Resident Artists

2011-2012 RESIDENT ARTISTS

COMPOSERS

For JEREMY HOWARD BECK, writing music is an integral, urgent part of a life lived in search of extremes, adventures, and adrenaline. Lifelong passions for roller coasters and gymnastics have lent his music intense, visceral physicality and emotional immediacy.  His music has been performed across the country: at MYTHOS, a concert benefiting Education Through Music (Los Angeles, California), the Bang on a Can Summer Festival at MASSMoCA (Massachusetts), the International Trombone Festival (Austin, Texas), the Norfolk Chamber Music Festival (Connecticut), and New York venues including The Cell, Galapagos Art Space, The Tank, and the Gershwin Hotel. He is the recipient of a 2011 ASCAP Morton Gould Young Composer Award, and his first symphony, Metropolis, was awarded Honorable Mention in the 2010 ASCAP/CBDNA Frederick Fennell Prize competition. Jeremy is a Co-Director of Detour, a modular new music ensemble, composer collective, and commissioning organization. He also serves on the board of directors of Choral Chameleon, a choir specializing in new music. An active trombonist, he recently performed with TILT Brass in SuperCriticalMass’s Swelter at the Central Park Lake as part of Make Music New York, and performs regularly with the Chelsea Symphony and the Detour New Music Ensemble.  He is the first Composer-in-Residence of the Guidonian Hand Trombone Quartet. Jeremy holds degrees from The Juilliard School (MM, ’10), where he studied with John Corigliano and Christopher Rouse, and NYU (BM, ’07), where he studied with Mark Adamo and Deniz Hughes. Website: www.jeremyhowardbeck.com

ALLA BORZOVA is a composer whose music has been commissioned and performed internationally. Born in Minsk, Belarus, she arrived in the U.S. in 1993 and has been living in New York since 1996. When honoring her with Goddard Lieberson Fellowship, the American Academy of Arts and Letters hailed her as a “force on the American musical scene” with the observation, “Every note she writes has an intensity and immediacy that is as startling as it is affecting.” According to The New Yorker, Ms. Borzova’s highly imaginative music has theatrical quality and combines lyricism and “mischief”, classically balanced form and refined contemporary technique. Ms. Borzova’s recent premieres include the first complete performance of the cantata, Songs for Lada, performed by the Michigan State University Children Choir, soloists, and the Detroit Symphony Orchestra (under Leonard Slatkin’s direction). To The New World was commissioned and premiered by the Brooklyn Conservatory Orchestra (composer’s direction), followed by performances by the National Symphony Orchestra of Belarus (Alexander Anissimov), Cabrillo Festival Orchestra (Marin Alsop), and Detroit Symphony Orchestra (Leonard Slatkin). Both compositions will be released on Naxos in 2012.  Merry Hour (poetry by Mikhail Lermontov) was premiered at Merkin Hall by tenor Steven Ebel and the Naumburg Award winning ensemble Da Capo Chamber Players under the composer’s direction. Gulliver’s Travels: A Voyage to Laputa was commissioned through Meet the Composer and premiered in Savannah, Georgia, by the noted Russian-American pianist Vassily Primakov. Among Ms. Borzova’s other works are two award-winning compositions for tenor and ensemble: Majnun Songs (poetry by Majnun, a 7^th century Arabic poet); and Mother Said  (text by contemporary American poet Hal Sirowitz). Compositions for mixed choir include The Ballad of Barnaby (W.H Auden’s paraphrase of the medieval French legend, Le Jongleur de Notre Dame) and the cycle, When The Wind Is Blowing (poetry by Belarusian poet, Maxim Tank). Among Ms. Borzova’s theatrical works are When Reason Sleeps and Wakes: Goya images, a ballet inspired by Goya’s drawings, and The Animal That Drank Up Sound, a “musictelling” work, commissioned and toured by Tales & Scales. Borzova’s compact disc, “Pinsk & Blue”, recorded by the Da Capo Chamber Players, with the composer as a pianist and conductor, was released by Albany Records in 2007. Borzova’s music has been presented at Aspen and Sonic Boom music festivals in the U.S. and festivals in Russia and Belarus, including Moscow Musical Autumn, Sound Ways (St. Pertersburg) and Belarusian Musical Autumn (Minsk). Her music has also been performed by Cassatt String Quartet, St. Luke’s Chamber Ensemble, Dale Warland Singers, New Amsterdam Singers, The New York Concert Singers, and Choirs of Belarusian Radio and Television. Borzova’s awards include the All-Union Composition Contest, the Delius Composition Contest, and the Susan Rose Recording Award; as well as awards from ASCAP, the Alice M. Ditson Fund of Columbia University, Copland Recording Program, New York Foundation for the Arts, and American Music Center.  Borzova began piano studies and composing at the age of six. She holds a Doctorate in Composition from the Moscow Conservatory where she studied with Alexander Pirumov and pursued additional doctoral studies at CUNY Graduate School with David Del Tredici. Borzova has taught at Hunter and Lehman Colleges of the City University of New York and, in addition to composing, maintains an active career as a pianist, conductor, organist, and singer.

THEO POPOV writes melodic neo-Romantic music, where the driving mechanism is horizontality and Schenkerian logic. After abundant exposure to Eastern Orthodox music in his childhood, he came to the United States and studied composition and electronic music with Paul Lansky and musical geometry with Dmitri Tymoczko. Having explored various forms of folk music, Popov has developed a special interest in Classical Antiquity, and has, through travel and research, assembled one of the most extensive galleries of Ancient Roman music depictions. In March 2010, his first opera received a full stage production at Princeton University to enthusiastic acclaim. Nero Artifex, a three-act drama in Classical Latin with libretto by Mariah Min and Veronica Shi, presented one of history’s most notorious emperors as a well meaning but incapable ruler, a gullible dreamer and unfortunate artist. Popov completed his Bachelor’s degree at Princeton University, where he studied with Steve Mackey, Bill Whelan and Barbara White. He is also a professional theremin player and frequently travels to Oxford to workshop with theremin virtuoso Lydia Kavina. Website: www.theopopv.com

JEFFREY DENNIS SMITH is a composer, percussionist, and conductor specializing in music and sound for theatre, dance, film, and live performance.  He is developing the musical Lightning Man with lyricists Shoshana Greenberg, Katya Stanislavskaya, Janet Allard, and bookwriter Maggie-Kate Coleman.  It received a developmental production at the Tisch School of the Arts and will be presented as part of the ANT Festival in 2011 at Ars Nova. Jeffrey is also currently writing an opera with librettist Maggie-Kate Coleman entitled Lost Things.  Jeffrey’s songs have been performed at NAMT New Works Summit, Laurie Beechman Theater, Project Footlight at Dixon Place, NEO5 at the York Theatre, Goodspeed, and the Daniel Arts Center at Simon’s Rock.  His dance scores have been heard at the Cool New York 2009 and 2010 Dance Festivals, the 2009 DanceNOW [NYC] Festival, Joyce Soho, Dance Theatre Workshop and Duo Theater.  Jeffrey’s music for film includes an animation by Tarik Cherkaoui that was presented at the 2010 Williamsburg International Film Festival and the Electric Pear Production’s Synthesia in 2010 at The Wild Project.  He wrote incidental music and songs for Lucilla’s Story: A Play for Gabriel Mistral, which was produced at the 2008 New York International Fringe Festival.  His piece Tiger Dance for marimba soloist and percussion ensemble will be performed at the 2011 Percussive Arts Society International Convention.  As a percussionist, Jeffrey has performed with the Chicago-based performance group, Sonic Inertia, the Civic Orchestra of Chicago, New Hampshire Music Festival, Rockford Symphony Orchestra, Waterloo/Cedar Falls Symphony Orchestra and the Dubuque Symphony Orchestra.  He was also the first place winner of the 1996 Young Artist Competition of the Minnesota Orchestra. Jeffrey was a Visiting Guest Artist in percussion at the University of Northern Iowa in the fall of 2001, and he’s a graduate of the Tisch Graduate Musical Theater Writing Program (MFA), Northwestern University (MM) and the University of Northern Iowa (BM). Website: www.jeffreydennissmith.com

LIBRETTISTS

MAGDA BOGIN is a New York-based writer, translator and poet who fell in love with opera during a brief Felllinesque stint as a cellist in the orchestra of La Fenice in Venice.  She is the author of the novels Natalya, God’s Messenger (Scribner), Marose (awaiting publication), and The Women Troubadours, a study of the 12^th century women troubadours with translations from Provençal (Norton). She is also the author of Diva, a young adult novel about an adopted Russian girl whose oversized mezzo voice allows her travel back and forth between New York and Russia in search of her biological mother. Ms. Bogin is the translator of numerous works from French and Spanish, including Isabel Allende’s House of the Spirits. She has worked as a journalist for El Diario, New York’s major Spanish language daily, taught fiction and literary translation in the graduate writing programs at Columbia and City College, translated diplomatic and technical texts from French, Spanish and Russian for NGO’s including the United Nations, and currently runs Under the Volcano, a bilingual program of writing master classes that convenes every year in Tepoztlán, Mexico.  Together with composer Paola Prestini, she founded and directs a bilingual, multi-media opera lab also based in Tepoztlán. Her current projects include an opera based on the Mexican Day of the Dead, with Paola Prestini, and Aves, A Cantata for Astronomer and Birds with Mexican composer Felipe Pérez Santiago.  She has been the recipient of grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, the NY Foundation for the Arts, the Kellogg Foundation and the Vogelstein Foundation, and has held writing residencies at Peredelkino, in Russia, and the Performance Artists Lab in Kent, UK.  Her dream is to bring all the voices in her head from page to stage.

DAVID JOHNSTON’s plays have been performed and read at the New Group, Moving Arts, the Neighborhood Playhouse, HB Playwrights Foundation and Ensemble Studio Theatre. He has had New York productions or his work with Blue Coyote Theater Group including, Conversations on Russian Literature, a new adaptation of The Oresteia (Time Out Best of 2007); Busted Jesus Comix (GLAAD nominee 2005, London, Los Angeles, DC Cap Fringe); A Bush Carol, or George Dubya and the Xmas of Evil, and Effie Jean in Tahiti (both with music and lyrics by Stephen Speights); Regional credits include The George Place (Wellfleet Harbor Actors Theater). Mr. Johnston has written many plays that were produced with Kevin Newbury as Director, including Candy and Dorothy (GLAAD winner 2006, Wellfleet Harbor Actors Theater, Unexpected Stage), and The Eumenides. Publications include Saturday with Martin (Short Plays to Long Remember, TnT), The Eumenides (Playing With Canons, New York Theatre Experience, Inc.), Leaving Tangier (Samuel French), A Funeral Home in Brooklyn, and A Lesson (Smith & Kraus.) Current projects include the upcoming premiere of Coney, and a film adaptation of his short play, Mothra is Waiting.  Playwriting awards include Theater Oxford, Playwright Residency at the University of Cincinnati, a Berrilla Kerr Foundation Grant, the Ludwig Vogelstein Foundation, and the Arch & Bruce Brown Foundation. He was also a New Dramatists finalist. Mr. Johnston attended the College of William and Mary and Circle in the Square and is a member of Actors Equity, Dramatists Guild, (publications committee) Charles Maryan’s Playwrights/Directors Workshop, BMI, and Blue Coyote Theater Group.

STEPHANIE FLEISCHMANN is a playwright and librettist/lyricist whose texts serve as blueprints for intricate three-dimensional sonic and visual worlds, encompassing non-traditional music-theater and installation. A “neo Emily Dickinson” (Backstage) and “a writer who can conjure something between a dreamy road movie and a theatrical coming-of-age tale, and who can piece these elements together in the style of a jagged ballad for guitar” (Chicago Sun Times), she is an alumnus of New Dramatists and a former Playwrights Center Core Writer. Her work has been performed internationally and across the U.S. Stephanie received a NYSCA Individual Artist Theater Commission for her libretto for the multimedia music-theater work, Red Fly/Blue Bottle, with music by Christina Campanella (Latitude 14/ HERE Arts Center, Noorderzon Festival, and EMPAC in Troy, NY). Other grants and awards include NEA Opera/Music-Theater commission (Far Sea Pharisee, music by Miki Navazio), two NYFA Fellowships, the Whitfield Cook Award (Eloise & Ray, New Georges, NYC, “Voice Season Highlight”; and Roadworks, Chicago), the Frederic Loewe Award (The Hotel Carter, music by Jenny Giering), and a grant from the Anna Sosenko Assist Trust (The Secret Lives of Coats, music by Christina Campanella; Playlabs, Whitman College). She has also enjoyed residencies at MacDowell, HARP, Hedgebrook, Mabou Mines/Suite, DPI, and the Chocolate Factory. Stephanie’s work for theater includes Hamlet Redux (Asolo Rep Conservatory), Omonia-3 (Athens, Greece), Tinder, a song cycle (Exit Festival, France), Tally Ho (Round House, Synchronicity), The Street of Useful Things (Act II), What the Moon Saw (Interart; Son of Semele), The World Speed Carnival (Soho Rep SummerCamp), The Wonder Seeker (Empty Space), Orpheus (music by Nikos Brisco; HERE), and lyrics (for over 60 songs) and dramaturgy for The Greeks 2 & 3 and The Americans, with composers John Pratt, Phil Roebuck and Jim White at Juilliard, with director Brian Mertes. She contributed texts to Austrian composer Olga Neuwirth’s ecstaloop and The Cartographer’s Song (Basel, Berlin, Graz, Stockholm, and the Aldeburgh Festival). Her work has been developed/presented at venues including: Prelude, The Public,  Knitting Factory, BACA Downtown, Guthrie Lab, San Francisco Stage and Film, Hollywood Bowl, L.A. Theatreworks, New Theater Miami, Teatro dei Contrari, Rome, and more. She is published by Play, A Journal of Plays, Playscripts.com, and Smith and Krauss. She was a Tennessee Williams Fellow in Playwriting at Sewanee, and has taught at Bard College and the Playwrights Foundation. Stephanie currently teaches playwriting at Skidmore College. She holds an MFA from Brooklyn College (studied with Mac Wellman). She is also a New Georges affiliated artist and founding member of Latitude 14.

KATE LIGHT is the librettist of the comic opera The Life and Love of Joe Coogan, based on an episode of “The Dick Van Dyke Show,” with music by Paul Salerni. The opera premiered at Lehigh University’s Zoellner Arts Center in 2010, produced by Lehigh’s School of Music, with a stellar cast featuring stars of New York City Opera. Ms. Light is also the author of three volumes of poetry, Gravity’s Dream (Donald Justice Award), The Laws of Falling Bodies (Nicholas Roerich Prize), and Open Slowly, and of the texts of two works for narrator and chamber ensemble, The World Beneath the Waves (originally Oceanophony), commissioned by the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, and Einstein’s Mozart: Two Geniuses, commissioned by The Colorado Chamber Players. The two pieces have received over 75 performances throughout the US. As narrator of these works, Ms. Light has appeared with the Louisville Orchestra, LA Chamber Orchestra, Colorado Chamber Players, Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, and at the American Museum of Natural History, Chamber Music Toledo, Vanderbilt and Lehigh Universities, and Colorado College, among other venues. Her poetry readings have included New York Times’ “Great Read in the Park,” Dodge Poetry Festival, Woodstock Poetry Festival, Cornell University, Cal State LA, Colorado College, and Spoleto USA. Her work has been featured four times on Garrison Keillor’s The Writer’s Almanac, and her lyrics for the original song “Here Beside Me” are heard in Disney’s Mulan II. Her poetry has also appeared in The Paris Review, Hudson Review, Washington Post Book World, Feminist Studies, Carolina Quarterly, The Formalist, Dark Horse (Scotland), New York Sun, the anthologies Western Wind, The Penguin Book of the Sonnet, and Garrison Keillor’s Good Poems for Hard Times, among other publications. An alumnus of the BMI-Lehman Engel Musical Theater Workshop, she is at work on book and lyrics of a musical based on Ovid’s Metamorphoses and his life. Ms. Light has been Visiting Professor at Cornell University and at Musashino Art University in Tokyo. She is also a professional violinist. Website: www.katelight.com

RETURNING ARTISTS

COMPOSERS

CHRISTOPHER CERRONE is a Brooklyn-based composer of orchestral, chamber, vocal, and electronic music. Recently praised as a “rising star” (The New Yorker) and “dangerously talented” (New Haven Advocate), his first opera, Invisible Cities, premiered in May 2011 to sold-out audiences in a joint production of the Italian Academy of Columbia University and Red Light New Music. His music has been heard across the US and Europe, most recently at the John F. Kennedy Center for Performing Arts and Carnegie Hall. His music has also received performances by New York City Opera, the New York Youth Symphony, the Bang on a Can Summer Festival, the Orchestre National de Lorraine, violinist Hahn-Bin, the Virginia Arts Festival, the Yale Institute for Music Theatre, Loadbang, and the Yale Philharmonia, among others. He is co-artistic director and composer-in-residence for the New York City-based ensemble Red Light New Music. He recently received the Charles Ives Prize from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, 2010 and 2011 ASCAP/Morton Gould Young Composer Awards, and three CAP Grants (2009-2010) from the American Music Center. Upcoming projects include a new work for Ensemble ACJW commissioned by Carnegie Hall and a new piece for percussion and electronics commissioned by percussionist Owen Weaver. He received his M.M. and M.M.A degrees from Yale University, where he also taught music composition and electronic music. Chris returns to the Composer Librettist Development Program in the 2011-12 season to collaborate with librettist Tony Asaro on a new full-length opera. Website: www.christophercerrone.com

JAY ANTHONY GACH’S instrumental concert music has been critically acclaimed internationally. His compositions have been performed, recorded and broadcast internationally by ensembles including the Millenium Symphony Orch./Robert Ian Winstin, St. Paul Chamber Orch./Enrique Diemecke, Brooklyn Philharmonic/Lukas Foss, American Composers Orchestra/Paul Dunkel, National Italian Youth Orchestra/Vinko Globokar, City of London Sinfonia, Haydn Chamber Orchestra of London, the Britten Sinfonia Soloists, Vox Juventus Poland, the Gregg Smith Singers, and by solo artists including British pianist Ronan Magill, American clarinetist Richard Stoltzman, Canadian cellist Soo Bae and the soprano and tenor duo Grace Hart & Enzo Citarelli.  He has received commissions and awards in over thirty national and international competitions including the Fromm Music Foundation at Harvard University, Astral Foundation (Pew-Bandy) of New York and Philadelphia, Frederick P. Rose Prize, Valentino Bucchi Concorsi Internazionale, Third British Contemporary Piano Music Competition, Delta Omicron Composition Prize, Dr. J. Howland Auchincloss Society for New Music Composition Prize, New York Foundation for the Arts, MacDowell Colony, Tanglewood Music Center (Bruno Maderna Fellowship), National Endowment for the Arts, et al.  Between 1981 and 1999 he resided and worked throughout Europe returning to New York in 2000. In the summer of 2005 his music was featured at the Dubrovnik Music Festival, the Edinburgh Arts Festival, the Crested Butte Music Festival, and the Adirondack Music Festival.  Mr Gach has written and conducted many arrangements and original scores for the educational and commercial media, including: The Selfish Giant, a children’s musical; A lot a’ Nerve Naomi Grubenstein, a ‘parve’ musical comedy; Nora at the Altar Rail, a one-act opera developed as a Resident Artist at American Lyric Theater;  Legends from Bodmin Moor, a film;  British Rail’s “Mind the Doors”, an advertisement; and The Hurlers, an animation film. In 2006 he was honored at an induction ceremony as a National Patron of the Delta Omicron Music Fraternity. Gach received his Ph.D in Music from State University of New York at Stony Brook, and was a Fellow London College of Music FLCM.  His biography has appeared in Marquis ‘Who’s Who in America’ since 2006. Jay is currently writing Of the Flesh, with CLDP Resident Artist Librettist Royce Vavrek, as part of The Poe Project for American Lyric Theater.  Website

JEFF MYERS draws inspiration from a wide variety of musical works, styles and genres, as well as visual art and natural phenomena, including Filipino kulintang music, works by M.C. Escher, overtone music, folk music and geographical narrative. By placing these diverse elements on a continuum, Myers is able to connect seemingly unrelated ideas into a single, expressive musical work with its own identity. His music has been played ensembles such as by L’Orchestre National de Lorraine, American Composers Orchestra, Ann Arbor Symphony, New York Youth Symphony, members of New World Symphony, University of Michigan Symphony Band, American Lyric Theater, Center City Opera, Aspen Contemporary Ensemble, Transit, PRISM Saxophone Quartet, and the JACK Quartet. Myers has received awards from The American Academy of Arts and Letters, BMI, as well as fellowships from the Aspen Festival, Tanglewood, Festival Acanthes, the Atlantic Center for the Arts, and grants from institutions and private funds including the Jerome Foundation, American Music Center, Puffin Foundation, the Yvar Mikhashoff Trust, the Anna Sosenko Trust, and The Fromm Foundation. His music has been heard at Carnegie Hall, Library of Congress, Kimmel Center, Darmstadt, Gaudeamus, Symphony Space, Arsenal, Le Poisson Rouge, and the Tenri Cultural Institute. Myers holds degrees from San Jose State University, the Eastman School of Music and the University of Michigan. He has studied with numerous composition teachers, including William Bolcom, Martin Bresnick, Michael Daugherty, Betsy Jolas, Bright Sheng, and Allen Strange. Jeff currently resides in New York City where he works as a freelance composer, orchestrator and copyist. His operatic collaboration with fellow CLDP Resident Artist Librettist Royce Vavrek yielded the one-act opera The Hunger Art, based on Kafka’s Hunger Artist and the Adam and Eve story. Jeff is currently writing Buried Alive, with CLDP Resident Artist Librettist Quincy Long, as part of The Poe Project for American Lyric Theater. Website: www.jeffmyers.info

PATRICK SOLURI is a composer based in New York City whose love of telling stories through music is evident in his large body of work for the stage, screen and concert hall. Career highlights include commissions for several orchestral ballet scores, film scores, and many orchestral and chamber concert works. His ballet scores Madame X, What Do We Do About Mother and Murder at the Masque: Casebook of Edgar Allan Poe were commissioned and by Dances Patrelle, choreographed by Francis Patrelle, and have featured dancers from American Ballet Theater and New York City Ballet. Recent ballet scores include a work for the Staatsballett Berlin, choreographed by dancer Xenia Wiest, which premiered in Berlin, Germany, in January 2010, as part of their program Shut Up and Dance: Reloaded. His children’s ballet, Fancy Nancy, commissioned by the Cuyahoga Valley Youth Ballet, premiered in March 2010 in Akron, Ohio, selling 7,000 tickets for only 3 performances, becoming this company’s most successful production in their 35 year history. Soluri’s work as an emerging operatic writer includes The Inferno of Dante: Canto V, showcased by New York City Opera as part of VOX 2003: Showcasing American Composers, and a commissioned scene for the Manhattan School of Music Opera Studio. During his residency as part of the Composer Librettist Development Program at American Lyric Theater, he composed the short opera Adam & Eve. His 10-minute comic opera Figaro’s Last Hangover was featured in a performance at Weill-Carnegie Hall by the Remarkable Theater Brigade. Soluri has produced and released 3 CDs through Soluri Music: Fancy Nancy (2010), Murder at the Masque: Casebook of Edgar Allan Poe (2009) and  Pas de Deux – Two Ballets by Patrick Soluri (2007) which comprises Madame X and What Do We Do About Mother and was recorded by the Manhattan Chamber Orchestra. All releases are available online at iTunes among other online retailers. In addition to his classical work, Soluri has written several film scores, and has composed, produced and orchestrated hundreds of tracks for film and TV in multiple genres ranging from orchestral, jazz and industrial to rock and world music. In 2000 he was selected to participate in the ASCAP Film Scoring Workshop in Los Angeles, where he composed, recorded and conducted a cue on the Newman Scoring Stage at the 20th Century Fox Studio. Much of his music has been licensed (non-exclusive) to various Film & TV music libraries and has been used on numerous shows on TLC, LOGO and DISCOVERY HEALTH. In addition to composing, his versatility has enabled him to work fluidly as an orchestrator, arranger and music producer in numerous styles of music. He received an official 2009 Certificate of Recognition from the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences for his work as an Orchestrator and MIDI Synthesist on the 3rd season of the hit children’s show, The Wonderpets, which won 2009 and 2010 Emmy Awards for best music. Patrick also founded and runs the NY chapter of the film and TV networking group THE TABLE, based on the original LA group formed by Hollywood insider Marc Zicree. Though classically trained, Patrick grew up as a drummer, and he currently plays in an indie rock band in NYC. They have played CBGBs, Galapagos, and Sine, among many others. Soluri received a BM in Composition from the Manhattan School of Music, followed by a MM in Composition and Theory from the University of Louisville as a recipient of the Moritz von Bomhard Fellowship (for dramatic vocal composition). His teachers have included Aaron Jay Kernis, Tobias Picker, Nils Vigeland, Giampaolo Bracali, Allen Shawn, Marc Satterwhite and Peter Golub. Patrick is currently writing Embedded, with CLDP Resident Artist Librettist Deborah Brevoort, as part of The Poe Project for American Lyric Theater. Website: www.patricksoluri.com

JORGE SOSA is a Mexican born composer who currently resides in the United States, splitting his time between New York City and Elmhurst, Illinois where he is an Assistant Professor teaching music theory and composition. Sosa received a Doctor in Musical Arts degree from the University of Missouri at Kansas City, a Masters of Music in Composition from Mannes College of Music and a licentiate diploma from the Centro de Investigacion y Estudios de la Musica (C.I.E.M) in Mexico City. Sosa’s works, which are strongly influenced by ancient music, electro-acoustic music, and Latin American folk music, have been performed in Mexico, the United States and Europe. He was one of the winners of the Chanticleer Student Composers Competition in 2006 with his choral work The Fly. His piece Capricho for Solo Violin was selected for the Washington Composer’s Forum Transport Concert Series in Seattle. Capricho has also enjoyed successful performances in Dublin, Paris, Boston, Philadelphia, Kansas City, New York and Mexico City. In 2007, Sosa was the winner of the ‘Tonoi Ensemble’ Composition Competition with his piece Oak, Ivory and Silver.; and his piece Bounce for solo sax was performed at Carnegie Hall. His electro-acoustic opera The Calling has been performed in Mexico City and was also staged at the H&R Block Theater in Kansas City, along with his opera/oratorio Tonatzin, which tells the story of the apparition of the Virgin of Guadalupe. His Refraction I was performed at the New York Electronic Music Festival in 2009 and is scheduled for performance at the 2010 ClarinetFest in Texas. Plastic Time was performed at the 2010 Foro de Música Nueva Manuel Enriquez at the Fine Arts Palace in Mexico City, and Ariel was premiered in London by the group Rarescale, followed by performances at the 2010 New York Electronic Music Festival. Jorge is currently developing a bilingual (Spanish/English) opera for electronic and acoustic performing forces under the auspices of American Lyric Theater’s Composer Librettist Development Program. Website: www.jorgesosa.com

LIBRETTISTS

TONY ASARO has found success in writing both lyrics and music for the stage. Asaro’s new musical Our Country (with Dan Collins) received its world premiere in June of 2009 through the Planet Connections Theatre Festivity.  Our Country won four Planet Connections awards, including Outstanding Overall Production of a Musical and Outstanding Book, Music & Lyrics of a Musical, and will be published in the “2010: Plays and Playwrights” anthology of new plays by NYTE Small Press.  He wrote the libretto for Such Beautiful Things, a new oratorio based on the Brothers Grimm fable The Traveling Musician (Jeff Parola, composer).  Such Beautiful Things was performed by the NYC based choir, Choral Chameleon in April 2010.  Asaro’s first musical, Family, a collaboration with Dr. Barbara Means Fraser, for which he wrote music and co-wrote lyrics, has enjoyed two productions: one at SCU in 1999 and one at the Ryan Repertory Theatre in New York City in 2000. His other musicals include Women of Colors (various collaborators), Broken (with Kevin Cummines) and Going Nowhere.  His songs have been heard in cabarets at Barrington Stages, Goodspeed Opera House, and various venues in New York City and across the country. He also served as Assistant Music Director for TheatreWorks’ production of Pacific Overtures, and as Vocal Director for Santa Clara University’s production of Kiss Me Kate in 2004. Asaro received his undergraduate degree from Santa Clara University in Theatre and Music, where he studied composition with Lynn Shurtleff. He received his MFA in Musical Theatre Writing at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts in 2007. Shortly after receiving his Masters, he was the recipient of the Anna Sosenko Assist Trust Award for songwriting. Asaro is currently guest lecturer at New York University in the Graduate Musical Theatre Writing Program, teaches voice at Front and Center Studio in Springfield, NJ, and teaches lyric writing workshops in New York City public schools through the Johnny Mercer Foundation. Asaro returns to the Composer Librettist Development Program in the 2011-12 season to collaborate with composer Christopher Cerrone on a new full-length opera. Website: www.unrelentingmonkey.com

DEBORAH BREVOORT is the author of numerous plays and musicals, including The Women of Lockerbie, which won the silver medal in the Onassis International Playwriting competition and the Kennedy Center Fund for New American Plays Award. It was produced off-Broadway, in London at the Orange Tree Theatre and at the Actor’s Gang in Los Angeles and is currently being produced and published in numerous languages around the world. Other plays include Blue Moon Over Memphis, a Noh Drama about Elvis Presley, The Poetry of Pizza, (produced at Purple Rose, Mixed Blood, Virginia Stage, Theatre in the Square, Centenary Stage, and Cal Rep) The Blue-Sky Boys, (commissioned by the EST/Alfred P. Sloan Foundation’s Science and Technology project; produced at the Barter Theatre) The Velvet Weapon, (written with a grant from CEC ArtsLink), Signs of Life and Into the Fire both published by Samuel French. She is a two-time winner of the Frederick Loewe Award in Musical Theatre, for King Island Christmas, written with composer David Friedman, and Coyote Goes Salmon Fishing, with composer Scott Richards.  Current writing projects include: The Comfort Team, a new play about military families, commissioned by the Virginia Stage Company; and Crossing Over, a hip-hop musical set in Amish country with composer Stephanie Salzman. Her work has been published by Dramatists Play Service, Samuel French, Applause Books and others. Deborah was one of the original company members with Perseverance Theatre in Alaska, an alumus of New Dramatists and is a founding member of Theatre Without Borders. Deborah is currently writing Embedded, with CLDP Resident Artist Composer Patrick Soluri, as part of The Poe Project for American Lyric Theater. Website: www.deborahbrevoort.com

QUINCY LONG’s critically acclaimed plays include People Be Heard, Playwrights Horizons; The Only Child, South Coast Rep, Costa Mesa, CA; Wedding Pictures, Ensemble Studio Theater; The Lively Lad, New York Stage and Film and The Actors Theatre of Louisville; The Virgin Molly, The Atlantic Theatre Company and Berkeley Rep; The Joy of Going Somewhere Definite, the Atlantic Theatre Company (directed by William H. Macy and starring Felicity Huffman) and the Mark Taper Forum. Joy was optioned by Icon Films, and Joy, People Be Heard and The Lively Lad were published by Dramatists Play Service. The Virgin Molly was published by Playscripts. Long’s new play, The Huntsmen, recently won a Sundance Time Warner Storyteller’s Award, was workshopped at Playwrights Horizons and read at New York Theatre Workshop and Ensemble Studio Theatre. Long is also currently developing Loulou, a musical commissioned by Ginger Cat Productions in Toronto, and The Gospel According to Trains, a new play at New York Theatre Workshop’s 2010 summer retreat at Dartmouth College. Long is a graduate of the Yale School of Drama and a member of New Dramatists and Ensemble Studio Theater. Originally from Warren, Ohio, he lives and works in New York City. Quincy is currently writing Buried Alive, with CLDP Resident Artist Composer Jeff Myers, as part of The Poe Project for American Lyric Theater.

ROYCE VAVREK is is a multi-disciplinary narrative artist from Grande Prairie, Alberta, Canada, whose work has been hailed as “wildly dramatic and… exhilarating” by The New York Times and “smart, crisp, [and] witty” by See Magazine.  Since joining the CLDP at ALT in 2007, Vavrek has collaborated with diverse artists on a wide variety of Opera/Music Theater libretti include Dog Days (New York City Opera VOX; Zankel Hall/Carnegie Hall; World Premiere production scheduled to be directed by Robert Woodruff at Peak Performances, Montclair, 2012) and Vinkensport, or The Finch Opera (Bard Conservatory) both with composer David T. Little; The Hunger Art (developed at American Lyric Theater, performed at Center City Opera Theater and Burning Bayreuth) with Jeff Myers; Unsaid in a Field of Wildflowers (Remarkable Theater Brigade/Carnegie Hall) with Kristin Hevner; and Nora at the Altar-Rail (developed at American Lyric Theater performed at Symphony Space) with Jay Anthony Gach.  Upcoming projects include Angel’s Bone with Du Yun (Mann Center for the Performing Arts in Philidelphia, PS 122, Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago 2011), Song from the Uproar (Beth Morrison Productions at The Kitchen 2012) with Missy Mazzoli, Karl’s Girl with Matt Marks (Rafael Gallegos, director, New Music Bake Sale 2010), The Bear Dance with Nick Martin (Alberta Foundation for the Arts Grant), 1882 with Mark Baechle (Swiss Society of New York), Ordet and Stockholm with Josh Schmidt, and The Wild Beast of the Bungalow with Rachel Peters.  A founding member of The New Ensemble, he contributed lyrics to nonplay: shadows of a dream and Black Snow in collaboration with composer Andrew Gerle. As a filmmaker, Royce wrote and directed From Sky and Soil (Corus Young Filmmakers Initiative), I Will Not Be Sad Anymore (Quebec Cooperative Filmmakers Initiative), Pig and Bear (Frigid Fest NY) and Good Woman, a collaboration with American fashion designer Marc Bouwer.  Vavrek is also the Artistic Director of opera-theater company The Coterie, founded with soprano Lauren Worsham. B.F.A: Mel Hoppenheim School of Cinema, Concordia University, Montreal; M.F.A: Graduate Musical Theater Writing Program, NYU.  Royce is currently writing …of the Flesh, with CLDP Resident Artist Composer Jay Anthony Gach, as part of The Poe Project for American Lyric Theater.  Website

ALUMNI

CRISTIAN AMIGO – COMPOSER: www.cristianamigo.com

CLINT BORZONI – COMPOSER: www.clintborzoni.com

ROCHELLE BRIGHT – LIBRETTIST

JUSTINE F. CHEN – COMPOSER:  www.justinefchen.com

GERALD COHEN – COMPOSER: www.geraldcohenmusic.com

JOSHUA H. COHEN – LIBRETTIST: www.joshuahcohen.com

EMILY CONBERE – LIBRETTIST

PETER FOLEY – COMPOSER / LIBRETTIST: www.hellagoodmusic.com

JULIA MEINWALD – COMPOSER: www.juliameinwald.com

NKIERU OKOYE – COMPOSER: www.nkeiruokoye.com

DAVID SIMPATICO – LIBRETTIST

ALEKSANDRA VREBALOV – COMPOSER: www.aleksandravrebalov.com

DERRICK WANG – COMPOSER / LIBRETTIST: www.derrickwang.com