDs of Salerni’s chamber music and songs (“Touched” and “Speaking of Love”) can be found on Albany Records. His music is published by Presser, Fischer, Alfred, New Music Shelf, and BERBEN. Salerni is the NEH Distinguished Chair in the Humanities and Professor of Music at Lehigh University. CHRIS ROGERSON BIOGRAPHY Hailed as a “confident new musical voice” (The New York Times), a “big discovery” (The Philadelphia Inquirer), and a “fully-grown composing talent” (The Washington Post), Chris Rogerson’s music has been praised for its “virtuosic exuberance” and “haunting beauty” (The New York Times). His work has been performed by orchestras across the United States, including the San Francisco Symphony, Atlanta Symphony, Houston Symphony, Kansas City Symphony, and Orchestra of St. Luke’s, as well as esteemed artists such as Yo-Yo Ma, Anthony McGill, Ida Kavafian, Anne- Marie McDermott, and David Shifrin. Rogerson has also collaborated with the Attacca, Brentano, Dover, Jasper, and JACK Quartets, as well as with distinguished members of the Guarneri and Orion Quartets. His music has been heard at Carnegie Hall, the Rudolfinum, Alice Tully Hall, the Library of Congress, the Kennedy Center, and Symphony Center in Chicago. In the 2017-2018 season, Rogerson received several major premieres, including Azaan, a play written for the Oregon Symphony in collaboration with Dipika Guha, Of Simple Grace, written for Yo-Yo Ma, and It Became Dark, commissioned and premiered by the Kansas City Symphony. In the 2018-2019 season, violinist Nick Kendall and cellist Efe Baltacigil premiere a new duo commissioned for the Seattle Chamber Music Society’s Winter Festival; the Attacca Quartet premieres a new work commissioned by Chamber Music America; and the Escher Quartet premieres a new string quartet commissioned by the Arizona Friends of Chamber Music. In addition, the 2018-2019 season features performances by the Amarillo Symphony, and the Fox Valley Symphony Orchestra. Other upcoming projects include works for violinist Elena Urioste and for the Bravo! Vail festival in Colorado. From 2014-2017, Mr. Rogerson held the post of Composer-in-Residence with the Amarillo Symphony; during this productive residency, he completed The Way Through, a ten-minute work for orchestra, a clarinet concerto for Anthony McGill, and Ancient Souls, a twenty-minute tone poem, in addition to having several existing works performed. He continues to serve as Artistic Advisor for the orchestra. In 2017-2018, he served as the Composer- in-Residence for the Lake George Music Festival and Guest Composer-Curator with the Pensacola Symphony. Other recent commissions have come from the Buffalo Philharmonic, Chicago Sinfonietta, and New World Symphony, and his works have been performed in recent seasons by the New Jersey, Milwaukee, Grand Rapids, and Charlotte symphony orchestras. A Theodore Presser Career Grant recipient, Mr. Rogerson has garnered the Charles Ives Scholarship from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Aaron Copland Award, the ASCAP Morton Gould Young Composer Award, two BMI Student Composer Awards, the Aspen Music Festival Jacob Druckman Award, a New York Youth Symphony First Music Commission, prizes from the National Foundation for the Advancement of the Arts, the National Association for Music Education, the New York Art Ensemble, and Third Millennium Ensemble, and grants from Chamber Music America and New Music USA. Mr. Rogerson has been in residence at Copland House, the MacDowell Colony, Yaddo, and the Ucross Foundation. He has also been Composer-in-Residence for the Chamber Music Festival of Lexington, Seal Bay Festival, the Ocean Reef Chamber Music Festival, Protege Composer-in-Residence at Chamber Music Northwest, Young Composer in Residence at Music from Angel Fire, and a fellow at the Aspen Music Festival, the Cabrillo Festival, and the Norfolk New Music Workshop. Born in 1988, Mr. Rogerson studied at the Curtis Institute of Music, Yale School of Music, and Princeton University with Jennifer Higdon, Aaron Jay Kernis, Martin Bresnick, and Steve Mackey. He is represented by Young Concert Artists, Inc. and served as YCA Composer-in-Residence from 2010-2012. He also is one of two composers on the roster of the newly formed Manhattan Chamber Players. In 2012, he co-founded Kettle Corn New Music, a new music presenting organization in New York City, and currently serves as its co-artistic director. In 2016, he joined the Musical Studies Faculty at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, where he lives full-time. http://chrisrogerson.com/ AVA BLOOMFIELD My name is Ava Bloomfield. I am 17 years old and a senior at the Lehigh Valley Charter High School for the Arts in Bethlehem, PA. I have been playing piano for about 8 years, and music has since become a huge part of my life. I started taking piano and composition more seriously a couple of years ago after discovering a passion for classical music. I never would have expected the impact it would have on me. I started smaller with compositions for solo piano, but the more I exposed myself to bigger works, the more I wanted to branch out in my instrumentation and presentation. I’m nowhere near done learning and experimenting, but I enjoy sharing my progress. I started to write “A Bird Song” in October of 2020 after hearing pieces like “Èpitaph de Jean Harlow, Op. 164” by Charles Koechlin. Hearing how naturally a piano, flute, and saxophone or clarinet could blend together really inspired me. I started crafting a main melody before finding the poem “A Bird Song” by Christina Rossetti. From the moment I read it, I had no doubt it was the one I wanted to use. This poem had the form, subject matter, and style that I was searching for. It tells about the interactions of swallows, and the speaker’s need for consistent companionship. Liam Mulligan Bio Liam Mulligan is a 4th year Music Composition and English Major at Moravian College. After attending a Gershwin and Bernstein orchestral concert at the age of four, Liam began writing tunes and experimenting with music at the piano. Liam’s parents, seeing his potential, encouraged him to take formal music lessons at the age of 6 despite his initial hesitations. Today, Liam continues to create, write, direct, and perform music in various mediums but most passionately for stage and screen. In addition, Liam is a creative writer and playwright and uses his interest in literature and narrative writing to influence his music. In the near future, Liam aspires to use his abilities and gifts to inspire the next generation of brilliant minds on larger stages. Introduction to the piece tusaidie is a three movement character piece that evokes the beauty and devastation of three endangered species from three different continents: the Entre Ríos Seedeater of South America, the Javan Rhino from Asia, and the Silky Sifaka Lemur from Africa. Each animal is voiced by a different woodwind to represent the differences in voices and narratives between these various species. The Entre Ríos Seedeater, portrayed in this piece by the flute, can be found in the wet grasslands and marshes of Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, and Uruguay.

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