Jessica Aszodi - sopranoJessica Aszodi (b. 1986) holds a Master of music performance from the University of California and a Bachelor of Music Performance from the Victorian College of the Arts. Jessica completed the Young Artist Program at the Victorian Opera Company in 2009. She specializes in adventurous repertoire and her performance practice takes in opera, chamber music, experimental, conventional and contemporary-classical music. Jessica has performed with ensembles as diverse as ICE, Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, the Royal Melbourne Philharmonic Orchestra, Bang on a Can and Eighth Blackbird. She has sung in festivals around the world including the Aldeburgh Festival (UK), the Macau International Music Festival (China), the Melbourne International Arts Festival and the Vivid Sydney Festival (Australia). Her performances have garnered praise for their “…virtuosic whimsy” (New York Times) and “…upmost security and power...” (Chicago Tribune). Jessica is passionate about performing new music and has given more than 40 premiere performances. In addition to her work as a performer she is an active commissioner, producer and creator of new work.
Jenna Lyle - composer, vocalistJenna Lyle is a composer, vocalist, and performing artist from Carrollton, Georgia. Currently in Chicago, she is pursuing a Doctorate of Music in Composition at Northwestern University. An active composer, performer, installation-builder, and administrator, Jenna has worked with various ensembles and specialized in the performance of works by living composers. She has presented her own works as well as those of her colleagues throughout the U.S. and abroad, with performances recently by Chicago’s Spektral Quartet, Mocrep, Northwestern University’s Contemporary Music Ensemble, Loadbang, and The Riot Ensemble, of London. In 2014 and ‘15, Lyle appeared as a vocalist and dancer in the world premiere and subsequent performances of 3Singers, a large-scale opera and dance project directed by Erica Mott and composed by Ryan Ingebritsen. 3Singers premiered as the inaugural performance commission at the newly constructed Ośrodek Dokumentacji Sztuki Tadeusza Kantora Cricoteka in Krakow, October 2014. In September of 2015, Lyle, along with Australian mezzo soprano Jessica Aszodi, premiered Grafter, a collaboratively-devised piece for solo voice, accompanimental voice, electronics, and hanging speakers, at New York’s Resonant Bodies Festival. Grafter will tour in the Winter and Spring of 2016. Her artistic concerns are rooted in the unification of physicality with the creative process for the sake of immediacy, complexity of expression, and intimate exchange. Jenna is also co-founder and co-administrator of Parlour Tapes+, a New Music cassette tape label and media/performance collective based in Chicago.
Leslie Ann Leytham - mezzo-sopranoLeslie Ann Leytham is a San Diego-based operatic mezzo-soprano who focuses much of her attention on contemporary narrative vocal works not only as performer, but as costume designer, director, writer and a seldom composer of performance art pieces. Her work draws mostly from television, film, and opera, and centers around the depiction of women in popular culture (thanks to a very bizarre youth spent living in Las Vegas). Ms. Leytham earned her Bachelor of Music degree in Voice Performance from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (2005) and a Master of Music degree in Voice Performance from The Boston Conservatory (2007). Leslie is now working towards a Doctorate of Musical Arts degree in Contemporary Music Performance from the University of California, San Diego where she is developing her interdisciplinary work under the guidance of Janos Negyesy.
Batya MacAdam-Somer - violinistBatya MacAdam-Somer grew up within the vibrant musical community of Houston, Texas. She has been playing the violin for most of her life and is currently pursuing a DMA at the University of California, San Diego. Batya has performed at the Lucerne Festival Academy, Aspen Summer Music Festival, International Festival Institute at Round Top and the Bach Festival of Leipzig, Germany. Her involvement with composers and contemporary music has led to work across the country with organizations Art of Elan, Glottalopticon, Red Light, Foundation for Modern Music, TACTUS, and the New Music Collective. She can be heard playing Michael Roth's soundtrack on the documentary Jews and Baseball: An American Love Story, and is thrilled to be a member of the G Burns Jug Band.
Bonnie Lander - sopranoBonnie Lander is a vocalist that specializes in the performance and presentation of contemporary music. She has performed all over the United States as an improviser, classical soprano, contemporary soprano, and avant garde interpreter. Bonnie has collaborated with many composers, improvisers, computer musicians, jazz musicians, rock musicians, and classical musicians with the belief that no one genre can be responsible for the growth and forward motion of amazing new music. A prolific presence on the East Coast- Bonnie is a founding member of Baltimore based Rhymes With Opera- a chamber music company dedicated to new vocal repertoire; she completed an Artist in Residence at thefidget space in Philadelphia; and has been invited to participate as a featured guest artist for Shodekeh's Embody Vocal Arts series in Baltimore. Currently a DMA candidate at UC San Diego in the studio of Susan Narucki, Bonnie has also received a MM and GPD at Peabody Institute for Voice and Computer Music Performance studying under Phyllis Bryn-Julson and Dr. McGregor Boyle, as well as a BM in voice from the University of Miami Frost School of Music in the studio of Esther-Jane Hardenbergh. She is the only graduate who has twice received the Phyllis Bryn-Julson Award for the Commitment to and Performance of 20th/21st Century Music at the Peabody Institute.
Jonathan Piper - tubaJonathan Piper, Ph.D., is a San Diego-native tubist specializing in contemporary, improvised and popular musical practices. He is driven by an exploration of bodily exhaustion, limitation and failure, notably in his work with Aquapuke, a tuba/voice duo with Clinton McCallum, and with musicians Nicholas Deyoe, Brian Griffeath-Loeb, Sean Francis Conway and Douglas Wadle. As a scholar, Jonathan has given seminars on music and violence and recently completed his dissertation on the topic of bodily experience in doom metal music. When he isn't splitting his lips or subjecting himself to bone-crushing volume, Jonathan is happily playing in the G Burns Jug Band.
Malesha Jessie - sopranoMalesha Jessie is a versatile vocal artist of traditional opera, concert, world and contemporary music. Her engagements include principal roles with the Los Angeles Opera and San Francisco Opera, as well as appearances with the American Symphony Orchestra, Hollywood Bowl Orchestra, Boston Pops Orchestra, and American Opera Projects . In 2010, Malesha staged impromptu concerts in spaces across Brooklyn, NY in bodegas, laundromats, buses and barbershops. Her performances and the resulting interactions with spectators, collectively named Guerilla Opera, were apart of the exhibition, "Cultural Fluency: Engagements with Contemporary Brooklyn" at BRIC Arts. Malesha received her Master of Music degree in Vocal Arts from the University of Southern California, Los Angeles. She performed with the San Diego Opera last season.
The ROMP EnsembleThe Walcott Ensemble: Kris Wildman-Soprano; Marja Liisa Kay - Soprano; Mayra Leticia Gallo - Soprano; Stephanie Aston-Mezzo-Soprano; Leslie Ann Leytham - Mezzo-Soprano; April Guthrie-Violoncello
The Walcott Ensemble is a group of 6 musicians based in the Los Angeles area who initiated the 2006 North American premiere of Sextuor, a chamber opera by Georges Aperghis. Separately, the sextet members have worked with Louis Andriessen, Muhal Richard Abrams, Antoine Bonnet, Jürg Frey, Richard Foreman, Vinny Golia, Michael Gordon, James Horner, Eva-Maria Houben, Joan LaBarbara, Libby Larsen, Mario Lavista, Nicola LeFanu, Radu Malfatti, Stephen L. Mosko, David Rosenboom, James Tenney, Wadada Leo Smith, Christian Wolff, and John Zorn. Meghann Welsh - curator, producerMeghann Welsh is a classically trained dramatic soprano and multi-instrumentalist with over ten years' experience teaching voice. As a performer, Ms. Welsh's creative work focuses on opera, contemporary and baroque chamber music, free improvisation, and pre-war American country and blues. Her academic work is inspired by her fascination with the amazing versatility of the human voice: from country yodeling to experimental multi-phonics, to the dramatic decibels of the opera diva, the voice offers plenty to study and explore. Ms. Welsh earned her Bachelor of Music degree in Vocal Performance from the University of California, Santa Cruz (2002), her Master of Music degree in Vocal Performance from San Francisco State University (2009), and her Ph.D. in Music with an emphasis in Integrative Studies and Vocal Performance from the University of California, San Diego (expected 2015).
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Yonatan Aljadeff - photographerI am a physicist doing research in theoretical neuroscience: I use tools and techniques from physics and math to try to understand how the brain works. There is progress, but it is slow. For more information, see the Research page. I work as a postdoc at the University of Chicago. Before that I did my PhD at University of California San Diego. Before that I lived in Israel and studied at Tel Aviv University. Sometimes I am a photographer. I like to take photos outside, of people and in museums. The best still shots I’ve taken convey movement and sound.
Nichole Speciale - artistNichole Speciale is an artist working two-dimensionally, considering the plane as a closed system in which a drawn, painted, or graphic image can reflect and respond only to itself. A frustration and curiosity with materials associated to 'women’s work' has led her to an attempt to neutralize and rejuvenate needle, thread, and fabric. Her practice also problematizes the illusory canvas surface of a painting, pushing it into the object realm. She is currently in her third year in the MFA program at UCSD.
Clinton McCallum - composerClint McCallum was born at the feet of the Rocky Mountains in Denver Colorado, 1980. He thought himself a novelist until, at the age of thirteen, he taught himself how to play the guitar so that he could be in punk bands. Soon he was playing in jazz bands. Then he went to music conservatory at Oberlin (in Ohio) where he studied composition with Randy Coleman and Lewis Nielson. In respect to those two influential teachers Clint has said: "Mr. Coleman taught me to love the hippy side of Stockhausen, and was the first person to show me Fluxus scores. Mr. Nielson showed me that I could still maintain a physical relationship to instruments and sound, even though I was drawing on paper." After graduating from Oberlin, Clint played in two bands: STEXX (a black metal influenced industrial band that used computer processing and large formal schemes to pummel peoples skeletal structures), and Cockdeath (a computer-grind band that combined short song structures into longer concept pieces to drill peoples eardrums). The bands eventually disbanded in silent-glorious-flashes. So Clint went to pursue another degree or two at the University of California San Diego. That's where he is right now, collaborating with technologist Kevin Larke, tubist Jonathan Piper, saxophonist Eliot Gattegno, and several other fantastic musicians. His current work seeks to investigate the limits of the human body through exhausting performance techniques, high volume levels, and invented technology. It incorporates influences from the western musical avant garde, 1970's american performance art, underground noise music, horror films, and J.S. Bach among others.
Vabianna Santos - visual artist"Vabianna Santos' sculptures deploy kinetics and sound to investigate the absent body. The work is imbued with the textures of a bedroom rock n' roll fandom where the rhythms and tempos of objects are allowed to collide with those of the body, creating a flux between heartbeats and electronic pulses."
Yvette Jackson - composerComposer, sound designer, trumpet player, editor, engineer, media manager and production director are just a few of the roles Yvette Janine Jackson has held over the past 15 years. She studied music at the RD Colburn School of Performing Arts in Los Angeles and holds a B.A. in Music from Columbia University and M.A. in Music from UC San Diego. Yvette received San Francisco's Dean Goodman Choice Award for Sound Design in 2002 and was awarded Theatre Bay Area's 2004 Eric Landisman Fellowship. She has worked with Aurora Theatre Company, Magic Theatre, Intersection for the Arts, Campo Santo, Oakland Public Theater, Crowded Fire, Asian American Theater Company, Cultural Odyssey, Golden Thread Productions, A Traveling Jewish Theatre, Joe Goode Performance Group and more. Other projects include music for ABC's Nightline, online game soundtracks for Altoids Arcade, sound collages for art installations, celebrity voice-over production and interviews with top authors, politicians and community leaders.
Ava Porter - visual artistAva Porter is a photographer, installation artist, and experimental filmmaker. Her art attempts to analyze the overlooked influences and exploited bystanders of Western popular (entertainment, religious, and war) culture, vis-a-vis the history of aggression and theories of embodied cognition. She has worked in film for over 10 years and has exhibited work in New York, San Diego, and Los Angeles. Most recently her short, I Exist For You, was screened at the LA Film Festival. She obtained her B.A. from UCLA’s School of the Arts and Architecture in 2007 and is currently a Visual Arts MFA student at UCSD.
Frankie Martin - visual artistFrankie Martin's work radically rethinks social tropes, online identities, relationships and normative behavior.Born as the illegitimate grandchild of Cesar Romero, the languages of comedy, dance and color are embedded in Martin's genes. Frankie's video and performance work deconstructs what is appropriate via confusing the internet for reality, confusing public spaces for private spaces and abstracting language. Martin is currently producing a feature length work entitled; We are wild dogs with turquoise fur laughing at full moons, based on characters from a book of the same title. Frankie is represented by CANADA in New York City and is currently attending the MFA program at the University of California San Diego.
Sherrice Kelly - lighting designerSherrice Kelly is a San Diego based theatrical Lighting Designer. Recent designs include: The Mountaintop, Clybourne Park (San Diego REP); A Man, His Wife, and His Hat (Moxie Theatre); The Hound of the Baskervilles (North Coast Rep); La Bisbetica (IOT, Italy); Cry Old Kingdom, The Rest is Silence, Spring Awakening, A Man, His Wife, and His Hat, Kasimir & Karoline, and Muzungu (UC San Diego). Originally from Orange County Sherrice holds a BA in Theater Arts from UC Santa Cruz and an MFA in Lighting Design from UC San Diego. sherrice.weebly.com
Bruno Ruviaro - composerBruno Ruviaro, composer and pianist from São Paulo, Brazil, was born in 1976, and has lived in 21 different places: Rua Theodureto Souto, Rua Cajati, Casa do Seu Demétrio, Rua São Borja, Rua James Adam, Alameda dos Uirapurus, Avenida Modesto Fernandes, Avenida Santa Izabel, Rua Nuno Álvares Pereira, Rua Prof. Djalma Bento, Rua Dr. Nestor Esteves Natividade, Rua Major Diogo, North Park Street, Jericho Street, Olmsted Road, Thoburn Court, Comstock Circle, Via Parma, Rue de l’Hôtel de Ville, Greenoaks Drive, Miramar Street.
"Unspell, for voice and electronics, reflects my continuing interest in the musicality of speech. The “pre-text” for the composition is l’Attente (Waiting), by Roland Barthes, from the book Fragments d’un Discours Amoureux (Fragments from a Lover’s Discourse). Careful work on intonation and prosody is complemented by electronic sounds that function at times as accompaniment, at times as rhythmic or timbral counterpoint. Spoken language, to me, is always pregnant with music. I won’t say much more, hoping the piece will speak for itself." Jeffrey Treviño - ComposerJeffrey Treviño attended the University of California, San Diego and Standford University where he studied composition with Mark Applebaum and Brian Ferneyhough, acoustics with Thomas Rossing, instrument design with Max Mathews, and piano performance / musicology with George Barth. Treviño's undergraduate work at Stanford was awarded the Deans' Award for Academic Excellence, an honor conferred on ten undergraduates per four graduating classes, and he was a national finalist (California Region) in the 2006 Rhodes Scholarship Competition. In 2009, he was a Meisterschule at Berlin's Universität der Künste under composer Walter Zimmermann. Treviño has received commissions from numerous ensembles, solo performers, and institutions. An accomplished pianist and tubist, Treviño has performed in world class venues such as Carnegie Hall, the Sheldonian Theatre, the Sydney Opera House, and the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles.
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