Workshop Performance: March 6, 2015, 7:30 PM
Kansas City Ballet Bolender Center
Michael and Ginger Frost Studio Theater
500 West Pershing Road, Kansas City, MO 64108
About the Workshop
The 13th Black House Collective workshop will take on a new format, an intensive four-day rehearsal and performance process. Over the course of the workshop, participants will work with the Black House visiting artists to rehearse and premiere seven new compositions.
Black House Visiting Artists
We are excited to announce that the 2015 Black House visiting artists will be Amanda DeBoer Barlett, voice, and Chris Wild, cello, of Ensemble Dal Niente.
The visiting artists will perform as part of the ensemble and provide feedback to composers.
Chris Wild
Cellist and conductor Chris Wild has performed in concert halls throughout North America and Europe and in broadcasts on CTV National News (Canada) and classical radio stations WQXR (New York) and WFMT (Chicago). His debut cello album, Abhanden, is described by New Music Box as "a virtuosic tour-de-force for solo cello ... Wild's approach to the material is soaring, lyrical, and bold ... confirms that Wild is not only an exciting performer to watch, but also a wise programmer and collaborator."
An avid interpreter of new music, Chris is currently Artistic Coordinator and Cellist for Ensemble Dal Niente, a Chicago-based collective of "super-musicians" (Chicago Tribune). In addition to their local concert series, Dal Niente performs internationally and has been in residence at universities such as Northwestern, Indiana, Harvard, and Stanford, and at the Darmstadt Summer Courses for New Music (Germany), where they were the first-ever ensemble awarded the Kranichsteiner Music Prize for Interpretation. Chris has also performed classical and contemporary music as a soloist with the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra (Canada), Third Coast Percussion (Chicago), Experimental Sound Studio SWR (Germany) and University of Michigan Philharmonia.
Amanda DeBoer Bartlett
Amanda DeBoer Bartlett is an experimental singer and classical music curator based in Omaha, Nebraska. Specializing in project-based collaborations with living composers, Ms. DeBoer is particularly interested in the development of new dramatic works. She is a member of Ensemble Dal Niente and Quince Contemporary Vocal Ensemble, and is the founder of Omaha Under the Radar – a performance festival in the Midwest. She has recordings on Southport Records, Navona Records, Carrier Records, and soon will be available on New Amsterdam’s label. www.amandadeboer.com
2015 Resident Performers
Maya Bennardo
Maya Bennardo is a Brooklyn-based violinist and teacher. Maya is passionate about opening the dialogue between composers and performers, and she works tirelessly to promote and perform the music of today. She was a 2014 Fellow at the Bang on a Can Summer Institute at MASS MoCA and a member of the Lucerne Festival Academy Orchestra founded by Pierre Boulez. She regularly performs with New York ensembles such as Ensemble Moto Perpetuo, Ensemble Mise-En, and andPlay, the violin/viola duo of which she is a co-founder. Maya holds degrees from New York University (MM) and the Oberlin Conservatory of Music (BM). In her down time, Maya can be found reading Jane Austen and baking pies.
Molly McLaughlin
Molly McLaughlin is a dynamic flutist and performer. Molly holds a MFA from CalArts and a BM from the Hartt School of Music. In addition to classical music, Molly specializes in traditional Irish flute/whistle and teaches yoga in Kansas City.
Wendy Grew
Wendy holds degrees from the University of Memphis (D.M.A.), Sam Houston State University (M.M.), and Stephen F. Austin State University (B.M.) all in oboe performance. Her doctoral dissertation, A Guide to Electro-Acoustic Performance for the Acoustic Oboist allows oboists who are novices in the field of electronics to feel comfortable performing this new repertoire. She has been invited to present her research twice at the International Festival of Woodwinds in Sao Paul, Rio de Janeiro. Wendy is the 2010-2011 winner of the Raymond M. Lynch Oboe Award for Outstanding Achievement.
Joe Tucker
Joe Tucker is a New York City based performer and educator. A multifaceted performer, Joe actively participates in New York's contemporary classical, jazz, and Balkans music scenes. He has appeared with the Bang On A Can All-Stars, the Talujon Percussion Ensemble, The Curiosity Cabinet Ensemble (which he co-directs), the SEM ensemble, the QC brass band, Trio TBD, as well as many other chamber groups, orchestras, combos, and bands. As an educator, Joe is the jazz band and Cage ensemble director at the MLK jr Special Music School, as well as teaching privately.
Russell Thorpe
Russell Thorpe graduated from UNCG with a Master of Music in saxophone performance in 2003. He writes in styles ranging from opera and string quartet to jazz tunes and large-scale works for wind ensemble. His music he explores the intersection between rhythm and harmony and the brain science of attention and memory. He is currently finishing his second year of residency with the Charlotte Street Foundation's Urban Culture Project Studio Residents program.
Ashley Tini
2015 Resident Composers
Chistoffer Schunk
Christoffer Schunk is a multidisciplinary composer and performer based in Los Angeles. His music involves voice, common and uncommon instruments, field recordings, and electronics, often combing multiple media. His pieces have premiered at SEAMUS, the Iron Composer Competition, REDCAT, Human Resources LA, and the wulf, and have been performed by the New Century Players, Santa Clarita Master Chorale, Ensemble for Contemporary Music, UC Santa Barbara Symphony Orchestra, and various other artists throughout the country.
Dylan Baker
Dylan Arthur Baker is currently a doctoral student at UMKC. He is originally from the Seattle area, and has previously studied at Cornish College of the Arts, and the University of Michigan.
Ivonne Paredes
Ivonne Paredes is a composer and percussionist from Lima, Perú. Her works are unique and colorful, inspired by her native country. For the past ten years, she has been studying, composing, and performing in the U.S. Her work has been heavily influenced by her training under composers Daniel Crozier and Tania León.
Whitney George
Whitney George is a New York based composer and conductor who specializes in the use of mixed media to blur the distinctions between concert performance, installation art, and theater. Utilizing a wide variety of material including literary texts, silent film, stock footage, and visual arts, George's compositions are characterized by an immersive theatricality that thrives on collaboration in all phases of the creative process. Her affinity for the macabre, the fantastic, and the bizarre frequently gives rise to musical programs that evoke the traditions of phantasmagoria and melodrama, challenging musicians to experiment liberally with their stage personae, and audiences to widen the scope of their attention.
Steve Landis (also participating as a performer)
Steven Landis is composer and double bassist originally from Gainesville, Florida. As both a performer and composer Steven engages in a wide array of musical activities that often blur the lines between vernacular aesthetics, western art traditions, and improvisation. Steven is currently pursuing a DMA in Composition at the University of Missouri-Kansas City Conservatory.
Hunter Long (also participating as a performer)
Hunter Long is an active Kansas City-based composer/performer/producer. Most recently, he was selected as a resident in the 2015 Banff Centre Performance Today classic music residency. Long founded Black House Collective in 2009 and has served as the artistic director of the collective for the past five years, managing a range of new music projects.