News

I'm very delighted to share the news that I was recently awarded the 2024 NYSCA Support for Artist Interdisciplinary Grant. We Interrupt this Broadcast: 70/21 will be a sequel to its predecessor We Interrupt this Broadcast: 1936-69', originally commissioned by the i = u Festival in London from 2013. This work will be recorded and premiered in late 2024. Here are "sketches" of the work that was previously submitted from grant applications in 2020 and 2021.

My choral work Ecce nunc benedicite Domimum was selected as a finalist in the 2023 Call for Compositions Professional Choir Category from the Rocky Mountain Chamber Choir on 24 July, 2023.

My interdisciplinary work La Voix du Dauphin (based on the solo flute composition) was selected as a publication for Polemical Zine’s 19th Issue: BLUE, on 30 June, 2023, which will be exhibited sometime in Fall of 2023.

I was recently awarded a 2 week residency from Arts Letters & Numbers in Averill Park, NY on 1 May, 2023. The residency will take place from 2-15 August, 2023, as I will be finishing a vocal duo song cycle project that will be premiered at the 44th Annual Bowling Green New Music Festival on 21 October, 2023.

My 2009 Orchestral Composition The Persistence of Time was shortlisted for the Second Performance Projects of the Great Falls Symphony Orchestra on 30 March, 2023.

Ensemble in Process was a recipient of the 2023 Winter Grant from Causality Brand Grant Association, in preparation for a new revised logo that will be placed on the future website. Stay tuned!

Three of my interdisciplinary works with video: We Interrupt this Broadcast: 1936-69’, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free and Contact will be shown at the Holy Art Aurora Art Exhibition in the UK from 15-24 December, 2022 at The Holy Art Gallery in East London. You can purchase (free) tickets here for the exhibit.

Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free was recently awarded the 2022 American Prize in Composition—Opera/Theater/Film/Dance Division

My two interdisciplinary works We Interrupt this Broadcast: 1936-69’ and Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free were both selected as a Finalist from See | Me’s Open Call for Art (PASSION). We Interrupt this Broadcast: 1936-69’ will be shown to the public as part of See | Me’s PASSION Exhibition at Gallery Arte Azulejo in New York City from 21-31 July, 2022.

Ensemble in Process has been invited as an ensemble in residence at the Avaloch Farm Music Institute in New Hampshire for the 2022 summer season. NY based violinist/violist Allyson Clare and I will be working on projects at the Farm from 5 to 11 June, 2022.

My first album will be released by Off Latch Press on 6 May, 2022. Eleven to One (11/21), will be a collection of various works written between 2011-2021 in London and New York City, pertaining to the use of the digital delay processing pedal, loop station pedal, and other sound effects. These works will mostly be solo instrumentalists (including one work with a soprano vocalist), spanning various instrumental forces from the standard classical western symphony orchestra. More info TBA shortly.

My recent video installation work “Ecoscape” that I created for an earlier recorded musical work of mine (“Seascape”) was recently selected from Artist Talk Magazine’s Open Call for Artists “People and Places” to be part of Issue 18 that was publicly released on 27 January, 2022. “Ecoscape” was completed when I was an artist in residence at the Virginia Center for the Arts in November of 2021. You can check out the online published magazine here (page 71), and also watch '“Ecoscape” at this YouTube link.

I was recently commissioned by Madison based trombonist Cole Bartels to create a new work “You may say I’m a dreamer”, which will be written for solo trombone, delay pedal, and pre-recorded narration of the late John Lennon, which will feature snippets of recorded interviews of the singer and musical quotations from iconic Beatles songs as source material. This piece will be focused around Lennon's political engagements, peace activism, and fight for civil rights. “You may say I’m a dreamer” was made possible for a grant that Cole was awarded by the UW Madison Division of the Arts. This work will be premiered on 8 May, 2022 in Madison, WI, as part of Ensemble in Process Midwest debut concert “Ensemble in Process: Surrealist Dreamscapes”.

On October 27, 2021 I had the opportunity to have a brief interview by award winning director Will Nunziata from FENIX 360 App for a brief discussion of my works and career path. You can watch the interview here.

My video installation for Meredith Monk’s solo piano work “Ellis Island” (with myself performing) has been selected as part of the first NoCA exhibition (Fall ’21 Exhibition) to be held at the R.I.N.G. Garden in Northern Manhattan on October 17, 2021 from 4-6pm. For now, you can also watch the video here.

My 2016 piece large ensemble piece “Construction STILL in Process…” was recently selected by the Pacific Chamber Orchestra’s “Dream American Emerging Composer Workshop” Call for Scores, and will be read and performed under the baton of Lawrence Kohl during the last week of October of 2021. Time and location TBA shortly. You can read more about the upcoming workshop here.

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I have recently been selected as an artist-in-residence for the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts that will take place from 15-28 November, 2021. At VCCA, I will be working on “Dark Elegy,” a continuous work in progress (since 2017) based on Suse Lowenstein’s memorial sculpture pertaining to the victims of Pan Am 103 that crashed over Lockerbie, Scotland on 21 December, 1988.

Very grateful that my multi-interdisciplinary work We Interrupt this Broadcast: 1936-69’ was recently selected by IncuArts Gallery to be included in their "Past, Present, Future" Exhibition, which will be shown to the public from 1 July to 15 August, 2021. You can view the exhibition here.

Delighted that my multi-interdisciplinary work We Interrupt this Broadcast: 1936-69' which was commissioned by the i=u festival in London from 2013, and subsequently lead to the video installation premiere with members of the London Symphony Orchestra in 2017, was awarded the "Special Mention Prize" from Mozaik Philanthropy as part of the 2021 “Future Art Awards” Competition. I am humbled that this is my second consecutive prize from this organization, as last year I was one of the featured top 10 artists for my work created in response to COVID-19. This year's theme for the competition was “Re-Imagining Democracy.” You can read the press release here.

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Following the set that will be programmed at the 2021 New Music Gathering Conference, Ensemble in Process: “Processing the American Dream” has also been selected to be featured at the 2021 Arc Project in the UK on the 18th of December at 1pm GMT, alongside a curated performance by Canadian violinist Claudia Schaer.

Delighted that Frozen in Ecstasy, a 2015 composition for solo piano that was also transformed into a multi-media interdisciplinary type of work, has been selected by an independent panel to be exhibited at the Art & Science Days (Virtual) Conference in Saint-Etienne, France from 4 May to 30 June, 2021, which was delayed from May of 2020 due to the COVID pandemic (as reinstated from posting below). The theme of the seventh call for composers and multimedia artists pertains to the theme of "mirages." You can view the exhibit until 30 June, 2021 at this location.

My proposal for the 2021 New Music Gathering Conference has been accepted for a performance and presentation that will take place in August on 17, 2021 at 5pm EST. Ensemble in Process: “Processing the American Dream” will be a set comprised of three solo works accompanied with video art pertaining to the various complexities of the American Dream, featuring myself on piano for “Ellis Island” by Meredith Monk, “Get Rich Quick” by Ian Dicke (with Luke Gullickson on piano), and my very own recent COVID-19 award winning piece “Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,” performed by Madison based trombonist Cole Bartels.

I will be participating as a pianist for the 2021 Fresh Inc. Online Summer Festival (June 7-20, 2021) run by the Fifth House Ensemble, performing works by composers Lucy Shirley, Sofia Rocha, and Missy Mazzoli. Dates, times TBA announced shortly!

I am delighted to receive the news that NYC based choreographer Jordan Ryder and I have recently been awarded a 2021 grant from the Brooklyn Arts Council for an event that will take place at the Old Stone House of Brooklyn on 17 October, 2021 (subject to NYC health guidelines). The performance will culminate in a new collaborative work for violin, delay processing pedal, video installation and choreographed dance, entitled “The Illusion of Separateness,” dissecting the new reality of “social distancing” and the human ability to connect during a time of being apart. Other progammed works and performers on this programme TBA. More info coming soon!

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I am delighted to share the news that “We Interrupt this Broadcast: 70/21,” a proposal for a multi-interdisciplinary work for music, video art and dance with NYC based choreographer Jordan Ryder, has been selected as one of the finalists for the Western Michigan University’s 2020 National Choreography Competition! The winner of this competition will be decided by voters across the US (and the world) via the internet. More information to come regarding the chance to vote, but for now you can read about this competition here. This proposed work will be a sequel to its predecessor “We Interrupt this Broadcast: 1936-69’,” with the addition of a choreographer set to music and video installation.

Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, along with the 9 other works awarded from the Mozaik Philanthopy’s “Future Art Awards” exhibit in May, was recently discussed in an online article from Obvious Magazine, written by Shahrnaz Nancy Southwick on 3 August, 2020. You can read the article here.

Very delighted to announce that my recent collaboration with trombonist Cole Bartels for Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free was awarded one of the ten prizes from this fantastic organization on 28 May, 2020, which was a call for works based on the COVID-19 pandemic. The virtual exhibition of all 10 works will be on Mozaik Philanthropy's website on 30 June, 2020. For more information of Mozaik Philanthropy and this event, please click here.

The video installation for Frozen in Ecstasy has been selected by an independent panel to be exhibited at the Art & Science Days Conference in Saint-Etienne, France, tentatively for May of 2021 (the conference was supposed to take place in May of 2020, but has been delayed for a year due to the Coronavirus pandemic). The theme of the seventh call for composers and multimedia artist known as Mirages, will represent science and the arts in general, and in music in particular. More details of Mirages can be found here.

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Honored to receive another COVID-19 Relief Fund Grant. This particular fund was comes from MusiCares, administered by the Recording Academy which is part of the Grammy Foundation. This grant is helping all artists in the music community affected by the Coronavirus pandemic. More information of the MusiCares COVID-19 Relief Fund can be found here.

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Delighted to be awarded a COVID-19 performance grant from Live from our Living Rooms in partnership with Music Talks. As part of my rotating concert series with Ensemble in Process…, PRESS||PAUSE will be live streamed from my very own living room on 2 May, 2020, 4pm EST. More details of PRESS||PAUSE can be found here.

Delighted to share the news that I was recently awarded a grant from the New Music Solidarity Fund, administered by New Music USA. The Solidarity Fund was designed to help new/creative/improvised music freelancers whose livelihood has been threatened as a result of performances which have been canceled during the COVID-19 crisis. You can read more about the Solidarity Fund here.

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My 2017 Award winning work Breathe will be included as a discussion from the Introduction of Dr. Yetta Howard’s second published book, Rated RX: Sheree Rose with and after Bob Flanagan, which is an edited collection of photographs, archival materials, and essays by scholars and artists on the life-work of artist Sheree Rose. Rated RX will be published by Ohio State University Press in Autumn of 2020. You can follow up on Dr. Howard’s upcoming project here.

Harlem (A Dream Deferred) was recently selected from Fresh Squeezed Opera’s recent call for scores to be performed at their annual Showcase in November. More information regarding this performance will be provided at a later date.

“First they Came…”, for vocal quartet and string trio, has now been selected as a Finalist for the 2020 American Prize in the Composition Vocal Chamber Music Division Category. You can read about it here.

My ongoing curating project Ensemble in Process… just received a review from Steve Smith in The New Yorker on 11 September, 2019 as part of Spectrum’s ongoing concert series. You can read about it here.

Several Circles, for clarinet quintet, has been selected as a finalist for the 2019 American Prize in the Composition Instrumental Chamber Music Division Category. You can read about it here.

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I'm honored to share the news that I will be attending the International Gugak Workshop in Seoul, South Korea this Summer on an awarded fellowship, studying Korean music and tradition. I've never been to this part of the globe, so I am excited to visit Asia for the first time and expand my horizons. I'll also be stopping in Beijing, China for a few days before I arrive in Seoul.

I’m delighted to share the exciting news that I have been commissioned by the Astoria Music Project in New York City from their first call for scores, as I will be writing a new work for their “New York State of Mind” concert on 9 February, 2019. Harlem (A Dream Deferred), an art song based on the text by Langston Hughes, will be my first premiere in NYC since moving back to the US after living in England for 6 years. The Astoria Music Project consists of Stefanie Izzo (Soprano), Amanda Lee (French Horn), David Taubman (Piano), and Rachel Hauser (Violin).

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I have been selected to curate a concert at the 6th Annual Oh My Ears Festival in Phoenix, Arizona, which will take place between 31 January to 3 February, 2019. On 2 February at 3pm, my Ensemble in Process (Ensemble in Loops) makes its US debut, as I will be curating a set of 3 pieces from my repertoire involving the use of a digital delay processing pedal: ***Fantasia on a Lament;* towers, beautiful, mourning, Tuesday; and *Lucid Dreaming*** (with Video Installation), with collaborations featuring Celka Ilona Ojakangas Olivia Erwin, Alexander Duke, and Anne Marie Houy. For more information, click here.

In the Spring I was selected a composer to attend the 2018 Oregon Bach Festival Composers Symposium as part of the Vocal Fellows Program. “First they Came…”, for vocal quartet+string trio, was premiered at the Symposium on 5 July, 2018. It was my first piece writing for vocalists with an instrumental ensemble, and my latest world premiere on the West Coast since 2007, when I was living in San Francisco at the time.

By Looking Down, I See Up was commissioned by Holland based musicians Belemir Baran (Violin) and Cody Takács (Contrabass), and was premiered at Podium Vocale in The Hague, Netherlands on 15 April, 2018. The title of the work is based on a pair of illustrations from Danish Astronomer’s Tycho Brahe's Astronomiæ instauratæ Mechanica (1598) depicting his understanding of the connection between macrocosm and microcosm. Excerpts from the work will be on this website shortly.

My award winning piece Breathe was selected for a West Coast premiere at the 2018 Hot Air Music Festival at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music on 25 February, 2018. It was performed by New Keys Duo: Regina Myers and Anthony Porter.

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As a recipient of the Jerome Fund, a lovely article/interview was written about some of my works and aesthetics on 6 December 2017, by Michael Kyrs. Click here to read the article.